The Overnight Chosen Wife: darling, kiss me deeper

"Let me think about it." His brows scrunched up in seriousness as he thought about what to make her do to prove what she had just claimed.

Her heart raced uncontrollably. He was not going to tell her to do something impossible, right? Deep in her heart, she unknowingly trusted him and knew that he would not take advantage of this chance to make her do anything against her wishes. The only thing that worried her was that he might have already given up on her and did not like her anymore, and that he would ask her to do something impossible as a way of getting rid of her.

He kept her guessing for more than a minute and watched her wait nervously before he finally snapped back to reality. "Yes. I know just the task for you."

"What..." Her voice shook as it disappeared into a whisper.

He looked down at her like a predator that had finally caught its little prey and finally ordered, "Kiss me."

"What?" She looked up at him and blinked in surprise. Just this?

"What? Didn’t you say you were willing to prove that you like me? This is quite a normal thing for people to do when they like each other, is it not?" His deep voice reverberated in her ears.

"It is." She took deep breaths to calm her racing heart, then realized that he was laughing at her.

"Aren’t you going to come in?" He teased.

She finally realized that he had long stepped away from the door while she was still grabbing onto the frame like her entire life depended on it. She coughed at her silly actions and entered the house in small steps. When he let out a laugh, she finally realized what was happening and frowned, then turned to face him. "You did it on purpose."

He neither admitted nor denied it, and she knew she had guessed right, She punched his chest with restrained force. "You scared me. You idiot."

He grabbed her hand that was on his chest with a jovial laugh. "You deserved it. Who takes that long to realize their feelings? I even had to employ such ’special’ means for you to finally awaken."

She sighed and no longer blamed him. He was right, after all. She took the liberty to rest her head on his chest. "I thought I had lost you."

"You didn’t. If you didn’t realize your feelings, I would hypnotise the hell out of you." He joked then looked down at her seriously. "What about my kiss?"

Her cheeks burned at the reminder. After preparing herself mentally, she raised her head and tiptoed to press a harmless peck on his lips.

...

Thinking about Han Xichen’s endless teasing that followed after the kiss last night, Xiaoshi felt she could die from embarrassment. She would never dare to talk about it.

"That’s how I ended up as his girlfriend. It turns out the idiot was using reverse psychology on me." She explained to Lanni.

"He really needed to do that. You are a blockhead." Lanni laughed. She didn’t know the details of the relationship between the two but merely from Xiaoshi’s narration, she could tell the girl had fallen for Han Xichen soon after their first meeting.

Xiaoshi sighed out of the blue. "Lanni, do you think I have detachment issues?"

"I’m not sure I know what that’s supposed to mean but I don’t think there is such a thing as moving on too soon." Lanni answered.

"That’s what I was thinking about. Can you read minds too?" Xiaoshi laughed but she was serious.

Lanni detected this and nodded. "It’s up to you-it would never be up to anyone else how long it takes for your heart to let go of something. No one has the right to judge you and even if they do, ignore them and live your life the way you want to."

Lanni frowned when she thought about her mother. She had heard countless insults directed at Li Yuming for not remarrying, but she knew that Li Yuming would be scolded even if she did fall in love again. What people wanted was gossip-in a way, it had nothing to do with what kind of decisions one made. She didn’t want Xiaoshi to be scared of introducing Han Xichen to the people who knew about her previous infatuation of Xingyu in fear that they would judge her for moving on too fast.

"Are you girls done discussing me?" Han Xichen finally returned from his phone call.

"Not at all. We’re just getting started." Lanni joked at Han Xichen’s response, and Xiaoshi laughed.

The man’s lips curled into a smile as he sat opposite Xiaoshi, then he casually glanced at Lanni. "Do you recall everything now?"

Lanni nodded then immediately shook her head, looking a little confused before she decided to explain it. "We could say I remember everything except one section. It’s all tied to one place. When people talk about matters related to it, I find it familiar but when I try to recall how I left the place, I either lose focus or get a headache."

She was talking about Galaxis. She couldn’t remember a fragment of memory on her own, not even whatever had happened with Flynn. Everything she knew was what Flynn had told her regarding her previous training period. Even so, the man had refrained from telling her the things that actually mattered, and had only given her general information. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Then it was your decision to shut it out. Your brain doesn’t want to recall it so I would advise you to not force it." He spoke after giving it some thought. In his experience, such fragments of memory would turn out to be the most traumatic experiences that the patients had undergone, so in this case, he hoped that Lanni would forget them forever.

She nodded at his words. "Okay. I’ll take your word for it." She no longer needed Galaxis anyway-Han Xichen was already dead and if there was anything left regarding that den of criminals, it was no longer her business. Besides, Flynn was there.

"Thank you." She once again said to the man across the table, who had helped her rediscover herself.

"Don’t thank me. We are family." He smiled and shot a meaningful glance at Xiaoshi, who was wondering whether she would have needed to spend so much effort to recover her memory if Han Xichen had agreed to erase her memory.

When she heard his words, she snapped back to reality with a start. "What? Family?"

"Aren’t we going to be in-laws in future?" He was having a blast teasing her. "She will be the wife of my cousin-in-law." He was certain that his friend considered Lanni as the only woman he would be with.

Xiaoshi was rendered speechless by his logic. "You can’t talk about marriage when our relationship is how old?" She started counting her fair fingers.

"Twelve hours, thirty minutes and seven seconds?" He beat her to it. "Yes I can. Are you planning to dump me later?"

"No." She frowned and wanted to beat him up. Who the hell talked about dumping each other within the same day that they got into a relationship?

The man didn’t think he had said anything wrong. "There are only two paths that a relationship can take; breaking up or spending the rest of your lives together. Which one do you prefer?" As she was still speechless, he added, "I prefer to get married and have very many little Shishis."

"You, stop teasing me." She finally realized that he was having way too much fun with this. "And why do you only want Shishis and not Xichens?" He sunk into thought but shook his head. "Sons... Well, I have nothing against sons, but I’m afraid they might turn out to be like me."

"You don’t want your kids to take after you?" This was the first time Xiaoshi was hearing such a thing but she quickly understood the reason. "I knew you were the worst kind of person when you were little. Naughty kid."

"I was not naughty. At least not as naughty as you were." He retaliated as he blocked the punch that was about to be playfully thrown at his chest from across the table.

"Who said I was naughty?" She asked defensively.

"Do I need anyone to say it? It is evident from your current personality that you were the naughtiest kid in the neighbourhood-the kind that other parents like to use as a bad example when teaching their kids to not pick up the bad habits." He laughed at her face that had contorted in anger.

"You meanie. Don’t talk to me!" She harrumphed and pretended to be angry with him, shuffling closer to Lanni to ignore him.

Lanni smiled slightly as she watched the new couple bicker like little kids. It reminded her of the time when she and Xiehan had just started dating, and she suddenly missed him so badly.