Ten Rules to Bind Her Heart - Chapter 67
Xia Zhiyao went into the bathroom.
Hot water poured from the shower, washing over her body and carrying away some of her weariness and unease.
Steam clouded the mirror, framing a small, pale face.
“Xia Zhiyao, come to your senses.”
She spoke to her reflection.
“Mom and Dad are still waiting for you to come home!”
“You have to be strong. You have to survive.”
The moment she thought of her parents, the ache she had only just forced down welled up again.
They ought to be safe now. But as they waited at home each day, what kind of desperate longing must they endure?
She left the bathroom and changed into a clean white cotton nightdress, making herself neat and fresh.
Then she returned to the desk, opened the magazine whose pages she had nearly worn through, and forced herself to study the tedious commercial data.
She recognized every word, but strung together they became a sleeping spell.
She did not know how much time passed before her eyelids began to sink.
“No… can’t sleep…”
She patted her cheeks and slid out of the chair, hoping that standing would wake her up.
Shen Yu had told her to wait for him.
Until he returned, she did not dare sleep.
The last time she had dozed off while kneeling as punishment, he had said nothing, but the look in his eyes had nearly frightened her to death.
Xia Zhiyao glanced out the window.
The rain was falling harder now, thunder rolling overhead.
She was a little afraid of thunder.
She moved from the desk to the bedside.
Auntie Mei changed the sheets on the black single bed every day and smoothed them perfectly flat. Yet for some reason, the whole space remained steeped in Shen Yu’s cold, austere presence.
This was his territory. She might be the one living here now, but she still did not feel that the room’s most comfortable place truly belonged to her.
Gun in hand, she slid down onto the long-pile carpet beside the bed. She curled herself into a ball, rested her head against the mattress, and hugged a cushion to her chest.
She toyed with the gun as she waited.
Time passed one minute at a time.
Midnight.
Twelve thirty.
One o’clock.
Drowsiness surged over her like the tide of a deep sea, wave after wave threatening to drown her. Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy, and her head kept nodding like a chick pecking at grain.
At last, she could bear it no longer. Her body tipped sideways, and she slumped against the edge of the bed.
I’ll only lie here for a moment… I’ll get up as soon as I hear anything…
Half asleep, Xia Zhiyao cradled the PPK in her arms, laid her head on one forearm, and curled into a tiny ball.
Gradually, her breathing deepened.
…
One forty in the morning.
The bedroom handle turned without a sound, and the door opened a crack.
Damp chill carried in from the rain-soaked night, invading the warmth of the room.
After returning from Anya’s place, Shen Yu had gone to the study to deal with Du Tuo’s petty maneuvers along the route. Jackal and his men had suppressed the trouble, but the cleanup afterward had been tedious enough to wear through anyone’s patience.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. His black eyes were bloodshot and still heavy with hostility.
He had not intended to come back and wake the little thing tonight.
Yet for reasons he could not explain, when he reached the study door, his feet had turned toward the stairs of their own accord and carried him down.
The room was silent when he pushed open the door.
Shen Yu glanced at the bed and frowned.
No one there?
The covers were folded neatly, without a single crease.
Where had the little thing run off to?
His gaze dropped. His brow gradually eased, and a faint smile passed through his eyes.
The little thing who should have been obediently tucked into bed was instead sprawled gracelessly beside it. Her loose nightdress had ridden up with her position, exposing a length of delicate white calf as she lay curled on the carpet.
Her long, thick lashes cast two small shadows under the light and trembled gently with each even breath.
And the Walther PPK he had given her was now serving as her pillow, half her cheek pressed against its cold metal body.
Utterly stupid.
The nerves that had remained taut in Shen Yu all night inexplicably relaxed, followed by a wave of helpless amusement.
Thank goodness he had not given her bullets.
Otherwise, this stupid thing might have become the first person in the entire Golden Triangle to shoot herself dead by sleeping on a gun.
He quieted his steps and approached without a sound.
The thick carpet swallowed his footsteps. Even when he stood directly before her and his tall body cast an enormous shadow over her, the girl remained dead to the world.
One cheek was slightly squashed, and her pink lips had fallen open, rising and falling faintly with each breath.
So utterly defenseless. So stupid.
Her master had not returned, yet she had gone to sleep first without a care.
Looking at her sleeping so deeply, Shen Yu felt an absurd impulse.
He wanted to reach down, seize her slender throat, and drag her out of her dreams, then watch her beg in terror as she suffocated.
Afterward, he would take her brutally, venting the fury that had accumulated tonight through the most primal violence.
His hand was already reaching toward her.
Long fingers and prominent knuckles hovered slowly, oppressively, above the girl’s throat.
With the slightest pressure, he could watch her eyes fly open in panic and feel her tremble like a frightened rabbit in his grasp.
He could even pin her to the carpet, tear apart that thin layer of fabric, and listen to the whimpers and pleas spilling from the depths of her throat…
Shen Yu’s Adam’s apple moved. Dark desire churned in his black eyes.
His cold fingertips touched her warm cheek. The girl seemed to sense the discomfort even in her sleep and gave a soft, unhappy murmur.
Shen Yu stopped.
He looked toward the clock on the wall.
One forty-five in the morning.
If he woke her at this hour and tormented her, that paper-fragile body of hers would never manage to get up tomorrow morning.
Forget it.
For the moment, Shen Yu suppressed the turbulence within him.
Expressionless, he withdrew the hand poised to commit a crime.
With the hard toe of his military boot, he gave her calf a measured nudge.
“Get up.”
His voice was not loud, though impatience edged it.
In her dream, a gigantic black wolf was chasing Xia Zhiyao. When a dull ache suddenly came from her leg, she mumbled drowsily, “Don’t bite…”
She turned her head to the other side, rubbed her cheek against the barrel in an attempt to escape the irritating sensation, and went on sleeping.
A few seconds later, the survival radar buried deep in her mind abruptly released a piercing shriek.
Danger!
Xia Zhiyao’s eyes flew open.
Her vision did not focus immediately. Everything before her remained blurred, but the towering, mountain-like shadow radiated enough crushing menace to scatter her soul in an instant.
“M-Mr. Shen!”
