Back then, Ning Chenqi was still alive.
He was busy managing family affairs and often accompanied his wife Bai Yinke to various musical performances, leaving only a small portion of time to teach his only son.
“This is called dawn redwood.”
Ning Chenqi had just returned from a social engagement, dressed in a suit and black coat over his broad shoulders, bringing a small seedling gift for Ning Shangyu.
Ning Shangyu stood straight, his amber eyes resembling his father’s, raised to meet him.
He didn’t reach out to take it.
Instead, Ning Chenqi slowly knelt on one knee, looking at him eye to eye, and handed the seedling forward: “Shangyu, from today on, promise your father that whenever desire arises in your heart, you will plant a dawn redwood yourself.”
Under the light, the delicate fuzz on Ning Shangyu’s sculpted face was visible, but his expression plainly showed his innate coldness: “Why?”
Ning Chenqi said, “Desires come in many forms, like seeds that sprout in the darkest corners of the heart. I don’t want you to be consumed by power lust someday, Shangyu. You must learn to restrain it.”
At that time, Ning Shangyu was too young. Living in the Ning family was like being a young lion unable to control his natural king instincts.
He watched the mature pride with amber eyes full of curiosity and occasionally revealed the fierce ambition of a top predator, a natural craving for power.
Ning Chenqi hoped to use dawn redwoods to channel this fresh vitality into Ning Shangyu’s life through the act of planting by hand.
This was the first lesson Ning Shangyu learned from his extremely restrained, almost ascetic father.
That very night, accompanied by Ning Chenqi, he personally planted his first dawn redwood.
Ning Chenqi asked quietly, “What does this tree represent?”
“You.”
Ning Shangyu learned the first thing about restraint from the love of his parents.
He was proud by nature but rarely emotional, indifferent to his father and Bai Yinke’s placing family prosperity above all.
To them, his birth was merely a bloodline tool for future inheritance.
Ning Shangyu hadn’t planted a new dawn redwood in a long time.
Now, those trees by the natural lake had grown tall and majestic, their mottled shade sometimes silently creeping inside the room when sunlight or moonlight fell upon them.
***
After the meeting downstairs ended, it was already after dawn when Rong Jiali left—not rushing to rest but to personally pick up his wife Lu Xi from the film crew.
The once luxurious and spacious living room was gradually quiet.
Ning Shangyu also stood and went upstairs.
He entered the master bedroom to find Lin Zhishui still hiding under the covers, asleep.
Light filtered in through the clear glass, scattering golden fragments across her ankle resting on the edge of the bed.
Her delicate bones and very fair skin made the bruises—red from his previous grasp—stand out vividly.
Ning Shangyu observed for a moment before slowly pulling the blanket away from her.
Zhishui instinctively shrank but couldn’t avoid the strong scent of fir enveloping her. Within seconds, her brow furrowed.
She had been awakened by the ordeal.
Ning Shangyu’s palm moving across her waist was distinctly palpable, each touch pressing her down with no margin left…
Gradually, those vivid, intoxicating memories resurfaced.
Zhishui’s hoarse voice at first awakening was soft and faintly raspy: “Ning Shangyu, you make me fall asleep and wake me up again—are you still just tasting and not going all the way?”
She was so inexperienced in this matter she didn’t know if this was how everyone else’s first time went.
She never imagined.
Being treated so harshly on the first try…
“This is the final stage.”
Ning Shangyu’s tone was teasing, lacking credibility in her ears, but he added next to her ear: “Relax. Let me check your temperature—if you still have a slight fever.”
Long.
Lin Zhishui thought—didn’t he have a thermometer?
Why insist on doing it himself?
Her lips couldn’t form words, overwhelmed by the painful yet pleasurable sensation that stirred her nerves.
She lost track of how long she drifted.
Ning Shangyu’s long trial was so extended that the weather outside the floor-to-ceiling window suddenly changed.
Bright sunshine was quickly covered by thick clouds and a sudden rainstorm.
The rain nourished the dawn redwoods, then turned into a violent thunderstorm pounding down.
Lin Zhishui lay prone on the large pillow, just able to look up and watch the scene outside.
In her heart, she felt a strange empathy, as if she were a sprouting leaf trembling under the harsh rain.
The rain stopped.
Ning Shangyu’s trial paused for a break. He carried her to the bathroom for a thorough cleaning.
When Lin Zhishui, aching all over, was placed into the comfortably warm bathtub, her tightly closed, curled lashes suddenly opened.
She asked, “Do you treat me like a medicine?”
Her tone was light but unmistakably challenging.
Last night, her mind stopped working under the influence of alcohol, or she would have asked earlier.
Returning home only to be confused again by him, she didn’t expect to be made fully conscious this early morning.
Lin Zhishui looked at Ning Shangyu standing by the tub, meeting his gaze.
The word “medicine” didn’t cause even the slightest change on Ning Shangyu’s handsome face.
Next, he calmly retorted: “What kind of medicine gets served every day?”
Right now, that was exactly the case.
