To Covet (GL) - Chapter 35

“Yu Keyi, get out.”

“Where should I go?” I stood my ground, arms crossed and leaning against the door. “This is my home too.”

I was the picture of a pig that doesn’t fear boiling water.

“I mean, go back to your room and sleep,” Yu Zhouwan shook off my hand.

I touched my forehead. My temperature was normal, but I felt dizzy, and even moving my eyeballs caused a pulling pain in my nerves.

“Who did you go to see this afternoon?”

“You don’t know them.”

I put my arm around Yu Zhouwan. She immediately pushed me away. I grabbed her arm and, taking advantage of the momentary pain and paralysis, pushed her down onto the bed.

“Don’t touch me, Yu Keyi. I don’t want to.”

I reached out to pull the zipper of Yu Zhouwan’s clothes. She quickly covered herself with both hands, creating an unbreakable defense line.

“Just stop repeating what happened before. Can we pretend it never happened?”

I placed my hand on her chest, feeling its violent heaving, my gaze fixed on her face.

“I didn’t intend to do anything with you. I’m asking you, where did you go today?” I traced my hand up Yu Zhouwan’s arm. Her nervous expression never eased, her brow furrowing tighter with every touch.

“I…” Her eyes darted back and forth. Under my gaze, she was forced to meet my eyes. “I made an appointment to see someone.”

“Who?”

“You don’t know them.”

The words weren’t even finished when she closed her eyes, her body taut like a string about to snap from fear and anxiety.

I listened quietly, not touching her.

“A woman?”

“Yes.”

“And then what? Did that person hurt you?”

“No, ah…” Yu Zhouwan tried to immediately refute me. I inadvertently moved my knee and touched the soft flesh on her sides. She involuntarily cried out again, proving that her abdomen and waist were also hurting.

“Take them off. I’ll get the leftover medicine,” I sighed. “You need to put medicine on bruises, too, or they’ll hurt for days. Auntie Shi might even see them when she gets back.”

The last sentence clearly struck a nerve with Yu Zhouwan.

She gritted her teeth and stripped off her clothes, enduring the pain. She looked as pitiable as ever, but I felt no desire to bully her.

I thought perhaps the sight of her scolding me last time was so impactful that it completely extinguished my lingering attachment to her.

I found the ointment I had bought last time in the drawer. There wasn’t much left, so I ordered a new tube via delivery. Then, I went to the refrigerator for an ice pack and wrapped it in a towel.

Yu Zhouwan slowly removed all her clothes, down to a single camisole. Then, she unzipped and took off her pants, revealing legs crisscrossed with strips of blue and red marks. The few untouched patches of skin in between made the bruises look particularly horrifying.

The bruises on her upper body were even more grotesque, covered with thread-like scabs. Rubbing against her clothes, the marked areas were not only conspicuously swollen but also mildly infected.

She hugged her arms tightly across her chest, as if I were a menacing demon glaring at her.

“I’ll do it myself.”

I brushed away the hands covering her front. “It’s just you and me at home, anyway. No one else will see.”

“I can reach it.”

“Can you reach your back?”

“I don’t have to put it on,” she squeezed a small amount onto her arm. “There’s nothing on my back. It will heal on its own in a couple of days.”

I placed the slightly melting ice pack on Yu Zhouwan’s thigh. The unexpected cold made her, who was focused on applying the medicine, shiver.

“Is it what I think it is?” The ice pack rested on her leg for a few seconds before I picked it up. Repeating this a few times, I moved it to her shoulder. “That… um… how to put it, I remember ‘online coaching’—finding a suitable Dominant?”

The ice pack quickly melted into water from the warmth of the heater and her body temperature, gently conforming to the shape of her skin.

“When did this start?”

Yu Zhouwan remained silent. I went out to retrieve the medicine left at the elevator door, squeezed a pea-sized amount onto my index fingertip, and, intending to help massage it in, applied a little pressure when I smeared it on her shoulder. She reflexively flinched away.

“So you found a Dom online?”

“That has nothing to do with you,” Yu Zhouwan suddenly changed her attitude, snapping back at me without mercy.

A surge of nameless anger boiled inside me, desperately seeking an outlet. But when my gaze met the sight of Yu Zhouwan gritting her teeth and enduring the pain without a sound, the resentment I had built up from being treated with coldness these past few days was swallowed down again.

