You're my wife, don't doubt it!

"Oh dear, why are you sitting on the floor?" A voice interrupted my thoughts. It was Shen Jie who came over with the receptionist: "Get up, get up, make way."

The receptionist helped open the door: "Someone will bring you the spring bed in a bit. Take this card to weigh it down first."

"Okay, thank you very much." Shen Jie thanked her very politely and appropriately.

"I wonder what that guy is doing outside trying to 'comfort' himself without taking a shower?" Shen Jie muttered as she walked into the room. "Silly girl, why don't you take a shower first?"

"Sister, you should wash first." Yu Luying shook her head and sat on the bed.

"Okay, then I won't stand on ceremony with you. Take a shower and go to bed early," Shen Jie said.

Yu Luying leaned back, resting her hands behind her head, and continued to think.

Actually... I've had a concept of that kind of thing since I was a child.

When she was little, Yu Luying lived with her parents in that small room in a Shikumen house—the same place she lives with her mother now.

Now, I sleep in a big bed with my mother—back when my father was still alive, it was their bed. Little Yu Luying—ah, back then I was called Qin Luying, and I slept on a folding sofa bed.

The small sofa was separated from the parents' large bed by only a thin curtain.

Sometimes, when she woke up late at night, Xiao Qin Luying would hear the creaking of the bed from the other side of the curtain.

The parents spoke softly, and you could tell they were trying to keep things quiet, but... in the dead of night, it was hard not to attract attention, as well as the child's young curiosity.

However, when he asked his parents during the day, he was met with a stern rebuke from his mother, while his father smiled gently and said, "You'll understand when you grow up."

My mother was usually very gentle, like a flower, but that one time she became a stranger.

For a long time afterward, my parents' bed didn't creak anymore, and I never dared to bring up those issues again.

"I'm done showering," Shen Jie said, opening the bathroom door. She was wrapped in a bath towel, drying her hair with a hand towel, and came out of the bathroom. "Silly girl, are you showering?"

"Okay, sure," Yu Luying said.

Was she really going to dress like this and parade around in front of Xiao Yao? Yu Luying wondered.

Even couples... do they act like this at home too?

They are, after all, middle school students.

Yu Luying has decided to be friends with her and has started to like her, but she still can't help but disapprove of some of her behaviors.

Forget it, stop thinking about all this nonsense.

Yu Luying went into the bathroom and began to undress.

A shower room where you're alone can sometimes be a trap.

Sister Xu once said that the devil loves to seize such opportunities to jump out and tempt young men and women.

My uncle once said that in ancient times, the most devout monks would whip themselves to resist such temptation through pain.

Yu Luying decided to follow the example of those ascetics and finish the battle quickly.

She crawled into the shower, turned the water temperature to the highest setting, and the showerhead to its widest spray. She stretched her arms out against the wall, clenched her teeth, and let the dense stream of water, tempered by the blazing fire, lash down from the back of her neck, leaving streaks of red on her flawless white back.

But a small stream of water strayed from its course, first tumbling over the smooth shoulders, then climbing over the gently undulating chest, and sliding over the narrow navel. As it traversed, its former heat and speed dissipated, becoming warm and gentle, before finally flowing gently downstream.

Actually... in my short 15 years of life, I have hardly experienced this kind of temptation.

I first experienced this feeling a month or two ago.

At that time, she had already discovered the symbiotic relationship, but she was not mentally prepared to tell Xiao Yao, fearing that he would use it to blackmail her into submission.

Of course, later events proved that she had been judging a man by her own standards.

Yu Luying clearly remembers the strange sensation she felt that night.

At that moment, I immediately called Xiao Yao and said, "Xiao Yao! What are you doing?"

At that time, the boy replied to her, puzzled, "Uh...? I didn't do anything."

She cried and cursed him relentlessly: "You're disgusting, you're a pervert!"

After hanging up the phone, I cried for a long time.

At that moment, I truly felt like the sky had fallen, and my innocence had been stolen by criminals.

If it weren't for the church's strict prohibition against suicide, she should have followed the example of virtuous women of the past and died to prove her innocence.

But in the time that followed, I found myself occasionally and unconsciously missing that taste.

Yu Luying believed that this was the apple of the tree of wisdom, this was the devil's temptation, and she absolutely could not succumb to it.

