15:
“I’m fine, I’m fine! I had a nightmare and fell out of bed,” Yan Chao lied without a second thought.
Hearing this, Xiao Yun’s expression changed slightly, and she lowered her gaze.
“You fell? Does it hurt? Did the wound on your back reopen?” Li Ting asked with concern.
“It didn’t reopen. I’m fine. Senior Sister, don’t worry about me. Go get some rest. It’s almost dawn.”
Yan Chao was afraid she would come in and see the beauty she was hiding.
It wasn’t that she had other concerns; it was just purely awkward. After all, she was recovering at someone else’s house, and she was already being waited on hand and foot. Now there was another injured person. It was a bit rude.
—Even though she was just a handsome shark.
“That was a loud noise. I should still come and check on you.”
Li Ting was not fooled.
The doorknob turned. Yan Chao swallowed nervously. A resentful voice sounded in her ear:
“Should I hide?”
Yan Chao turned to look at her and saw resentment on her face.
If she didn’t know how much Xiao Yun despised her, she would have thought she was jealous.
“No need. It’s okay even if Senior Sister sees you.”
The moment the door opened, Yan Chao’s breath hitched, and her face inexplicably grew hot. But… Li Ting didn’t come in.
A phone rang at the most inopportune time. Li Ting answered a call and left in a hurry, without even having time to explain to Yan Chao.
So urgent. It must be a problem at the institute.
It didn’t take a genius to know that the orca was causing trouble.
A vicious creature like that couldn’t be allowed to roam free, or it would cause irreversible consequences.
In a sense, Jing Yu couldn’t be called human. She was a hybrid of two species, an unprecedented mutation. But she could also turn into a human, and her bodily functions were normal, and she had independent thought. It didn’t seem right not to treat her as a person either.
When Yan Chao received the plot of the small world, she thought she just hadn’t completed the transformation from whale to human, and that she coveted others’ beautiful, brilliant tails because of her own ugliness. Now she realized her initial thoughts were completely wrong.
This thing was just pure evil.
She had no humanity whatsoever and acted solely based on her own likes and dislikes. Except for Li Ting, anyone could become her stepping stone.
Thinking about it, Yan Chao felt a chill run down her spine. When she had provoked Jing Yu back then, she was lucky Li Ting was there, or she would have been beaten to death. The grass on her grave would be tall by now.
“Let’s get some sleep first. We’ll go home when we wake up.”
She was about to lie down when a hand supported her waist.
“?” Yan Chao turned to look at Xiao Yun.
Xiao Yun sat up and said calmly, “There’s blood on your back.”
“Ah? No wonder it feels cool.” Yan Chao started taking off her clothes, more nimbly than ever before.
Xiao Yun’s brows furrowed slightly. She looked at her with an indifferent expression, saying nothing, yet seeming to say everything.
Yan Chao threw her pajamas on the floor and asked, “Can you help me apply some medicine?”
She had standard peach blossom eyes, with a hint of pale red at the corners, like blooming peach blossoms. Even when she was just casually looking at someone, she seemed to be full of affection.
Their eyes met. Xiao Yun was almost sucked into those deep pupils. She calmly looked away and bit the tip of her tongue.
Don’t fall for it. She looks at everyone with the same affection.
Humans call these amorous eyes. They flirt everywhere, accept everyone, and fall in love with everyone they meet. If you take it seriously, you lose.
“I don’t know how. You should wait for your senior sister to come back and let her help you.”
Xiao Yun refused flatly. She didn’t want to have any more physical contact with Yan Chao.
“My blood will have run dry by the time she gets back. Help me, please. It’s very simple. A-Yun is so smart, you’ll definitely learn it in no time.”
Yan Chao looked at her eagerly, her dark pupils shining like stars, full of affection even without a smile.
Just as Xiao Yun was about to refuse again, Yan Chao clung to her, her arm hugged, the other’s body heat transferring through her soft chest, making her entire arm feel numb and tingly.
Do you have to talk to me naked? And if you have to, why do you have to be so close? Xiao Yun’s heart beat a little faster. She couldn’t pull her hand away and had no choice but to agree.
The wound on Yan Chao’s back was long, covering almost two-thirds of her dorsal fin. After repeated scabbing, reopening, inflammation, and festering, a circle of keloids had grown around the wound, looking extremely ugly and terrifying.
Xiao Yun wiped the blood with a tissue. Her hand couldn’t help but tremble as she applied the medicine. Yan Chao gritted her back teeth in pain but still had to squeeze out words to comfort her.
“It’s okay. Go ahead, don’t worry. I’m not that fragile.”
Xiao Yun gently caressed the tender skin. “When did you get hurt?”
She had seen it when Yan Chao was in heat before but had deliberately ignored it then. Now, she had to ask. She had been injured so early on; it definitely wasn’t on land. That left only one possibility.
The answer was obvious. Xiao Yun’s heart clenched, and at the same time, she felt a flutter. She didn’t know what she was feeling right now, only that her chest was tight, and she was having a little trouble breathing.
Yan Chao had always thought Xiao Yun knew she was injured. She never expected that even after being so intimate, she hadn’t noticed. Sure enough, in the eyes of someone who doesn’t love you, even hanging yourself looks like swinging on a swing.
Yan Chao’s eyes drooped with disappointment, the light in them dimming. The wound on her back seemed to hurt even more, a stinging pain in her heart, like being pricked by a fine needle.
“The day we separated. I was bitten by the whale. I was busy looking for you later and didn’t have time to treat the wound. It got infected after a while.”
Xiao Yun said nothing more, silently wrapping the gauze, her touch two degrees lighter, the pads of her fingers brushing against Yan Chao’s back, the skin of her palm trembling slightly.
“I’m not trying to take credit. I only said it because you asked,” Yan Chao explained in a small voice.
Xiao Yun still said nothing. Yan Chao couldn’t see her face and didn’t know what her expression was, feeling a little uneasy.
“Really, I… Hiss!”
She turned her head abruptly, and unprepared, she pulled at the wound. She sucked in a sharp breath of pain, her delicate features contorting.
“Don’t move,” Xiao Yun chided gently. Seeing Yan Chao’s pitiful state, she couldn’t bear it. “Does it hurt a lot?”
“Yeah, a lot. If A-Yun could give me a kiss, it might feel a little better.”
Yan Chao blurted it out, prepared to be met with a cold glare.
The next second, her eyes were covered by Xiao Yun. In the dimness, something soft and wet covered her lips, licking them moistly.