Su Lixia wanted to press his advantage and take another bite.
Before he knew it, the other man ducked and dodged. With a sharp clank, the bridge of his nose slammed straight into the hard corner of those eyeglass frames.
“Hiss!”
He sucked in a sharp breath, instantly growing a bit irritated. “When you’re doing this kind of thing, can you take off your damn glasses?”
“Doing this kind of thing?” Lin Jinsen furrowed his brow, his handsome face tensing up as his voice turned slightly raspy. “Unnecessary.”
Seeing him in such a flustered state, Su Lixia found it amusing. “Unnecessary?”
His voice took on a playful tease. “What, are you acting like some pampered young master now?”
Lin Jinsen instantly turned as stiff as wet wood, falling silent.
Su Lixia’s freed left hand reached out directly to pinch the frame of Lin Jinsen’s glasses, yanking them upward with the intent to toss them backward. Suddenly, a hand shot out from between the frames, grabbing his wrist. The man’s shirt-drenched arm was long, powerful, and toned.
He held him by the lower hand while Lin Jinsen raised his arm high above, battling it out with him.
Su Lixia lowered his gaze, frowning at Lin Jinsen, whose black hair was completely drenched.
“Don’t throw them. I don’t want to get a replacement pair,” Lin Jinsen said after a few seconds of silence.
“So precious?” Su Lixia inexplicably found him quite entertaining and let go of his hand. “Then shove them in my suit pocket. A hundred-thousand-dollar outfit doubling as your glasses case.”
Lin Jinsen pressed his lips together, took back his glasses, and stepped right in front of Su Lixia, blindly stuffing them into his pocket. The pocket was far too shallow, so they could only be wedged in diagonally, half inside and half outside getting drenched in the rain, bouncing up and down with Su Lixia’s every movement, looking as though they might slip out at any second.
Anxious, he reached out and pressed down on the pocket. His well-defined knuckles, slick from the cold water, lightly caressed the hollow of Su Lixia’s waist, hovering constantly in a state of almost-touching. Every now and then, his palm would press flat against him, only to be shaken off by the other man.
Without his glasses, Lin Jinsen’s vision was blurry at first, but it slowly began to focus.
In this cold, damp, and cramped space, his gaze inadvertently swept over the collar of Su Lixia’s shirt, which had been unbuttoned for a while now. Fine threads of water moistened the skin, revealing a silver chain strung with a pendant made of several small green diamonds in the shape of a lychee. As it shifted, it flickered under the light, the only hint of red being an elusive spot on the lychee stem.
After staring for a long time, he finally realized that the speck of red wasn’t some blood-red diamond; it was a small mole right on Su Lixia’s collarbone.
“Stop lingering near my waist with your hands, it tickles.” Annoyed, Su Lixia slapped his hand away, then casually shut off the shower head and looked up at him. “Getting drenched and soaked into my clothes is horribly uncomfortable.”
Lin Jinsen fell silent for a few seconds.
Su Lixia burst out laughing. “How on earth did someone with your lack of situational awareness manage to get into a VIP lounge? Did you just rely on your face?”
“”
Lin Jinsen took a deep breath, raising his eyes to cast a silent, fleeting glance at him. Looking thoroughly reluctant, he took the initiative to step forward and serve him, helping him peel off the water-logged suit jacket.
He tugged at Su Lixia’s left sleeve, pulling it off as the other man half-heartedly cooperated and extended his arm. The movement was a bit too forceful, causing the water-logged white shirt underneath to cling like a second skin tightly across his chest. Milk-white and gleaming with moisture, it looked as though the hard, bitter husk of a lychee had just been peeled away by him, revealing the dense, firm, translucent flesh within.
Su Lixia paused, gesturing for him to take off the other sleeve, but the man’s gaze was clearly out of focus for a second. Deciding against it, Su Lixia yanked the other sleeve off himself and tossed it toward the bathtub next to Lin Jinsen to hang.
The sudden removal of the palm caused Lin Jinsen to freeze mid-motion, blanking out for a brief second before another cool palm pressed over him. He shuddered, lowering his drenched black hair to gaze fixedly at a certain spot.
