Published at 2nd of September 2019 9:52 pm

Chapter 13.3 — An Unstoppable Assailment of Fluster (3)

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Yi Wenze did not even lift his head and only continued reading through the medication instructions.

Jia He poked him again. Finally, he looked up at her. In a small voice, she asked, “Who’s that?”

Clack. The kettle’s switch happened to pop back up at this particular instant. He poured half a glass of water. “The voice isn’t really familiar. It might be someone from the cast or production team.”

“Oh,” Jia He uttered. “She might have come to find you because of something important. Go see.” The words were out before she realized her tone oozed the sourness of jealousy.

The door sounded with another two knocks. Seriously, she just won’t give up.

“Go.” Jia He used her lips to motion towards the door. “She won’t be able to fall asleep if she doesn’t see you.” Saying this, she strode through the hallway, sat down on the bed, picked up the remote control, and turned on the television.

Immediately after she finished speaking, he truly did head over and open the door.

Darn it! Treating me like I’m dead… Jia He secretly gnashed her teeth.

The hallway was dimly lit. Standing outside the door was the young woman Yi Wenze had helped the previous night. She seemed to have just taken a shower, her waist-length hair emitting a slight sheen.

“Teacher Yi, you still haven’t gone to bed?”

What a waste of words. Even if he had, he would have been woken up with your knocking.As Jia He muttered this in her mind, she furtively treaded over to a spot off to the side and silently declared, If you dare get one step closer, I’ll… I’ll… What should I do?

She could not be too violent. If they somehow attracted some nosy onlookers, that would just damage Yi Wenze’s image.

But she could not hold back too much and seem cowering. If she were too reasonable to talk to, that would just mean that after she left Chengdu, there would be knocking on the door every night.

Yi Wenze did not answer the question and instead cut straight to the chase. “Is there something you need?”

“No, nothing really.” The woman smiled, “I just wanted to ask you, Teacher Yi, how’s the injury on your arm?”

Injury? Jia He’s heart plummeted with a thud. She slunk another step closer, not daring to even blink her eyes, for fear she might listen in to something she should not and learn that she had fallen into the same blunder as many years ago. Before her eyes flashed the scene she had once witnessed: in the magazine’s office building, in the coffee station, that silent kiss. All of a sudden, at the bottom of her heart, there was small voice crying to her.

Jia He, protect your happiness. You need to protect your happiness!

“Thank you.” Yi Wenze gave a polite smile. “If there are no other matters, my girl—” Before he had finished speaking, he suddenly felt something warm on his waist. Someone was embracing him from behind. A very gentle voice cooed, “Hubby, my tooth hurts…”

He looked down, watching as she poked her head out from beneath his arm, smiled, and greeted that young woman, “Would you like to come in and sit? We haven’t gone to bed yet.” He had originally wanted to reject that woman right in front of her, but sometimes she would do things even he was unable to imagine.

The muted lighting of the hallway was like that of a night scene of din and bustle. The warm yellow illumination behind him, though, was like that cast by wall lamps of home.

That woman completely froze, watching as Yi Wenze lowered his head to look at the person in his arms, his smile teeming with extreme tenderness. He gave a light cough. Unexpectedly, he felt an urge rise inside of him, but what it was he wanted to do, he could not really say.

In the end, he took her hand in his and offhandedly shut the door. “Don’t you have a toothache? Go take your medicine first.”

When Jia He saw that he had not even spoken a single superfluous word and simply, just like that, closed the door, she actually was a little stunned. What’s up with him? That’s not like him… He picked up the package of medication and placed the glass of water into her hand.

There was a very light sound as the foil was peeled open. Jia He very naturally extended a hand to take the medicine from him, but he picked up a pill between his fingers and very gently fed it into her mouth.

From opening the medicine package to feeding her the pill, everything been done in one smooth go.

She had initially intended on putting on an icy look and asking why this woman would come here in the middle of the night, but very pathetically, owing to this one action, more than half of the fire burning in her was extinguished. “Where are you hurt? Why didn’t you tell me?” Yanking up Yi Wenze’s right sleeve, she examined that arm, but finding no injuries, she moved over to the left side. Only then did she see a very deep cut.

Judging from its colour, this wound was only a day or two old.

“It’s a cut from a prop. It’s not very serious.” He began lowering his sleeve, but she held it down.

“Yi Wenze.”

