The heartless beauty is addicted to being licked by a seemingly obedient and loyal dog.

Song Yunqi picked up the teacup and put it down again, slowly rubbing her fingertips against the inside of the cup.

"No," he said, his tone flat, as if denying something insignificant.

"He came yesterday, but he didn't stay overnight."

When those words landed on the ground, even Song Yunqi herself felt they were light and laughable, but once spoken, they couldn't be taken back.

Lu Jinci did not respond immediately.

He had one hand on his knee and the other on the armrest; his posture remained the same, but his entire aura was different.

That relaxed and carefree feeling disappeared, and I felt like a bowstring being slowly drawn back, not knowing when it would loosen.

Song Yunxi didn't look at him, but casually picked up the remote control and changed the channel, switching from news to drama, and then to variety show.

The guests on the show were laughing loudly, and their laughter was amplified by the speakers, sounding abrupt and jarring in the quiet living room.

Lu Jinci suddenly reached out his hand.

Song Yunxi felt a hand grip the back of his neck. The moment the five fingers closed, the thumb and forefinger were caught on the two tendons on the side of his neck.

He was pulled forward by that force, and then someone pressed him back into the sofa back.

Lu Jinci's face was very close to his, close enough to see the bloodshot in his eyes and smell the lingering tobacco scent from his shirt collar.

"No overnight stay?"

Lu Jinci's voice was very low, so low that it sounded like he was talking to himself.

With his other hand, he grabbed Song Yunqi's collar, and the top button popped off during the tug. The white button bounced onto the coffee table and rolled onto the carpet without making a sound.

The collar of the shirt was ripped open, revealing a large area of ​​skin below the collarbone.

The deep red marks spread from the collarbone to the chest, some of which had turned dark purple, but some still had a fresh crimson hue, like a painting that had been haphazardly smeared with spilled paint.

The hickeys and teeth marks were intertwined, large and small, densely packed, with almost no intact spots.

Lu Jinci's eyes reddened.

"This is the friend you were talking about?"

His voice was still very low, but each word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth, carrying a kind of calm that was more dangerous than it was after he had tried so hard to restrain himself.

"Friends you can bring to bed with?"

Song Yunqi neither spoke nor dodged.

He leaned against Lu Jinci, their eyes locked, his collar half-open, his neck slightly tilted back, revealing his disheveled skin.

His expression was calm, even indifferent. His eyes, under the light, appeared bright and cold, like two thin pieces of ice, with something pressing down underneath that was impossible to see.

Lu Jinci's fingers were still on the back of his neck, his thumb pressing on the artery on the side of his neck, and he could feel the blood vessel throbbing under his fingertip.

It wasn't fast, even slower than normal. Faced with her own probing questions, Song Yunqi's heart didn't even race.

This fact completely snapped a string in Lu Jinci's heart.

"Song Yunqi".

He called out his full name in a deep, rough voice.

"Have I been too lenient with you all these years, causing you to become increasingly reckless and forget who you are?"

The fingers gripping the back of his neck tightened, digging into the skin.

Song Yunqi did not struggle.

She simply tilted her head slightly, shifting to a more comfortable position, as if waiting for an answer that should have come long ago.

"Then what is my identity?"

He asked, his voice not loud, but each word was pronounced very clearly.

"Besides being your family, what other identity do I have?"

Lu Jinci fell silent. The words rolled around in his throat several times before he finally swallowed them back down.

Once something is brought into the open, its nature changes.

He could consider Song Yunqi his possession in his heart, and he could declare his sovereignty in various ways in the outside world, but he could not say that word to her face.

That word was too heavy, so heavy that once it was said, he and Song Yunxi could never go back to what they were before.

Song Yunxi looked at his silence and suddenly smiled.

The smile was brief; the corners of his mouth curved slightly before disappearing, and his eyes held no mirth, even colder than before.

He raised his hand and grasped Lu Jinci's wrist, which was clasped around the back of his neck.

"plaything."

He said he gently and easily uttered those two words that everyone had kept hidden in their hearts.

"Isn't that right? All these years, you've never truly looked at me."

Lu Jinci's wrist trembled slightly in his palm.

"I remember the kindness of the Lu family." Song Yunxi's voice was flat, as if she were reading a prepared statement.

"I will repay you to the best of my ability. But I will never become your possession, nor will I be anyone's tool for sexual gratification."

After saying that, he released Lu Jinci's wrist and adjusted his torn collar.

The broken button was nowhere to be found, and he left his collar open, revealing the mark below his collarbone, without covering it up anymore.

Since we've already seen it, there's no point in trying to hide it.

The living room remained quiet for a long time.

The TV was still on, but the variety show had been switched to an old movie at some point. The black and white images flickered silently on the screen, and a line of subtitles slowly slid down from the bottom.

Lu Jinci leaned back on the sofa, his hands resting on his knees, his gaze fixed on the cup of tea on the coffee table that had gone cold.

His expression had changed from anger to something else, it was hard to tell whether it was disappointment, self-mockery, or both.

The redness around the eyes had subsided somewhat, leaving only a few streaks of blood at the corners.

Song Yunxi looked at him and suddenly remembered something from when she was very young.

In the first few years after he came to the Lu family, he did not have his own room.

The entire Lu family mansion has dozens of rooms, but none of them belong to him.

He ate and lived with Lu Jinci every day, studying at Lu Jinci's desk, taking showers in Lu Jinci's bathroom, and sleeping in Lu Jinci's bed.

Song Yunxi couldn't understand the way the servants looked at him then, but now, thinking back, he realized that their eyes contained everything.

Pity, contempt, curiosity, and an ambiguous feeling that is hard to define.

Everyone knows what this child is here for, except for himself.

Song Yunqi was truly happy back then.

He was happy when Lu Jinci treated him well, and sad when Lu Jinci treated him badly. He was like a tamed little animal, all his emotions tied to that boy who was three years older than him.

He would giggle when Lu Jinci kissed his face, feel safe when Lu Jinci held him while he slept, and not feel anything was wrong when Lu Jinci bathed him.

A five- or six-year-old child has never been taught what boundaries, privacy, or "no" are.

This situation continued into middle school.

That summer vacation, Song Yunqi returned home two days earlier than planned. He didn't call home beforehand, wanting to surprise his father and brothers.

The taxi stopped at the gate of the mansion. He dragged his suitcase across the yard, pushed open the gate, and before he could even change his shoes, he heard his adoptive father and adoptive brother talking in the study.

The door wasn't closed completely; it was left a crack.

"You've had this person by your side for so many years, why haven't you eaten them yet?"

Lu Qingyuan's voice was calm, but the imposing aura he exuded could be felt even through the door.