You should be a divine being untouched by the mortal world. How could a saintly you let… the daughter of a murderer permanently mark you?
I, burdened with infamy, my heart a barren wilderness—merely embracing you is already an unforgivable sin.
…
Shi Youwan was someone with an innate biological clock. No matter how sore and weak her waist felt, no matter how exhausted she was from the previous night, her body wouldn’t sleep for more than six hours.
The person beside her pillow had woken up earlier and was half-reclining against the headboard, fiddling with her phone. When she lifted her gaze, she met the girl’s clear and cold eyes exactly.
She couldn’t quite remember how she had fallen asleep last night. Though her thoughts were a bit scattered, there was no sticky sensation on her body as she had imagined—Xiao Mo must have cleaned her up.
Thinking of this made her face heat up again. In the end, she still had to let Xiao Mo take care of her.
She tried to sit up but suddenly realized she wasn’t wearing any clothes, so she quickly lay back down. Chi Yumo, on the other hand, was wearing another slightly thicker nightgown she had brought.
From dusk yesterday to deep into the night, hours of intense panting had left her throat and lips extremely dry—she was severely dehydrated.
“Xiao Mo…” she croaked.
Chi Yumo set down her phone, reached over to the bedside table, and grabbed a bottle of coconut water. She silently asked: Want some water?
Shi Youwan nodded.
The stains and smells on that silk nightgown were too heavy; it couldn’t be worn again. Chi Yumo hadn’t seen any other suitable sleepwear on the coat rack, so she hadn’t dressed Shi Youwan.
She had dressed herself to make it convenient to go out and find her bag, and also to let Qiao Ke, who was waiting in the living room downstairs, go rest. She wasn’t a beast. Even during her Susceptible Period, she wouldn’t devolve into a bloodthirsty savage that devoured Shi Youwan down to the bone scraps.
Shi Youwan was the love engraved in her heart—how could she bear to hurt her?
—Xiao Mo, are you feeling better?
—Actually, this time, if you hadn’t suddenly been locked in the Isolation Room and I feared something might happen to you, President Shi had no intention of letting you know we were in Lan Wei too.
—President Shi is really trying hard to do good things for you. At least for these few days when you need her, can you treat her a bit better? Just think of it as for your own good. An Alpha’s body and mind don’t resist an Omega—your Susceptible Period will feel much better.
Back in her room, Chi Yumo checked the time—it wasn’t even noon yet. After several intermittent rounds of exertion, the Omega had collapsed from exhaustion, but the Alpha felt no sleepiness at all.
Qiao Ke’s words, “Just think of it as for your own good,” accompanied her as she sat from midnight until five in the morning.
For herself.
Yes, hadn’t she taken Shi Youwan precisely to avoid experiencing the agony of her Susceptible Period again? Her willpower wasn’t so weak that she couldn’t get up and use an Inhibitor—she had indulged herself, choosing the Omega over the Inhibitor.
Not just any Omega.
She was willing only because this Omega was Shi Youwan.
The white bedside lamp had been on all night. She had seen every inch of Shi Youwan, just as she had once traced in the darkness.
Snowfall on red plums.
Lotus on distant mountains.
Jade bones and icy skin.
A beauty that made all things in heaven and earth pale in comparison.
Setting the bottled coconut water aside temporarily, Chi Yumo pulled the blanket up higher, then scooped up both the woman and the blanket, letting Shi Youwan lean against her before unscrewing the cap and feeding the coconut water to her lips.
The room temperature was comfortable; room-temperature drinks wouldn’t feel cold.
After drinking about half the bottle, Shi Youwan shook her head. “Enough, thank you, Xiao Mo.”
Under the blanket, two slender arms wrapped around Chi Yumo’s waist, fingertips sliding uncontrollably. Her eyes suddenly shimmered with misty wetness.
She wanted so badly to ask the Alpha for a kiss. A deep kiss with intertwined lips and teeth, a sweet kiss laced with coconut fragrance.
