Chapter 46: Inseparable
Gu Zhi’s palm remained pressed against the side of her waist until they reached the dining table.
Ruan Yi’s body felt a bit stiff. The small of her back, where the man was holding her, felt as if it were on fire, and even her earlobes began to burn.
Being touched by him had always been a commonplace occurrence, but ever since the “waking up in the same bed” blunder…
Gu Zhi gently set two bowls of steaming pumpkin millet porridge on the table.
Thinking she was being very discreet, Ruan Yi dragged her chair quite a distance to the side. When she sat down, she even pushed her bowl of porridge further away.
The man’s movements paused. His hand hung in mid-air, but the corners of his lips slowly curled into an indefinable arc.
“Sister… why are you sitting so far away?”
Without waiting for Ruan Yi to defend herself, the man reached out a long arm, hooked the back of her chair, and effortlessly pulled the entire chair—and the person in it—right in front of him.
Ruan Yi let out a startled cry, falling into his embrace as her center of gravity shifted. The moment her nose bumped against his chest, she heard a low, muffled chuckle from above.
Gu Zhi used a spoon to scoop up some of the pumpkin millet porridge and brought it to her lips, brushing it gently against them. “Open up, Sister.”
His warm breath was right by her ear. Although being fed by Ah Zhi used to be a regular thing, she had never felt such panic during their time spent together day and night.
Ruan Yi suddenly grabbed the wrist in front of her. She swallowed hard, her tone sounding a bit awkward.
“I-I’ll eat by myself from now on. Haha, I’m a grown adult, why do you need to feed me?”
As soon as she finished speaking, the air instantly froze. The hand Gu Zhi used to hold the spoon stiffened completely in the air.
After a long silence, Gu Zhi lowered his eyes. “Did I do something to make Sister unhappy?”
When he looked up again, his pupils were shrouded in a layer of moist mist, looking as aggrieved as a large dog abandoned by its owner.
Ruan Yi was instantly flustered with heartache. She immediately leaned her head forward and took the small spoon filled with porridge into her mouth.
“I-I’m not angry at you. I just think I can eat by myself. If we keep feeding like this, wouldn’t it look strange if someone else saw us…”
Ruan Yi’s voice grew smaller and smaller, her cheeks turning increasingly pink.
She didn’t know why she thought that way, but she suddenly felt a bit uneasy.
“What’s strange about it? Didn’t I always feed Sister like this before?”
Gu Zhi’s voice sounded like he was coaxing a child. His other hand gently touched her burning earlobe, his finger pad rubbing the sensitive soft flesh over and over.
“This is just a normal thing between siblings…”
As he trailed off, the man fed another spoonful of porridge into her mouth, the warmth of his palm spreading from her earlobe.
“It’s normal for others not to understand. After all, there isn’t another pair of siblings in this world like us…”
“Inseparable, aren’t we?” His voice was wrapped in a soul-stirring hoarseness.
Ruan Yi felt a bit at a loss; she was also afraid that her reaction was simply too exaggerated.
Gu Zhi’s rubbing of her earlobe became increasingly gentle, like he was comforting a startled kitten.
“I am the person closest to Sister, am I not? If Sister pushes me away… Ah Zhi will be very sad.”
A perfectly timed look of hurt surfaced in the man’s eyes. The moment she wavered, he pulled her even closer into his arms.
As the sweet pumpkin porridge was fed into her pink lips once more, his voice seeped into Ruan Yi’s thoughts.
“Mhm.” Ruan Yi obediently stopped resisting the feeding.
Looking at the girl’s slightly dilated pupils and her shallow breathing, the smile in the man’s eyes nearly overflowed. His finger pad stroked the soft flesh of her waist.
On the surface, it was an unannounced change—the girl in his arms no longer offered any resistance.
The softness under his palm would eventually become his…
Forever.
The man’s fingertips lingered reluctantly before dropping from her burning earlobe. Ruan Yi trembled slightly, as if waking from a dream.
The thoughts of maintaining distance from earlier seemed to have never existed. This current intimacy felt as though it was exactly as it should be.
