Qiu Yu had just finished her shower when Chen Ce Bai returned.
He seemed to have just showered as well—his glasses were off, and his slightly damp fringe hung loosely over his brow. When he saw her stepping out of the bathroom, he squinted slightly, glancing at her.
Still holding a grudge over how he'd just left after what they'd done, Qiu Yu shot him a glare and slipped under the covers without a word.
Chen Ce Bai paused, as if puzzled, but said nothing.
He dried his hair, put on his glasses, and sat beside her, holding a tablet—browsing something.
Due to the rapid advancement of chip technology, companies specializing in tablets had become increasingly rare. Most of the available models were more than a decade old: ultrathin and fully transparent.
Qiu Yu glanced at the screen—it was densely packed with experimental data.
That only annoyed her further.
Normally, she wouldn't have cared.
But now—maybe it was because of Pei Xi's insinuations, or maybe it was just a vague sense of grievance—she felt entitled to throw a little tantrum.
Qiu Yu suddenly grabbed Chen Ce Bai's wrist.
His skin was cold—so cold it sent a numbing jolt up her fingers.
Chen Ce Bai turned to look at her, a hint of confusion in his expression.
Qiu Yu leaned in and rested her chin in the palm of his hand.
He paused for two seconds before gently cupping her jaw. "What is it?"
Her hair was still damp from the shower, making her eyes look even glossier—sweet and sultry at once.
It was as if he were cradling the chin of a kitten begging for affection.
Chen Ce Bai had no resistance to the way she was acting. He instinctively pinched her soft cheek, then quickly let go, turning his gaze away.
But Qiu Yu grabbed his wrist again, determined to keep her chin in his palm.
Not only did her eyes resemble a cat's—her movements did too. She nuzzled his hand with her cheek, over and over.
Chen Ce Bai felt a tingle shoot from his fingertips down his spine. He wanted to push her away, just a little, but in the end, he simply scratched her chin lightly and murmured in his low, icy voice:
"What's wrong?"
Qiu Yu batted her lashes, curled both arms around his shoulders, and slowly leaned into his face.
His expression remained stoic, but his hand clenched into a fist, and his Adam's apple bobbed—his jawline drawn sharp and tight.
But she didn't kiss him.
Instead, she gently mouthed his Adam's apple.
Chen Ce Bai abruptly grabbed the back of her neck and lowered his head to look at her. His gaze turned cold, deep, and unreadable—swirling with emotion she couldn't name.
Probably displeasure.
After all, she was interrupting his work.
Qiu Yu stared back at him defiantly—and let her hand trail downward.
Sure enough, just like his gaze, he had gone cold and hard.
Having achieved her goal, Qiu Yu pulled away, throwing him a sweet but wicked smile. "Nothing. Just wanted to tell you—you're sleeping alone for the next few days."
She waited, smiling at him, expecting him to ask why.
But Chen Ce Bai didn't ask anything at all. He simply nodded and said flatly, "Okay."
Even though his body had clearly reacted—his response was still cold and indifferent. Not even a trace of curiosity. Like no matter what she said or did, it simply didn't matter to him.
Qiu Yu's smile faded. She was truly angry now.
She took her robe from the rack and stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
The moment the door slammed shut, Chen Ce Bai closed his eyes.
A moment later, he snapped them open.
There was no visible change in his expression, but his pupils contracted sharply—becoming two narrow, razor-like slits.
Like a cold-blooded predator awakening.
Qiu Yu would never know—just moments ago, he hadn't been able to respond to her properly.
His mind had been mechanically cycling through predatory sequences:
Target. Ambush. Seize. Bite the throat.
Each scenario played out with her as the prey.
He even imagined sealing the room with silk, like a trapdoor spider—layer after layer of sticky web over the door. Eliminating any possible intruder who might lay eyes on her. The primal exclusivity in his nature had risen to terrifying levels.
He was morphing into something—predator, aggressor, territorial beast.
Chen Ce Bai removed his glasses and pressed his fingers hard to his brow.
He didn't know whether this transformation was evolution—or regression.
If it was evolution, what would he become?
If it was regression, what would he turn into?
The most unsettling question was—could he still control it?
…Or was it never evolution or regression to begin with?
Maybe it was simply the grotesque, diseased core of his true nature—finally surfacing.
So vile that even he couldn't recognize himself.
·
Qiu Yu didn't speak to Chen Ce Bai for several days.
It was as if they'd returned to how things were right after the wedding.
Back then, he was even more distant—like a stranger sharing the same roof. He didn't speak unless necessary, and didn't even sleep in the same room.
