Chapter 85

Chapter 85: Indirect Intimacy?

A porcelain-white spoon rose toward Qiao Qing Yan’s lips, steaming faintly.

She looked up at him, half-smiling, her eyes sparkling with a question so obvious it didn’t need words.

Are you serious?

“It’s not hot,” Fu Yan Shi said quickly. “I tasted it.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he realized how they could sound.

He opened his mouth to explain—

Too late.

Qiao Qing Yan leaned forward and took the spoonful.

When she drew back, a clear lip print remained on the spoon. A faint sheen of oil glimmered on her lips, catching the morning light like a quiet provocation.

“It’s fine,” she said calmly, as if nothing had happened at all.

Fu Yan Shi’s palm went hot.

He pulled the spoon back so fast it nearly looked like he’d been burned and retreated into the kitchen. In the end, the spoon somehow landed in his own bowl of noodles.

Under the soft sunlight, they sat facing each other at the table.

A handsome man and a beautiful woman—an image that felt like it should’ve belonged on a screen.

Unfortunately, besides the early sun, no one got to see it.

They ate in silence.

Fu Yan Shi’s table manners were the result of a lifetime of rules. Eating without speaking was habit.

And Qiao Qing Yan… was genuinely savoring the shock of that bowl of noodles.

A Best Actor. A noble young master. The Child of Fate.

Someone like him was probably used to being served—food and clothes arriving without effort, needs met before they were voiced.

Yet his cooking felt like the heavens had turned on a cheat for him.

Even something as simple as clear-broth noodles made Qiao Qing Yan reluctant to finish.

When she finally set down her chopsticks, she said, “When you go out, remember to check if there’s anyone at the door.”

Fu Yan Shi’s hand paused with the spoon.

“Most people living here are celebrities,” she continued, tone casual. “There are probably paparazzi squatting outside.”

She didn’t mention his identity. She simply offered the warning as if she were talking to an ordinary man who’d wandered into her apartment by accident.

Fu Yan Shi gave a low “Mm.”

—

He stared at her across the table.

She sat quietly, composed, beautiful.

But in her eyes there was a cold detachment, as if she and he didn’t even exist in the same world.

A sharp pain cut through Fu Yan Shi’s chest.

He didn’t have time to figure out whether it came from her distance… or from his own hunger.

“Can I stay here for now?” he asked.

His voice drew out slightly at the end—lazy enough to make a person’s heart tremble if they weren’t careful.

Qiao Qing Yan set her phone down and looked at him, faintly puzzled.

“My roommate hasn’t come back,” Fu Yan Shi said smoothly. “I don’t have anywhere to go for now.”

He did have a place in this building—on the top floor. After he won Best Actor, to avoid unnecessary trouble, he’d moved away and barely lived there.

He’d already messaged his assistant. The reply had been irritatingly useless: they needed to find the key first, and it might take some time.

So no, he wasn’t exactly lying.

Qiao Qing Yan’s gaze drifted over the porcelain bottle sitting on the glass tea table. Her eyes shifted a fraction, unreadable, then she nodded.

“Fine,” she said. “I have something to do later. Make yourself at home.”

Fu Yan Shi’s mouth opened as if to ask where she was going.

Then he stopped.

What right did he have?

In her eyes, he was probably the type you met in bars—clean-faced, pretty, the kind of man people bought drinks for because they wanted something without commitment.

Suddenly, Fu Yan Shi felt like his face was far too misleading.

He even suspected that because of this face—and that foreign woman’s business card that night—she’d mistaken him for…

He wanted to explain.

But he was afraid that if he explained, she would push him away completely.

And he realized, with a bitterness that tasted like relief, that he liked the way things were right now.

Even if she misunderstood him.

As long as he could stay by her side, it was enough.