Ying Yin was turned sideways, facing the glass window.
The North American black walnut desk was broad and imposing. From the perspective of the main office area, she sat atop it, a delicate, curvaceous figure. She must have been kissed fiercely, for her slender fingers were gripping the edge of the desk with white-knuckled intensity, every joint strained. There was a helpless, unbearable fragility about her – a kind of aching beauty.
Across Qinde’s hundreds of employees – who had weathered real estate’s breakneck surges, gold rushes, and mythic collapses, who had seen it all through boom and bust – what scene could possibly rattle them?
This one could.
Not only were they rattled – they were stunned speechless, mouths agape, not even daring to swallow fully.
Sensing that Shang Shao had stopped, Ying Yin paused in a daze, breathless, and let out a soft “Mm?”
Just as she tried to turn her face away, Shang Shao pressed her back without a word. He leaned in again, kissing her with practiced patience, while lazily waving his left hand – the one that had been resting on her waist.
His fingers were long and elegant; whether gripping a waist or issuing a command, there was a composed, pleasing grace about them. Beneath his suit jacket, a narrow strip of white shirt cuff showed at his wrist.
It was a gesture with the back of his hand facing outward – the very embodiment of an authority figure’s poise.
The realization struck everyone on the floor at once: the young master was telling them to leave.
In an instant, they moved – bending to retrieve dropped documents, shutting down computers, grabbing jackets, packing commuter bags… all in perfect unison, all in complete silence.
Within five minutes, the entire floor was deserted.
Shang Shao’s kiss had thoroughly disarmed Ying Yin, and when their lips parted, she instinctively chased after him, reluctant to let go.
Shang Shao let out a very low chuckle, his palm pressing against her cheek. “Not afraid of being seen?”
His question was too startling – Ying Yin’s body gave an involuntary tremble, and she immediately turned her face away.
The blinds were tightly shut.
She turned back, her eyes misty from the kissing, full of bewilderment and reproach. “You scared me.”
Shang Shao laughed softly and straightened up. He had kissed with such intensity that he now took off his suit jacket unhurriedly, then braced both hands on the edge of the desk, leaning his upper body forward, his gaze fixed on her. “And what if someone really did see us?”
“See…” Ying Yin thought for a moment. “It wouldn’t matter… At worst, it’d be a little embarrassing…”
“Is it embarrassing to date me?” Shang Shao asked, composed yet very gentle.
“No.” Ying Yin mumbled softly, her gaze dropping to avoid his, but a blush rose on her face. “It’s just that we always get caught at times like this… It’s awkward to face people.”
“So,” Shang Shao paused, “even if others find out you’re dating me, it’s fine.”
“Mm.”
“Won’t it affect your career?”
Ying Yin was momentarily speechless, blinking her eyes. “Did Tiwen scare you? Sure, a considerable number of fans might leave, but… to keep a marriage hidden for the sake of one’s career – wouldn’t that be deeply disrespectful? It’s disrespectful to you, and it’s also disrespectful to…”
She stopped mid-sentence, suddenly realizing what she had just blurted out.
“Hidden marriage?” Shang Shao repeated slowly, the usually obscure depths of his eyes rippling with amusement.
Ying Yin: “…”
“Are we getting married?” Shang Shao asked, knowing full well.
Ying Yin: “…”
Her face burning red, she immediately wanted to jump down and flee, but Shang Shao pulled her into his arms. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, unable to stop laughing.
“It was a slip of the tongue!” Ying Yin, flustered and sweating from his laughter, pushed against his shoulder. “…Stop laughing!”
Shang Shao had laughed his fill. He kissed her earlobe and her swan-like neck, his voice dropping low as he said, word by word, “We are going to get married.”
His tone was very light, as if stating a self-evident, unquestionable fact – so much so that his voice didn’t even carry a hint of conviction.
Ying Yin, already warm, grew even hotter at his words. She froze, and a surge of emotion rushed from her heart to the tip of her nose, making it sting with a bitter-sweet ache. But before she could show any sign of tears, Shang Shao cupped her face and kissed her.
He kissed her for a while, then reached one hand to undo his tie.
The silk tie slid from his neck and fell soundlessly to the floor.
Shang Shao paused the kiss, his eyes so deep and dark that no one would dare meet his gaze.
“Did you miss me?” He looked straight into Ying Yin’s eyes.
Ying Yin said nothing – but her flushed face, her glistening eyes, her quickened, warm, sweet breath – all of it answered for her.
He kissed her again, shifting his gaze from her eyes to her lips, tilting his face as he kissed her.
Ying Yin was terrified that someone might come looking for him on business, yet she simply didn’t have the willpower to escape.
“Work…”
Whether there was work or not – the young master had the final say.
“There’s no work. They’ve already clocked out.”
“So early?” Ying Yin tried hard to find a loophole, glancing at the nearby pendulum clock. “It’s not even half past five…”
“There’s a team-building event today.” He fabricated the excuse with complete ease.
“That’s still not good… You said before…” Ying Yin dodged him, trying to jog his memory. “You said you’re not used to doing it in, in the office… Mmm.”
