Chapter 49

“What else?”

Jiang Chao’s eyes shone as she clung to her last shred of hope and looked at Sheng Huaixi’s smiling face, both hands clenched and held up in front of her knees.

Under that expectant gaze, Sheng Huaixi’s smile deepened. She leaned down and rested her palm gently on top of Jiang Chao’s head, asking in return, “Do you really want to know?”

Her hand stayed on Jiang Chao’s crown, lightly combing through her hair and slowly separating the tangled black strands. Now and then, her fingertips dragged across Jiang Chao’s scalp, sending a faint sting through her nerves.

The sensation wasn’t quite painful and not quite painless, like a featherbrush deliberately rubbing against the skin; a prickly itch spread from there to her limbs.

Jiang Chao rubbed her arms and forced her muscles to loosen. Meeting Sheng Huaixi’s half-lidded eyes, she exhaled and said softly, “Go on.”

The moment the words left her mouth, the hand on top of her head began to rub faster and harder, as if she were rewarding a pet.

Startled by the thought that flashed through her own mind, Jiang Chao hurriedly slapped Sheng Huaixi’s wrist away. She shot her a resentful look, then lifted her fingers to comb through the tangled hair on her head in a messy fuss, frowning as she complained, “Stop touching me so randomly.”

“I was only touching your head. That doesn’t count as random touching.”

Sheng Huaixi spread her palm, her expression relaxed; the corners of her brows and eyes, however, held a faint, hidden smile.

As she spoke, her gaze slowly slid downward. Sheng Huaixi licked the roof of her mouth, her sharp tooth scraping her tongue; the sharp sting deepened the heat in her eyes as they lowered.

Jiang Chao shivered and rubbed her arms, then glared warily at Sheng Huaixi. “I said tell me, not do it.”

Don’t even think about using this chance to put your hands on me.

Jiang Chao bared her teeth at Sheng Huaixi and lowered the hand that had been covering her head, automatically bringing it up in front of her as if to guard herself.

She was fully on guard now.

That only made Sheng Huaixi’s smile grow.

“Jiang Chao, have you ever heard a saying?” Sheng Huaixi leaned slightly forward, tapping her cheek with a fingertip as she watched Jiang Chao’s expression with great interest, asking in a soft voice.

Jiang Chao blinked. “What saying?”

“Meaningless resistance can make people excited.”

Sheng Huaixi’s eyes curved as she looked at Jiang Chao’s stiff, tight face and smiled even more deeply. The shadow of her raven-dark lashes fell heavy and dense.

The light slipped down quietly, lending the elegant coldness of her face a dangerous edge. The corners of her eyes and brows curved ever so slightly; her expression softened, but the obsession in her pupils grew darker and deeper.

Her eyelids drooped, and her pale lips lifted faintly, as if she greatly approved of the line she had just said.

“......”

At that moment, Jiang Chao wanted nothing more than to swallow back every word she had just said and take back the so-called “meaningless resistance” now resting in Sheng Huaixi’s mouth.

She grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around herself. The thin layer of fabric did little, but at least it offered some utterly meaningless sense of security.

“Go on, tell me.”

Her fierce words, paired with those watery, sparkling eyes, made it hard for anyone to feel afraid.

Those bright eyes lifted upward; within the narrow eye sockets, they looked round and full, set on a clean, delicate face that made her seem even more harmless and gentle.

It was not frightening at all. On the contrary, it made one want to tear apart that gentle face and plunge straight into her body, to swim through it and carefully savor the true self hidden beneath that skin.

Sheng Huaixi watched her in silence, her pupils darkening further, her fingertips pressing more deeply into the bed.

Pain threaded across the surface of her skin, and the urge to destroy in her blood grew heavier and heavier.

Her ankle shifted. Sheng Huaixi leaned down into Jiang Chao’s widened eyes, her smiling face moving in swiftly, only to dodge her at the sound of a startled cry.

Sheng Huaixi crouched in front of Jiang Chao, her fingertips pinching the two corners of Jiang Chao’s blanket, smiling warmly.

She looked utterly harmless, almost too considerate to be threatening.

Jiang Chao lowered her gaze slightly, lifting a brow as her eyes fell on the two corners of the blanket pinched between Sheng Huaixi’s pale fingers. “What do you mean?”

“I think,” Sheng Huaixi said, “some things are, after all, far more obvious when done than when merely said.”

