Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Su Hua jerked her head to the side to avoid him, her eyes wide as she looked at him warily. “What are you doing?”

“What do you think?” Gu Beixian pinched her delicate chin, saying nonchalantly, “I’m certainly not here to study advanced calculus with you.”

Su Hua pressed her fingers against his chin to keep him from getting close to her mouth. “You said you wanted a divorce,” she said seriously.

“In the hospital today, you also said we weren’t getting one.”

“I only said that to spite Chu Suosuo on purpose.”

His deep, dark eyes gazed down at her intently. “I took it seriously.”

Su Hua lowered her eyelashes. “I don’t want to do this with you right now.”

Gu Beixian raised an eyebrow slightly. “Who was the one seducing me just now?”

“I wasn’t, I was just… I…” Su Hua suddenly found herself at a loss for words.

In her flustered state, her face flushed red again.

It wasn’t just her face; her neck and wrists were also tinged with a faint rosy glow from the hot water, looking like bright begonias falling onto white snow.

Her elegance was mixed with a touch of charm-pure yet seductive, making it impossible to look away.

Gu Beixian pressed his thumb against her lips to stop her from speaking, rubbing the soft skin. “You’re being quite seductive right now.”

Seductive?

Su Hua was momentarily dazed. She never expected such an alluring word to be associated with her.

She backed away slightly, her watery eyes looking up at him. “Could you go out first?”

Gu Beixian brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and said softly, “Let’s go out together.”

Without waiting for Su Hua’s answer, he leaned down and scooped her dripping wet body out of the water. He turned on the shower to rinse the soap off her, wrapped her in a large bath towel, and carried her into the bedroom like one would carry a child.

Placing her on the bed, he carefully moved her injured hand above her head.

He leaned over her, gently nipping at her chin before kissing his way down to her collarbone, his movements meticulous.

Su Hua’s body couldn’t help but respond to his teasing, but her heart was resistant.

She used her uninjured hand to push him away.

But he was too strong. Her meager strength was no match for him; instead, it only added to the passion of the moment…

Afterward.

Su Hua panted in small breaths and said, “Don’t you like the wild type? Why do you still touch someone like me?”

Gu Beixian didn’t understand what she was feeling conflicted about. He pinched her waist and said casually, “You were quite wild just now. I liked it very much.” His voice trailed off with a playful, suggestive lilt.

Su Hua didn’t believe a word of a man’s pillow talk.

She tilted her head back, gazing at his handsome jawline, and thought: Men really are mysterious creatures. They can love one person without it stopping them from sleeping with another.

Women weren’t like that. If there was no love in their hearts, their bodies couldn’t accept the person.

Gu Beixian’s hand slid down her back to pull her by the waist. He rubbed his chin against her hair and said, “It’s my mother’s birthday at the end of the month. Since you aren’t working lately, come over that evening. It’ll be good to have some fun; your personality is a bit too quiet.”

While he spoke casually, she took it to heart.

A ripple of unease stirred in Su Hua’s mind. “Is it boring if a person’s personality is too quiet?”

Gu Beixian thought about it. “No. You’re quite interesting. That stunt you pulled to seduce me earlier is enough to keep me laughing for a year.”

“I’ll hit you!” Su Hua gave his chest a light punch.

Gu Beixian laughed and caught her hand. “What I mean is, you’re so young; you should be full of energy. Being too repressed isn’t good for your physical or mental health.”

“Fine. I’ll go buy a birthday gift for Mom tomorrow. What should I get her?”

“Whatever. Get her a bag; she likes bags.”

“Okay.”

The two lay in silence for over ten minutes.

Gu Beixian picked up her injured hand to inspect it carefully. “Did it get bumped just now?”

“No.”

“What about your legs? Are they sore?”

Su Hua moved her legs slightly. “Yes.”

“I’ll massage them for you.”

He lifted the quilt, took hold of one of her legs, and began to massage it gently. He moved from her calf to her thigh, his technique quite practiced.

Su Hua was extremely sensitive to his touch. After only a few strokes, her heart began to race, her breathing quickened, and her body gradually grew warm again.
They had registered their marriage the very first time they met. For the first two years, he couldn’t walk, and his temper had been atrocious.

