That day, the rain fell in fine threads. He stood in the entryway wearing a white shirt, his gentle features like a rain-soaked plant. He softly called her elders "Dad" and "Mom," and when he looked at Ling Shuqiu, his eyes held a tender, helpless softness.
Ling Shuqiu had long since forgotten the "rules" of the orphanage. At first glance, she seized on his "purity." He didn't understand the deliberate way she leaned closer, or the tentative brush of her fingertips against his wrist. "I'm the only one who'll truly treat you well," she whispered in his ear. Watching him nod in innocent understanding, she took his closeness as a reason to draw nearer.
She lingered in his room to watch movies, and used her fear of the cold as an excuse to burrow into his jacket, until she was all he could see. Ling Ye really did dote on her, remembering what she liked and waiting for her by the door when she came home late. But Ling Shuqiu always felt something was off: when she changed clothes, she sometimes sensed eyes watching from behind the curtains. When she went out with classmates, he always seemed to know where she was by "coincidence."
She thought she had the upper hand, but she didn't see the vines of "possessiveness" already winding around him beneath his gentle eyes, quietly closing in around her. This makeshift family held her feelings, but it also concealed his secrets.
