Chapter 51
Chapter 51
The residential complex where Pei Chuzhi now lived had strict security. She told Xu Lei to park the car outside the gate, planning to have the guards let Xing Ye’s car through later.
Before long, the familiar business van appeared across the street.
Xing Ye got out directly, opened his umbrella, and without asking Xiao Zhou for help, opened the trunk himself to take out his luggage, then crossed the zebra crossing alone.
The dim glow of the streetlights melted into the pouring rain, and a misty rain fog spread around.
Xu Lei, mindful of her assistant duties, opened the car door to help with the luggage but was stopped by a hand gesture.
Pei Chuzhi tugged at her seatbelt and saw Xiao Zhou just drive away.
She pressed her lips together, feeling this was some unspoken signal.
The rain tonight was terrifyingly heavy.
When Xing Ye got in, his body was damp, carrying a slight chill, like a surging undercurrent pushing away the stifling air.
The closed car doors blocked out the sound of wind and rain.
Pei Chuzhi turned her head, noticing that perhaps due to the lighting, Xing Ye’s rain-soaked hair looked pitch black, as if reaching out to touch it would leave thick ink-like color on her fingertips.
“Xiao Zhou is okay, right?” she asked softly.
Xing Ye casually brushed his hair back: “He booked a hotel nearby.”
“Oh…” Pei Chuzhi responded, then asked, “So you were going to a hotel too?”
She suddenly felt her invitation had been a bit abrupt.
“The hotel didn’t have any available rooms.”
Xing Ye’s face showed no extra expression, stating it as a fact.
Pei Chuzhi glanced at him, half in doubt.
Xu Lei accompanied the two upstairs and, without exiting the elevator, stood by the door and whispered to Pei Chuzhi: “I’ll head back first then.”
She had rented a place not far from here.
Pei Chuzhi, feeling uneasy, asked: “Do you want to wait for the rain to ease before you go?”
“No way!”
Xu Lei patted her chest, speaking with righteous certainty, “I’m perceptive; I’ll never disturb your romance.”
“…”
Pei Chuzhi was momentarily speechless, only able to watch the little assistant wave goodbye.
The hallway was left with just the two of them.
Pei Chuzhi blinked at the closed elevator doors, realizing that her subtly well-meaning invitation seemed to have been interpreted with extra meaning by both assistants.
She slowly turned and saw Xing Ye place his suitcase at his feet, quietly looking at her.
Only at this moment did she feel a particularly real sense.
She had brought Xing Ye home.
·
The sound of running water came from the bathroom—Xing Ye was showering.
After walking just a few steps from the car, he was already mostly wet.
Pei Chuzhi drew the curtains and turned on all the lights in the house, feeling guilty like a thief, trying to create a sense of daylight on a rainy night.
After finishing all this, she stood in the living room, unsure if this counted as part of a contract-couple’s proper interactions.
Or perhaps, it was her own selfishness, wanting to spend a little more time with him before filming started.
It was nine thirty at night, and even after Xing Ye finished his shower, it clearly wasn’t time to sleep yet.
Pei Chuzhi composed herself, remembering that today was Saturday, and turned on the TV, connecting to the streaming platform, absentmindedly watching today’s newly aired episode of Who Is the Killer.
The episode had been recorded half a month ago, and she remembered the details clearly, so she only paid half attention to the screen, the other half focused on the sounds from the bathroom.
The moment the water stopped, Pei Chuzhi sat up straight, then a few seconds later felt it was too deliberate and thought maybe she should go to the kitchen to wash some fruit or something, to create an “I’m not nervous” atmosphere.
Just as she stood up, the bathroom door opened.
Pei Chuzhi immediately sat back down, focusing on the TV screen across the room, not blinking once.
Xing Ye walked into the living room, glanced at Pei Chuzhi with her serious expression, then at Xie Yiqian analyzing the case on the TV.
