“Don’t struggle, Gao-kun. It’s useless. With your strength, you’ll never be able to undo those handcuffs on your own.”
Tsukiyuki Rio wrapped her arms tightly around Gao Sijin’s neck, smiling with pure, childlike innocence.
Food passed through her lips and teeth, mingled with saliva, and flowed into Gao Sijin’s mouth. Even if he didn’t want to swallow, her tongue forced it down his throat.
It was less mouth-to-mouth feeding and more an excuse to savor a perverse sort of kiss.
Stripped of his freedom, Gao Sijin had no grounds to refuse. He could only let her play with him as she pleased. His lips trembled with rage, his face pale, but it was all futile.
“Even your angry face is this adorable.” Her slender hands cupped Gao Sijin’s cheeks. “Gao-kun, you hid from me all day, only to end up in the palm of my hand anyway. So useless, so shameful. And yet, your clumsiness is something I adore so very much.”
She pressed herself against his chest once more.
The tips of their noses touched. His field of vision was completely filled by her breathtakingly beautiful face. Her scent filled his nostrils, the sound of her breathing and heartbeat his ears, the softness of her body wrapped around him his sense of touch. It was as if, in this entire world, nothing existed but her.
“I can feed myself. You don’t need to use your mouth anymore.”
“No way. Feeding Gao-kun personally is a truly addictive thing, just like a drug.” Tsukiyuki Rio rested her chin on Gao Sijin’s shoulder. “Actually, back when I first called out to Gao-kun in the cave, if you’d come out on your own, I might have treated you kindly. Maybe I would’ve even shown leniency and let you keep your memories. But in the end, Gao-kun still just wanted to keep hiding from me. It made me terribly sad.”
“Everything you’ve given me is a lie. What right do you have to be sad?”
“But the happiness I gave you was not the slightest bit fake. In this world, apart from me, there’s no girl worthy of Gao-kun. Why can’t you just understand this truth?”
Her hot lips sucked at the flesh of Gao Sijin’s neck, leaving a light red kiss mark.
The car continued its smooth journey. After feeding Gao Sijin, Tsukiyuki Rio impatiently began to enjoy the spoils of her latest hunting game.
Having recovered his memories, Gao Sijin twisted his body with all his might, but it was useless. The handcuffs were even bruising his wrists.
Tsukiyuki Rio’s self-imposed love left Gao Sijin feeling completely powerless. He gazed out the car window at the tranquil night, trying to ease the humiliation of her forced affections.
He looked up slightly. The sky was full of stars.
He had been told he was going abroad for work, but after he left, there was no news at all. If his Aunt and Cousin knew he’d been kidnapped by a Zaibatsu Heiress, they would surely be incredibly worried.
And Feng Xiaohe…
Among the jumbled fragments of memory, scenes of becoming lovers with Feng Xiaohe occasionally surfaced. His life had been as ordinary as an ant’s, yet it had been so fulfilling.
He wondered if those sisters had managed to live the lives they wanted.
His body was imprisoned here, but his soul had long since drifted to the highest heavens.
At this moment, Tsukiyuki Rio, who had been painstakingly using physical sensation to tease Gao Sijin, suddenly seemed so insignificant for some reason. Even pitiable.
Losing his freedom was hateful, certainly. But wasn’t the girl sitting in his lap, so full of extremes and obsession, equally tragic?
“Rio, is your world just me alone?”
“Of course. In my world, there’s only room for Gao-kun.”
Tsukiyuki Rio blinked her adoring crimson eyes. Bewitching, enchanting, soul-snatching.
A desolate, proud, and poignant beauty, like a single rose.
“If your life has only me in it, then your life is incomplete. Why must you obsess over me? Why don’t you go and see more of the outside world?”
“Because the outside world has never been able to give me gentleness.”
Tsukiyuki Rio, who moments ago was still drunk on love, suddenly hung her head low, like a little girl caught doing something wrong.
