Ten Rules to Bind Her Heart - Chapter 51
Shen Yu looked deeply into her eyes, a faint darkness passing through his own.
That gaze seemed capable of piercing her skin and seeing straight into her soul.
He gave a quiet laugh, then abruptly rose. Supporting her with one hand beneath her hips, he effortlessly lifted her whole body.
The sudden weightlessness made Xia Zhiyao cry out and instinctively throw her arms around his neck.
Shen Yu crossed to the single bed in a few strides, bent, and tossed her onto the soft mattress.
Xia Zhiyao sank into the bedding. Before she could sit up, Shen Yu’s towering body descended over her.
His shadow swallowed her.
The invasive scent of male hormones instantly surrounded her.
Shen Yu knelt with one knee on the edge of the bed and looked down.
The girl lay beneath him in a rumpled red dress, an enormous crooked bow around her neck and tear tracks covering her face, forced to submit.
“The way you were to begin with
“was already good enough.”
Before Xia Zhiyao could react to this extraordinarily rare compliment, Shen Yu planted one large hand on her shoulder and forcefully turned her over, leaving her back to him.
It was a position of absolute surrender and complete defenselessness.
“Lie still.”
Shen Yu’s voice was deep and hoarse, threaded with dangerous desire.
Xia Zhiyao shuddered but did not dare disobey. She immediately lay flat and buried her face in the pillow.
No punishment fell.
Instead, a burning hand settled against her back and traveled up her spine. His palm grasped the red ribbon around her neck and wound it twice around his hand.
Then he drew it taut.
“Now I’m going to unwrap my gift.”
…
In the third-floor study, sunlight slipped through a gap in the curtains and cut Shen Yu’s hard profile into light and shadow.
He sat behind the broad black-walnut desk, paging through an encrypted report concerning Karen State.
Leaning back in his black leather chair, he held the unburned half of a cigar between long, powerful fingers. Coiling smoke blurred his expression.
Across the desk, Ji Chen sat with one leg crossed over the other, spinning a gold lighter as he reported on the cleanup after yesterday’s interrogation.
“Brother, that traitor actually gave us something useful before he died. Du Tuo really is planning something over there, and he’s asking questions about us.”
Ji Chen wore a brilliant smile.
Shen Yu gave a slight nod. His expression did not change as one fingertip tapped the desk.
“Keep your mouth shut. Don’t let that woman Lin Fengqi catch the scent and come nosing around.”
“I understand.” Ji Chen pocketed the lighter. With business concluded, his unserious manner returned.
“Brother, why don’t you help me marry Phoenix? If I actually married her, wouldn’t that create an alliance between two great powers? We wouldn’t have to guard against her so much anymore. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
Shen Yu glanced at him. “I don’t care how you fool around outside, but don’t interfere with my affairs.”
“I know, I know. I was only mentioning it…” Ji Chen said, somewhat deflated.
Then he suddenly leaned forward and glanced anxiously at Shen Yu’s face.
“Brother, about… sister-in-law last night. She wasn’t too badly frightened, was she?”
The way Xia Zhiyao had fled the greenhouse made her look as though she had seen a ghost.
After thinking it over, Ji Chen suspected he might have gone too far. If the little girl whispered complaints into Shen Yu’s ear, given his cousin’s protective nature…
Shen Yu raised his eyes and gave him a cool sideways glance.
The look carried no visible murderous intent, yet Ji Chen felt a chill run down his back and instinctively sat straighter.
“You don’t have enough work today?” Shen Yu asked indifferently, tapping ash from his cigar.
“Not really? I just finished the interrogation…”
“Since you have time,” Shen Yu interrupted evenly,
“take some men to the back garden and tear down that miserable greenhouse.”
The smile on Ji Chen’s face froze. He wondered if he had misheard.
“What?”
“Tear… tear it down?”
Shen Yu drew on his cigar and fixed him with a level stare through the smoke.
Ji Chen sprang upright as though someone had stepped on his tail.
“You can’t be serious, Brother! Why tear it down? That’s my life’s work! I had those Black Magic roses flown in from Ecuador! That place is my temple of art! The lighting, the humidity—I spent forever adjusting them…
“And it works wonderfully for interrogations! It doesn’t matter how stubborn they are. The instant they kneel in there, they confess everything in less than ten minutes…”
“Besides… besides, you didn’t object when I first built it! It’s been there forever. Why are you suddenly making me demolish it?”
Shen Yu watched him jump around, his eyes remaining cold.
“If you want to interrogate people, there are dedicated torture chambers in the dungeon.”
He did not raise his voice, but his authority was impossible to resist.
“My back garden is for raising fish and admiring flowers, not for you to cover in blood and pile with corpses for fertilizer.”
In truth, Shen Yu did not care about a little blood.
But the timid, stupid puppy downstairs had trembled in bed the previous night, crying even in her dreams, “Don’t kill me. I didn’t see anything.”
The noise had been infuriating.
It had severely interfered with his enjoyment.
He paused and looked over the luxuriant back garden beyond the window. His voice deepened.
“That’s our home. Don’t foul it up.”
Home?
Ji Chen’s mouth fell open. For a long moment, he could not close it.
It wasn’t as if Shen Yu didn’t own an actual home! Wasn’t this merely a place he stayed after work?
This was a military base! A wolves’ den that devoured people whole! What did he mean, their home?
He had never treated it like a home before!
“But, Brother…”
Ji Chen’s face twisted with pain as he made one final attempt.
“Is this because sister-in-law was frightened yesterday?”
“What if I lock the door from now on? I’ll install a fingerprint lock and add two layers of iris verification! I guarantee not even a fly will get in! Sister-in-law will never wander inside again. Would that work?”
That was his temple of art! How could Shen Yu order it destroyed?
Shen Yu had clearly lost patience.
Ignoring Ji Chen’s wails, he crushed his cigar into the ashtray and turned to Ken, who stood in the shadows.
“Ken, arrange it. I don’t want that glass structure standing by dinner.”
Ken bowed without expression.
“Yes, Mr. Shen. Explosive demolition would take ten minutes, though it may be rather loud.”
“What? Explosives?”
The word sent Ji Chen’s soul flying from his body.
They weren’t demolishing a building—they were blowing up his reason to live!
“No! Stop!”
“Damn you, Ken!”
Ji Chen howled. When he saw Ken turn to leave, he knew the matter was settled.
Once Shen Yu made a decision, not even the emperor of heaven could change it.
“I’ll go! I’ll handle it myself, all right?” Ji Chen rose through gritted teeth, his face filled with grief and fury.
“You brutes know nothing about horticultural art! I have to move the flowers first. If you damage even one Black Magic rose, I’ll never forgive you!”
With that, he glared furiously at Ken and stormed toward the door.
Naturally, he would never dare glare at Shen Yu.
At the threshold, he stopped and looked back at his cousin resentfully.
“Brother, you’ve changed. Truly. You’ve lost your heart over a woman.”
Without expression, Shen Yu snatched up the pen at his side and threw it.
Ji Chen nimbly dodged, caught the pen, placed it on a table by the door, and scurried away.
The study door closed.
Shen Yu lit another cigar, the flame flickering.
He leaned back, exhaled a stream of blue smoke, and remembered the little woman beneath him the night before, crying and pleading.
Such a coward.
Almost adorably stupid.
