Chapter 24.1

There was a fire in the young man’s heart, and a burning heat in his body which could not be put out. He could only pass it on to Han Yanyan through their joined lips.

What fling, what partner… this was love!

By this time, Qiao Chengyu could no longer deny that he had been attracted to Han Yanyan from the very beginning. Perhaps she had already been his dream even earlier, when he had still been just an office clerk and she had been his half-brother’s fiancée, only known through the reports of various newspapers and magazines.

Her family was proud, and she lived with abandon, flamboyantly and confidently, with everything that he lacked and yearned for.

Caught off guard, Han Yanyan was sucked into the kiss. The man’s tongue was hot, and the heat seemed to invade like a raging fire into the depths of her body. Her long silent desire, which had been quiet for the last six months, was teased into revival, and her hormones surged.

When their lips finally parted, Han Yanyan opened her eyes and thought to take Qiao Chengyu to bed.

But Qiao Chengyu instead held her face, stared eagerly into her eyes, and asked earnestly, “Yanyan, will you marry me?”

Han Yanyan started.

She was wearing an engagement ring on her finger, a blinding diamond the size of a pigeon eggs. The fact that they were engaged was all over the entertainment press. What did Qiao Chengyu mean?

Han Yanyan gazed at Qiao Chengyu. His usual calm detachment had been swept away, and his eyes were full of eager anticipation and longing. All of a sudden, she understood.

This wasn’t about business cooperation in the form of marriage. Qiao Chengyu was seriously proposing to her; a young man hoping that the woman he loved would be with him his whole life.

Han Yanyan was silent. In her silence, Qiao Chengyu’s feverish mind cooled down a little, as did his heart.

He let go of Han Yanyan and watched her quietly.

Winter had ended and spring had begun. The world had already begun to warm, but the wind was still cold.

Han Yanyan looked back at Qiao Chengyu. His face no longer glowed, and his eyes no longer shone. He was once again his normal self, silent and calm, a faint shadow hidden deep in his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He suddenly opened his mouth and apologized; for his wishful thinking and his one-sided overstepping.

“I…” He was at a loss to explain his impulse of just now. He had always been too composed and serious, and at this moment Han Yanyan truly felt how young he really was.

She let out a sigh from the bottom of her heart.

She could not remain indifferent after all.

If this had been a story written on paper, she might have been able to stay out of it, to look down upon the happenings from the perspective of a detached and indifferent God. But she was a human being, with flesh and blood and feelings, who had come face to face with another human with flesh and blood and feelings. He was young and beautiful, and when love had finally come to him, he had burst out into fiery passion.

Han Yanyan… couldn’t help but be touched, couldn’t help but be affected, couldn’t help but be moved.

She stepped forward, stood on tiptoe and kissed the warm lips she had just parted from.

“Fool,” she smiled, her eyes glittering and her lips like fire.

Like a spark thrown into a dying flame, this response re-lit the flame in Qiao Chengyu’s eyes. His face shone once again.

Ecstatic, Qiao Chengyu wound Han Yanyan tightly in his arms. His embrace was so tight and his height so tall that he lifted her off the ground. He kissed her wildly, kissed the features of her face, her slender elegant neck, her round earlobes.

Han Yanyan giggled, put his arms around his neck, and murmured in his ear with a voice like rippling water, “Take me home.”

Qiao Chengyu was on fire with desire. He replied, “Yes.”

Han Yanyan and Qiao Chengyu had sex in his apartment.

They went from the porch to the living room floor, from the dining table to the big bed in the bedroom. She was like a fish set free in a stream, swimming freely, swinging her tail at will, sometimes climbing high to the impossible peaks, reveling to her heart’s content.

In the tender aftermath, she stroked his face and kissed his warm lips before turning languidly in his embrace and going to sleep, satiated.

When she woke in the middle of the night, she was alone. At a loss, Han Yanyan got out of bed barefoot, wrapped up in a sheet. The living room was dark, but the door of the study stood ajar, and bright light was shining out from inside. Han Yanyan quietly walked past.

The floor and her feet were warm. Han Yanyan stood outside the study door and looked in through the narrow entrance. In the room, a man bathed in warm light was reading documents attentively, pausing from time to time to make a mark with a pen. His brow was furrowed seriously, and he was so absorbed in his work that he didn’t notice the figure standing quietly at the door. 

Han Yanyan watched quietly for a while, the corners of her mouth tipping up in a faint smile. If she could only stay in this world and be with such a person, it would be a wonderful life.

But then she remembered what had happened to her in the last world. The smile faded from her lips, her eyes chilled, and she unfolded her arms, going back to the bedroom to sleep.

In her sleep, it seemed as though someone held her from behind. In the early morning, he kissed her on the cheek, and Han Yanyan barely opened her eyes to see that he was already dressed in shirt and tie.

“Sleep,” he whispered in her ear, then kissed her earlobe before leaving reluctantly. Han Yanyan turned over and fell asleep once again in the pillows and sheets that smelled like him.

When she had slept enough, she got up lazily, took a shower and dressed. Grabbing something to eat from the fridge, she surveyed his simply decorated, cold apartment. The living room was messy with traces of their passion from last night. Since she was full, she sorted out the mess.

“Eldest Miss Han Yanyan” wouldn’t have done something like that, but the real Han Yanyan would. When she was done cleaning up, she looked at the tidy living room, at a loss. She didn’t know who she was.

The Han and Qiao families soon held a grand engagement ceremony. There was a lot of traffic and a great deal of guests. The reporters covered it as the birth of a new golden couple.

What was even more surprising was that Eldest Miss Han, who had always been playful and high-profile, had unexpectedly calmed down a great deal after her second engagement, no longer willful and frivolous. Both Father Han and Father Qiao were extremely pleased by this turn of events.

And as for her fiancé Qiao Chengyu, a reporter caught a photo of him alone with his new fiancée. In the photo, he was gazing at her, his eyes tender, and who knew when a smile had begun spilling out from his lips…