The night deepened, wrapping the apartment in quiet darkness. Only a small bedside lamp cast a circle of dim, gentle yellow light.
Zong Yi sat on the single sofa beside the bed, her back habitually straight, both hands resting on her knees. Her gaze fell upon Yan Hanxie on the bed, who seemed to have already fallen asleep, yet it also seemed unfocused.
A faint medicinal smell filled the air, mixed with the unique scent from Yan Hanxie's body—cool and sharp, yet carrying the weakness left after illness.
Everything was very quiet. Only the distant sound of traffic outside the window, and the two people's breathing, not entirely synchronized, intertwined.
But Zong Yi's heart was far from as calm as it appeared on the surface.
Her fingertips unconsciously rubbed the rough velvet of the sofa. The Buddhist beads on her wrist lightly tapped with her subtle movement, producing a faint dull sound.
Stay?
Or leave?
Reason and emotion tore and wrestled in her mind.
In the end, that almost inaudible sigh and that vague sentence, "You… sleep first," seemed to have already made the decision for her.
She had stayed.
For what reason? Because Yan Hanxie was "afraid"?
Because of that lingering fragility belonging to a patient?
Or because… of the concern and bond that had long since crossed the boundary, something she herself could not clearly explain?
She didn't know.
She only felt tired—an exhaustion seeping from the cracks of her bones, mixed with the fatigue of days of rushing around and the confusion of being trapped between advancing and retreating.
Her eyelids gradually grew heavy. Her consciousness sank into warm water, slowly blurring.
No one knew how much time had passed. Perhaps only a moment, perhaps it was already late in the night.
A very soft rustling sound came from the bed.
Zong Yi opened her eyes alertly and saw Yan Hanxie turn over, facing her side. A corner of the thin quilt slid down, revealing a shoulder clothed in soft sleepwear.
Her eyes were closed, yet her brows were slightly furrowed. Her lips moved unconsciously, letting out a very soft, indistinct murmur.
Was she having a nightmare?
Or was she uncomfortable?
Zong Yi instinctively stood up and walked to the bedside, bending down to check her forehead.
Just at the moment her fingertips were about to touch that smooth skin, Yan Hanxie suddenly opened her eyes.
It was not the confusion of waking from sleep. In the dim light, those eyes were exceptionally clear, even carrying a trace of… sharp wakefulness, staring straight into Zong Yi's unprepared eyes.
Zong Yi's movement froze in midair, her heart suddenly pounding.
The two of them remained like that, silently staring at each other from extremely close distance.
Their breaths mingled. A thick, heart-stirring tension spread through the air.
Then Yan Hanxie extremely slowly raised one hand. Instead of blocking Zong Yi's approaching hand, she… gently grasped her wrist.
Her fingertips were slightly cool, carrying the lower-than-normal body temperature unique to illness, yet the strength was unquestionable. Guiding Zong Yi's hand, she slowly moved it downward.
Not toward her forehead.
But… against her own cheek.
At the moment their skin touched, both of them seemed to tremble slightly.
Zong Yi's palm was slightly damp with nervous sweat. Yan Hanxie's cheek, however, was unusually smooth and cool, like fine cold jade.
That touch was so clear it made one's heart panic, carrying an almost intimate suggestion that crossed all boundaries.
"Your hand… is very warm." Yan Hanxie spoke, her voice low and hoarse, carrying the haziness of just waking, yet each word extremely clear.
Her gaze remained locked onto Zong Yi. Under the dim yellow light, her pupils were deep like a bottomless cold pool, yet it seemed as if dark fire was silently burning inside.
Zong Yi's breathing completely fell into disorder.
She wanted to pull her hand back, but her wrist was firmly held by Yan Hanxie, unable to move.
The skin beneath her fingertips was slightly cool, yet at this moment it felt like a piece of red-hot iron, burning her fingers numb. That scorching heat followed her blood vessels, spreading all the way through her limbs.
"President Yan…" she spoke with difficulty, her voice dry. "Are you… uncomfortable?"
"Mm." Yan Hanxie responded softly. But the fingertips holding Zong Yi's wrist moved extremely slowly, carrying a certain torturous meaning as they gently rubbed the skin at her wrist, brushing right along the edge of that string of Buddhist beads. "Inside… feels a little empty."
As she spoke, her other hand also slipped out from beneath the blanket. Instead of pulling up the quilt, it… lightly, almost probing, rested against Zong Yi's waist, which had tightened slightly from leaning forward.
Through the thin fabric of the shirt, the cool touch of those fingertips was so clear it felt as if it were directly branded onto her skin.
Zong Yi's entire body stiffened, as if all the blood in her body had rushed to the place being touched.