I raised my hand, intending to slap her.

On one hand, she called me disgusting and avoided me like the plague, yet on the other, she allowed an unknown stranger to treat her brutally. I finally had a clear definition of the extent to which I was hated. I threw the medicine at her and rolled out of the room, tail between my legs.

I opened my chat app. The only unread message was from Teacher Xiao Wu a few hours ago, asking if I was feeling better.

“I’m fine now,” I replied, assuring her everything was okay. “Let’s stick to our original class time tomorrow. I’ll come to your place, is that alright?”

“Are you sure you don’t need rest?” Teacher Xiao Wu replied. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s late. Go to sleep now and take good care of yourself.”

My eyes felt warm. I picked up the small mirror on the desk. My face was the same face, with my mouth pulled down in a frown that was even worse than my usual expression. Other than that, there was nothing unusual; I couldn’t squeeze out a single tear.

I pulled the pillow over my face, forcing myself to pretend I couldn’t hear the knock on the door. It was soft, but persistent, annoying me so much I wanted to kick off the blankets.

“What else do you want?” I pulled open the door. I didn’t need a mirror to know I looked impatient. “I’m going to sleep.”

It’s best not to wear clothes before the ointment completely sets, but I couldn’t be bothered to tell her. If she wouldn’t take care of herself, any intervention from others was pointless.

“I can’t sleep.”

I was about to tell Yu Zhouwan to stop randomly knocking on people’s doors in the middle of the night and disturbing their sleep, but before the words left my mouth, she spoke.

“It hurts more after applying the medicine.”

“I’m not a doctor,” I was unwilling to waste time comforting her. “If it’s that bad, take a taxi to the hospital.”

Yu Zhouwan blocked the doorway. I couldn’t close the door, so I turned and lay back down on my own bed, covering my face with the blanket, acting as if she didn’t exist.

Just as I was about to lose my patience and peek out, Yu Zhouwan’s footsteps approached little by little. She walked slowly, and her movement to lie down was even slower; the mattress sinking under her weight was almost imperceptible.

I kept myself covered for a long time before finally lifting a tiny gap in the blanket. A thin layer of sweat on my forehead was instantly cooled by the air.

Yu Zhouwan lay quietly on the other side of the bed—occupying less than a third of the space, only centimeters away from falling off.

She habitually curled up when she slept, making her space look even smaller.

I split half the blanket to cover her.

Even though we had reached a point of open hostility, I was still her sister, at least.

Seeing that Yu Zhouwan wasn’t moving, I thought she was fast asleep. But when I turned off the light and lay down, she carefully shifted over, pressing against my back and sniffing.

It sounded like crying, but I didn’t turn around to look at her—was she regretting it now that the physical pain was tormenting her in the middle of the night? I silently told myself she deserved it, and just like that, with her resting against me, I drifted off to a fitful sleep.

Yu Zhouwan was already gone before I woke up.

I didn’t know where she went. I picked up my phone, rubbed my sleepy eyes, and suddenly remembered the “online Dom” mentioned last night. I immediately abandoned the thought of messaging her.

I quickly washed up, went to the hospital for my IV drip, and then went to Teacher Xiao Wu’s place for class after lunch.

She invited me to ride bikes with her around the university campus. It was the first time I’d tasted university cafeteria food, and it was infinitely better than what we had at Qizhong High School.

“Want to try this?” She tapped her student ID card against my phone. “See if your phone can link to my card. You can come in to study or read books whenever you want.”

I unlocked my phone and saw a string of missed calls, several in a row, all from the same familiar number.

“What’s wrong?”

I called back. No answer.

A strong, ominous feeling welled up inside me.

Six months ago, on a rainy day, I finished my last exam, crouched by the school gate, and used the teacher’s phone to call Yang Chun’s number countless times, until it was dark, and until the teacher couldn’t bear to watch anymore and said, “Let me take you home first.”

“I need to go to the hospital,” I said.

The memories after that were overexposed, a complete blank.

I took a taxi home. The house was pitch black. The moment I stepped through the door, the number I had called countless times finally connected. I barely put the phone to my ear before it hung up again.

I poured myself a glass of water and drank it down. Just as I was about to message Shi Yunya, the phone on the coffee table vibrated—a WeChat message, from Yu Zhouwan.

She sent a location and a room number.