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The saying “drunk and disorderly” is really a lie.
Fang Yongnian was covered in sweat from running around. He first went to the front desk to open a new room, then used Lu Yixin’s phone to inform her roommate. By the time he finished everything, Lu Yixin was already lying on the bed fast asleep.
He looked at this irresponsible culprit and sighed.
Of course he knew what Lu Yixin had made him drink. And of course he knew what drinking implied.
It was just that in that moment, the wine was too sweet, and the woman in his arms was too soft.
He rubbed Lu Yixin’s face; she mumbled something and pushed his hand away. He laughed and straightened up.
He still hadn’t finished saying what he wanted to say tonight, but—no rush.
It was still early. He went into the bathroom to wash his face, then looked again at Lu Yixin, who was lying on the bed unconscious. The fire in the fireplace burned bright; she had kicked off half of the quilt.
Patiently, Fang Yongnian helped her wrap herself back into a ball, sat by the bed, and opened his laptop.
Lu Yixin’s way of seeing things was simple and pure. She only cared about whether he would be happy. Her standard for judging his choice of career was simply whether it made him happy or not.
The original research drug was harder to make, so she thought he would probably like original research drugs more.
What he liked, she had no objection to.
No wonder Liu Miqing would feel distressed, this girl was really too pure.
No wonder Liu Miqing and Lu Boyuan, though unwilling to approve, still had to agree. In this world, the ones who could protect Lu Yixin’s purity—besides them—might only be him.
Others couldn’t understand Lu Yixin.
She was just a foolish child.
And right now, this foolish child, for some reason, insisted on making him stay the night. He couldn’t refuse, and there was no way to refuse.
Fortunately, the place Yu Hanfeng recommended was reliable. The lodging was much larger than the dining area, warmly furnished, and fully equipped.
Lu Yixin rolled over on the bed, probably feeling too hot again, and started kicking the quilt.
“Don’t kick it, you’ll catch a cold,” Fang Yongnian said, multitasking as he read through his materials.
Lu Yixin mumbled something, then obediently stopped moving.
The corners of Fang Yongnian’s lips lifted.
He realized—this was nice, too.
Having someone’s company, even if that person was asleep, changed the atmosphere of the room.
Lu Yixin’s breathing, the soft rustling of the bedsheets when she turned over—these were things he normally wouldn’t notice, yet now, as the two of them shared the quiet of the night, everything became distinct.
The speed at which he read his materials unconsciously slowed down, but the curve of his lips grew wider and wider.
For the first time since the car accident, he actually felt a faint anticipation for the life ahead.
If the rest of his days could be like this, it would be pretty good.
Perhaps even better than the scenes he had once imagined back when he was whole and ignorant.
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
Lu Yixin woke up from the heat.
In her sleep, a familiar voice kept reminding her not to kick the quilt. Enchanted by that gentle voice, she stayed perfectly still.
Then, she woke up.
Her face and hair were damp with sweat.
Fang Yongnian was sitting by the bed, his back to her, holding the laptop he always carried with him, reading with deep concentration.
Lu Yixin hugged the quilt and admired him for a while, then shifted her upper body to change her angle, and admired him for a while longer.
Then, she stealthily took out her phone, found a good angle, and—click.
Fang Yongnian: “……”
He suddenly remembered the photos Lu Yixin had secretly taken during military training.
“Don’t print it out.” His standards had gotten lower and lower these days.
“Okay!” Lu Yixin’s just-awakened voice was soft and milky. She scooted next to him and glanced at his screen.
Then quickly shut her eyes. “I’m blind.”
That full screen of chemical equations instantly brought her back to her senior year of high school.
Fang Yongnian was amused to the point of laughter. He patted her head. “Water’s on the nightstand.”
“Okay!” Lu Yixin kept that milky tone, scooted over to the nightstand, sat up, and hugged the cup, gulping down half of it in one go.
“Sobered up?” Fang Yongnian wanted to lift her bangs to see if her forehead was still red, but then remembered she once said her bangs were her true essence.
So his hand changed direction midway and took the cup from her hand instead.
“Sober.” Lu Yixin answered honestly.
She noticed Fang Yongnian had opened a room.
And she remembered, she had done something truly remarkable while drunk. After Fang Yongnian told her he wasn’t ready yet, she had bravely forced him to book a room.
She was really impressive!
“I won’t do anything to you!” She finally delivered that classic line again.
Fang Yongnian looked at her expressionlessly for half a minute. “Your makeup’s ruined.”
Completely ruined.
Then he lowered his head again to study his materials. “Go take a shower. I bought everything you need, it’s in the bathroom.”