There had been similar situations before.
Especially during those first days after Tsukiyuki Rio had kidnapped him. She would occasionally burst into tears for no reason.
“Ah.”
Gao Sijin sighed softly.
He didn’t know what kind of life Tsukiyuki Rio had experienced, but he imagined it couldn’t have been a happy one. If he could truly hate Tsukiyuki Rio from the bottom of his heart, Gao Sijin would feel much better than he did now. But it was precisely these tangled, messy emotions he couldn’t sever that trapped Gao Sijin’s heart in a cocoon of its own making.
“We’re here.”
The car returned to yesterday’s campground. To Gao Sijin’s surprise, where yesterday there had only been two simple tents on the empty ground, today there stood a two-story small log cabin. Besides that, over a dozen RVs were parked there.
Familiar faces also came into view one by one.
They were Tsukiyuki Rio’s maids. Today, however, none of them wore their maid uniforms. Everyone was in casual clothes. Morgana stood before a grill, cooking meat. Emilia was stewing some South Asian-style dishes. Hannah was carrying a platter of roasted pork knuckle to the table.
All sorts of famous dishes.
Covering cuisines from practically all over the world.
The girls were laughing and chatting happily. Some maids were playing cards, others were playing mahjong, while those who preferred quiet were reading a book in a corner.
“I know Gao-kun gets lonely sometimes, so today I called everyone over to relax together.” Looking at Gao Sijin’s stunned expression, Tsukiyuki Rio smiled cheerfully as she unlocked his handcuffs and shackles, removing the chains from his body one by one. “I was certainly a bit angry earlier, but Gao-kun must understand that I still deeply love Gao-kun. Let’s relax and enjoy today. Tonight, we’ll sleep in the small log cabin.”
“Rio, are you going to alter my memories?”
“That depends on Gao-kun’s behavior.”
Tsukiyuki Rio took Gao Sijin’s arm and got out of the car, Yu Qingxue following close behind.
Seeing Tsukiyuki Rio return, the maids offered their greetings and gathered around.
“Welcome back, Young Lady Tsukiyuki, and Lord Sijin.”
“So you were caught in the end after all, Master. But managing to hide for so long this time is still a kind of progress.”
“After hiding for so long, you must be starving, right? Come, sit down and eat something quickly.”
Surrounded by delicious aromas, Gao Sijin was half-pushed, half-led to the dining table.
Actually, it was less that they were on holiday, and more that Tsukiyuki Rio had pre-deployed them around the perimeter of the mountain forest in case Gao Sijin really did escape.
“Our Sijin spent the whole day crawling on the floor of a cave today. I’ve truly never seen a man so afraid of his wife. So useless!” Yu Qingxue seemed to have had a bit too much to drink. A can of Budweiser in her left hand and two skewers of grilled lamb in her right, she had the full bearing of a Northeast Heroine. “Brother Sijin, if you ask me, a real man from the Northeast needs to stand tall and straight, show our Young Miss here what a man is! Otherwise, you’ll be completely under her thumb for the rest of your life!”
“How do I ‘stand tall and straight’?” His heart, originally somewhat gloomy, felt a little better the moment he heard Yu Qingxue speak.
“Stand your pillar tall, learn the arts of the bedchamber! I say, in other aspects, you’ve got no chance of beating the Young Miss. But in that area, you can absolutely fight for the upper hand. In the future, as soon as you unleash your Optimus Prime, the Young Miss will instantly turn into your sweet little wife and agree to any demand. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“How rude!” Morgana stood up, her face red as she shouted a reprimand.
But Tsukiyuki Rio was laughing so hard she couldn’t close her mouth. Clinging to Gao Sijin’s arm, she said in a delicate, coquettish voice:
“If Gao-kun could really reach that level, letting Gao-kun occasionally go back to his hometown to visit… well, that wouldn’t be entirely out of the question.”
