Chapter 50

“So soft.”

Lu Zhi couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh.

A startled little gasp escaped Rong Yin’s lips, the sound spilling out soft, sweet, and coy. But the very next second, as if scalded, she frantically slapped away Lu Zhi’s hand, which hadn’t even been using any force.

Lu Zhi looked up, her voice slightly hoarse, asking almost in a breathy whisper, “Can’t I touch?”

Rong Yin’s face was bright red, her dark eyes looking at Lu Zhi in a fluster, stammering incoherently, “You, you, you… don’t… what… touch…”

Lu Zhi frowned slightly, her gaze dropping back down again.

Rong Yin looked at her plain, serious face, her mind in such chaos she felt like she was going crazy. It took a good while before she managed to fish out a messy excuse from the porridge-like mess of her brain, stuttering out in a small voice, “The… the script d-doesn’t… have this…”

Lu Zhi’s gaze was still fixed on the loose neckline of Rong Yin’s nightgown. Snow-white skin appeared even fairer against the dark blue-grey cotton-linen fabric. Even though Rong Yin was reflexively drawing her chest in and pulling her knees together, some alluring curves were still visible.

After hearing Rong Yin’s justification, she slowly raised her eyes, finally settling her gaze back onto Rong Yin’s face. It was a long moment before she spoke two words: “Alright, then.”

The two were very close. Lu Zhi was practically kneeling between Rong Yin’s legs, their breaths still brushing against each other’s faces.

Rong Yin’s cheeks flushed a deep red at the obvious disappointment in Lu Zhi’s voice. She didn’t dare meet her eyes, awkwardly turning her face slightly away. Her mouth opened a tiny crack, gasping quietly.

Lu Zhi looked at her beautiful profile, and after a moment, reached out a finger to turn Rong Yin’s face back. She said, “I missed a question earlier.”

Rong Yin: “Hmm?”

Lu Zhi leaned closer, asking deliberately, “You… when you film scenes, do you use your tongue like you just did?”

Her voice was kept very low, but her words were crystal clear. Her gaze pinned Rong Yin, making the girl’s ear tips burn, so red they seemed about to drip blood. Her voice was trapped in her throat, as if blocked by something, before it could finally come out: “O-Of course not…”

Lu Zhi made a soft “oh” sound upon hearing this, then pecked at Rong Yin’s lips like a chick pecking at grain, her voice full of teasing.

“Only kissing scenes like that, huh?”

Rong Yin, teased by her to the point of gasping for air, turned her head away to escape her antics. Lu Zhi had no choice but to let her kisses fall on Rong Yin’s hair, her ear, her neck…

Lu Zhi fooled around with Rong Yin for a long time before letting her go, pulling back slightly to soothe her disheveled black hair with her fingers.

The girl before her was like a bouquet of hibiscus flowers thoroughly soaked in spring desire. Her fine porcelain skin blushed a crimson hue, her eyes were moist, and the tips of her brows and corners of her eyes carried a lingering sensual allure. Her nose tip was delicate, her lips red and swollen. Her whole being carried a gorgeous, fragile beauty.

“You are too beautiful.” Lu Zhi stroked her smooth, delicate cheek, sighing softly.

Rong Yin was completely dazed. Lying in bed at night, she had absolutely no sleepiness, just holding Lu Zhi’s hand, motionless and lost in thought.

In several moments, she couldn’t even remember why she was sleeping in Lu Zhi’s room. All the lights in the bedroom were off, the curtains tightly drawn, only the glow of a fluorescent digital clock at the bedside remained.

Rong Yin didn’t toss and turn, just maintained one posture in a daze. Lingering in her nostrils was the cold, frosty scent of distant mountains and snow that belonged to Lu Zhi.

The latter half of the night was filled with half-sleeping, half-waking dreams, all of them about the entanglement between the two of them, all of them Lu Zhi’s kisses.

Because they had to film in the morning, the alarm was set for half past six. The moment the “beep beep beep” sound started, Rong Yin suddenly opened her eyes.

