Su Ziyan suddenly thought of a viral meme that was popular a long time ago online:
“What hits your face before your elder sister’s slap is the fragrance on her body.”
To be fair, as time passed, this meme might seem a bit ordinary now, but when he first saw it, it really gave Su Ziyan a huge shock.
If it was just a little kink between people in the BDSM circle, that’s one thing. But if not… then all it meant was that the person who said that was spineless to a certain degree.
At the time, Su Ziyan also had a bit of a malicious thought.
‘The reason you could smell the fragrance must be because the other person wasn’t fast enough or hard enough when slapping. Otherwise, you’d only feel a burning pain.’
But after all, it was just a joke. How could something like that actually happen in real life?
First of all, he wasn’t a masochist. He wouldn’t be happy just because someone slapped him. Secondly, Xu Duyan couldn’t bear to hit him anyway.
Back then, Su Ziyan never imagined that one day he would experience such a situation, and that it would match that online meme so perfectly.
Because at that moment, he really did smell the slightly cool fragrance on Shi Lingge’s body, and then her hand landed on his face.
Her movement was very much like she was about to slap him, but at the last moment, she stopped steadily. Instead of a hard slap, what came with the fragrant breeze felt more like a gentle caress.
Shi Lingge’s sudden, unusual action left Su Ziyan momentarily baffled. Smelling the delicate fragrance at the tip of his nose, he didn’t know from which angle to think about the current situation.
Wait, fragrance? Hadn’t he lost his sense of smell and taste?
Subconsciously, Su Ziyan raised his hand to press down on Shi Lingge’s palm that was on his face, and took a deep breath against her hand.
Shi Lingge was startled by his strange action, her whole body trembling. It took her two or three seconds to pull her hand back.
“I didn’t expect…” Shi Lingge’s voice lost its usual calm, carrying an indescribable complexity instead. “Brother, you actually have this… peculiar hobby…”
Hearing the surprise in her tone, Su Ziyan realized how inappropriate his action had been, and was frozen in place. The hand that had just pressed against the back of her hand hung in the air beside his face, neither able to raise nor lower it.
“Although hobbies are different for everyone, I can understand and respect them, hahaha,” Shi Lingge said quickly, seeing Su Ziyan’s hesitant expression. “But Brother, you still need to be careful normally. I don’t mind, but if others think you’re a pervert, that wouldn’t be good…”
Listening to her rapid speech that seemed to have all punctuation removed, Su Ziyan suddenly felt like he really was a pervert brother.
And his emotionally intelligent little sister was doing her best to smooth things over for her pervert brother…
‘That’s not right at all! I’m not a pervert!’
Su Ziyan wanted to explain, but Shi Lingge interrupted him again, starting to change the subject.
“Let’s not talk about those trivial matters. Let me first explain why this happened.”
Seeming to think she had successfully changed the subject, Shi Lingge’s tone became much more composed.
“First, let me answer the doubt you just had.”
‘This is not a trivial matter at all! This concerns my moral integrity!’
Su Ziyan was a bit exasperated. Although she was technically a kidnapping accomplice, honestly, his impression of Shi Lingge wasn’t bad at all. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have let her call him “brother.” After all, he really did like this clumsy yet sincere little sister who was good to him.
So being mistaken for a pervert by a good friend and little sister he had just acknowledged yesterday was absolutely unacceptable!
But his inner frustration didn’t affect Shi Lingge, who had already adjusted back to her usual calm tone.
“The reason I didn’t go wake up the Young Lady is that she suddenly had work to handle last night, busy all night without sleep, and only just fell asleep a moment ago.”
Although based on her understanding of Xia Zhi, Shi Lingge felt that her Young Lady was more likely unable to sleep because she was thinking about this man in front of her, she wouldn’t actually say that. After all, she was just a little maid, so everything was based on what her Young Lady said.
“That’s why I didn’t wake up the Young Lady just now. As for why I came to wake you up… it’s because the Young Lady just told me:”
“‘The moment I think that I just went to sleep while Su Ziyan has been sleeping all night, I feel uncomfortable all over. Lingge, go slap him awake. I won’t allow him to sleep in!’”
“That’s the reason I came. But I didn’t expect that you were already awake before I could call you.”
“I see. So you were about to slap me just now?”
Su Ziyan understood the sequence of events, but couldn’t help asking in confusion, “But I was already awake. Why did you still slap me?”
“Because the most important thing for a subordinate is to understand their master’s intentions,” Shi Lingge replied. “I think the Young Lady mainly wanted me to slap you once in her place to vent her anger.”
Su Ziyan was stunned for a moment, wanting to say that maybe she was overanalyzing like doing reading comprehension, but thinking about how the Young Lady seemed to want to trample him into a foot mat, he felt her guess might be correct.
“But since I just called you ‘brother’ yesterday, how could I bear to slap hard? So I did it like that. Who knew you…”
Shi Lingge paused, her tone carrying a hint of disdain.
“Ew… you’re not a Dora M, are you, Brother? Someone with a weird hobby like you, wouldn’t you prefer it if my tone had a bit of disdain?”
“It’s not like that!”
Su Ziyan couldn’t take it anymore and began to explain.
“Actually, it’s like this: Didn’t I lose my eyesight due to an accident?”
“Yes, yes, I know…”
Shi Lingge brushed off his words indifferently, reached out to pick up the collar from yesterday, and approached.
“Be good, don’t move.”
“Huh?”
Her gentle tone made Su Ziyan instinctively obey, but he didn’t expect that in just a moment, he felt a restraining sensation around his neck and the sound of a metal buckle. Shi Lingge had fastened yesterday’s collar around his neck again!
“This was the Young Lady’s order. Normally, you’re supposed to wear it at all times. I shouldn’t have undone it for you last night…”
Shi Lingge said while adjusting the collar of Su Ziyan’s pajamas.
“So understand, I’ll put it back on for you.”
“Oh, okay.”
Hearing her words, Su Ziyan obediently nodded. After all, she had secretly helped him, so he couldn’t cause trouble for Shi Lingge.
“But for a hentai like you, Brother, this should be a reward, right?”
Su Ziyan felt his face turn red—not from shyness, but from anger.