It was already mid-afternoon by the time Iris woke up from her after-brunch nap. Her body still felt sluggish but the call of nature won over sleep, so she forced herself to roll off the bed before staggering her way to the bathroom. After finishing her business and cleaning herself up, she searched for Jin Liwei who was nowhere in sight.
She found him outside the bedroom in their suite’s living room with the butler. He was lying face-down on the couch with the butler giving him some deep-tissue massage.
“Darling?”
The butler straightened to his perfect professional posture in an instant and gave her a polite gentleman’s bow complete with a sweep of an arm. “Mistress.”
She greeted him back before focusing all her attention on her man.
“How was your nap, love?” Jin Liwei asked.
“Okay.” Although she said that, her tone didn’t sound okay at all.
She wasted almost an entire day sleeping, yet why did she still feel tired? This irritated her because she was the type to keep busy. She loved doing something productive and keeping herself occupied. Besides her music and computers, one of her most favourite things to do was spend quality time with Jin Liwei and make love with him.
Today, however, she fought with him the moment she woke up this morning. They made up but they hadn’t completely resolved the main cause of their fight yet. Then after having lunch, she fell asleep again, losing precious time that she would’ve preferred to spend with him. Even though they couldn’t make love because of his injuries, they could still do something else, like eat chocolate desserts together and hug while she enjoyed smelling his masculine scent that she loved so much.
Trying to divert her own attention away from the irritation gnawing inside her, she asked him a question as well. “Why are you having your massage so early today? Don’t you usually have it in the evening after dinner?”
“I just wanted it earlier today,” he said while keeping his expression pleasant.
She didn’t notice the faint furrow between his brows or the tightness of his jaw as he stopped the pain from showing on his face. Neither did she become suspicious of why he asked for a massage earlier than usual today—and a deep-tissue one at that. She believed him so she only nodded and accepted his answer without questioning him further.
“Thanks for taking care of Liwei,” she told the butler with a smile and then gestured for him to continue massaging her man.
The butler gave a brief, shallow bow before resuming his work on Jin Liwei’s legs. Although they had their own private massage therapists employed at home—male for Jin Liwei and female for her—sometimes Jin Liwei liked to call the butler to massage him instead whenever the man wasn’t very busy with his duties keeping the entire household in perfect working order.
She learned some time ago that their amazing butler was actually also a registered massage therapist. Jin Liwei made him study and get a licence a few years ago because the man had a natural talent in massage. Jin Liwei said that he preferred the way the butler massaged over the other many ones he tried before.
Because Jin Liwei was still injured, the butler could only massage his head, neck, arms and legs, avoiding the entire back and posterior thighs altogether. Nevertheless, Jin Liwei still looked satisfied. [This novel is a contracted work with W e b n o v e l . c o m (remove spaces). If you’re not reading this chapter on W e b n o v e l, it has been stolen. It’s very discouraging to see thieves profitting from my hard work. Please read this novel on W e b n o v e l. Thank you! -Arria Cross]
Iris walked over to them, intending to sit on the armchair beside the couch where Jin Liwei was lying face-down. But before she could get close, a strong medicinal scent assaulted her nose.
“Ugh!” She covered her nose and mouth and rushed away from them until she could no longer smell the scent in the air.
“Love, what’s wrong?”
“Perhaps it’s the start of the mistress’ morning sickness,” the butler suggested.
Iris ignored them both. Instead, her eyes swept around them and found the culprit placed on top of the coffee table in front of the couch. She missed seeing it earlier because the flower vase blocked her sight.
“Why are you using that ultra-strength pain gel?” Her voice had become shrill as she finally became suspicious. “Your prescription says to only use that if the pain level has become so intense that you can barely tolerate it anymore. What happened while I was asleep? Did you hurt yourself again?”
The butler withdrew to a nondescript corner in silence, swiftly and smartly avoiding his mistress’ line of fire. However, he wasn’t finished massaging his master yet so he didn’t dare leave without permission. The poor man had no choice but to stay in the room while doing his best to reduce his presence and not interrupt the couple.
Before Jin Liwei could reply, Iris had already made her own conclusion. Her expression filled with horror. “Oh no! Did Big Brother beat you up? He must’ve beaten you up because you got me pregnant out of wedlock!” She begun wringing her hands. “I knew this was going to happen!”
Jin Liwei scowled. “I didn’t get beaten up.”
“I shouldn’t have fallen asleep! I’m so sorry, darling. I—what? He didn’t beat you up?”
His scowl worsened. “I said no. Wife, do you have such low confidence of your husband that you automatically assumed that Lu Zihao beat me up?”
In her current worried state, she didn’t notice that Jin Liwei didn’t call her big brother “Fifth Brother” but instead called him by his first name, Lu Zihao.
“It’s not like that,” she said, quickly denying what he said.
Jin Liwei harrumphed. “I don’t like that you’re so afraid of how Lu Zihao will react whenever you think you did something that he won’t like.”
That made her pause. She finally noticed that something was amiss. “Did something happen between you and Big Brother? Why aren’t you referring to him as Fifth Brother anymore? Did you fight?”
He didn’t answer right away but still gave a brief nod afterwards. But before she could react, he waved a dismissive hand, silently telling her not worry about it anymore.