Lu Zhi usually didn’t have the common habit of dragging things out when getting up in the morning or going to bed at night, so she quickly moved to turn off the alarm. She casually turned on the bedside lamp, then looked back to see Rong Yin’s beautifully shaped eyes tinged with traces of bloodshot veins.

“Didn’t sleep well?”

Lu Zhi reached out a finger to touch her thin eyelids, her voice gentle and soft, carrying the lazy moisture of just waking up.

Rong Yin hurriedly mumbled an “mm” in response, but still didn’t dare meet her eyes. She turned over and buried her head in the pillow.

Lu Zhi just assumed she wanted to sleep in and didn’t insist on calling her right away. She just ruffled the back of her rounded head before getting out of bed first to wash up.

It was almost November now, and the northern metropolis had started cooling down significantly. Noon was still okay, but the morning temperature was only around ten degrees Celsius. “Honey and Arsenic,” although spanning spring, summer, autumn, and winter, was scheduled for a summer holiday release, so most of the scenes still required summer clothing.

The shooting location was a makeshift soundstage with no air conditioning. The crew had brought several warm-air fans, but the space was too large, so it was nearly useless. The male actors were okay, wearing suits and leather shoes, and could stick heat packs underneath. The female actors were mostly in short sleeves and skirts, exposing bare arms and legs. The moment they were off-camera, they’d all start shivering and throwing on their overcoats.

Rong Yin, however, didn’t feel the cold much. In fact, she felt the fire in her heart burning too fiercely.

She had been out of sorts all day. On set, she kept wanting to look for Lu Zhi, prompting the Director to pull her aside several times to discuss the scene.

Near noon, the crew’s Production Manager and Producer both came by. During the break, a large group gathered around the office desk in the shooting area to eat boxed lunches. After the meal, an impromptu small meeting was formed. Rong Yin listened in a bit; they were discussing matters related to publicity and post-production.

The group was talking animatedly, spit flying everywhere. Lu Zhi didn’t say much, only mentioning a person’s name midway through, seemingly a Production Manager from a television station. After that, everyone started discussing this Production Manager.

The noise made Rong Yin’s head buzz. She hadn’t slept well at night, and her head ached from all the messy affairs during the day. Soon, a hint of forced endurance appeared on her face.

The next second, the wheeled chair Lu Zhi was sitting on moved back a bit, drawing closer to Rong Yin’s chair. She grabbed her hand and gently rubbed it in her palm a couple of times, lowering her voice to say, “Go rest if you’re tired. Filming doesn’t start until 1 PM, there’s still almost half an hour.”

Rong Yin’s downturned mouth instantly smoothed out. She mumbled quietly, “I-It’s… fine.”

Lu Zhi glanced at her a couple more times, then continued talking with the others while playing with her hand.

Rong Yin pressed her lips together. As expected, for the latter half of the discussion, she had no energy left to think about anything else. All her focus was on their fingers, hooked and intertwined with each other.

Lu Zhi’s fingers were long and fair, looking slender and bony, yet her joints were soft. Her skin was thin, delicate, and slightly cool to the touch, feeling very comfortable to play with.

The last few scenes the crew was filming were all office scenes. Indoors, the lights were bright, and they didn’t care much about day or night. Rong Yin’s scenes today dragged on until ten o’clock at night.

Lu Zhi went to a dinner engagement with the Producer in the afternoon. Rong Yin had no choice but to go home alone with the Assistants. Maybe it was because the day had drained too much of her energy, she started sleeping as soon as she got in the car, only to become alert the moment she arrived home.

Assistant Little Wen organized the things needed on set for the next day and thoughtfully drew a bath for Rong Yin. On her way out, she even took two bags of trash with her.

Rong Yin had started thinking from the moment she got out of the car, but even by the time she’d dawdled through her bath, she still hadn’t decided which room she should sleep in that night. So she had no choice but to drape a blanket over herself and wait for Lu Zhi in the downstairs living room.

