Ning Shangyu made a casual joke about how much water there was.
That night, when Lin Zhishui took a bath, she meticulously dried herself off with a towel over and over, making sure there wasn’t a trace of moisture left on her skin.
Then, she fetched a long silk bathrobe that reached her ankles, wrapping herself up tightly under the warm, amber glow of the wall lamp.
Her fingers pulled the embroidered silk belt snug, her figure slender, yet not even half a collarbone was exposed at the neckline.
Like this, Lin Zhishui strolled out slowly, and in another’s eyes, her delicate face and earlobes glowed with a soft, rosy whiteness.
Even her knuckles were tinged pink from soaking in hot water.
As Ning Shangyu lowered his eyes, he withdrew his gaze from her and nonchalantly replied to a few emails.
The spacious, bright room was quiet, with Lin Zhishui sitting on the sofa, unusually not playing with her phone, as if pondering something serious.
In less than two seconds, her gaze slid like rippling water toward Ning Shangyu.
Across the coffee table, her eyes landed on his meticulously tailored black suit pants.
Even though he sat at ease, the powerful lines of his legs were clear but not exaggerated.
Suddenly, just as Ning Shangyu looked up, Lin Zhishui quickly shifted her gaze, the light in her dark pupils feigning appreciation for the temperature-controlled wine cabinet, trying to recognize the expensive bottles labeled in ornate foreign script through the glass.
But in her mind, she was thinking about how, back in Si Cheng, they slept in separate beds and hadn’t yet progressed to sharing one.
Last night, she was tipsy and couldn’t recall anything except being wrapped in Ning Shangyu’s shirt all night—she couldn’t remember if he had also slept on that bed.
So tonight…
He’s still here now.
Lin Zhishui couldn’t help but glance at Ning Shangyu again.
Was he planning to sleep with her tonight?
Lin Zhishui’s pure and direct gaze was so obvious that even if Ning Shangyu wanted to ignore it, it was difficult.
Without lifting his eyelids, he asked in a calm voice, “Is something the matter?”
Lin Zhishui didn’t respond.
According to Tang, she resisted the urge to ask if he had something to do, since not long ago, in a similar quiet and dim night like this, they had shared a room, and he had righteously declared there was no such arrangement—she still remembered that scene.
Lin Zhishui had learned her lesson.
She didn’t reply for a while.
After a moment, once Ning Shangyu finished replying to his last confidential email, he calmly closed his laptop.
Lin Zhishui remained seated properly on the sofa, but the corner of her beautiful eyes followed his silhouette as he moved.
She wanted to patiently see which bedroom Ning Shangyu planned to stay in tonight.
Unexpectedly, as Ning Shangyu passed by her sofa, he bent down without warning.
His long-fingered hand pressed against the top of the backrest, and his black silhouette almost completely enveloped her slender back wrapped in the bathrobe, his warm breath falling on her as he asked, “Do you have something to say?”
He repeated the question in the same calm tone.
Lin Zhishui’s expression was a bit bewildered, with a trace of nervousness from his sudden approach.
She parted her lips and said, “Nothing. Can’t I even take a few glances at you?”
So stingy!
The next moment, Ning Shangyu brought his index and middle fingers together and gently lifted her delicate chin, which looked especially pale under the light, then slowly slid down to her soft throat.
This ambiguous and slightly dangerous gesture made Lin Zhishui instinctively freeze, her fingertips stiff on the bathrobe, even the blood beneath her skin seemed to stop flowing.
It felt strangely familiar, as if earlier that day in the restaurant, he had done the same thing.
And now, as Ning Shangyu lowered his head in the backlight, his handsome face was hard to see clearly, but she could feel his long fingers slowly undoing the knot of her bathrobe, sliding downward.
Previously, she hadn’t exposed even a hint of collarbone, but now he was brazenly looking.
All her efforts were wasted!
Lin Zhishui felt as if her chest was about to catch fire under his gaze.
Suddenly, she knelt up from the sofa, wanting to reciprocate and look at him as well.
But when she looked down, under her clear, bright eyes, the dangerous outline beneath Ning Shangyu’s suit pants, after being restrained for so long, was now clearly becoming more pronounced.
Previously, Lin Zhishui had been made wet by his amber eyes.
Now, their roles had reversed, and things were even.
Lin Zhishui couldn’t help but ask, “You’re having a physical reaction?”
