It was a rare sunny day in late autumn.
The sunlight streaming into the window finally brought a bit of life back into the hospital room, and a small potted plant resting on the windowsill was stretching out its branches toward the light.
With his back to Lian Que, Chen Xingjian was using a plastic mineral water bottle to water the greenery on the windowsill.
Rustling sounds came from the hospital bed before finally returning to silence.
“Awoken?” Chen Xingjian set down the mineral water bottle in his hand and touched the slightly withered edge of a green leaf.
Lian Que closed his eyes tightly, before finally giving up to despair and poking his head out from under the blankets, giving a muffled response.
It was too humiliating. He had been knocked flat with a single blow from behind, practically without a shred of ability to fight back.
It made him look completely weak and pathetic.
“Actually, I’m not that fragile either. That bastard blindsided me from behind with a sneak attack, and I just didn’t react in time. Otherwise, I definitely could’ve exchanged at least a couple of moves with him…” Lian Que made a dying struggle.
Chen Xingjian stood up and walked over to the bedside, blocking a large portion of the sunlight from the window. Half of his face was concealed in shadow, obscuring his expression.
His pupils were also cast in a pale gold hue, softening the sharp, imposing aura about him.
Lian Que was pinned beneath his unblinking gaze before suddenly being asked out of nowhere:
“What am I to you?”
Lian Que froze for a second, his pair of almond-shaped eyes widening slightly.
Why on earth was he being tested on reading comprehension the moment he woke up from bed?
Without even a single second of buffer time, Chen Xingjian truly was a black-hearted capitalist.
The soft flesh by his cheek was suddenly pinched, and Chen Xingjian leaned down.
The distance between the two of them instantly closed. Lian Que instinctively softened his breathing, worried that his exhalations might accidentally brush against Chen Xingjian’s face.
Pinching the bit of soft flesh on Lian Que’s cheek, Chen Xingjian repeated his previous question.
“What am I to you?”
The off-white hospital ceiling made people’s eyes ache. The footsteps of nurses outside the room, the conversations of patients, and the sliding of iron wheelchairs were all exceptionally clear at this moment.
A light pink blush crept across Lian Que’s face as he stammered out: “H, Husband?”
He and Chen Xingjian had already signed a marriage agreement, so calling him that probably wasn’t a problem.
Yet at certain times, Lian Que possessed an alarming sharpness.
Before that “husband” could even fully leave his lips, he recalled how Chen Xingjian hadn’t even been willing to give him a proper status or title back at that gathering, and hurriedly added a prefix to the front.
“Nominal husband?”
Chen Xingjian pulled his hand back. One of his hands suddenly reached the top of Lian Que’s head and pressed the call button.
Lian Que swore he saw it clear as day: there was utter disgust in Chen Xingjian’s eyes as he looked at him.
He hadn’t even started (disdaining) Chen Xingjian for being stingy yet; what qualification did Chen Xingjian have to disdain him?
“I’m already awake, why are you still pressing the call button?” Unhappy in his heart and emboldened by his illness, Lian Que dared to give Chen Xingjian attitude. “You’re the one who insisted on asking, and now that I answered, you’re unhappy with it.”
“You have to say something that actually makes me happy. Husband is husband, what’s with the ‘nominal husband’?” Chen Xingjian’s expression remained detached, his tone cold and stern. “Does that mean you have other husbands?”
Unreasonable!
Simply bearing false witness!
Lian Que completely abandoned the struggle, dropping his head to start scrolling through his phone.
He tapped open his Moments at random, and right at the very top was Lian Cheng.
Lian Cheng was cupping his face, showing off the invitation letter for the jewelry exhibition to the camera with an unconcealable look of smug triumph.
Mutual friends in the comments were all blowing a continuous stream of rainbow farts:
[With Chengcheng making a move, a mere jewelry exhibition is basically in the bag, right?]
[When you achieve wealth and honor, don’t forget your brothers! Make sure to pull us up when you’re working at Yuanhe in the future!]
