The Cold, Aloof Dominatrix After Parasitically Entering a Rich Family - Chapter 30

Chapter 30: The Ledger Has Been Found — Are We a Couple Too?

“Sister, can you give me some money?”

See? The Afghan Hound is just the same, using what it considers its cutest look to make the most shameless request.

“No.” Gong Shayu refused coldly, but she didn’t turn around and head to her bedroom as usual. Instead, she stood there watching Tu Si.

Tu Si didn’t get angry; she stubbornly pleaded again, “Good sister, I’ll pay you back when I get my salary.”

Salary?

Gong Shayu thought of the money she’d swindled from Tu Si for the ring, and a fleeting 0.1 gram of guilt rose in her heart.

She immediately reconsidered. Their contract was only for one year. After that, Tu Si would need to figure out how to live independently. It was better to start forming independent habits now, treating the ring money as tuition.

“You can try to find a job and earn money yourself,” Gong Shayu paused for two seconds, adding, “A legitimate one.”

With that, she ignored whether Tu Si understood or not and turned toward the bathroom with the bathtub.

Tu Si knew—the opportunity had arrived. Gong Shayu wouldn’t be out of the bathroom for at least an hour. She liked to lie in the tub drinking red wine or handling work, but she usually only took a bath on weekends.

Tu Si, who hadn’t gotten the money, was torn between eating the roasted sweet potatoes and the study computer. Gong Shayu didn’t like cooked food in the house. After the earlier probing, Tu Si knew she had to eat them before Gong Shayu noticed. Besides, sweet potatoes aren’t as good when they cool down.

Although she hadn’t clearly seen the computer password, she had at least observed Gong Shayu’s procedure and knew where the power button was. If she used a bit of spiritual power to “copy” the contents into her brain and then transmit it to Wang Wei, the effect should be the same, right?

But did she have enough spiritual power left? Tonight, she needed to find a way to touch Gong Shayu… for more than five minutes.

So, was it the sweet potatoes or the file?

The sweet potatoes first. That was more important. The list would always be there, but the sweet potatoes wouldn’t wait.

Having made up her mind, Tu Si eagerly headed towards the iron box. After being misled by the mango tree today, she had originally intended to toss the broken iron box directly into the garbage. She truly wasn’t mad; it was just that she had meticulously checked the box inside and out over a dozen times, even dismantling the lid. Aside from that tattered notebook filled with numbers, there wasn’t a single cent—and he called it a treasure?

She only calmed down after the odd chef A Jie invited her to eat delicious food. The Dodder Flower ate and took some home, and only reluctantly brought the box back because it could serve as a place to hide the sweet potatoes.

“One,” “Two,” “Three…”

Tu Si neatly lined up the sweet potatoes, then suddenly remembered that if she got the desktop dirty, Gong Shayu would kill her. She blinked, her gaze landing on the old notebook. The book’s pages were curled and yellowed, and it now served as a perfect place mat.

Tu Si transferred the sweet potatoes onto the notebook. Hey, it actually perfectly caught all the crumbs from the roasted sweet potatoes.

Finally, she could eat…

Just then, a piano piece drifted from the bathroom. It must be coming from Gong Shayu’s music machine.

Tu Si hesitated for three seconds, still afraid that Gong Shayu would suddenly emerge. At this moment, the idea of copying gained the upper hand again.

The wind outside the window blew against Tu Si’s back, making her already messy hair fly even more wildly. Gong Shayu forbade her from entering the study, and Tu Si usually didn’t. Well, for Wang Wei this time, she’d see what a study looked like.

The human perspective was different from that of a vine. When Tu Si entered the study, she was startled by the decor. She genuinely suspected Gong Shayu wasn’t human, or perhaps not a woman? So rich, yet she couldn’t bring herself to make the room she spent the most time in look nice.

It had nothing but four white walls, a set of white office furniture, and a shelf full of books! Tu Si felt she could finally understand the phrase “bare walls” used by female leads in short dramas when they transmigrated.

Tu Si criticized as she mimicked Gong Shayu, pressing the computer’s power button. The computer repeated the earlier procedure—it started up, and a box popped up on the screen. Good. The Dodder Flower placed her finger on the fingerprint sensor.