“…”
He pressed his cheek with his tongue, wrapping the clothes he had just taken off into a bundle and tossing it into a corner trash can.
He had deliberately used a bit more force with his wrist, but the soft fabric still lacked impact and made little sound as it fell.
Fortunately, Pei Chuzhi eventually turned her head and pointed at the nearby sofa: “Do you want to sit?”
As soon as she spoke, she wanted to bite her tongue—what foolish thing had she just said?
Could it be that the top actor had come to her home to make her stand as punishment?
Xing Ye tugged the corner of his mouth and walked over to sit, pretending not to care: “Just aired? Was it good?”
Pei Chuzhi replied softly: “It should be pretty exciting. I remember Tong Yang did quite well in this episode.”
Less than a minute later, Tong Yang was voted out for poor performance.
Xing Ye’s pitch-black eyes glanced at her, filled with the meaning, “That counts as ‘did quite well’?”
“You remembered wrong. She shined in the next episode.”
Pei Chuzhi corrected him quietly, embarrassed. In truth, she hadn’t been paying attention to the variety show content tonight at all.
Xing Ye looked at her with a half-smile.
He had just showered, carrying a faint scent of body wash.
His damp hair was messy, which should have given him a slightly disheveled aura, but the faint, almost imperceptible smile at his lips added an indescribable, intoxicating sensuality.
Pei Chuzhi struggled to refocus on the program, but her peripheral vision still betrayed her, and she found herself glancing at his newly changed white shirt and black pants.
The clean colors outlined his form simply.
Broad shoulders, lean waist, strong, long legs.
The episode played to the moment where she and Xie Yiqian discovered an important piece of evidence, and they high-fived in excitement.
Such a friendly, ordinary scene suddenly made Pei Chuzhi feel guilty.
She picked up the remote and exited the playback interface.
“Why stop watching?” Xing Ye, seemingly idle, asked leisurely.
Pei Chuzhi pressed her lips together, raised an eyebrow at him: “I’m not used to watching my own work with someone else.”
She kept pressing the remote: “Want to switch to a movie?”
Under the light, her brows and eyes looked beautiful, as if hiding secrets no one knew.
Xing Ye chuckled softly: “Am I disturbing you from watching Teacher Xie?”
“…?”
Pei Chuzhi froze, then realized that from the moment Xing Ye came out until now, it had just been a period with more camera time on Xie Yiqian.
She paused her hand, met his bright black eyes, and spoke sincerely: “No, I don’t need to hide when watching Teacher Xie. After all, in my heart, you two are different.”
“Really?” His tone was light, impossible to tell if he believed her.
“Did you forget what I promised you?”
Pei Chuzhi resumed pressing the remote, flipping through the movie categories page by page, feeling that only when she wasn’t looking at Xing Ye did she have the courage to act as a proper girlfriend.
“You’re special to me. Being special means no one else can replace you. That’s far more important than an idol.”
To her, Xie Yiqian represented the admiration and respect of her teenage years.
But Xing Ye was something closer, something she was more addicted to.
She spoke three parts veiled, seven parts truth, like a game whose rules only she understood.
Those unspoken secret feelings were cleverly coded, not expecting him to immediately decode them, only hoping that one day, if lucky, he might perceive the subtle undertones.
Xing Ye said nothing, but looked at her as if he understood.
Pei Chuzhi finally knew what it truly felt like to have a secret crush.
Afraid he wouldn’t understand, and afraid he would.
So she paused for half a beat, pretending to be interested in the movie she had just selected: “Have you seen this one?”
Xing Ye, interrupted from his thoughts, had to avert his gaze to the screen: “No.”
It was a foreign drama, with relatively unknown actors, looking like a filler movie added by the streaming platform.
But the composition of the movie’s cover was beautiful.
Pei Chuzhi pressed play: “Then let’s watch it.”
As it turned out, a movie unknown even to both actors wasn’t very good.
