The days of recovery were like a slow-motion film stretched endlessly long, each frame so clear it was almost tormenting.
Yan Hanxie's body was like rusted gears that had begun to turn again with difficulty—slow, stiff, yet steadily moving toward "normal."
The time she could sit up independently grew longer and longer. She could hold onto the wall and walk a short distance inside the ward, and there was more strength behind her voice when she spoke, though it still carried the hoarseness of someone recovering from a serious illness.
Zong Yi's daily visit had become an unshakable ritual between them.
Fifteen minutes were forcibly stretched by Yan Hanxie with an almost domineering silence into twenty minutes, half an hour, sometimes even longer.
The nurses reminded her several times. Yan Hanxie would always respond with a faint "Mm," and next time it would be the same again.
After many times, seeing Zong Yi's slightly helpless expression—yet how she always ended up complying—the nurses could only shake their heads and let them be.
Yan Hanxie began to grow "picky" about the things Zong Yi brought.
"The soup is bland." She scooped a spoonful and commented with a slight frown, her tone calm yet unquestionable.
Zong Yi would remember it and adjust the salt the next day.
"These socks… the color is ugly." She looked at the new soft and warm cashmere socks Zong Yi had bought and gave a concise negative review.
Zong Yi silently took them back and brought several pairs of elegant gray or off-white the next day.
"The book is boring." She pushed aside the prose collection that Zong Yi had carefully chosen and that was said to help relax the nerves.
Zong Yi racked her brain and replaced it with more complex financial magazine summaries. Only then did Yan Hanxie reluctantly flip through a couple of pages.
These complaints were trivial, even somewhat unreasonable.
But Zong Yi accepted them all without the slightest impatience, like someone patiently coaxing a temperamental patient.
Yan Hanxie watched this and felt the hidden, almost malicious desire to test her satisfied.
Every time Zong Yi seriously adjusted or replaced something because of her casual remark, Yan Hanxie felt that she had silently drawn a little closer to the always composed, boundary-conscious Director Zong.
Like the most patient hunter, she used her frail, seemingly harmless body as cover and quietly began laying out the path of her "pursuing her wife."
Pursuing her wife?
Even Yan Hanxie herself, ill in bed, found the phrase somewhat absurd—yet it carried a strange, burning anticipation.
She knew she could not rush.
This ruined body was her greatest burden, yet also the only clumsy weapon she could use right now—taking advantage of the other woman's sense of responsibility and that faint, indescribable concern, slowly eroding her safe distance.
So she began to "allow" Zong Yi to do things that were closer, more intimate, carefully observing her reactions.
For example, after rehabilitation when she was exhausted and too lazy to lift her arms, she silently permitted Zong Yi to use a wrung-out hot towel to gently wipe the sweat from her temples and neck.
Zong Yi's movements were extremely stiff at first, her fingertips trembling slightly, but soon she forced herself to focus as if completing an extremely delicate nursing task.
Yan Hanxie closed her eyes, feeling the slightly hot fingertips—calloused just a little—occasionally brushing her skin. In her heart, a ripple of satisfaction spread.
Another example: when the side effects of medication ruined her appetite, she would signal with her eyes for Zong Yi to feed her spoonfuls of soft porridge.
At first Zong Yi insisted she could do it herself, but under Yan Hanxie's stubborn silence and somewhat weak gaze, she eventually compromised.
She scooped the porridge, blew it cool, and held it out. The entire process was done without looking aside, yet the tips of her ears gradually turned red.
Yan Hanxie drank slowly while her gaze seemed glued to Zong Yi's deliberately calm face. Deep inside, the beast that had been suppressed by illness for so long let out a satisfied hum.
Another time, on a rainy night, she was trapped by an old nightmare and woke drenched in cold sweat, still shaken by the lingering fear.
Zong Yi almost immediately stood up and went to the bedside. Her hand hovered in the air, wanting to comfort but not daring to touch, hesitating.
Just as Zong Yi was about to withdraw her hand, Yan Hanxie very lightly and quickly hooked Zong Yi's fingertip with her own cool finger.
The touch was so brief it was like an illusion, yet it was like a faint electric current that instantly pierced through the increasingly thin barrier between them.
Zong Yi jerked her hand back as if burned, retreating half a step. The color drained from her face, her eyes full of panic and helplessness.
But Yan Hanxie had already closed her eyes again, as if it had only been an unconscious movement from the dream. Only the chaotic beating of her heart revealed that her mind was far from calm.
She was testing, and she was attacking.
With the weakest strength, at the most inconspicuous details, she was capturing ground inch by inch.
Zong Yi had clearly noticed the change.
She became even more cautious, like a deer that had wandered into a hunter's territory, every step filled with vigilance and hesitation.
But she did not retreat.
