“I asked if you’d slept with Su Yicen, and you’ve been silent for three minutes now.”
Her fingers flew across the keyboard as Song Chan finished the final part of her proposal, checked it for errors, and sent it off.
She snapped back to reality, and the image of Zhou Qining’s shocked expression—her jaw practically dropping—flashed through her mind again.
“So, you got your marriage certificate with the Top Idol?!”
“Su Yicen has such a great body. How’s his performance in bed?”
Song Chan shook her head, a touch helpless. “The editor-in-chief is rushing me for the proposal. I just finished writing it and sent it over.”
“Also, we’ve always treated each other with respect like guests. You can totally imagine our relationship as that of roommates sharing an apartment.”
At some point, her phone had fallen over. Song Chan propped it back up on the table. On the screen, Zhou Qining munched on chips and vented indignantly, “You haven’t had a vacation in over half a year, and on your rare day off, they still make you work on proposals! Would your company grind to a halt without you?”
As her best friend railed against the company, Song Chan picked up the coffee on her desk. The bitter taste of the iced Americano spread across her tongue, sweeping away the last traces of drowsiness in her head. She didn’t respond, tacitly agreeing.
Only after Zhou Qining finished griping about the company did she finally register what Song Chan had just said. She got so excited that she nearly choked on her chips.
“Wait, you’ve been married for over half a year and you haven’t slept together?!”
Zhou Qining wiped the chip grease from her hands and brought the phone closer, her face deadly serious. “Chanchan, how do you hold back?”
“What do you mean, how do I hold back…” Song Chan looked at herself in the video, her slender fingers propping up her chin. She glanced left and right at her own face and joked, “Why don’t you say how he holds back?”
Indeed, she had an aggressively alluring beauty. Her small, bright, and seductive face featured exquisitely defined features, full and shapely red lips, and eyes with slightly upturned corners that carried a captivating charm. As she smiled and scrutinized Zhou Qining on the screen, she looked every bit the femme fatale.
Zhou Qining swallowed hard. Forget men—no man could walk past Song Chan without being drawn in. Even women would have to look back twice. If they hadn’t grown up together in diapers, even she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be swayed.
She admitted, “You… you’re truly a little demoness…”
After a few seconds of silence, Zhou Qining slapped her thigh and fumed, “Su Yicen is a male demon too. Didn’t that leaked photo from his scene with Zhang Yu go viral? Half-wet messy hair, gold-rimmed glasses, shirt soaked and clinging to his body—that muscle was a total hormone bomb…”
Putting away her fangirl expression, Zhou Qining spoke earnestly, “Chanchan, sleeping with him is a win, and you’re legally entitled to it.”
The words floated past her ears, and Song Chan didn’t take them to heart.
But when she faced the image on her screen of Su Yicen in a sleek, abstinent-style suit, she still closed her laptop. The cover for the next issue of the magazine, which she had been able to view objectively before, suddenly felt hard to look at straight.
Now, no matter how she looked at it, it seemed so suggestive.
She cut her off. “Stop! I’m a proper person. My head doesn’t have all that yellow waste you do.”
“Besides, ours is a secret marriage by agreement, just to deal with our parents. There’s not a shred of romance between us.”
Zhou Qining paused for two seconds but soon resumed her tirade. “I’ve known you for so many years, and I’ve never heard of you knowing the Top Idol. If you hadn’t let it slip today, how long were you planning to hide it from me?”
“Song Chan! How dare you keep something as big as marriage from me!”
“My bad, my bad.” Song Chan took a sip of coffee, feeling a bit guilty, but she still corrected her, “We just got the certificate. No wedding.”
This time, she really was in the wrong. After all, getting the certificate with Su Yicen was something she hadn’t even considered.
They had no feelings for each other—not even familiarity, really. They just had the advantage of families who knew each other’s roots. With their parents’ approval and encouragement, they went along with the elders’ wishes.
It all felt inexplicable yet perfectly reasonable. It was just two people who needed to be married for appearances’ sake getting a marriage certificate together to fend off the family pressure.
Zhou Qining still couldn’t wrap her head around it. “So how did you two end up getting the certificate together?”
The secret marriage agreement explicitly stated that their married status could not be revealed unless absolutely necessary—and that clause had been her idea.
She couldn’t go into too much detail, so Song Chan explained, “We met a few times as kids, but I barely remember it. You know how relentless my mom is about marriage. Coincidentally, his family was pushing too, same goal, so we got the certificate.”
She emphasized, “Su Yicen and I aren’t even close to familiar.”
Amid Zhou Qining’s wide-eyed astonishment, Song Chan downplayed the whole thing.
Getting hitched with just anyone—that was so Song Chan. She had always lived brightly, languidly, freely, and unrestrained. Even something this absurd seemed perfectly natural when it happened to her.
Zhou Qining still couldn’t get it. “So even the Top Idol gets nagged to marry?”
Biting her lip, Song Chan thought for a moment. “Probably… the kind where if he doesn’t marry, he has to go home and inherit the family business.”
Hearing that, Zhou Qining got it. Her face twisted in worldly disdain as she lambasted the capitalists at the top of the pyramid. “Damn it! Isn’t earning a living off your face good enough?!”
Perhaps her anger was too intense, the vibe seeping through the screen and affecting this side. Song Chan’s pen rolled onto the floor. She bent down to pick it up, exposing the wing-like collarbones on one side of her neck. Faintly visible beneath her silk nightgown was the outline cupped by her bra.
