The Game Begins

“Forget it, you should just leave.”

After a long silence, Mu Yaochen seemed to reach a decision, rising to her feet and walking towards the spiral staircase that led to the second floor.

Conflict, the truth of some matters, was conflict itself.

****

Such sudden shifts in emotion were already commonplace for Luo Yao.

Watching her depart without a backward glance, Luo Yao let out a sigh of relief, his body involuntarily collapsing to the floor.

“I hope you are telling the truth.”

Just as Mu Yaochen reached the second floor, she suddenly turned and spoke to Luo Yao.

“I… I didn’t lie!”

Luo Yao responded weakly, feeling helpless; after all, he was dependent on her, and for now, he could only obey her commands.

After Mu Yaochen left, an unprecedented sense of ease washed over Luo Yao.

Being alone with Mu Yaochen always brought an inexplicable feeling of oppression.

Now, Luo Yao found he had little inclination to continue watching television, and a faint drowsiness began to creep over him.

‘Perhaps I should just go to sleep.’

With this thought, Luo Yao slowly made his way to his room.

Logically speaking, an incident like this should have been enough to reduce any young boy to tears.

Yet Luo Yao was no ordinary young boy; he understood precisely what Mu Yaochen desired.

At this realization, an urge to play with fire stirred within Luo Yao.

Simultaneously, a hint of self-abandonment also crept into his mind.

‘Doesn’t she want me to like Su Mengqi?’

‘Then I might as well put on a show for her!’

By this time, Luo Yao had already reached his room.

As for Mu Yaochen, Luo Yao felt she had already shown him the utmost benevolence.

At the very least, she hadn’t gone to extremes in her ‘training,’ never forcing him to truly sleep in a dog kennel or eat dog food; on the contrary, Luo Yao’s current living conditions were quite comfortable.

‘If she intends to give up on training me, then I’ll simply turn the tables and train her instead.’

Lost in this thought, Luo Yao lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

‘But the idea of training Mu Yaochen… wasn’t that a bit too audacious?’

‘Attempting to tame that tigress Mu Yaochen into a gentle, obedient kitten would be an arduous task.’

Pondering this dilemma, Luo Yao unconsciously closed his eyes.

The road ahead was still long, especially for Luo Yao.

His meticulously planned life had been abruptly disrupted, and he yearned to regain his footing.

****

After an indeterminate amount of time, Luo Yao’s eyelids twitched slightly in his sleep.

A soft knocking then echoed from his door.

When Luo Yao opened his eyes once more, the sky had already darkened.

‘It was still daytime when I fell asleep; how long have I been sleeping?’

Gazing at the dimly lit room, Luo Yao felt a peculiar sensation, as if he had traveled through time.

“Who is it?”

Luo Yao blinked his sleep-heavy eyes open; having just woken, his mind still felt sluggish.

“It’s me, dinner is ready. Remember to come to the dining room.”

Frost’s voice drifted from outside the door.

Luo Yao shook his head, attempting to clear his mind.

Once fully awake, Luo Yao switched on the room’s light.

****

‘What is going on?’

Luo Yao gazed at the strand of hair he had carefully wedged in the doorframe; it was now broken.

This was a simple trick Luo Yao had discovered online to detect if someone had entered a room.

It involved clamping a long strand of hair in the door crack and then attaching it to the doorknob on the other side.

If someone entered, the hair would naturally snap, making it difficult for the intruder to notice.

Luo Yao’s hair was long enough to perfectly create such a makeshift alarm, and he had also locked the door and engaged the safety latch.

‘Who could have done this?’

Luo Yao stared at the hair, now broken in two in his hand.

Though he uttered no words, he pondered silently.

‘Undoubtedly, Mu Yaochen.’

Frost likely didn’t possess a key to his room, and besides himself, only one person held complete control over all the keys to this house.

Mu Yaochen.

‘What could she have been doing in my room?’

