To Covet (GL) - Chapter 13

I heated the braised chicken in the microwave. While I was waiting, I opened the old wooden box. Inside was a set of gold jewelry: earrings, a bracelet, and a necklace. The only thing missing was a ring.

I had seen these in Yang Chun and Yu Hanyang’s wedding photo, and the patterns matched.

The lid of the box felt sticky. I opened my backpack, and sure enough, it was full of oil and sauce. The lid must have come loose when it fell. The keys and wallet inside were all disgustingly dirty. The gauze in the side pocket smelled like soy sauce. I threw it into the trash can without a second thought.

I wasn’t hungry at all before, but after one bowl of chicken, I suddenly felt like I hadn’t had enough. I took my keys from the basin and planned to go downstairs to get some late-night snacks.

“Yu Zhouwan, I’m going downstairs to get something to eat. Do you want anything?”

I knocked on her door, but there was no answer. I put my ear to the door and heard no movement. I stood there for a while, making sure she really didn’t plan on talking to me, and went out by myself.

There were often city management patrols in the area, so there were no street vendors within a ten-mile radius. I couldn’t get any junk food. I wasn’t interested in a proper meal. Only the oden from the convenience store in the neighborhood could fill my stomach. I also bought some shrimp chips to pass the time while doing homework late at night.

Before I went upstairs, I called grandma to let her know I was safe and chatted with her for a while. I was about to hang up when I saw a familiar figure come out of the elevator.

“Yu Zhouwan,” I was used to calling her by her full name. “Where are you going?”

She finally saw me squatting in the shadows. “To get something.” She clearly didn’t want to talk to me and didn’t stop at all.

“Get what?” I chased after her, grabbing her wrist through her sleeve.

She jumped up as if I had stepped on her tail, pushing me away with all her might. I almost fell backward into the bushes by the side of the road.

But Yu Zhouwan looked at me expressionlessly, turned her head, and walked away.

I felt an indescribable sense of frustration. It was as if I had used threats and inducements to temporarily make my prey submit, but without special methods, I still couldn’t make her listen to my orders. Even though I had the physical advantage, she was still resisting me psychologically.

There was some black powder from a charcoal pencil on her sleeve. There were also gray marks on my fingers and palm. A studio isn’t a place for long sleeves. Even if you wear one, you have to wear a sleeve guard to protect your clothes. She had obviously forgotten today.

I jogged to catch up to her, grabbed her by the elbow, and pulled her sleeve up.

A large, noticeable area of bruises was on her wrist, and some places were still swollen. She winced in pain.

I suddenly felt dizzy.

I took the medicine and gauze from the pharmacist. I ignored his sales pitch and threw the boxes into a plastic bag.

Yu Zhouwan followed me silently. She didn’t say a word to me until we got home.

She changed into her slippers and stood at her door, staring at me. She held out her hand, motioning for me to give her the medicine.

I walked around Yu Zhouwan, pushed her door open, and pulled her to sit on the bed. I didn’t forget to lock the door.

Yu Zhouwan stood up. I pressed on her shoulder and made her sit back down.

“Roll up your sleeve,” I said, unscrewing the medicine bottle. “I’ll put some on you.”

I was certain the bruises weren’t from last night. They were all over her forearm, almost one-third of it.

I stared into Yu Zhouwan’s eyes, hoping to find a hint of a lie when she spoke, but her mouth was tightly shut. By the time I finished applying the medicine and wrapping the bandage, she still had a deadpan look on her face.

I was so angry I almost threw the medicine I was holding. I regretted not being rougher when I was wrapping the bandage.

“Don’t tell me someone forced you.”

I closed the lid and threw the cotton swab in the trash, leaving her with that sarcastic, passive-aggressive remark.

Yu Zhouwan remained silent.

I dusted my hands off, then walked straight to her, sat on her lap, grabbed her tie, and tightened it.

The sudden feeling of suffocation made her eyes widen. Before she could resist, I tightened the tie again. I could almost hear the sound of the tie being pulled taut as it cut into her skin.

She opened her mouth and took a deep breath. Her face quickly flushed. I let go in time to give her a chance to breathe. My fingertips were still pressed against her throat, and I could feel the cartilage slide when she swallowed.

“No,” she said, not defending herself, just spitting out two weak words.

“Then you did it yourself?”

I reached inside her collar. Her body was still stiff, sitting there rigidly. Only this time, she didn’t struggle or resist. My other hand slowly tightened the tie. The black and red satin checks distorted and twisted in my palm. I stared into Yu Zhouwan’s eyes, waiting for them to go from clear and lively to a dead, reflective pool, and for her rapid breathing to turn into slow, deep breaths.

