Chapter 6

Jiang Suiye was wheeled into a hospital room. The doctor had given him an anesthetic, and he hadn’t woken up yet.

He lay on the bed, pale, his brows still drawn together. His breathing, at least, was much steadier.

After what he’d just done to me, I hardly knew how to face him.

Sure, he was handsome. But who kissed their good friend?

The marks from his bite were still on the back of my neck. I took a photo with my phone. Two clear rows of tooth marks stood out, the skin around them a little swollen.

I didn’t dare dwell on it. Once I’d asked the doctor and been assured nothing serious was wrong, I took a taxi back to campus.

That night, I tossed and turned in bed.

Ever since Jiang Suiye had bitten me, my body had been getting stranger and stranger.

The back of my neck kept burning.

Stranger still, at one point I actually began to miss his scent.

I felt as if his smell was all over me.

I stared at the ceiling, my mind full of him pressing down on me.

After a sleepless night, I went to class the next morning with dark circles under both eyes.

Jiang Suiye didn’t come back for two days. I hadn’t visited him once in that time.

But the doctor had told me he’d woken up and left that same night, so I wasn’t worried anymore.

Once he returned, I kept avoiding him.

What had happened that night was just too embarrassing.

But for some reason, the back of my neck had been hot ever since.

And the instant I saw him, I wanted to get closer. The urge was so strong I had to bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood to suppress it.

He behaved just as he always had. If anything, he was even more attentive.

Breakfast still appeared on my desk every morning, but he no longer said much. He would just glance at me and leave.

By unspoken agreement, neither of us mentioned that night.

Unfortunately, only a few days after his return, the university sent him to a national electrical competition. He’d have to spend three days in the neighboring province.

On the day he left, he packed in the dorm while I sat on my bed pretending to read. Out of the corner of my eye, I followed his every move.

He paused as he zipped his suitcase, then came over and stood beside my bed.

I looked up at him. His lashes lowered as he looked down at me.

In the end, he only left me with a few reminders and went.

Those three days felt like years.

Look at me. It had only been a few days, and I already missed him desperately.

Especially his cologne.

I made a special trip to the mall to buy another brand with the same scent and sprayed more than half the bottle on myself. It was useless. It smelled wrong, miles off. It didn’t give me that weak-in-the-knees feeling at all.

I looked up reviews of agarwood colognes, too, and bought four or five samples to try. Not one could reproduce his scent.

Those cheap substitutes even made me a little nauseous. My stomach churned, and I had to throw all the bottles away.

Unable to help myself, I searched his wardrobe. His clothes had all been washed and hung out on the balcony. The lingering scent was so faint I could barely smell it.

I sat on the edge of his bed holding his sweatshirt, staring into space. I felt hollow inside.

The back of my neck began to burn again, and the emptiness only grew.

Had I been poisoned or something?

No. Even if I had, I still needed to know what brand of cologne this was.

After three days of waiting, he finally returned.

That afternoon, I was sitting in a chair, lost in thought, when he pushed the door open. At the sound, I shot to my feet and nearly knocked the chair over.

Jiang Suiye stood in the doorway, looking travel-worn, his suitcase at his feet.

He looked at me. I looked at him. Neither of us spoke.

The agarwood drifted from his body and across half the room into my nose. I felt like parched earth receiving rain. The nerves I’d held taut for three days relaxed all at once.

I stood there and realized my legs were trembling.

I really couldn’t take it anymore.

No one else was in the room. Our chubby roommate and Wang Gang had both gone to play ball. I walked up to him.

“A-Ye, where did you buy your cologne? Could you share the link?”

He was crouched by his suitcase, sorting through his things. At my question, his hands stopped.

He looked up with a slight frown. “Cologne? I never wear cologne.”

Now I was confused, too.

“Then where does that agarwood scent on you come from? Can you tell me?”

An odd expression crossed his face.

He stood slowly and came toward me, step by step.

“You can smell me?”

“Of course.” I nodded. “Please tell me. I’ve bought so many bottles these past few days, and none of them smell right. What exactly do you use…?”

With no one else in the room, Jiang Suiye actually smiled at that.

He kept moving closer, backing me toward the desk until I ended up sitting on it.

The edge dug into my back. He braced his hands on either side of me and leaned over me, his agarwood scent closing in from every direction.

“What are you doing?”

I was a little scared. Was he having another episode?

Remembering what the doctor had said last time, I felt my cheeks grow hot.

Was he sexually… frustrated again?

“Didn’t you want to know?” He came so close that his nose almost brushed mine. “Heaven really is on my side. You can actually smell my pheromones.”

What pheromones?

Wasn’t it cologne?

He’d thoroughly confused me.

“Yanyan,” he said softly, his voice brushing my ear like a feather. “You really like my scent, don’t you?”

He was so close. For some reason, that smell muddled my head, and all the blood in my body seemed to rush to my face.

Under his gaze, I nodded.

He chuckled, his eyes curving beautifully, and reached out to give the back of my neck a little squeeze.

The moment his fingers touched that patch of skin, I shuddered all over and nearly fell off the desk.

He steadied my waist, bent down to my ear, and breathed against it, startlingly hot.

“Then shall I give it to you?”

Faced with that handsome face, I let my guard down again.

Afterward, I smelled of him, inside and out.

He lifted me off the desk, carried me to his bed, and drew the curtain around us.

I had no idea how much time passed. All I remembered was ending up dazed in his arms, his scent covering me.

But I certainly felt much better.

He was still murmuring in my ear.

I was too tired to answer even a single word. I fell fast asleep against him.

I could have kicked myself.

After that day, Jiang Suiye’s agarwood scent had practically marinated right into me.