[La Maison — September 15, 8:05 PM]
The valet was at the curb before they reached it.
Lin Feng accepted the keys with one hand. His other arm stayed across Lin Weiwei's shoulders, her arm stayed across his back, her hand resting against his side.
She had not let go since they stood up from the table.
The chaperone held the passenger door open. Lin Weiwei climbed in. Lin Feng walked around to the driver's side, slid in, started the engine.
The sky outside La Maison was still somewhat bright. The patches of purple from earlier hadn't gone, like a very long twilight.
"Where to, fiancée?"
Lin Weiwei rolled her eyes at him, then a smile crept onto her lips before she could stop it. She turned her face toward the window.
"The Heng Da, three-timer."
"Hmm… The Heng Da…"
Lin Feng pulled up the map app, searching the original Lin Feng's memories for the place at the same time.
Then he found it. It was a cinema downtown.
"A cinema downtown?"
"It's a high-end cinema. And it's ours for the night."
"You rented a cinema?"
"Mm."
"You rented a whole cinema?"
"Big Brother. Drive."
Lin Feng drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gear shift. He drove the car the way he'd been trained to, with one hand always on the shift, even with nothing to shift.
For a moment, he looked at his passenger, who was looking away at the window. He was tempted to push her on how much she had spent tonight, but he held the thought back in the end.
Once Lin Weiwei noticed Lin Feng wasn't looking at her anymore, she stole glances at him.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about him. He drove like always — calm, both hands where they always were.
He felt like the same Big Brother she'd always known. Except he'd been acting nothing like himself all day.
But Lin Weiwei pushed the thought away.
Then slowly, she extended her arm toward the middle of the car, and her hand found his on the gear shift, light at first, and then settled — her thumb against the side of his knuckle.
"So, what are we going to watch tonight?"
"You'll see."
"Weiwei."
"You used to watch it with me when we were eight. You don't remember?"
He did not. The memory was somewhere in the murky bank of the original Lin Feng's childhood. In the end, he failed to find anything inside his cloudy memory.
Lin Feng tried to guess the answer.
"A horror?"
"Mm." Lin Weiwei nodded.
"But I thought you hated horror movies," Lin Feng said, remembering a line on her character card.
"Well… It's because I was young and stupid then."
He glanced sideways at her. The streetlamps moved across her face in slow pulses of yellow light, and she was still wearing the cream blouse and the cartoon pajamas, the rabbit slippers tucked against the footwell of his car.
She was smiling at the window in a way that she clearly did not want him to see.
She is definitely planning for something. Lin Feng thought as he turned his eyes back to the road and drove on.
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[Heng Da Cinema — 8:20 PM]
The chaperone at the front entrance bowed at a thirty-degree angle when Lin Feng's car came up the cobblestone drive. The lobby beyond the glass doors was empty. The staff had been pulled to the perimeter, and only a single usher stood waiting near the main hall, his hands clasped at his front.
He did not look at them as they passed.
The two of them soon entered the theater hall. Inside, the theater was enormous. A massive screen dominated the far wall, flanked by stadium seating that climbed upward into shadow. The premium sound system alone was probably worth millions — and it was all theirs.
And completely empty.
Their footsteps echoed off the walls as they walked down the carpeted aisle, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the space.
Lin Weiwei stayed close to his side. Closer than necessary.
Lin Feng sat in the center of the middle row. Lin Weiwei sat in the seat directly to his right. The other three hundred and eighteen seats stayed empty.
The lights dimmed.
She was already gripping the armrest. The previews had not started yet. The screen was still showing the rating-board logo and a black title card, and her knuckles had gone pale against the leather.
Lin Feng looked sideways at her.
"Weiwei, are you sure you're not scared already?" he teased gently, though inwardly he was still trying to gather his wits.
"I'm just staying close." She replied, not looking at him, her cold sweat glistening. "For safety."
"The movie hasn't started," he continued, "...look, you're even gripping the armrest."
"Preparation!" Lin Weiwei said, a tinge of panic audible in her voice. "I'm preparing! For the scary parts of course, Big Brother."
The previews began. Loud. It was some kind of action film, the trailer for it cut at the rhythm of an industrial drum machine. Lin Feng watched without really seeing it. His attention kept catching at the edge of his vision where Lin Weiwei sat rigid in her seat, one hand on the armrest, the other clenched into the hem of her oversized blouse.
The previews ended. The screen went black. The auditorium speakers held the silence for one long beat, then erupted in a low chord of strings as the main feature began.
Lin Weiwei did not move.
Lin Feng settled back into the seat.
Yet, he couldn't help but chuckle slightly, though the sound came out lighter than he intended.
Hehe. I'm in danger.
--------------------
Twenty minutes passed.
The film was a haunted-house piece. A young couple, a remote inheritance, the wife noticing things her husband refused to see. The camera moved slowly down a long hallway. The strings began to climb.
Lin Weiwei's grip on the armrest tightened.