This was her first time addressing him by his full name, and it truly did startle him for a moment. Then, smiling, he picked her up and set her, sitting, onto the counter. “So serious. What is it you want to say?”

“I must tell you very seriously.” She held her breath. Being seated in such a spot put her at the perfect height to gaze him directly in the eyes. “You made a very grave mistake.”

He smiled wordlessly, his manner open and unruffled as he looked at her.

“I feel like you’re not really looking squarely at our relationship. We’re not acting out some sort of idol drama, where we only need to share the great joys and great sorrows. When you see I have a toothache, you’ll go with me to the dentist. But you got hurt—let’s not even talk about whether it’s a big injury or a small one—and you didn’t tell me straightaway. That is the biggest mistake.”

The more Jia He spoke, the more wounded and wronged she felt. Only now noticing the bitter taste in her mouth, she realized that she was still sucking on the pill. Immediately her brows creased in a grimace, and she gulped three large mouthfuls of water before she was able to swallow down that pill that had already melted in her mouth. “So bitter…” Honestly, so bitter and so painful. This was so awful she could die.

While she was still composing in her mind the words she would say in the negotiation talk that was to follow, he suddenly folded her into his arms and covered her lips with his.

An intense bitterness still clung to the tip of her tongue. He, though, seemed as if he could not taste it at all, completely entwining his tongue with hers and burrowing it in deep. How, how… did things suddenly become this? This question echoed ceaselessly through the last shreds of her awareness. Her back was against a mirror and one of her hands was pressing down on the countertop, that foil package of pills by chance beneath her palm.

Reflexively, her fingers tightened into a fist, causing the foil to crackle. It had been just a little more than a month, thirty-four days—such a short time—but why did it feel like they had not seen each other for an entire lifetime already? Even this entangling kiss had become unfamiliar and scorching. Her eyes tightly shut, the pain that had been tormenting her forgotten, she tried to return his kiss. He, however, suddenly pulled away from her. With one arm propped against the mirror behind her, he subdued the impulse that was roiling in him.

Yi Wenze could not even count how many times in the past he had been injured on the set while filming, but never before had he felt the way he did this time. While the wound was being bandaged, he had actually received her text message, and all of a sudden he had wavered—should he wait until the injury was healed before letting her come?

He had not expected her reaction to this to be so big.

“Is it still bitter?” he asked.

Dazedly, Jia He answered, “Mm-hmm.” Once more, he pressed his lips onto hers and continued, very slowly, to brush the tip of his tongue over her lips and teeth. As he drew deeper and deeper on her, she heard him say that it was time to go to bed. The entire way, from the bar counter to the bed, he carried her in his arms. Her anger had long since been doused out by him, and in the end she only lay docilely on his arm, making one last struggling attempt. “I still haven’t finished talking.”

“Go ahead.” From the bottom of her garment, his hand at her back slid inside. Every inch of movement was filled with tenderness, attentiveness.

With you doing this… how can I even talk? …

She glared plaintively at him.

“What’s wrong?” Bringing his head down, he nibbled the tip of her ear.

His warm breath pervaded over her ear, her neck, silently crumbling her resistance, silently moving in deeper.

Closing her eyes, she attempted to gather her focus. “In the future, if you so much as nip your hand with a nail clipper, you must still report it to me.”

“That likely won’t happen.” He feathered kisses all the way down the curvature of her neck until he reached her collarbone. “That’s something that you’re more likely to do.”

She nearly choked to death on that. “I was just giving an example…”

“Mm,” Yi Wenze responded. “Got it.” And then yanking over the taupe blanket, he covered both of them and began methodically carrying on with the work his hands had been doing.

The television screen flickered with some sort of ridiculous drama serial that was about nothing other than romance and love and extramarital affairs and homewreckers. This kind of melodramatic, cliché family drama sure was a never-changing, popular theme. Accompanied by the sounds of choked sobs, the show’s lead was tearfully demanding, “How come you couldn’t withstand temptation? Do our five years of marriage not even compare to someone you met for just a few days?”

Well, that certainly… was quite fitting.

Striving to hang on to the remnants of her clarity of mind, Jia He grabbed his wrist. “I never said I’m not mad. I just wanted to take care of the external threat first before dealing with our internal issues.

He closed her into the circle of his arms. “Where’s the external threat?”