Xiao Mo had taken her, marked her, but still refused to touch her lips. If bodily union was the release of sexual desire, then kissing was the proclamation of love’s desire.
It was hard to go from luxury to frugality.
Having tasted both sex and love, having obtained both sex and love—Chi Yumo’s sex and love were irreplaceable treasures to Shi Youwan.
What more did she need to do to make Xiao Mo lower her guard again, to have her call her “sister” once more?
Chi Yumo’s arms were outside the blanket. She pressed down on Shi Youwan’s wandering hand at her waist through the fabric. Once it stilled, she picked up her phone again.
She typed politely: [Thanks to President Shi yesterday, I’m very grateful. It’s just past five—sleep a bit more. I put your phone on the bedside table too, on your right side.]
The form of address hadn’t changed.
Still President Shi.
Shi Youwan felt like a flower that had bloomed to its fullest and was now on the verge of withering, shrouded in gloom. She turned her face into Chi Yumo’s embrace, found a more comfortable position, and mumbled, “Okay, I’ll sleep a bit more.”
This was the first time Chi Yumo had seen Shi Youwan so soft, clingy, and a little arrogantly petulant.
—Xiao Mo, I’m not the kind of delicate Omega who chases after you and clings to you. What kind of relationship you want, what kind of partner you want—you need to figure that out yourself.
Sister, have you figured it out?
Has your “figuring it out” turned you into someone who’s not yourself anymore?
With half of Shi Youwan’s body pressed against her, Chi Yumo barely felt any weight.
Last night, while kissing from top to bottom, she had measured Shi Youwan’s body with her eyes and hands. She had lost a full size since their separation—her protruding, hardened bones on her torso had even hurt Chi Yumo’s palms.
Indescribable emotions lingered in her heart. She lowered her head and kissed the woman’s forehead, then rested her chin there, rubbing gently left and right, as if to soothe.
“Xiao Mo.”
Chi Yumo paused at the sound.
Shi Youwan tightened her arms, her heartbeat quickening—thump thump thump—her breathing growing heavy, though she didn’t lift her head at all.
Her full lips pressed against Chi Yumo’s collarbone through a layer of fabric, opening and closing softly. “Don’t hide from me anymore. Let me love you, okay?”
—Sister, can I love you?
—Xiao Mo, only when you’ve flown high enough, far enough, and seen enough of the world will you truly understand what you want, what you can have, what you like, and what you should love.
Shi Youwan’s words from that day still echoed in her ears. Chi Yumo knew she would probably never forget those words that kept her at arm’s length, those reminders of how insignificant, immature, lowly, and delusional she was.
The affectionate thoughts came like a dream, like a rainstorm—fierce in arrival, quick to dissipate. So she remained silent, holding Shi Youwan as they slept until dawn.
Downstairs, Chen Qiuxue had already delivered Chi Yumo’s luggage.
The main team back home was returning today, so she and Chi Yumo definitely couldn’t go together. Thus, early in the morning, she checked out, dragged two suitcases, and came to “throw herself” on Shi Youwan’s mercy.
If there was room, she’d stay; if not, a nearby hotel would do— the company would reimburse her anyway.
After coming in, she asked Qiao Ke, who was sitting on the sofa browsing the web on her laptop, “Assistant Qiao, when are you all heading back home?”
“The day after tomorrow.” Qiao Ke was busy with work. She had just ordered breakfast, and before that, received Shi Youwan’s message to change their return flights.
“I see…”
“By the way, Assistant Chen, change your and Miss Mo’s flights too. I’ll send you the details. You two stay here for the next three days—the house is big, and there’s a room on the first floor.”
“Got it, thanks Assistant Qiao, and thanks President Shi.” Chen Qiuxue smiled and thanked her, but she felt like Assistant Qiao wasn’t very welcoming.
Her little boss was here, and President Shi wouldn’t let her go, so she had to “go with the host’s arrangements”—whatever they said, she did.
