Song Yu stared blankly at the phone, knowing full well that Qi Chengzhi was acting weirdly.

At the beginning of their relations.h.i.+p, misunderstandings would sometimes occur when he responded similarly out of habit while with her on the phone. As their relations.h.i.+p progressed, those incidents began lessening gradually.

At present, however, Song Yu was certain that she heard a coldness in his voice.

She placed her cellphone down, knowing full well that he was angry but clueless as to the reason behind that anger.

Less than an hour later, Qi Chengzhi came home.

Song Yu stared at him in surprise as he entered the house. "Why are you back so early?"

She took his slippers and laid them beside his feet, watching as he changed his shoes.

His handsome face attracted her attention, and she could not stop her mind from recalling the things he wrote in his diary. Indifferent though he seemed, beneath his surface lay a man whose love was unimaginably vast.

A surge of warmth appeared in her heart when she looked at him. He stood up, giving her time to put away his shoes.

These things used to be Aunt Yang"s job, but ever since Song Yu was around, the latter was the one who did those tasks. She quite liked doing them in fact, since it made her feel like she was centering her life around him.

His face was stern and intimidating, and she still had no idea what made him angry.

Song Yu stood up and was about to leave, but he remained rooted to the ground.

She extended her hand out to him but was met with his frostiness. "I should be asking you the same thing. Why are you back so early?"

Song Yu dragged him into the bedroom and took out some home wear.

Qi Chengzhi"s lips were pursed tightly. He wore his clothes only after staring at her for some time.

"What"s really going on?" he came over and asked after changing into something more comfortable.

Song Yu remained silent. He was standing in front of her; she was sitting. Her line of sight focused directly on his abdomen, and the presence of a layer of clothes did not prevent her from imagining the strength that lay underneath his s.h.i.+rt.

She adored the chunks of muscle on his stomach. Whenever he entered her and became one with her, her hands took on a mind of their own—they went in search of the area where both their bodies connected. From his chest, she slid down to his abdomen and went through his black bush, stopping only when she found the place where they joined into one.

Song Yu wrapped her arms lovingly across his thighs, pressing her face onto his stomach. A slight pressure was all it took for her to bury her entire face into him, immersing herself in his delicious scent.

"Qi Chengzhi, how about we register our marriage now?" Song Yu then continued while her face was still pressed on his abdomen. "We don"t have to choose any special date like one-three-one-four, five-two-zero 1 or whatever. I don"t really mind it. I just want us to register as soon as possible. Is that okay?"

She feared that Jian Yi would do something to her if he found out that she continued her relations.h.i.+p with Qi Chengzhi.

Preventing unintended things from happening was best done by getting their marriage registered. Once that was done, those wanting to break them up would realize that it was too late to do so—the only option left was getting them to divorce each other.

By virtue of their marriage, it would make it doubly difficult for anyone to try and break them up.

Qi Chengzhi lowered his gaze and observed her nuzzling into his abdomen. Only the top of her head was visible to him, and it was a heartwarming sight.

He softened his glare and placed his palm on top of her head, gently caressing her hair.

However, the second his hands came into contact with her, she flinched. It was so minute that it could easily be overlooked, but it would never slip past his attention.

He frowned. "What"s going on?"

"What do you mean "what"s going on"? Don"t you want us to register our marriage earlier?" Song Yu wrapped herself more tightly around his thighs, as if that was the only thing that could provide her with solace.

Qi Chengzhi"s eyes sank. His hands continued to ma.s.sage her hindbrain, albeit with increased intensity compared to before.

Oftentimes she would close her eyes contentedly, like a kitty whose lower jaw was being scratched.

On that occasion, however, the extra pressure produced shockwaves of pain, making her shudder severely. The pain nearly made her cry, and although she attempted to hold it in, her slight tearing-up still stained his clothes.

Qi Chengzhi"s hands were touching the exact spot that was subjected to Liang Lihua"s attack. The burning sensation was still present even without any form of contact, and she dreaded having to lay her head on the pillow when she slept later that night.

Feeling the sudden warmth, he knit his brows even more tensely. With a firm grip on her shoulders, he removed her from him and he tilted her head up slightly, forcing her to look up at him.