She bit down on her lip, practically able to sense the urgency in him. A blush searing her cheeks and ears, she shut her eyes, murmuring, “You’re so nice to everyone; you’re just purposely trying to attract the attention of all the pretty ladies. You treat me no different from other people.”

Chuckling, Yi Wenze asked in low tones, “Do you think I would do this to other people?”

“Maybe.” Her words were still unrelenting, but she did limpen a few more notches.

Finally feeling somewhat helpless against her, he began trying to help her to relax. “I do not, for any person, interrupt my work phone calls; I do not volunteer my home up for anyone to stay in; and I do not face the media for other people. And I especially don’t ever bring along any other person to be with me at all times and all moments, not wanting at all to let her leave…” Their bodies were locked together tightly, skin upon skin. They could not discern who first became scorching as fire, for in the end they merely wholly, thoroughly melded together.

She was afraid. She was nervous. Yet, still, she did not refuse him. Her arms gradually slid around his back. She could sense the dampness and soldering heat beneath her palm. By her ear were the distinct rises and falls of breathing. There was some pain, but even more, there was a feeling of unbearable restlessness. This was very tender, yet it was also torture.

Each second was torment that dragged on endlessly.

He suddenly grew still, gazing unblinkingly at her. Jia He dazedly opened her eyes.

“Honey[1], take a trip back to New Zealand with me, how about that?” His voice was indescribably deep and low, bewitching and seductive. She felt as if someone had squeezed the very tip of her heart, and her breaths choked in her throat. Very slowly, she uttered an “mm.” But right as she was about to say something, she abruptly gripped the skin beneath her hands, nearly digging into it…

Very deep in the night, she was almost completely tucked into the enclosure of his arms. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that he was sly and treacherous, and she gave a vicious pinch to his arm. He shifted only ever so lightly, not trying to evade this. “It looks like this wound is going to need a few extra days to heal.”

As if electrocuted, she swiftly pulled her hand back. “Where did I hurt you?”

Yi Wenze did not answer and only gave a low chuckle, a gorgeous, intoxicating sound. The television was still on. She was not certain what type of program it was playing. There was not much for dialogue, but the background sound was very loud. Listening to it, Jia He was perplexed. However, she would rather be completely bathed in sweat and remain burrowed in his embrace than dare to poke her head out and look at his face. So, she could only curiously inquire, her voice muffled, “What’s playing on TV? The noises are so weird.”

He cast a bland look at the television, tightening his hand’s hold on her waist. Rolling over and once more pinning her beneath his body, he answered in a low voice, “A late-night adult program.”

“What, what do you want to do?” A moan almost slipped from Jia He’s lips, and her entire body began trembling uncontrollably. That slight bit of clarity of mind that she had recovered was once more completely shattered by him, and she was wholly swallowed away, sinking into oblivion.

At the very end of the very end, she finally forced herself to stick her head out and take a quick glimpse at the television. Instantly, she burst out with wrath. It was just a concert of Chinese orchestral music! Giving an “mm,” Yi Wenze pulled her completely against himself such that even their arms and legs were pressed together. “A program that adults will watch late at night.”

You’re just too much…

Her eyelids felt terribly heavy, though, and hence she could only nestle herself in his arms and secretly condemn him with a couple of grumbled sentences in her mind before falling into a deep slumber.

She had only slept for a short period, however, when her entire body felt chilled.

Struggling to wake from her dreams, Jia He heard the sound of the door lightly being opened, and groggily she asked, “What time is it?”

Behind her, a voice moved in close to her, very close. “Six.”

So early… Jia He’s head throbbed and felt stuffed, and her entire body was so sore she was about to die. What was more, he just had to ask by her ear, “Does it still hurt?’

How… how can it not hurt? Her eyes tightly shut, Jia He answered him, “Mm-hmm.”

“Do you want to take some medicine?” He seemed to step away from the bed. Then the sound was heard of water being poured and boiled. At last, Jia He clued in to what he had actually been asking. From head to toe, she roasted with embarrassment.

[1] The words Yi Wenze used are actually 老婆, which mean “wife.” As men don’t usually straight out address their girlfriend or wife as “Wife” in English, I did not want to use the literal translation here, especially in this intimate scene as it would break immersion. This term of endearment will be used very frequently from now on, and generally, I will consistently translate it as “honey.” Somehow, “wifey” does not seem appropriate coming from the lips Yi Wenze, with a few exceptions. (However, just keep in mind that the status change has become verbal.)

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