Kissing fiend. Just two lips, yet his kiss made her whole body burn. Diao Zhiyu’s lips appeared thin and aloof when he smiled faintly, but upon closer inspection, they had a teasing curve and a surprisingly full texture, warm to the touch—though she was no cooler now.
He loved licking—lips, teeth—his tongue soft yet cunning, stealing her breath until she gasped.
He pressed close, feeling the rise and fall of her body. His breath warmed her face, his panting tangled in her ears, and where his tongue had traced, the cool air tingled—a reminder that she was… wet.
Under amber light, her skin glowed like cream. “You look like strawberry cake,” he murmured.
“Hmm?”
“I want to devour you. Lick you clean.”
The air thickened with desire. The boy had shed his shyness; every awakened part of him stirred.
Though quick with words, she never imagined she’d falter like this.
She knew her cheeks flushed, hair tangled across her face—a disheveled, exposed mess, clothed yet bare.
As his hand slid down to unzip, she instinctively caught his wrist—perhaps… nervous.
“How long has it been?” he whispered, as if fearing to startle her.
“A while…” Hu Xiu lowered her gaze, recalling past bedroom matters—clumsy attempts at pleasure. Strictly speaking, she was no expert, nor did she enjoy pornographic movies. Her ex preferred Asian actresses with their usual submissive tropes.
He slipped out of bed, rummaged through a drawer, and pulled out a long tie.
Red silk, pressed smooth. Kneeling beside her curled form, he said, “I think I get it.”
He noticed? Draping the tie over his hand, he cupped her face: “Let me show you a new world.”
“You’re going to… tie me up?”
The shirtless boy broke into a chuckle in the dimness, running a hand through his hair. “You girls are something. Talk big like veterans, but tremble when it counts. Scared I’m no good?”
“Maybe after this… you won’t like me as much.”
He paused, crumpling the tie in his palm, eyes locked on hers. “Do you really think I’m that unreliable?”
Hu Xiu stayed silent.
“Look at me…”
Her lashes fluttered as the red silk neared, veiling her vision. “I love you,” he breathed by her ear. “Don’t be afraid.”
So tender it barely stirred the air.
Then he pounced, pinning her to the mattress—a beast claiming territory.
He undressed her piece by piece, unwavering, his tongue tracing her neck and ears, teasing, unpredictable.
Behind the crimson veil, all she saw was fiery orange—smooth, vibrant skin against skin. A soft moan escaped her. Porn star? Fine, I’ll play the part.
She wrapped her arms around Diao Zhiyu’s neck, as if it were the most natural thing. Blind to all but that blazing hue, her senses magnified—his hands hiking up her lingerie, his tongue trailing downward like Santa leisurely stuffing gifts into a stocking.
She longed to kiss him back, to steal his breath, but all she could reach was his hair.The tide surged and receded, swelling until it overflowed the embankment. He climbed up from beneath her to devour her lips. When Hu Xiu came to her senses and tried to push him away, he refused, stubbornly continuing to kiss her.
"Your own scent—what are you afraid of?"
"Pervert!"
"Tell me, what other wild fantasies do you have about me?"
Seeing her fall silent and still, Diao Zhiyu’s teasing didn’t let up: "It was you who secretly kissed me at REGARD, and it was you who left scratches on my neck. Tell me, how are you going to make it up to me?"
"Stop talking..." Even with her eyes covered, she felt ashamed. Hu Xiu refused to answer, only gripping his arm tightly.
"Don’t pull me—I’m looking for something."
That voice was...
"When did you buy this?"
"I told you, I’ve been planning to sleep with you for a long time." Diao Zhiyu shook the box. "Can you guess the brand?"
"You!"
"It’s fine, you can guess slowly later." He climbed up, his laughter still lingering in her ear. "Bullying you is just too much fun. And you... actually want me too. I can feel it."
He loosened his tie and, without warning, found the right angle in that very second.
Discomfort—her body tensed, her spine stiffened, but soon she began to tremble. His handsome face and infatuated gaze were the best Aphrodisiac. Because it was Diao Zhiyu, everything felt incomparable, utterly exquisite.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, cupping his face. Damn it—she wanted him so desperately.
And he seemed to have countless ways to make her shiver. Scorching kisses covered her neck and chest, his touches lingering, now deep, now shallow, deliberately trying to make her cry out.
He was far too skilled for someone so young...
His moves felt meticulously calculated...
It was clearly a deliberate act of revenge...
Doubts swirled in her heart, and she couldn’t help asking at the most inopportune moment: "When you said you loved me, was it true?"
"Mhm, I promise."