But for some reason, the longer she waited, the more anxious and aggrieved she became.

To the point that the moment Lu Zhi walked through the door, she saw a Rong Yin whose expression was as cold as frost. As Lu Zhi changed her shoes and greeted Rong Yin, Rong Yin didn’t even glance at her. She abruptly stood up, dashed upstairs, and very forcefully slammed a door shut with a loud “Bang!”.

Lu Zhi frowned slightly. She went to wash her hands first, then went upstairs to knock on the door. There was no sound inside.

Lu Zhi tried the door handle; it opened with a push. The light was on in the bedroom. Rong Yin was sprawled entirely on the bed, her nightgown clinging obediently to her body, exposing only a section of her fair calves.

“What’s wrong?” Lu Zhi asked her.

Rong Yin buried her head and ignored her.

Lu Zhi first took off her coat and draped it over the nearby sofa, then sat on the edge of the bed, patting Rong Yin’s back. She asked again, “Rong Yin, what’s wrong?”

Rong Yin’s shoulders twitched. A muffled voice came from underneath: “Nothing…”

Lu Zhi detected something off in her voice and couldn’t help but pause. Her mind quickly went through all the matters, big and small, that had happened recently, but she didn’t find anything abnormal. The only anomaly was probably last night, but she had only kissed her; she hadn’t rashly done anything excessive.

Lu Zhi frowned, reached out to hook an arm around her slender waist, and gently turned her over. Sure enough, she saw Rong Yin’s eyes were red-rimmed.

Rong Yin clearly panicked for a moment, not expecting Lu Zhi to be so strong. After reacting, she hurriedly covered her face with her hands, not wanting Lu Zhi to see her embarrassing state.

But Lu Zhi grabbed her wrists and pressed them to the side, her gaze falling on Rong Yin’s face. She asked, “Why are you crying?”

Rong Yin bit her lip. Truthfully, she wasn’t quite sure why she had inexplicably shed tears. Could she say it was because she had agonized over not knowing where to sleep tonight? Could she say that all day long, she had only been thinking about last night’s kiss? Could she say she had been… hoping for something ever since last night ended?

She couldn’t give Lu Zhi an answer right then, nor did she want to be stared at by Lu Zhi. She could only muster her strength, trying to pull her arms free.

Lu Zhi frowned slightly, using her body to press down on Rong Yin’s limbs. She had originally intended to properly ask what was going on, but she hadn’t expected that Rong Yin, unable to struggle free and now both embarrassed and angry, would instead feel even more aggrieved and furious. She directly burst out crying with a “Wah…”, “Wah… you…”

Lu Zhi was genuinely startled by her sudden crying and quickly let go of her wrists.

Rong Yin was furious. First, she wiped her face with the back of her hand, then sat up from under Lu Zhi, accusing her resentfully, “You… Wah… you’re bullying me again…”

Lu Zhi was silent for a moment, her gaze falling on Rong Yin’s tear-streaked face. She asked somewhat hesitantly, “How did I bully you?”

“You just bullied me!” Rong Yin said with a tearful tone, her tear-filled eyes fixed on her. She didn’t look fierce, just quite pitiful, “Wah… you’ve bullied me from the start, you bully me every day, Wah…”

Lu Zhi thought for a moment, leaned in, and licked away a tear hanging on Rong Yin’s cheek, asking, “Is this also bullying you?”

Rong Yin’s crying hitched for a moment. She stared blankly at Lu Zhi. After a long while, she suddenly stifled her sobs and asked her very seriously, “Do you like me?”

“…”

Lu Zhi looked at the fool opposite her and nodded solemnly. She said, “I don’t just like you, I also want to sleep with you.”

After speaking, Lu Zhi leaned over, pressing her down onto the bed to kiss her.

When she let go, Rong Yin lay on the bed, gasping for air in large gulps. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes in disarray, her expression a drunken, seductive pink. Her lips were glistening.

Lu Zhi used two fingers to pinch her cheek with slight force, forcing her to look at herself, and asked, “And you?”