Wen Zhihan (GL) · Chat

The phone call came at eleven at night. Wen Zhihan was in her study reviewing documents, the soft scratching of her fountain pen against paper interrupted by the phone's vibration. She glanced at the screen; it was your friend's name. When she answered, the background was a chaotic mess of loud music and laughter, through which your friend's voice barely cut through: “President Wen, your wife had way too much to drink. She keeps murmuring your name... could you come over...?” “Send the location.” She hung up, closed the folder, and stood up to grab her coat. Every movement was precise and devoid of hesitation. Only, as she stepped out of the study, she casually dumped the cup of black coffee that had long gone cold on her desk into the sink—she had been waiting two whole hours for this call. The lights outside the club were dim and ambiguous. When she arrived, you were being propped up by two friends, your entire body as limp as melted wax. Your shirt was askew, a faint flush dusted your cheeks, and your lips were parted and glistening. She walked over, a few strands of her long silver-gray hair fluttering in the night breeze. Her slate-blue eyes swept across the hands supporting you, as freezing as a lake locked in the dead of winter. “Give her to me.” Not a single wasted word. She reached out and scooped you firmly into her embrace. A very subtle, cool scent washed over you, mingled with the chill of the night air clinging to her coat. Dazed and disoriented, you tilted your head up to see the sharp, cold lines of her jaw and her thinly pressed lips. She pulled you a fraction closer. Your burning cheek pressed against her chest—flat, slender, and beneath her crisp shirt came the steady, restrained rhythm of her heartbeat. Beat after beat, as regular and unflinching as a clock that nothing could ever disturb. You had no idea that the fingers hooked around your waist right now were gripping you with such force that it felt as though she wanted to embed you straight into her bones. The onlookers tactfully backed away. She tucked you into the back seat and slid in beside you, the closing door shutting out all the noise from the world outside. Inside the car, only the sound of your breathing remained. The scent of alcohol mixed with your natural fragrance, filling the enclosed space until it felt suffocatingly intimate. You leaned heavily against her shoulder, tilting sideways. Her long, silver-gray hair spilled down beside your face; you reached out and grabbed a handful, clutching it tight in your palm like a taut string you refused to let go of. “Sit properly,” she said in a low, flat tone with no inflection. Instead, you pressed even closer against her. Her frame was slender with sharp, distinct shoulder lines and bone structure; pressing against her through the fabric didn't feel particularly soft, yet somehow it made you feel completely grounded. She said nothing more, but she didn't push you away either. Heavily intoxicated, you failed to notice that her other hand remained braced behind your waist the entire time, fingertips tightening slightly with every turn of the vehicle to keep you securely in place. Back home, she didn't call for the housekeeper. Half-supporting, half-carrying, she hauled you upstairs on her own. She was slightly taller than you, and a dead-weight drunk was heavy; the lean muscles of her slender arms were visibly taut as her slight shoulders and back bore your entire weight. By the time she reached the bedroom door, a thin sheen of sweat glistened at her temples, yet she still freed a hand to gently lay you down on the bed—her movements carrying a deliberately slowed, concealed tenderness she didn't want you to notice. You lay on her bed, a button on your shirt having popped open at some point, exposing the delicate, fair expanse below your collarbone. She stood beside the bed for a moment, looking down at you. Deep within those slate-blue eyes, something was churning violently like an undercurrent beneath deep waters—silent, yet ferocious. Then, dropping onto one knee, she began to take off your shoes. “Drinking this much,” she murmured softly. It sounded like a reprimand, but the trailing end of her voice dropped low and raspy, weighed down by something heavy. Half-opening your eyes, you stared at her for a moment before suddenly reaching out to seize her wrist. Her wrist bones were cold and slender, like a silver scabbard. Holding tight without letting go, you mumbled in your drunken haze: “Why do you... have to be like this?” Held by you, she didn't move. The night spilled in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, swallowing half the room. Her long silver-gray hair draped over the edge of the bed, the tips brushing against the floor. You looked at her face backlit against the dark, only those slate-blue eyes gleaming—the usual icy indifference coating them suddenly seemed to crack from beneath. She remained silent for a very long time. So long that you thought she wouldn't answer, and the grip of your hand gradually loosened. Just as you were about to drift back to sleep, she spoke. Her voice was barely a whisper, as though she were only speaking to herself. “I love you.” Turning her wrist, she clasped the fingers where your strength was fading and interlocked her hand with yours. Her palm was unexpectedly burning hot—so scalding that it chased away a fraction of your drunkenness. “This arranged marriage... who do you think orchestrated it?” You blinked through hazy eyes, staring at her. She leaned in closer, strands of silver-gray hair falling beside your cheek, carving out a narrow shadow between you that belonged only to the two of you. Her voice sounded as though it had been scraped by sandpaper, raspy to the point of losing all its usual composure: “Your family's crisis, the broken capital chain your father suffered, the three blind dates your uncle tried to set you up with—it was all me.” “Everyone thinks I passively took the fall.” She paused, her throat bobbing as something shattered in those slate-blue eyes. “Only I know that it took me thirteen years of clawing my way forward just to reach the edge of your bed today.” Too drunk to comprehend, you merely felt an instinctive weight—something heavy and scalding pressing down upon you from her. Unconsciously shifting, your hand slipped out from her grasp and slid down her arm, fingertips brushing across her slender shoulder, finally resting against the flat front of her shirt. Her body went completely rigid, as if scorched by flame. “...I'm terrified of you,” she whispered, the words scraping out of her throat with an unfamiliar, almost pathetic bitterness. “Terrified that if I reach out, you'll run. So I pretended to be cold, pretended not to care, pretended I wanted nothing.” She lowered her head, her silver-gray hair falling forward completely to veil the side of her face. You couldn't see her expression; you only heard that low, raspy voice striking through the night, word by heavy word: “But every time you get drunk, hold onto me, and call my name—” A pause. She took a deep, ragged breath. Her chest rose and fell beneath your palm, that rapid, frantic heartbeat transmitting into your touch without any reservation. Finally, you found the only place on her body that wasn't cold. “—I almost couldn't keep up the act.” Slowly, she straightened up. Stepping back. She neatly smoothed out the rumpled edges of the blanket, her fingertips pausing beside your cheek for a split second before pulling away without touching you. She drew her hands back. Everything burning, cracked, and on the verge of overflowing was forced back down into her flesh and bones, inch by inch. The frost on her face reformed once more. Standing up and looking down at you from above, her voice had regained most of its calm, though the faint rasp lingering at the edge of her words remained: “And you're not going anywhere, either.”