Chapter 43: Submitting to Her Charm

Chapter Forty-Three: Submitting to Her Feathered Skirt

The indoor lights flickered, creating a romantic atmosphere. After an unknown amount of time, Li Yue's eyes were red at the corners, and her long eyelashes trembled slightly as she lay on her side, completely held captive in his arms, unable to move forward or backward.

The man behind her was breathing heavily, his hot breath hitting her neck. He didn't say much, but his movements were extremely rough. When Ling Jianwei wasn't speaking, she gave off a distant and aloof impression, but in this kind of situation, she kept making ambiguous remarks, calling her "baby" all the time, saying how soft her waist was, and how comfortable it was to hold her.

Once he stopped talking, he was completely forceful, giving her no chance to breathe. The man's body was taut with beautiful muscle definition, and sweat seeped from his muscles as he lay under the covers.

Li Yue's back was sticky with the sweat from his body. She silently thought that she did seem to really crave his body, and she didn't want to deny it.

Ling Jianwei lowered his head and kissed her smooth back, his large hands constantly kneading the fair and tender skin of her.

After enduring a day and a night, he was more impatient and eager than he had imagined.

He picked her up, rolled over, and pinned her beneath him.

Looking down, Li Yue's cheeks were flushed with a light red from the intensity of the moment, and her beautiful eyes were misty with tears.

He loved seeing the faint blush that appeared on her face when she was about to collapse, or the glistening tears on her eyelashes, and the tender and alluring look in her eyes when she was moved.

He also liked it when she took the initiative to respond, calling him by his name and letting him know what she needed.

The woman beneath him was a stunning beauty; from the first time he held her in his arms, he couldn't bear to let go. He wanted to carry her around the house now, but the weather was too cold, so he had to give up.

Listening carefully to the soft sounds coming from her mouth, he said in a low, hoarse voice, "Moon, you are mine."

Li Yue mumbled a response, and then said, "In this life, you can only be mine, and in the next life, and the life after that, for all eternity, it can only be you. I don't want anyone else."

Suddenly bombarded with so many sweet words, she was speechless. But these words pleased her, so she swayed her hips as if she were being coquettish.

Later, lying down, I looked at her. She was wrapped in a blanket, and perhaps because she was too hot, her eyes were tinged with a faint red. The man raised his hand to stroke her sweat-dampened forehead and burning cheeks. She was truly pitiful yet adorable.

However, Li Yue was too weak and lay on top of him, whispering, "Ling Jianwei, I have no strength left."

The man was not surprised at all. He gripped her waist with both hands, his burning eyes filled with lust as he continued to stare at her.

Li Yue fell into his line of sight and turned her face away: "Stop staring at me."

He stared intently, chuckling softly, and said, "It's beautiful, I love watching it, what are you shy about?"

"Then I'll keep an eye on you too."

Ling Jianwei: "Nobody forbade you to see it."

It's so annoying. Li Yue hit him, and he said, "Is this your punishment? Baby is so gentle."

Li Yue: "..."

The last time, as she was carried out of the bathroom, Li Yue was so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open. He, however, remained full of energy, embracing her and kissing her lips: "Do you want to go to the camp again tomorrow?"

Li Yue squinted and replied, "I want to stay at home. It's warmer there, and I want to start practicing drawing."

He didn't force her, but later, after seeing her sketches, he said incredulously, "How can your drawing skills be so high?"

Li Yue had already tried her best to make the drawing look worse, and lied: "When I was in school, my art teacher said I had talent and taught me privately, but at the time, I didn't dare to mention it to my uncle and aunt, so it was delayed. But the drawing isn't particularly good either."

Ling Jianwei said regretfully, "If you had a professional teacher to guide you, you could apply to the Academy of Fine Arts."

Li Yue said with a smile, "But universities aren't even recruiting anymore. I have excellent academic performance, and I'm the class monitor."

He stroked her head: "Yes, fate is fickle."

