Hooking Away the Male Lead’s White Moonlight, the Best Actress - Chapter 3

Shen Manyu didn’t have a spare moment to notice the male lead’s arrival.

After all, this was a very real fall. She wasn’t an immortal, and her control over the physical force of the impact couldn’t be that precise.

Hua Yanqiu was sitting in her chair when the accident happened in a flash; she didn’t even have time to stand up. As a result, when Shen Manyu lunged forward, she botched the angle, and her chin slammed heavily against Hua Yanqiu’s forehead.

A dull, heavy thud rang out—the kind of sound that makes a listener’s heart cringe.

Shen Manyu couldn’t help but hiss in pain. The chin is mostly bone with very little fat for protection. This collision was an agonizing, unforgettable sting.

Tears welled up in her eyes instantly, shimmering and filling her sockets. This time, the tears were genuine, full of misery and woe—far more sincere than the ones she had faked earlier.

Despite the throbbing pain, she remembered to maintain her facial expressions. More importantly, she couldn’t let go of Hua Yanqiu. If she let her escape now, wouldn’t all this suffering be for nothing?

She instinctively hugged Hua Yanqiu tighter. However, the impact of Shen Manyu’s hard chin against Hua Yanqiu’s forehead had caused the latter a level of pain far exceeding her own.

The moment Hua Yanqiu watched that chin fly toward her, images from documentaries of asteroids hitting the Earth flashed through her mind on a continuous loop.

In that brief moment, Hua Yanqiu suddenly understood why the old saying goes: “The good die young.”

She regretted her actions so deeply her “intestines turned green.” She loathed herself for being bewitched by Shen Manyu’s beauty and meddling in business that wasn’t hers, only to be met with this senseless disaster.

Before she could even recover from the pain, Shen Manyu’s hug pulled her head firmly into her chest.

The intense pressure nearly suffocated Hua Yanqiu. In the next instant, her nose and mouth were tightly smothered by those towering peaks.

The psychological feeling of being trapped, mixed with the literal physical suffocation, made her feel as though she were being tortured both mentally and physically.

Shen Manyu was positioned above her, her entire body weight pressing down. She was barely maintaining her balance by leaning on Hua Yanqiu’s body and the chair beneath them.

Because of this, Shen Manyu’s full weight was bearing down on her.

Hua Yanqiu couldn’t catch a single breath. Her hand, pinned behind Shen Manyu’s back, bunched into a fist and thumped Shen Manyu’s back twice, signaling for her to let go immediately.

Under the oppression of that proud size, she truly could not breathe!

Shen Manyu pouted slightly, her chin resting on the top of Hua Yanqiu’s head. Tears rolled down uncontrollably, leaving faint trails on her cheeks. She said aggrievedly, “Sister, why are you hitting me? It hurts.”

How… how does she have the nerve to say that to me!

Do you think I don’t hurt?!

Hua Yanqiu’s nose and mouth were pressed shut; she was struggling for air and felt she might actually die of suffocation. Since the two thumps did nothing, she desperately grabbed the fabric of the clothes on Shen Manyu’s back, trying to pull her away.

Shen Manyu finally caught on to the clues provided by her struggle and pulled that suffocating softness back just a little bit.

Fresh air rushed in instantly. Hua Yanqiu felt like parched earth receiving a long-awaited rain. The overwhelming relief nearly moved her to tears as she gulped down the hard-won air in large gasps.

It took a good while before she managed to steady herself. Unable to maintain her calm composure any longer, she let go of the back of the clothes and instead grabbed Shen Manyu’s collar, pushing her backward.

At the same time, she leaned her head back as far as possible to maximize the distance between them.

This experience had left her with a severe psychological shadow.

Who would have thought that one day, she would nearly be smothered to death by someone’s “snowy peaks”? Having walked the line between life and death, Hua Yanqiu thanked the heavens for her salvation for the first time in her life.

“Sister, this position… it’s a bit strange.”

Shen Manyu was still holding her. Although they weren’t physically intertwined and pressed together like before, they were still nowhere near a “socially acceptable” distance.

