Lin Wanwan was gulping for air, like a fish out of water.

Lu Shouyue stared her down, a little out of control, and enunciated every word clearly: "Wanwan! A woman without a heart—I can’t have her, and I don’t want her."

With that, he abruptly sat up, left the bed, snatched up the clothes on the bench, dressed at lightning speed, and walked out of the bedroom without looking back.

In less than a second, the front door opened and shut with a bang.

Lin Wanwan sat dazed on the bed. His body heat still lingered on her skin, yet he had left, utterly resolute, in the blink of an eye.

"It’s not like that!" She covered her face and burst into tears.

Lu Shouyue ran downstairs. At this moment he was boiling with rage, his whole body radiating a chill like millennia-old ice as he strode down the blurry, lamplit street.

Jealousy had driven him mad; if he stayed any longer, he’d ignore how inconvenient her body was right now and turn into a demon and devour her.

He was furious enough to die, but still couldn’t bring himself to hurt her.

On this bitterly cold midwinter night, wearing nothing but a thin suit, Lu Shouyue actually couldn’t feel the cold at all.

The icy wind blew straight into the open collar of his half-buttoned shirt, yet still couldn’t blow out the anger burning in his chest.

The streetlights cast their shadows over him, as if tracing a hazy, ambiguous outline around his body.

She clearly had responded to him last time, she’d clearly gotten jealous and thrown a fit because of him, and she’d even been sulking last night over that female reporter.

So why did she hit him with such a blow tonight?

If her love had to be split evenly between two men...

He couldn’t do it!

He really couldn’t!

"Wow, this hottie is fuming! My god, boyfriend-power max! It’s this cold and his shirt collar’s wide open!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeahhh! He’s so hot!"

A few fangirls on the street were drawn to the handsome guy storming past, and couldn’t help sneaking out their phones to secretly snap a few pics. Immersed in his own world, Lu Shouyue didn’t notice a thing. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Suddenly, he stopped walking, his gaze turning razor-sharp as he looked at the girls across the street who were whispering and secretly taking photos of him.

That look was like a knife, scaring them so badly they dropped their phones, stumbling back several steps.

"S-s-sorry! We didn’t mean to."

Lu Shouyue ignored them, his brows tightly furrowed. He turned around, started walking back, and slowly began fastening the top three buttons that had been left undone.

He’d trained his self-control for so long, he was just about to reach enlightenment—why should he have to slink off in disgrace now?

No, he shouldn’t be the one to withdraw.

Why should he be the one to back out?

The ancient man was, in the end, still ancient history!

When Lin Wanwan had cried until she was a little worn out, the doorbell rang again at the front door, not hurried and not slow.

She sprang up from the bed, ran barefoot into the living room, and yanked the door open with a "whoosh."

Sure enough, outside the door stood a dejected Lu Shouyue, like a rooster who’d just lost a fight.

Lin Wanwan threw herself at him in an instant, hooking her arms around his neck, burying her face in his chest as she sobbed, "Lu Shouyue, don’t go!"

Lu Shouyue held her tight, walked inside, closed the door behind him with his back, and said in a low voice, "You opened the door that fast, and dressed like this—you’re not afraid it might be some bad guy?"

"I knew it was you. You wouldn’t abandon me and never come back." Lin Wanwan mumbled, her voice buzzing.

Lu Shouyue gave a bitter smile. "You really think you’ve got me all figured out."

Lin Wanwan shook her head in his arms. "No, no!"

"If I hadn’t come back, would you have come after me?"

"Yes, I would!"

During the time after Lu Shouyue had resolutely left the bed, Lin Wanwan had cried while reflecting on herself.

She could afford to lose Xiao Chong, but she absolutely could not lose Lu Shouyue. Because the latter had, without her realizing it, already become her light, her warmth, her only family in the modern world.

This was also why, after she found herself sinking into Xiao Chong’s music, she would immediately disregard propriety, leave the ancient time, and rush back to the modern world.

