Nuptial Chamber Next Door

“Hmm..I’ve never seen him like this before”, Dr Lin muttered to himself.

As we spoke, I gathered from Dr Lin that Ye Zhengchen had been in a car accident ten days ago.

To be more precise, the car had knocked him down and he fell headfirst against the cement walkway. He had broken three ribs. One of the broken ribs had almost pierced is ribs.

The car accident had happened very close to the People’s hospital but Ye Zhengchen had insisted on City hospital

On the day after the operation, the police had come to ask Ye Zhengchen the details. However, he had insisted that he did not want the police intervening in this matter. Given he was a staff officer in the Beijing Army, the police had to abide to his wishes.

If it had been just a simple accident, I would assume Ye Zhengchen would not have insisted on this.

So was this a deliberate attempt to murder him ?

“ Did the perpetrator ever come here ?”

“ Once.”

“ Who is that person?”

Dr Lin hesitated and then spoke, “ I think it’s better to ask him.”

I realised that this was a privacy issue. The doctor could not say anymore without breaching professional ethics.

“ I want to see his medical reports.”

“Sure.”

Dr Lin turned back and handed me the file. I read it thoroughly. The file was quite detailed, including the times he went out of the hospital and how the wounds had exacerbated after every such instance.

I felt as if the lines in the report were accusing me. How could I allow him to do this when Ye Zhengchen had been so good to me?

With a knife like pain in my body, I hurriedly walked over to Ye Zhengchen’s ward.

He was getting an infusion. As soon as he saw me, he sat up.

“ What did Dr Lin tell you?”

I sat on the side of the bed and looked at Ye Zhengchen, then the drip bottles by his side. “ He told me to look after you twenty four-seven so that you don’t run around.”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry

I looked at him quietly for a long time, trying to calm my roiling emotions. Then I gently brushed his hair off his forehead. “ Brother, let me wash your hair.”

He caught hold of my hand and gripped it in his pam. His dark eyes were dazzling.

Time seemed to move backwards for us and we were back to the time he was injured three years back. It had been one of the happiest periods of my life

I used to take care of him every day, wash his hair, chat with him, even bicker with him once a while. It was beautiful.

In some dark moments in my life, I had quietly hoped that I could go back to those times again and get another chance to stay beside him

Now I regretted the wish. I would rather have my wish unfulfilled than have him injured so grievously.

While I was pondering over my emotional thoughts, another person was upto his own mischief.

“ Girl, I haven’t had a shower for a very long time.”

Some things had not changed at all with the passage of time.

I took a deep breath. “Sure, I will help you tonight.”

“Tonight?” he seemed to like the suggestion. “ That sounds good. It’s a long night, we can…”

I had to interrupt his reverie, “ Dr Lin said you cannot undertake any strenuous activity.”

“Since when is sleeping together a strenuous activity?”

Now this statement was not as innocent as it sounded. Strictly speaking, ‘sleeping together’ had more than one meaning. From what I knew of Ye Zhengchen, the more innocent he was acting, the more devious his thought process was.

So I changed the topic. “Dr Lin said someone hit you with a car.”

Ye Zhengchen heard the question but his eyes moved immediately to the TV.

“Brother…”

He took the remote control and increased the volume on the TV to deafening levels. I realised that he wasn’t keen on talking about this. But his silence on this matter was making things even more confusing for me. I really needed to know who the culprit was.

“ Why aren’t you telling me who it was?” I raised my voice over the noise of the TV. “Is this someone you were working with who has an axe to grind?”

“I don’t have such an idiotic partner…”

I remembered he did have a partner.

“Are you trying to talk in riddles?”

Ye Zhengchen’s face turned cold, his gaze still on the TV screen. “She isn’t this stupid.”

Then something suddenly struck me and I almost screamed in distress. “ Was it the Japanese?”

Ye Zhengchen was dumbfounded. “ You can rest assured they are not so amateur.”

“ Then tell me who was trying to harm you !!” I shouted

“ Why do you need to know?”

My ear was still echoing from the noise on the TV. I grabbed the remote control from him and switched off the TV.

“Someone is trying to kill you and you want me to ignore it ? Are you serious?”

The midday light was very strong and was seeping brightly even through the thick curtains. When Ye Zhengchen looked at me, I could see his face clearly.

“ Zhong Tian”, he spit out the two words from his mouth. For a moment, I thought I had heard him wrong.

“ No…” I wasn’t questioning his words, but the name shocked me so much that I was unable to believe it was true.

I had known many facets of Ye Zhengchen, including a brutal side. But I had known Zhong Tian for twenty years and he had always been calm and restrained, always a gentle soul. Ofcourse I knew that people could change under extremes stress, but it was still a shock.

“Don’t believe me. Anyway, you never believe anything I say.”