Ruan Yi shook her head, belatedly realizing she was snuggled in Gu Zhi’s arms.
“Another bite!”
Younger brothers were meant to be ordered around, anyway.
“Okay.” A low laugh vibrated from the man’s chest.
He gently blew on the steaming pumpkin porridge to cool it, brought it to her lips, and brushed his finger pad against the moist corner of her mouth.
“Whatever Sister says, I will listen.”
“Where else could I find such a good brother? Sister will cherish you for a lifetime.”
Ruan Yi drew a “big pancake” while being fed.
Once she chased away those protagonist “gongs” and broke the plot, she would find her brother a sweet and soft “moe” girl. Wouldn’t that be a happy ending for everyone?
“Okay. A lifetime.”
The man seemed to only hear those three words.
[Once it is spoken, there is no chance to regret it.]
Inside a cluttered rental room.
The strange scent of cheap perfume mixed with disinfectant permeated the air.
A woman stubbed out her cigarette. Her once bright and noble face now only held a heavy sense of caked-on makeup, making her look like a completely different person from the figure in high-end suits at the Ruan Corporation.
“What use was there in giving birth to you!”
Her gaze landed on the man on the tattered sofa, who was wrapped in bandages like a mummy.
“I sent so many people to follow you, yet you still let that little bitch escape! And you have the nerve to say you were beaten like this?”
The bandaged man sat up abruptly, pulling the gauze on his forehead and causing blood to seep out.
“That guy named Shen isn’t a normal person at all! He hits like a lunatic! If it weren’t for the Shen family, I would have long ago…”
Before he could finish, he was interrupted by the woman’s face-full of spittle.
“Stop bragging! If kidnapping and extortion didn’t work, then change the tactic. We must make that bitch Ruan Ying spit out the money!”
The man’s gauze-wrapped head slowly rose, a poisonous light seeping through the gaps in the bandages.
Recalling Ruan Ying’s frantic appearance when she saw Ruan Yi after the call connected, and the possessiveness in that Shen family lunatic’s eyes when he looked at Ruan Yi…
His cracked lips pulled into a distorted smile.
“Mom, if you want Ruan Ying to be obedient, we still have to start with Ruan Yi…”
The woman ruthlessly crushed her cigarette, her crimson nails scraping a harsh sound against the table.
“Stop being mysterious! What exactly is the plan? Do you know people are investigating us everywhere? If we hadn’t been on that boat at the time, we would have been caught long ago!”
Her tone grew increasingly desperate and exasperated as she spoke.
“We were already on the boat. It was a great opportunity to escape the debt, but you had to come back after receiving one phone call!”
The man slowly pulled away the gauze wrapped around his face. The bloody wounds glinted with an eerie blue-purple hue under the dim light. His skewed mouth pulled into a chilling smile.
“What do you know! Do you know who contacted me!”
“Now, I’m not only going to get the money back, I’m going to make the entire Ruan Corporation belong to me!”
The man’s dislocated jaw joint vibrated slightly as he spoke, making the woman take a half-step back in fear.
“Are you crazy?!” The woman’s eyes widened.
“With your current ghostly appearance, what are you going to use to take it?”
“Based on the fact that she and her mother are both just useless women!”
The man suddenly lunged in front of his mother. The half-face revealed under the bandages was almost pressed against hers, the foul stench of his wounds spraying onto her.
“That bitch is now the only heir of the Ruan family. As long as she carries my child…”
He suddenly let out a crazed laugh.
“Film a threatening video, ruin her reputation, and the entire Ruan Corporation will be mine!”
The woman’s expression changed drastically. She looked in horror at the distorted malice frantically surging in her son’s eyes.
It was as if the person standing before her wasn’t her own son, but a complete monster.
Translator’s Note: “Drawing a big pancake” (hua da bing) is a Chinese idiom meaning to make empty promises or paint a bright but unreachable future. Ruan Yi is promising a “lifetime” to Gu Zhi, but her version of that future is very different from his yandere vision! Also, the cousin Ruan Zhengyi is officially going off the deep end.
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