The thought of Mu Yaochen entering his room while he slept sent shivers down Luo Yao’s spine.

While Luo Yao couldn’t be absolutely certain, he was confident that the person who had entered was Mu Yaochen.

‘I’ll feign ignorance for now and see what she intends to do.’

Having resolved to ‘train’ Mu Yaochen in return, Luo Yao carefully picked up the broken hair strands and scattered them inconspicuously beside his bed.

He couldn’t leave any trace, and for now, he would act as if he knew nothing of the intrusion.

Luo Yao nodded in satisfaction at the scattered hair by his bed.

This way, Mu Yaochen wouldn’t discover his trick, allowing him to continue observing her habits.

‘Hopefully, she didn’t do anything strange while I was asleep.’

At this thought, Luo Yao instinctively touched his face.

‘Wait!’

Finding nothing amiss with his own body, Luo Yao suddenly remembered the new clothes he had purchased.

He hadn’t yet ruled out the possibility that Mu Yaochen was a pervert (TL Note: The Chinese character ‘chi’ (痴) implies an obsessive or infatuated person, often with sexual connotations in this context.), and what if…

With that unsettling thought, Luo Yao scurried to his wardrobe, pulled it open, and meticulously inspected each of the new clothes he had bought earlier.

‘Sure enough…’

Gazing at the slightly wrinkled clothes, Luo Yao picked them up with a hint of disdain.

He had meticulously smoothed all his clothes; how could they have gotten wrinkled after just one day?

‘This was simply absurd.’

Though there were faint signs of an attempt to smooth them out, Luo Yao still felt as if these clothes had been tampered with.

‘Never mind,’ he thought, ‘from now on, I’ll just wedge a hair in the wardrobe door as well.’

With this resolution, he reluctantly took down the clothes he suspected had been disturbed, tossed them onto the floor, and planned to wash them later.

“What are you doing?”

Frost, sounding somewhat impatient, knocked on the door again.

“Soon, I’m just getting dressed!”

Luo Yao was still tidying his clothes, but to his relief, Mu Yaochen hadn’t been *that* perverse.

At least she hadn’t done anything to his underwear.

Having put everything in order, Luo Yao gently opened his door.

“I apologize for the wait.”

As he pushed open the door, Luo Yao saw Frost standing directly in front of it.

Not having seen her all afternoon, Luo Yao surprisingly felt a pang of longing for the ‘wooden figure’ who was always by his side.

However, Luo Yao failed to notice the faint blush that was barely discernible on Frost’s face.

Just moments before, Frost had actually been imagining Luo Yao changing his clothes.

His perfect physique (TL Note: The original text uses `**`, likely a placeholder for a word like ‘body’ or ‘figure’ to imply physical attractiveness.), and his remarkably sculpted body lines.

“It’s fine, let’s go…”

Frost was about to turn away, but in that very instant, she noticed something unusual about Luo Yao.

“What’s wrong?”

Luo Yao looked at Frost, whose movements had frozen, with a puzzled expression.

“What happened to your neck?”

Frost’s eyes were fixed on Luo Yao’s neck, unmoving.

“My neck?”

Luo Yao followed Frost’s gaze to his own neck, which, upon closer inspection, was not entirely unmarked.

“This…”

Luo Yao instantly understood what Frost was referring to; the marks Mu Yaochen had left that afternoon had not yet faded.

Furthermore, because of the collar, the marks had spread around its edges, making them quite conspicuous to anyone else.

“The Mistress scratched me; it’s nothing.”

Luo Yao reluctantly revealed the truth.

He felt no need to hide anything from Frost, content to merely continue playing his submissive role.

“It was the Young Miss? Then it’s fine.”

Upon hearing that Mu Yaochen was responsible, Frost’s tightly clenched fists slowly relaxed.

Anger, a simple, raw anger, surged within Frost.

As for why she was angry, even she couldn’t articulate it.