The plot wasn’t engaging, the character development was thin; the only redeeming feature was the cinematography, with colors and lighting offering visual enjoyment.
Outside, the wind and rain persisted. Pei Chuzhi turned the volume up and occasionally discussed a few points with Xing Ye.
When watching movies, he spoke slower, softer, his tone placed at the most magnetic frequency, more sensually pleasing than the TV visuals themselves.
In the latter half of the movie, the male and female leads went on a date by the lake, sitting on the pier and chatting.
As they talked, the female lead suddenly took off her jacket, wearing only a tank top, and joyfully jumped into the lake to swim.
Pei Chuzhi and Xing Ye exchanged a glance, both feeling inexplicably about the scene.
“If possible, get a copy of this script,” Xing Ye couldn’t help but say, “Remember how it was written. Never accept this kind of script in the future.”
Pei Chuzhi nodded, about to agree, when she saw the female lead climb out of the water and drag the male lead in with her.
The sunlight scattered like spilled golden powder across the deep blue lake.
“The color tone is really beautiful. Let’s not analyze character motivation; just enjoy the visuals,” she said honestly.
Before her words fell, the two on the TV, wet through, embraced and began kissing.
The cinematographer’s skill was fully on display.
Even though Pei Chuzhi had been mentally criticizing the movie, she now faintly sensed the deep affection between the two leads through the camera work.
The kiss scene lasted a long time, the sounds of water and breathing from the TV almost drowning out the storm outside.
The atmosphere in the living room gradually grew awkward.
Pei Chuzhi’s eyelashes trembled. She wanted to say something, but anything she said now would seem to draw attention to the situation.
She picked up the water cup from the coffee table and was relieved to find it empty.
“Do you want me to fill it?” she asked softly.
Xing Ye cleared his throat: “Okay.”
He paused half a beat, took the cup from her hand: “I’ll pour it for you.”
Pei Chuzhi didn’t refuse. For now, she just needed them to each find something else to do, as long as they didn’t continue watching the passionate kissing of those foreigners in the movie.
Xing Ye got up and walked toward the kitchen.
Pei Chuzhi exhaled and looked back at the TV screen, her gaze filled with mock grievance.
Just watching a normal movie, who knew they’d encounter such a rare, long kiss scene.
Pouring two glasses of water didn’t take long. When Xing Ye came back, the movie had finally switched scenes.
He handed a glass of water to Pei Chuzhi, watching her take a small sip and set it down.
Her lips were like petals kissed by dew, moist and glossy, giving off an enticing fragrance.
Xing Ye’s Adam’s apple rolled a few times; suddenly he felt a little thirsty.
Pei Chuzhi heard the man beside her breathing slightly irregularly. In the closed room, the air seemed to mingle with the scent of fermented fruit wine, slightly intoxicating.
Her cheeks flushed, and for some reason, she blurted out: “That kissing scene was just okay, right?”
“…Mm.”
Pei Chuzhi lowered her eyelashes, looking at the reflection of the man in the glass.
Not perfectly clear, but where did she need to see clearly?
Even with her eyes closed, she could carve out Xing Ye’s features in her mind.
From his deep, sharp eyebrows and eyes, to his high nose bridge, and then his thin, beautiful lips.
Many times before, when he wasn’t paying attention, she had quietly traced the shape of his lips with her gaze.
The floor-to-ceiling window’s curtains weren’t fully drawn, leaving a slit through which the wet, flowing light from outside came in.
The dim, chaotic night mirrored the tangled state of her heart.
She suddenly wanted to try.
What would it feel like to kiss Xing Ye?
Pei Chuzhi bit her lips. Her words hovered between her lips and teeth, still lacking that final courage to speak.
Just as she hesitated, the long-silent Xing Ye lowered his head.
The man’s dominant presence carried slightly rapid breathing. He held her wrist, pressed her back against the sofa cushions, and kissed her heavily.
The storm outside had not eased, and his figure blocked all the light.