Then the first jump scare hit. A shadow crossed the screen, sudden and sharp, and the music cracked open with it.
"Ah!"
She grabbed his arm.
Her fingers dug into his bicep through the dark cotton of his shirt, hard enough that he could feel the small half-moons of her nails. She did not let go when the scene resolved. She held on as the music settled back into ambient strings, as the wife on the screen began a conversation about renovating the kitchen, as the camera pulled back into a wide shot.
"Scared already?"
"Big Brother. I told you. They're scarier now."
"I was young and stupid!" She still hadn't let go. "I didn't know what fear was!"
"And now you do?"
"Yes! Very much! It's so terrifying, Big Brother!"
The scene passed. The tension on screen dissolved into quiet dialogue between the lead characters.
Yet Lin Weiwei didn't let go.
Her grip loosened, but her hand remained as warm pressure through the fabric. Her breathing was slightly too fast, her heart pounding hard enough that he could feel it through her fingernails.
It was definitely not from the movie.
Lin Feng didn't pull away or comment. He just let her hold on.
Her warmth seeped through his sleeve, and he caught the faint scent of vanilla and butter still clinging to her hair from hours in the kitchen.
Lin Weiwei's fingers pressed slightly firmer against his arm, testing his reaction.
He still didn't move.
Her shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly, and the corner of her lips curved up in the darkness where he couldn't see. Her thumb traced a slow, deliberate circle against his bicep before settling into place.
--------------------
Minutes passed. The film droned on with creaking doors and shadowy hallways, but Lin Feng found his attention split between the screen and the warmth pressed against his arm.
Then another jump scare hit, bigger this time.
The ghost's face filled the screen with a shriek of violins, and her hand slid down his arm until it found his hand. Her fingers laced through his.
She gripped his hand tight — really tight — her palm pressed flat against his, and her breath came out in a half-shaky whisper that did not match the comfort she had been demonstrating two minutes earlier.
"Sorry!" Her voice came out breathless. "It's just—it's really scary!"
"It's the same movie we saw before."
"That was ten years ago, Big Brother!"
"The ghost didn't get scarier in ten years."
"JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME HOLD YOUR HAND!"
The words were out before she could stop them.
Her eyes went wide. Her free hand flew up to cover her mouth, and for one full second, she sat completely frozen in her seat with her hand clamped over her own mouth and her other hand still wrapped around his.
He chuckled.
It was low and quiet — more like a vibration in his chest than a sound.
He did not pull away.
"Yes, Big Brother. Just like that. Just let me hold your hand. Okay?" Lin Weiwei turned her face slightly away, into the dim, her voice so small it almost wasn't audible.
But it was enough for Lin Feng to hear what she just said.
Her palm was slightly sweaty against his, but her fingers only tightened their grip.
Every few minutes, she would squeeze his hand harder whenever the music swelled ominously. The timing matched the scares on screen perfectly—too perfectly.
Neither said anything.
She bit her lower lip to keep the smile off her face.
The scene on the screen resolved. Quiet dialogue. The husband, still oblivious. The wife, increasingly less so. Lin Weiwei did not let go of his hand. Lin Feng did not move it either.
Lin Weiwei had stopped watching the movie minutes ago.
--------------------
Then, the third act of the film began.
The tension on screen built steadily, strings rising in pitch as the camera crept down a darkened hallway. Lin Feng felt Lin Weiwei's grip tighten on his hand, her body coiling like a spring beside him.
Then the major jump scare hit like a bomb, sudden and violent and perfectly timed for maximum impact.
She screamed and stood up. Then she shifted sideways, and in slow motion, she was 'falling' directly into his lap.
Then she curled toward him, her face buried into his chest as her arms wrapped around him, her entire body pressing against his.
Lin Feng witnessed the entire slow-motion fall of his partner toward him. It was almost comical. Lin Weiwei just 'leapt' her way across the armrest.
As she buried herself in his embrace, he found himself noticing how comfortable it was to have her there.
She felt as soft and as light as a feather.
"I can't look!" Her voice came out muffled against his shirt. "It's too scary!"
Lin Feng looked down at the girl in his lap.
The angle had been too precise. The timing had been too perfect. She had landed exactly where she had wanted to land, and not one centimeter off.
Lin Weiwei peeked at him from his chest. When she saw he was looking at her, she hid back into his chest like a turtle.
It was definitely not an accident.
They both knew it was not.
Lin Feng played along.
His arms came up around her without him deciding for them to. One hand settled on the small of her back, over the cream cotton of her oversized blouse. The other hand found her hair and began to stroke it slowly, the way someone strokes the hair of a child who has just woken from a nightmare.
"Shh." His voice came out gentle. "I've got you."
She trembled against him.
"You're safe."
His hand moved through her hair.
She made a small contented sound into his shirt that was definitely not a frightened sound, and she pressed herself closer in a way that had nothing to do with the movie.
