“You only told me not to touch you, but you never said that touching your ears or tail would make you aroused.”
Liu Ran jumped to her feet excitedly upon hearing this.
“It’s written on the first page of the manual. You saw it when you took it to the office!”
Ming Siyu said, “I didn’t read it. Who says I have to? Liu Ran, do you think you’re so important that I’d waste my precious time studying a little booklet about you?”
Liu Ran was immediately speechless.
The previous two buyers had studied that booklet carefully, and the experimenter had reminded Ming Siyu to read it. Ming Siyu had even taken it to the company along with the contract when she got out of the car… She had never considered the possibility that “Ming Siyu simply didn’t read it.”
Liu Ran didn’t want to let Ming Siyu have the upper hand all the time. After holding back for a while, she said, “That’s because you didn’t read the manual. It’s your negligence as the owner.”
“Didn’t you say I’m not your owner, and you don’t want to be my little wolf? How come you’re willing to acknowledge me as your owner now just to avoid admitting you were wrong?” Ming Siyu pressed down on her hand. “Sit down.”
Liu Ran: …
She had been careless. In her rush to say something to refute Ming Siyu, she had inadvertently trapped herself.
She sat back down on the sofa dejectedly.
Ming Siyu unreasonably continued, “You can’t even control your own basic physiological reactions. You get aroused just from being touched casually. I never imagined you were such a slutty person. No, wolf.”
“I’m not, and you can’t say that about me.” Liu Ran’s eyes reddened instantly. She had never thought that a word like “slutty” would one day be applied to her.
“Wolves are loyal animals. For me, only a lover can touch my ears and tail. Because it’s touched by a lover, that’s why it easily arouses me. You’re not my lover, and every time you do this to me, it really hurts.”
By the end, tears fell onto her clothes, blooming into two dark spots.
Crying again. Ming Siyu irritably pinched the bridge of her nose. Extreme fatigue left her with no energy to deal with Liu Ran’s tears. Liu Ran might be small, but she caused a lot of trouble—one moment it was her susceptible period, the next it was only lovers could touch. A bunch of messy rules.
So what if only lovers could touch? She wasn’t Liu Ran’s lover, and she’d touched her plenty of times already.
“Hurts? I think you enjoyed it quite a bit.”
Liu Ran blurted out in rebuttal, “I didn’t enjoy it—”
Then she shyly lowered her head. Her body did feel threads of indescribable pleasure, instinctively craving more, but the moment she thought about who was touching her—Ming Siyu—her mind wilted. Her body was excited, but her spirit deflated; they couldn’t sync up. And Ming Siyu always stopped halfway, like riding a roller coaster slowly climbing, anticipating the sudden drop at the peak. Now, it always powered down midway through the climb.
It really couldn’t be called pleasurable. Instead, it often left her dangling in midair, half-dead with emptiness.
But these things were too embarrassing to voice. Just admitting to Ming Siyu that being touched aroused her was shameful enough.
Ming Siyu ignored her, stood up, and dragged her aching leg toward the bedroom to rest. She had insomnia away from her own bed; she hadn’t slept at all in the hotel last night, the sleeping pills hadn’t helped much, she still had to deal with troublesome shareholders, and then argue with Liu Ran upon returning home. She had reached the absolute limit of exhaustion.
Her body swayed twice, the scene before her eyes gradually turned black and white, then overlaid with a strange bright yellow, and finally, only blackness remained.
Ming Siyu fainted.
***
At the hospital room door, Liu Ran asked Qi Zhen for the seventh time, “Is she really okay?”
Qi Zhen replied indifferently, “The young lady has poor health; this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.”
Ming Siyu’s sudden collapse had terrified Liu Ran.
One thought kept repeating in her mind: She had angered Ming Siyu into fainting.
She did hate Ming Siyu, hated her to the point of wishing she would disappear from the world. But when Ming Siyu fainted right in front of her, her first reaction wasn’t schadenfreude—it was hoping Ming Siyu would be fine.