Averting his gaze, Lin Jinsen lifted his head, breathing heavily with a strained expression as his dry throat rasped out a warning: “That’s enough. You. You move away.”
Su Lixia raised an eyebrow, knowing he was close. Enduring the dull ache in his hand, he kept up his mischief, purely wanting to see this pretending-to-be-composed phony lose control and fall apart. The lychee pendant on his chest bounced against Lin Jinsen’s body multiple times.
With a dark expression, Lin Jinsen abruptly turned and pulled away, splattering freshly fermented, high-temperature Greek yogurt all over Su Lixia’s custom-tailored suit.
“Even if global inflation hits condoms, using a 188,000-dollar guy like you makes you one of a kind.” Su Lixia twisted his words with sarcastic passive-aggressiveness.
Lin Jinsen: “I’ll wash it and return it to you, along with this tie.”
“Wash it? What’s the point of washing it when cashmere and silk fabrics touch…” Su Lixia caught himself just in time to swallow the word water, realizing he had no right to blame the guy since the clothes had already been ruined by the rain earlier. He coughed twice. “Anyway, I don’t want it anymore. Do whatever you want with it.”
Thinking the man found him dirty, Lin Jinsen blindly searched for his glasses inside his suit pocket, wiped the lenses with the wet hem of his shirt, and put them back on.
“I’ll wash it for you, whether you want it back is your business. And just now. Thanks.” With that, he began silently putting his clothes and pants back on.
The heated atmosphere took a sharp plunge. Infected by the other’s mood, Su Lixia felt a baffling sense of frustration. Realizing that he, the great Young Master Su, had just been given the cold shoulder by a mere attendant, a wave of lingering irritation flared up inside him.
His eyes glinting with a cold light, he let out a scoff. “The clothes are already ruined, what’s the point of washing them? Besides, you already owe me anyway, when you’ve got too many debts, you stop worrying about the weight. I’ll give you a discount, let’s call it 180,000, and just tack it onto your tab. Factoring it in according to our contract, you’ll just have to stay and keep me company for a few more days.”
Hearing this, Lin Jinsen raised his eyes, sparks seemingly flashing in his dark pupils as he stared at him for a long moment before speaking: “No discount needed. 11.656, let’s call it 12 days.”
Taken aback, Su Lixia was momentarily stunned by his audacity. “Are you an AI? You calculated that so fast.” He chuckled, raising his chin slightly to gesture toward him with a look in his eyes. “Then go ahead and explain how tonight counts.”
Lin Jinsen choked, cornered at his own game.
Su Lixia was amused by the kaleidoscope of conflicting expressions crossing the other’s face. Beaming with delight, he shot him an ambiguous, flirtatious smile:
“Do you know how a real diamond has to be cut?”
He said leisurely, “You have to use another diamond to fight hard with hard. When cutting and polishing a diamond, you use its harder direction to grind down the softer direction of another. Only a diamond can grind a diamond.”
Lin Jinsen: “”
Seeing that his face had actually darkened, Su Lixia deliberately provoked him further: “I just love playing it this way. Two hard things clashing together brings quite a rush.”
Lin Jinsen: “You didn’t have any reaction even after smoking so many cigars. Are you sure it’ll work with your ex-boyfriend?”
Su Lixia choked, almost failing to process the words before his eyes turned a peculiar, challenging shade of narrow. “Ex-boyfriend?”
Lin Jinsen paused. “You said I looked like his, didn’t you?”
“Absolute bullshit!” Speechless, Su Lixia narrowed his eyes, quickly seizing the dramatic hook and feeling like he had recaptured the high ground. “You mere substitute, do you even deserve to bring him up?”
Lin Jinsen’s expression turned grim as he clenched his hands at his sides.
Prompted by a sudden thought, Su Lixia grew even more aggressive and annoyed. “And what did you mean by what you said earlier? Are you implying that I can’t cut it?!” His voice shot up an octave.
With a cold face, Lin Jinsen retorted, “If you could cut it, why did you smoke so many and still haven’t…”
“That’s because I have no feelings for you!” Su Lixia interrupted the blockhead with a cold sneer, his tone sharp and fierce. “If it wasn’t for the fact that you look like him tonight, do you think I’d be willing to sit here busting my hands trying to get you off, all while getting my suit covered in mess?”
