To Covet (GL) - Chapter 10

If she had even a sliver of sharpness in her character, she would never have allowed me to blackmail her in such a despicable way. I would have been immediately dragged by my hair, thrown to the floor, and kicked out of her room for my obscene behavior.

However, as I expected, even though her skin trembled like an electric shock due to her emotional agitation, she clearly understood that she was at a disadvantage—no matter what choice she made, the sharp blades would ultimately pierce her without fail.

Light would make many things that were originally hidden in dark and wretched corners restless.

Initially, I was reluctant to involve Yu Zhouwan. I saw her as my kindred spirit—a victim controlled by her parents’ choices. But now, things were happening—even though I knew I would be involving myself, I had no intention of relying on this family, so I didn’t care. But for Yu Zhouwan, she would be completely pushed into an irreversible abyss.

Homosexuality, incest—two simple words, enough to nail her to the cross and torture her forever.

“Don’t,” knowing it was a futile struggle, she still chose to pull the blanket around herself, “Yu Keyi, I’m your sister.”

“Oh, right, I also have the video, do you want to see it?” I rubbed the photo paper in my hand, “Shi Yunya is outside, I can give her the photos right now, how about that?”

When she failed to snatch them, she shook off my hand, turned around and yanked open the door, just in time to meet Shi Yunya, who had come to see what the commotion was.

Yu Zhouwan immediately raised her sleeve and wiped her face haphazardly. Shi Yunya hadn’t even spoken when she saw Yu Zhouwan slam the bathroom door. She glanced at me, yawning, and the concerned look immediately disappeared. Her attitude didn’t exactly change drastically, but there was a clear distinction between before and after.

“Did you two have a fight early in the morning?” Shi Yunya looked at the closed door with concern, more worried about whether Yu Zhouwan’s state would be affected than about solving the problem, “Come out for breakfast, don’t be late.”

In this house, Shi Yunya and I maintained a state of treating each other as invisible, even skipping basic greetings. These past few days, because the housekeeper was on sick leave, she had to make breakfast herself, which meant she inexplicably had at least twenty extra minutes to spend at the same table as me. I would rather have a pancake from the school gate than fried eggs and noodle soup.

“Did you two sleep together last night? Did you sleep well?”

In front of Shi Yunya, Yu Zhouwan maintained just the right amount of politeness towards me, just as she had been taught, to everyone. So she couldn’t understand how the sisters’ relationship had gotten so good that they could sleep in the same bed.

I lowered my head, pretending to be busy chewing and unable to answer, and secretly glanced at Yu Zhouwan. When she realized I was looking at her, she turned her head and gave a brief “hmm” as an answer.

Perhaps the morning’s events had completely taken away her appetite. Shi Yunya asked her about the upcoming unified exam and IELTS written test next month. She didn’t even finish half an egg, picked up her backpack, and hurriedly left.

Yu Zhouwan ran quickly. I immediately put down my bowl and chopsticks and chased after her. The elevator doors had already opened.

“See you tonight, sister.”

The morning corridor was incredibly quiet. Even though I spoke in a low voice, Yu Zhouwan’s footsteps still paused.

“Don’t be late.” This referred to her final decision.

She retracted the foot she had placed on the outside steps, turned and glared at me, then silently jogged away, disappearing among the intertwined shadows of the shrubs in the community’s flower bed.

Yu Zhouwan still didn’t come back on time. But this time, she didn’t go to Feng Jia. Instead, she went to a light food restaurant.

She sat down at a table in the back, facing a girl I had never seen before, wearing the same uniform as her. They each ordered a dessert and chatted while eating.

I could only see Yu Zhouwan’s profile from across the street. She was smiling very happily, completely different from her usual gloomy and silent image.

Unfortunately, because I didn’t try to hide my gaze, Yu Zhouwan quickly felt the eyes on her. The moment she met my eyes, she picked up her bag and turned to leave, but bumped into me at the door.

“Wait,” I took a small step to block her, “I’m hungry, I’ll buy something to eat.”

“Wanwan, who is this?” The girl, confused, came out after paying the bill and saw me blocking the door, “Do you know each other?”

“I’m her sister.” I affectionately took her arm.

The girl and Yu Zhouwan exchanged glances. She didn’t understand where Yu Zhouwan, an only child, had gotten a sister she had never seen before. Perhaps she was a relative or something. She withdrew her questioning gaze and watched me pack a fruit box and leave with Yu Zhouwan.

“What time do you plan to go back?” I raised my wrist to show the watch face—nine o’clock sharp.

Yu Zhouwan was silent.

