Falling After Marriage - Chapter 90

Chapter 90: The One Biting the Pillow

“Mm… Ugh… How did I fall asleep?”

Cheng Sangluo stretched groggily and slumped back onto the desk with zero energy. It took her a long time to emerge from her dazed state and fully wake up.

She squinted at the sky outside the window. The unfathomable darkness felt like a greedy void, yet it couldn’t swallow the endless loneliness she felt. Combined with the cold quiet of the room, everything felt painfully desolate.

This sleep had been deep and long; it was already 8:00 PM. She had several bizarre dreams, but the only thing she could vaguely recall was a slender, recurring silhouette that kept bothering her.

Cheng Sangluo didn’t want to dwell on that faceless shadow. Instead, she picked up her phone to check for missed messages.

Disappointment usually outweighed hope—the cracked screen showed not a single message from Lin Jin, amplifying a terrible, indescribable emotion.

Cheng Sangluo hated this feeling. It was like being forgotten in a corner by time and the person she cared about, as if the whole world had nothing to do with her. It was the desolation of feeling that no one cared if she was dead or alive.

She let out a heavy sigh, her face full of grievance. She resented herself for acting out a one-woman show that Lin Jin didn’t even know about, swallowing loneliness and longing every day. She also resented that madwoman who, once busy, disappeared completely—not even a phone call, not even a few seconds to send a text!

They had only been married for a few days, and she was already “living like a widow.” She was furious!

Bored, she picked up the two finished seals. Staring at Lin Jin’s name, she sighed again. “Maybe… all you wanted was to possess me… not to truly like me… right?”

The “puppy” who couldn’t withstand the isolation eventually sank into a pit of paranoid doubt, suffering through every second as if it were a year. She was smiling, yet it was bitter. She had finally confirmed her own heart, yet she couldn’t tell if the madwoman’s feelings were real or fake.

“Whatever. Maybe it’s just an adult game. Don’t let yourself get played.” Cheng Sangluo brainwashed herself, yawning as she walked toward the bedroom.

Aside from that bland breakfast, she hadn’t eaten all day. But having no appetite, she skipped the kitchen. A hot bath and a movie to pass the time seemed better. After all, the night was the hardest part to endure.

“President Lin, let the bodyguards help you to your room.” Zhou Ran struggled to support a alcohol-soaked Lin Jin, waving over the guards behind them. “You two, give me a hand.”

Lin Jin was wearing an elegant, well-fitted dress. Because of the business dinner, she hadn’t used her wheelchair. Passing through the courtyard corridor, she stumbled and leaned against a carved wooden railing, shoving away the approaching guards with disgust. “Get away! Don’t touch me!”

Secretary Zhou looked embarrassed and signaled for everyone else to leave. “I’ll help you then.”

“You leave too!” Lin Jin endured the nausea of the alcohol, but the more drunk she got, the more stubborn she became. “I can go back to the room by myself.”

“But your foot…” Zhou Ran was worried about her boss’s sprained ankle and tried to grab her arm again, only to be forcefully brushed off.

“I said I can do it. Do you not understand me?” Lin Jin growled. Ignoring her secretary, she hobbled toward the main bedroom step by step.

Secretary Zhou was used to her boss’s mercurial moods, but today felt different. Ever since the conversation with Wei Yun ended, a smile hadn’t touched Lin Jin’s face. Zhou Ran followed silently until Lin Jin entered the room and slammed the door.

Leaning against the door, Lin Jin gasped for air, her hands fumbling through her small clutch for her phone. She had been busy meeting business partners all day. She had no idea what that “dog thing” was doing. Her phone had been silent all day—not a single message.

Hasn’t she learned to take the initiative yet?

Lin Jin was resentful too. She felt Cheng Sangluo’s efforts were still lacking heat.

The dial tone rang for a long time. As the seconds ticked by, the frown on Lin Jin’s brow deepened.

“Dog thing! Answer the phone!” she urged in a low voice. She was desperate, like an addict needing a fix. As long as the other didn’t answer, she wouldn’t hang up.

Just as her patience was about to run out, Cheng Sangluo’s muffled voice finally came through: “Hello?”

“Why did it take you so long to answer? What are you doing? It’s been all day! You promised to report your daily life, and there hasn’t been a single message. How can you break your word so easily?” Lin Jin launched a barrage of questions, not giving the person on the other end a chance to explain.

Cheng Sangluo felt innocent. I waited all day for a message too, so why is everything my fault?

After a pause, she murmured, “You’ve been drinking?”

