Chapter 106: Shen Xian Loses His Composure

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“Miss Ning, have you eaten?” Shen Xian asked.
“Already,” said Ning Cai.

She suddenly felt out of place, as if she had intruded into the quiet life of a three-person household and disrupted their warm, peaceful rhythm.

“Auntie!” Qingqing called sweetly.
Ning Cai lifted Qingqing. “Have you finished? If you have, I’ll take you for a walk.”
Qingqing looked at Shen Xian.
“With you taking her out, that’s fine,” Shen Xian said with a smile. “I still have the dishes and laundry to do.”

Ning Cai quickly left carrying Qingqing.
Once out the door, she felt something wrong.
Was I the one who pushed myself away?
Leave those two young people to enjoy each other?
It felt like a scene where a young couple tinkles in their room and a mother-in-law comes in to take the child away.

Ning Cai held Qingqing close, looked back at the now-closed room door, and kept a composed face.
But odd thoughts swirled in her mind.
She shook her head, pushed them aside, and stepped into the elevator.

In the room, Shen Xian was cleaning the tableware while Zhou Wan was equally busy.
“When you arrive, keep your profile low. The Ning family is top-tier in the Kyoto circle; if you can avoid conflict with people, avoid it.”
Shen Xian nodded. “I know. Since I won’t be here these few days, you can stay there if you need to—I’ve sent the code to your phone. The food in the fridge I bought tonight is good for two more days.”

“Ning Cai’s father holds a senior post and is very old-fashioned, not easy to get along with. Her mother died from illness ten years ago, leaving a group of holdings; she has a stepmother now. Her grandmother and uncles still cling stubbornly to old family prejudices. They might misunderstand whatever you think about Ning Cai’s mother’s inheritance. If you feel wronged, come straight back to Nanzhou,” Zhou Wan warned.

Both of them exchanged more cautions.
“She has many suitors. One is Su Rulong—same rank as Qi Zhengqing, a grand rich young master. Keep your distance from him. If he offers you a drink or a cigarette, don’t accept.”
Shen Xian was puzzled. “Why?”
“Because he slips something in them.”
Shen Xian was startled. “Even the men?”
“Qi Zhengqing was drugged once. If the bodyguard had not noticed in time, Qi Zhengqing would already have been disgraced,” Zhou Wan said. “People said he’d been stripped off and then made to wear… black stockings.”
Shen Xian: …
Shen Xian stared, stunned. “Do the big young masters of the Kyoto set play so wildly?”

The kitchen was tiny; both turned at once and collided hard.
Shen Xian felt a soft body fall into his arms.
Soft, and fragrant.
Time seemed to stop, and they did not separate right away.
Zhou Wan’s forehead pressed tightly against his cheek.
She could clearly smell the hot breath coming from him, and her thoughts tangled.
Shen Xian, too, felt his heart thud hard all at once,
as if that ten-year-languishing heart had finally begun to beat again.

A hug is never the same between different people.
He had never once hugged Liu Ruyu, yet he had hugged Ning Cai.
That day, he had sadly realized his heart had never truly recovered.
Embracing a beauty like Ning Cai had stirred no feeling in him—no ripple at all.
But tonight was different.

Without warning, he lifted both hands and wrapped his arms around Zhou Wan’s waist.
Zhou Wan’s body jerked; she tried to struggle, but Shen Xian did not release her, holding her close.
She stopped struggling. To her own surprise, she did not resist his embrace.

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This was something she had never known before.
Before, even if a man glanced at her twice, she felt disgusted—let alone physical touch.
So Zhou Wan raised her hands cautiously and, in return, wrapped them around Shen Xian’s waist.
Her heart was racing.
What if he kissed me?
What if he touched me?
And what if he confessed?

Three years had passed, and she could smell Shen Xian’s scent again.
But Shen Xian only held her, breathing in the fragrance of her hair, and made no move beyond that.

After a long moment, Shen Xian released Zhou Wan and stepped back.
“Sorry. I’ve been a little out of control.”

Zhou Wan lowered her gaze, a pink flush rising across her cheeks.
“No… it’s fine.”
Yet inside, she was a little disappointed.
Why did he stop there?
Go on then—he knows.
I might not have resisted.

“Thank you,” Shen Xian murmured.
“Thank you for the hug.”
At that moment, Shen Xian felt a little healed.
It turned out he was not incapable of loving someone.
It was only that the person who made his heart move had not appeared.
And now, he had appeared.

Still, Shen Xian did not dare to invest too deeply; he held himself back.
To love may be difficult, but love itself can endure difficulty.
Zhou Wan too was a young lady of the Kyoto circle, and the clan prejudice in her family was likely no less severe than the Lin Zhixia family.
For a love between unequal houses, Shen Xian had long ago given up on hope.
Even if Zhou Wan agreed, would the Zhou family agree?
He could not gamble with his feelings anymore.
His cost of failure in love had become absurdly high; he could no longer endure even the slightest hurt.