I loosened my grip on the tie, but my hand didn’t leave it. Yu Zhouwan fell onto the bed, trying to recover from the suffocation.

“Do you want to be tied up?”

I pulled her wrist and touched the gauze covering the bruises with my lips.

It smelled faintly of medicine.

Yu Zhouwan lay there motionless. It seemed like she had exhausted all her strength, or maybe she just didn’t want to struggle anymore.

I raised my hand and brought it down.

My palm hit her butt. The crisp sound was muffled by her clothes.

“Don’t…”

My hand fell again. Her body shivered, and she swallowed her words. Only a short, faint breath escaped.

“People who say one thing and mean another need to be punished.”

I unbuttoned her shirt and took it off, along with the little cotton tank top underneath.

The ironed shirt was crumpled in my hand. When I tightened it around her wrist, I heard a muffled grunt from her.

A tie, a staple for formal occasions, which gave off a sense of seriousness and uniformity, was now on her naked skin.

I pulled the pillow from behind her waist. A section of the white sleeve connected her hands to mine. Yu Zhouwan was being pulled, her upper body’s weight relying entirely on that piece of cloth. She tried to find a point of support, but she didn’t notice that I had already torn off the tie, grabbed the knot, and with a flick of my wrist, the piece of cloth snapped out and made intimate contact with her naked body.

Smack. It sounded like something had broken.

Yu Zhouwan twisted her waist to try to dodge it, but the last hit was just a small test. When I hit her a second time, the sound was crisper than before. A faint pink mark appeared from her shoulder to her chest. Within seconds, it quickly disappeared.

I leaned down and sucked and licked her breasts with my tongue and lips. In an instant, the smooth tips became engorged and erect.

“Mm…” Her body was flushed a seductive pink. Her instincts made her unable to resist.

I increased the pressure of my hand, hitting her wherever I pleased: her collarbone, neck, and lower abdomen. The soft fabric was not meant to cause pain. But when it hit her erect tips unexpectedly, her body suddenly went taut. But just as she was on high alert, the tie landed somewhere else.

After a few more times, Yu Zhouwan no longer had the strength to hold her position in the air. I let go of her, and she fell back.

Her slender neck looked empty without the tie. I suddenly thought, it would be nice to tie something around it.

“Yu Zhouwan,” I said. I took off my clothes, untied her hands, helped her put the tie back on, and placed her hands on my chest. “Touch me.”

Yu Zhouwan’s eyes were still blank. She only listened to my command on instinct, clumsily fumbling around my back for a while before remembering that she could use both hands to undo the buttons.

“Where’s Wanwan?”

Shi Yunya’s voice was accompanied by the muffled sound of the front door locking.

“She’s probably asleep,” Yu Hanyang said, walking out of his study.

“Asleep? I still have something to talk to her about.”

Yu Zhouwan snapped awake instantly. She quickly put on her clothes, tidied her messy hair, and stumbled out the door.

“Oh no, what happened to your hand?”

I walked out at a leisurely pace. Shi Yunya was holding Yu Zhouwan’s arm, checking the bandage on her wrist.

“At the studio… a shelf fell on me while I was moving things.”

“Moving what?” Shi Yunya checked her hand over and over again, but she couldn’t see anything through the gauze and bandage. “I’ll ask Teacher Zhou tomorrow. How can he let a girl move things? Is it a sprain or a scrape?”

“It was my own easel. The wooden screw was loose, so… it just hit me.”

I stood there with my arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe. Yu Zhouwan glanced at me, afraid that her hastily woven lie would be exposed.

“Auntie, don’t worry. I already checked on my sister. It’s nothing serious, just a little scrape. It’ll be fine once it scabs over.”

I took the ointment from my room and placed it on the table.

“Exactly. It’s just a little scrape. Don’t make a fuss about it. The little one is more careful. She already took care of it herself,” Yu Hanyang said, laughing to try and smooth things over. But Shi Yunya didn’t buy it. She still wanted to unwrap the gauze to see how bad the injury was.

“This… it won’t heal properly if it can’t breathe.”

“It hurts to touch it without a bandage.” Yu Zhouwan hid her hand behind her back. “It’s waterproof. I’ll take it off after my shower tonight and go to sleep.”

With that, she lifted her arm and squeezed the wound. Shi Yunya reluctantly believed that it was nothing serious and waved her hand, telling her to go take a shower and go to bed.

Yu Zhouwan let out a sigh of relief and escaped back to her room.

I walked up behind Yu Zhouwan with my hands in my pockets.

“You owe me one,” I whispered in her ear. My nose brushed against her earlobe. I raised my hand and patted her butt. “Good sister, don’t forget.”