[Uncle really ought to open his eyes and take a good look with a son as outstanding as Chengcheng, why bother paying any mind to some illegitimate child outside?]
Lian Que had originally just wanted to unwind a bit by opening his phone, but the longer he looked at it, the more his anger flared up.
Pull us up?
Based on someone of Lian Cheng’s caliber, once things succeeded, if he didn’t have his bros dragging him down, he’d already consider Lian Cheng well-raised.
Lian Que instinctively reached a hand up toward his forehead, but instead of touching smooth skin, he only brushed against layers of thick bandages.
In an instant, his heart felt as though it had dropped into an empty void.
His gaze lost its usual composure, immediately panicking as though an invisible hand were directly choking his throat.
“Be careful, the wound on your head hasn’t healed yet.” Chen Xingjian walked over briskly to check Lian Que’s condition. “What’s wrong? What are you panicking about?”
Fine beads of sweat broke out across Lian Que’s palms, glowing with uneasy light under the lights. He wanted to speak, but abruptly found himself unable to spit out a single syllable.
Chen Xingjian grabbed the cup of water from the bedside table and fed it to Lian Que’s lips, which finally allowed him to catch his breath smoothly.
“A mirror! I want a mirror!”
That bastard Lian Cheng he had recorded his audition video well in advance, and dreamed up countless ways to spend that million-dollar prize money. If Lian Cheng ended up winning first place in the end, he might as well just faint right now and never wake up again for the rest of his life.
Chen Xingjian gestured with his hand, calling over two people.
In less than two minutes, a large mirror was carried right in front of Lian Que.
Lian Que buried his face deep in his palms, only daring to peek at the opposite mirror through the gaps between his fingers.
Reflected in the mirror was a face crowned with a gigantic patch of gauze, looking haggard, with faint dark circles under the eyes, pale lips, and an oily sheen on the tip of the nose.
Lian Que had never imagined in his life that he could look so ugly.
He had called Chen Xingjian husband while wearing this very face no wonder Chen Xingjian wasn’t pleased.
If someone else wore a face like this and called him husband, he would’ve told them to scram eight miles away long ago.
Lian Que waved his hand, signaling for them to haul the mirror away from his face. His shoulders slumped, and the entire person looked as though all his life force had been sucked dry. Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes, but he stubbornly refused to let them fall.
Chen Xingjian handed Lian Que a couple of tissues, entirely failing to understand why he had asked for the mirror to be brought over only to start crying.
“Should I have them bring you an even bigger mirror?” he tentatively offered.
Was he trying to let him appreciate this ugly mug in high definition and then terrorize him to death?
Fighting back his tears, Lian Que glared accusingly at Chen Xingjian, turned away, and refused to speak.
Chen Xingjian finally caught a small glimpse of this helpless, dead-end feeling.
Sighing, he slipped off the decorative ring from his hand and shoved it straight into Lian Que’s palm, treating him purely like a crying toddler.
Cradling the ring in his hands, Lian Que examined it left and right, confirming that it was indeed the exact same ring Chen Xingjian had used to tease him last time. The restless anxiety in his heart finally subsided a bit.
Wiping away his tears and sniffing his nose, he choked out between sobs: “Too ugly… the bandage is so ugly, and my face is so ugly too.”
Chen Xingjian fell silent, raising his eyes to appraise Lian Que.
Fair is fair, Lian Que’s face merely looked a bit more haggard than usual; it was nowhere close to being deserving of the word “ugly.”
It was just that his complexion was a bit sickly pale, and with the thick bandages wrapped around his forehead, it simply made him look all the more pitiful.
“Not that bad.”
“How is it not that bad?” Tears still in his eyes, Lian Que gnashed his teeth. “I make my living off this face! I’m supposed to go participate in the exhibition soon what if my forehead ends up scarred?”
His face! His million-dollar prize money! It was all gone!
Chen Xingjian lightly massaged his brow with his fingertips and let out a soft sigh. “Alright, it’s not entirely without room for maneuver.”