“Because I look like him?” Lin Jinsen stared right at him, pronouncing every single word.
“How else? Did you think you were worthy?” Su Lixia glanced at him unfeelingly, letting out a scoff.
Lin Jinsen: “”
Staring at him with a darkened, fixed gaze, he thought to himself: You deserve to not be able to get it up.
Noticing something off about his look, Su Lixia furiously demanded an explanation: “Were you just cursing me out in your head, weren’t you?”
Lowering his gaze, Lin Jinsen replied, “No, client.”
“Heh, remembered I’m your client now, huh?” Su Lixia was practically itching with anger.
He shot a gloomy, piercing glare at Lin Jinsen.
Damn it! This stupid fake, I am definitely going to toy with you until you break.
He turned around, walked back to the sink to wash his hands thoroughly twice, then pulled out his phone and ordered him: “Bring your phone over and add my ID. I’m sending the substitute contract over to you, sign it right now.”
Pressing his lips together, Lin Jinsen fished his waterproof backup phone out of his pants pocket, walked over, and scanned the other man’s QR code, pulling up an interface.
Born rich, and I’m sorry about it
He paused for a second, tightened his grip on the phone, and clicked to send a friend request.
Seeing the screen display Sand Man, Su Lixia remained expressionless for a second before nearly laughing out loud at the chuni username.
His bad mood instantly evaporated. Turning back, he forwarded the electronic contract for the Substitute Agreement straight to Lin Jinsen.
Accepting it, Lin Jinsen opened the file and rapidly yet meticulously scanned through the clauses, pausing as he realized the terms were far more shameless than he had imagined.
Summarizing them, three clauses stood out as completely unbearable:
Whenever Party A requests a meeting, Party B must be available on-call at any time.
Party B has the sole and exclusive right to refuse sexual intercourse. Aside from this, Party B must fulfill any and all demands made by Party A, including but not limited to imitating Party C, the person being substituted for.
Party A holds the right to reward or punish Party B, and Party B must comply unconditionally; failure to do so will result in a penalty equivalent to 100 times the debt.
After reading through it, Lin Jinsen’s face turned pitch black.
One hundred times three million, wasn’t that three hundred million?
“Finished reading? Then sign it.” Su Lixia leaned lazily against the door, carrying the air of someone waiting for a sheep to walk right into a tiger’s den.
Taking a deep breath, Lin Jinsen figured half a year, well, half a year and twelve days, wasn’t that long. He scrolled down to the very bottom of the contract and saw the name of Party A.
Xia Li.
Xia Li…
He mentally searched his memory, confirming he had zero recollection of this name. Yet he was certain of one thing: this Xia Li’s disgust and hatred toward him were by no means fake. Could it really be that he looked so much like his white moonlight that it drove him to unrequited love, turning that love into bitter hatred?
Raising his eyes, he saw that the collar of Su Lixia’s white shirt was still wide open, and the lychee pendant hanging around his neck partially concealed that elusive, faint red mole. Leaning against the doorway with his head tilted, he looked back lazily, his rosy lips curled into an indifferent, cold, and callous smile.
A top-tier, hedonistic playboy who fancied himself deeply devoted and decided to play out a substitution game.
Lin Jinsen felt as though the cigar smoke he had inadvertently inhaled into his lungs earlier was silently creeping back up his throat, clashing with the hint of lychee fragrance lingering in his nasal passages, sharp yet spicy, bitter yet sweet, stirring up an impending loss of control once again. His brain uncontrollably replayed the words:
If it wasn’t for the fact that you look like him?
If it wasn’t for the fact that you look like him.
Do you even deserve to bring him up?
Do you even deserve to bring him up.
I can’t bear to let you go.
I can’t bear to let you go.
With a cold face, he looked up.
“I have one demand too. Don’t ever drug me like that again.”
Taken aback for a split second, Su Lixia smiled playfully. “No problem.”
After adding this clause, Lin Jinsen tapped on the signature pad and rapidly scribbled three characters in a sweeping, cursive hand. At the same time, Su Lixia opened his end of the contract to sign.
Lin Jinsen
Xia Li
Neither of us is using our real name anyway, they both thought simultaneously.