Chapter 38

In the following days, a strange tension silently spread between the two.

On the surface, Zhou Ping'an's life rhythm had barely changed. He still went to work and left work on time, and would open that door between seven and eight o'clock.

Sometimes when Liu Yifan was in the living room, he would naturally greet her, "I'm back"; sometimes when she was in the second bedroom or the kitchen, he would silently change his shoes, put down his bag, and go to the kitchen to pour water.

He was even more cooperative with this shared lifestyle than before. On weekends, when Liu Yifan suggested going to the supermarket for shopping, he would nod in agreement, pushing the shopping cart beside her. When she hesitated about which brand of oat milk to choose, he would stop and wait, though he wouldn't offer any advice.

When the two of them were having dinner at the same table, he would occasionally take the initiative to bring up a news clip about the progress of battery technology, his tone as flat as if he was reporting the weather, but at least it was a tentative sharing.

Liu Yifan could feel that he seemed to be trying to maintain a sense of "normality", or even... enjoying the sense of stability brought by this superficial, procedural daily interaction.

However, beneath the seemingly harmonious daily life, Liu Yifan felt more clearly than ever before the invisible, cold barrier between them.

It is a deeper, almost instinctive "fear".

Once, Liu Yifan emerged from the shower, her hair dripping with water, carrying the moist, warm scent of water and the delicate fragrance of shower gel. She was wearing a soft, light gray cotton home dress, the neckline slightly open, revealing her slender collarbone and a small patch of skin, slightly flushed from the heat.

While wiping her long hair with a towel, she walked towards the living room unconsciously, wanting to ask Zhou Ping'an if he needed to pick up anything from the supermarket tomorrow.

Zhou Ping'an was sitting on the sofa reading an industry briefing on his tablet computer. He looked up when he heard the voice.

At that moment, his eyes met hers, fresh out of the bath. The light from the screen reflected in his eyes, and his focused gaze, which had been processing information at high speed, suddenly froze.

It wasn't an invasive scrutiny, more like a pure, almost instinctive aesthetic capture. He looked at her as if he were studying an optimal solution that exceeded all known parameters. His gaze lingered on her dewy brows, her slightly flushed cheeks, and her dripping hair for a second or two longer than expected.

The moist fragrance in the air, her defenseless and relaxed posture, and the vivid beauty that is within reach after being stripped of the spotlight and gorgeous costumes, constitute an intense and "invasive" daily vitality, which is completely different from the world around him, which is composed of logic, data and clear boundaries.

An unfamiliar, almost yearning, gentleness slowly emerged from the depths of his usually calm eyes. He even unconsciously slowed his breathing, and the tapping of his fingertips on the edge of the tablet completely stopped. In this moment, there was no evaluation or calculation, only a rare moment of detachment, moved by pure "beauty."

This softness lasted long enough for Liu Yifan to clearly feel that his current state had some effect on him.

However, just as Liu Yifan took another step closer to him without stopping, the water droplets on her wet hair fell off inadvertently as she wiped them, and a few drops of cold touch happened to splash on the back of his hand that was resting on the armrest of the sofa -

As if pricked by the sudden chill, or disturbed by the unintentional touch that was too lifelike and too close, the tenderness that had just appeared in his eyes suddenly dissipated, replaced by a very fast, almost instinctive tension.

He almost immediately and imperceptibly took a half step back, and his fingers, which had been casually resting on the armrest, suddenly closed together, his fingertips slightly tensed, revealing his body's subconscious defensive posture at that moment.

Although his facial expression remained unchanged, and he didn't even look away immediately, his entire aura quickly switched from the momentary relaxation to his usual, slightly distant calmness in an instant.

Liu Yifan stopped.

She clearly captured the rapid flow of his emotions - from that moment of dazed and gentleness to the sudden contraction and tension after being touched (even by a drop of water).

That half step back and the tense fingertips reflected more directly than any words the intense discomfort and defense mechanism that arose when a certain boundary deep in his heart was inadvertently approached.

She looked at his face which quickly returned to "normal", and the fog of inquiry in her heart seemed to grow thicker.

This "fear" is not like a fear of a specific thing, but more like a vigilance and rejection of a certain state, a deep connection, rooted in the subconscious. He is approaching, but at the same time he is guarding against it from deeper inside.

Liu Yifan saw all of this, and his heart felt like a taut bowstring.

She was convinced she had touched the final door. Behind it lay the underlying code of all of Zhou Ping'an's behavior, the key to her being able to fully "become" Bao Si and understand her ultimate disillusionment and rebellion against the core of power.

She had to open it.

But she didn't tell anyone about this discovery and her resolution. She didn't hold a video conference with Lin Na and Chen Feng to analyze the situation as usual, and she didn't even write down a single word in her thick notebook.

