Sense of Contrast
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Qiu Yu was not someone who liked to use force, but every word Chen Cebai had spoken after exposing his identity made her feel an impulse to hit him:
“…Alright, I won’t let you die!”
Chen Cebai didn’t speak, just looked at her.
To be honest, his gaze at this moment made her feel somewhat creeped out.
—It wasn’t that his gaze itself made her uncomfortable, but rather that the emotions in his eyes were too intense.
Every time she met his eyes, she would get goosebumps all over, as if she had been entwined by some kind of long, scaly, slick, and sticky snake.
She couldn’t help but cover his eyes with her hand and softly said, “Don’t look at me like that.”
Afraid that he would really think she was telling him not to look at her that way, Qiu Yu added, “…I didn’t describe it very accurately. What I mean is, I’m not quite used to your gaze right now… After all, you’ve never looked at me like this before.”
Compared to his extremely aggressive gaze, Chen Cebai’s voice was instead very calm:
“I’m afraid you’ll be scared.”
So that’s how it was.
Another misunderstanding.
She had thought that it was because he had no interest in her, which was why there was no trace of hunting desire in his eyes. She hadn’t expected that it was just… because he was afraid she would be scared.
Upon realizing this, the sweetness mixed with bitterness in her heart became even stronger.
Even the air seemed to grow sticky, merging with the summer heat, clinging to her skin.
Only now did Qiu Yu begin to feel a real sense of being in love.
After confessing their feelings before, although their time together had been sweet, his secrecy had always caused friction and distance between them.
Now, finally, their hearts were in sync.
Qiu Yu couldn’t help but curve her eyes, revealing a sweet smile.
Even though his eyes were covered by her hand, Chen Cebai could still see her.
She truly loved him.
It wasn’t perfunctory, it wasn’t deception, and it wasn’t a temporary strategy.
She loved him.
She sympathized with him.
If it were anyone else showing him sympathy, he would only feel disgusted; but Qiu Yu’s sympathy made his emotions surge, keeping him in a state of extreme exhilaration.
His fingers had been trembling all along.
From just now, they had never stopped.
He could have easily suppressed the trembling, but he didn’t. Instead, he used his hands, still bound by a tie, to touch her lightly, signaling her to hold his trembling hand.
Qiu Yu was slightly surprised. “Why are you shaking so much?”
Chen Cebai leaned down and moved closer to her.
As he drew closer, her heartbeat instantly fell out of rhythm.
She had already liked his appearance very much. After he exposed his non-human identity, his cold, distant, and ethereal exterior, originally like the clear moon after a storm, was now coupled with a strange and frenzied aura, as well as the ecstasy and exhilaration in his eyes.
…Being by his side, Qiu Yu found herself completely unable to breathe.
It felt as if every one of her kinks had been precisely triggered.
Suffocating.
At the same time, Chen Cebai spoke by her ear: “Because of you.”
Qiu Yu showed a bewildered expression, completely forgetting what she had just asked.
Chen Cebai seemed to know she would forget, and without pausing, he continued: “I’ve been trembling because of you.”
Qiu Yu finally understood why he had asked, “Do you really want nothing held back?” It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be honest with her, but that he was worried she wouldn’t be able to handle his bluntness.
Even before he was completely honest with her, his straightforwardness had already bordered on shamelessness. Now that he had agreed to hold nothing back, every word he spoke was beyond her expectations—yet perfectly aligned with her kinks.
Chen Cebai neither told her to move her hand away nor asked her to untie the tie around his hands. And yet, she felt his gaze coming from all directions, converging on her hand, guiding it downward.
“Here too, because of you,” he said in a deep voice.
Qiu Yu instinctively covered his mouth.
But expressing emotions was not something he did only with words. Once his mouth was covered, his eyes were freed.
And his gaze—more direct, more searing than his words—almost burned her.
In a daze, she had the illusion of being invaded by that gaze.
Panicked, she could only tear off the tie binding his hands and instead blindfold his eyes with it.
Who would have thought—this made the scene even more impactful.
A dim bedroom. Slithering, serpentine-like viscous matter. The indistinct sound of something dripping, like the cold and dangerous lair of a monster.
In this entire space, the only place one could set foot was the bed in the center.
Chen Cebai sat on the bed, dressed in a white dress shirt and black trousers. His collar was slightly disheveled from her pulling, revealing his collarbone and a hint of his chest muscles.