To be fair, she hadn't known how to deal with him either at first.
She found him attractive—handsome, cool, untouchable. But she couldn't say she liked him, not exactly.
Marrying him had been a matter of compatibility…
And also a darker curiosity.
When it came to desire, women were no different from men.
Pei Xi said Chen Ce Bai wanted to desecrate her.
But Qiu Yu thought—she was the one who wanted to desecrate him.
She had wondered: if a man this cold and detached became her husband, would he… change?
The media called him "the smartest man of the century."
Sure, some of it was PR hype—but he really was brilliant, and impossibly aloof. Especially when he put on that lab coat—he looked even more clean-cut and refined.
It made her want to tear open his perfectly knotted tie.
And in the end—she did.
That was during their second kiss—the first real kiss after the wedding.
She couldn't take the emotionally dead marriage anymore. She hired a chef to prepare a full organic French meal, lit candles and incense, and even started the fireplace.
She had always assumed the fireplace was fake—until the house staff came to light it and she realized it was real.
The firewood was white ash, crackling softly in the hearth. In the amber glow, she waited for Chen Ce Bai to come home.
He clearly hadn't expected the romantic setup. His face showed a flicker of surprise. After a moment's pause, he reached for his tie.
She stood up at once and shouted, "Don't move!"
That was the first time she saw confusion cross his icy features.
She remembered laughing as she walked over, hooked an arm around his neck, and tugged at his tie:
"Mr. Chen, don't you think something's missing?"
Chen Ce Bai didn't say anything. He let her pull off his tie.
She couldn't recall all the details—only that he stared at her for a long time, unmoving. As if reevaluating their relationship. As if deciding how close he'd allow her to get.
After more than a minute, he finally reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist. His voice low:
"What do you think is missing?"
Qiu Yu knew—that was his yes.
She smiled sweetly and pulled him down by the collar of his shirt, kissing him.
She'd forgotten most of what followed—except that when she kissed him, he just stared at her the entire time, lips tightly closed, like he'd forgotten how to open them.
So she blinked up at him like a kitten, and slowly licked his lips, again and again.
Until he suddenly seized the back of her head—and claimed her tongue in a deep, heated kiss.
It was so intense at first, she thought he must've had experience.
But soon, she realized—though his kisses were passionate, they were utterly unpracticed. He kissed like a wild animal, biting and sucking hard.
She had to cup his face in her hands—his skin was so cold it made her fingers tremble.
Chen Ce Bai's voice had been quiet:
"My body temperature is lower than average."
Later, she learned—it wasn't slightly lower. It was much lower.
In moments of heightened emotion, it could drop to near-freezing—breaking the rules of biology.
By all logic, someone like him—cold in body and in nature—shouldn't feel hot to the touch.
But every time he kissed her, there was a searing intensity that made her shiver.
And what truly made her heart race…
Was the feeling that he was still holding back. That somewhere beneath that composed exterior, there was a maelstrom of emotion yet to be released.
After the kiss, he swept her up into his arms and carried her upstairs.
Chen Ce Bai wasn't clueless.
He was a biologist, an authority in the field, with a mind far beyond the average. He understood the human body—on both the macro and micro levels.
So, there hadn't been any awkward fumbling or misplaced gestures.
But the unfamiliarity still showed.
—It was over before it even began.
Qiu Yu blinked, lashes fluttering. Before she could offer comfort or encouragement, he'd already regrouped—calmly and methodically.
As if an experiment had failed, and he was immediately shutting it down, analyzing the cause, adjusting the plan, and starting over with clinical precision and logic.
After that, she couldn't muster the energy to dwell on his "inexperience" or "failure." Her gaze went distant, her mind looping only one question:
Was he really not faking it just now?
Since then, they had begun to resemble a real couple.
They kissed in the morning, kissed at night—sometimes even kissed in public.
If she reached for his hand or wrapped her arm around his, he wouldn't refuse.
It felt like whatever she wanted, he would go along with it, indulge her even.
And yet… his eyes never lingered on her.
Qiu Yu felt lost.
She didn't know how to define her relationship with Chen Ce Bai anymore.
Three years in, they'd never fought, never disagreed—not because there were no conflicts, but because she had subconsciously chosen to ignore them.
She pretended not to see his coldness, his indifference, the way nothing ever seemed to matter to him.
She pretended not to notice that he never let her in.
She pretended these past three years had been smooth, untroubled.
And they had been—on the surface.
But beneath it all was a constant, inescapable sense of defeat.
From a young age, she'd been raised under the philosophy of "company first."
