Chapter 2 — Contract of Possession

One month later, on a Friday evening, I finished work as usual and headed home. As I slid the key into the lock of my rented apartment and prepared to push the door shut, a hand reached out from behind me. Before I could even draw breath to scream, I recognized the watch on that wrist—a piece of extreme luxury, costing as much as a grand mansion. It was the watch belonging to Feng Ye. I remembered this watch vividly. There had been a time when the arm bearing this watch had propped itself against the pillow beside my head for hours, while the waves of pleasure crested and broke, leaving me with nothing to focus on except staring at it like some anchor in a storm.

As I spun around, I fell straight into his embrace. The door behind me slammed shut with a heavy, echoing crash. I was shoved backward, pressed tightly against the wooden panel.

"Mr. Feng..." I looked up at him.

A month without seeing him, and—hmph—he was still devastatingly, maddeningly handsome. In that exact fraction of a second, a wave of genuine relief washed over me. I had foolishly assumed our next point of contact would simply be a sterile WeChat message concerning the termination of our contract. Consequently, all the psychological fortresses I had painstakingly built over the past thirty days utterly collapsed. Damn it all, as far as bed partners went, he was still the absolute best fit! I stared at him in silence, and in less than three seconds, tears began to spill uncontrollably down my cheeks. I used them as a convenient, pathetic shield to cover up the fact that I had once slapped him across the face.

"What on earth are you feeling so wronged about?"

Feng Ye gazed down at me, his eyes as cold as glacial ice. I batted my eyelashes, squeezing out even more tears before wrapping my arms tightly around his waist and burying my face deep into his chest.

"Darling, I am so sorry..."

A truly obedient person always knows how to apologize gracefully. But she will undoubtedly do it again next time. Slapping him... felt intensely satisfying. Pressing against his chest... felt remarkably comfortable. I was already beginning to crave him. And true to my unspoken desires, he and I ended up sleeping together once again. A full month apart had turned us into dry tinder waiting for a single spark. The sofa, the plush carpet, the bathroom, the bed—every single nook and cranny of my modest little apartment bore the lingering traces of our passion.

Once the storm of desire had completely subsided, just as I foolishly assumed the incident involving the slap had been gracefully swept under the rug, a contract termination agreement materialized right before my eyes. ? A sharp, hollow pang of betrayal pierced my heart. I could not exactly claim I was caught entirely unawares, since I had already anticipated this outcome. Even so, it felt entirely too much like being toyed with. [Clause 3: The sole right to execute or terminate this contract rests exclusively with Feng Ye.] True to rule number three, the ultimate decision remained firmly in his hands. Yet, I could not help the sour resentment pooling in my chest. Over the past month, he had been granted ample time to reach his verdict. Did he really have to indulge in this one last round before officially cutting ties? Even though I had been far from passive, knowing for a fact that the contract was about to be voided put an entirely different spin on the act.

The more I dwelled on it, the more furious I became. Without a single moment of hesitation, I snatched up a pen, hastily signed my name, and pressed my thumbprint into the designated space. Then, I turned my back on him and crawled straight back into bed, executing the maneuver with such resolute finality that I refused to spare him even a single parting glance. Consequently, I completely missed the fleeting shadow of gloomy darkness that flickered across the man's face behind me.

Night bled into morning. I fluttered my eyes open and glanced sideways, only to find the man still lying right beside me, his expression heavy with contemplation. Feng Ye had never, under any circumstances, spent the entire night. He certainly should not have started now, and in the future, it should have been even more impossible. Especially since... we had just signed the termination papers the very previous evening. I vividly recalled our very first encounter, when he had looked down at me with chilling indifference and stated explicitly:

"I do not make a habit of sleeping over with others."

The subtext was abundantly clear: do not harbor any delusions of clinging to him. I had obediently nodded my assent back then, harbouring zero intentions of entangling myself in his life anyway. After all, as long as my physical desires were satisfied, waking up alone in a quiet bed to a peaceful morning was more than enough for me. So what on earth was the meaning of this? Had the mighty CEO Feng suddenly lost his primary residence? Regardless of the explanation, it was high time for him to take his leave.

I pushed myself up into a sitting position, intending to rouse him from the bed, but—perhaps I had risen far too abruptly, because the world suddenly spun violently around me. The next time I pried my eyelids open, my entire body felt as though it were burning up from the inside out. I must have developed a fever. Just as my foggy brain was trying to figure out whether I should drag myself up to look for some antipyretic medicine, a cool, soothing gel patch was gently pressed against my forehead. Blinking sluggishly, I locked gazes directly with Feng Ye.

