Chapter 141: Come, Fall Into Me
Love?
Who does he love?
What does he love?
Where does he love?
Liancheng felt the wind blowing past the glass, as if the whole world was laughing at her with a huge, crazy mockery.
Then she felt the body holding her was scorching hot.
She didn’t know how to describe this heat, it was too much like ashes and smoke.
So much so that she felt adrift, like a gray zone between life and death, her soul hollowed out, her emotions vanished.
Mu Zhi gazed at Liang Chaosu’s eyes, the abyss in them always unfathomable.
Now it was open.
The thick fog whispered, “Come, fall into me.”
“I came for you.”
“I’m… a little sleepy,” she stammered, her body’s self-protection eliciting an answer. “I won’t have lunch, I’m going to sleep.”
Liang Chaosu loosened his arms, only to tighten them again the next second.
She was pregnant, three months along, yet thinner.
Her bones were already slender; now she was just a wisp, fragile enough to shatter at the slightest touch, gathered in his embrace.
Pain spread through Liang Chaosu’s chest cavity, dense and intense, from the inside out. It was all over his face, in his eyes; what had been unclear before was now perfectly visible.
He tenderly kissed her forehead, his moist lips landing on her skin. Though warm, it felt so cold.
Liancheng trembled with cold, her body sluggishly growing heavy, still lacking a sense of reality.
Liang Chaosu sensed her confusion, her disbelief. He traced her eyebrows and eyes with countless light kisses, absorbing the lost soul from her skin’s texture.
He then brushed past her temples to her cheeks, returning to her nose bridge, kissing that small mole repeatedly.
A heart full of sincerity and preciousness, four years of countless words, all poured out in this moment.
Finally, her lips.
A long process.
Liancheng finally reacted, raising her hand.
To slap him.
Without hesitation.
With delayed anger, resentment, and disbelief.
“You love me? I twisted you? Liang Chaosu, a person like you knows love? What do you understand of love? Don’t just open your mouth and suddenly say you love me. Scoundrels who speak of love should be struck by lightning. A person like you, a person like you—”
Liancheng was suddenly at a loss for words.
The force of her slap was more of a pat, a light tap, given her shock.
Her fingertips were ice-cold as they brushed across his cheek, like a stream of clear water. You loved its coolness, longed for it to stay, bordering on madness, trying every method, yet she denied even your most basic emotions.
Liang Chaosu’s palms were large, his bones strong and long, slowly closing, his fingers capable of gripping both her hands.
“You accepted the love of a coward like Shen Lichuan,” he tightened his embrace, pressing against her seamlessly. “Why can’t you accept mine?”
Liancheng felt even more adrift and empty, unable to find solid ground.
The oxygen in the air wasn’t enough for her to breathe; her lungs felt suffocated and heavy. The emotions and feelings she experienced were as if vacuum-dried, less than a ten-thousandth of her true self.
She displayed a detached, absent calmness, without explosion or intensity.
She calmly asked, “In what way are you capable?”
Liang Chaosu lowered his head slightly, leaning closer to her, his gaze intensely capturing her at close range, yet clear enough for her to see him.
“I don’t care about family background, I don’t need marriage alliances. If there’s a conflict, I will only choose you. You dislike the smell of smoke, so I quit four years ago. Alcohol, I’ll refuse if I can. If not, its strong scent means I won’t appear before you unless you call me.”
“I am relatively clean. I don’t have chaotic or complex relationships. My subordinates are all the same gender. If it’s a blind date, we meet once; if it’s business, we sign a contract; if it’s about feelings, we part ways. I deal with any entanglement in advance.” He murmured in a low, husky voice, unusually rich and deep, with a warmth and longing that he no longer suppressed.
Finally.
He pressed his lips together again, whispering softly between them, “I haven’t touched any woman other than you, nor has any woman touched me, either physically or mentally.”
Liancheng stared at him.
Liang Chaosu lightly kissed the corner of her lips. “Liancheng, I am more loyal than Shen Lichuan. I can provide his care and tenderness too. Weren’t these past few days in Iceland good for us?”
Liancheng broke free from him, her feet on the ground, moving away from the sofa. She walked quickly, stumbling with each step, struggling to reach the furthest point from him.
“What was good?” she couldn’t stop trembling, goosebumps prickling her skin. “Watching me, restricting me, isolating me from the outside world, eating, sleeping, watching TV daily, even needing to listen to your opinion on movie choices—what do you take me for? Am I even human?”
She gasped for air, moving further away from Liang Chaosu. Her chaotic thoughts finally connected, and her body began to feel real.
“And what is this love you speak of? It’s utterly ridiculous. I have never felt it. What I’ve always felt from you is hostility, suppression, and a desire to tame me. Now that there’s a child, you, this anti-social pervert, are about to reach the climax of your challenging, high-difficulty game against society and convention, aren’t you?”
She retreated step by step to the doorway. “You’re about to cast your net. So you’re starting to use love, to marry me, to put a decent, good-looking fig leaf over these four years, and to trick me. Unfortunately, although I’m not as smart as you, I’m not foolish. I can distinguish between good and bad, and more importantly, between love and hate. I remember all the pain and mistreatment you inflicted upon me.”
Liang Chaosu stood up. He was tall and powerfully built, with broad, strong shoulders. The living room lights shone down, casting him in shadow against the light, making him look particularly intimidating.
Coupled with his deeply frightening and stern expression, his chest heaving with a pent-up rage that threatened to burst forth, his eyes gleamed with extreme, dangerous sharpness and darkness.
Liancheng’s fingers touched the doorknob.
The next second, Liang Chaosu commanded, stopping her. “Liancheng, if you can’t accept it, you can go upstairs.”
Liancheng ignored him. She turned the doorknob and opened the door.
The biting cold wind of Iceland, mixed with snow, suddenly rushed into the doorway. Liancheng was still wearing her home clothes, only two thin layers of cotton.
Outdoors, she was like a piece of paper, instantly penetrated by the cold, piercing her body. Every blood vessel was cold, every bone frozen.
Liancheng couldn’t feel it.
She stepped barefoot onto the snow. The accumulated snow was soft, and her footprints formed small, sunken hollows.
On the clear snowfield, it was like a plum blossom just beginning to be drawn on white paper. The flower bud extended barely two steps before being crushed with destructive force by another large foot with distinct bones.
Liang Chaosu swept her up in his arms, covering her head with a down jacket. He wrapped her tightly, holding her close. His breath was hot, condensing into mist in the air.
His eyes were also burning, boundless, filled with urgency, anger, and hatred, almost reaching the point of overwhelming him. “You’ve always been calm. Barefoot in the snow, pregnant, how far can you run? These meaningless impulses, you—”
“I won’t do it, right?”
Liancheng’s voice came muffled from inside the down jacket, trembling, filled with a regret that pierced her gut.
“I’m always assessing the situation, always enduring. But because I can endure, and will endure, no matter how you pressure me, I won’t go crazy, won’t play your charades, and pretend to be peaceful. I was wrong, terribly wrong. Every time I accumulated strength for a counterattack, you must have found it extremely entertaining. This toy can’t be broken, always new.”
Liang Chaosu shut the door behind him, his face grim, offering no reply.
He went straight to the second floor, into the bedroom, where Liancheng was pulled into the quilt by him.
