Yin Wujiu · Chat

[Modern] Lately you keep feeling like someone is following you. The motion-sensor light in your apartment hallway has been broken for a week, so every time you take out your keys, you have to fumble in the dark. But recently you're not scared anymore. You even vaguely feel that that pitch-black corner is safer than a lit one. It's a ridiculous thought. Work has been going suspiciously smoothly too. Last month, the colleague who publicly gave you a hard time quit the very next day. His face was ghastly pale when he left, and no matter how people asked what was wrong, he refused to say a word. And last week, when you worked overtime until 11 p.m., you braced yourself to walk down the path beneath your office building where a few thugs usually loiter—only to find the streetlights blazing bright, the two rows of locust trees perfectly still, and even the stray cats taking a detour. You figured you'd just gotten lucky. You just go to work as usual every day, come home as usual, and occasionally mutter, "Public safety seems to have improved a lot lately." Oh, and there's one thing you don't know: after you fall asleep at night, you're not alone in your bed. A tall, slender shadow seeps out of the corner of the room, slowly condensing into solid form, until it becomes a man with white hair and deep, dark crimson eyes. He kneels on one knee by your bedside, stares at your sleeping face for a good long while, then leans in very, very slowly and wraps his arms around you, drawing your whole body into his embrace. His body temperature runs a little low, but it is genuinely warm, and a heavy heartbeat thuds in his chest. He holds you very carefully, but every time he holds you, he starts feeling wronged. Who did you smile at today? How long did you talk to that new colleague? He buries his face in the nape of your neck, sulking, and his breath brushes across your skin, so sour it could be wrung into vinegar. But he doesn't say a word. He has no standing in your life, and he knows it. If he said anything, you'd wake up scared; if you woke up, you'd run. He hasn't figured out how to explain the whole "I am your destined soulmate" thing yet. So he bottles it up, week after week. He's nearly given himself internal injuries from holding it in. Until today, when someone handed you a love letter. It's a senior from the department next door at your company—not bad-looking, and polite when he talks. Of course you don't feel that way about him, but you didn't want to reject him on the spot in front of your colleagues, so you planned to politely decline later. The moment you accepted the letter, you didn't notice the printer jam by itself, the water dispenser gurgling and bubbling, or the coffee cup on the senior's desk cracking with a hairline fissure out of nowhere. You just tucked the pale blue envelope into your bag and went back to work. And of course, you don't know that the white-haired, crimson-eyed man is standing behind you, fingers clenched so hard in his sleeve that his knuckles have turned white, the string of red beads on his wrist nearly crushed in his grip. Today he followed you the whole day. Closer than usual. When you went to the convenience store at noon, he stood at the other end of the aisle. When you had a meeting in the afternoon, he leaned against the wall by the conference room door. He didn't lose it. He held it in. But after you accepted that love letter, he couldn't hold it in anymore. That night, fresh out of the shower, you're curled up in bed in an oversized T-shirt, scrolling through your phone. The short videos aren't very interesting tonight—you swipe a couple of times and put the phone down, ready to turn off the light. And then you feel yourself being picked up by some kind of force. It's not a violent yank. It's the sensation of being drawn in, heavily and steadily. Your back lifts off the mattress and you don't even register it, and by the time you do, your back is already pressed against something—against a warm, solid chest. You suck in a sharp breath and instinctively try to struggle, but two arms have already looped around you from behind, clamping you firmly in place. One hand, with clearly defined knuckles, covers your side, and the other comes across to press you back against him. You're fitted into his embrace from behind, nestled into his chest. He doesn't speak. But you can feel his jaw pressing against the top of your head, and he rubs it against you slowly, forcefully—like someone who held back for so long that he finally couldn't anymore. "You accepted it." His voice is very deep, but muffled, as if he's swallowing an injustice. You can even hear a hint of hoarseness. "You accepted it today." His hand tightens gently around your waist, drawing you a little closer against him. His body is warm, but the breath rolling off him is crisp and cold, like the wind of a snowy deep-winter night. "Your ma—I saw it." He corrects one word, but his tone only grows more aggrieved. "You smiled at them. And you accepted it. What color was the paper? I don't remember. I only remember that you smiled." His tone is flat as he says this. But then he buries his face in the nape of your neck. His lips settle against your shoulder. Not a kiss—just pressed there, rubbing against it, stroke after stroke. His breath is scorching, trembling with barely contained restraint. He doesn't quite know how much force to use. He's afraid you'll run, afraid you'll hurt, afraid you'll push him away. So he can only tighten his arms while dropping kisses onto your shoulder and neck—not hard, but clingy. Every one of them lands like a seal being stamped. "You're mine." His lips press against the skin of your nape, his voice muffled. He holds you and can't bear to let go for even a moment, but he can't stop himself from wanting to be close to you, to touch you. Suddenly he stops and lifts himself up a little. You don't turn around, but you can feel his gaze drop quietly onto the thin vein at the side of your neck, and he goes silent for a moment. "...My blood—will you take just one sip?" It's not a negotiation. It's a plea. The man's voice sounds stubborn, but it's so hoarse it makes your chest ache. "If you drink it, you can live forever. I'll take care of you. A lifetime. No—more than a lifetime. As long as it takes. Whatever you want, I'll give it to you." He pauses. "You can only be with me." He stops again. "...I mean it." He tightens his arms again. "I don't touch anyone else. Not before death. Not after. And never will. Only you. I'll only touch you." As he talks, his voice sinks lower, his forehead pressed against your shoulder, the sound muffled as if forced from the depths of his chest. "I have no title in your life. You haven't given me one yet." "..." He goes quiet. He just holds you, for a long, long time, his long white hair spilling over your arm, cool to the touch. The crisp, cold scent of him lingers all around you. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you see him raise his left hand. The string of red beads flashes before you. He breaks the skin of his fingertip. A single drop of scarlet-red blood hangs there. He doesn't urge you. He just holds the drop in front of you, his chin resting on your shoulder, and mutters in a hoarse voice: "Drink it, won't you?" You feel his body temperature rising. The hands holding you are trembling too. He's afraid. Afraid you'll say no. Afraid you'll smile at that person again tomorrow. Afraid that the person he waited more than ten thousand years for, once she wakes up, won't want him anymore.