Feelings That Couldn't Reach Him

Lu Yan slowly woke to the sound of long, steady breathing.

As soon as he opened his eyes, his vision filled with a brilliant sweep of pink hair.

Aemeath had her arms and legs wrapped around him, her cheek pressed firmly against his chest. He could even feel her eyelashes fluttering with each breath, brushing against his skin.

The fullness of waking up with the person he loved in his arms made the corners of Lu Yan's mouth rise of their own accord.

He didn't move, afraid of waking Aemeath, who was still sleeping soundly in his arms.

Ever since they had made their relationship official yesterday, the gravity around Aemeath had miraculously receded.

Whenever they were alone together, she was as soft and sweet as a melting filled candy, relying on him with all her heart.

Just as Lu Yan was savoring this quiet intimacy, the phone on the bedside table suddenly began vibrating like crazy.

"Buzz, buzz, buzz... buzz, buzz, buzz..."

The rapid vibrations were amplified by the wooden bedside table, sounding especially jarring in the quiet morning.

Lu Yan frowned slightly and instinctively stretched out his long arm, hoping to silence the annoying noise at once.

But he was a step too slow.

Aemeath murmured in protest and buried her face deeper against him, mumbling, "Mmm... A-Yan~ too loud..."

"It's okay, it's okay. I'll turn it off right now. Go back to sleep," Lu Yan soothed softly, patting her back in a steady rhythm as his other hand finally reached the phone.

He had only meant to silence it, but when he caught sight of the incoming call and message notifications on the screen, he froze.

A bright red number 15 appeared in the upper-right corner of the WeChat icon, and it kept climbing with every vibration of the phone.

The sender was saved as [Sister Lin].

A flicker of confusion rose in Lu Yan's heart.

Apart from submitting or revising artwork, receiving payment, or when I was late submitting a piece and she went to look for me at my old place, Sister Lin never contacted him outside working hours, much less bombarded him with messages like this.

Could there have been a copyright problem with one of his earlier pieces?

At the thought, Lu Yan shifted his position slightly, unlocked his phone with one hand, and opened WeChat.

In an instant, a screen full of exclamation marks nearly spilled out at him.

Sister Lin: Lu Yan!

Sister Lin: Are you awake yet?! Answer me now!

Sister Lin: What's with that picture on your Moments?!

Sister Lin: When did you start dating?! You barely even leave the house! Where on earth did this girlfriend come from?!

Lu Yan stared at the barrage of questions, a little dazed.

He had thought something had gone wrong with work, but she was actually asking about the Moments post he had made yesterday evening.

The post had contained only a sketch of someone from behind, captioned [My love].

It was the first time in all these years that he had announced to the whole world where his heart belonged.

Lu Yan glanced at Aemeath, whose eyes were still closed as she lay in his arms, and warmth filled his heart.

Lu Yan: What do you mean, what's with it?

Less than two seconds after he sent the message, she replied instantly.

Sister Lin: That Moments post! The one that says "my love"!

Sister Lin: Do you know that when I saw it last night, I was so shocked the face mask fell right off my face?!

Sister Lin: You started dating without saying a word? Are you really the same great artist Lu I know, the one who pays no attention to anything outside his own little world?!

Reading Sister Lin's exaggerated description, Lu Yan couldn't help chuckling.

He thought her reaction was a bit much, but he could understand it.

After all, in the eyes of Sister Lin and everyone else who knew him, he was aloof and reclusive, someone who seemed ready to spend his whole life with a drawing tablet.

Now that this iron tree had suddenly blossomed, it was indeed quite a shock.

Lu Yan's fingers flew across the screen, boasting with the matter-of-fact confidence only a man head over heels in love could have.

Lu Yan: It's exactly what it looks like. There's nothing to make such a fuss about. I had some time on my hands, so I drew my love from behind.

However, just after he sent that message,

Aemeath, who had seemed to be sleeping soundly in his arms all along, suddenly stopped breathing in that steady rhythm.

Lu Yan immediately noticed the subtle change in his arms.

He lowered his head slightly and saw that Aemeath had opened her eyes at some point.

Her clear golden eyes were fixed on the phone screen in Lu Yan's hand. The languor of someone who had just woken up vanished without a trace.

In its place was a chilling aloofness and wariness that made his heart tremble.

Aemeath said nothing, merely lifting her head slowly from Lu Yan's chest.

Like a food-guarding kitten defending its territory, she no longer had her arms draped lazily around Lu Yan's neck. Instead, she gripped his waist tightly.

Her gaze stayed fixed on Sister Lin's name on the screen. Her voice was quiet, but carried a chill that went straight to the bone. "A-Yan, that woman is back."

Just then, a message from Sister Lin popped up.

The moment Lu Yan saw what it said, his breathing nearly stopped.

Sister Lin: A-Yan... do you really not remember everything we shared in the past?

