An Ruo's smile stiffened. "I told you, someone as aloof as Master Shen wouldn't be amused by such a corny joke. And sure enough... I was the only one laughing, like an idiot."
The man's muscular arm rested on the edge of the bathtub, a faint, elusive smile gradually curling at the corner of his lips. She really was an idiot.
"Only something like that could make you laugh like a fool."
What did he mean by that?!
Was he calling her stupid, or saying she was tacky?
An Ruo didn't want to press further, figuring the man couldn't say anything decent anyway.
She took her anger out on his head, messing up his short hair into an even more ridiculous style, wishing she could snap a photo with her phone.
Suddenly, a sharp sting shot through her fingertip. An Ruo pulled out her hand, still covered in foam. Her fragile nail, strained from roughly scrubbing his hair, had broken.
Tiny beads of blood appeared. She rinsed the foam off her hand with clean water.
"What's wrong?"
An Ruo answered honestly, "I broke a nail."
A cold sneer escaped the man's thin lips. "Clumsy."
An Ruo raised her hand and swiped it through the air above his head in a mock slap.
This guy had a face that could rival the heavens—why did he have to talk like such a jerk?!
"Get me some clean clothes."
An Ruo blinked in surprise. "You're not washing anymore?"
"Go bandage that up. Don't get your dirty blood on me."
Was he a toilet in his past life? Why was his mouth always so foul?
An Ruo pursed her lips, got up, and headed to the walk-in closet to find him clean pajamas.
In the bathroom, the man took off his eye mask, grabbed a towel nearby, and dried the water droplets off his body. Hearing footsteps at the door, he said in a low voice, "Stop right there."
The girl, returning with the clothes, froze at the door, not daring to step inside.
Wrapping a towel around himself, the man walked to the door, cracked it open, and reached out a hand. "Wait outside."
An Ruo dumbly handed the clothes to that hand. "You don't need my help?"
The man scoffed, his tone lifting slightly. "Sure you're not just trying to take advantage of me?"
What the hell?
An Ruo's face flushed. She instinctively touched her cheek and muttered inwardly: Narcissist!
Hearing her footsteps fade away, the man closed the door and changed.
---
An Ruo dried her hair and came out of the bathroom. The man sat on the bed with his arms crossed, his vacant, unseeing eyes staring straight ahead.
"Master Shen, it's getting late. Do you want to rest?"
The man furrowed his brow. "You're not sleeping?"
"I have a paper I need to finish urgently. You go ahead and sleep."
"Then go write it somewhere else. I can't sleep with the light on."
An Ruo: "Does it make a difference to you... whether the light is on or off?"
"Say that again?"
The girl smiled, two sweet dimples appearing on her cheeks. "I'm joking. Fine, I won't disturb your rest. I'll go write outside."
She hadn't planned to write in the room anyway.
An Ruo picked up her laptop from the desk. Just as she was about to leave, the man called out to her in a low voice.
"I can't sleep."
The girl looked confused. "...So?"
"Get me to sleep first, then worry about your stuff."
Was this... the cold-faced young master asking to be soothed to sleep?
She could handle putting a child to bed, but soothing a grown man like this? That was a real challenge.
"Master Shen, I'm not good at putting people to sleep. How about I tell you a bedtime story?"
Master Shen sneered coldly. "Do you think I'm a three-year-old?"
This stupid woman—her brain was just for show!
What he meant was for her to come to bed. What was so important that she had to stay up all night?
"Only a three-year-old would need someone to coax them to sleep, right?"
The man's thick brows knitted deeply. "An Qing!"
An Ruo sighed and walked over. "Master Shen, I really don't know how to soothe anyone."
"Get lost!"
The man lay down in a huff, pulling the blanket over himself and turning his back to her, like a sulking child.
Looks like she really would need to read him a children's bedtime story to calm him down.
An Ruo stuck out her tongue. Fine, she'd get lost.
The winter night was especially cold. An Ruo sat cross-legged on the sofa, wrapped in a coat. Snow began to fall outside, and the dim yellow streetlight filtered in...
She caught sight of the beautiful scene and couldn't help but stop typing.
Shen Xiaoxing was suffering from insomnia. This was the first time since An Ruo had married into the family. Before, it was always her bad sleeping habits that woke him up. Now... he was starting to feel unaccustomed to it.
He got out of bed, pulled open the curtains, and saw heavy snow falling outside, cloaking the night in a unique, silver beauty.
A slender figure stood beneath the window. He looked down.
The girl, wrapped in only a coat, was strolling alone in the snow. Every now and then, she'd crouch down to pack a snowball and toss it, laughing happily all by herself.
"Ah Xing, come here..."
A woman scooped up a handful of snow, her dimples clearly showing on her cheeks as she smiled. Mischievously, she packed it into a ball and threw it at him.
The snowball hit the young man, and snowflakes splattered onto his face, cold, but... his heart felt warm and joyful.
Shen Xiaoxing was dazed. The smiling face before him gradually overlapped with the girl's innocent, carefree smile. They had the same dimples.
---
Shaking off the chill, An Ruo buried herself in her paper again. The clock in the living room ticked away, time slowly passing...
The girl stretched and checked the time—it was already two in the morning.
Yawning, she closed her laptop. By now, the man was surely asleep. She'd just rough it on the sofa for the night.
Too tired to care, An Ruo lay down and fell asleep, completely unaware of the figure standing at the top of the stairs.
Shen Xiaoxing had been watching the girl burning the midnight oil. He couldn't sleep and, on a whim, wanted to come down and see what she was doing.
Only after he heard her steady breathing did he slowly approach, sitting on the coffee table to study her sleeping face.
She was beautiful—a beauty that blended two types: one was the sweet, dimpled smile, and the other, when she pursed her lips and said nothing, was cool, commanding, and strikingly fierce.
It was rare for someone to embody both purity and allure so perfectly.
She was truly a seductress.
No wonder Shen Tingfeng's eyes had been glued to her the moment he saw her.
Thinking of the way Shen Tingfeng looked at her, Shen Xiaoxing felt an inexplicable jealousy, as if something that belonged to him was being coveted and spied on.