Urged on by Chen Xingjian, Assistant Zhao drove all the way back to the hospital. Upon arriving at the hospital entrance, however, Chen Xingjian decided not to go inside right away, instead leaning leisurely against the doorway of the hospital room to look at his phone.
Assistant Zhao didn’t dare to rush him, simply keeping his head lowered while his peripheral vision caught President Chen tapping through a few files seemingly related to some prior collaboration work.
Once Chen Xingjian finished handling his tasks and was just about to push the door open and go inside, he caught the sound of full-bodied, robust energy coming from within the hospital room.
“I want to drink water, I can’t reach it.”
Assistant Zhao was taken aback, nearly suspecting that he and President Chen had walked into the wrong hospital room.
Back when he had first encountered Mr. Lian, the man always spoke in a tender, delicate voice, sounding as though even his sneezes were soft and tiny, utterly pitiful.
“Hahaha, th-this is probably just because Mr. Lian has been admitted to the hospital and his throat feels a bit uncomfortable.”
Chen Xingjian shot him a sideways glance. “Did you sneakily drink disinfectant down at the hospital lobby?”
Assistant Zhao had nothing more to say.
Chen Xingjian pushed the door open and entered, clearly startling Lian Que and causing the water in his cup to nearly spill all over the quilt.
“Sir, when did you get here?” Lian Que asked.
“Right when you started shouting for water,” Chen Xingjian replied.
The atmosphere was slightly tense, permeating all around with the awkwardness of having one’s disguise exposed.
“I wasn’t putting on a fake voice, really. That’s just how my voice sounds right now; my throat was just a little uncomfortable just a second ago,” Lian Que explained, though no matter how he spun it, it sounded forced and labored.
Standing at the doorway, Chen Xingjian wore an unchanged expression, leaving it a mystery whether he believed it or not.
Lian Que deliberately sought to change the subject, pulling out his phone to voice his grievances: “Sir, why are you like this! I recorded that video using that cat special effect several times over.”
Coming straight out the gate calling him ugly—who acts like that? Even if he was a sugar daddy, he wasn’t allowed to question him like that.
Throwing back the blankets with a single motion, he kicked his legs into his shoes, and holding his phone high, he rushed right up in front of Chen Xingjian. “You definitely didn’t even click on the video to watch it, which is why you called it ugly. Take a good, serious look at it right in front of me now, I refuse to believe you’ll still think it’s ugly.”
Chen Xingjian glanced past him toward Assistant Zhao outside, and Assistant Zhao, possessing exceptional situational awareness, immediately stepped out and carefully pulled the hospital room door shut behind him.
Naturally, Chen Xingjian wasn’t short on cash, so he had naturally booked a premier VIP suite for him the bed was spacious, and the bedding was impeccably clean.
Without any hesitation, Chen Xingjian climbed straight onto the bed and crooked his finger toward Lian Que. “Come here.”
Like calling a dog.
Those four words unbidden popped into Lian Que’s mind.
Still, a person living under someone else’s roof has no choice but to lower their head; since his food, clothing, and shelter were all funded by Chen Xingjian’s money, there was no helping it if the man wanted to play with him like a little puppy.
The persona Lian Que had established for himself was a sympathetic, understanding confidant, not an independent, self-reliant white lotus.
Having completed his mental self-adjustment, Lian Que shuffled over in his slippers, knelt up beside the edge of the bed while still holding his phone up high.
“Two cats, one big and one small,” Chen Xingjian finally offered as an evaluation.
After taking a moment to process it, Lian Que realized Chen Xingjian was referring to himself and his digital counterpart on the screen.
Tilting his head, he pressed his fair, clear face right up next to the screen like a little sparrow on a tree branch, chattering away: “Really ugly? Doesn’t this look pretty good?”
With a sweep of his arm, Chen Xingjian hauled Lian Que straight into his embrace, taking the opportunity to bury his face directly into the crook of Lian Que’s shoulder.
A cozy, soothing fragrance drifted over from Lian Que, like a little spring flower in bloom.
Previously, he had always caught faint, elusive traces of fragrance lingering around Lian Que, and only now did Chen Xingjian truly catch the full scent.
Feeling the weight settling against his neck and shoulders, Lian Que held up his phone without daring to make a sound, only feeling bewildered by Chen Xingjian’s uncharacteristic behavior today.
He cautiously inquired: “Sir, did someone tick you off today?”
Chen Xingjian’s movements paused for a split second before the arm circling Lian Que’s waist tightened even further. “What are you letting your imagination run wild for? Who would dare tick me off?”