“When did you buy it?” Sure enough, Lu Yixin’s attention was immediately diverted.
There was a fairly large plastic bag in the bathroom.
“Online delivery.” Fang Yongnian reopened his laptop.
“You…” Lu Yixin lifted the bag of clothes, “even bought me underwear?”
“Disposable underwear,” Fang Yongnian corrected.
Lu Yixin swallowed hard. “Why are there so many?”
“I didn’t know your size, and I didn’t know the sizes for disposable underwear,” Fang Yongnian said calmly. “So I bought them all.”
Five sizes. Not a single one left out.
No wonder there was an XXL inside.
Lu Yixin took a deep breath. “Then why is there only one piece of underwear?”
It was a cropped little camisole, size S.
This time, Fang Yongnian didn’t answer. He only looked up and gave Lu Yixin a glance.
“Alright, I brought this humiliation upon myself.” Lu Yixin twisted the plastic bag in her hands in indignation and stomped off into the bathroom.
“Go away!” Lu Yixin huffed, poking her head out again for a second to make a goofy face at him, half human, half beast.
“Why are our conversations never sweet?” Lu Yixin asked, toothbrush in mouth, poking her head out of the bathroom again.
“I think they’re fine.” Fang Yongnian, multitasking as he was reading the most crucial part of his materials, didn’t even lift his head.
“Sweet?” Lu Yixin frowned.
“Mm.” Fang Yongnian responded briefly.
Lu Yixin shrank back in, brushing her teeth.
Very sweet.
She looked at herself in the mirror.
They say women in love glow. She thought she wasn’t just glowing, she was about to become a spotlight.
Fang Yongnian had bought a lot of things: a travel set for bathing, a travel set for skincare, even makeup remover.
None of the brands were particularly expensive, but what mattered was—he remembered.
The things they talked about had nothing to do with romance or poetry. Fang Yongnian liked to deadpan and tease her. Something he had refrained from before they dated, to avoid suspicion—but after they got together, that habit slowly returned.
They were a couple, but because of nearly ten years of entanglement, there was a kind of closeness and trust that ordinary lovers didn’t have.
Just living under the same roof, even without doing anything, was already sweet.
“Fang Niannian.” Lu Yixin poked her head out again before her shower.
“Mm?” Fang Yongnian was still studying his equations, answering absentmindedly.
“When I shower, there’ll be the sound of running water,” Lu Yixin said with a mischievous smile. “Do you want to imagine it?”
Fang Yongnian: “……”
“Then I’ll shower now!” She cheerfully shut the door.
A minute later, sure enough, came the sound of water.
Fang Yongnian, who truly hadn’t been thinking of anything, now stared expressionlessly at the bathroom door.
In an adult’s guesthouse, the bathroom door was made of frosted glass. Lu Yixin had turned on the heater inside, so…
He quickly turned his head away.
Damn it…
He almost fell for her tricks again.
She was doing it on purpose—because she knew no matter what, he had to keep his composure—so she became more and more brazen, more and more provoking.
It was a pity that if he hit her now, it would count as domestic violence.
Frowning, he opened a new set of materials again, this time choosing one in French.
He was treating these precious medical documents like a chant for inner peace…
Truly…
୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧
When Lu Yixin came out after showering and drying her hair, Fang Yongnian who was sitting on the sofa had just hung up the phone.
“Don’t you think I smell like a mix of floral water and medicated oil now?” Lu Yixin sniffed herself, the emotion she’d felt in the bathroom vanishing instantly.
Men really bought things at random, just picked by packaging and pure instinct. In all her life, she had never used a shampoo that smelled this strange.
“This scent sobers you up,” Fang Yongnian said, putting down his phone.
“Who was that?” Lu Yixin trotted over, bringing with her a strong wave of that “sobering” scent.
“My brother.” Fang Yongnian rubbed the space between his brows.
Lu Yixin sat beside him, then thought it was too far and wriggled closer until she was pressed right up against him. “What’s wrong?”
She felt that Fang Yongnian seemed a bit unhappy, not as relaxed as when she had gone into the bathroom.
“I was thinking about what your mother said that night.” As she leaned close, he realized just how strong the floral-water smell from her hair was. He frowned slightly. “Don’t buy that brand of shampoo again.”
The packaging had looked clean and simple; he hadn’t expected the contents to be so flashy.
“My mom said a lot that night.” Lu Yixin laughed sheepishly, deliberately swaying her head, filling Fang Yongnian’s nose with the scent of floral water and medicated oil.
“About my past experiences.” Fang Yongnian placed his large hand on her head to stop her movement. “About how my experiences might affect you.”