Now that the tie covered his eyes, the sharp contours of his nose bridge, jawline, and lips became even more striking.
Coldness and fervor. Intellectual calmness and a madman’s insanity. The unnatural, sticky substance and the neon lights flickering mechanically outside the window.
It is human nature to be unable to resist things with stark contrast.
And he—was the most contrasting person she had ever seen.
Before, she had wanted to desecrate him, to see the fervent passion beneath his indifferent exterior, to see his always-immaculate dress shirt in disarray, to see his usually emotionless gaze fixate solely on her.
She had succeeded.
Qiu Yu was certain—this was her own initiative.
Her heart continued to beat rapidly, thumping loudly. Heat radiated from her ears and cheeks, and the only source of coolness she could reach—was the man before her, Chen Cebai.
She clung to his neck, tilted her head up, and kissed him.
He immediately extended the tip of his tongue in response.
His response was too quick, the swallowing motion too obvious, yet his expression remained unchanged. The sense of contrast became even stronger—so strong that Qiu Yu began to suspect whether Chen Cebai was deliberately seducing her.
She asked him directly.
Chen Cebai also answered directly: “Yes.”
Qiu Yu thought, it must be because in reality, there were too many roundabout, probing, and calculating exchanges that every time he was so blunt, it made her face flush red.
She blinked and deliberately said, “That’s it? Got anything more exciting?”
She had forgotten how miserable she had been the last time she said “That’s it?”
As soon as the words fell, Chen Cebai turned his gaze toward her from another angle, and in an instant, the intensity of his aggressiveness multiplied.
He flipped his hand to grip hers, pushed her down, the tie still covering his eyes.
And yet, his gaze—
From all directions—
From every trembling air molecule in the dim room—
Came crashing down upon her.
“Of course,” he said from above.
—
Qiu Yu was going crazy.
She felt as if she had entered another dimension—the difference between three-dimensional and four-dimensional space was the infinite expansion of details and observation angles that did not exist in the three-dimensional world.
It was still that same analogy: in a two-dimensional world, when you look at a “circle,” you can only see a line segment. Only in a three-dimensional world can you see the full shape of a “circle.”
At this moment, Qiu Yu was seeing herself—from another dimension.
Every detail that she normally couldn’t perceive was now crystal clear. Her brain couldn’t process such an overwhelming influx of information, nearly shutting down.
In the end, it was Chen Cebai who held her hand, teaching her, little by little, how to see the four-dimensional world.
And also, how to see herself.
At first glance, seeing herself in four dimensions felt like undergoing a medical examination—somewhat unbearable to look at. But that sense of vastness was something a three-dimensional world could never compare to.
Qiu Yu recalled an old film she had seen where the male protagonist accidentally fell into a five-dimensional space. Everything from the past unfolded before him, extending and re-extending, layer upon layer…
That was exactly how she felt now.
As if she were standing between two opposing mirrors.
She lowered her head and saw her body’s internal structure—bones, blood vessels, internal organs, the pumping of her heart…
Even down to her myocardial cells.
And beyond that, she also saw Chen Cebai’s.
Just like in books and movies, all the details were parallel, fully unfolded, surging toward her like tidal waves, making her dizzy, suffocating her.
Especially—under these circumstances…
Qiu Yu no longer dared to say “That’s it?”
Ashamed and flustered, she shut her eyes, refusing to look anymore.
But eyelids could not block sight.
In a four-dimensional world, three-dimensional beings had no ability to hide themselves.
She was transparent.
Observed.
Examined.
Studied.
Qiu Yu could only beg Chen Cebai—to take her out of the four-dimensional space.
Chen Cebai agreed.
But returning to her own world wasn’t much better. After seeing infinitely expanding details, coming back to the three-dimensional world felt like returning from the vastness of outer space to the confined cabin of an elevator—it brought a suffocating sense of oppression.
It was like a sweltering summer day without air conditioning, where heat pressed in from all directions, clinging stickily to her skin. Occasionally, a breeze would blow, drying the sweat, but the salt crystals left behind still clung to her body.
What’s more, Chen Cebai had not withdrawn.
So this sense of suffocation came from both outside and within.
Qiu Yu’s eyes widened slightly as she looked at Chen Cebai before her.
He seemed to know that she liked the way he looked with the tie covering his eyes, so he never removed it.
With his eyes blindfolded, the other details of his expression became all the more apparent.
—The faintly bulging veins on his forehead, the slightly pursed corners of his lips.