Fortunately, the doctor said it was nothing serious; she just needed good rest. After Ming Siyu woke up, Qi Zhen prepared to go make some convalescent meals. Before leaving, Qi Zhen said that in the past, Secretary Wen had always been the one to stay during times like this. Now that Secretary Wen wasn’t around, it fell to Liu Ran.
Liu Ran lingered at the hospital room door for a long time. Only after hearing a few light coughs from inside did she push the door open and enter.
Ming Siyu coughed while holding a cup and trying to get out of bed for water. Liu Ran rushed forward in one stride, took the cup from Ming Siyu’s hand. “I’ll do it.”
Ming Siyu drank it down in one go. Her pale lips were no longer dry and cracked; they gained a faint sheen of moisture.
The cold gold-rimmed half-frame glasses lay silently on the bedside table. As her gaze moved from the freshly moistened lips, a pair of pitch-black eyes came into view. Liu Ran froze for a moment—this was the first time Ming Siyu appeared before her without glasses.
President Ming without her glasses looked frail lying on the hospital bed, her body thin and slight. Without the cold reflection of the lenses, she no longer resembled a cunning, aloof old fox. Instead, she seemed a bit like a little fox fairy newly entered into the mortal world.
Liu Ran couldn’t help but think that Ming Siyu was beautiful. She just had a rotten temper and was too arrogant.
Liu Ran unwillingly lowered her head. “S-sorry.”
Ming Siyu’s first words shattered the soft filter Liu Ran had just applied to her.
“The sun rose from the west.” Her tone dripped with icy sarcasm.
She had made a concession, only to be mocked. Liu Ran endured it repeatedly, reminding herself that Ming Siyu was a patient and she couldn’t argue with a patient.
“I angered you into fainting. Sorry.”
Ming Siyu understood.
So Liu Ran mistakenly thought her faint was caused by angering her.
Since the little wolf rarely lowered her head, Ming Siyu wouldn’t tell her the real reason for the faint.
Ming Siyu perked up a bit.
“Good that you know. So how do you plan to compensate me?”
Liu Ran was at a loss for words. Ming Siyu actually had the nerve to ask for compensation?
Ming Siyu had fainted from being angered by her—that much was true—but Ming Siyu had come seeking the argument herself. Liu Ran hadn’t gone out of her way to provoke her. For her to apologize first was already a huge concession given that Ming Siyu had ended up in the hospital. Yet Ming Siyu not only didn’t appreciate it but pushed further.
As if it was all her fault alone.
Just as she was about to retort, Ming Siyu clutched her chest and coughed a few more times.
Her slender, fragile frame gave the illusion that one more forceful cough would snap her in half.
Liu Ran quickly swallowed the words she had been about to say.
“What compensation do you want? Don’t go overboard. You know I have no money, and even my ID is with you…”
“Let me touch your ears.”
“No way.” Liu Ran jumped far back. “I said ears aren’t for just anyone to touch. If it arouses me, you’ll get upset again.”
“Then your tail.”
“The tail’s no good either. Tails aren’t for just anyone to touch.”
“This can’t, that can’t. I am your owner.”
Not just anyone.
Ming Siyu narrowed her eyes.
“Even an owner can’t.” Liu Ran hid her hands behind her back, covering her tail, and said softly, “Only a lover can.”
Ming Siyu heard it.
“I’m not going to love you anyway.”
Liu Ran said, “Suggest something else.”
Ming Siyu hadn’t recovered her strength yet. After bickering a few rounds, she grew too lazy to haggle with Liu Ran further. Once she was back to normal, touching the fluffy little wolf would be effortless anyway.
Casually, she said, “You bit me. I want blood debt repaid in blood.”
Liu Ran didn’t refuse this time. She thought seriously for a moment, closed her eyes, leaned forward with her face close to Ming Siyu’s, and steeled her resolve. “Fine. You bite me too.”