Giving it some careful thought, Lian Que figured that made sense. Even if Chen Xingjian walked sideways through Beijing, a whole crowd would still rush up to lavish him with flattery, praising him for being uniquely independent; who on earth would ever dare give him attitude or make him upset?
“Hmph, well Sir better not make me upset, especially by calling me ugly on purpose.” Looking peeved, Lian Que lowered his head to pick at his fingers with a sulky, indifferent air.
Chen Xingjian remarked, “You sure hold a grudge.”
“Well of course”
Before Lian Que could even finish his sentence, a pair of hands slid right along the hem of his shirt and slipped inside his embrace, pinching and rubbing here and there as if Chen Xingjian were specifically looking for a tour guide to introduce him to every single part of his body.
The scorching-hot palms pressed against his lower back like a small furnace, burning Lian Que until his entire body felt ill at ease.
And yet, this time he hadn’t even had any alcohol to fortify his courage; his entire consciousness was crystal clear, making his waist and the rest of his frame tremble with shallow shivers.
“What are you shivering for?” Chen Xingjian asked knowingly, whispering right against his ear.
Enduring the tickling sensation, Lian Que let out a muffled groan. “N-not hiding from you.”
Biting each other’s ears in whispers, the seductive, undercurrent-laden tides surged and intertwined between their breaths, making Chen Xingjian’s actions grow even more unrestrained as his hands slid all the way upward, leaving trails of fire everywhere they touched.
“My, my head is still hurt.” Looking pitiful, Lian Que attempted to awaken the very last shred of conscience remaining in Chen Xingjian’s heart.
Perhaps it was because he had this warm, soft beauty cradled in his arms, but Chen Xingjian proved far more easygoing than usual. With half-closed eyes, he partitioned off a sliver of mental focus to coax Lian Que:
“I won’t use that place.”
“We’ll be gentle.”
This little green plum fruit belonging to Lian Que hadn’t even fully ripened yet before he was coaxed by Chen Xingjian into complete disorientation within moments, a pool of moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes.
Just as Chen Xingjian saw that Lian Que was in roughly the right state and prepared to get down to business and swallow this little green plum whole into his stomach, the door was suddenly knocked upon from the outside.
“Get lost!” Chen Xingjian’s expression turned ashen, infuriated to the point of a flare-up.
Was there ever a worse time to knock? Could the knock really not wait a little later, as if the house were on fire?
Lian Que snapped out of his daze in a mild fog, his almond eyes swimming with watery light as he gazed blankly at Chen Xingjian, his soft arms looping around the man’s shoulders while still failing to comprehend what had just happened.
Someone patted the top of his head, and Chen Xingjian pulled Lian Que back into his embrace. “It’s fine, let’s keep going.”
Before the doorway had even settled down for long, the knocking rang out insistently once more.
Infuriated to the point where the veins on his forehead throbbed, the gloomy aura radiating off Chen Xingjian was fierce enough to practically set the entire hospital room ablaze.
By this point, even with his head still a bit muddled, Lian Que finally grasped what was going on.
He pushed himself up from the bed, tidied up Chen Xingjian’s collar, and said, “It’s probably something urgent. You should go out and take a look.”
The meal he had practically coaxed right into his sleeping quarters had just flown away.
Chen Xingjian had no choice but to get out of bed and pull open the door, only to find Assistant Zhao shrinking his head back in apprehension at the threshold.
With a gaze as frigid and piercing as the winter wind, Chen Xingjian warned, “You’d better have a genuinely emergency reason for this knock.”
Taking one look at the state of the hospital room, Assistant Zhao knew exactly what had been going on, but he had to bite the bullet and press forward: “There’s a board meeting today. If you don’t show up, we won’t be able to keep those old foxes downstairs in check.”
Chen Xingjian frowned. “Go get the car ready and wait for me downstairs at the hospital entrance.”
When he turned back around to return to the hospital room, Lian Que was still sitting in a daze on the bed.
Throwing on his jacket, Chen Xingjian instructed, “Stop spacing out. Aren’t you stewing in your own frustration because the Lian family tried to scheme against you? By tomorrow at the latest, the Lian family will come over in person to apologize to you.”
Lian Que’s eyes instantly lit up with vigor, though he immediately added: “My frustration isn’t just because of the Lian family.”
“Hmm?” Chen Xingjian’s movements paused slightly.
Lian Que wore a wronged expression: “It’s also because of what you said about me being ugly.”