...Was he still not gone yet? This man was still wearing the exact same dress shirt from yesterday, the top buttons carelessly undone to reveal a scattering of raw, red scratches across his chest. I was the one who had scratched him. Looking at him like this abruptly stirred a spike of irritation within me. No, scratch that—it was a profound, overwhelming sense of irritation. We had already terminated the contract, so why on earth was he still lingering here? And why bother slapping a fever patch on my forehead? It was painfully obvious that even if I burned up and died of this fever, it would have zero to do with him.

My body ached with bone-deep exhaustion, and my voice completely lacked its usual veneer of compliance: "Is Mr. Feng still refusing to leave? Staying here to run some sort of personal charity clinic, are you?"

Feng Ye looked genuinely taken aback, as if he had never once witnessed me put on such an attitude in his presence. When had I ever acted anything less than impeccably docile around him? He knitted his brows, a clear flash of displeasure darkening his features. But I had no lingering desire to look at his face a moment longer, so I simply wrenched my head away toward the bolster and squeezed my eyes shut.

"Did you actually think I had agreed to terminate our contract?"

The mattress beside my pillow dipped slightly. Feng Ye shifted closer, his presence carrying a cool, bracing aura, his low voice thick with tightly restrained emotion.

"Unfortunately for you, only your signature is on that paper. The contract remains completely void."

"Furthermore, I suggest you recall clause number 7."

[Clause 7: Maintain proper boundaries at all times; verbal or physical disrespect is strictly prohibited.] And it was glaringly obvious that I had just thoroughly disrespected him.

I snapped my eyes wide open, glaring fiercely at the man currently hovering above me on his forearms. Was he just playing games with me? So when I signed those termination papers in a huff last night, he had already known it was meaningless and simply stood by, letting me make a fool of myself? Did he find the spectacle of me being led around by a leash thoroughly amusing? The churning resentment inside me swelled to such a degree that I could no longer maintain my carefully cultivated facade of obedience. The moment my lips parted, a string of unfiltered grievances spilled out:

"Feng Ye, is something actually wrong with your brain?! You sit there bullying someone as genuinely compliant as me—I don't ever want to lay eyes on you again, so just get the hell out of my sight!"

I had never possessed much talent for hurling insults, so I vaguely threw out a couple of angry phrases before aggressively burying my face back into the pillow. My shoulders began to tremble uncontrollably. Hot tears soaked straight through the fabric of the pillowcase. Being sick with a fever felt too miserable, so I cried. Being played for a fool by him felt too humiliating, so I cried. Venting my anger at him still left me feeling wronged, so I cried. My tear ducts had officially revolted and completely slipped out of my conscious control.

[Clause 8: Absolute non-interference in each other's personal lives.]

When I finally drifted back to consciousness, the fever had thankfully broken and receded. Feng Ye had still not departed; he was sitting quietly on the very edge of the mattress, staring down at me with unblinking intensity. The fierce irritation from earlier had largely evaporated, leaving me to naturally slide back into my role as the obedient, agreeable partner. The more I reflected on the situation, the more a cold wave of dread washed over me—if I dared to breach the terms of the agreement, the financial penalty for breach of contract would be astronomically devastating. Damn it all, who told me to let my carnal desires override my common sense? Now I had nobody to blame but myself for the consequences.

"Do you still feel unwell?"

Feng Ye watched me intently, his thumb gently brushing away the dampness lingering beneath my lower eyelids. I shook my head in a silent negative.

"Do you still feel like yelling at me?"

I shook my head once more. Primarily because I lacked the financial reserves to pay off any breach-of-contract penalties.

"I will choose to pretend that little outburst never transpired. Understood?"

His gaze remained chillingly cool, heavy with an invisible, oppressive weight. I obediently nodded my head, playing the role of the exceptionally cooperative companion. His hand slid downward, wrapping firmly around my chin. Then, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine.

Well, it appeared that Feng Ye and I had successfully slipped right back into our previous routine. The sole distinction was that he had now taken to frequenting my personal residence on a regular basis. Clearly, I had not only cursed him out to his face but had even delivered a resounding slap to his cheek, yet these transgressions somehow only served to make him visit with even greater zeal—his frequency vastly outpacing our old rendezvous at private hotels. Driven entirely by my weakness for good looks, I happily welcomed all of it back into my life.

Feng Ye seemed thoroughly appeased by my docile behavior throughout this period. Yet, I still harbored a sharp, unyielding memory of the humiliation I had felt when he manipulated me before. Clutching the physical contract in my hands, I read and re-read the clauses across several quiet nights. Finally, late one evening after we had thoroughly exhausted ourselves in each other's arms, I reached out and gently tapped his shoulder to pull him back to reality.