She once believed she would be like her parents—career-driven, emotionally restrained.
And for a while, she had been.
She worked hard, gave her all for three straight years.
But in the end, she felt only boredom and emptiness.
—On paper, she was a journalist. Armed. Able to enter dangerous zones.
But in reality, the assignments she received were always relatively low-risk.
Whenever a project became more hazardous, it was promptly reassigned to another colleague.
Her so-called career felt more like role-play.
She had tried switching jobs.
But no matter how promising the initial conversation, she would always receive a rejection call the next day—either because the other party had dug into her family background, or because her parents had personally intervened.
She wasn't a canary.
A caged canary, at least, could be doted on by its owner—maybe even allowed to flutter its wings from time to time.
She was more like a sculpture of a canary—exquisitely carved, beautifully crafted.
But no one pays special attention to a statue.
No one expects it to fly.
She remembered that morning's illusion—Chen Ce Bai watching her with a gaze that was almost indecent.
Greedy. Obsessive. It had made her skin crawl.
She had never understood why she hallucinated something like that.
But now… she did.
She wanted to be seen.
She wanted to be wanted—to be loved with hunger and obsession.
Not stuck in a 100% compatible marriage that still felt utterly void of passion.
Thinking back, she realized she'd never truly experienced intense love.
And maybe that made sense.
Her sociology professor once said: modern relationships have been flattened into a binary—"rich or poor."
With only competition left, people became hyper-vigilant, cautious, emotionally guarded.
Her own family wasn't the worst.
In some militarized Japanese-style corporations, there were even cases of heirs murdering their own parents for control.
Pei Xi was probably her best friend.
But even he looked at her with that faint, unnameable distance.
Qiu Yu knew—Pei Xi wasn't trying to push her away.
It was just that, from childhood, their education had drilled it into them:
No matter how close you are, no matter whether the person threatens your future or not—you must maintain distance.
And this wasn't just their class.
This was everywhere in society.
In a world like this, how could anyone—Chen Ce Bai included—desire her the way she imagined?
Qiu Yu sat in her office, chin resting on her palm, sipping her coffee with irritation.
She didn't want to drift along in this marriage anymore.
But she didn't have the courage to end it, either.
Chen Ce Bai may have been cold, but in that one area—they were incredibly compatible.
And honestly, men who were smarter than him were rarely as young and good-looking.
And those who were better-looking didn't come close to his intellect or presence.
Technically, intelligence shouldn't affect appearance.
But every time Chen Ce Bai appeared in interviews—sitting beside other men—he made the contrast unbearable.
That intellectual allure, that detached charisma—it wasn't something mere facial features could replicate.
Qiu Yu was hopelessly torn.
She pulled up their chat on her tablet, typed a few words… then deleted them.
So strange.
They barely had a real relationship—whatever existed was probably one-sided.
And yet, just thinking about ending it made her heart drop like a stone.
Their last message was a week ago.
The day before she decided to sleep separately.
She typed, deleted, typed again. Backspaced entire sentences.
Wrote mental drafts in her head:
—Over the past few years, my mindset has changed. I don't want to continue this "cooperative-style" marriage. I wanted to hear your thoughts.
But what could Chen Ce Bai possibly say?
At most, he'd respond with "Up to you."
Or maybe "As you wish."
So what if she deleted that last sentence, and just sent the first line?
No, too formal.
After all, she had been the one to suggest this type of relationship in the first place.
Chen Ce Bai hadn't done anything wrong. He'd played his part, start to finish.
Wasn't it selfish of her to suddenly kick him out—just because she'd started having feelings?
Qiu Yu ran a hand through her hair and kept thinking.
—Chen Ce Bai, I never told you this, but I didn't marry you just because our compatibility score was 100%. I married you because I liked you.
But after three years… it seems like you're not happy. Maybe you didn't realize it, but every time I try to kiss you, you look away. I think your subconscious is rejecting me.
I'm wondering if we should end this. Or maybe redefine our relationship—try being friends. What do you think?
She rejected that draft too.
Too wordy.
And Chen Ce Bai probably wouldn't even bother reading it.
Qiu Yu exhaled hard, kicked the edge of her desk in frustration, then picked up her tablet again.
In the end, she just typed two words:
[Are you there?]
But what chilled her to the bone wasn't that Chen Ce Bai didn't reply—
It was the presence she felt immediately after sending that message.
That cold, sticky, suffocating gaze.
The Watcher was back.
After vanishing for a week, that oppressive, icy stare was once again crawling over her skin.
A shiver ran up her spine, as if ants were swarming her back.
She couldn't stop herself from trembling.