Seeing this inadvertent glimpse of allure, Zhou Qining shamefully looked away. Living every day with a woman like this demoness, she didn’t believe any man wouldn’t be moved.
She crumpled the chip bag in her hand. Now, she worried deeply about Song Chan’s future sex life.
“You don’t think… Su Yicen is sexually frigid, do you…”
Song Chan sighed. Her mood, which had just settled, rippled again. As she pondered how to change the subject,
Zhou Qining’s eyes suddenly widened twofold, staring at Song Chan in utter disbelief.
“Song Chan, no way. Don’t tell me you’re the frigid one!…”
Beep beep beep—
Zhou Qining’s face on the screen glitched into a double image as an incoming call popped up, cutting off the video.
Song Chan had just started to feel relieved that the call had saved her from the awkward topic when she saw the name on the screen.
【Su Yicen】
The very protagonist of all that dirty talk they’d been having was calling now. She inexplicably felt the tension of getting caught red-handed.
Everything around her went quiet. She felt her heart racing and contracting in her chest, as if she could hear her own heartbeat.
She answered the call. The cool touch of the phone screen startled her, making her realize her face was burning hot.
She and Su Yicen rarely communicated. Even living together, they stayed in their own rooms—like she’d told Zhou Qining, their relationship was exactly like roommates sharing an apartment, maybe even less familiar than that.
This call left Song Chan baffled. She didn’t speak first. After a few seconds of silence on his end, Su Yicen’s cool voice came through, flat and emotionless.
“I’m not coming back tonight.”
So that was it. Song Chan responded with a simple “Mm.”
He continued, “There’s the Film and Television Awards tonight, then an unavoidable dinner afterward. I’ll probably drink, and after it ends, I’ll head straight to the next city for tomorrow’s schedule…”
Su Yicen rarely spoke so much. He patiently explained everything, like a normal couple checking in on schedules.
She listened quietly until he finished with no more to say. Song Chan replied, “Okay. Be safe.”
The perfunctory conversation wound down. Song Chan felt like her face was heating the phone screen. The listener went quiet again, their silent breaths seeming to draw them closer.
Just as she thought Su Yicen would hang up, he suddenly said, “Song Chan, take good care of yourself while I’m not home.”
His tone was cool and low, seemingly laced with a hint of gentleness. Startled by the thought, Song Chan patted her head to snap out of it. She must be exhausted from work, hallucinating like this.
She replied evenly, “Mm, you too.”
Silence fell on the other end. After a few seconds with no words, he finally hung up when she didn’t say more.
Only when the busy tone sounded did Song Chan realize this was the first time Su Yicen had stayed out overnight since they got the certificate.
Su Yicen was always swamped with schedules, but since they’d started living together after registering, no matter how busy, he came home every day. As long as Song Chan was home, she always saw him.
Song Chan knew theirs was a marriage of convenience, just to satisfy their families’ demands. He had no real need to report his schedule to her.
Afraid that living under the same roof lately had given him the wrong idea, and not wanting to cross the lines of their secret marriage agreement, Song Chan drafted a WeChat message and sent it.
Song Chan: 【You don’t actually need to tell me these things. I won’t pry into your schedule.】
In the chat window, Su Yicen’s name quickly changed to ‘typing…’, so he was at least free now.
The words lingered on her screen for a long time, but no reply came. Su Yicen wasn’t usually this slow at typing.
Song Chan grew a bit worried. Had drawing that line made him uncomfortable? Then a message popped up from the other side.
Su Yicen: 【Afraid of slipping up】
Just three simple words, no punctuation. After it appeared, the chat interface reverted to his name.
Song Chan’s grip tightened on her phone, a touch embarrassed. She’d misunderstood.
She should have known—Su Yicen was the Top Traffic Idol, heir to the Su Corporation. He’d proposed the secret marriage and the agreement to protect both sides’ interests.
A relationship with clear boundaries from the start wouldn’t deepen from brief cohabitation.
The check-in was just Su Yicen being cautious about blowing their cover. And she’d overthought it. People really shouldn’t idle, or their minds wandered.
Song Chan lightly patted her head a few times, trying to clear her brain and lift her mood.
Outside, the sky gradually darkened. It was only three, but already pitch black. Looked like bad weather ahead.
Song Chan sat on the carpet, leaning against the dark gray leather sofa, watching the swallows flying low outside the window. They carried twigs and mud, diligently building a nest under the eaves.
As she watched, her eyelids grew heavier. Unknowingly, Song Chan fell asleep.
Some time later, she suddenly felt a warmth on her lips. A gentle, scorching kiss landed there.
In her daze, she vaguely recognized him as Su Yicen. Her guard dropped.
The kiss deepened. The man’s cool, faint scent invaded every inch of her body until a sense of suffocation hit. Song Chan pushed against his chest in resistance and was finally released.
But the kiss didn’t end. Su Yicen trailed kisses down her neck bit by bit, his hot lips pausing at her collarbone. His white teeth nipped lightly.
The painful, itchy sensation made every nerve in Song Chan’s body tense instantly, her struggles weakening.
At some point, her hands had climbed to Su Yicen’s nape. Her gaze fixed on his bobbing Adam’s apple.
As if pushed, Song Chan leaned forward and licked it lightly.
Her action shattered Su Yicen’s defenses. He pressed down mercilessly, his heavy breaths scattering over Song Chan’s ear, his low, hoarse voice thick with desire.
“Do you want… to continue?”