Chapter 60: Is This Girl Always So Distracted When She Kisses Him?

The second round that night still took place in the living room.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, seamlessly joined with the ceiling and floor, the molten moonlight spilled into the dazzling fireworks of the human world. The most prosperous nightscape of Beicheng lay just beneath their feet.

Jiang Se’s feet didn’t touch the ground at first. Her dark hair, damp with sweat, clung desperately in the narrow space between the glass and her spine.

When she finally stood, the chaotic splendor of the worldly night outside the window hit her eyes head-on.

She even caught the trace of an airplane tearing through the night sky.

Lu Huaiyan, cornered by her, had no room to maneuver. Holding her waist, he whispered in her ear, “Relax, it’s special glass. People outside can’t see us.”

He couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else seeing her like this.

This version of her belonged to him alone.

The man’s breathing was unsteady, rough and erratic, wrapping around her ear like the hot mist rising from a freshly opened steamer.

The glass beneath Jiang Se’s palms was fogged with a thin layer of warmth from her body heat.

Before the mist cleared, she met the dark, heavy eyes reflected in the window. Frowning slightly, she softly called, “Lu Huaiyan.”

At her voice, Lu Huaiyan took a deep breath, leaning down to press against her damp temple, his voice low and hoarse with restraint. “You’re driving me insane.”

…

Afterward, Jiang Se only wanted to sleep. Lu Huaiyan carried her for a quick rinse in the shower, then let her collapse onto the bed.

He had no trace of sleepiness. Instead, he propped himself up on his side, gazing at her under the faint light spilling through the window.

His gaze was silent. The air was silent. Even the moonlight dusting the windowsill was silent.

In that stillness, Jiang Se suddenly spoke. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Her eyes stayed closed, her face still flushed, nestled in a mess of soft, disheveled hair. Her beautiful lashes rested quietly against her lower lids.

Lu Huaiyan’s cool lips curved slightly. He bent his index finger and traced a slow line across her forehead. “You can tell I’m not sleeping with your eyes closed. Got a third eye here or something?”

Jiang Se opened her eyes to look at him. “Are you in your sage mode right now?”

Guo Qian had said men all have a “sage mode” and love to light a post-coital cigarette to strike a pose.

Lu Huaiyan didn’t smoke.

Or rather, he’d quit. The last time she saw him smoke was the first time she went to Junyue. On that glass balcony, he’d smoked while watching her.

After that, she never saw him touch another cigarette. If he occasionally picked up the smell of smoke at other places, he’d keep his distance from her.

At the mention of “sage mode,” Lu Huaiyan let out a lazy chuckle, his chest vibrating slightly against her shoulder.

Amused, he hummed in acknowledgment, lowered his hand, and leaned in to kiss her.

“No post-coital cigarette, so how about a post-coital kiss?”

It was a delicate kiss.

First, he nibbled her lip bead, then her lips, before gently prying open her teeth to explore the soft, wet warmth of her mouth.

It held no lust, only a tenderness that fermented in the night.

When their lips parted, Lu Huaiyan’s breath brushed her nose as he gazed quietly into her eyes.

“How many days is the young lady planning to stay in Beicheng?”

“Don’t know,” Jiang Se said, closing her eyes briefly. “Maybe a month or two. Maybe half a year or longer.”

Lu Huaiyan replied, “Good. Then I won’t have to make time to go back to Tongcheng.”

Jiang Se opened her eyes again, asking, “Not going to ask why I’m in Beicheng?”

“Would you tell me if I asked?”

Jiang Se paused, then said, “No.”

Lu Huaiyan smiled. “Then why bother asking? To force you to lie to me? I’ll just assume you missed me so much you had to come to Beicheng to find me.”

The last sentence was clearly a joke.

Jiang Se looked at him silently. After a moment, she said flatly, “Aunt Han said the abbot at Hanshan Temple predicted you’ll face a bloody disaster this year.”

Lu Huaiyan gave a calm “mm,” and seeing she seemed to have lost her sleepiness, he sat up against the headboard, his fingers idly playing with her earlobe.

“What? Worried about me?” He smiled. “When I was a kid, some supposedly great monk said I’ve got a tough fate. Didn’t your brother tell you?”

Jiang Se couldn’t recall if Cen Li had mentioned it, but she’d delivered Han Yin’s message.

“Just be careful this year. Aunt Han will worry.”

