You’re Mine Now

Chapter 2:urging marriage

6:00 AM. The morning sunlight poured through the large window, casting quiet golden patterns across the pale wooden floor.

Lin Tang was already awake.

She sat on the edge of the couch, eyes wide open. There was no grogginess in her gaze—only calm alertness. The kind of stillness that hinted she hadn’t slept much at all.

Her hand reached for the phone on the side table, almost absentmindedly. She unlocked it.

A map popped up on the screen.

One small red dot was moving, slowly but surely.

Her lips curved slightly, but her eyes remained chillingly calm.

“Hm… still on the usual path.”

She murmured to herself, flipping the phone over and placing it screen-down on the table—softly, like she didn’t want to wake the room.

Yes, Shen Li still didn’t know.

She thought she was the one who stayed last night on a whim, after saying she didn’t want to take Lin Tang’s umbrella home—because “returning it would be a hassle.”

She thought it was her decision.

But it wasn’t.

Because sometime during that quiet night, when Shen Li wasn’t looking—Lin Tang’s fingers, painted with pale pink polish, had gently slipped a tiny tracker into her bag.

A soft hunter’s instinct. No violence. No rush. Just inevitability.

“You said… you didn’t want to take my umbrella home.”

“So I had to find… another way to make sure something of mine stays with you.”

She whispered the words like a secret meant only for the morning air.

On the other side of town, Shen Li stood at the long table as usual, patiently explaining the angle of the blade to her apprentices.

Her voice was steady, her movements precise—yet every time the crisp sound of the knife meeting the cutting board came to a pause, her gaze would drift, lingering somewhere far away for half a beat.

When a student asked her a question, it was as if she’d been pulled up from underwater—blinking lightly before gathering herself and continuing the explanation.

But that focus, without her noticing, was threaded with a quiet haze, as if a certain fragment kept surfacing from the depths of her mind, brushing against the tip of her heart.

She shouldn’t be distracted.

And yet—last night’s image, that voice laced with both warmth and danger, hooked into her ear and refused to leave.

Her grip on the knife grew just slightly tighter, until the back of the blade knocked against the table with a muted thud.

Only then did she come back to herself, murmuring softly,

“Let’s continue.”

As she thought about it, she suddenly realized—

she hadn’t even asked for her name.

Last night felt like a dream.

A dream without warning, without reason.

From the umbrella, to sitting side by side talking about nothing in particular, to the quiet way she listened… it all felt too steady, too unreal to have actually happened.

But the dream was far too vivid.

Vivid enough for Shen Li to remember the warmth of the tea, the shape of raindrops caught in the streetlight, and the way those eyes looked at her—soft, but holding a quiet kind of power.

It was warmth, wrapping around her chest like a gentle light.

And it was dangerous—pulling her closer, yet daring her not to think too much.

“Teacher? … Teacher?”

The voice of one of her apprentices pulled Shen Li out of her drifting thoughts.

She looked up, meeting a pair of curious eyes.

“What are you thinking about? It’s break time now. I’m heading home—bye, Teacher!”

The apprentice waved, jogging off with her bag slung over one shoulder.

Shen Li blinked, then gave a faint smile. “Bye.”

But her fingers were still resting on the knife handle, not quite ready to let go.

Lin Tang walked her last patient to the door, her smile as warm as ever—until the door clicked shut, and that warmth faded into something quieter.

She returned to her desk, placing her gold-rimmed glasses neatly beside a stack of files, then reached for her phone.

The screen lit up—same familiar red dot, pulsing softly.

Her fingertip hovered.

Hmm?

The route had changed.

Shen Li wasn’t at the music academy.

She wasn’t on the narrow street that led to her tiny apartment, either.

The red dot was moving along a different road—one that didn’t belong to her usual map.

Lin Tang narrowed her eyes slightly, tapping her knuckle against the desk in a slow rhythm.

“Where are you going, little one?” she murmured, the tone both indulgent and quietly interrogative.

Her gaze stayed fixed on the moving dot for several long seconds, until the corners of her lips curved.

Curiosity—and something far less innocent—was rising in her like a tide.

It turned out Shen Li had gone to pick up her uncle.

He’d just arrived from another city, carrying the faint scent of travel, his laughter loud and familiar. He patted her shoulder the moment they met.

They walked back toward the city together, eventually settling into a small, bustling eatery.

Steam rose from the soup pot, mingling with the scent of sauce and oil, the kind of warmth that made people loosen their guard.

Halfway through the meal, her uncle asked casually,

“Li, do you have a boyfriend?”

“When are you planning to find one? You’re not getting any younger.”

Shen Li kept her head lowered, picking up vegetables with her chopsticks, her movements unhurried. Her lips curved into a polite smile, her tone wrapped in a layer of gentle distance:

“My job’s not stable yet. I just want to focus on doing this part well first.”

Her uncle nodded with a simple “Ah,” and didn’t press further.

But a quiet weariness settled in her chest, like steam trapped under a lid—unseen by anyone else.

Her uncle didn’t seem to catch her meaning.

He placed a piece of meat into her bowl and sighed.

“You’re already 23years old… a few more years and it’ll be harder to find someone.”

“I really worry about your father, you know. A girl needs someone to rely on.”

Shen Li’s chopsticks tapped lightly against the rim of her bowl, a barely audible sound.

She didn’t lift her head. She didn’t answer.

Instead, she nudged the piece of meat gently to one side, as if focusing entirely on her meal.

Steam blurred the face across the table—and blurred her own thoughts along with it.

Silence was the safest reply.

Shen Li lifted her head suddenly, as if surfacing from a long stretch of silence.

Her gaze wasn’t sharp, but it sliced through the haze between them without warning.

“Uncle,” she asked softly, “my father… how has he been lately?”

Her uncle froze, chopsticks suspended midair.

For a moment, he seemed to be searching for the right words.

That half-second pause carried a faint, almost inaudible sigh, settling into the space between them.

The soup kept bubbling, and the air was thick with a taste that was hard to name—partly homely, partly heavy.

Her uncle finally set his chopsticks down, stirring the soup in his bowl with quiet circles.

“Your father… he’s still the same.”

He paused, as if choosing each word carefully. “No big health problems, but his temper… still stubborn. Won’t listen to anyone.”

He glanced up at her then, a faint smile on his lips that never reached his eyes.

“And you—don’t carry everything on your own. If you can, go see him sometimes. Family… no matter what, someone has to be there.”

Shen Li didn’t nod, didn’t argue. She simply took a spoonful of soup and swallowed slowly.

It tasted light, yet her throat caught on a strange bitterness.

Lin Tang leaned back in her chair, fingers gliding idly over her phone screen.

The little red dot had stopped along a street lined with restaurants.

She zoomed in, her fingertip pausing over an old, well-known place, a slight lift at the corner of her eyes.

A reflection in the restaurant’s glass revealed the feed from a nearby camera—Shen Li sitting beside a middle-aged man. Not a lover, more like family.

Lin Tang studied the quiet, downturned profile, a flicker of something—almost unrecognizable—passing through her gaze.

“So… dinner with family,” she murmured, as if confirming it to herself, or perhaps bookmarking it for a plan yet to come.

She withdrew her hand, set the phone face-down on the table, and let the faintest smile curl her lips.