The words reached Jiang Chao’s ears, and instinct told her something was wrong. A loud alarm blared in her head; the moment her wrist moved and she started to push out from under the blanket to escape, Sheng Huaixi suddenly tightened it hard around her shoulders.

Jiang Chao’s body jerked rigid, and a muffled sound was forced from her throat.

The little air left around her shoulders was squeezed out in an instant, leaving only a red-faced Jiang Chao struggling in place.

She shoved hard in the opposite direction, biting until blood stained her lips, worrying at the tip of her teeth as she fought with all she had; again and again she moved, yet her body remained exactly where it was.

“Sheng Huaixi!” Jiang Chao puffed out her reddened cheeks and glared furiously at her.

The moment the words left her mouth, the force binding her shoulders and body suddenly tightened. Jiang Chao choked again, her face flushing a hot, mottled red.

When she looked up, Sheng Huaixi was still all softness and tenderness, smiling as though full of lingering affection.

The instant that smile bloomed at the corners of her lips, the back of Sheng Huaixi’s hand tightened. Jiang Chao’s body lurched, unable to control itself, and pitched forward toward her.

What had been nothing more than a thin blanket was now brutally transformed in Sheng Huaixi’s hands into a taut rope, binding Jiang Chao until her breathing turned rough and uneven.

“Don’t you think so, Jiang Chao?”

Sheng Huaixi caught Jiang Chao, who had been forced into lunging at her, and with an easy smile raised one hand to Jiang Chao’s head. Ignoring the angry glare from below, she carelessly messed up Jiang Chao’s hair.

The hair Jiang Chao had just combed into order was ruined in a few strokes, returning to the same state it had been in when Sheng Huaixi first touched it.

“Sheng Huaixi, are you sick? Why are you suddenly tying me up!”

Jiang Chao was so furious she felt as if every hair on her body was about to stand on end. The way she glared at Sheng Huaixi looked as if she could breathe fire. In her struggle, a thin sheen of sweat quietly surfaced on her forehead.

The blanket she had treated as a safe cover had, in the blink of an eye, become a weapon in Sheng Huaixi’s hands that shackled her freedom.

It bound her shoulders, pinned her arms, and forcibly stripped away any chance of resistance.

What was even more outrageous was that after Sheng Huaixi had tied her up tight, she grabbed the front of Jiang Chao’s collar and yanked her forward. In an instant, Jiang Chao found herself sprawled across Sheng Huaixi’s thigh.

Soft yet full, Jiang Chao struggled to lift her chin and pull back from that cotton-soft flesh with all her strength. But her chin pressed against a sharp, lean knee; the hard contact made her heart jump.

She had chosen this path herself, and even if she had to bite down on herself, she would keep going.

Jiang Chao pressed her lips together, lifted her eyes, and repeated the same words from before in a furious voice.

“Yeah, didn’t I just tell you? I’m sick.”

Sheng Huaixi answered carelessly, holding up the little knot she had tied with her own hands and waving it in front of Jiang Chao’s face and neck for comparison. As she shook it, she even clicked her tongue with a conflicted look.

The pink-and-blue checkered pattern was neatly interlaced, the colors delicate and cute.

It looked like a tiny bow tied around a family cat’s neck, so the owner could tell their own cat apart from the others.

At that thought, Jiang Chao’s face darkened. She tried desperately to lean her neck back and struggle in Sheng Huaixi’s hands, her expression angry and resistant.

“Get that thing away from me! Stop waving it in my face, Sheng Huaixi.”

After hearing that, Sheng Huaixi looked at the swaying pink-and-blue checkered knot for a moment, then really did lower her hand and stop waving it in Jiang Chao’s face.

Jiang Chao let out a breath and was just starting to relax when Sheng Huaixi lifted that annoying bow again and held it up toward her.

“Do you think I’m some dog or cat you keep, Sheng Huaixi!”

She was actually planning to tie her up, strip away her freedom, and then put a bow at the front of her neck!

She had even deliberately lowered her head to turn what wasn’t originally a bow into one!

“Be good. I’m putting it on you; there’s only one last step left.”

Sheng Huaixi’s expression was gentle as she leaned closer, pinching the bow.

Pink and blue blurred together before Jiang Chao’s eyes, growing larger and larger, until what settled at the center was Sheng Huaixi’s pupils, dark as ink.

Obsessive, stubborn, and faintly revealing a kind of madness that would never let go.