7 – Control Me, Hold Me Tight
“What are we to each other?”
Gu Yuan raised an eyebrow slightly, looking at Chi Yu. He hadn’t woken up earlier or later—he just had to wake up at this exact moment.
He really couldn’t have picked a better time.
Chi Yu’s gaze was clear and innocent. Noticing her ambiguous look, he lowered his head with a faint blush, the pale skin of his neck vaguely revealing traces of bruising.
Gu Yuan: “…”
Well, well. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words.
Lin Bo’s face had already darkened.
The veins on his hands hanging at his sides were bulging. Unable to contain himself any longer, he spat out harsh words: “Gu Yuan! My patience with you has its limits!”
“If you want to contend with the Gu family, you can’t do without the Lin family’s support. Offending me won’t do you any good. Weigh the pros and cons yourself!”
Le Meng rolled her eyes, looking utterly shocked. “Wow, I just saw a live specimen of an overconfident man!”
Lin Bo: “You!”
“Yatou’s patience has its limits too.” Gu Yuan patted the head of the large wolfdog beside her.
This German Shepherd was named “Yatou.”
Yatou cooperatively sneezed, its keen nose seemingly picking up an unbearable stench of garbage, and bared its teeth at Lin Bo.
“Woof woof woof!”
So Gu Yuan said to Le Meng, “Lele, Yatou really can’t take it anymore. Go turn on the air purifier, will you?”
“Sure thing~”
Le Meng nodded with a grin.
Lin Bo was so furious he nearly had a heart attack. He tossed out a “You’d better think this through” and left the living room.
In an instant, the air cleared, flowers seemed to bloom everywhere, and the living room was filled with a jubilant atmosphere.
Chi Yu watched his retreating figure.
In his pitch-black pupils, dark tides surged violently—like an abyssal purgatory with no bottom, entwined with slaughter and bloodlust, capable of grinding a person to nothing.
“Chi Yu.”
Gu Yuan’s voice rang out.
Chi Yu turned to look at her, the gloom in his eyes dissipating in an instant. His gaze was as clear as a spring, and a pure, beautiful smile curved at the corners of his lips. “Sister.”
The young man’s voice was soft and obedient.
That single “sister” could melt a person’s heart.
He simply looked at her like that, smiling.
His eyes were filled entirely with her reflection.
As if she was the only thing he could see.
For a split second, Gu Yuan’s vision blurred, and she nearly lost her head to lust. In that moment, she suddenly understood what it meant to “tempt someone into sin.”
It was exactly what Chi Yu looked like right now.
Making one want to undo his pajamas…
“Come here.”
Gu Yuan lounged lazily against the sofa, patting the cushion beside her. Her tone was casual and careless, carrying an indescribable ambiguity.
Chi Yu paused for a moment.
Then he walked toward her.
“Woof woof woof!”
Just then, Yatou, who had been docilely resting beside Gu Yuan, suddenly stood up. As if sensing some danger, it instinctively moved to protect its owner, staring warily at Chi Yu with bared, vicious fangs.
Chi Yu glanced at it.
Yatou’s fur stood on end, and its barking grew even more ferocious, as if facing a formidable enemy.
Gu Yuan looked up at him with confusion.
Chi Yu took a step back, looking somewhat timid as he met her eyes. “Sister? Did I upset him?”
“Easy, Yatou. Stop that.” Gu Yuan stroked Yatou’s head, and the agitated energy radiating from the dog was soothed. It nuzzled her hand and let out a few soft whimpers.
“Take Yatou to the training grounds,” Gu Yuan said. The butler quickly came to lead it away. Though it left obediently, it still turned back to cast a wary look at Chi Yu.
“What are you standing there in a daze for?”
Gu Yuan looked at him casually.
Chi Yu walked over and obediently sat down beside her. His long lashes trembled slightly, betraying a hint of nervousness. He looked utterly gentle and pure.
Gu Yuan suddenly reached out and pulled him into an embrace.
Chi Yu’s body gave a slight shudder.
She wrapped one arm around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder. Her eyelids drifted half-closed, and her warm breath spread across his skin, their breaths intertwining in a haze of ambiguous intimacy.
His body stiffened, and he dared not move.
She stroked the back of his neck with one hand while whispering by his ear, “You have a rather distinctive scent. What fragrance do you use?”
Gu Yuan narrowed her eyes and took a subtle breath.
She couldn’t quite place the scent—it was clean and crisp like ice and snow, yet calming to the spirit like sandalwood. It reminded her of snow on pine branches in the dead of winter, and frost on withered lotus leaves in late autumn.
She had a long dream last night.
In the dream, she was doing only one thing.
Searching for this very scent.
For once, she hadn’t lain awake all night. It was the first restful sleep she’d had in four years—deeper than even the sleep she’d gotten with sleeping pills.
Now, holding him like this.
Letting that crisp, tranquil scent wrap around her, driving away the shadows that weighed on her heart, that quiet, soothing feeling returned.
She seemed to have found her “sleeping pill.”
Chi Yu suppressed the racing of his heart. The one who haunted his dreams day and night was right before him.
“I don’t use perfume.”
His trembling voice reached her ears.
“Hm?”
Gu Yuan opened her eyes and slowly came back to herself.
Her gaze lingered on him. His scent truly wasn’t any perfume she knew, nor did it seem like any kind of body wash.
She released him and looked toward Le Meng.
Le Meng was staring at them in a daze, thoroughly enjoying the dynamic of the cold, elegant female CEO versus the sweet, innocent puppy. She snapped back to attention only when she caught Gu Yuan’s gaze.
“Ahem, Yuan-jie, what’s up?”
She even subconsciously wiped the corner of her mouth.
Gu Yuan took a sip of tea and resumed her usual cool demeanor. “Bring in a few perfumers.”
“Oh, oh, sure.”
Le Meng didn’t understand why, but she went anyway.
Chi Yu watched her cold profile. Her warmth had suddenly withdrawn, leaving only a faint, lingering sense of loss. He called out to her cautiously.
“Sister?”
His voice was as obedient as could be.
Like a cat begging for affection.
Gu Yuan was lost in thought and instinctively reached out to ruffle his hair. “Good boy.”
Chi Yu said nothing more.
The perfumers arrived, and Gu Yuan asked them to try replicating Chi Yu’s scent. They either looked utterly bewildered or wore expressions of deep difficulty.
“Forget it. You may go.”
Gu Yuan waved her hand, her brows slightly furrowed. She opened a bottle of red wine herself, and the crimson liquid flowed into a crystal goblet. Just as she raised it to drink—
A hand caught her wrist.
His fingers were well-defined, slender and fair, like segments carved from jade.
She instinctively tried to pull away.
“What’s wrong?”
He asked softly, his eyes holding a tension and concern she couldn’t quite read, as if his entire being was filled with her and her alone. That clean, crisp scent drifted over faintly.
The irritation in her heart suddenly dissolved.
Looking into those eyes.
Gu Yuan’s heart, always cold and indifferent, softened again and again—and she hated that feeling.
Chi Yu’s jaw was suddenly seized.
Gu Yuan didn’t hold back her strength, and it hurt him, but he didn’t resist. He only looked at her with gentle obedience, gazing into her deep, icy eyes.
Her voice was as cold and hard as an interrogation. “You keep clinging to me—what exactly do you want?”
“Sister… it hurts…”
He whispered, and she let go.
Then the young man cautiously edged closer, like a cat sheathing its claws, laying bare all his softness and every vulnerable spot before her.
In a fragile posture designed not to trigger her wariness, he nestled against her and murmured softly, “Sister… I want you… to protect me…”
To control me, to hold me tight.
And never leave me again…