"If fate hadn't played a trick on me, I might still be in college, and you wouldn't have met me."

Ling Jianwei nodded her chin: "That's true."

Then she asked, "If you were in college, wouldn't we have met?"

"I'd definitely be at school then, living in the dorms. Who would go to the train station to run into you for no reason?"

He retorted, "Which university do you go to? I'll run into you at your school."

Li Yue: "I haven't decided yet."

Ling Jianwei gritted her teeth: "No matter where you are, we will definitely meet again. We are arranged by God."

Seeing his confident expression, Li Yue smiled and buried her face in the crook of his neck: "You're right, it's God's arrangement."

But she still didn't understand, and asked in her exhaustion, "Ling Jianwei, why is it that you can't live without me?"

Ling Jianwei hugged her tightly, kissed her hair, and pondered for a long time.

It wasn't just because she was beautiful, but because she seemed like a mystery, deeply attracting him.

Just as he was about to answer, the person in his arms fell asleep.

"Asleep?"

"..."

There was no response.

The man chuckled softly: "Goodnight."

In the following days, they became increasingly indulgent, and the wooden bed began to creak and groan.

Seeing her anxious and worried that the bed might collapse, Ling Jianwei took a hammer and reinforced it the next day. But he also noticed a problem: this girl liked to muffle her noises under the covers or under the pillows at crucial moments.

One time, he couldn't help but ask, "Why don't you dare to shout it out?"

Li Yue said, "The house isn't well soundproofed, and I'm afraid the neighbors will hear us."

He laughed: "You'll be fine even if you act like you did the first night."

Li Yue remained hesitant.

Ling Jianwei said, "You feel like you're speaking loudly, but I can't actually hear it."

She didn't believe it and insisted on doing things her own way.

Ling Jianwei noticed that she was still shy and insecure, so she said to her, "If the bed collapses, we'll replace it with a new, sturdier one. The children in the next room are sleeping, not adults. They're sound asleep, so even if you shout, they won't hear you."

Li Yue had secretly observed Li Jinqiu's house, and it seemed that what he said was true.

Never mind, they continued living shamelessly, and in the biting cold, they welcomed the annual market day.

On the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, Ling Jianwei accompanied Li Yue to the commune's market.

Just as everyone had predicted, the annual market was several times more lively than usual. The dirt road leading to the commune seemed to come alive. Some people walked, some drove donkey carts, and some drove tractors over the clods of dirt. The elderly, weak, women and children sat on the carts.

Rural women, their heads wrapped in headscarves, led their excited children to the market. The market was a sea of ​​stalls, with ropes strung between trees, displaying couplets, door gods, and paper-cut window decorations. There were also vendors writing couplets and cutting paper-cuts on the spot, the aroma of roasted peanuts and melon seeds filling the air, and the vendors' calls echoing throughout the market…

Li Yue bought some snacks such as peanuts, melon seeds, fried dough twists, and rice crackers. Later, she passed by the glutinous rice wine stall and bought four jars in one go.

Ling Jianwei, standing to the side, shook her head: "Little drunkard."

Li Yue snorted: "It's not just for me to eat, you get some too."

He said coldly, "If I hadn't eaten half of the remaining can, you probably would have gotten drunk again."

The person selling glutinous rice wine smiled and said, "This sweet wine won't make you drunk, it's fine."

Li Yue chimed in, "See, that's what everyone says."

Ling Jianwei took the four bottles of sweet glutinous rice wine, put them in the cardboard box, and said, "The box is almost full, we need to put them back in the car first."

On the way, Li Yue saw a woman buy a string of candied hawthorns for each of her two children. The two children were skipping and jumping on the dirt road with the candied hawthorns in their hands. She couldn't resist buying a string of candied hawthorns to satisfy her craving.

After eating a sweet and sour hawthorn berry, she remembered that she should have given one to Ling Jianwei first, and shyly offered it to him, saying, "Why don't you try it?"

He glanced at me: "So you know to let me try it?"