She glanced at the tightly closed door of the room on the second floor that she had entered yesterday, then at Qiao Ke hugging her laptop on the sofa, endlessly busy. She had her own bitter pill to swallow. “This is Miss Mo’s suitcase. I’ll leave it in the living room for now, and take it up when she wakes.”
“Mm, sure, leave it there.” Qiao Ke responded casually.
This time, Chen Qiuxue was truly wronging her.
Last night, worried something might go wrong upstairs or with Zhang Kai’s situation, she had kept watch in the living room almost all night.
She had only slept two or three hours and got up super early, busy with this and that—where did she have the energy to smile and greet people?
Those two… people had woken early. President Shi only had her change the flights, order breakfast, prepare clothes for Miss Mo, and specially instructed not to buy medicine.
It was just dawn—where was she supposed to buy clothes?
If Chen Qiuxue hadn’t come early, she’d probably be racking her brains right now to figure out plus-size clothes for Chi Yumo.
President Shi’s clothes were all tailored slim-fit; Chi Yumo was tall with a large frame—she couldn’t fit.
Yesterday evening there had been time to go out and buy some, but President Shi had thrown herself into the mouth of a Susceptible Period Alpha like “no one else but me”—how could she dare leave?
Even if it was the extremely familiar Chi Yumo, a Susceptible Period Alpha had too many uncontrollables.
Leaving Chi Yumo’s suitcase in the living room, Chen Qiuxue dragged her own into the empty room at the far end of the first floor, sighing that this job was no easy task—full of surprises and dangers, liable to scare her into a heart attack someday.
In the master bedroom upstairs, Shi Youwan, wearing the bathrobe Chi Yumo had fetched from the bathroom, got up and went into the bathroom to freshen up.
[Last night I only wiped your body down. Rinse off before changing clothes.]
Thinking of how she had been completely naked under the lights, looked at and kissed by Xiao Mo several times over, Shi Youwan’s face and ear tips flushed red enough to drip blood.
She grabbed a toothbrush to brush her teeth first before showering, but with her mouth full of foam, her peripheral vision caught the used Inhibitor in the trash can.
It was like falling into an ice cave.
So Xiao Mo hadn’t just gotten her bag for the phone—she had gotten it for the Inhibitor too?
No wonder, when morning should have been the peak of desire awakening, Xiao Mo during her Susceptible Period had sat there unmoved, cold toward her as if they hadn’t melted into one last night.
How much did Xiao Mo resist her? Resist to the point of injecting an Inhibitor to tough it out rather than touch her again?
Inhibitor, Inhibitor. Shi Youwan tilted her head back.
Last summer, on the night Xiao Mo had cried and begged her not to marry Yin Man, not to become someone else’s wife, hadn’t she injected an Inhibitor right in front of Xiao Mo? Xiao Mo had been in her Susceptible Period then too.
The pain she felt now was exactly what Xiao Mo had endured. It was her own fault—she couldn’t blame heaven or Xiao Mo.
Her eyes burned until her vision blurred. Shi Youwan bent over to spit out the foam, cupped water to rinse her mouth, then splashed handful after handful of cold water on her face, trying to drive away the heat in her eye sockets.
But it seemed to have no effect.
Xiao Mo wouldn’t kiss her lips, wouldn’t accept her love, wouldn’t be intimate with her anymore, wouldn’t…
Tears mixed with the clear water, trickling past the corners of her mouth, vanishing into the hollows of her jawline.
Shi Youwan calmly tilted her face up, but inside, it felt like a chaotic battlefield—no smoke, no blood, but heavy casualties. Beneath the skin, wounds everywhere, none unscathed.
Hearing the bathroom faucet run for a long time with no movement from inside, Chi Yumo grew worried and lightly knocked three times on the door.
Last night, she had controlled her strength, not going at it ruthlessly—gentle comings and goings, always letting Shi Youwan lie there. It shouldn’t have affected her mobility.
The door pulled open from inside. Shi Youwan, face full of water, hugged her. “Xiao Mo, is the Inhibitor… better than me?”