!!!

Three red exclamation marks immediately popped up on the screen! If Tu Si were literate, she would have immediately stopped. Because beneath the exclamation marks was a line of small text: FINGERPRINT VERIFICATION FAILED. ALARM SYSTEM WILL BE ACTIVATED!

Tu Si tried a different finger. Two more exclamation marks appeared.

Finally, she tried all ten fingers. It was all for nothing.

Just as Tu Si was at a loss, a strange suction force suddenly emerged from where her finger touched the screen. Her consciousness felt gripped by an invisible vortex and was instantly pulled away.

Then, delicate nerve fibers broke through the skin of her fingertip. Plant neurons explored along the power cord into the computer. A strong current instantly surged up, shooting straight into her spine, as if a spiritual meridian blocked for years had been split open by this external force.

“What are you doing?” Gong Shayu’s icy voice suddenly sounded from behind.

Startled, the spiritual meridian Tu Si had just felt instantly withered.

“If you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you one last time. From now on, you are not allowed to touch anything in this room without my permission.” Gong Shayu didn’t walk further into the study, instead leaning against the doorframe, her face shrouded in steam and anger.

Tu Si’s eyes darted around, trying to explain, “I didn’t touch it, just copied it. I won’t steal.”

“Oh?” Gong Shayu was so angry she laughed. “What is ‘copying,’ tell me.”

“It’s… it’s just not stealing,” Tu Si argued stubbornly.

Gong Shayu deliberately controlled her expression and changed her line of questioning: “Who told you to come here?”

“No one, I thought of it myself,” Tu Si answered with the line Wang Wei had given her.

“Oh…” Gong Shayu nodded thoughtfully, seemingly believing her. “It’s getting late. Go take a shower.”

Tu Si secretly sighed in relief. Wang Wei said it wasn’t stealing, but she still didn’t know why she was so nervous.

“But…” Seeing that Gong Shayu was more approachable than she thought, Tu Si pressed her luck. “They say you’re doing bad things and want to drive many people away. I just want to know who they are.”

Gong Shayu commanded again, “You go shower first. We’ll settle the rest after you’re done.”

Tu Si only understood the first half, but that was enough. She automatically interpreted it as Gong Shayu would tell her after the shower.

As she walked past Gong Shayu, Tu Si smelled a mixed scent of roses and sandalwood. The Dodder Flower rarely liked the fragrance of other flowers, but strangely, the scent emanating from Gong Shayu smelled wonderful to her.

In this period, Tu Si had met many real humans (not on TV). When Gong Shayu wasn’t angry, she was better looking than any other human she had ever seen.

Especially now, Miss Gong, shrouded in the dim, yellow light, was outlined in a way that was both slender and languid. The wine-red velvet bathrobe was tightly wrapped around her, loosely tied at the waist, revealing a neck and collarbone with water droplets that hadn’t been wiped dry, reflecting faintly in the dimness.

Gong Shayu tilted her head slightly, tossing her wet hair back over her shoulder, revealing the clear curve of her earlobe. A few strands of wet hair clung stubbornly to her cheek. Water droplets dripped down the ends of her hair, silently soaking deep into the velvet robe, leaving only a slightly darker mark of color.

The sudden appearance of dark red hair tips blended with the muted red of the robe, resembling a certain cold-blooded animal. Tu Si overturned her previous guess, now suspecting she might be a crucian carp spirit or a dragon spirit.

The Dodder Flower didn’t dare to overstep. She retracted the hand she was preparing to “accidentally” touch Gong Shayu with, wiped it on her clothes, and obediently continued towards the bathroom.

But even though her leg was extended, Gong Shayu showed no intention of moving aside.

Tu Si: “…” She definitely knows I’m a flower demon!!!

Gong Shayu asked casually, “What are the numbers you know best?”

“1, 2, 3, 4,” Tu Si blurted out. “Sister, didn’t you ask me…”

Gong Shayu moved aside, signaling Tu Si could proceed.

Miss Gong genuinely doubted whether the result of Fang Yu’s IQ test on her was 210 or 21. Copying is not stealing?! Where did such a stupid, self-deceiving justification come from? The problem was, Tu Si seemed to genuinely believe it.