"I'll try the taste first, and if I think it's good, then I'll let you try it."

"A load of nonsense."

"Want to eat?"

"I don't eat this."

"Okay, I'll eat it."

There were also many fruit vendors at the stalls, selling big red apples and dates, orange tangerines and persimmons, and yellow pears, a vibrant and colorful display.

The market was bustling with people, their faces beaming with excitement, their cheeks red from the cold. Even the adults had more smiles on their faces than last time.

I'd heard older people say that in their day, five yuan could buy a very lavish New Year. Although Li Yue knew people were poor and materialistic, she couldn't truly grasp that anticipation for the New Year. Only after experiencing it firsthand did she realize that in the countryside, if a family had a pig or sheep for the New Year, made their own fried dough sticks, grew their own fruit, and bought some melon seeds, candy, and biscuits, and made new clothes and shoes for the children, seeing their joyful faces, the adults would probably feel happy too.

Yes, after a year of hard work, we're just hoping for a good New Year, so we should be happy no matter what.

After returning home from the market, an indescribable feeling lingered in Li Yue's heart and did not dissipate the next day.

Ling Jianwei went to the camp headquarters. At noon, Li Yue ate lunch and, seeing the several jars of sweet wine, couldn't resist opening one. She took a few spoonfuls, but then decided she couldn't just leave it at that. So she abandoned the sweet wine, set up her easel, placed her canvas, clipped away the expensive watercolor paper she'd bought earlier, and pulled out her paint box…

First, I roughly sketched the outline with a drawing pencil, then applied watercolors. While waiting for each layer of paint to dry, I ate a few mouthfuls of sweet wine before applying another layer of color.

When Ling Jianwei pushed open the door, the watercolor painting was just finished and was waiting to dry, and the jar of sweet wine was also empty.

As soon as the handsome man entered the room, his eyes were immediately drawn to the watercolor painting on the easel, and he walked straight toward it.

With a drunken, hazy smile, Li Yue said, "I just painted it; the paint isn't completely dry yet."

Ling Jianwei glanced at her.

Li Yue continued, "I had a bit of inspiration today, so I painted this picture of a New Year's market in one go. You can tell it's a New Year's market, right?"

“Of course,” the man said softly, then affirmed, “A work of art, this is a work of art, the colors are very bright.”

In Ling Jianwei's eyes, most of the people she met at the market yesterday were dressed in black, gray, and indigo, a sea of ​​black, but from her perspective, the colors were rich and varied.

He could vaguely make out the various colors of fruit on the stalls on both sides of the road, the bright red couplets, the green vegetables... He could also spot the striking colors on the dark gray pedestrians, such as the redness on the children's faces from the cold, the candied hawthorns in their hands, the colorful headscarves on the women's heads, the light-colored cloth bags in the old people's hands, and the golden fried dough sticks that the middle-aged man in the distance had taken a bite out of...

This era is filled with misfortune and helplessness; many people have become numb, sometimes simply living day to day. But the world she sees is different—innocent, bright, and full of hope…

He always felt that he didn't understand her, that he didn't know her well enough, that she was incomprehensible to him. Perhaps this was an ordinary person's misconception about a gifted person.

Come to think of it, her talent and interests didn't just appear out of nowhere. Not long after he met her, she liked to stroll around the Liulichang area, but he didn't pay any attention to it.

Ling Jianwei couldn't suppress his attraction to the painter. He glanced at her again and suddenly frowned. Her cheeks were flushed, and the room was filled with the smell of sweet wine. He looked at the empty glass jar on the table: "You've had sweet wine again?"

Li Yue nodded honestly: "I ate a whole bottle without even realizing it."

man:"……"

He knew she would be more unrestrained than usual when she drank, but he was even more frenzied than her at night, almost torturing her repeatedly. Twice she even cried and begged for mercy.

But it wasn't a venting of emotions; rather, it was a willing submission to her, as if being obsessed with her was his destiny in this life.

...