Lin Zhishui only needed to lie still, while Ning Shangyu personally served her from head to toe, cleaning her from scalp to fair toes.
When she was wrapped in a silk towel and carried out again, her tongue hesitated before saying, “Do you really have that?”
Ning Shangyu laid her back on the bed, expression unchanging, inspecting for tiny wounds.
After a moment’s finger probing, he clearly felt Lin Zhishui growing tense.
He raised his amber eyes: “Which one?”
Since “medicine” was plainly asked, how could he not understand?
Lin Zhishui suddenly realized he was forcing her to say the word aloud.
After a brief hesitation, she instinctively grabbed his arm.
Her nails touched it and found that the muscular lines already bore many fresh red scratches.
Her fingertips unconsciously loosened as the words slipped out: “Sex addiction!”
When the marriage contract was arranged, no one told her Ning Shangyu had this particular physical trait.
She was completely unaware, but now looking back, there seemed to be clues.
The next second, Ning Shangyu’s eyes darkened, his brow furrowing.
“Yes.”
Just one word shook Lin Zhishui’s heart violently.
His overwhelming presence was too strong, yet his tone was unusually calm: “Now you know.”
“Then, are you…?”
Lin Zhishui instinctively closed her knees together, staring blankly: “Have you not been fully satisfied from last night until now?”
Ning Shangyu didn’t reply, but his deep eyes revealed that very meaning.
Lin Zhishui’s delicate shoulder blades trembled slightly, a bit fearful.
Though not physically weak, her body truly couldn’t endure such a massive drain.
When Ning Shangyu suddenly moved closer, she didn’t hesitate to extend her index finger, lightly pressing on the cool white texture of his chest.
“Y-you… Ning Shangyu, you only have one fiancée. Calm down. If you play me to death, I really will be gone.”
Seeing the flicker of fear in her glassy eyes, Ning Shangyu’s expression darkened.
Yet, her stammering surprise now seemed quite endearing. His palm made a move to capture her, covering her under the waist.
“Then should I let you play?”
“I-I don’t want to, please… You must have other medicine to suppress it, right?”
Lin Zhishui suddenly remembered he had taken out injections from a mysterious small safe once or twice.
She had so carefully nurtured him, thinking his fierce physique hid a weak interior.
But now it seemed—
The truly frail one was her!!!
Lin Zhishui’s innocent heart was shaken again and again.
The final expression she wore, along with the two red moles at her eye’s corner, was a pitiful glare aimed at Ning Shangyu’s cold heart:
“If you have mercy, go get a shot. I can’t be eighteen and still have the risk of dying young.”
Ning Shangyu smiled, but the hand she held was even more fierce in spirit.
“This time, I won’t let you have that risk either.”
Lin Zhishui stared at the faint smile on his handsome, sharp face and couldn’t help but wonder if he meant to let her hands “die young” instead.
Ning Shangyu’s voice was extremely slow: “Pick one from that tutorial. We’ll do it another day, okay?”
His reminder almost made Lin Zhishui forget this extremely important matter.
She was treated like a broken doll toy, tossed around and broken because Ning Shangyu hadn’t strictly followed the traditional methods taught in the manual.
If not for the Ji family banquet where she drank too much… and the aid of alcohol, she might have already died last night!
Now, she grabbed his weakness, indeed holding him to account, her tone tinged with petulance:
“You want me to pick? Have you really studied your own tutorial?”
Standing on the moral high ground, she was fearless.
Ning Shangyu was nearly provoked into a rare smile on his usually arrogant, breathtaking face.
He scooped her up with the towel still wrapped around her, left the master bedroom, and headed to the study.
Lin Zhishui, still dazed, felt the cold wooden desk edge brush against her hip as she watched him calmly turn on the computer.
A file package titled [Traditional.]
Ning Shangyu didn’t open it but tapped the desk absentmindedly with his knuckles.
“Lin Zhishui, have you really read it?”
“Of course.”
Those three words had become her recent catchphrase.
She slowly raised her overly sanctified little face, worn out by him, dragging out the last syllable: “Isn’t it just picking one? I want to pick. You’re not allowed to change positions anymore.”
She’d had enough of being held that way just once.
Knowing Ning Shangyu had sex addiction, would the next play be even more extreme… that kind of super perverted thing?
Lin Zhishui considered herself relatively conservative. With Ning Shangyu’s tacit approval, she lightly tapped and boldly opened the file.
Suddenly, she froze mid-motion, not even blinking.
Just from the cover, she could tell the content was shockingly explicit and definitely not traditional—because the images on the screen were obviously Western.
The atmosphere froze in awkward silence.
Ning Shangyu watched her chest rise and fall with her breathing.
Her towel had slipped, exposing a large swath of pale skin she forgot to cover again, clearly shaken.
He said with ambiguous meaning: “Pick one.”
Lin Zhishui felt dizzy from the dazzling images on the screen.
Those holding-arm positions suddenly became the most traditional.
Even her fingertips trembled.
How could she choose?
She decisively changed the topic: “Um, when is the ‘another day’?”
Ning Shangyu’s tone was calm and steady: “Tomorrow.”