No matter how handsome a face was, it was hard to fall in love with someone who remained gloomy all day long. Back then, her feelings for him were mostly rooted in a desire to repay a debt of gratitude.

She had only truly fallen in love with him over the past year. To her, they were still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, but unfortunately, he had severed it abruptly with a single word: “separate.”

Her heart ached, and her eyes unconsciously grew misty.

Gu Beixian, unaware of her inner turmoil, gazed at her damp eyes. Recalling how she had just been teasing him with such a serious expression, his interest was piqued again. “Two negatives make a positive,” he said. “If your legs are sore, we’ll do it again, and then they won’t be.”

Su Hua felt his logic was incredibly flawed.

But he gave her no time to think it through before pressing down on her once more…

Suddenly, the phone rang.

However, a man in this state was in no mood to answer the phone.

With one hand gripping Su Hua’s soft, slender waist, he reached out toward the nightstand with the other. His finger swiped haphazardly across the screen, and the ringing stopped abruptly.

He thought he had declined the call, but he had actually accidentally answered it.

On the other end of the line, Chu Suosuo strained her ears and heard a series of delicate, feminine cries coming through the phone.

The sounds were so sultry they made her scalp tingle.

Her chest felt so tight it was as if someone had shoved a cactus down her throat; the pain was sharp and stinging.

She listened with gritted teeth for a moment before hanging up in a fit of pique. Tossing the phone onto the sofa, she said fuming to Hua Qirou, “Mom, I want to kill Su Hua.”

Hua Qirou stared at her splinted left hand, then touched her own nose and said hatefully, “I want to kill her, too.”

“Is there any news about that woman, Huang Que?”

“I’ve looked into it. She was sold to a poor mountain gully in the Northwest. That place is a godforsaken wilderness with aggressive locals; there’s no cell signal and not even electricity. She’ll be forced to bear many children. If she tries to run, they’ll break her legs and torture her until she goes mad. She’ll never leave that place for the rest of her life.”

Chu Suosuo nodded, a sinister glint flashing in her eyes. “I want to sell Su Hua to that place, too. Can you get in touch with that human trafficker?”

Hua Qirou suddenly became agitated. “No! You must not act rashly!”

Chu Suosuo ground her teeth. “But seeing her being intimate with Beixian makes me so upset!”

“That wretched Su girl barely got her hand injured, and two days later, your hand was smashed into a comminuted fracture. The man who crushed your hand was blatantly warning you not to provoke Su Hua, or else your end would be even worse than hers. Until we find out who that man is, you must not touch Su Hua. Do you understand?”

Chu Suosuo frowned irritably. “Who on earth is that man? It’s been so many days, why hasn’t he been caught yet?”

“That man is incredibly cunning. The police sent out a detachment and searched for over ten days straight, but they couldn’t find him. There’s only one blurry photo of his back; they can’t even issue a wanted poster. Your father and brother also sent people to look, but there were no results.”

Chu Suosuo rubbed her throbbing temples and said impatiently, “Did you check Su Hua’s call logs?”

“We did. There are very few people in her call history, and we couldn’t find any suspicious subjects. Looking at Su Hua, she probably doesn’t know who it is either.”

Chu Suosuo sneered. “So you’re saying this man is playing the role of a silent guardian behind the scenes?”

“It seems so. Who knows what he’s after?” Hua Qirou curled her lip in disdain.

Chu Suosuo mocked, “A country bumpkin actually has such a loyal ‘simp.’ Is that man blind? What does he see in Su Hua? Besides a decent face and knowing how to restore some old paintings, what does she have? She’s as dull as a block of wood.”

The “block of wood” she spoke of, Su Hua, had been thoroughly exhausted by Gu Beixian tonight.

She lay in his arms, feeling as limp as if she had no bones, and fell into a deep sleep shortly after.

Gu Beixian got up to take a shower.

When he returned and lay down beside her, he propped his chin on his hand and stared at her quiet, beautiful face for a long time.

He leaned down, pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, and whispered, “If you call out for your Ay Yao in your dreams again tonight, I’m going to be truly angry.”