Chapter 17

“Youyi, I think I’m done for.”

On the last day of the National Day holiday, when Huang Youyi sent Youyi a message, she was still in the group chat lamenting how she hadn’t left the house for the entire seven-day holiday.

What’s the point of staying home all the time? There’s nothing fun at home.

Even trying to make dinner plans was impossible—it was boring beyond belief.

There are many fun things at home.

Youyi thought so.

Youyi: [Please elaborate.]

Youyi curled up on the living room sofa, a notebook beside her. The document was open, but not a single word had been typed. She thought about how the past few nights had been anything but quiet. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel resistant to it. Instead, she silently accepted everything, even initiating it at times.

She felt like she was utterly done for.

In this matter, the two of them had reached a tacit understanding.

For instance, today Fu Cheng had some matters at his company and hadn’t returned yet. Youyi resisted the urge to message him, but she still waited in the living room, constantly checking her phone, using the camera to look outside.

The hallway was quiet, with no signs of movement.

She wasn’t sure why she was so preoccupied with him, but her heart simply couldn’t settle down. The strange, rising emotions made her feel uncomfortably uneasy.

In truth, Youyi didn’t know how to expand on this topic with her friend.

She wondered if love and desire, in some ways, were the same.

It was like a toy she didn’t care for as a child, but one day she suddenly found it interesting. After playing with it for a while, even toys she once disliked could become beloved treasures she couldn’t part with.

Her relationship with Fu Cheng was just like that.

They were bound together by a marriage certificate, becoming the most familiar strangers while still completely unknown to each other. Even before she fully understood him, she already knew his other side.

It was a complete contrast.

Youyi tried to use the theories she’d learned over the years to explain her current feelings, but they were too rational and scientific—they didn’t quite fit.

How could she explain it?

Now, he had made her grow accustomed to him, desire him, and enjoy his hugs and kisses, and even… she found herself eagerly anticipating them.

Anticipating every deeply intimate moment.

Or, to put it another way, she wanted to see him the moment she opened her eyes, to have him around no matter what she did in this house.

Whenever Fu Cheng was there, she felt a peculiar sense of peace.

It was a security even her parents’ home had never given her.

For example, she repeatedly checked the surveillance outside the door. Each time she saw nothing, her heart sank a little.

Youyi hugged her phone, staring at the screen for a long time. Then she got up and ran to the balcony.

She spotted Fu Cheng immediately.

Maybe because he was so tall, he was always easy to spot.

But then, in the next second, she saw someone beside him.

From the ninth floor, her view wasn’t very clear, so she zoomed in with her phone camera as much as possible.

There was a pretty woman in a red dress.

The setting sun cast light on the trees, and they stood beneath them, talking. It was too far for her to make out Fu Cheng’s expression, but it was probably the same as usual—cold and serious.

The distance between them was close, no more than fifty centimeters, the kind of proximity one has when speaking intimately.

About five minutes passed.

Fu Cheng was about to leave, but the woman grabbed his arm.

She said a few more words.

Then she let go, and Fu Cheng started walking upstairs.

Youyi’s phone was still in her hand, and she didn’t lower it until the two of them had disappeared from the screen. She turned around and absentmindedly walked back into the living room.

A few minutes later, the phone’s surveillance app alerted her that someone had appeared. Youyi didn’t bother to check. She knew it was Fu Cheng returning.

The past few days, whenever he came back, he would first look for her, either bringing groceries to cook or something for her to eat. But today, after he came in, there was no movement.

Youyi couldn’t help but wonder who that woman was.

She didn’t even have an answer in her mind, not even a range of possibilities to choose from.

Now that she thought about it, she knew nothing about Fu Cheng’s past, his personal life, or his social circle.

What had he been like before, what was he doing now, who were the people around him, and what experiences had he gone through? She knew absolutely nothing.

Youyi returned to the sofa, picked up her laptop, and prepared to write.

She had to turn in her experiment report soon, and if she didn’t finish it, she wouldn’t be able to attend the next class.

Half an hour passed, and she hadn’t written anything.

There was a noise at the door, and Youyi paused for a moment, looking up to see Fu Cheng entering.

He used to knock before coming in, but in the past two days, he’d simply entered using the password.

He was still wearing the same clothes from earlier, carrying a bag of takeout. He said it was dinner for her.

When the door was closed, a gust of wind blew by, and Youyi smelled a faint smell of alcohol on him, not too strong, so he must have drunk a little.

“Have you eaten?” Youyi sat up.

“Mm.” Fu Cheng placed the food on the table and opened the containers. “Are you hungry?”

