Chapter 115 Even a bluff is still a bluff!!!

"A False Win!!!"

"Even a False Win is a win!!!"

Hearing this, Liu Ruyan's body stiffened, and she spoke with a look of displeasure. By the end, her tone had clearly become sharp.

"You're being ridiculous, aren't you!!!"

Chen Yan's hand hovered at Liu Ruyan's waist, unsure whether to move forward or back. Her body heat radiated through the thin silk nightgown, making his fingertips feel numb.

In the darkness, he couldn't see her expression clearly, but he could feel her breathing—rapid and irregular, like a cat that had just finished a long run, her chest heaving violently.

"Liu Ruyan, calm down a little." Chen Yan tried his best to keep his voice steady, even though his own heart was beating incredibly fast.

"I am calm." Liu Ruyan's voice was muffled, coming from Chen Yan's chest with a strange nasal quality, as if she were trying to convince him, or perhaps herself. "I have never been calmer in my life than I am right now."

Chen Yan took a deep breath.

His hand was still around her waist—not because he didn't want to let go, but because she was holding him so tightly that he couldn't break free. If he pushed her away forcefully, given their current posture, his palms would end up landing where they shouldn't.

"Let go of me first," he said.

"No."

"Ruyan."

"What did you call me?" Liu Ruyan suddenly raised her head. In the darkness, Chen Yan couldn't see her eyes, but he knew she was looking at him. That gaze had weight, landing on his face like a small, warm feather.

"...Ruyan."

"Say it again."

Chen Yan opened his mouth but didn't say it.

It wasn't that he couldn't say it, but he felt that if he did, things would develop in a direction he wasn't sure he could control.

Liu Ruyan waited for a few seconds, and when it didn't come, she suddenly let out a laugh. The laughter was light and short, tinged with self-deprecation, like a piece of candy that had fallen into the sand; even if you picked it up and blew on it, the sweetness remained, but it was inevitably tainted by something.

"Chen Yan," she said, her voice much softer than before, so soft it was as if she were afraid of disturbing the dim night light in the hallway. "Do you know why I had the auntie leave a Buckwheat Pillow for you in the guest room?"

"Because you said I could swap the Latex Pillow if I wasn't used to it."

"No." Liu Ruyan shook her head, her forehead brushing against Chen Yan's chin and her hair sweeping across his neck, carrying the scent of shower gel—a light scent, like a pine forest after snow. "The guest room was empty before; there were no pillows. I took that Buckwheat Pillow from my own bed. I've slept on it for three years and got used to the height; I can't sleep with anything else."

Chen Yan's hand froze.

"That pillow," Liu Ruyan continued, her speaking pace neither fast nor slow, like a judge reading a verdict, every word crystal clear, "was picked out for me by my mother when she was still alive. She said, 'Ruyan, your cervical spine isn't good; a Buckwheat Pillow is firmer and better for your neck.' That was the last thing she ever said to me concerning my health."

The light from the hallway night light squeezed through the cracked door, drawing a narrow strip of light on the floor like a golden boundary line, framing him and her in two worlds of light and shadow.

"So you let me sleep on your pillow," Chen Yan's voice was a bit hoarse.

"I let you sleep on my pillow," Liu Ruyan corrected him, her tone as calm as if she were reading a financial report. "I gave my pillow to you, and last night I slept on that spare Latex Pillow in the guest room. My neck still hurts now."

Silence.

The night wind drifted in through the gaps in the window, rustling the leaves of the green plant at the end of the corridor with a faint sound, like someone far, far away flipping through the pages of a very thick book.

"Why did you..." Chen Yan started, but he stopped halfway because he didn't know how to ask. He wanted to ask, "Why are you being so good to me?" but those words felt too light to carry the weight of what he wanted to ask.

"Because I'm not used to sleeping on other people's pillows," Liu Ruyan finished for him, "but I'd rather be uncomfortable myself than have you be uncomfortable."

When she said this, her tone was so calm it didn't sound like a confession, but more like a statement of something she had already decided on and had simply been waiting for the right moment to say.

"Chen Yan, you told me last night that you don't need to guess with me because the rules are clear. You're right, the rules are clear. But now, I'm adding a rule."

"What is it?"

"With me, you don't have to guess. But you have to get used to it—being cared for by someone isn't a scary thing."

Chen Yan didn't speak.

His hand had come down from its hovering state at some point and was resting gently on Liu Ruyan's waist. He wasn't applying pressure, just letting it stay there. Like a person who had finally given up struggling, no longer trying to push open a door that wouldn't close.

