Chapter Ninety-Three: Let Me Hold You

He frowned. He was losing his mind. What had he just heard?

She had said, “I like him. It is precisely because he shines so brilliantly that my eyes linger on him.”

What did that mean? Could it be that she was truly that vain, that she loved wealth, that she loved Shen Yanlie’s fortune?

This woman. In the end, he had misjudged her.

“What kind of expression is that?” Mai Xijun shot Yu Wensi a contemptuous glance. This guy never once spoke to her properly or calmly. Just wait. In a moment, he was bound to say something ridiculous again.

“I’m saying that you woman are really...” He was about to say she was pushy.

“What about me? What about me?” Mai Xijun wisely cut him off, rising to her feet and glaring at him with flared temper. Then, all at once, her tone changed. “Can you cook?”

“What?” Yu Wensi froze. Had he heard wrong? Could it be that today his hearing had gone wrong, and hallucinations had appeared again and again?

What had this woman just said? She was asking whether he could cook?

“If you can’t, then forget it. I’ll do it myself.” She could not let Shen Yanlie wake up and be hungry.

With that, Mai Xijun still felt uneasy and went straight to the bedroom to check on Shen Yanlie. She touched his forehead and, seeing that he was already improving, quietly slipped back out and began to cook.

Yu Wensi watched her move with such ease and naturalness, and suddenly found it amusing. He brought his fingers together, spread both hands over his face, and gently rubbed at the corners of his eyes. Mai Xijun was simply inexplicable. He, Yu Wensi, was a young master, the chief executive of Yu Media. Cook? Him personally in the kitchen? What an international joke... Idiot.

As soon as Mai Xijun finished cooking, night had fully descended. When she walked out of the kitchen, she found that Yu Wensi was no longer in the living room. That fool. He came and went like a ghost.

After setting the last dish on the table, Mai Xijun was about to wake Shen Yanlie. Yet the bedroom door was only half-closed.

“Who came by?”

Shen Yanlie’s wary voice from inside made Mai Xijun lift her hand, only for it to freeze in midair.

“Brother Qian and Auntie came by. Brother Qian was the one who gave you the injection,” Yu Wensi said, his voice growing lower and lower as he continued. “Though I do know you’ve always been afraid of needles and IVs since you were little. But your fever was too high, and Mai Xijun also insisted on it. This can’t be blamed on me...”

Yu Wensi spoke with complete confidence, though Mai Xijun, listening from outside the door, could not help rolling her eyes. Yu Wensi was absolutely no good sort. At first, she had intended to have Shen Yanlie take medicine, but his fever was simply too high, so she had no choice but to suggest an IV.

Still, Shen Yanlie had been afraid of needles and IVs since childhood. Ha. Had she heard that right? Such a tall man, standing there at six feet two, with that long, lean frame and a body hard and solid, without an ounce of superfluous fat, cold and terrifying, looking forever indestructible—he was afraid of needles?

Ha. Mai Xijun instantly felt that this was even more astonishing than discovering a new continent.

“You can’t say less?” Shen Yanlie sounded displeased, as though his weak point had just been pinned. “No wonder Xiao Mai gets annoyed just seeing you.”

Good heavens. What had she, Mai Xijun, done to deserve this? Why was she always being used as a shield? Birds of a feather truly flocked together.

“Ahem, if you can admit it yourself, wouldn’t that settle it? Still, Brother Qian’s medical skills really are becoming more and more brilliant. I have to admire that. Oh, and I forgot to tell you—Xiao Mai just told me that she likes men exactly like you. Radiant. Dazzling. Yes, dazzling.”

Yu Wensi looked Shen Yanlie up and down again. His ironclad brother was indeed a rare specimen.

Shen Yanlie said nothing, only gazing out the window. He would have preferred that they had never come near him at all. Then, in the future, he could still act without restraint...

“Also... Auntie hopes that when you have time, you’ll go back home and visit. Of course, Brother Qian hopes you’ll simply move back and live there.” After a while, Yu Wensi seemed to recall something else and relayed it truthfully.

But in fact, he did not want to say any of this at all. He felt Shen Yanlie might not truly want to hear it.

This encounter between Shen Yiling, Shen Qian, and Yu Wensi had been pure coincidence, because Shen Qian could not reach Shen Yanlie. He had gone to the home where Shen Yanlie usually stayed, but he was not there either, so he came to Yu Wensi. Who could have expected that they would run into a flustered Mai Xijun on the way? And so the scene from earlier had come to pass...

“If you don’t want to go back, then don’t. Staying here isn’t bad either. At least Mai Xijun is here,” Yu Wensi said when Shen Yanlie remained silent, offering him advice.

Yu Wensi had always been like this: bad ideas, good ideas, all of them came from him.

Shen Yanlie glanced at him. “Go ask the person at the door what she thinks.”