“A bit.” Youyi set aside her laptop and walked to the dining table, where she saw that Fu Cheng had brought all her favorite dishes.

She had never told him specifically what she liked, but after eating together over the past few days, Fu Cheng seemed to have figured out her preferences.

Youyi picked up her chopsticks and started eating, though despite the familiar dishes, she didn’t have much of an appetite.

“What time did you go out this morning?” Youyi asked, probing.

“Eight o’clock.”

His three words carried the implication that by then, Youyi hadn’t woken up and hadn’t even noticed he’d left.

Last night, after saying she was going to shower at around one in the morning, he had pressed her against the bathroom wall. The reason she hadn’t woken up was simply because she was too exhausted, so tired she couldn’t even lift her fingers.

Her stamina was nowhere near comparable to Fu Cheng’s.

Fu Cheng poured her a glass of water and said lightly, “You should exercise more.”

“This is already a lot of exercise.” Youyi retorted, though some things they both silently acknowledged—throughout the National Day holiday, her daily activity levels had been skyrocketing.

“Just this?” Fu Cheng asked coldly.

Youyi was afraid of hearing words like “extra training” from his mouth. During target practice, she was already the only one who had been tormented the most.

“Anyway, the training is over, so now you can’t ask me to follow your orders.”

A piece of pepper was a bit too spicy for her throat, so Youyi quickly picked up the glass of water and took a big gulp, nearly choking on it.

Fu Cheng handed her a tissue to wipe her mouth and his fingertips brushed the corner of her lips. “Be careful.”

Youyi coughed twice, feeling a bit of heat on her lips, and suddenly asked him, “Did your previous girlfriend work out a lot?”

Previous… girlfriend?

After asking, Youyi turned her eyes away, feeling slightly guilty.

Fu Cheng: “What girlfriend?”

Youyi was just trying to get some information out of him, though she wasn’t very skilled at it. Given Fu Cheng’s background, it was likely that he had some military reconnaissance training.

She lowered her head and continued eating. “It’s nothing, I was just asking casually.”

“Lift your head.” Fu Cheng reached out, grasping the back of her neck slightly, making sure she didn’t eat with her head down.

“If you want to ask something, just ask.”

Youyi paused but didn’t look at him. She simply said, “I’m just curious about your romantic history.”

She had never been in a relationship before, and even after getting married, she hadn’t been curious about whether Fu Cheng had ever been in love or had someone he liked.

Fu Cheng: “You’re only curious now?”

His words carried a deeper meaning.

He stared at her, making Youyi feel uneasy. She avoided his gaze and said softly, “If you don’t want to talk about it, forget it.”

She wouldn’t use the fact that they were married to demand anything from him.

Fu Cheng: “There’s nothing I can’t talk about.”

He paused, “It’s quite uneventful. I’m not sure you’d be interested.”

“Forget it, I don’t want to hear it.” Youyi interrupted him.

She thought for a moment—listening to something unpleasant would affect her mood. Right now, it was affecting her appetite.

Since she said she didn’t want to hear it, Fu Cheng didn’t say anything more.

“What about you?” Fu Cheng asked in return.

Youyi was caught off guard by the question, even though she had nothing to hide.

“I don’t have much to say.”

First time. First kiss.

That’s it.

After only a few bites, Youyi didn’t know whether she was full or not, but she put down her chopsticks, no longer able to eat.

“Do you have class tomorrow morning?” Fu Cheng asked her.

Youyi: “Just one lab class in the morning.”

It was the first day of class after the short holiday, and her schedule wasn’t too bad. There were few classes over the next couple of days.

Fu Cheng: “I have something to do tomorrow, so I’ll be back late.”

Actually, Youyi never knew exactly when he came home anyway, so there was no way for her to know how late was “late.” She didn’t ask either and just replied, “Got it.”

If Fu Cheng said he had something to do, it was probably something important. After cleaning up the dishes, he went back to his place across the hall.

Before leaving, he told Youyi to get some rest early.

She had to be up for class in the morning.

Lying in bed, Youyi thought about the woman she had seen downstairs that afternoon. Her mood shifted repeatedly as she opened her phone and clicked into Fu Cheng’s social media feed.

His feed was very simple, with only a single repost of an ad for a training base, and nothing else.

Youyi clicked on his profile picture.

It was a snowy mountain.

Someone with his personality didn’t seem like the type to leave much behind on social media. There wasn’t even a signature, just like how he was in real life—plain and indifferent.

Youyi subconsciously moved forward, but there were no arms pulling her into an embrace. Her heart felt a bit empty, and she suddenly found herself unaccustomed to it.

He’s too much.

Now that she was used to it, he didn’t come around.