"You’re not lying to me?"
"Don’t speak..." His fingers gently traced her earlobe. "Call me Minister Qin."
"..." Terrifying Aphrodisiac.
She had never before considered this kind of physical pleasure. Her ex liked to watch her perform—frowning, pretending to be stimulated, mentally keeping track of time, her facial expressions feigning persecution, neither too indifferent nor too revealing. The lingerie was just part of the act. Afterward, she always found it boring, though her ex seemed to think she was satisfied—just not as seductive as a porn star.
But now she understood: pleasure couldn’t be faked. The control over her voice didn’t come from her brain but from her body. Excitement wasn’t something she could pretend—it was the kind of arousal that persisted even after thirty hours without sleep, a thirst so fierce she felt awake enough to be utterly drained.
The young man’s sweat-dampened body, his hair soaked from exertion, the feeling of clinging to each other even in embrace—it was desire that refused to cease.
A shower was like a cooldown for his skills. The boy leaned in again, demanding new positions.
As if something had been awakened in her, she straddled him, kissing him fiercely, only to be caught by him in turn. He lavished attention on her chest, deliberately trying to startle her into a cry—so wicked, utterly wicked.
By the end, time seemed to blur, and her mind could no longer distinguish between 2019 and 1934.
Hu Xiu felt dizzy from the rocking against the headboard, her knees and hands numb, the back of her head buzzing, her throat dry and voice hoarse. The only thought in her mind was that Ning Zechen’s joke had been nothing but a lie.Minister Qin was no feeble young master—he was vigorous and tenacious, refusing to quit even when lightly injured. The sound from the box grew increasingly hollow until it finally faded away completely.
Just how many were in that box?
Diao Zhiyu let out a long exhale and collapsed beside her. "We have to stop—we're out of condoms."
Hu Xiu lay nestled in the pillow seam, watching him through drowsy eyes. Diao Zhiyu squinted. "Want more?"
"No..." Exhaustion threatened to bury her—who knew consecutive climaxes could be this draining.
As he leaned against the pillow, Diao Zhiyu hissed and touched his neck. "Are you part cat?"
A crimson scratch marked the back of his neck, beading with blood. Hu Xiu flushed and buried her face in the quilt. "I don't know anything about it."
"Did I satisfy you?"
"Mmm..."
"What? That's a no?" He sounded incredulous. "After all that, still not enough?"
Of course it was enough—he'd gone this hard while still running a fever. But she refused to admit it. Peeking out with one eye from under the covers, her mind finally cleared from the haze of pleasure. "Minister Qin..."
"Hm?"
"Parting so hastily this time... I wonder when we'll meet again."
Diao Zhiyu laughed. "When I become Rong City's director, I'll come marry you in the General's vintage German car."
"I hope you'll grace me with your presence then, Miss Hu, and no longer cling to that bandit Pei Zechen."
"I, Qin Xiaoyi, have never loved anyone so seriously in my life. If you prove fickle, Miss Hu, I'll never love another."
Hu Xiu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Diao Zhiyu continued his theatrics: "Miss Hu, will you sign the Marriage Certificate?"
"Huh?"
"I still carry Rong City's Marriage Certificate with me."
"You really hold grudges, don't you?"
"Of course. You never married Minister Qin." Diao Zhiyu leaned over the bedside, rummaging through the nightstand. "Where did I put it?"
His bare back had impossibly beautiful lines. Melting into the quilt in exhaustion, Hu Xiu blinked sleepily. Diao Zhiyu, if you can't find it within a minute, don't blame me for not signing...
In her dream, Hu Xiu encountered a heavy snowfall. Having rarely seen such icy landscapes in Nanjing, she found even umbrella-covered snow melted quickly, leaving the ground damp and uninteresting.
The dream snow reached past her knees, blindingly white. Clutching a gift box, she trudged forward, but when she looked back, no footprints remained.
Endless whiteness stretched before her, snow clinging to her hat and eyelashes. Desperate to reach home and open the gift, she heard porcelain-like clinking from the box.
A distant light glimmered, but the faster she ran, the farther it receded. Gifts tumbled into the snow one by one, vanishing without trace... The night snow glowed eerily white, and soon she lost all sense of direction...
Her eyes snapped open to find Diao Zhiyu watching her from the pillow. Dawn's faint light made his expression unreadable.
"You were dreaming..."
"Yeah..."
"A nightmare?"
"Not really..."
But sleep had fled. Diao Zhiyu leaned against the headboard, lashes lowered. "Because of me, you feel insecure, don't you?"