The tears in her eyes tugged on his heartstrings.

"What"s going on really?" his hoa.r.s.e voice asked, penetrating deep into the abyss of Song Yu"s heart.

She grasped the back of his s.h.i.+rt and fired back a question. "You don"t want to marry me?"

A sigh from Qi Chengzhi. "Are you really going to do this right now?"

He sat beside her and carried her up onto his lap. His hands locked her waist in place.

"When I went to the company to look for you this afternoon, I saw Liang Lihua." Qi Chengzhi answered rather curtly. "I don"t think she went to the café at your company building lobby just to get a cup of coffee."

Song Yu kept quiet, finally realizing that the unhappiness she heard through the phone was because he was unhappy at her for keeping it from him.

"Are you planning not to tell me?" Qi Chengzhi whispered. His husky voice entered her ear and made her feel warm.

Fed up with the world, Song Yu buried her head into his neck, hugging him tightly. His embrace seemed to be the only place in the world where she could relieve herself of her stresses.

"I"ve had enough with them! Everyone"s coming to me, thinking that what they"re doing to me is right, trying to control and manipulate me. How could they be so unashamed of themselves?"

Qi Chengzhi tested the waters by touching her head again. Song Yu did not attempt to conceal her trembling because the pain was akin to having her entire head split open.

When Liang Lihua initially pulled on her head, the pain was intolerable, but not by much. As the day progressed, the pain came in waves, becoming more and more unbearable.

Qi Chengzhi parted her hair as fast as he could but making sure to be extremely careful when doing so. He saw red streaks on her scalp.

His expression and voice turned cold. "Did Liang Lihua do this?"

Song Yu wanted to hide it because she knew he would be worried, and he was.

Although there was no concealing it anymore, she was still a bit hesitant.

"Do you want me to check the CCTV footage from the café?" He stopped touching her hindbrain but instead hugged her tightly.

"I think she"s crazy," Song Yu finally blurted out. It was rather traumatizing to recall Liang Lihua"s dementedness. "Yu Zixiu was the first to come to look for me this afternoon. He heard the news that we were going to get married, and he wanted to make amends with me so he could get to you."

Song Yu told him everything that transpired earlier that afternoon, including the fact that Jian Yi helped her.

A good heart-to-heart talk would be pointless without honesty.

"So, were you in his car when I called you this afternoon?" Qi Chengzhi c.o.c.ked a brow rather mockingly.

"I didn"t want you to get worried. If I told you the truth, you"d want to know every single detail from the very beginning." Song Yu then continued weakly, "To be honest, I didn"t want to tell you about everything that happened in the afternoon. You already have enough to think about, and ever since we got together, you"ve always been the one who endured all the bad things, whether it was from the Qi family, the Song family, or someone else."

Neither weariness nor annoyance was present in his expression. Song Yu looked up at him and noticed how he did not look irritated at all. His handsome face seemed to be rea.s.suring her.

Song Yu gave him a peck on his lower jaw. His stubble was nearly unnoticeable because his jaw looked smooth to the naked eye. When kissed, however, she could feel how p.r.i.c.kly and masculine it was.

"I don"t want you to be burdened by the useless Yu family. It"s not something you should be thinking about at all." Song Yu loved the man dearly and hugged him even tighter. "If possible, I want to shoulder some burdens for you too, so you have one less thing to worry about. There"s plenty of things I can"t help you with, and most of the time all I can do is just stare at you while you do everything for me. I"m just worried that you"ll get tired of always fighting my battles. If there"s anything I can help with, I too, want to stand in front of you and let you feel the feeling of being protected.

"That"s why I didn"t tell you the truth this afternoon. Liang Lihua was pulling me so badly that I got really angry and my mind just went blank. I didn"t think much because Jian Yi just pulled me away. At that time, I really couldn"t think. It was like my soul just left my body. If you didn"t call me, I wouldn"t have realized that I was in Jian Yi"s car." During the course of recounting the day"s events to him, she finally managed to relax under his warm gaze. She continued nestling in his embrace, feeling very much at peace.

She also released her tense grip on him, moving upward to the back of his neck, brus.h.i.+ng gently against his neat short hair. They seemed to be resisting her touches.