Her explanation was professional and cold: King You of Zhou's deepest secrets could only be discerned by Bao Si alone. Once analyzed and interpreted by others, they became secondhand information, the power of her "counter-gaze" lost its purity, and her performance lost its deadly authenticity. She must complete this final "god-killing" ritual alone.

However, beneath this rational professional shell, there may be another subtler and more private reason: she is unwilling to share this secret about Zhou Ping'an with anyone.

That sudden retreat, that door of fear that opened and closed in his eyes... This was a crack that had only appeared in front of her, a unique crack. This was a secret that belonged only to her, the most real and naked connection between her and him, apart from that huge project.

She wanted to possess this right of observation alone, digest this understanding alone, and cast this ultimate key into Bao Si's soul alone.

So, she became more silent, yet more observant. She reduced her proactive conversations and increased her unobtrusive observations. Like the most patient hunter, she slowed her breathing, waiting for the moment when the door would open again.

Zhou Ping'an seemed to notice her more focused silence, but he understood it as the need for some kind of immersive experience and did not disturb her. He just maintained the seemingly stable but undercurrent of "normality".

In the spacious and quiet house, the two of them each guarded their own territory, one living leisurely in the open, the other quietly waiting in the shadows. Invisible threads seemed to be slowly tightening in the air, foreshadowing the imminent arrival of a silent, yet crucial, battle.

The outcome of this contest will directly determine whether what will finally bloom in the magnificent royal city will be a false fireworks display that is only for show, or a masterpiece that is enough to captivate the whole country and burn the true soul.

Liu Yifan could clearly feel that Zhou Ping'an had a good impression of her.

This affection was no longer a hazy yearning for a faded poster from a distant time, nor was it admiration for the glittering symbol of "movie star Liu Yifan." It was more concrete, more down-to-earth, pointing to the real woman who would boil water in his kitchen, curl up on the sofa in her home clothes to watch movies, and occasionally frown over a difficult performance.

He would acquiesce to her intrusion into his private space, tolerate the disruption of his life rhythm, and even give an almost positive comment like "the light is much brighter" after she "renovated" the living room.

When she was concentrating on her work, he would conveniently place the warm water she needed at her fingertips. The way he looked at her would occasionally fade from that assessing calmness, revealing a very faint, almost...relaxed softness.

These subtle, almost elusive signals, like fireflies scattered in the air, were not enough to illuminate the entire night sky, but were enough to assure her that it was not entirely her imagination.

However, it is this real "good feeling" that forms the most puzzling paradox with his sudden and almost instinctive "retreat" and "alienation" time and time again.

He seemed to be torn between two completely opposite forces: one force pulled him closer to the warmth and vitality; the other deeper and more powerful force, when he approached a certain critical point, suddenly pulled him back to the cold and absolutely safe distance.

He seemed to be afraid. Not of her as a person, but of a certain situation or result that she had caused or might cause.

Liu Yifan sat at her desk, a sheet of white paper spread out before her. She tried to solve the puzzle in the most rational and structured way possible, analyzing Zhou Ping'an like the motivations of a complex character in a screenplay.

She picked up a pen and wrote "Fear Source Hypothesis?" at the top of the paper.

The following is a list of various possibilities and clues:

She wrote and drew, marking with arrows, trying to find the internal connections and priorities between these clues.

But each one seemed to have evidence to support or oppose it, and they were entangled with each other, forming a knot with no end to the thread. She couldn't be sure which one was the "trigger" that triggered his specific retreat each time.

Zhou Ping'an was like a meticulously designed precision instrument missing the crucial blueprint. She could observe its operating patterns, sense its output and feedback, and even occasionally trigger some unusual reactions, but she couldn't reverse-engineer its core algorithms.

This feeling of powerlessness made her a little irritated. She had never encountered such a solid barrier in "understanding a role".

Finally, she stared at the papers filled with assumptions and scribbled with all kinds of question marks and arrows, took a deep breath, reached out and crumpled them into a ball, and threw them into the trash can at the corner of the table without hesitation.

The paper ball fell into the empty bucket, making a slight sound.

Rational deduction failed at this point. She realized that the root of Zhou Ping'an's "fear" might be far beyond what she could deduce based on common sense and psychological common sense. It might be a deeper, more personal, and perhaps even more irrational core, rooted in the soil of his forced premature independence in childhood.

The key to unlocking this core is probably not in any analysis report or logic tree.

It could only exist in more silent observations, in those subtle moments that he revealed unexpectedly, and in the cycle of waiting for his next "approach" and "retreat", which she would capture, feel, and finally understand personally.

What she needs is not more empty talk, but deeper immersion and more patient waiting.

She stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the night view of Rongcheng. Her pensive silhouette was vaguely reflected on the glass.

The final stage of this "disenchantment" journey seemed even deeper and more complex than she had anticipated. But at the same time, an unprecedented hunter-like focus and determination quietly rose in her heart.