Lu Huaiyan clicked his tongue, his fingers tugging a bit harder on her earlobe. “So you’re worried about Mom?”

Jiang Se didn’t respond. After a pause, she finally swatted his hand like a cat with its fur ruffled, saying, “Forgot how hard you were sucking just now?”

Lu Huaiyan obediently stopped, asking, “Does it hurt?”

He turned on a reading lamp, gently brushing aside the hair by her ear to inspect her earlobe. He hissed. “Was I really that rough?”

Her skin was so delicate, and he’d thought he was being careful, yet he’d still broken the skin.

The sudden light made Jiang Se flinch and close her eyes. Hearing his question, she cracked her lids open to look at him quietly.

Her gaze made Lu Huaiyan laugh.

Back when she’d held a shard of broken glass without flinching, she’d said it didn’t hurt. Now, with just a tiny break in her skin from his kiss, she was acting like a debt collector.

She was… getting more and more delicate.

He teased, “What, secretly keeping a ledger in your head, planning to pull it out later and ban me from touching your ears?”

“…”

Lu Huaiyan tugged the “debt collector” out from under the covers, carrying her off the bed with one arm.

Jiang Se, slung in his arms, instinctively wrapped her hands around his neck. “Lu Huaiyan, what are you doing?”

“Putting some ointment on it. After that, make sure to cross out the debt you just added.”

“…”

The living room sofa was strewn with their discarded clothes. Lu Huaiyan set her on the kitchen island, pulled out a first-aid kit, and applied iodine to her earlobe.

Afterward, he brushed back her hair and leaned down, gently blowing on the broken skin.

Jiang Se had kept her eyes down and stayed silent while he applied the ointment.

Only when she felt the ticklish breeze on her earlobe did she lift her gaze, glancing at him sideways.

Lu Huaiyan tossed the cotton swab, tidying the kit as he asked, “Debt cleared?”

Jiang Se couldn’t be bothered to reply. Her bare foot nudged his knee. “I’m hungry.”

Lu Huaiyan checked the time—nearly eleven.

She needed to eat, or she’d wake up starving in the middle of the night like last time, with nothing to eat.

“What do you want? Should I cook, or order takeout?”

Jiang Se said she wanted chicken soup wontons.

Lu Huaiyan asked, “Zhenbaozhai?”

Jiang Se nodded.

Zhenbaozhai was a renowned Cantonese restaurant in Beicheng, consistently popular for decades, with long queues every day. It was a place they’d grown up eating at.

In elementary and middle school, Cen Li would often run to Zhenbaozhai after class to pick up chicken soup wontons for Jiang Se.

Back when Han Yin wasn’t vegetarian, she loved their wontons too, so Lu Huaiyan would often tag along with Cen Li.

Cen Li had once shown him and Guo Song a photo of Jiang Se eating those wontons.

She was six or seven, with neat black bangs, her cheek puffed out from half a wonton, her eyes wide and round.

Lu Huaiyan hadn’t paid much attention to the photo back then, glancing at it and moving on without a word.

Now, he regretted not keeping a copy of that adorable image.

Zhenbaozhai closed at eleven, but Lu Huaiyan’s call was just in time. The owner personally had the head chef fire up the stove again and delivered the order to Ruidu Huafu.

The chicken soup was a rich, golden ginseng broth, with six handmade shrimp-filled wontons simmering inside.

Jiang Se was halfway through when a phone call interrupted her.

The caller ID was someone they both knew: Mo Jichen.

Jiang Se had told Mo Jichen before that if there was any progress on the New Year’s Eve case, he could call her anytime.

Mo Jichen did have new developments.

“My team just compiled a list of people who purchased rose rock sugar in the last two months. I’ll send it to you soon for a look—see if any names stand out. The rock sugar Tong Bo brought to the Cen family was bought by him in person. If he didn’t tamper with it, someone must have swapped his jar. I’ve checked everyone who entered the tea room; not many could’ve switched it.”

Jiang Se set down her spoon, saying calmly, “There’s a mole in the old residence.”

Mo Jichen agreed, “Exactly. The tea room’s surveillance hasn’t been tampered with. That night, no one but Tong Bo touched the jar. That means the sugar was likely swapped between the time Tong Bo handed it to the residence’s butler and when it reached the tea room.”

All items for the Cen family’s banquet were managed by the residence’s butlers. The jar Tong Bo brought was indeed handed to them first, checked, and then sent to the tea room with other supplies.

