Chapter 151: Idle Fancies

Rong Shen raised his dark eyebrows slightly, pulling her closer by the waist as he pressed her against his chest. "Are you truly keen on remodeling, or are you just trying to distract yourself, hmm?"

An Tong clutched the man's shirt collar, lowered her eyelids, and said calmly, "Do you think... I'm looking for something to do just to run away from things?"

Rong Shen didn't answer, but his silence served as confirmation.

An Tong forcibly slid off the man's lap, walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the dim, yellowish glow cast by the ground lights.

No matter how composed she appeared on the surface, many things could not escape the man's sharp gaze.

An Tong closed her eyes for a moment and sheepishly admitted, "Well, I suppose I do want to occupy myself to take my mind off things..."

This distraction wasn't about avoidance; rather, it was a way to prevent herself from spiraling into a vicious cycle of negative emotions.

As her voice trailed off, the man on the sofa rose and walked over to her.

An Tong watched Rong Shen through the hazy reflection on the windowpane until he wrapped one arm around her waist, a helpless sigh woven into his deep tone. "Do you really need to be like this in front of me?"

To this day, neither of them could be entirely certain of the extent to which An Tong's condition had recovered.

Lacking a systematic clinical evaluation, even Rong Shen could not simply jump to conclusions out of thin air.

As for An Tong, after he spoke those words, she clearly saw the faint curve of a smile at the corner of his mouth reflected in the glass.

Was she smiling?

An Tong turned around in Rong Shen's arms, her back against the window, meeting his gaze directly.

Her eyes were completely sincere.

She said, "I was just thinking about the past, and my mood dipped a little, but it's not as severe as you think."

"Did you forget what I told you before? Why didn't you talk to me when you were feeling down?" Rong Shen gently pinched her cheek, the tenderness in his expression unmistakable.

"I haven't forgotten." An Tong watched the man's Adam's apple bob as he spoke, breathing in his familiar scent, and her previously turbulent emotions gradually settled. "When I came to look for you earlier, the study door was closed, so I thought you were busy."

"You came looking for me just now?"

An Tong nodded. "I went right after Qiqi left, but the door was closed, and I vaguely heard you on the phone, so I came back."

Rong Shen let out a heavy sigh, teasing with a knowing look, "Next time, I'll leave the door open."

An Tong lowered her head, bumping her forehead softly against the man's left shoulder. "My mood was just slightly affected; it hasn't reached the point where my symptoms would act up. Please don't think of me as being that fragile."

She was striving so hard to seek healing precisely because she wanted to get truly and genuinely better.

She couldn't afford to have those around her walk on eggshells and feel anxious every single time a slight breeze rustled the leaves.

In the past, she had been trapped in her predicament alone, but now... just as he had said, things were no longer what they used to be.

Rong Shen lowered his gaze, cupping her face in his hands to carefully scrutinize the subtle expressions on her features. "Do you really think so?"

"Really." An Tong met the man's gaze with unwavering openness. Moments later, she stood on tiptoe and planted a light kiss on his cheek. "I'm fine, you don't need to worry."

Rong Shen ruffled her hair and naturally, smoothly shifted the topic. "Was the idea to remodel the garden a sudden whim, or had you been planning it for a while?"

The garden at Yuefu Villa certainly lacked a certain level of sophistication; after all, their decision to live here had been a spur-of-the-moment arrangement born from their contract marriage.

If she didn't like the current layout, building an entirely new classical landscape garden for her was entirely within the realm of possibility.

Yet An Tong had no inkling of what was running through the man's mind. She glanced sideways out the window, and a moment later, her gaze returned to the man's face, asking him in earnest, "You could say it was a sudden whim, but don't you think this house lacks any sense of warmth at all?"

This sense of disparity stemmed from what she had seen and experienced at the Rong family estate during the Lunar New Year.

The landscape gardens crafted by master designers were exquisite and meticulous in every detail, yet vibrantly pulsing with the warmth of everyday human life.

Yet upon returning to Yuefu Villa, the spacious, monotonous garden and the desolate, cold living room instantly conjured a bleak winter atmosphere.

And when An Tong used the word "home," it landed in the man's ears with a uniquely seductive resonance.

Especially since the floor lamp in the study was dim, casting a soft orange hue over them. The ethereal lighting blurred their expressions, and it was precisely this hazy unreality that invariably bred romantic yearnings.

For reasons unknown, Rong Shen seemed unusually distracted tonight, his mind wandering repeatedly.

Remembering that tomorrow marked the resumption of work after the holiday, she couldn't help probing, "Are you very busy? If you have work to attend to, you should go..."

The rest of her words were cut off.

An Tong's face was cupped in the man's hands, and by the time she collected her senses, her breath was entirely filled with his scent.

Masculine, clean, and carrying the intense, underlying aroma of surging hormones.

A natural kiss, a familiar and intoxicating tenderness.

Actually, there was nothing wrong with it, except... the man's hand had slipped under the hem of her top, lightly stroking the skin of her lower back in a manner that was growing somewhat unruly.

An Tong's body stiffened slightly as the memory of the madness on New Year's Eve came rushing back.

She had always believed Rong Shen was not a man driven purely by carnal impulse. Ever since New Year's Eve, they had shared a bed every night, and aside from the necessary intimate embraces, they had never crossed that line again.

She had assumed... this was simply the norm for most married couples.

Yet at this very moment, with their intertwining breaths and the thick, ambiguous atmosphere, An Tong knew full well what might happen next.

The bedroom where they slept was situated directly across the study.

As the man picked her up and carried her back, he maintained a deep, lingering kiss the entire way.

It wasn't until An Tong was pressed down onto the mattress and her loose knit sweater was removed that a chill washed over her, making her fully aware of where she was.

Moreover, her tied-up ponytail had come undone, scattering dark silk strands across her shoulders and the bedding.

With a hazy, bewildered look in her eyes, she reached up to touch her head. Where had her hair tie gone? When had it fallen off?

Rong Shen propped himself up slightly on one elbow, looking down at An Tong's dazed expression and fumbling movements.

Within a fraction of a second, he guessed what was on her mind.

The man narrowed his eyes, amused that she could still be distracted enough to search for a hair tie under such circumstances.

As An Tong touched her hair and stared blankly at the ceiling, her stomach suddenly let out a clearly audible rumble, echoing distinctly in the quiet bedroom.

Rong Shen's movements came to a halt.

An Tong's face flushed crimson.

Out of sheer embarrassment.

A smile played at the corners of Rong Shen's lips as he pulled the quilt over her to cover her up. "Hungry?"

An Tong let out a muffled hum, staring straight up at the man above her, blushing with a trace of awkwardness.

Rong Shen, right before her eyes, was undeniably sexy and alluring.

Perhaps the word "sexy" wasn't entirely appropriate for describing a man, but An Tong firmly believed that the man before her was supremely handsome and captivating.

The buttons of his white shirt had come undone several times during their earlier friction, exposing a patch of his well-defined, muscular chest.

Strands of hair hung loose around his brow line, his dark eyes burned with intense heat, and his low, hoarse voice carried an extraordinary magnetic resonance—as if a quintessential gentleman had shed his restraint, turning fiercely aggressive and wild.

The man lowered his head to press a quick kiss to her lips, his breathing now much steadier. "Get yourself together, we'll go downstairs for dinner in a moment."