"After talking with you on the phone, I immediately got down from the car." Song Yu regarded her words as the truth, notwithstanding the deliberate leaving out of some details of what happened in between.

The only thing that filled Qi Chengzhi"s brain was the sight of Liang Lihua pulling on Song Yu"s hair. Although Song Yu said it without much ado, he knew that Liang Lihua would not hold back if she wanted to make a move. If she was gentle, it would not have left Song Yu writhing in pain.

Her reddened eye sockets left Qi Chengzhi feeling heartbroken. He lowered his head and left countless kisses on her eyes.

"Are you mad at me because I didn"t tell you everything?" Song Yu looked up. Qi Chengzhi could no longer be angry after looking at her pitiful look and reddened eyes.

Qi Chengzhi hugged her tightly and lowered his head close to her face. As she spoke, her warm breaths bounced off from his face and back onto her own, accompanied by his fresh scent.

"Qi Chengzhi," Song Yu called out while remaining glued to his chest.

"Mm?" he responded. His hands stayed clear of her hindbrain but ma.s.saged her neck to make her feel at ease.

His expression turned cold immediately after thinking about how much force Liang Lihua used on Song Yu—the pain caused was so severe that Song Yu dared not touch her scalp, not even slightly!

"You"re the best," Song Yu blurted out emotionally.

"I"m still not good enough." He tilted his head down and planted the most delicate of kisses on the corner of her eyes.

His lips caressed her there slowly, and in his deep voice he remarked, "We"ll get ourselves registered tomorrow."

"Yay!" A brief inability to control her excitement led Song Yu to rejoice rather loudly.

A huge boulder seemed to have been taken off her shoulders after hearing him accept her proposition and even agreeing to do it the next day.

Her true moment of relief would only come after obtaining the little red book 1.

Qi Chengzhi looked at her half-smilingly, with a hint of teasing in his slightly c.o.c.ked brow. "Why are you suddenly so eager to register our marriage? I actually wanted to wait till May the twentieth to register."

"…" Song Yu pushed her face even deeper into his chest, staying silent throughout.

"Are you really that excited to become Mrs. Qi?" A slight curl crept through his lips. His face was not filled with any emotion, but he looked extremely pleased and content.

Song Yu tilted her head sideways and used his shoulder as a pillow. She admired his handsome jaw and the warm contours of his face that resulted from his slight smile.

"You don"t look like you"re excited for me to become your Mrs. Qi," Song Yu responded moodily.

"I originally wanted to make it a day worth remembering. Don"t women place a lot of importance on this kind of thing? But I"m okay if you don"t mind it," he whispered with a hint of glee while his lips were touching her earlobes.

"That"s an insignificant detail that we don"t need to consider," Song Yu said. "With you, any date is a good date. Only those who feel like they don"t have a steady relations.h.i.+p will want their registration to be on those so-called meaningful days. They need that little bit extra just to feel rea.s.sured."

Qi Chengzhi smiled, feeling as though he simply could not love her more.

He pressed his lips onto the corner of her eyes, then her cheek, and finally the corner of her lips. It was never enough for him.

Song Yu fluttered her eyebrows. She cupped his face spontaneously and kissed him on the lips.

Pa.s.sion and urgency characterized her kiss, and despite previous displays of spontaneity, it was the first time she was bold enough to give him a deep kiss. Her tongue explored the inside of his mouth with complete abandon.

The only thing that kept running in her mind when she was in his embrace were the things she read in his diary. His face made her combine the impression she had from the diary with the impression she had of him then. She allowed herself to imagine how he looked like when he wrote his diary, and she desperately wanted to melt into him until she merged with his bones.

Afraid of exacerbating her pain, Qi Chengzhi did not flip her over and press her down. Instead, it was Song Yu who was pressing him down.

"Why are you so spontaneous today?" He moved his head to one side and nibbled on her earlobe.

"Do you like it?" The thought of his deep love made her lose all sense of control. She breathed in his scent deeply, kissing his chin and his neck.

All of a sudden, she remembered him mentioning in his diary that he gave her his first kiss.

That was back in Hong Kong, and it was a first for both of them.

The more she thought of it, the more she loved and treasured him.