“Going to see Feng Jia?” I adjusted my backpack strap.

“Don’t mention her again,” this was the only time Yu Zhouwan interrupted someone, “Why do you interfere in my and Feng Jia’s affairs? Besides, I don’t care about those photos. If you insist on telling others things the way you’ve fabricated them, then it’s your own shameless behavior, Yu Keyi, think about it yourself.”

After saying these words, she was almost furious, as if declaring war on me, the villain.

I rolled my eyes. It seemed that after a day of thinking, Yu Zhouwan had mistaken me for the kind of perverted rogue who takes secret photos of others for blackmail.

Whether it was the photos or the fragmented memories in my mind, I enjoyed peeking and treasured what I saw and heard.

Using them as bargaining chips to curry favor with the outside world was extremely cheap behavior.

“You smile very happily when you’re with other people.”

I said to myself, and Yu Zhouwan’s face darkened when she saw the photos on the phone screen.

“You never smile this happily at home, when you’re with me, do you, sister?”

Yu Zhouwan leaned away from me in disgust. After leaving the subway station, she walked ahead on her own. She went through the elevator and used her fingerprint to unlock the door in one go. If I hadn’t run fast enough, I would have been locked out.

Counting on my fingers, Yu Hanyang was hypocritical every day, Shi Yunya treated me like an invisible person, and Yu Zhouwan was the most considerate person in this family. What I was doing was indeed enough to make others feel cold.

“Why are you like this…” She closed her eyes in despair, and I knew she had her own answer.

“Of course it’s because you’re beautiful.” I pinched her slender waist.

I finished organizing my books and test papers and took a shower. In the nearly two hours that followed, Yu Hanyang and his wife returned home one after another. Yu Zhouwan’s door remained tightly locked.

As the hour hand passed one number after another, I left my room, stepping over the dull hum of the refrigerator and air conditioner.

The sound of my knuckles knocking on the wooden door was amplified infinitely. The lock turned several minutes later, as if something had been thrown up into the night, then dropped into an unknown space, and finally returned to gravity, hitting the ground.

Yu Zhouwan didn’t turn on the light. I felt my way to the edge of the bed in the dark. She turned over, making room for me.

“Say what you have to say quickly.” Not directly shutting the door in my face was the most polite thing Yu Zhouwan could do.

I lay down directly.

But a thorn remained in my heart. The joy of manipulating Yu Zhouwan’s emotions last night had completely disappeared, like holding a sharp blade in your hand, wanting to stab it into a fragile balloon and cause it to explode, but instead encountering a high-density diamond, leaving nothing but a harsh scraping sound when it slid across the surface.

Yu Zhouwan sighed on the pillow.

“You promised me,” I said, almost whispering in Yu Zhouwan’s ear, taking advantage of the situation to sit on her lap, one hand pressing her shoulder, and the other lifting the hem of her pajamas, “I want to sleep with you now.”

I pressed down on her, my knees against her hips, so no matter how she struggled or twisted, she wouldn’t be able to break free.

I reached out to unbutton her pajamas, my fingertips sliding from her neck to her chest. The first button popped out of its hole, but she suddenly grabbed my hand and pushed it back.

“Don’t.” Yu Zhouwan finally realized what I was trying to do, “Keyi, don’t touch me. This is molestation, you know that?”

“I want to touch you, so what?” I chuckled, “If you feel wronged, you can tell someone. Go knock on the door and tell Shi Yunya, tell her I’m molesting you.”

I pushed away her hands, which were protecting her chest. Yu Zhouwan tried to stop me again. After pulling back and forth like this, I became impatient. I groped in the drawer of the cabinet and pulled out a piece of cloth—only when I felt the soft padding and the cold metal buckle did I realize what it was, but at that moment, I couldn’t wait to twist her wrists tightly together.

Yu Zhouwan stopped struggling, even her legs stopped moving, but her breathing became heavier and heavier, as if the oxygen in the air was becoming thinner and thinner, and she was on the verge of suffocation.

I unbuttoned her second button.

She didn’t wear underwear to sleep, and I touched smooth skin without any obstacles. I went all the way down, to the third button, click.

The folds of her clothes were pressed down by her. When I unbuttoned the third button, my hand finally had room to move horizontally, but I was at a loss, even awkwardly using the entire palm of my hand to grope her waist and abdomen, so that the touch brought by every second of movement would make her skin tremble by an invisible small margin.

I heard her sniffle. I wasn’t sure if she hadn’t adjusted her breathing because of nervousness, or if she was so ashamed of being touched by her own sister that she was crying.

“Yu Zhouwan.” I whispered her name, but she didn’t answer.