Qiu Yu recalled the analogy she had made before.
Back then, she hadn’t known he loved her to this extent. She had wanted to draw out deep and intense emotions from him, like a drifting ship yearning to cast down an anchor that symbolized stability.
She had finally obtained the long-desired sense of security.
Instead of being like her parents—discarding all emotions, spending their entire lives endlessly striving.
—
Qiu Yu knew that Chen Cebai was insane, but she hadn’t expected him to be this insane.
She had once thought that, in this regard, she and him were evenly matched. Only now did she realize that was entirely an illusion.
…The doll analogy, however, was not an illusion. Qiu Yu strongly suspected that he desperately wanted a jointed doll—to dress it, comb its hair, feed it water, bathe it, and firmly grip the doll’s joints to ensure it could never escape. Because right now, Qiu Yu was exactly that doll in his hands.
How much time had passed… Qiu Yu could no longer remember. She only knew that ever since Chen Cebai had fully revealed his true nature, she had never again used her own feet to walk.
He had been carrying her the entire time, one arm hooked beneath her knees, the other pressed against her back. Sometimes, he would have her wrap her arms around his neck, letting her sit in the crook of his arm.
From the bedroom to the living room, then to the kitchen—no matter what he was doing, even if it was just going to the living room to pour a glass of water, he never allowed her to leave his embrace.
They were like two sheets of paper soaked in water, gradually sticking together as the moisture permeated them. Over time, they merged into a single, inseparable pulp.
Qiu Yu loved Chen Cebai deeply, but she was starting to struggle to keep up.
Only now did she realize the immense pit she had dug for herself—she had asked Chen Cebai to hold nothing back from her.
And she had absolutely no way to refuse this Chen Cebai.
So when she expressed her desire to walk on her own, he gave her an unreadable look for a moment, then leaned in and brushed his chin lightly against her.
At some point, he had learned this kind of animal-like territorial marking as a form of affection.
Even though he had entered another dimension, he still retained physical form in the three-dimensional world and followed the biological rules of this dimension, including normal metabolic functions.
So, his chin was rough with short stubble, like the barbs on a wild animal’s tongue, creating a subtle sting when it grazed her skin.
Qiu Yu quickly pushed his head away.
Chen Cebai didn’t mind her reaction at all. He simply said: “I want to keep holding you, and I have the ability to keep holding you.”
The second half of his sentence made Qiu Yu’s scalp tighten slightly.
There was fear, but also excitement.
Her heart pounded wildly as she tried her best not to go crazy along with him. “…But I still have to go to work, and so do you.”
After saying that, Qiu Yu suddenly remembered work and immediately activated her chip to check how long she had been absent.
Chen Cebai did not stop her.
Only when Qiu Yu saw the time displayed on the chip did she understand why he hadn’t stopped her—
Time had not moved. It was completely frozen.
How should she put it? She wasn’t exactly surprised by this outcome.
Many science fiction works speculate that the fourth dimension is time. But that is merely speculation. Humans can only use analogies to describe higher-dimensional spaces, but they can never truly depict what a four-dimensional space looks like.
Even though she had briefly entered a four-dimensional space, her brain had been unable to handle the explosive influx of information. In the end, all that remained was a vague impression—vastness.
She had no idea how Chen Cebai had done it—how he had made time stop, turning this place into an eternal space.
In reality, everything had an end.
But here, they could exist with only each other, remaining together endlessly.
Qiu Yu was a little surprised.
She had seen Chen Cebai fully immersed in his research before—calm, focused, overwhelmingly aggressive.
At the time, she had thought he was the kind of scholar whose eyes held only research, someone who had to keep exploring and delving deeper, constantly feeding his insatiable thirst for knowledge.
She never expected that he would be willing to stay with her in a space devoid of change, endless and nearly as silent as death.
…Wouldn’t he get bored?
At that moment, her chin was pinched. She lowered her head and met Chen Cebai’s gaze.
He hadn’t worn his glasses for some time now, yet she still wasn’t used to his cold, sharp, and narrow eyes.
—The lines were too sharp, like frost and blades. And what made it worse was the deep, intense emotions in his gaze when he looked at her.
Every time their eyes met, she felt an itch crawling through her chest, like ants skittering across her skin.
Qiu Yu instinctively averted her gaze.
But Chen Cebai misinterpreted her action. His face remained expressionless as he pinched her cheeks and forcibly turned her face back to him. His voice grew chillingly cold:
“Unwilling?”