Hu Xiu remained silent. The necktie lay beside the pillow—she picked it up and wound it around her fingers. Like the porcelain doll lost in the snow that hadn't shattered, it was simply gone.
"I'm a child of the Workers' Village. Do you know about the Workers' Village?"
She froze...
"In the Northeast, it's very popular to name children Yu, Peng, Hang, Xin... I wasn't spared either."Diao Zhiyu leaned against the pillow: "My mother was in the maternity hospital when she overheard the next bed discussing baby names. She thought everyone’s choices were too similar and meaningless, and hoped I’d have fewer worries in life, so she gave me ‘Zhi’ as my middle name.
She was beautiful—the year she married my dad, everyone at the factory said he’d landed a movie star. The women in the residential building wouldn’t speak to her; even when passing on the outdoor staircase’s long corridor, they’d brush past her with sarcastic remarks.
Her luck was truly awful too. As a dance actress in a theater troupe, her pride made her uncooperative, so she never landed lead roles. Later, the factory shut down, and she lost even her minor roles.
From what I can remember, we moved from the residential building to my grandma’s place, next to a closed transformer factory where two or three large wolfdogs barked every day. The building stood alone in that area, with three units and forty-two households, all quite harmonious, and plenty of beautiful women.
Grandma was obsessed with mahjong and didn’t pay much attention to me. My mom would ride her bike to see me on Fridays and leave again on Mondays.
The road behind the building was muddy yellow earth—if you didn’t pedal hard, you couldn’t get through, and the wheels would get filthy.
I was quiet and didn’t fit in, idling around the first floor every day, watching the dogs behind the iron gate. Two of them died from rat poison, one was eaten—half the building ended up in the hospital from eating dog meat. The other was just dumped in a stinky ditch. With nothing to do, I’d go watch it rot day by day."
Dawn gradually painted the ceiling. Hu Xiu asked, "What about your dad?"
"Drinking. He stayed in the residential building doing odd jobs, often getting into fights. Even when I saw him, I couldn’t hold back my anger—we’d brawl from the top to the bottom of that corridor building. Thinking back now, when the place he’d worked for over a decade suddenly vanished, he probably didn’t know what to do either—let’s not talk about that."
"The first girl I liked lived upstairs at my grandma’s place, named Qiao Yinhe. I still remember.
Big eyes, fair skin, really long legs. She was three years older than me. Occasionally on weekends, I’d see her playing hopscotch downstairs. She called me ‘little melon-head’—back then, I didn’t even have double eyelids yet.
My mom sent me to learn classical dance, but she went to a different dance school. The last time I saw her was in junior high—I was in seventh grade, she in ninth. We passed each other outside the restroom, and she smiled at me. Some girls ran out behind her, pointing at her back, saying they’d seen her lace underwear through her jeans and that she was going to meet some hoodlums outside school.
She was notoriously promiscuous—they said she charged a hundred per encounter, just like her mom. Even after repeating a year, the reputation stuck. Later... she developed mental issues.
That’s when I found out her mom brought her on weekends because her sugar daddy lived upstairs from my grandma’s place.
That building had many beautiful women, but it hid a lot of filth. Plenty of them lost themselves over men.
Starting high school, I found dancing pointless, and my grades weren’t great either, so I quit dance and started doing what men were supposed to do.
Like the hoodlums, I joined gang fights, smoked, hung out at video arcades—went completely wild for two solid years.
In my second year of high school, during the sports meet, I hit a guy from another class with a vase—split his head open. When he got back from the hospital, he brought sixty guys to jump me. I was terrified, but the principal stepped in and stopped it.
Later... I tested into a university in Shanghai. My mom remarried, lives well now, has a new family, and doesn’t really need me much."
The tie twisted and untwisted in Hu Xiu’s hands. Diao Zhiyu said, "I’m telling you this not to burden you or fish for pity. Just want to say—when it comes to feeling insecure, I’m not much better off."I've never been willing to believe anyone has genuine feelings for me, nor do I trust illusory dreams.
Growing up neglected and witnessing the tragic endings of girls I once liked, I've learned not to expect anything from anyone. I understand that heart flutters are like nerve-wracking nightmares—choosing the wrong person means losing everything after a high-stakes gamble.
I'm arrogant and self-admiring, yet I desperately hope someone would cross mountains and rivers just for me. True love seems elusive; I need absolute certainty before daring to grasp it.
And I despise being betrayed—the moment I discover deceit, my heart turns cold, and I want to repay it doubly.
At twenty-two, God seemed to have gifted him extra years. After a long silence, Hu Xiu hooked his finger like making a pinky promise: "You're the brightest star in my constellation."
