Ten Rules to Bind Her Heart - Chapter 37
Seeing her reaction, Anya smiled in understanding.
The expression held equal parts mockery and pity.
“It’s hardly surprising.”
Anya sighed and settled back into the sofa.
“Shen Yu treats you as his little pet.”
Xia Zhiyao stared at her, fingers tightening around the cup.
“Think about it.”
Anya idly turned her lighter in one hand.
“People stroke their pets. They hold them. They may even sleep in the same bed.
“But… who kisses their pet?”
Xia Zhiyao fell silent.
A kiss was how human beings expressed love between equals.
Shen Yu offered her only possession and training.
There was no equality, much less love.
But what had she expected?
Had she begun to hope that this ruthless man, so far above her, might grant her a scrap of love?
No. She had never thought such a thing. All she had ever wanted was to survive in his hands.
Then why was some vague, nameless feeling rising in her heart?
Seeing the color drain from the girl’s face, Anya stubbed out her cigarette and abruptly stood.
She approached Xia Zhiyao.
The sofa was low, and Anya’s figure loomed above her.
That faint scent of mint and tobacco drew close again.
“What about you?”
Anya bent down and planted both hands on the sofa arms beside Xia Zhiyao, trapping her in the narrow space.
“Have you ever dated? Ever kissed a boy?” Anya asked in a lowered, coaxing voice.
Xia Zhiyao went rigid, her back pressed against the cushions with nowhere else to retreat.
She had always been a good girl who cared only about studying and research. She had never even held a boy’s hand, let alone kissed one.
She shook her head stiffly.
Amusement deepened in Anya’s eyes, as though she had discovered an uncut gem.
“Such a good girl…”
She murmured, stroking Xia Zhiyao’s burning cheek with her fingertip before letting it come to rest at the corner of her mouth.
The pad of her finger pressed against that soft lip.
Xia Zhiyao stopped breathing. Her heart pounded, and she could no longer tell whether she felt fear or something else.
Anya’s inexplicable behavior stunned her.
Anya leaned closer, her gaze lingering on Xia Zhiyao’s lips while their breaths mingled.
“Would you like to know…”
Anya’s voice was light as a sigh.
“…what a kiss feels like?”
As the words fell, Anya slowly lowered her face.
Her striking features grew larger in Xia Zhiyao’s eyes.
Overwhelming panic engulfed her.
In a sudden burst, Xia Zhiyao shoved Anya away and sprang from the sofa with such force that her knee struck the coffee table.
Even Anya jumped.
Xia Zhiyao ignored the pain. Her face burned red, and her lips trembled.
“Dr… Dr. Anya! I-I’m sorry!”
Her lashes shook violently as she refused in a jumble of words.
“No… We can’t. I belong to Mr. Shen. Even… even if you’re a woman, he owns every part of me. If you… if you want to kiss me, you need his permission, or… or he’ll kill me.”
Shen Yu had said everything about her, body and soul, belonged to him.
No one else was allowed to touch what was his.
If Shen Yu discovered she had kissed another person, even a woman…
Xia Zhiyao couldn’t bear to imagine it.
Anya stared in astonishment.
After several seconds of dead silence, she snorted.
Then she burst into earthshaking laughter.
She collapsed onto the sofa, laughing until tears streamed from her eyes.
“Hahaha… I can’t… His permission? Hahahaha…”
Anya wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, struggling for breath.
“Little rabbit, how does your mind even work?”
Xia Zhiyao stared blankly, her blush still vivid, making her look foolish and pitiful. “What?”
“I asked if that pervert had ever kissed you. I wasn’t saying I wanted to!”
Anya laughed until her stomach hurt. She rose, walked to Xia Zhiyao, and pinched her burning cheek.
“All right. I won’t tease you anymore.”
“You’re certainly adorable enough to make someone want a bite, but I wouldn’t dare steal food from Black Wolf.”
“It seems Shen Yu truly has trained you very successfully.”
Xia Zhiyao stood rooted to the spot. It took a long while for her soul to return to her body.
So… that was what Dr. Anya had meant.
Enormous shame swallowed her. She wanted the floor to open and take her.
What had she been imagining?
She had actually thought Dr. Anya wanted to kiss her!
Dr. Anya was a woman. How could that be possible?
Anya finally controlled her laughter and glanced at her watch.
“It’s time to eat. I’ll take you back. Remember, I’ll pick you up at the white building tomorrow at eight. Shen Yu is away, so no one will dare stop me.”
…
The next morning.
The Southeast Asian rainy season was always humid and stifling, but the climate-controlled third floor of the medical building remained cool and pleasant.
Wearing white nitrile gloves, Xia Zhiyao stood on a six-foot stepladder.
She had already cleared one corner of the formerly chaotic stacks of specimen boxes.
She had never studied biological taxonomy, but Anya had thrown her a thick Illustrated Guide to Tropical Insects.
The grotesque beetles and brilliantly colored poisonous moths that others saw became beautiful lines and blocks of color in her eyes.
She did not need to memorize their Latin names. She only needed to recognize their distinguishing features.
“The refraction of this morpho’s scales isn’t right. Hmm… It should be a subspecies from Brazil. It can’t be stored with the Peruvian specimens.”
“This is an orchid mantis… Family Hymenopodidae…”
“Wow… This one even retains its hunting posture. It’s perfect. Dr. Anya is amazing.”
Xia Zhiyao murmured to herself. Holding long-handled forceps, she carefully lifted a dreamlike pink mantis.
Her movements were gentle and meticulous, like those of a conservator restoring a damaged ancient painting.
The constant tension and terror she wore in the white building had fallen away.
Whenever she entered a working state, she seemed to become someone else.
Her lips were lightly pressed together, her gaze clear and intent. Sunlight poured through the glass skylight and gilded her long lashes, revealing the fine down on her serious profile.
This was the Xia Zhiyao she had once been.
Quiet. Lovely. Filled with a scholar’s grace.
She was so immersed in her world that she did not hear the engines roaring downstairs or the rapid but steady tread of military boots.
The heavy wooden door on the third floor opened soundlessly. An oppressively cold presence swept through the room.
Anya sat behind her desk writing a report. At the sound, she looked up, her pen freezing.
A tall, straight figure stood in the corridor.
He wore a black tactical jacket still damp with the jungle’s moisture and carrying the faint scent of blood. He had clearly come straight here after leaving the plane, his entire body radiating a hostility that warned strangers away.
Shen Yu.
He had returned three days earlier than expected.
Anya raised an eyebrow and was about to tease him, but Shen Yu’s gaze remained locked on the slender figure in the next room.
He raised one long finger to his lips.
A silent order for Anya to say nothing.