Lin Jin frowned. “I asked you to answer my question, not to ask me one!”

Cheng Sangluo hated her bossy tone. Suppressing her own rising temper, she said, “If you’ve had too much, have someone make you hangover soup so your head doesn’t hurt. Go wash up and get some sleep.”

Lin Jin’s gaze was dazed, her lips parted as she breathed rapidly. She didn’t accept the puppy’s plain concern. Instead, she called out sharply: “Cheng Sangluo! Do you even know what I want?”

Cheng Sangluo finally lost it. “Can you stop being a crazy drunk? I’m trying to be nice—do we have to fight?”

“Yes! I want to fight! You’re like a toad—you only hop when I poke you!” Lin Jin’s defenses crumbled as she cried out desperately, “Can’t you just take the initiative for once? I’m just asking you to be proactive, not to pluck the stars from the sky! Is it that hard?!”

Cheng Sangluo had never heard the madwoman sound so pitiful. Her anger softened. “Lin Jin… you… what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? Do I have to be that blunt? I can’t see you! I want to hold you but I can’t, I want to kiss you but I can’t!” Lin Jin’s voice trembled into a sob as she felt the puppy’s tone soften. “Cheng Sangluo… I’m about to have an ‘attack’… can you come save me…”

It turned out that longing was a torture shared by two.

“I was just showering, that’s why I missed the call. I’m in the bathroom right now,” Cheng Sangluo explained seriously, soothing the emotional woman. “Listen to me. Go to the bathroom and take off your makeup. I’m right here in front of the vanity too. Just act like I’m right beside you. I won’t hang up, I’ll talk to you, okay?”

Lin Jin brushed back the messy hair on her forehead and sniffled. “Okay.”

Hearing the sound of running water in the background, Cheng Sangluo relaxed. She didn’t resent the sudden temper because every word—even the ones that didn’t mention “missing”—was overflowing with it. “How much did you drink?”

“A lot… my head hurts…” Lin Jin leaned against the bathroom wall, listlessly removing her makeup, acting spoiled for the puppy. “If only you were here… you could massage my temples.”

“I want to be there too, but you’re the one who didn’t take me,” the puppy pouted, then added teasingly, “See? Now you regret it, don’t you?”

“Yes, I regret it so much.” Lin Jin pressed her lips to the phone and whispered, “Do you miss me?”

“I’ll be honest… I do,” Cheng Sangluo replied quickly and truthfully, pouring out the agony of the past few days. “Missing you until I’m going crazy, unable to eat or sleep! I wanted to rush to Zehai, catch you, and ask why you didn’t call or text, leaving me alone to ‘be a widow’ in this huge house. Lin Jin, I’m just like you. I’m waiting for you to take the initiative too. I need your response.”

“I’ve thought about you to the point of obsession. I even replayed all the times you humiliated me, but as I thought about it, I realized a fact…”

Lin Jin expected the puppy to be shy and stuttering as before, but the woman was pouring out her heart. She wiped the water from her face and held her breath in curiosity, waiting for the conclusion.

“I like you. The kind of ‘like’ where I want to hug you, kiss you, and be entangled with you.” Cheng Sangluo sounded more aggrieved as she spoke. It was so hard for her to face the fact that she liked someone she was supposed to hate; those old humiliations felt like they were mocking her.

Her throat tightened. Fighting back tears and stripping away her defensive pride, she forced herself to admit: “I don’t want to make peace with you so easily. I want you to return the heart you stole. Or at least give me your heart. Otherwise, it’s unfair. It’s always me who gets hurt.”

Lin Jin’s brow pinched. Her eyes grew wet at the sound of “I like you.” She couldn’t believe it, yet she didn’t dare not accept it. After years of waiting and plotting, she finally had a definitive answer.

“Cheng Sangluo, you owed me that ‘I like you.’ I loved you long before you were moved.” She responded with an emotion even deeper than “like”—it was a chronic, desperate love. “It’s not ‘like,’ it’s love. A love you can’t imagine—selfish, sickly, incurable. A love that wants us to owe each other for a lifetime, never able to pay it back or settle the score.”

Cheng Sangluo was stunned into silence. She finally understood why Lin Jin had risked her life in the sea just to win a moment of her initiative. She understood the “lessons” wrapped in hurt and why Lin Jin always pulled her back at the critical moment.

No one is good to another for no reason, are they?

That was the question she had asked outside the convenience store. It had traveled through time and space to hit its mark now: Lin Jin was good to her because she loved her—it was just a “goodness” wrapped in the thorns of a rose, painful and romantic.