Jiang Se pursed her lips, thinking for two seconds before asking, “Does Officer Mo have any specific suspects?”

Mo Jichen chuckled. “The old butlers at the Cen residence… questioning them isn’t easy. My suspicions are on them and the servants assisting that night. But suspicions aside, none of them are on the rose rock sugar purchase list, so I can’t dig deeper. If they’re not on the list, the tampered sugar likely came from a third party to someone at the residence. Of course, this is all just my speculation.”

A third party…

Jiang Se gave a soft “mm,” mentally reviewing the profiles of the residence’s butlers.

Then, a low voice broke her thoughts: “Open your mouth.”

Jiang Se blinked, looking at the wonton Lu Huaiyan held to her lips, and ate it.

His voice clearly startled Mo Jichen on the other end. “Is Miss Jiang in Beicheng now?”

Jiang Se swallowed her food. “Yes, arrived today.”

Mo Jichen, hearing she was eating, chuckled. “Lu Huaiyan’s with you? Let me talk to him. Keep eating.”

Lu Huaiyan took the phone Jiang Se handed him, placing the spoon back in her hand. “Soup’s getting cold. Eat while it’s hot.”

Then he raised the phone to Mo Jichen. “You sure know how to pick a time.”

“…”

Mo Jichen clicked his tongue, rubbing his tired face. “You know how many cases I’m juggling? How many nights I haven’t slept properly?”

Lu Huaiyan’s lips curved. “Thanks for the hard work.”

Mo Jichen sighed with a laugh. “Don’t thank me yet. This case is trickier than I thought. I’ve got a few murder cases to handle, so I’m passing this to my apprentice.”

After some casual chat with Lu Huaiyan, the phone returned to Jiang Se. She’d finished her wontons. Not wanting to interrupt her time with Lu Huaiyan, Mo Jichen said what he needed and hung up.

Seeing her staring down silently, Lu Huaiyan knew she was thinking about the case. “Sleep now. Think about the rest tomorrow.”

Jiang Se glanced at him. “Carry me back to the room.”

Her bare feet were cold, her legs were weak, and she didn’t feel like walking. In the room, she shiftd to get down and slip on shoes to wash up.

Lu Huaiyan didn’t let go, carrying her straight to the bathroom and setting her on the counter. He squeezed toothpaste for her. “No energy, right? Tonight, big brother’s brushing your teeth.”

Normally, Jiang Se would’ve snatched the electric toothbrush to do it herself. But for some reason, she obediently opened her mouth.

Her teeth were perfect—Lu Huaiyan had felt and tasted every one.

When he reached the half-emerged wisdom tooth, he glanced at her. “Cen Li had both his wisdom teeth pulled. Why haven’t you done this one?”

Dentists usually recommend removing wisdom teeth that haven’t fully emerged, and with Ji Yunyi’s personality, she’d have insisted Jiang Se get it done.

Jiang Se spat out the foam, rinsed, and said slowly, “This tooth doesn’t hurt or bother me. Why should I pull it?”

Lu Huaiyan laughed.

Listen to that—stubborn and possessive.

Just like when she’d declared the qipao shop was hers and no one could touch it.

As he picked up his toothbrush, she asked idly, “Have you got wisdom teeth, Lu Huaiyan?”

His hand paused.

Was this girl always so distracted when she kissed him?

After their first kiss, he already knew whether she had wisdom teeth, how many teeth she had, and how to kiss her to drive her wild.

Thinking back, every kiss was him exploring her mouth, while she never did the same.

Lu Huaiyan didn’t answer. He calmly finished brushing, then flicked off the bathroom light.

Jiang Se thought he’d carry her to bed, but he stepped between her legs, his hand cradling the back of her head. Word by word, he said, “Whether I have wisdom teeth, how many I have—find out yourself.”

Without waiting for her to decide if she wanted the answer, he pried open her mouth, drawing her tongue into his.

His usual mouthwash was sharp, with a strong mint flavor.

They used the same toothpaste and mouthwash, their breaths mingling with that cool mint.

At first, Jiang Se resisted, saying she’d only asked casually and didn’t care about the answer.

But he was determined to make her find out this way, biting her tongue until it bled, refusing to stop until she gasped, exasperated, “None.”

He chuckled, releasing her, and kissed her forehead like rewarding a child with candy. “Correct.”

Previous

Next