Chapter 5

Liu Ruyan woke up hot.

No, not hot.

It was a tingling numbness spreading outward from the depths of her lower abdomen, as if a hand were inside her body, slowly and steadily kneading her from within.

She opened her eyes sharply.

The ceiling was familiar, the crystal chandelier, the master bedroom, her own home.

The blanket had been kicked down to the foot of the bed, and her nightdress was wrinkled into a mess, bunched up around her waist. The inside of her thighs felt sticky.

Liu Ruyan froze for two seconds, then she felt it.

Her panties were soaked through.

Not a little. Enough to wring water out of.

"..."

She closed her eyes and covered her face with an arm.

Her heart was pounding as if she had been running.

The dream was too clear. Every detail could be remembered vividly.

She had been kneeling between his legs, his thing in her mouth, her tongue pressed against it as she rolled it upward, able to feel it twitching against her tongue, hard and burning hot.

His hand had been resting on the top of her head, fingers buried in her hair, the pressure neither light nor heavy, carrying a kind of control that made her whole body go weak.

She had looked up at him. He had looked down at her.

But his face was blurred.

His features were hidden by a layer of mist, impossible to see clearly no matter how she looked.

All she remembered were his hands, long fingers, distinct knuckles, the warmth of his palm unusually high.

And his voice. Deep, hoarse, and only three words.

"Move. Now."

The moment the memory rushed back, Liu Ruyan's body softened again.

That tingling numbness in her lower abdomen only grew stronger.

She took her hand away from her face and stared at the ceiling, her breathing still far from steady after quite a while.

"What's wrong with me..."

She rolled over and buried her face in the pillow.

The pillow was cool, but her body was burning.

From her neck to her collarbone to her chest, everything was hot. When her nipples brushed the bedsheet, she bit down on her lip.

Too sensitive.

As if the man's tongue from the dream was still lingering there.

She remembered that sensation clearly, the tip of the tongue circling around her first with a gentle lick, then suddenly sucking hard, his lips sealing over her areola and making her whole body arch up.

Her waist was sore, the roots of her thighs sore, as if someone had pried them open.

"I've been single for too long."

Liu Ruyan yanked her face out of the pillow and sat up.

Her hair was a mess, the strap of her nightdress had slipped down onto her arm, and she looked thoroughly disheveled.

She lowered her head to look at herself.

A large dark patch had soaked through the panties, clinging to her skin.

"..."

She drew in a deep breath, got out of bed, and walked barefoot into the bathroom.

She stripped off the nightdress and panties together and tossed them into the hamper, then turned on the shower.

Hot water came crashing down, streaming over her shoulders and down her body.

She closed her eyes and stood under the water, both hands braced against the wall. Her mind was still replaying the scene from the dream.

That man's palm was over her waist, his fingers pinching her hip bones, pressing her against him.

Her legs were wrapped around his waist, her heels braced against his back, and what she had been calling out was,

"Master."

Liu Ruyan's eyes snapped open.

She stared at the tiles on the wall, water sheeting over her face.

"No..."

She frowned. She wasn't that kind of person.

From childhood to adulthood, she had always been the one in control. In the family, in the company, in social circles, everyone looked at her with deference.

No man had ever been able to make her lower her head.

But in the dream, she had been kneeling on the carpet, looking up, calling a man whose face she couldn't see Master.

And she had called him willingly.

Not because she had been forced to, but because she had wanted to.

"I'm crazy."

She turned off the shower, dried her hair with a towel, and walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a bath towel.

When she was standing in front of the wardrobe choosing clothes, her hand paused. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the nightstand. The drawer was half open.

She remembered not opening that drawer before going to sleep last night, so she walked over and pulled it open.

A collar.

A black leather collar lay quietly inside, with a pair of pink velvet handcuffs beside it.

She stared at them for two seconds, then pushed the drawer shut again.

The force was a little too strong, and it made a dull thud.

...

Li Mo woke up because he was bursting to pee.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the question-mark-shaped water stain on the ceiling.

The rental room, the hum of the air conditioner, the noise of traffic outside the window, the coarse feel of the sheets.

It all came back.

He sat up, still dazed, and looked down at himself.