I'm in his lap. I'm actually in his lap. Lin Weiwei thought as her heart slammed against her ribs so hard she was sure he could feel it.
His heartbeat thudded under her ear, steady, calm, and controlled. His arms around her were strong, warm, and protective.
His fingers moved through her hair again, slow, careful, and as they passed the curve of her ear and into the warmth at the back of her neck — the memory surfaced.
It came in fragments. It did not come whole.
Yes, I'm his childbride.
The phrase arrived inside her head before the rest of it did. She remembered how her mother Jiang Mei and Lin Zhentian got married. She remembered that Ye Wanrou — Lin Feng's mother — had liked her.
Then she remembered signing a contract when she was five. A dinner at which she and Lin Feng sat side by side in front of so many. And after that, the beautiful auntie, Ye Wanrou left the household.
So that was what she was.
That was what she had always been.
And if it wasn't for my stupidity, I would still have been his.
Lin Weiwei's hands clenched in his shirt.
On the other side, Lin Feng's hand kept moving through her hair, and the movement did not change, and the girl in his lap did not register that anything had happened inside him at all.
He felt her hands clenching hard into his shirt. From there, he could feel not fear, but pure rage and fury within her. As if she wanted to hit someone.
Ten thousand chapters of garbage and the novel had never once bothered to explain her. Lin Feng breathed out slowly through his nose.
"Don't let me watch the scary parts."
"I won't."
"Comfort your little sister, Big Brother."
His chest tightened for one beat. His fingers paused for one heartbeat in her hair. Then they resumed the slow, gentle stroke they had been doing.
"Of course, little sister."
He emphasized the words slightly. Deliberately. The way he had emphasized the word fiancée on the way out of La Maison.
She heard it.
She pressed her smile into his shirt where he could not see it.
In his lap, Lin Weiwei stayed very, very still.
He said it on purpose. She closed her eyes against his chest and let the auditorium speakers carry the next sound forward without her.
--------------------
Minutes slipped by in comfortable silence.
Lin Weiwei stayed where she was, nestled against his chest with no intention of moving. The movie played on, cycling through scenes of suspense and brief respite, but she barely registered any of it.
She was too focused on the warmth surrounding her, the steady rhythm of his breathing, the way his hand continued its gentle path through her hair like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Sometimes, he would finger comb her hair, touching the nape of her neck. And sometimes, he would just place his hand on it and let it slide down to her back.
Then the horror movie shifted gears.
On screen, the lead couple had their romantic moments between the terrifying moments—intimate conversations and meaningful glances, tension building with every scene. The theater's speakers wrapped around them with soft piano and murmured confessions, the screen casting warm golden light across the empty seats.
Lin Weiwei couldn't see any of it. Her face was still buried in his chest.
But she could hear everything.
She already knew the entire plot. She could even recite the script down to the last detail.
Every tender word, every romantic confession, every stolen glance.
Her cheeks warmed against his shirt as the female lead whispered something about being afraid to lose the person she loved.
Did you hear that, Big Brother? That's what I want to say to you.
She held her breath as her thoughts ran wild, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
For a moment, she waited and listened, hoping that somehow, impossibly, he'd understood what she couldn't say out loud.
His hand never stopped moving through her hair.
That was it. Just the same slow, soothing strokes. The same steady heartbeat beneath her ear. The same calm breathing that hadn't changed once since she'd fallen into his lap.
He hadn't heard anything at all.
Of course he didn't. He can't read minds, you idiot.
But her chest still ached a little.
She pressed her face harder into his shirt, hiding whatever expression had crept onto her face.
"Is it still scary?" Lin Feng's voice rumbled through his chest, vibrating against her cheek.
"...Very scary."
"But Weiwei… I haven't seen you flinch in ten minutes."
"I'm flinching on the inside."
"Mm."
"Don't 'mm' me."
"Mm."
Lin Weiwei pinched Lin Feng's side, digging her fingers into the muscle above his hip.
Yet Lin Feng didn't even twitch.
But she'd felt it—the slight hitch in his breathing a moment ago, the way his fingers had paused for just a fraction of a second before resuming their steady rhythm.
And when she'd shifted against him earlier, his jaw had tightened almost imperceptibly against the top of her head.
His heart was the biggest giveaway as it began to beat faster.
Hmmm… You're not as calm as you pretend, Big Brother.
His hand kept stroking her hair, slower now and more deliberate. His fingers lingered at the nape of her neck, warm against her skin, before trailing back up—and there it was again, that tiny hesitation before he pulled away.
Come on now, Big Brother… Touch me…
You want to touch me more, right? I know you do…
The screen flickered with warm amber light as the romantic subplot swelled, filling the empty theater with swelling strings and the low hum of a love scene.
She could hear the female lead's voice trembling with emotion, the bass notes humming through the plush seats beneath them.
Her lips curved against his chest where he couldn't see.
Fine. Let me help you then…
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[End of Chapter]