Lu Yixin stopped swaying.
The topic grew a bit serious. These past few days, she had been basking in the joy of her parents’ tacit approval and hadn’t thought again about the words she’d overheard her mother say that night.
“Those were mostly angry words,” Lu Yixin said quickly. “My mom was really furious that night.”
She had never seen her mother so disappointed and so angry before.
“I know.” Fang Yongnian patted her head.
This girl was probably worried that he would hold a grudge.
“But her worries… are actually my worries too.” He sighed and pulled the now slightly uneasy Lu Yixin into his arms.
Somehow, at some point, the two of them had developed this habit. Whenever they were in a private space, they naturally ended up like this.
Skin to skin.
Both feeling at ease.
“No matter what your parents said, I won’t take it to heart,” he comforted her first. “Besides, your parents are already very reasonable people. The things they said all make sense.”
“My brother just called,” he said, kissing the top of Lu Yixin’s head. “That group of thugs from that night has been officially filed for investigation. Based only on what they did that night, they’d only be detained for a few days, but I didn’t think that was enough.”
“So these past few days, my brother gathered evidence of what they’d done before. With that, plus the charge of picking quarrels and provoking trouble that night, they should be able to go to prison this time.”
“And the girl who instigated them,” Fang Yongnian paused, “she dropped out of school not because of what happened to you, but because of irregularities in her admission process, and because she had a history of campus bullying.”
Lu Yixin’s mouth hung half-open.
“It’s all true,” Fang Yongnian said slowly, “but if those people hadn’t done what they did that night, their end wouldn’t have come so soon or maybe, wouldn’t have come at all.” He spoke unhurriedly. “So after hanging up the phone, I kept wondering if I’ve already grown used to repaying every slight with vengeance.”
For those who were scum of society, for those who had offended him—had he already become someone who refused to let go, someone who couldn’t rest until the other side got what they deserved?
“Sometimes, for the sake of revenge, the means I use aren’t exactly righteous.”
He was used to employing extreme methods, to luring others into their own traps.
“I’m very guarded. All my friends are people I’ve known since childhood. I have no interest in making new ones.”
Not now. Probably never in the future.
“At work, like you said, I prefer things that are difficult and challenging. But I rarely think about how much social benefit my work brings, or how many people it helps.”
“So your mother’s worries, they’re also mine.”
“I’m not afraid you’ll turn out like me, old and weary. I’m only afraid that my extreme way of handling things will influence you.”
Lu Yixin was still sitting there with her mouth half open, dazed.
If her forehead hadn’t already returned to its normal pale color, Fang Yongnian would’ve suspected she hadn’t sobered up at all.
“Like back when you treated me as your idol…” Fang Yongnian cleared his throat. Saying something like this out loud still felt a little embarrassing. “I deliberately only showed you my good side. Those dark, hidden parts—I hid them away.”
“But now that we’re in a relationship, those things can’t be hidden anymore. I’m worried they’ll affect you.” He explained patiently, in the same tone he used when tutoring her before—clear and simple.
This time, Lu Yixin reacted. She closed her mouth.
“Um…” she rubbed her nose. “Do you know, in a girl’s world, a superior man is exactly someone like you.”
Fang Yongnian: “?”
“I mean—you stand against the whole world, but you only like me.” Lu Yixin cupped her hands over her heart. “You have no interest in anything else, only me. I’m your one and only.”
“I have a job,” Fang Yongnian reminded her coolly.
“That doesn’t matter.” Lu Yixin waved it off. “In romance novels, people like you are always the male lead!”
Fang Yongnian: “……”
“So everything you just said was so shameless.” Lu Yixin covered her face. “Who praises themselves like that?”
Fang Yongnian: “?”
“How could I ever be influenced by you?” After covering her own face and finding it unsatisfying, she reached out her claws to cover his instead. “I’m not that kind of airhead.”
Only Fang Yongnian could do such a thing.
To take a simple case of hooligans provoking trouble and turn it into something big enough that they got what they deserved.
To send the instigator back to where she came from, even going out of his way to use other means in case she tried to retaliate.
How could she ever have that kind of brain?
Her brain could only comprehend the warmth behind everything Fang Yongnian had done; it could only understand just how perfect her man really was.
She pinched Fang Yongnian’s cheeks, pushing them together in the middle, then leaned in and planted a loud kiss on his lips.
After that, she let go of his face and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Does my hair smell awful?” she brought the topic back full circle again.
“Buying things randomly!” she huffed and flicked her hair in indignation.
The whole room was filled with the scent of floral water. After smelling it long enough, even that became sweet.