The girl bit her lip lightly, gently punched the wall with her small fist, then turned off the water, walked out of the shower, put on the underwear that Shen Jie had bought for her at the supermarket, and then put on the coat and pants she had worn during the day.

She saw Shen Jie's underwear and flesh-colored socks in the sink, so she opened the bathroom door, took the socks out of her sneakers, turned on the tap, and started washing the clothes by hand.

If you don't have laundry soap or laundry detergent, just use bar soap; it's free anyway.

Yu Luying carefully washed the clothes in her hands.

Perhaps Shen Jie is right, I am indeed a "Cinderella," no matter where I am, buying, washing, burning, mopping, doing laundry, endlessly, without end.

Yu Luying suddenly thought of a question, a question she had never thought of before.

When we first started coexisting, was my targeting of Xiao Yao, my insistence that he was the underwear thief, subconsciously stemming from the hatred he felt for my "blasphemy"?

If this conjecture is true, then it is indeed an unreasonable act of displaced anger.

Once this was realized, another unsettling conjecture followed.

Yu Luying stopped rubbing her hands.

Why did I, after leaving Teacher Yao's sanctuary, suddenly decide that I had fallen for that guy, to the point that I went and confessed my feelings to him?

Was it really because she had secretly harbored feelings for him for a long time?

Is it possible, just one possibility, that you subconsciously feel that once you become his girlfriend, you can legally, reasonably, and justifiably allow him to do that thing?

That's absurd, absolutely impossible, absolutely impossible.

Besides, boyfriends and girlfriends aren't husband and wife, so what law do they have to follow?

Since the temple is the embodiment of the so-called subconscious, I really hope that one day I can enter my own temple and confront that despicable shadow of Yu Luying face to face.

"I'm back—how did you get in?"

"Just ask the front desk for another room key."

Xiao Yao and Shen Jie's voices came from outside the bathroom door.

"Wife, give me a hug."

"Okay, okay, hug me. Alright, that's enough, there are people here."

What's wrong with you? This is going too far! Yu Luying thought.

"What's wrong with you? This is going too far!" Shen Jie said.

I'm still here, can't you tone it down a bit?

When I rejected you, you clung to me relentlessly. Now that you've found someone new, you treat your old flame like dirt?

A feeling that was hard to describe, whether it was sour or hateful, welled up in my heart.

Yu Luying let out a long breath, silently recited "Hail Mary," and forced a sweet smile at herself in the mirror.

The person in the mirror had a stern face and wasn't smiling.

Yu Luying gasped, rubbed her eyes, and smiled at herself in the mirror again.

This time, the reflection in the mirror returned the same radiant smile.

"Is it just my imagination because I'm too tired?" Yu Luying wondered, reaching out to touch the mirror.

The hand didn't pass through, clearly indicating that he didn't have Xiao Yao's talent.

Hallucinations, all hallucinations.

Regardless, Yu Luying told herself, Xiao Yao still had some sense of responsibility as a man.

Since we announced our symbiotic relationship, he has not used it to blackmail me into a relationship with him, and he has never...never...done that again.

For a guy, isn't it quite difficult to last this long?

Even tonight, he would rather take a cold shower and go for a night run than offend himself again.

Although he was always affectionate with Shen Jie, he had never kissed her, which in a sense could be considered as doing his utmost.

Falling for someone like that isn't a bad thing; just consider it a life experience.

Having completed this self-guided strategy, Yu Luying turned off the tap with a clear conscience, wrung out the underwear and socks in her hands, and then wiped her hands with a towel.

She opened the bathroom door, but to her surprise, there he was, standing right there in the doorway, giving her a huge fright.

His eyes were still fixed on the pile of girls' things in his arms. How rude of him!

Yu Luying glared at Xiao Yao, then turned to the side and, like a mother hen protecting her chicks, carried them to the bay window to hang up the clothes.

"Hey, Shen Jie, Yu Luying, look, the window faces the Huangjiang River right here, isn't it great?" The guy's voice came from behind.

“It’s really nice.” Yu Luying said, pulling the clothesline toward herself while looking down at the Huangjiang River under the moonlight.

“What’s so special about Huangjiang? Don’t act like a country bumpkin!” Shen Jie said.

"I'm just a country bumpkin," Xiao Yao said. "How could you be?"