Liu Ruyan felt the change in his hand, and her tense body relaxed slightly.

"You took Youchu back today," she suddenly changed the subject, her voice returning to its usual teasing tone. "What did she say to you?"

"Nothing much," Chen Yan said. "She talked about how she had a high fever when she was little and dreamed of turning into a bird."

"And what else?"

"She told me to bring you a bowl of Century Egg and Lean Pork Porridge."

Liu Ruyan was silent for a moment.

"That girl Youchu," she said slowly, "is really hard to dislike. If she were fighting me for you, I could have a proper showdown with her. But she doesn't fight. She just stands there like a tree; if you walk over, she gives you shade, and if you walk away, she just watches you. You don't even have a reason to fight with her."

Liu Ruyan raised her head from his embrace. This time, Chen Yan saw her eyes clearly. The light from the night lamp was reflected in her pupils like two small pieces of amber soaked in water. "The true enemy is the one who makes you feel like she isn't an enemy. Youchu is that kind of person."

Chen Yan looked down at her.

He suddenly realized something—their current posture was very inappropriate. So inappropriate that if he were seen right now, even a hundred mouths wouldn't be enough to explain it away.

No, he didn't need to explain it away in the first place. Liu Ruyan was his wife, in the legal sense. Holding his own wife was perfectly natural; even the King of Heaven himself couldn't find fault with it.

But this "perfectly natural" was in quotation marks, in parentheses, followed by a long list of annotations and conditions.

"Ruyan," he called her again, this time without hesitation.

"Yeah."

"Let go first. Let's sit down and talk."

Liu Ruyan looked up at him for two seconds, then slowly, bit by bit, released her grip on his waist.

Chen Yan took half a step back. In the darkness, he didn't see the distance behind him, and his calf hit the edge of the bed, causing him to plop down onto it.

Liu Ruyan stood where she was, her hands hanging at her sides, looking like a fencer who had just completed a failed attack—the tip of her sword still pointed at the ground, but her momentum had vanished.

Chen Yan reached out to find the switch for the bedside lamp and pressed it.

With a click, an orange glow rippled through the room, dredging their silhouettes out of the darkness.

Liu Ruyan stood at the edge of the light, half in the glow and half in the shadow. Her hair was a bit messy, and one strap of her nightgown had slipped down, revealing a small patch of fair skin below her collarbone. Her face was bare of makeup, and her eyes were a bit red—not from crying, but that dry redness that comes from staying up late.

Right now, she didn't look like CEO Liu. She looked like an ordinary girl in her early twenties who had done something she felt embarrassed about afterward but was stubbornly refusing to admit it.

"The way you look now," Chen Yan looked at her with an indescribable complexity in his tone, "if the shareholders of Liu Corporation saw you, they'd probably all withdraw their capital."

Liu Ruyan was choked by these words, her expression fracturing for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and reached out to pull up the fallen strap. Her movement was crisp and decisive, like flipping a switch—with a click, Liu Ruyan was back.

"You mentioned a False Win just now." She sat down next to Chen Yan, maintaining a distance of about one fist—neither too far nor too close, just right. "Then let me ask you, if someone has a False Win at the Mahjong table, how is it handled?"

"They pay a penalty," Chen Yan said.

"And after the penalty is paid?"

Chen Yan thought for a moment. "The game continues."

"Exactly, the game continues." Liu Ruyan turned around and sat cross-legged on the bed, facing Chen Yan. "A False Win isn't the end of the game; it just means this specific hand doesn't count. But the game hasn't broken up. You still draw the cards you need to draw and play the cards you need to play. If your luck is good, you'll win the next hand with a self-drawn card all the same."

Chen Yan looked at her. "Are you talking about Mahjong, or about us?"

"Both," Liu Ruyan said. "My marriage to you is currently a False Win. This marriage certificate is legally valid, but emotionally, it hasn't been solidified yet. So what I need to do is—solidify this hand."

"How do we solidify it?"

Liu Ruyan tilted her head and thought for a bit.

"Starting tomorrow," she said, "you will attend Liu Corporation's board meetings with me as my husband. You will eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with me. If I work late, you will bring me food. You will memorize my phone number and not look through your contacts every time. You will learn to proactively tell me what you're thinking when I'm angry, without waiting for me to ask."

"These things," Chen Yan said slowly, "don't sound like solidifying a hand."

"Then what do they sound like?"

"They sound like living a life together."

Liu Ruyan was stunned for a moment.

Then she smiled.