Shang Zhitao had never seen Luan Nian this angry before. She curled up in the passenger seat, not daring to speak. But Luan Nian kept at it, making her feel both guilty and humiliated, so she stiffened her neck and argued back. "Wasn't it you who said we should keep our distance?"
"Keep our distance? Sure. Sleep together like friends, work together like colleagues, and once we're outside the company, we're strangers."
"Haven't I been doing fine with that? I didn't bother you when something happened, so why are you blaming me now."
Shang Zhitao's words had no real conviction behind them, her voice coming out low and muffled, but every sentence still managed to be infuriating. Luan Nian was already furious, and hearing her talk back like this, he suddenly felt like worrying over someone like her had been a waste of his time.
"Now you've got plenty to say. When you needed the electricity money, why couldn't you speak up clearly instead of taking a beating?"
"You're just a bully with me!"
Those two lines from Luan Nian drained Shang Zhitao's battery completely. She pressed her lips together and shut down. Both of them were angry, and neither bothered to think about how the words "bully with me" had come flying out of her mouth. One thought the other was nothing. The other thought the other's tongue was too sharp.
Luan Nian poured all his anger into his driving, stomping hard on the gas, and Shang Zhitao's heart lurched up and down. Watching the car go faster and faster, she finally worked up the nerve to grab his sleeve. When he shot her a sharp look, she smiled at him.
"Don't you dare smile at me!"
Luan Nian had no idea how much cursing he'd done today. If beating Shang Zhitao would calm him down, he'd pull over right now and beat her half to death.
Shang Zhitao made a small sound of acknowledgment, pulled her hand back, and looked out the window.
The moment Luan Nian turned and saw her swollen left cheek, his anger flared up all over again. How could Shang Zhitao be so spineless, so thoughtless?
Sitting there like she'd been wronged by the whole world.
"Does it still hurt?"
Luan Nian glanced at her left cheek again. He didn't know how much force whoever hit her had used. It had been three days, and the bruise still hadn't faded, hadn't even gone down.
"It doesn't hurt." Shang Zhitao didn't dare say it hurt. He was already so furious that if she admitted it did, he'd probably turn the car around and burn the place to the ground. But she was also surprised he'd get this angry over it. She'd assumed that, in his mind, their relationship hadn't reached that point yet.
Maybe, Shang Zhitao told herself, or maybe it was just like the movies. I slept with her, so she's my woman. I might not want her, might not love her, but nobody else gets to touch her.
Was that it? Shang Zhitao stole a glance at Luan Nian's expression. It was awful. She bit her lip and said nothing, staying silent the rest of the way to his place.
He opened the door, tossed his coat aside, sat down on the sofa, and patted the seat beside him. "Come here." What he actually meant to do was lecture her some more, tell her how dangerous the world could be, so that next time she wouldn't act so rashly, so she'd use that head of hers, useless as it usually was, a little more. If she couldn't handle something, wasn't he right there?
Shang Zhitao did as he said and sat down, closer than he'd meant, right on his lap. It threw off his rhythm entirely. He leaned back against the sofa, still snapping at her. "Get off."
Shang Zhitao had no intention of getting off. She'd been sleeping with Luan Nian for over a year and knew this man's temper. No matter how angry he got, all it took was softening up. If a day ever came when neither softness nor stubbornness worked on him, that would mean he wanted her dead.
"I won't." Shang Zhitao cupped his face, then noticed his left ear was cut, something she hadn't seen in the car. "What happened to your ear?"
"Don't know."
"Did you get into a fight?"
"None of your business."
Luan Nian tried to push her off. Shang Zhitao clung to his neck. "No. My face hurts, my mouth hurts, don't push me away."
"Give me your phone."
"What?"
"Give it here."
Luan Nian took her phone, saw it was locked, and tossed it back. "Type in the password."
Shang Zhitao unlocked it and handed it over, watching him scroll to her contacts and find his own number. "Isn't my number right there?"
...
"Lost your memory, did you? Forgot you even had my number?"
"You act plenty familiar in bed, but the second your clothes are back on you don't know me?"
"You..."
Shang Zhitao covered his mouth. Luan Nian had said too much today, more than he said in a company meeting. She'd been getting scolded the whole time, and yet her heart felt sweet, unbearably sweet. Why were his lips so good-looking? Her mind wandered. She bit down gently on his thin lower lip, slid a hand under the hem of his shirt, her cold palm pressing against his burning skin.
Luan Nian watched her through half-closed eyes. The bruise on her face sent his anger straight to his head, his eyes glaring like he wanted to eat her alive. Fine, then, let him. He wasn't falling for it though, and tried to push her off the sofa. Shang Zhitao clung to him like a koala and quietly got down to business.
"Stop it." That "stop it" nearly killed her, and she only tried harder. Luan Nian pulled at her. "I'm not interested in that ugly face of yours."
No matter how she tried to coax him, nothing worked. He was impossible to please.
Shang Zhitao deflated a little, like a punctured ball, her eyes welling with tears. "Hmph!" A small, petulant huff, and she sat up straight on the sofa, sulking too. That single sound brought down the wall his foul temper had built. He fell into the sofa with her, and in the process grazed the corner of her mouth by accident. She cried out in pain, and he said coldly, "Serves you right."
"Hurts now, does it? Where was that earlier?"
His words were harsh, but his touch was gentle, his lips finding her wound, then the bruise, and just as she was about to reach the peak, he stopped. "What's my number?"
