Chapter 80: The Guessing Game (1/2)

As I sat on the sofa and waited for Xiaotao, my heart was in turmoil. It was so nerve-racking for me that I even contemplated bolting out the door. But another voice in my head jeered at how pathetic I was.

Those few minutes felt like years. Finally, Xiaotao came out of the bedroom with her hands behind her back.

“Guess what I’m holding in my hands?” she asked playfully. “I’ll give you some clues—it’s made of plastic, and there’s a hole in it too.”

I almost choked, but quickly realized that it must be another trap.

“Is it a DVD?” I guessed.

“Aww, that’s no fun! You got it right on the first try!” Xiaotao complained. She held up a DVD which was still in its case. I noticed that the cover was of the classic horror film The Ring.

“What did you want me to guess?” I teased her.

“What else could you guess?” she countered after some hesitation. It was her turn to blush. “I just wanted to test your IQ, that’s all...”

“I thought I was the one whose face gets red all the time!” I teased her again, not wasting a rare chance to poke fun at her.

“How dare you! I’m the only one allowed to tease you like that! You can’t do it to me!” She hit my head with the corner of the DVD case, and I almost cried of the sharp pain.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I begged for her mercy.

“Hmph!” Xiaotao stopped hitting me and rested her hands on her waist.

“You’ve never seen this old movie before?” I asked while massaging my head.

“No…” answered Xiaotao as she turned over the DVD cover. “I’ve heard many people say that this movie is really scary, so I never dared to watch it alone. Now that you’re here, I can finally watch it! Oh, right, have you seen it before?”

I shook my head.

“Great! Then let’s watch it together!”

After that, Xiaotao inserted the disc into the DVD player. In truth, I’d seen the movie when I was in junior high school, but I didn’t want to ruin her mood by admitting that.

The DVD began to play. In order to create an atmosphere suitable for the movie, Xiaotao turned off the lights and pulled down the curtains. She sat down next to me on the sofa, pulled up her legs, and wrapped her arms around them. With her slender legs exposed and her scent filling my nose, I could barely keep my eyes on the TV screen.

When the ghost first appeared, Xiaotao jumped in fright and I saw her shoulders shake. She even started to bite her nails. She reached out her hand and clutched my wrist.

“You’re a police officer and you’re scared of this?” I asked.

“Aren’t you scared at all?” she asked.

“Well, yeah, but not as much as you are,” I laughed.

“I heard from a friend that they couldn’t sleep alone after watching this movie.”

“And yet you still want to watch it?”

“Shut up!”

She then leaned her whole body onto my arm. Her cool and smooth skin felt like soft jade. For a moment, I felt the urge to wrap my arm around her shoulders to calm her down, but didn’t have the boldness and courage to do so.

Rather than scary, I thought a much better word to describe this movie was tense. From beginning to end, there was this feeling of suspense that was almost suffocating. At every moment when the actors in the movie turned their heads to look behind them, you’d worry about what was going to jump out on the screen.

I had to hand it to the Japanese, though. They really knew how to make horror films terrifying.

As we were reaching the middle of the movie, Xiaotao got more and more scared and screamed in fright every few minutes. Her grip on my arm tightened, and it was getting quite painful for me. I’d always seen her as the bold and fearless police officer, so it never occurred to me that there were things that could scare Xiaotao too.

I took the remote control and turned down the volume. Usually it was the sound effects employed in the horror movies that made them so scary. Once the volume was lower, I noticed that Xiaotao calmed down a lot. In fact, it seemed that she was completely silent now. That change in reaction was way too drastic—was she just faking her fear earlier?

I turned to look at her and saw that she had actually fallen asleep. Her head was resting on my shoulder and she was already snoring lightly.

I reached out my hand and brushed her hair out of her face. She looked lovely when she was asleep, just like a sleeping kitten. I could’ve focused on the slightly more exposed cleavage down her dress, but I was honestly much more entranced by her stunning face.

Was I drunk with love? Had I lost my mind? Perhaps.

The fragrance of Xiaotao’s body continued to lure me in. I couldn’t help but inch my face closer and closer to her. Meanwhile, a voice in my head warned me, Stop it, Song Yang! Don’t do anything disrespectful!