Tears still clung to her eyelashes. As she blinked, her long lashes fluttered like the wings of a butterfly. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and a flush of crimson bloomed at the corners of her lids.

Her gaze drifted over—innocent as a small animal, yet carrying an unconscious blend of naivety and seduction.

It was a contradiction: innocence and temptation existing side-by-side; naivety and sensuality completely fused together.

Hua Yanqiu noticed her beauty. It was exactly this “skin deep” allure of Shen Manyu that had clouded her judgment earlier, leading her to do something so stupidly self-sacrificing.

Shen Manyu’s words were like a splash of hot oil on the embers of Hua Yanqiu’s heart. The flames of anger surged instantly, reminding her once again of the foolish mistake she had made.

Hua Yanqiu’s cool vanished entirely. Fury seethed in her eyes, looking as though they might spit fire. She sneered, “Let go of me!”

The combination of the previous compression and the lack of oxygen had dyed her cheeks a tempting crimson.

She was unaware that as a cold, “abstinent-style” beauty, this sudden look of being “ravished and disheveled” was incredibly captivating.

At the very least, Shen Manyu, facing this visual impact head-on, was dazed for a moment, her expression freezing briefly. Upon realizing her own reaction, her brow furrowed slightly.

The grip around Hua Yanqiu’s arms loosened slightly. Shen Manyu had originally intended to pull away, but out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the male lead—whose eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets—and she changed her mind instantly.

Rather than retreating, Shen Manyu leaned in further, taking advantage of the height difference created by Hua Yanqiu sitting in the chair. She bowed her head slightly, a faint, phantom-like smile playing on her lips.

She pressed close to Hua Yanqiu’s ear, her breath as sweet and light as orchids. “Sister, looking like this… you really seem to be begging for a kiss.”

And indeed, she did.

To gulp down more fresh air, Hua Yanqiu had tilted her neck back as far as it would go. The lines of her tensed jaw were sharp and elegant, and the skin of her fair neck had the delicate texture of fine jade.

Her brow was slightly furrowed, her red lips parted, and the flush creeping across her face had yet to fade—she was the very definition of heart-stirring.

Combined with Shen Manyu’s hand cradling the back of her neck and her body pressing downward, the warm air from Shen Manyu’s whisper brushed against the shell of Hua Yanqiu’s ear.

A faint, tingling itch teased her heart, stirring ripples across the once-still pool of her mind.

Consequently, that vivid crimson flush spread from Hua Yanqiu’s cheeks all the way to the tips of her ears and down her neck.

They were pressed almost entirely together, with barely a finger’s width of space between them. Even their breathing was clearly audible to one another.

Hua Yanqiu realized her own breath was ragged and disordered—though she couldn’t tell if it was from the previous suffocation or the brief, deliberate palpitations stirred up by Shen Manyu.

Only one thought remained in Hua Yanqiu’s mind: I lost. I truly lost.

How could she, an actual lesbian, be inferior to a straight girl when it came to the art of seduction?

Is this girl… actually straight?

Her heart was full of the sting of defeat; beyond that, her gaze toward Shen Manyu unconsciously sharpened with a hint of scrutiny and suspicion.

Even if she were beaten to death, Shen Manyu would never have guessed that a mere whim of an action would cause someone to start questioning her sexual orientation.

“Looking at me like that, Sister… do you really want me to kiss you?”

The corners of Shen Manyu’s lips curled up. Her eyes were bright and sparkling, resembling a clear, moonlit night where the sky is adorned with a thousand stars.

The pain had gradually receded, and the tears had evaporated. Those beautiful eyes were now filled with a clarity like they had been washed clean.

She was breathtakingly, soul-stirringly beautiful.

Hua Yanqiu’s throat felt a bit dry, and her Adam’s apple—or the slight curve of her throat—bobbed quietly and involuntarily.

If Shen Manyu’s eyes held the blue sky and the vast sea, then at this moment, Hua Yanqiu might just be about to drown in that ocean.

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