Chapter 23: Sounds He Cannot Unhear
The room felt smaller with every passing breath.
Lin Mu remained where he had knelt since the beginning—his legs folded beneath him, posture rigid, eyes fixed not on the bed, but just beneath it. Even the movement of his gaze felt like too much. To look up, to witness it directly, would be a kind of surrender he wasn't sure he could survive.
And yet, everything was already happening.
He didn't need to see it.
He could hear it.
He could feel it.
The slow creak of the mattress had grown steadier, more rhythmic. Not hurried—purposeful. He could hear the fabric of sheets shifting beneath weight. He could hear the sharp, warm gasp that left Xue Lan's throat—cut off only when another, louder one replaced it. There was no hiding her voice now. She wasn't muffling herself. She was letting it rise, letting it bloom into the room.
And through it all, Lin Mu remained still, breathing in the remnants of the oil he had rubbed into her skin only hours ago—his hands the last to prepare her, but not the last to touch her.
She sounded completely open. Her moans had rhythm now, the kind of cadence that only came from deep, intimate motion. Her breathing matched the movements he could hear through the veil of silence between gasps—the shifting of the bed, the quickening creak of wood against stone.