Shang Zhitao was left hanging, desperate enough to cry, but he kept at it. "What's my number?"
She shook her head. "I don't remember."
Luan Nian made her recite it, and by the third try she had it memorized. Only then did he pull her out of the pit and carry her all the way up into the clouds.
Drifting there, close to the light, she felt overwhelmed with joy, and maybe a little bold too. She wouldn't let him pull away, determined to reward her own warrior properly.
Luan Nian's arm ached, and he sat up. Shang Zhitao's eyes swept over him, and only then did she notice how badly swollen his left arm was. Looking closer, there were scrapes across the back of his hand too. She felt like she must have been blind not to see it sooner, and here she'd just been fooling around with him.
"Shouldn't you go to the hospital?"
"No need. Nothing's broken."
"What if it is?"
Luan Nian glared at her without answering, got up, brought back some alcohol, and let her tend to him. She rubbed his arm, and the more she rubbed, the more it ached her too, so she pressed her lips against it, again and again, to show she was grateful.
"Luan Nian."
"Hm?"
"Can I stay with you for a few days? I don't have anywhere to go." Shang Zhitao finally swallowed her pride and asked. She'd planned that even if she ended up sleeping on the street, she wouldn't let him find out, but today things had blown up out of nowhere, so she figured she might as well just ask.
"How many days?" He looked down at her, seeming reluctant.
Shang Zhitao held up three fingers, thought about it, then raised two more. "Five days?"
Luan Nian stayed leaning against the sofa, looking half dead, neither agreeing nor refusing. She shifted closer to him, pulled down her collar to bare a round, pale shoulder, and gave him a flirtatious look. "I won't stay for free. My service is very good."
"Get lost."
He glared at her and asked, "What's my number?"
"Recite it and you can stay. Can't recite it, get out right now."
Her head had been too full of want earlier to actually memorize the number, and she'd forgotten it the instant after. Now that he suddenly asked again, her mind went blank. She scrambled for her phone and read his number off the screen, reciting it a second time.
Luan Nian didn't bother with her further, turned, and headed upstairs. Shang Zhitao followed him, pushing her luck a little now. "So is it settled? Can I borrow your car tomorrow and move my things over? I don't have anywhere else to put them, and I'll take them away once I find a place."
"Try touching my car." She still had a lingering fear from the time she'd hit his. "I'll drive you there myself."
"After work tomorrow, then?"
"Fine."
Upstairs, Shang Zhitao instinctively headed for the guest room; she had work in the morning and couldn't afford to fool around again tonight. But Luan Nian grabbed her by the collar and pulled her back into the master bedroom, stripped off his shirt, and lay face down on the bed. "Massage."
...
A massage was supposed to just be a massage, but Luan Nian's back might as well have had the word "gorgeous" written across it, and Shang Zhitao's mind kept drifting. Her hands started misbehaving, peeling away his cold outer layer bit by bit, offering her own burning self to him.
His arm hurt, her mouth hurt, but her mind was working fine now, and she told him with a grin, "Don't move. Let me."
Luan Nian let her have her way, let her act wild and reckless, his gaze lingering darkly on her as though he wanted to devour her whole.
Shang Zhitao realized she couldn't be alone with him. Whenever she was, her mind couldn't hold room for anything else, only wanted to carry on like this with him. Overcome, she leaned down to find his lips, her voice trembling as she asked, "Do you like it?"
"I like it." Luan Nian didn't play hard to get this time. Liking something was just liking it. There was nothing shameful in that.
Her brow furrowed slightly, and her final cry was swallowed by his mouth. He turned from passive to active, carrying her once more through something swift and fierce.
Shang Zhitao felt completely wrung out, at peace, all the bad feelings the apartment trouble had brought on the past few days finally gone, and she just wanted to stay quietly by his side a while longer. She didn't want to move to the guest room either, so she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. She thought he'd kick her out, but he didn't move at all, and fell asleep even faster than she did.
The next day at work, she heard lumi on the phone. "What? Shut down? How'd it get shut down? I hadn't even gone to beat them up yet!"
"Someone reported a fire hazard? There was a fight yesterday? They got hauled into the police station?" lumi burst out laughing. "Those bastards must have walked one too many dark roads and finally run into a ghost. Hahahaha!"
Shang Zhitao listened nearby and finally understood what Luan Nian had been doing the afternoon before, and why he'd come home hurt. Her eyes turned a little red. She thought of the "ghost" that shady rental agent had run into, and her chest filled with gratitude.
"So you spent all of yesterday afternoon running around for my sake?" she messaged him.
"Running around for the survival of my company's employee." Luan Nian frowned as he typed his reply.
On her end, Shang Zhitao covered her mouth and laughed to herself.
That evening, when she went back to collect her things, she brought Luan Nian downstairs with her, then suddenly stopped him. "I can just go up myself." A question mark seemed to cross his face.
"You don't know my roommates, and they don't know you. I don't want it to be awkward for you."
"I'll be right down. I won't make you wait long."
She took off running the moment she said it. She didn't want him coming up to her place, and couldn't quite explain why, only that the room felt like hers and her roommates' own small world.
Sun Yuanzhu helped carry her things down and set them by the stairwell, then said to her quietly, "I'll keep looking for a place these next few days. Don't push yourself too hard. We'll find somewhere that works."
Shang Zhitao nodded. "I know. I'm not rushing. We can look together this weekend."
Sun Yuanzhu smiled, a gentle, warm sound, and glanced around. "Where's your friend?"
Luan Nian stood in the shadows without moving.