He was still wearing yesterday's shorts, and the scab had formed over the wound on his knee.

No mansion.

No silk bedsheets.

No Liu Ruyan.

He stared blankly for a few seconds, then raised a hand and waved it in front of him.

A blue panel popped up, but unlike in the simulated world.

The panel was much dimmer, like the gray haze on a phone right before the battery died.

There was only one line of text on it.

[Cooling down...]

No progress bar, no countdown, nothing.

"Cooling down? How long?"

The panel gave no response.

He poked it twice with a finger. The panel swayed, but no new information appeared.

"Fine."

Li Mo closed the panel and got up to use the toilet.

Standing in front of the toilet, his mind started working.

The simulation was real.

The replay was real.

Liu Ruyan was real.

No, Liu Ruyan was real, but the Liu Ruyan in the simulated world had been created by the system.

The real Liu Ruyan was probably in her own mansion right now, with no idea that some poor bastard named Li Mo was thinking about her in a twenty-square-meter rental room.

He flushed the toilet and walked over to the desk to sit down.

On the desk was the business card he had pulled out of his pocket yesterday.

Liu Ruyan.

A name, a phone number.

He stared at the card for a full minute.

Then he started thinking.

The system had locked a bunch of functions in the simulated world.

He couldn't leave the house, couldn't look at stocks, couldn't check the lottery, and even sex had been blocked by a blue pop-up.

But some functions were open.

Life replay was open. Communication was open, even if the only contact was Liu Ruyan.

What about the functions that were locked?

How did he unlock them?

He thought of that pop-up.

[Sexual activity function: not enabled.]

How did you enable it?

If the system could create a whole simulated world out of thin air, could make him instantly become Liu Ruyan's husband, and even fabricate chat logs and wedding photos, then sex should be nothing difficult for it at all.

It wasn't that the system couldn't do it.

It was that it wouldn't.

Why wouldn't it?

Li Mo tapped the desk twice with his finger.

He thought about the contents of the replay.

How had he, in the simulated world, climbed from a grassroots employee to the side of Liu Ruyan?

Being chosen by HR because of his looks was the entry ticket.

Being taken in and promoted by Liu Ruyan was the start of the relationship.

Carrying her through the rain for seven kilometers was the turning point.

The drunk phone call at the barbecue stall had been one step away from breaking through the final barrier between them.

Each step was about the development of his relationship with Liu Ruyan in the simulated world.

And the system's function unlocks...

"They're tied to reality."

Li Mo's finger stopped.

He straightened up and stared at the business card in front of him.

The system didn't unlock functions based on the relationship in the simulated world.

If it did, then in the simulation he was already Liu Ruyan's husband, and sex should not have been locked.

That meant there was only one possibility.

The unlock conditions were in reality.

The permission level in the simulated world depended on how far his real relationship with Liu Ruyan had progressed in the real world.

What was his relationship with Liu Ruyan now?

He had crashed into her car, she had let him off, and she had given him a business card. That was all.

It barely counted as knowing her, at most he was a stranger she had run into by the roadside once.

So in the simulated world, he had the shell of a husband identity, but all the core permissions were locked.

Because in reality he had absolutely nothing to do with Liu Ruyan.

"Then if..."

He picked up the business card.

"If I push our relationship forward one step in the real world?"

Even if it was just asking her for a cup of coffee.

Even if it was only turning from a stranger into someone she knew.

Would the system unlock new functions?

Li Mo's heartbeat quickened.

He pulled out his phone, opened his contacts, and realized he still hadn't saved Liu Ruyan's number.

He typed the number from the business card into his phone and hovered his finger over the call button.

What would he even say after calling?

"Hello, I'm the guy who hit your car yesterday. Want to have coffee sometime?"

She was the chairwoman of Xinghai Group.

Her grandfather had been a former vice...

Ask her for coffee?

Li Mo put the phone down.

He leaned back in the chair and stared at the question-mark-shaped water stain on the ceiling.

He thought for a long time.

Then he flipped the business card over.

The back was blank.

He picked up the pen on the desk and wrote a line on the back.

"First step: make her remember me."

He drew a line under the words "remember me" with the tip of the pen.