What?

Yu Wensi froze. Looking at the half-closed bedroom door, he tested the waters, then in a flash was at the door and yanked it open.

The door was pulled open without warning. There was no longer any barrier. The two of them now stood directly before her. Mai Xijun cried out inwardly, but Yu Wensi’s lips had already curved into a wicked arc. He stood there in front of her with an amused smile, looking at her.

Damn it. That scared me to death. So this was the fault of eavesdropping...

“Xiao Mai, you’re feeling guilty, oh~” Yu Wensi narrowed his eyes maliciously, looking at the clearly unsettled Mai Xijun, and brazenly pointed at her with his right index finger to lecture her.

“I-I don’t...” Mai Xijun stammered, her face flushed red. She lifted a hand and slapped his finger away without the slightest politeness. Hmph. She was not the least bit interested in eavesdropping.

She glared at Yu Wensi, snorted at him, and squeezed past him. Yu Wensi pursed his lips, shrugged carelessly, and did not mind. Turning around, he walked back toward the living room to see what delicious dishes Mai Xijun had made.

“Feeling better?” Mai Xijun asked with concern when she reached Shen Yanlie’s side. Because of his height, whenever she spoke to him she had to tilt her head up slightly to look at him.

Shen Yanlie did not answer. He only looked quietly at Mai Xijun. If this moment could last forever, how wonderful that would be. He would remember her face, and so he could keep looking like this forever...

Mai Xijun guessed as much. She lifted a hand and pressed it to Shen Yanlie’s forehead, then touched her own. “Looks like the fever has gone down.”

A fever of thirty-nine degrees. It had nearly frightened her to death...

She remembered that when she was about ten, she had once had a high fever. By then, she could already remember a few things. It was impossible to say she had been in unbearable pain; it was more like she had narrowly escaped death. She had been muddled and dazed, as though the weight of the whole world had been pressed onto her shoulders, leaving her exhausted and unable to bear it.

So in this life, the thing Mai Xijun disliked most was probably nothing other than illness.

Shen Yanlie was the same.

Seeing that Shen Yanlie was more than halfway recovered, the heart that had been suspended at last slowly settled back into place. But after she had taken only two steps, she noticed that Shen Yanlie was still where he had been, utterly unmoving. “What are you standing there for? Fever gone to your head?”

Faced with Mai Xijun’s suspicion and bewilderment, Shen Yanlie gave no reply. He still stood motionless in place, though his gaze remained fixed on her, burning and unbroken.

“No, what’s wrong with you?” If she had not heard wrong just now, Yu Wensi had been talking about whether Shen Yanlie wanted to return to Shen Yiling and Shen Qian’s side.

Mai Xijun knew it. Yu Wensi had told her before: Shen Yiling did not want Shen Yanlie. Shen Yiling had personally pushed Shen Yanlie away.

So Shen Yanlie had no intention of going back like this. Or rather, he simply had no reason to go back. He could not find that reason for himself...

Shen Yiling was a diplomat. Her rationality, her attitude toward things, would not change in such a short time. If she had any heart at all—any desire to let Shen Yanlie return to the Shen family—then she would surely seize this chance while he was ill, stay here, care for him, draw near to him, and narrow the distance between them.

But Shen Yiling had not done so...

Mai Xijun lifted a hand, intending to tap Shen Yanlie’s chest. At the very least, she wanted to confirm whether his heart was still beating normally. Yet somehow, ever since she appeared at the doorway and he noticed her, she had the strange feeling that his reactions were one beat slower.

Only when her hand had barely lifted and he seized her wrist did Mai Xijun understand. At this moment, Shen Yanlie was carrying a faint vulnerability.

He, too, grew tired. When tired, he wanted to collapse into a haven of tenderness.

Shen Yanlie was far too quiet now. Quiet enough to make breathing itself feel tense. Mai Xijun listened to the pounding of her own heart, beating wildly and out of rhythm. It was a feeling that came only when she was with him.

“Let me hold you.”

Shen Yanlie parted his lips slightly, those lips that seemed faintly cold and heartless. His voice was as light as air. When he finished speaking, there was no ripple, no trace.

He looked at her, as though waiting for something. But his dominance had never required her consent. He was only slowly, slowly allowing them to grow familiar with each other again, and then gently drawing nearer, one to the other.

Mai Xijun did not move. Shen Yanlie’s movements were slow, stripped of their former arrogance and wildness. He seemed to be appraising some exquisite object, then drawing the precious thing he cherished most into his arms, as if in that instant he had gained the whole world, complete and fulfilled.

In his embrace, his warmth. At such close distance, the familiar scent, the familiar heartbeat. He was still himself, only now he needed her more than ever. She was his pillar of support, using her slender arms to hold up his entire world, never letting him fall...