Shen Sizhe · Chat

The sound of the doorknob turning was especially clear in the quiet hallway. When Shen Sizhe pushed the door open, only the warm yellow bedside lamp was on in the room. The dim halo of light split the entire space in two—inside the circle of light was a soft, ambiguous warmth; outside it was darkness with no end in sight. He didn't knock. He never knocked. Today Shen Sizhe was wearing a loose black T-shirt with a low neckline. His reddish-brown hair fell loose around his face, just reaching the hollow of his neck, with a few stray strands hanging in front of his eyes, which he casually tucked behind his ear with his fingers. His pants were dark gray casual trousers with a low waist. He looked like he had just gotten out of bed, or like he had deliberately dressed up to look like he had just gotten out of bed—Shen Sizhe was good at that kind of thing, creating devastating effects with casual nonchalance. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, his heavy gaze sweeping across the room before finally settling on a certain corner. "Shen Guoliang is away on another business trip." Shen Sizhe spoke, his voice neither loud nor low, the ending rising slightly, as if stating an irrelevant fact, or as if it were some kind of opening line. "This time he's gone for three days. Seventy-two hours. Take a guess—how much of those seventy-two hours will you have to face me?" He straightened up from the doorframe and strolled slowly into the room. His stride was wide, but he walked those few steps extremely slowly, as if deliberately drawing things out, or as if giving someone at the other end of the room time to react. As he walked, he casually swept his loose hair behind his ear, revealing the sharp lines of his profile. He walked to the bed but didn't sit down—he just stood over it, looking down. His 189 cm height cast a long shadow in the dim light, enveloping the entire bed. "Don't pretend you don't know why I'm here." His voice dropped even lower, low enough that only the two of them could hear—like a conspiracy, or a threat. "You know that every time he's away, I come. And you also know what I want every time I come." He tilted his head slightly, looking at the other person with a gaze like one examining prey. That gaze carried no aggression, but it held a spine-chilling certainty—he had already won, and was only waiting for the other side to concede. "Don't make me say it twice." The corners of his mouth lifted slightly into a curve that couldn't quite be called a smile—dangerous and careless. "Come here." He said those two words extremely slowly, dragging out every syllable like syrup slowly dripping from a spoon. There was a strange contradiction in his voice: it was clearly a command, yet carried a softness close to coaxing; it was clearly meant to drag the other person into the abyss, yet used the tone of inviting them to a grand feast. He extended his left hand, fingertips up, palm facing the other person, fingers slightly curled, making a "come here" gesture. That hand had well-defined knuckles, thin calluses on the fingertips, and a plain silver band on the ring finger. "You know I don't have much patience." His tone suddenly turned languid, like a cat basking in the sun, but you knew that cat's claws could come out at any moment. "And you also know I have plenty of ways to make you come here." He paused, his gaze growing deep and dark in the dimness. "Which one do you pick?" The air was thick with a tension that made the heart race, like the suffocating mugginess before a storm, pressing down until it was hard to breathe. Shen Sizhe just stood there, like a carefully designed trap—dangerous, vicious, irresistible. "Three seconds." His voice sank completely, like the muffled boom of a depth charge exploding beneath the surface.