Mu Sijue was standing outside the bathroom when there came her alarming scream. He thought Xu Youning had an accident inside it so he pushed the door open. However, he saw her vacantly standing there, and he couldn’t tell whether the look on her face was mad or desperate.

  He frowned and said, “Xu Youning, it’s the middle of the night.” He meant that she had disturbed other patients.

  “Who cares if it’s the middle of the night or early morning!” Xu Youning picked up a bottle of hand sanitizer on the washbasin, then threw it toward Mu Sijue and shouted, “Mu Sijue, you’re a peeping Tom!”


  Mu Sijue seemed to understand why Xu Youning was mad. He leaned against the door frame at leisure and said, “Peeping?” With that, he turned his lips into a smile and added, “Looking at you as open as the day may be more apt.”


  Xu Youning thought it over—”So it is. There’s no need for him to peep when he helped me change my clothes. He could see everything easily!”


  “Mu Sijue!” Xu Youning racked her brains but couldn’t come up with any words that could hurt him. She had to say with anger, “I’ve never thought you were such a base person, taking advantage of my critical state!”


  Mu Sijue said as if nothing had happened, “You shouldn’t be that agitated.”


  “Well, you’re right!” Xu Youning almost jumped to her feet and said, “I should have bitten you dead!”


  Mu Sijue gave her a meaningful smile and said, “There’s nothing to look at when seeing your naked body. Even if you bite me dead, you can’t change the fact.”


  “.……” “There’s nothing to look when seeing my naked body……” Xu Youning thought.

  Xu Youning’s heart was filled with fury, which couldn’t be mitigated, even though she took deep breaths again and again. There were other items on the washbasin, she picked up one without clearly seeing it—


  She didn’t care what it was. “Whatever can kill Mu Sijue is good!” She thought.

  Xu Youning forgot it—she couldn’t move her leg. Her leaning just then had twisted the injuries in it, then came the pain. Her other leg couldn’t support her alone, so she suddenly became weightless and was about to fall……

  Mu Sijue quickly reacted to that. He rushed toward Xu Youning and held her.

  Xu Youning had thought that she would heavily fall and unsettle her injuries to suffer the bone-breaking pain again. Unexpectedly, Mu Sijue had saved her from all that.

  She snorted, not willing to look at Mu Sijue, and said, “Don’t think I will thank you!”


  “I don’t need it.” Mu Sijue carried Xu Youning and walked toward the ward, then he said indifferently, “I just don’t want to hear you screaming anymore.”


  “.……” “Damn it! Will you die if you say any positive words?!” Xu Youning thought.

  Back in the ward, Mu Sijue threw Xu Youning onto the bed and gave a terrible explanation, “The nurse wasn’t available, so I helped you change your clothes. Take it easy, there’s nothing to look at.”


  The fury within Xu Youning’s heart almost killed her. She angrily pointed to the entrance of the ward and shouted, “Go away! I don’t want to see you before I leave hospital!”


  Mu Sijue slightly narrowed his deep eyes and asked, “Pardon?”


  Xu Youning froze for a while, then she realized that she had spoken without careful diction—how dared she ask Mu Sijue to leave? In his past 31 years, it was probably the first time that he had heard someone say those words to him.

  Xu Youning didn’t have the backbone to face the imminent calamity. She stuttered, “I…… I said it’s late. You must be busy tomorrow. It’s time to go back to rest……”


  Xu Youning might be an undercover person that was the best at acting while the worst at lying in the world.

  When she explained against her will, she didn’t dare to look at him, with her deer-like eyes blinking, her tongue knotted and her accent changed.

  She was just like that, without an attractive figure or glorious features. She looked down and blinked, but it was enough to stir Mu Sijue’s…… innermost feelings.

  “Xu Youning.” He raised her chin, staring at her with deep feeling. After a while, he suddenly lowered his head and captured her lips with his.

  The two had bumped into each other’s lips before. Mu Sijue had given Xu Youning artificial respiration the other day when there was no time for him to feel her lips.

  Only then did he find that her lips, from which harsh words had passed, were softer than he had expected.

  Xu Youning was usually like a little hedgehog, defending itself with its spines at any time. On the other hand, her lips were full and soft, just like fresh jelly. They seemed to have the charm to make him indulge without a stop.

  Mu Sijue disliked kissing a woman, and even when he wanted to satisfy his sexual desires, he had rarely given an active kiss to the one beside him.

  Unlike the protagonists in the novels who thought that a kiss was sacred and should only be given to their beloveds, he just disliked the taste of lipsticks.

  Xu Youning didn’t have the habit of making herself up, and she didn’t wear lipstick. Her rosy lips were like the red roses that bloomed in the morning, bright and beautiful.

  He kissed her as a punishment but unexpectedly fell into a vortex, in which two invisible hands were dragging him, making him unable to get rid of it.

  “So, let me be lost in it.” Mu Sijue thought.

  “For once, let me be lost in it.”


  Xu Youning was more surprised.

  The only experience she could count as kissing was the artificial respiration Mu Sijue had given her the other day—when she was unconscious.

  At that time, however, they were really kissing each other. She could feel the temperature of Mu Sijue’s lips, and that he was enjoying the kiss. He kissed hard as if he wanted to shorten the distance between them to zero.