An abrupt surge of emotions made her rip off his clothes without warning.

"…" Qi Chengzhi was speechless. He felt as though he became a pa.s.sive party and was nothing more than a meek little lamb who was utterly helpless.

Then, she kissed him without even a heads-up.

"You don"t need to do this." His voice cracked as though he was about to lose it. Song Yu have never heard such a cracked, husky voice from him before.

Nevertheless, she continued to lock his arms down, and when she looked up, her face was drunkenly-red and no less adorable.

Even after being with him for so long, she remained as shy as ever and her habit of lowering her head never went away.

Qi Chengzhi tensed up and felt his body tremble uncontrollably. By the time he could not take it anymore, he pulled Song Yu into his embrace rapidly. It was then that he realized she was still fully clothed.

He gnashed his teeth and reined her in, though he made sure to be careful so as not to accidentally cause pain to her scalp. His warm hand entered her pants and brutally ripped them off her. Unable to contain himself any longer, he entered her with his shaft.

Qi Chengzhi let Song Yu continue laying in his embrace. Her motions made him come the instant he entered her. She wrapped herself around him tightly without giving him a chance to move, and the comfort he felt was just so overwhelming that a deep sigh was all he could do.

He tilted his head downward and used his bony fingers to lift up the strands of hair on her forehead. Her hair was sticking to her forehead because perspiration made them slightly wet. He moved those strands aside, exposing her s.h.i.+ny forehead and allowing him to see the still-l.u.s.tful look in her eyes.

With eyes half-closed, her long lashes were tear-stained due to her intense emotions. The moisture made her lashes look dark and thick, and she fluttered them instinctively.

The scarlet color of her cheek was accompanied by some heat. After parting the hair on her forehead, his fingers slid down to the outer corner of her eyes, eventually finding their place on her reddish and tender cheeks.

His coa.r.s.e but moist thumb caressed her cheek repeatedly. He then bent down and kissed her without restraint—first on her eyes, next her cheek, then her nose.

Seemingly unsatiated, he lifted his neck and shoulders off the bed just so he could come into contact with her lips.

Song Yu could sense his intent. His brief contact with her lips made her eyes glimmer in delight. She slowly inched upward to let him kiss her.

"You"re really bold today, aren"t you?" Qi Chengzhi seemed pleased as he murmured and asked her. Their lips were still in contact with each other, and the words that he spoke entered into her lips as well.

Red-faced, she sucked on his lips with gusto and licked him with the tip of her tongue. She wanted nothing more than to cling with him, more so than before.

"Qi Chengzhi, tell me the truth. Have you ever been with another woman before me?" With his front chest as her pillow, she nestled her forehead into his neck.

Her nose touched his jaw when she lifted her head. Greeting her nostrils was the scent of freshness and sweat—a very masculine combination.

She could not resist rubbing the tip of her nose on her stubble-filled chin. The p.r.i.c.kling was a rather curious feeling.

Qi Chengzhi"s eyes s.h.i.+fted downward and he watched as she rubbed on him teasingly like a cat. His body reacted in response to her stroking.

His silence prompted her to bite his jaw softly. "If you don"t tell me, I"ll just ask Yan Beicheng and the others. They"ll be more than happy to tell me about it."

Footnotes:

For the uninitiated, 1314 (一三一四 = yī sān yī sì) and 520 (五二零 = wǔ èr líng), when p.r.o.nounced number-by-number instead of the entire value (e.g. saying five-two-zero instead of five hundred and twenty in Mandarin), is often used as a code or slang for saying "forever" (一生一世 = yī shēng yī shì) and "I love you" (我爱你 = wǒ ài nǐ), respectively. This is because the number sounds similar to the intended phrase (they are near-h.o.m.ophonic), with 1314 demonstrating this particularly well. They are both popularly used, and 520 has even evolved from being simple internet slang to a full-blown unofficial lover"s day on the 20th of May every year.

小红本 - translated as little red book. Though it can be used to refer to a variety of things (such as pa.s.sports or more commonly, a certificate of health examination required for students studying abroad), it is used here to refer to China"s marriage certificate, which—unlike most certificates that come in the form of a piece of paper—looks very much like a pa.s.sport.