"You..." Zhang Lexuan suddenly raised her head, her eyes filled with shock, as though she had heard something out of the Arabian Nights.
"Tian Chen! What nonsense are you up to? I'm your senior sister!"
"So what if you are?" Tian Chen's gaze suddenly turned serious. His youthful roguishness fell away, leaving only unwavering focus.
"All I know is that, from the first time I saw you, I never intended to think of you as just my senior sister."
He reached out, brushed a stray lock of hair beside her temple with his fingertips, and took hold of her chin.
"I can let Bei Bei's matter slide for now, and I can leave the recording for you to deal with. But on one condition: you have to stay by my side."
Zhang Lexuan's breathing grew uneven. She wanted to retreat, but her back was against the door. There was nowhere left to go.
Tian Chen's presence enveloped her, making her heart pound like a war drum.
"You're taking advantage of my predicament!" she said, biting her lip in mortified anger, though what she felt most was an inexplicable panic.
"Yes, I am," Tian Chen admitted openly, his gaze growing deeper still.
"But my feelings for you aren't born of that. Zhang Lexuan, can you honestly say there wasn't so much as a ripple in your heart when I looked at you just now?"
His words were like a needle, precisely puncturing her feigned composure.
The blush when he gazed at her, the flutter in her heart when he held her wrist-now they had become irrefutable evidence, churning within her.
Although Zhang Lexuan was already past twenty, before Tian Chen appeared, she had never taken the initiative to approach any man other than Bei Bei.
When it came to romance, she