The skin at her waist instantly became extraordinarily sensitive. Every nerve ending screamed wildly.
It was as if she had been struck by a paralysis spell. She froze there, even forgetting how to breathe.
Yan Hanxie took in every one of her reactions.
In those eyes that always tried to remain calm, there was now clearly reflected panic, helplessness, and a trace of… something deliberately ignored by her—something called "palpitation."
Very good.
The beast that had lurked in Yan Hanxie's heart for so long let out a satisfied sigh.
"Zong Yi," Yan Hanxie called her name again, her voice lower and hoarser than before, carrying an almost coaxing magnetism, "come a little closer."
It was not a command, yet it carried more bewitching force than any command.
Zong Yi's mind went blank. Yet her body seemed to be pulled by that voice, uncontrollably, extremely slowly leaning down a little further.
The distance between them became so close that they could almost count each other's eyelashes.
The scent from Yan Hanxie's body—a mixture of medicine and cool fragrance—surrounded her even more thickly.
Her gaze slowly moved from Zong Yi's panicked eyes downward, landing on the well-shaped lips that were slightly pressed together because of tension.
It lingered there.
That gaze seemed almost tangible, carrying scorching heat and undisguised desire, burning every inch of Zong Yi's senses.
Zong Yi's heart pounded wildly in her chest, nearly breaking through her ribs.
She wanted to escape, wanted to push away this extremely dangerous closeness. But her body seemed nailed in place; she could not even move her gaze away.
She could only watch helplessly as Yan Hanxie's face slowly enlarged before her eyes.
So close that she could see her own enlarged, flustered reflection in Yan Hanxie's pupils.
So close that she could feel her increasingly clear and increasingly scorching breath brushing past the corner of her lips.
Time, at this moment, stretched infinitely and froze.
Just as Zong Yi thought that the kiss that had hovered countless times at the edge of imagination in the hospital room—yet had never fallen—was about to truly happen here, while both of them were completely awake—
Yan Hanxie's eyelashes trembled almost imperceptibly.
Then she sighed very softly, almost inaudibly.
That sigh carried a trace of fatigue, a trace of restraint, and perhaps… a trace of regret.
Immediately afterward, she released the hand holding Zong Yi's wrist and withdrew the fingertips resting at her waist.
The warmth disappeared abruptly, leaving behind a cold emptiness like sudden weightlessness.
Zong Yi abruptly stepped back, stumbling slightly, almost unable to stand steadily.
Her cheeks were burning hot, the roots of her ears flushed, her breathing rapid as if she had just finished running a marathon.
Yan Hanxie, however, had already closed her eyes again, as if that heart-stirring closeness and gaze just now had only been a brief, unconscious haze during illness.
"I'm tired." She turned over, her back facing Zong Yi. Her voice returned to its previous calmness, even carrying a hint of drowsiness. "You should rest early too. The sofa… should still be fairly comfortable."
After saying that, she spoke no more. Her breathing gradually became steady and long, as if she had truly fallen asleep again.
Leaving Zong Yi standing stiffly by the bed, as if she had just narrowly escaped from a deadly temptation, yet also as if all her strength had been drained away.
She lowered her head and looked at her wrist that Yan Hanxie had just held and rubbed. It felt as though the cool touch and the hard outline of the Buddhist beads still lingered there.
The place on her waist that had been touched felt even more like it had been scorched by invisible flames, the burning sensation refusing to fade.
She slowly retreated to the sofa and sat down, yet she could no longer calm herself.
Her heart still pounded uncontrollably, blood rushing noisily through her veins.
In her mind, the brief yet shocking moment replayed again and again—Yan Hanxie's bright eyes, her cool fingertips, her scorching breath, and that almost-fallen… kiss.
Why did she stop?
Did she change her mind at the last moment?
Was she physically uncomfortable?
Or was it… another, more skillful kind of advance-and-retreat test?
Zong Yi didn't know.
She only knew that the thin window paper that had long been as fragile as cicada wings had, in that moment, been silently pierced by Yan Hanxie's gaze and fingertips, leaving a huge hole that could no longer be ignored.
Through that hole, she saw the undisguised desire and possession in Yan Hanxie's eyes.
And she also saw, within her own heart, that land long since fallen into chaos.
She curled up on the sofa, burying her face deeply into her knees.
Outside the window, the night was deep as ink.
Inside, that dim yellow night lamp quietly illuminated the woman on the bed who seemed to be sleeping, and the other woman on the sofa who tossed and turned, her heart in turmoil.
The road of chasing her wife was long.
But the hunter had already bared her fangs, and the prey… already had nowhere left to escape.