"Everything we shared in the past?!" Aemeath's voice dropped to freezing in an instant, and her once-soft body went taut as a fully drawn bow.

She abruptly pushed her upper body up and looked down at Lu Yan. A dangerously dark current churned in those starry eyes, which had once been full of love and dependence.

"A-Yan, are you really just colleagues?" Aemeath asked through clenched teeth, every word squeezed out between them.

"Then what does she mean by everything you shared in the past? Did something happen between you two before?"

In that moment, the gentle, lovable little wife was gone, replaced by the possessive, obsessive girl who wanted him all to herself.

Lu Yan's scalp went numb.

"No! Aemeath, listen to me! She's just making a meme reference!" Fine beads of sweat broke out on Lu Yan's forehead in his panic, and he pulled Aemeath into his arms.

He hurriedly typed.

Lu Yan: Sister Lin! What are you going crazy for?! Explain yourself, quick! Nothing has ever happened between us except submitting artwork and getting paid! You're making us sound like some pair of star-crossed lovers!

Lu Yan: My girlfriend is right here beside me, looking at the screen! Are you trying to get me killed?!

Lu Yan hurriedly hit send.

He immediately turned the phone screen around and held it right in front of Aemeath, speaking with utmost sincerity. "Look! Look at what I sent! There's really nothing between us. She probably makes too many meme references and her brain's short-circuited!"

Aemeath stared intently at the two messages Lu Yan had sent. Seeing how eager he was to make it clear there was nothing between them, the chilling dark current in her eyes slowly began to recede.

She could feel Lu Yan's heart pounding and see the anxiety in his eyes. He wasn't anxious because he felt guilty, but because he was afraid she would misunderstand and get angry.

He was asserting her claim to him in front of another woman in the most direct, blunt way possible.

Aemeath's tense body gradually relaxed.

She gave a "hmph" and settled back into Lu Yan's arms, resting her chin on his chest as her fingers traced circles, seemingly without thinking.

"You pass this time~" Aemeath's voice grew soft and cute again. She lifted her head and planted a reassuring kiss on Lu Yan's cheek.

"If A-Yan had dared hesitate for even a second just now, or given her some ambiguous answer, I'd have thrown your phone out the window, and you could forget about ever going out again for the rest of your life."

Lu Yan let out a long breath.

He held the girl, who had become well-behaved again, tightly in his arms and planted a firm kiss on her forehead:

"I wouldn't dare, I wouldn't dare. My innocence in this life, the next, and every life after that belongs to Lady Aemeath alone."

"Hehe~ that's more like it." Aemeath closed her eyes in satisfaction and continued dozing in her master's arms like a cat that had won a great battle to defend its territory.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the city, before the floor-to-ceiling windows of a large apartment,

The atmosphere was completely different from the warm sweetness at Lu Yan's place.

Twenty-six-year-old Sister Lin, wearing an expensive silk nightgown and holding a glass of milk she hadn't gotten around to drinking, sat slumped on the sofa without a care for appearances.

As she read the almost heartless replies Lu Yan had sent, especially the words [My girlfriend is right here beside me, watching. Are you trying to get me killed?], it felt as though an invisible knife had stabbed her heart.

She put down the coffee cup and covered her face with both hands, her shoulders twitching despite herself.

"What do you mean, star-crossed lovers~?" Sister Lin's voice was thick with frustration and grievance, sounding especially desolate in the empty apartment.

The truth was, Lu Yan had never known that this client had stopped seeing him as just an artist a long time ago.

The first time she met Lu Yan in person, the young artist in a simple white shirt, with his aloof features and faint air of loneliness, had deeply attracted her.

But Sister Lin knew that if she rashly confessed to a homebody like Lu Yan, she would only scare him away and make him cut off all contact with her.

So she had chosen the most conservative approach, the one she considered safest: slowly boiling the frog.

Using her position as his client, she kept introducing work to him, making sure he had a source of income.

From time to time, she asked after him on WeChat under the pretext of work, trying to make her way into his world bit by bit.

She had even quietly planned to stand by his side openly, using the gentleness of a mature woman, once he lowered his guard around her a little more.

After all, as Sister Lin saw it, Lu Yan's world contained nothing but drawing. There were no other women in it at all.

She had plenty of time to wait.

She had never dreamed that the warm water she had so carefully tended for so many years would be carried off, pot and all, by some girl who had dropped out of nowhere!

And even the bottom of the pot had been smashed to pieces!

Looking at Lu Yan's boastful Moments post, Sister Lin was overwhelmed with regret. "In the end, I still couldn't beat the girl who came out of nowhere?"

Meanwhile, in the little courtyard filled with sunshine,

Lu Yan looked at his girlfriend, who had fallen soundly asleep in his arms again, and set his phone to Do Not Disturb without hesitation.

The client, everything they shared in the past—they could all go to hell.

Now, all he wanted was to hold his Aemeath tight and spend a morning on this narrow bed without anyone disturbing them.