Ning Shangyu admitted openly, “Yes.”
Then, he stood there, letting her look, and asked in a deep, slow voice, “So, what should I do?”
“How should I know…”
Lin Zhishui was still half-leaning on the sofa, a bit flustered, sensing danger was imminent and instinctively wanting to move away.
But Ning Shangyu’s hand pressed down on her shoulder through the pyjamas first, his voice low, “We just greeted each other last night… Don’t you want to get more familiar with it tonight?”
“How do we get more familiar?” she murmured, lips trembling.
At that moment, Lin Zhishui’s mind was hazy and hadn’t caught up yet, but with each breath, she felt that cold fir scent growing stronger, and maybe it was just her imagination, but even the temperature seemed to rise sharply.
Soon, she met Ning Shangyu’s lowered amber eyes, and her breathing slowed.
She understood what “get more familiar” really meant.
Lin Zhishui hadn’t done a taste recovery test in almost a month.
Ever since her sense of taste had been impaired as a child, she had become extremely picky with food.
As A Yang put it, she could grow up drinking only dew.
Because of this, even if she never left home, Lin Zhishui’s constitution suffered from nutritional imbalances, and she would fall ill every so often.
Later, Lin Xiguang, wanting her to psychologically accept meat, spent a fortune hiring a team of experts to develop a golden-colored fruit mushroom that tasted and chewed just like meat.
It seemed to be developed purely for her as a teething stick.
Lin Zhishui liked these mushrooms—holding them in her palm, a gentle bite would make juice gush out, and that highly concentrated sweetness finally let her taste something different.
After that, she became fond of eating all sorts of harmless but brightly colored mushrooms…
Even though she had a small body, her appetite grew.
She even wanted Lin Xiguang to develop a super, super shiny one for her.
But that was so long ago that, as her sense of taste gradually recovered, Lin Zhishui couldn’t remember whether Lin Xiguang ever managed to make it.
Lin Zhishui’s misty, moist gaze gradually cleared—
What she saw was, in the dimness, Ning Shangyu was just putting on his bathrobe.
Lin Zhishui sat unmoving among the soft bedding, actually barely holding herself up.
She had never known that eating mushrooms could make the corners of her lips swell up like this.
Even without a mirror, she could imagine she must look as red as if she were having an allergic reaction.
Just as Lin Zhishui was catching her bright red tongue tip and trying to speak several times—
Ning Shangyu left the room for a moment and then returned.
As he leaned down toward the bed, he reached out and turned on the bedside lamp that had been turned off earlier.
The sudden brightness made Lin Zhishui instinctively close her eyes.
On Ning Shangyu’s proud face, his expression was utterly calm as he expertly opened a medicine box, dipped his long fingers into a small amount, and applied it to the corner of her lips.
Perhaps he wasn’t gentle enough, and the next second, Lin Zhishui frowned, “It hurts, be gentler.”
Sometimes she could endure pain, sometimes she was too delicate for even a little discomfort.
Ning Shangyu immediately softened his movements, “Okay.”
The minty, cool ointment gradually covered her burning skin, and Lin Zhishui couldn’t help but shrink her shoulders: “It still hurts.”
Ning Shangyu glanced at her with deep eyes, “Your mouth is too small.”
Lin Zhishui widened her eyes, so shocked that even the two red marks at the ends of her eyes, left by tears, trembled.
“You’re obviously too big! I have the most perfect, standard lips in the world, okay?”
“And you…”
She instantly lowered her lashes and said, “You’re definitely not international standard size!”
Ning Shangyu’s business trip to the New Zealand North Island winery only lasted half a week.
Once business was done, he would return to Si Cheng.
There were no more business trips scheduled for the near future.
Coincidentally, Ning Panyu, who had been drunk for two or three days, had finally sobered up.
He refused to take his own private jet and insisted on catching a ride on Ning Shangyu’s Gulfstream 6650ER.
After boarding, he adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses on his high nose bridge with a flick of his finger, then looked at Lin Zhishui as if examining her with a magnifying glass.
“Still wearing a mask on the plane?”
Lin Zhishui’s clear, cool voice came from behind the white mask covering half her face.
“I’m having an allergic reaction.”
After all, long flights were dull and boring.
Ning Miaoyu wanted to chat with her for a while, about to say that with allergies you should let your skin breathe, so why wrap up so tightly?
But Lin Zhishui had already walked to a sofa half a meter away and sat down.