She didn’t want to be bewitched; the thousand-year gap was something she could never bridge. She should cherish what she had right now.

Lin Wanwan lifted her head, looking at him through a blur of tears. "Lu Shouyue, I love you, I really do! I can tell the difference, you have to believe me! I only want to be with you, I only want to marry you!"

Lu Shouyue’s lips trembled. He pressed Lin Wanwan’s head down onto his shoulder in one motion. His heart, which had already been crushed to pieces, was stitched back together by Lin Wanwan’s string of actions and confession the moment he rang the doorbell.

Holding her, he couldn’t stop his tears from falling, one by one, onto her back.

Just earlier, when he’d been on the verge of losing his mind with rage and so jealous he wanted to kill someone, he hadn’t shed a single tear. Yet now, blindsided by Lin Wanwan throwing herself into his arms and confessing like this, he couldn’t hold it in.

Lu Shouyue didn’t dare speak, because the second he opened his mouth his tearful voice would give him away.

Crying in front of her twice—way too humiliating! He was a man, he had his pride!

They stayed locked in that tight embrace for a long, long time, until Lu Shouyue’s tears had quietly run dry and he’d gotten his emotions back under control. Only then did he loosen his arms, bend down, scoop Lin Wanwan up in a princess carry, and deposit her back into the warm covers.

When he lay down in bed again, Lu Shouyue didn’t start anything with Lin Wanwan. He just held her quietly and stared at the ceiling in silence.

He didn’t smoke, but right now, he really wanted a cigarette to clear his head.

After a long time, once he’d drafted and redrafted his words in his mind, he finally asked her, "Wanwan, the man from a thousand years ago, he was from the Lanling Xiao clan, wasn’t he?"

Lin Wanwan’s heart clenched, and even the hand resting on Lu Shouyue’s chest froze.

"H-how did you know?"

Lu Shouyue didn’t feel any satisfaction at having guessed right. He said flatly, "I remembered the Lanling Xiao clan info you asked me to look up a long time ago. He’s the one who played the Ancient Zither, right?"

"Oh. Mm." Lin Wanwan gave a tiny reply, not daring to lie.

She didn’t want to talk about this topic with Lu Shouyue at all. Since he didn’t press further, she naturally wouldn’t take the initiative to bring it up.

Though he’d stopped asking out loud, inside Lu Shouyue’s heart the waves were surging as his thoughts churned.

Once he had Lin Wanwan’s confirmation, he not only knew that his rival was from the Lanling Xiao clan—he even knew exactly who he was.

It had to be that Xiao Chong, the one history recorded as dying young!

Because the very first time, Lin Wanwan had asked him to auction off an Ancient Zither Score personally copied by Xiao Chong. The inscription on it had been very strange, like someone had bullied him into writing it.

The more he dug through his memories, the clearer they became.

He still remembered clearly that the score read: "Lanling Xiao Chong, copied High Mountain and Flowing Water in the study in the autumn of the third year of Zhenguan, and gifts it to my cousin Miss Lin."

Cousin...

The first time Wanwan got drunk in front of him, she’d muttered and called him "Cousin" too!

So that’s how it was! So that’s how it was!

Lu Shouyue suddenly propped himself up, lifted Lin Wanwan’s chin, and kissed her lips. As he kissed her, he softly declared, "Wanwan, you’re mine now, you’ll be mine in the future, and you’ll be mine forever."

"Mm." Lin Wanwan responded vaguely, "Then let’s just forget about everything unpleasant that happened tonight, okay?"

Lu Shouyue bit her lip lightly, not too hard and not too soft, and gave a cold little laugh. "Forget it? Not a chance!"

He whispered in her ear, "Once you’re better, I still have to give you a proper punishment."

"Ah... don’t." Lin Wanwan instantly clung to him tighter. After what happened today she was already miserable enough—what more punishment could he possibly have in mind?

Lu Shouyue chuckled softly and dropped a kiss on her forehead. "I’ll let you off for tonight. Go to sleep."