Childhood pain and his youth had made him sensitive and suspicious.

“Actually, Ning Cai likes you,” Zhou Wan said suddenly.
Shen Xian, while drying dishes, replied, “I didn’t feel it.”
Then after a pause, he added, “If I didn’t feel it, then I truly didn’t.”

Zhou Wan shook her head. “No. I know Ning Cai. She is just bad at showing it, but if she brought you back, that means she intends to develop things with you properly.”
Shen Xian laughed. “She just needed a decoy. The reason I agreed was because she promised that if I came back to Kyoto with her, she’d waive my eighty-million default penalty.”

Zhou Wan gave a quiet sigh.
How could she fail to understand Ning Cai?
In all these years, how many men had ever seen her be kind?
She was like an emotionless machine—no one had ever come near her.
Yet Shen Xian had done it.

“How exactly high is her father’s position?” Shen Xian suddenly asked.
After a brief hesitation, Zhou Wan said, “Minister of Culture and Tourism. Ministerial rank.”
Shen Xian was taken aback. “Damn… his background is that big?”

“Her family has always opposed her opening a media company. Her father wanted her to go into politics; her grandmother hoped she would take over her mother’s group; her two uncles opposed that too. The conflict was huge, so she came to Nanzhou in a huff and started an entertainment company,” Zhou Wan said.
“She’s a stubborn type. In all these years she hasn’t brought her old father into it once, otherwise her company wouldn’t have stayed so small.”

Shen Xian nodded, then wanted to ask about Zhou Wan’s own family as well.
But he thought better of it—after all, that would be prying into someone else’s privacy.

Before long, Ning Cai returned with Qingqing, and Shen Xian had finished packing.
He had packed only two sets of clean changeable clothes, all fitting in one suitcase.
His laptop, of course, was packed too, because he still had to write.
He wrote two hundred thousand words a day. He believed a writer who couldn’t post twenty chapters a day was no good and deserved to be shot.

“Let’s go.” Shen Xian pulled the suitcase and headed out. “I’ll leave the place to you.”
“Drive slowly and message me when you arrive,” Zhou Wan said, hugging Qingqing as if sending off a husband who was leaving for work.
Ning Cai glanced at the two of them and asked, “Am I just extra here?”
Shen Xian laughed heartily. “Alright, alright, let’s go.”

The door shut, and the room became suddenly empty.
A faint ache of reluctance lingered in Zhou Wan’s heart; Qingqing, too, watched Shen Xian’s retreating back with wide eyes.

At 12:10, Shen Xian and Ning Cai boarded on time and flew toward Kyoto.
On the plane, it was already deep in the night. Ning Cai closed her eyes.
Shen Xian asked a flight attendant for a blanket and quietly draped it over her.
She opened her eyes soundlessly, then closed them again.
Shen Xian looked out the window.
Below, a sea of lights spread across the ground.

At five o’clock, they arrived at Kyoto International Airport on schedule.
That day was also the fifteenth of the eighth lunar month—the Mid-Autumn Festival.
At arrivals, a discreet Audi A6 was already waiting; the driver, a man around forty, stood upright and, seeing Ning Cai and Shen Xian, took the suitcase himself.
“Miss, Secretary Ning has already arranged breakfast.”
Ning Cai’s father is also a Party Group Secretary, so those inside the system usually address him by his party title.

Ning Cai nodded.
The driver then took one glance at Shen Xian.
Is this the pretty boy from Nanzhou?
No wonder she chose a small-faced stranger when Kyoto society has so many young masters to pick from.

His glance at Shen Xian carried a hint of pity.
A boy from the countryside, stepping into a gate belonging to a top-tier Kyoto clan—his dignity would likely be shattered to pieces.

“Is he working today?” Ning Cai asked.
After they got in, the driver answered while driving, “He was going to rest today, but then a delegation from the Royal Academy of Canada came, and now he has to receive them.”

“Isn’t that something for the foreign ministry?” Ning Cai frowned.
“They arrived with ten or so foreign professors and academicians and their students,” the driver said. “They said it was for an academic exchange project or a special research program. The specific reception work fell to Secretary Ning.”

Ning Cai nodded.

The car moved fast; a little over an hour later, it turned into an estate.
In Kyoto, where land is worth its weight in gold, what did it mean to own such a place?
Looking at the lavish marble gate, Shen Xian fell into deep reflection.
The world is not fair.

“We’re here,” Ning Cai said.
Shen Xian took a deep breath and started to get out.