  Though Mu Sijue was addicted to alcohol and cigarettes, he never smelled of tobacco or alcohol. He had a light smell of male courage, like the strength that could make others feel secure.

  At the moment, Mu Sijue’s smell filled Xu Youning’s nose. Only then did she find she was fond of that smell.

  She closed her eyes and subconsciously opened her mouth to breathe in Mu Sijue’s smell as much as she liked, feeling the way he leaned close to her, and his kiss.

  As for why Mu Sijue kissed her, and whether she was skittish to accept his kiss that soon…… She had no time to think about it, and she only knew that she had few opportunities. The kiss at that moment was like charity.

  Realizing that the little hedgehog didn’t resist, Mu Sijue was somewhat surprised—he had thought that as Xu Youning usually did, she would push him away and was likely to slap him across the face without hesitation.

  However, that might have been what Xu Youning wanted. The tasks Kang Ruicheng had assigned her might have included making him fall in love with her.

  “What am I doing? Am I telling her in a roundabout way that she succeeded?” Mu Sijue thought.

  Mu Sijue suddenly sobered as if he felt an electric shock, then he released Xu Youning.

  Xu Youning didn’t know whether it was her illusion when the air re-entered her lungs, she seemed to feel the coldness from deep within Mu Sijue’s eyes. She looked closely but found nothing in them, except for his usual mystery and seriousness.

  For a moment, she didn’t know what to say, staring at Mu Sijue blankly.

  Mu Sijue lightly touched Xu Youning’s chin with his rough fingertips, then leaned closer to her and said in a threatening voice, “Remember that, nobody dares to talk to me that way.”


  With that, he turned around and left.

  When the ward door was quietly closed, Xu Youning breathed a long sigh of relief, then she suddenly felt her heart beating faster, and her cheeks hot.

  “Wait, what’s wrong with me? Why do I blush and my heart beats faster after Mu Sijue left?” Xu Youning thought.

  “Damn it, that’s quite odd!”


  Xu Youning drew the quilt around herself, then she lay down and closed her eyes, but she couldn’t fall asleep.

  If he just wanted to punish her for being rude, Mu Sijue could have used his usual methods, such as threatening or intimidating her.

  Why did he kiss her?

  There was a hazy guess coming to Xu Youning’s mind, but she didn’t dare to say it, and she wasn’t sure about it.

  For her at that time, Mu Sijue’s feelings were like luxuries that she couldn’t afford, and should only be silently imagined in her mind. Gaining his love was like an ancient myth that was out of reach.

  That livelong night, Xu Youning was doomed to lose her sleep.

  In the morning, the dewdrops sparkled in the light of the rising sun, and everything in the spring looked beautiful and active.

  Xu Youning didn’t fall asleep until dawn, and it was noon when she woke up. She squinted and saw a tall figure beside her bed. With surprise and joy, she widened her eyes but found that it was Ah Guang.

  “Youning, are you awake?” Ah Guang gave a vivid smile in the sun and said, “Mr. Mu said I would be free today, and he told me to accompany you here!”


  “Mu Sijue……”


  Thinking of Mu Sijue, Xu Youning recalled the kiss from the previous night. She unconsciously drew the quilt to cover the lower half of her face, with only her deer-like eyes on Ah Guang, and said, “What about him? Is he busy today?”


  Ah Guang looked at Xu Youning’s face, absent-minded.

  Although Xu Youning had usually worn no make-up, he always thought her good-looking. She didn’t look alluring or exquisite, and she wasn’t as charming as Luo Xiaoxi or as gorgeous as Su Jianan. She was like the girl next door, pretty and nice.

  Ah Guang liked Xu Youning, and he thought that it was the kind of feeling a boy had for his elder sister. At that moment, however, Xu Youning was lying on the bed staring at him, looking like an ordinary pretty girl instead of a powerful woman who was rich in social experience……

  He suddenly felt thirsty and his heartbeats were a little irregular.

  To conceal his strangeness, Ah Guang lowered his head and said, “Mr. Mu seems to have some personal affairs today.”


  Personal affairs……

  Xu Youning thought sourly, “His personal affairs had better not be related to a lady.”


  “Youning, are you hungry? Just now an auntie sent some broth here, and she said Mrs. Lu had asked her to do that,” Ah Guang said.

  Xu Youning threw back the covers and sat up. “Please heat it for me. I want to brush my teeth and wash my face.”


  Ah Guang said “Oh”, then he picked up the broth and went out. Xu Youning didn’t go into the bathroom, instead, she rang the nurse bell to call the nurse there.

  Although Mu Sijue told her that he had gone to the hospital after midnight, she still wanted to confirm with the nurse.

  The nurse said, “We know that Mr. Mu left at about two o’clock this morning. Maybe he arrived here at about one o’clock. At that time, there was a patient not feeling well so we were busy, and nobody was at the nurse station. That’s why none of us saw him. Miss Xu, what happened?”


  The nurse’s words confirmed what Mu Sijue had told her. Then Xu Youning shook her head and said, “Nothing. I want to brush my teeth. Please help me.”


  The nurse helped Xu Youning into a wheelchair and took her into the bathroom.

  Then the nurse left, puzzled—”Why did he ask me not to tell the exact time he visited here? Mr. Mu came at midnight. But when he left, he asked me to say that he came at about one o’clock if Miss Xu asked me anything.”


  The nurse wondered what the difference was between 12 o’clock and one o’clock.