Indeed, the office was hardly a place for pleasure. It was dry, staid, dull – even the air seemed to float with words like responsibility, quarterly targets, fiscal years. For him to be intimate here, he couldn’t do it. But she had come back early to surprise him, arriving travel-worn and offering herself up the moment she landed – and he couldn’t bear it.
Couldn’t bear to let her go back empty-bodied.
Besides… the first time is awkward, the second time is familiar. He had tried it before, and it hadn’t been bad at all.
In fact, it lingered in his memory.
Shang Shao curled his lips slightly and casually turned the conversation back. “So, we’ll have to start getting used to it – starting today.”
The atmosphere was truly dangerous now. Ying Yin, realizing it a beat too late, jumped off the desk and fled in panic.
Out in the main office area, with a ding, Jin Yuanmin – the president who had just returned from a marketing department meeting – took one step out and stopped warily.
“…Where is everyone?”
Jin Yuanmin raised his wrist to check his watch. 5:23 – still not quitting time.
Mr. Jin was baffled, utterly perplexed, half-suspecting his employees were pranking him.
He took a few tentative steps forward, then suddenly assumed a defensive stance. He waited a long while – until the executive director’s door slid open with a whoosh.
Goddess.
His noble goddess, his revered film queen, the untouchable flower of cinema -appearing before him so abruptly, emerging from the executive director’s office. Her face was flushed, her breathing uneven, her lips slightly swollen.
Jin Yuanmin: “…”
Ying Yin: “…”
The moment their eyes met, she let out a startled gasp – and was instantly pulled back into Shang Shao’s arms.
He didn’t show his face; only an arm was visible, veins pronounced, radiating strength.
The office door clicked shut. Internally, Mr. Jin’s world was collapsing. With a blank expression, he turned around and walked away like a zombie, moving in a stiff, disjointed gait.
Fuck. A bunch of ungrateful bastards – not a single one warned him!
As Ying Yin was swept up into a bridal carry, she was still protesting. “Someone… someone saw us…”
“I’ll have a word with him.”
His tone was utterly casual, yet it commanded unconscious submission.
“You don’t even know who it was…”
“There are security cameras.”
“Don’t fire him…” Ying Yin preemptively worried for the stranger.
Shang Shao pushed open the door to the lounge. In the dim light, a soft laugh escaped him. “You’d better worry about yourself first.”
His lounge was spacious, like a hotel suite bedroom, fully equipped for his midday or late-night rests. The bed was soft – customized to his preferred firmness. He laid Ying Yin down gently, and she sank into it as if into clouds.
The room was dim, with not a single light on. The black venetian blinds were drawn tightly shut, letting through only thin stripes of light and shadow, like the veins of banana leaves.
Shang Shao kissed the curve of her ear, then said casually, as if just remembering. “There’s nothing prepared here.”
To bring that up now – wasn’t it a bit late? It had a certain knowing transgression to it.
But Ying Yin didn’t panic. Her eyes were red-rimmed and moist. She gazed at him in silence for a moment, then answered irrelevantly, “I can stop taking the medication.”
Shang Shao’s kiss and expression both stilled.
Even his heart settled.
“Did Shen Yu say so?”
“Mm.”
Shang Shao looked deep into her eyes. The next second, Ying Yin squeezed her eyes shut, and from her slightly parted lips escaped an involuntary sigh.
That sentence was dangerous – Ying Yin knew it. But gradually, she felt less certain of that fact – she hadn’t expected it to be this dangerous.
Shang Shao had no intention of letting her go for even a second.
“You missed me very much.” He stated the truth for her.
“I missed you.” Ying Yin held him tighter. “In my heart, in my body – I missed you.”
Even though the air-conditioning was blowing cold, the room still grew hot. Their breaths mingled and tangled in the humid warmth, their skin slick with sweat. Ying Yin was almost delirious when she vaguely heard Shang Shao whisper something against her ear.
He seemed to want to leave something behind.
Ying Yin’s heart tightened. Her nose, tinged with a faint flush, wrinkled slightly. Her first reaction was to say. “Don’t…”
“Too late.”
Shang Shao’s narrow, deep-set eyelids lowered, and he gazed at Ying Yin with that profound intensity for a long ten-plus seconds.
As their heartbeats gradually steadied, he gathered her in his arms, rested his chin against her shoulder, and kissed her continuously, saying, “I love you.”
Ying Yin lifted her exhausted hand, her fingertips tracing slowly down the side of his face – until he caught her hand, pressed it firmly against his skin, and kissed her wrist and her knuckles over and over.
“I love you,” he said again.
For a man who was modest, reserved, and thoroughly Eastern in his ways, the three words “I love you” were far too direct – he rarely spoke them. Even in that letter he wrote, what he said was “Give me a moon that never sets,” not “I will love you forever.”
But in this moment – amid the trembling of their hearts and the utter intimacy of their bodies – anything other than those three direct words felt too light, too thin, unworthy of the weight he wanted to carry.
He loved her.
His life had shrunk to just those three words.
He loved her.
