Chapter 1: Borrowing a Light

In Haicheng, the liveliest places at night were always where the drunk and the beautiful gathered. And right now, it was midnight.

Inside the bar, lights flickered in a hazy strobe. Under the pounding bass of electronic music, a crowd of young men and women writhed on the dance floor, eyeing each other through drink-glazed stares. The air was thick—hormones, alcohol, perfume, all blended into something heady and suffocating.

Su Yu was starting to feel it. She grabbed her bag from the booth, stood up, and swayed toward the restroom.

Navigating through the crowd, she fended off no shortage of men trying to chat her up. She dodged them with a disgusted furrow of her brow, slipped into the restroom, and shut the door behind her, leaning against it.

The noise dropped instantly.

She was dizzy. Her head felt thick and heavy, uncomfortably so.

Su Yu pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to massage away the discomfort.

Today was the sales department's team dinner. It was supposed to be just a meal—but their manager had unexpectedly splurged, treating them to a wild night at the bar.

Su Yu didn't love these scenes, but she didn't hate them either.

About ten minutes later, she slipped her phone back into her bag, opened the door, and stepped out.

The noise hit her again, swelling in her ears. Su Yu shook her head to clear the dizziness and walked to the sink to wash her hands.

After drying them under the air dryer, she pulled a tube of lipstick from her bag. Leaning close to the mirror, she traced a fresh layer over her lips.

Su Yu had that porcelain-fair complexion—under the lights, her skin glowed almost translucent, like polished white jade.

The red lipstick made her lips look even more vivid. Lush. Dripping. Like a poppy blooming in the dark, radiating a fatal kind of temptation.

The flush on her cheeks, set off by the crimson lips, made her look devastatingly seductive.

The men at her company jumped at every chance to get her drunk. But after years of navigating client dinners and after-hours networking, her tolerance was forged steel. She could put away a liter of baijiu without flinching.

Tonight, though, she'd had too much Jägermeister. The stuff hit late and hit hard, and she was still feeling it.

Su Yu tucked the lipstick away, stepped out of the restroom area, and pulled out a pack of slim cigarettes. She slipped one between her lips and patted her pockets for a lighter.

Nothing.

Right. She'd lent it to a male colleague earlier.

Su Yu took the cigarette from her mouth and glanced up. A man was just walking out of the men's restroom.

He had to be over six-three. All in black, the top few buttons of his shirt undone, collar hanging open to reveal a sharp collarbone. Deep-set eyes, angular jaw, a nose that could cut glass, and thin lips pressed into a line that read cold and untouchable.

Extremely good-looking, Su Yu assessed silently.

Very much her type.

The man's gaze met hers. In those peach-blossom eyes of his, a flicker of something keen and unreadable passed through.

Su Yu didn't hesitate. She walked right up to him in her heels, a faint smile playing on her lips.

"Hey, handsome. Got a light?"

Shen Yan stood with one hand in his pocket, looking down at her.

The woman wore a form-fitting dark dress that left nothing to the imagination—every curve on full display. A cascade of dark waves tumbled over her shoulders. An oval face, delicate features, and those soul-snatching fox eyes. Every glance, every smile was dripping with allure.

A stunner.

That was Shen Yan's first thought.

He liked this one.

He pulled a lighter from his pocket and handed it to her.

Su Yu's beauty was the cold, bewitching kind—a magnetism that made you dizzy, that pulled you in against your better judgment.

She took the lighter and flashed him a brilliant smile.

"Thanks."

She put the cigarette back between her lips, leaned against the wall, and lit it with practiced ease. A slow plume of smoke curled from her lips.

She handed the lighter back.

The smoke drifted across her cold, striking face. Those tilted fox eyes looked wicked and untamed.

Enough to make a man want to tame her.

Shen Yan took the lighter and slipped it back into his pocket.

"Smoking's a bad habit for a woman."

His voice was low and smooth, with a magnetic quality that was hard to place.

Su Yu narrowed her eyes.

"Since when does smoking have a gender?"

Her lips curved—not quite a smile. Her tone was lazily indifferent.

Through the haze of smoke, her features blurred and sharpened at once, more alluring for being half-hidden.

Shen Yan's gaze lingered on her. The corner of his mouth curved up.

"Wild enough. I like it."

Su Yu didn't answer right away. She crushed the cigarette out on the edge of a nearby trash bin and dropped it in.

Then she raised an eyebrow.

"If you like it, why not come home with me tonight?"

Her voice carried a trace of laziness, a trace of drunkenness. The combination was devastating.

Shen Yan's mind went somewhere it shouldn't.