While bathing just now, Gong Shayu was deeply focused on sorting out the hotel’s affairs when she was suddenly interrupted by an alarm on her phone. She guessed it was Tu Si almost instantly. Only she would be stupid enough to continue forcing the computer open even after the warning popped up.

So Gong Shayu slowly put on her bathrobe. She wasn’t confident in Tu Si’s morals; she was confident in her IQ.

Compared to Tu Si’s agonizing efforts to find the password, Gong Shayu was clearly more relaxed. She picked up Tu Si’s Apple phone from the sofa and sequentially entered 1234. The password unlocked the phone, and Tu Si’s enlarged profile picture wallpaper popped up, staring straight at Gong Shayu.

Gong Shayu: “…”

She opened WeChat. There were only six friends, not even filling one screen. Pinned to the top was Fang Yu’s profile, whom Tu Si used to represent Gong Shayu, with the note: Boss Shark.

“…” Even though it wasn’t the first time, Gong… Shark was about to develop a shark-like face from anger.

Of the six, three were the ‘magical three sisters’ from the Magical Welfare Institute, one was named “Medicine Medicine Medicine Needs Medicine” with an obviously unwell two-dimensional avatar, and Gong Shayu vaguely recalled the other two: Wang Wei and Wu Li.

Gong Shayu sneered, changed Fang Yu’s note to Assistant Fang, deleted “Medicine Medicine” directly, and then opened Wang Wei’s chat window.

The last message was sent a minute before Gong Shayu returned:

Wang Wei [Tu Tu you’re the best!!! Go for it…] [I’ll buy you two bubble teas tomorrow, original flavor and your favorite chocolate flavor] followed by a delicious photo and a go for it image.

The message before that was a voice note from Tu Si, indicating she would act tonight and should get the data tomorrow, though she lost the USB drive but would tell Wang Wei what she saw.

Gong Shayu took a few deep breaths, trying hard to suppress the urge to storm into the bathroom and beat Tu Si up.

…

A Timely Call

While Tu Si was showering, inspiration struck. She came up with a brilliant plan to “accidentally” touch Gong Shayu tonight. She could invite Gong Shayu to eat sweet potatoes, and use the action to touch her for five seconds. After eating the sweet potatoes, she’d be thirsty. Handing her water would be another five seconds. Then, she could pretend to accidentally spill water on her and wipe her dry, which would take at least a minute.

In fact, Tu Si deliberately observed during dramas what circumstances allowed for the most natural skin contact between two people. Tu Si knew the number one situation was a couple’s relationship. They could hug and even kiss for a long time.

Moreover, they would eventually marry, just like her and Gong Shayu now…

Are we a couple too?

Tu Si didn’t know.

But she knew Gong Shayu didn’t like her touching her. If Gong Shayu were willing, Tu Si would also want to kiss her lips, to pry open that perpetually tightly-pressed lip line and taste what was inside.

But… she didn’t dare, because she had seen the iron clothes hanger again!!!

“Come here.” Gong Shayu beckoned to Tu Si.

Tu Si abandoned the idea of absorbing nutrients tonight. She instinctively swallowed, trying to turn back to the bathroom: “Ah… ah, my clothes aren’t washed yet. I’ll just…”

“Come here!” The voice was unmistakable.

Tu Si slowly took small steps toward the sofa.

“Hold out your hands!” The familiar, chilling two words popped out of Gong Shayu’s mouth again.

“Sister… no, I didn’t tell anyone about that…” Tu Si’s fingernails dug into her palm. The pain briefly relieved her fear of the iron clothes hanger.

“It’s not about that. Hold out your hands!” Just as Gong Shayu’s patience was about to run out, her phone rang.

Tu Si sighed in relief. The tears she had been holding back finally fell.

“Mm.” Gong Shayu answered the phone without moving away from Tu Si. “Agree to her request.”

The voice on the other end wasn’t loud, but Tu Si heard it clearly. It was Fang Yu’s voice, reporting about a certain… ledger.

Tu Si secretly sighed in relief. She involuntarily strained her ears to listen.

“Mark confessed to the ledger,” Fang Yu said. “It’s buried under the mango tree in People’s Square…”