Lin Jin clutched the phone, overwhelmed by the echo of her long-held longing. It had come so slowly, so hesitantly. She couldn’t tell the puppy on the phone that if being apart for a few days turned her into this “ghostly” state, how did Lin Jin endure all those years of waiting for a happy ending alone?

Cheng Sangluo needed Lin Jin too much at this moment. She went back to the bedroom and tightly hugged the pillow that still smelled of her. Smelling the scent of cedar and body fragrance, she felt intoxicated. She stopped hiding her peak longing and desire, whispering: “Wife… I want you…”

Lin Jin rarely blushed like a young girl, but she did now. She wanted to respond to the lustful words, but also wanted to pull and stretch the desire into something even more turbulent. She had wanted to “relieve the fire” for the puppy last night; now, it was happening naturally.

The room was lit only by a warm yellow bedside lamp, creating a heavy, ambiguous atmosphere. Lin Jin moved to the bed, letting her dress slip away. Her waist curved like a willow branch, her shadow on the wall like a fish in an ink painting. Even with her shadow as her only company, the person on the phone made the night no longer lonely.

She sank into the soft bed, rolling across the crimson sheets. “We can do it over the phone… hurry, say something nice… verbal teasing can light a prairie fire…”

“Lin Jin… I…” Cheng Sangluo was shy. The erotic words were hard to force out. She got anxious—anxious that her clumsy tongue would ruin the mood, and frustrated by wanting what she couldn’t have.

“What do you want to do to me?” Lin Jin buried her face under the pillow, guiding her clumsy lover. “Say it… I’ll give you a response you can’t imagine…”

“I want to eat… um…” “Eat there…” “Right there…”

Cheng Sangluo stammered, her face as hot as a fever. She was so embarrassed she was squirming on the bed. Lin Jin could imagine how cute the puppy looked right now. She smiled even more tenderly. “Where is ‘there’?”

The puppy bit the bullet. “The… the little bunnies… the little bunnies that smell like milk…”

Lin Jin pressed her lips to the phone. “Do you know how Spanish describes the roles of ‘Top’ and ‘Bottom’?”

“No.” The puppy shook her head honestly, hugging the pillow tighter. “How?”

“Do you know what I’m doing right now?” Lin Jin asked, jumping topics on purpose. “You… you’re the one who bites the back of the neck.”

“What are you doing?” The puppy was clueless, asking like an idiot. “And what are you?”

“So many questions, silly~” Lin Jin laughed, blowing air into the phone. “I… am teasing the little white rabbits you like~”

“You!” Cheng Sangluo’s face was now red all the way to her ears and neck. She was miserable. “You’re not allowed to have that much fun alone! You haven’t answered me—what are you?”

“Me? I’m the person who is bullied by you until I can only bite the pillow~” Lin Jin dragged out her words. “Why don’t you come bully me then?~”

The night was deep and the darkness thick. The moonlit wind blew through the courtyard, rustling the green leaves and scratching at one’s heart.

Lin Jin’s deep eyes were glazed with a hazy, erotic film. Unable to control herself, she bit her fingertip, tasting her own slickness. She listened to the phone, smiling lightly. The person on the other end was using words to manipulate an invisible, sweet encounter.

“I can’t take it! You can’t bully me!” Cheng Sangluo curled up like a shrimp on the bed, whimpering. “You can’t torture me like this!”

In fact, she wasn’t doing anything except talking—because that was Lin Jin’s wicked command. It was so hard to endure! The madwoman’s voice was already beautiful, and now her moans were entering her ears and making her heart itch.

“No. I said you aren’t allowed to solve the problem yourself. Bottle it up for me!” Lin Jin had originally wanted to relieve the puppy’s fire, but she had gone back on her word, leaving the other in agony.

Cheng Sangluo piteously bit a corner of her pillow, crying out, “Why am I the one biting the pillow instead?!”

That night, only the anxious “dog thing” suffered. She was too honest; she did whatever her wife said. Even though she twisted like a worm on the bed, she didn’t break that surging desire.

Lin Jin, having had wine and the thrill of the phone call, slept peacefully. Cheng Sangluo, listening to the steady breathing through the phone, had eyes as wide as copper bells, tossing and turning until dawn.

She was so frustrated she couldn’t think straight. Finally, grabbing her messy hair, she sat up in bed with a jolt of desperate energy.

“No way! If I keep suffering like this, I’ll get sick!”

She grabbed her phone and decided on a whim: “Booking a flight!”

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