Chapter 61: Tender Allure in the Study

"The coffee has gone cold." Zhou Luoyao lowered her head, feeling the weight of his gaze.

Lin Cheng picked up the delicate porcelain cup and took a light sip.

An exaggerated and comical grimace bloomed across his face.

"Pfft—" Zhou Luoyao chuckled triumphantly. "Dummies! That's Italian espresso. It's even bitterer than traditional Chinese medicine! Hehe..."

Lin Cheng looked at Zhou Luoyao, who was laughing so hard she was rocking back and forth.

He knew her personality well: intense, direct, incapable of playing the gentle, delicate maiden who delicately adds fragrance to the study.

Her world was colorful, filled with challenges and surprises.

Lin Cheng smiled bitterly. "Is it really that bitter?" And with that, he drained the cup in one go.

Zhou Luoyao instinctively reached out to snatch it back.

Before her fingers could touch the cup, her foot somehow tripped, and she lost her balance entirely.

Her originally graceful reach instantly turned into a panicked, flailing dive.

Seeing this, Lin Cheng quickly thrust out his left hand, intending to catch Zhou Luoyao at this critical, split-second moment.

However, Zhou Luoyao tried to dodge this sudden assistance, their movements far too abrupt.

In the end, with an extremely awkward yet comical posture, they tumbled together onto the soft carpet.

The moment they hit the floor, Lin Cheng dropped the coffee cup and grabbed Zhou Luoyao, only to let go in a flash of lightning.

At that instant, a subtle tension filled the air, accompanied by a fresh and elegant fragrance—so real, and so intoxicating.

It added a dreamy quality to this sudden turn of events.

The distance between them was so close that they could clearly feel each other's breath brushing gently against their cheeks, bringing a faint, almost imperceptible coolness.

Zhou Luoyao's hands instinctively shot out, quickly bracing against the carpet to cushion the near-seamless impact.

Lin Cheng was just about to speak when—

"Pervert! Total pervert!" Zhou Luoyao felt a hand on her thigh, sending a tingling numbness through her skin.

As if scalded by fire, Lin Cheng quickly retracted the hand that had inadvertently made contact.

He secretly cursed himself inwardly, his "agilely roaming" hand feeling like a mischievous child that had done something wrong, with nowhere to put itself.

Lin Cheng abruptly pulled himself away. At that exact moment, Zhou Luoyao lunged forward onto him without any warning.

"Oh! Your knee... it's digging right into me!"

Zhou Luoyao's knee was the most discordant note in this entire accident.

A cascade of dark, waterfall-like hair instantly covered Lin Cheng's eyes completely.

The faint fragrance amidst the strands made Lin Cheng's nose twitch involuntarily, tickling his nostrils.

Zhou Luoyao finally pushed herself up slowly just as sunlight poured through the gaps in her hair, illuminating her slightly startled and blushing face.

This sudden brightness did not last long before Zhou Luoyao suddenly raised her hand.

"You pervert!" There was a hint of anger in Zhou Luoyao's voice, mixed with an inexpressible grievance.

Perhaps due to the pain from the knee collision, or perhaps out of a mix of embarrassment and anger, her brows were tightly furrowed.

A chill ran through Lin Cheng's heart. He hurriedly sat up, his hands hovering awkwardly in the air. "I'm sorry, I... I didn't mean to."

He instinctively wanted to explain, yet didn't know where to begin.

Lin Cheng quickly scrambled to his feet. "I'm sorry." He instinctively wanted to head for the door.

"Stop right there! Where do you think you're going?"

"Home." Lin Cheng was feeling somewhat panicked. Her two older brothers were in the house; if they saw this scandalous scene, wouldn't he get beaten to a pulp?

Zhou Luoyao bit her lip. "Do you think you can just walk away after all this?"

Lin Cheng turned his head back. "Then... how do you want to deal with me?"

Lin Cheng had never inquired about Eldest Miss Zhou's background; presumably, Zheng Nange and the other two didn't want him to know either.

Yet Zhou Luoyao was someone looked up to by many. She was like sunlight—sometimes warm and scorching, sometimes hiding behind clouds, making it impossible to ever truly see her true face. Gradually, one would realize that her world was far beyond reach.

Zhou Luoyao burst into laughter through her tears and sat back down, instantly resuming the demeanor of a pampered young lady.

"Write a song for me too, just like that one!!"

"...... I'm not a musician!"

"I don't care! You have to write one!"

...

Actually, Zhou Luoyao had invited Lin Cheng over for a meal simply because nobody else was home, and she wanted some company to breathe life into the empty house.

Being a sensitive girl, Zhou Luoyao felt that the atmosphere at home recently was a bit too "peaceful and prosperous."

Lately, the political scene in Jiangdong had suffered quite a tremor. Insiders all knew that the disgraced Li Mao originated from the Zheng faction; while still in the provincial government, he had been on extremely close terms with Zheng Qun, and rumors even circulated that someone was gunning for Zheng Qun himself.

Although Zheng Qun tried hard not to let his emotions affect the children, they were all grown up now, and beneath his smile, his exhaustion was still visible.

Aunt Li came in to announce that lunch was ready.

She walked on tiptoe to the tightly shut bedroom door and knocked gently.

"Young masters, time to dine!"

The two young gentlemen climbed up rather politely; after all, their upbringing prevented them from ignoring Aunt Li's hard work—she had been stewing the pig's head until the moon rose.

"Hey, where are you guys going to hang out after eating, Lin Cheng?"

"Shut up! Why do you automatically assume he's just playing around?"

Zhou Ye looked at his younger sister in astonishment.

"That song of his, *In the Rain*, was really good. I want him to write another one for me!"

"That song really is wonderful," Zheng Nange said, lowering his head to eat as the air in the room briefly seemed to freeze.

No flower is ever born a flower from the very beginning.

When Zhou Luoyao was a little girl, she would always tug at his sleeve and say, "Nange, play with me!"

Whenever someone happened to run into Zhou Luoyao and tease her by asking, "Where are you off to?"

Zhou Luoyao would proudly reply, "I'm going to play at Nange's house!"

As they grew a bit older, Zheng Nange sometimes found this little tag-along annoying.

Thinking that it was a burden to bring her along when hanging out with the boys, he would often try to ditch her.

Perhaps that was part of the reason why Zhou Luoyao eventually took up basketball...

Because she was constantly brushed off, Zhou Luoyao would often run tearfully to Zheng Nange's house to tell on him.

And then they grew up together...

Later on, Zheng Nange secretly fell for Older Sister Jiang Yuwan. She was his white moonlight—so exceptional that Zheng Nange felt he barely even qualified for her substitute roster of suitors.

One day, Jiang Yuwan parked her sports car beside him and offered to take him out for a ride. Ecstatic, he hopped into the sports car.

When he looked back, he saw Zhou Luoyao standing alone across the street like a modest, unpretentious little flower. That image gave his heart a sharp pang.

In the end, he had indeed gone off to keep company with Sister Yuwan, who was about to leave for America.

Recalling it now, Zheng Nange felt as though he had often overlooked the gaze this young girl had fixed upon him.

After seeing Jiang Yuwan off, that mischievous girl stopped clinging to him.

Even though they still played and went wild together, she had developed a broader horizon and a more independent mind.

It was as if a beautiful kite were flying higher and higher; should one pull the string tighter, or simply let it drift away with the wind......