She didn’t take off her mask.
Nor did she respond to anyone.
Especially not a certain Ning…
She had already ignored him for more than twenty-four hours.
This subtle atmosphere was noticed not only by Ning Panyu, but even the secretaries traveling with them tried to minimize their words.
The only third party who knew the inside story was probably Xi Yan.
After all, it was he who provided the mask for Lin Zhishui.
And the ointment for the scabbed wound at the corner of her lips… he had also secretly prepared.
By lunchtime, Lin Zhishui hadn’t touched a drop of water, all because Ning Panyu couldn’t act properly and kept glancing her way every now and then, his strikingly attractive face wearing a half-smile, as if he could guess the reason with his cleverness.
“Panyu.”
“Here.”
Just two words from Ning Shangyu immediately suppressed Ning Panyu’s arrogance.
After finishing a video conference, Ning Shangyu took an exquisite lunch from the secretary and sat down beside her.
Lin Zhishui lowered her eyes, hiding all her emotions beneath her lashes.
“He doesn’t dare look at you.”
Ning Shangyu told her to take off her mask.
Probably because she hadn’t had fresh air for so long, her porcelain-white cheeks flushed red as her body temperature rose.
When Ning Shangyu helped her remove the mask, he saw clearly, under the light, the small, obvious wound at the corner of her lips.
There was even a new wound, and only the two of them knew exactly how it happened.
That night, after Lin Zhishui accused Ning Shangyu of not being “international standard size,” he turned off the lights, making her measure again in the dark, and this time insisted she guess the size before he would let her go.
Her mouth wasn’t a ruler!
How could she possibly guess it accurately?!
Yet Ning Shangyu, elegant and proud, pressed his palm against her soft nape, veins throbbing as if connected to his strong heart, but his breathing never faltered—instead, he became even more aggressive.
“Wrong answer.”
That night, she was both itchy and breathless, all from the heat.
Because Lin Zhishui kept giving vague answers and wouldn’t say the exact number, her beautiful face was now unfit to be seen in public.
And the culprit, dressed in a sharply tailored black silk suit, looked the very image of restraint.
As she was lost in her thoughts of complaint—
Ning Shangyu calmly offered her a delicate lunch, which happened to be a fragrant mushroom soup.
“Your favorite mushrooms.”
After spending time with Lin Zhishui, and thanks to the butler’s diligent reports, Ning Shangyu knew her food preferences very well, with no ulterior motive.
But Lin Zhishui’s mind couldn’t help wandering, and her face grew even redder, the cold, noble facade she maintained in public completely gone.
She glanced at Ning Shangyu.
Yet her watery, glassy eyes were completely harmless.
And with these eyes, Lin Zhishui didn’t want to see mushrooms again anytime soon.
After safely arriving back in Si Cheng and being sent home to her villa, Lin Zhishui went upstairs to shower first.
She changed into clean clothes and returned to the spacious living room.
Ning Shangyu was nowhere to be seen; instead, Xi Yan entered carrying an especially exquisite box.
Apparently not expecting to run into Lin Zhishui, Xi Yan immediately lowered his head, not daring to let even a sliver of his gaze fall on the wound at the corner of her lips.
“Miss Lin.”
Lin Zhishui stepped closer, a little curious about the box in his hands.
“What’s this?”
Xi Yan paused for a few seconds before continuing, “It’s something President Ning needs to use. You…”
President Ning’s size isn’t something you can just buy at any pharmacy or convenience store.
Now that he’s engaged, if he needs to use them, they must be custom ordered in advance.
Today, the private hospital just delivered them.
He hadn’t expected to run into Lin Zhishui.
After a brief hesitation, Xi Yan respectfully placed the box on the coffee table.
“You can look if you want.”
Lin Zhishui was surprised.
“Can I?”
Xi Yan, “You probably can.”
After all, President Ning couldn’t use them by himself.
With that, he quickly left.
Lin Zhishui’s gaze remained on the black, gold-trimmed box.
She was simply curious and wanted to look, but her fingertips hovering at her side hesitated for a moment.
But the box sat there, tempting her…
Lin Zhishui felt as if it were Pandora’s Box—once opened, something incredible would be released.
In the end, she couldn’t resist her curiosity and lifted the lid with her fingertips.
Inside, the box was filled with iridescent, shimmering men’s personal items.
They were… condoms?