“ I am not saying I don’t believe you. It’s just that I can’t understand how this happened. Zhong Tian is not an impulsive person. How can he do such a thing?”

“ I stole his fiancée. He broke three of my ribs. I still think I got the better part of the deal.”

His words felt like a heavy, blunt instrument hitting my chest and breaking my ribs.

I could feel my eyes burning. I bit my lip and tried to endure the pain, but this was too overwhelming

Maybe because I was already distressed by Ye Zhengchen’s injury, or maybe because my love for hm was too deep, but my only thought was that he had already sacrificed too much for me. I was not worth it.

There was always the law of cause and effect in the world. If Zhong Tian had not been forced into desperation, would he have hit Ye Zhengchen?

When Ye Zhengchen realised I was near tears, he smiled slowly, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

“It’s said that God took a rib from man to create woman. For you, I broke three ribs. How are you going to repay me ?”

I was also worried that I would start crying, so I tried hard to squeeze out a smile.

“Do you think you should have three women instead of one?”

“ That’s a great idea. But the army is very strict about monogamy. They won’t allow it.” He sighed a fake sigh as if to express his disappointment.

“ I can only have one woman to do the job of three.”

“ Three?”

“ What? You don’t want to?”

I shook my head. “ Brother, in order to be worthy of the other two innocent ribs, I have decided to start exercising regularly from tomorrow. This way I can strive to emerge victorious in this glorious and arduous mission.”

Ye Zhengchen started laughing.

I would never come to terms to the fact that he was always finding hidden meanings in my innocent statements.

“ Don’t laugh so hard. You will injure yourself.”

I patted his back then said, “ Are you thirsty? Should I get you some water?”

“There’s some fruit in the fridge”, he pointed to the compartment on the side.

“ What do you want to eat?”

“ Apple. A sweet one.”

I walked up to the fridge and opened the door. It was stocked with enough fruit to last an army.

I picked a red apple, cut a small piece and put it in my mouth with a toothpick.

“ Is it sweet?” he asked.

This was another thing that hadn’t changed at all, his impatience.

‘It’s sweet.”

“ Really? Let me taste it…” he sat up straight and moved nearer to me

I was about to insert a piece in his mouth when his lips moved over mine. His tongue licked my lips, creating a current of warmth in my body.

At that moment, I forgot to breathe and my hand turned lax, almost dropping the apple.

With his quick reflexes, he immediately caught the apple and put it aside. My body was still stiff. His tongue lingered over my lips for a while, then cleverly pushed into my mouth, sucking my tongue lightly before pulling away.

It was a short kiss, but I felt the sensations for a long time.

My brain was fogged. Through the fog, I could hear him calmly say, “Don’t misunderstand, I just wanted to taste if the apple was sweet or not. Hmm, it is very sweet.”

This unique tasting method of his was not cute.

“If it’s sweet, then have some more”. I fed him the apple pieces one by one, blocking the mouth that I hated at that moment.

I dared not look at his lips, scared that I would remember those curious sensations. After eating a few pieces, Ye Zhengchen suddenly placed a hand on his waist, his expression painful.

“What happened? Is something hurting?”

He looked like he was in great pain. I dropped the apple immediately and placed my hand under his shirt, trying to reach for the spot that hurt.

“ Here?”

“Go down.”

I sat on the bed, opened up the gown and reached below, “ Here ?”

“Further down.”

My hands froze. The silky touch of his skin reminded me of the cherry blossom season. I always liked to look at the straight lines of his back, especially when there was a sheen of sweat on it. The bronzed back of this man was uniquely sexy to me.

On many mornings, I would run my fingers along the long ridge of his spine. The silky touch always made me feel good and always made me initiate something. This usually ended with me paying a painful price.

“ Dr Bo, where do you think you are touching?”

His sudden complaint scared me and I found that my hand had moved downwards, almost to the bottom of his spine.

Ye Zhengchen turned his face sideways and was smiling at me

“Dr Bo, my self control isn’t very good. Please don’t tempt me!”

The smirk on his lips made me realise he had deliberately planned all this

“You lied to me!” I was so angry that I pinched his waist.

“Don’t….” Ye Zhengchen was very ticklish. His chest was injured, an one hand was tethered to the infusion channel, so he had no way to fight back. He could only beg for mercy.

“Don’t make trouble. I was wrong!” he begged.

I could rarely get him to beg for my mercy. He was biting his lip and his chin was raised slightly towards me. The semi open collar revealed his beautiful neck. I wondered if he was trying to play a deeper game. When I saw him act so powerless, a naughty thought of revenge came to mind. I wanted to torture him in bed

“ Don’t look at me like that…”

I licked my lips like a movie villain.

He looked at my action and shouted, “ No, I am injured!”

He cried our fiercely as if I was trying to rape him.