"Thank you. For everything, all along, thank you."
Hu Xiu smiled: "Can you promise me one thing?"
"Hmm?"
"Before you leave me—I mean, if you ever really have to leave me—give me some hints. Don't let me be the last to know."
Diao Zhiyu tightened his grip slightly: "What are you talking about?"
"You're an actor. I won't demand you belong to me forever—that's indeed unrealistic.
In a city like this, love stories end and begin, intertwining constantly. I just hope we both have the right to know."
"I can't do that—I want you to belong only to me forever."
After intimate whispers, the camel opened the window and rummaged through the fridge with heavy eyelids, eventually finding a crème brûlée in Hu Xiu's bag.
A spoonful of pudding rolled between their tongues. Sunlight filtered through the window screen, the breeze stirring it. Diao Zhiyu swayed side to side, always keeping the sunlight a few centimeters away. He laughed, "Damn, I want you again."
"Diao Zhiyu, you're such a big pervert..." Hu Xiu stared at the tent in his white briefs, thinking with a headache that young boys really... are terrifying.
About a sense of security... Hu Xiu thought, one night might not solve it, but walking forward hand in hand, perhaps fears could fade with time. Or painful memories might vanish faster with happiness.
Before heading out, wearing Diao Zhiyu's hoodie and jacket, she smelled of laundry pods. She suspected that if this continued, she'd gradually take on his scent.
Diao Zhiyu was still fuming behind her: "When I left Snowpiercer, I specifically asked Wang Wei to bring me a Marriage Certificate. Where did I put it?"
"You care that much?"Bending to put on her shoes, she recalled adding ten reviews for Snowpiercer on Dazhong Dianping." Having clicked the anonymous button, she'd written quite a few cheeky comments.
Especially when strangers browsing the store page liked her anonymous reviews, she felt encouraged and grew more enthusiastic.
If she'd known that clicking into the homepage would reveal anonymous comments—such a bug—she'd never have written those reviews.
"Add a Qin Xiaoyi romance route, and I'll immediately rewatch!"
"He's really like a movie protagonist, a walking clothes hanger. Want to see what big treasure is hidden under those clothes."Christmas is coming; hope Room 301 features a naked Santa.""
"Boys with such striking bone structure shouldn't wear suits or white shirts—military uniforms and leather jackets are out too.Uniform temptation is too hard for female players to resist." She was proud of this one; it got over fifty likes.And the normal reviews she wrote were extremely beautiful, full of deep emotion, each one selected as a featured review displayed on the homepage, and often promoted to the main page by the merchants.
"Qin Xiaoyi is truly a born actor. Under the spotlight, he naturally radiates the aura of a male lead. The moment the steam whistle sounds and Rongcheng Iron Gate opens, my secret love story begins."
"Tenth visit check-in! Playing Snowpiercer now feels like coming back to my maiden home. Especially Officer Ning—it's like the heart of my maiden home. The reason I love Snowpiercer the most is the excellent interactions. Everyone stays in character, yet they always tacitly remember us every time we come."
(This Officer Ning is not Wang Wei, but Geng Zhongliang, whom I occasionally encountered—handsome and gentle, always treating her favorably in the game.)
"A good Live Action Role Playing Game is like a dream machine. Snowpiercer feels like my dream world in a parallel universe, where I have the family I want to see and Minister Qin, who makes my heart flutter every time I meet him. Whenever I'm stressed, I choose to hide here, chat with everyone, and even if I try to cheat or deceive, they're tolerant and understanding of my temper and timidity. How I wish they could always be here, that my dream nation would never fade away..."
Hu Xiu suddenly opened her eyes, meeting Diao Zhiyu's triumphant gaze: "So you saw all of it?"
"Of course..."
"You actors read reviews too?"
"Come on, we have an employee group chat, and we even go like the high-quality reviews. Haven't you noticed there's someone who specifically likes your comments praising Qin Xiao?"
Hu Xiu was thunderstruck: "Holy crap, that Solo Act senior is you!"
Limited Edition Acting Master Class 3.5:
Don't discuss physical stamina with young boys—they're all perpetual motion machines;
A handsome face and an "I love you" are the best catalysts;
Don't casually post anonymous reviews on public review sites—once embarrassing comments are left, clicking into the homepage means social death; there will always be someone who makes you realize that idol drama-like love is real, someone born exactly according to your ideal template. You might suffer a bit before that, but everything is worth it.
Sugar-coated films and artificial sweeteners are all just acting for the occasion, with no real emotional scripts; but there will always be someone who crosses mountains and rivers, coming just for you alone...
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