Her daily punctual visits, the repeated silent compromises, the increasingly practiced yet increasingly stiff caregiving—all showed that she was being drawn by some invisible force, step by step into the gentle trap Yan Hanxie had carefully arranged.
This was exactly the effect Yan Hanxie wanted.
She did not want Zong Yi to understand immediately or respond immediately.
She only wanted her to get used to it—to get used to her presence, to her closeness, to the increasingly ambiguous touches and reliance.
Used to it… until she could no longer pull herself away.
As for the right moment, she needed to wait until her body could support her in expressing more—and with greater certainty.
But the waiting itself was a sweet torment.
Days slipped by in this silent hunting and being hunted. Outside the window the trees changed from fresh green to dense shade, and the sound of cicadas gradually rose.
At last Yan Hanxie was allowed, on fine afternoons, to take longer walks in the hospital garden with someone accompanying her.
She did not hesitate to designate Zong Yi.
Their first formal "walk" happened on an evening with a gentle breeze.
The sunset dyed the horizon brilliant gold and red.
Zong Yi carefully supported Yan Hanxie as the two of them walked slowly along the smooth garden path.
Yan Hanxie was still thin, but the weight leaning against Zong Yi now carried the clear presence of her own frame and slowly returning strength.
Their arms pressed together through the thin hospital gown and Zong Yi's shirt sleeve.
Heat seeped slowly through, like a silent declaration.
When they reached a pavilion covered in climbing vines, Yan Hanxie stopped and breathed lightly.
Zong Yi immediately looked at her nervously. "Tired? Do you want to sit down and rest?"
Yan Hanxie shook her head, but her gaze moved past the blooming apricot-pink roses beside the pavilion and landed on Zong Yi's face at close range.
The afterglow of sunset fell on Zong Yi's face as well, tinting her fair skin and the eyes looking at her with focus in a warm, stirring color.
Yan Hanxie's heart beat once, steady and strong.
It was the calm yet excited pulse of a hunter confirming the prey had entered the perfect range.
Then, very naturally, she shifted more of her body weight toward the side Zong Yi was supporting.
The motion was smooth, carrying an undeniable sense of weakness—and a trace of perfectly measured dependence.
Zong Yi instinctively tightened her arms, holding her more firmly.
In this posture they were almost half embracing each other.
Yan Hanxie could clearly smell the clean scent on Zong Yi—something like clothes warmed by sunlight. She could feel the slight tension in her arm muscles from nervousness, and the lively, powerful heartbeat belonging to another person through the layers of clothing.
Her gaze greedily traced the line of Zong Yi's lips, slightly pressed together from concentration and a hint of helplessness.
The sunset light danced there like a silent invitation.
The urge to kiss her had never been so clear, so strong, almost breaking the cage of reason.
From deep within her body came a long-absent tremor of desire, mixed with the weakness of recent illness, forming a strange longing tinged with pain.
But she only slowly took a deep breath of the air mixed with floral fragrance and Zong Yi's scent, forcing the surging impulse back into her heart.
Then she slightly tilted her head and, almost affectionately, rested her forehead against Zong Yi's shoulder.
An almost complete posture of dependence. More intimate than any test she had made in the hospital room.
Zong Yi's entire body stiffened. It felt as if all her blood rushed toward the shoulder being leaned on.
She could clearly feel the weight of Yan Hanxie's head, feel the light brush of her hair against her neck, feel her warm breath drifting across the skin above her collarbone.
Her heart pounded like thunder, buzzing in her ears.
Reason screamed, reminding her that this was too intimate, too dangerous, long beyond any reasonable boundary.
Yet her arms seemed bound by invisible chains. Not only did she fail to push Yan Hanxie away, she subconsciously held her tighter, as if afraid she might falter even slightly.
And her body stood rigid in place like a tree suddenly entwined by vines, unable to move.
Yan Hanxie leaned against her and closed her eyes.
The warmth of the sunset, mixed with Zong Yi's warmth and scent, wrapped around her.
A long-lost sense of peace—almost satisfaction—flowed slowly from their touching skin into her limbs.
She knew clearly what kind of violent inner storm the person in her arms was experiencing.
The stiff body, the thunderous heartbeat (through a layer of clothing she could almost hear it), the posture that both resisted and accepted… all showed that her "prey" had fallen into unprecedented confusion.
But it did not matter.
Yan Hanxie told herself in her heart, the corner of her lips lifting in an extremely faint, extremely secret curve.
The road was still long. The road of pursuing her wife stretched far ahead.
But at least for now, the prey was in her arms and had not escaped.
And the hunter's net was tightening inch by inch—gently, yet firmly.
The sunset slowly sank, stretching the two of their shadows long, very long across the cobblestone path, until they finally merged together, indistinguishable from each other.
Just like the net she had carefully woven, which would eventually capture that calm and self-controlled woman firmly, never letting her go again.
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