After Surrendering Once, It Became a Habit
Ever since that unexpected incident, Zhang Lu felt that his current situation was even more miserable than serving time in a prison.
At least prisons had yard time.
At least he could catch a breath.
And now?
Jin Yuan practically grew attached to his side, almost becoming his shadow.
Not to mention eating and drinking, which Jin Yuan personally fed to his mouth, even when visiting the restroom, that pervert followed along without the slightest hint of disgust.
He left Zhang Lu with zero personal privacy.
What was even worse was that starting from that night, Jin Yuan did not spare him even after dark.
He directly climbed into his bed, or at least the bed that had been his exclusively to sleep in for this period of time.
Zhang Lu blew his lid right on the spot, shrinking toward the inner side of the bed while enduring the sharp pain in his lower back, his voice urgent and furious: “Jin Yuan, are you sick? Get the hell down!”
Jin Yuan ignored his low roar, firmly anchoring himself on the bed: “Move closer a bit; do not roll off in the middle of the night and hurt Xiao Xiao.”
“Get lost! With you here, how the hell am I supposed to sleep?” Zhang Lu was burning with frustration, yet he did not dare raise his volume, nor could he throw a punch.
Right now, his entire body ached at the slightest pull, and just breathing normally took effort.
“The bed is so big, how can you not sleep?” Jin Yuan inched closer, casually supporting Zhang Lu’s waist and pulling him toward the center of the bed.
Unable to win the struggle, and mindful of his belly and back, Zhang Lu could only let himself be handled stiffly. Finally, he closed his eyes in resentment, turning his back to Jin Yuan to play dead.
The night deepened.
I do not know how much time had passed when Zhang Lu was jolted awake by an extremely sharp, aching cramp.
It was not the wound on his back, but the calf of his right leg.
It felt as though an extremely thick steel bar had been forcibly twisted through his muscles. The entire calf muscle instantly turned as hard as a rock, and the spasmodic, agonizing pain made him gasp sharply.
“Hiss.”
Zhang Lu broke out in a cold sweat from the pain, instinctively wanting to curl his leg to rub it. But the moment he moved, it tugged at the contusion on his back, triggering another piercing wave of pain that forced a muffled groan straight out of him.
He could not reach it at all.
Just as he was in pain enough to see black spots and biting his teeth to tough it out, the steady-breathing body behind him instantly shifted.
Someone like Jin Yuan had a terrifyingly light sleep. The second Zhang Lu’s muscles tensed up, he was already awake.
“What is it?” Jin Yuan’s voice carried the hoarness of just waking up.
In the darkness, instead of turning on the blinding overhead light, he skillfully pressed the switch for the dim bedside lamp.
“Nothing. Do not touch. Do not touch me.” Zhang Lu gritted his teeth, trembling all over as he stubbornly shrank back toward the edge of the bed.
Jin Yuan completely ignored his bluff. He directly flipped back the thin quilt, his gaze locking with pinpoint accuracy onto Zhang Lu’s rigidly straight, slightly twitching right leg.
“Cramping?”
Jin Yuan’s tone was certain. Without another word, he sat straight up, forcefully grasping Zhang Lu’s ankle and dragging that spasming leg onto his own lap.
“Jin Yuan, let go!” Zhang Lu roared in pain, instinctively wanting to kick out.
“Do not thrash around; do you want to tear open the wound on your back again?” Jin Yuan warned in a deep voice, his hands carrying solid strength as they covered Zhang Lu’s rock-hard calf.
His thumb pinpointed the cramping acupoint and pressed down hard.
“Ugh, ah!” Zhang Lu jerked all over from the pain, his fingers gripping the bedsheet underneath for dear life.
Yet very soon, under Jin Yuan’s skillful, moderate kneading, that meat-grinding agony began to dissipate bit by bit.
The warmth of Jin Yuan’s palm transmitted continuously through the friction of their skin.
He was helping Zhang Lu massage the spasming muscles open bit by bit.
Zhang Lu’s rapid breathing sounded exceptionally clear in the quiet bedroom.
Looking at the grim reaper under the dim light, with lowered brows and a focused expression as he massaged his calf, Zhang Lu’s heart inexplicably skipped a beat.
How absurd.
“Feeling better?”
Jin Yuan did not look up, his large palm tracing upward along Zhang Lu’s calf all the way to press gently twice behind his knee, applying techniques so practiced it was as if he had rehearsed it a thousand times before.
“Yeah.”
Zhang Lu turned his head away in extreme awkwardness, burying his voice in the pillow while an incriminating flush uncontrollably crept up the tips of his ears.
Once the spasm passed, it was followed by a deeply indulgent wave of soreness and exhaustion.
Jin Yuan gently placed his leg back under the covers and lay down again.
Zhang Lu felt an itch in his heart like a goose feather dragging across it, itching so much he did not even have the energy left to shove him away.
Jin Yuan naturally encircled him from behind, one hand avoiding the wound on his back to rest firmly upon his slightly protruding lower abdomen, while his other hand gently massaged the sore muscles around his lower back.
“Sleep.” Jin Yuan pressed his lips against the back of Zhang Lu’s neck, murmuring a soft coaxing command.
Zhang Lu closed his eyes, resigning himself to his fate as he sank heavily into the pervert’s solid, powerful embrace to sleep.
After surrendering once, this became a routine.
Jin Yuan could no longer be chased away, hugging him to sleep every single night.
In the days that followed, Zhang Lu discovered in despair that his nocturnal life had completely lost its self-sufficiency, forcing him to adapt to another person’s all-encompassing attendance.
As his belly grew day by day, pressing against his organs, Zhang Lu’s frequency of waking up at night increased rapidly.
Every time he so much as furrowed his brow or brushed his back slightly against the mattress in an attempt to struggle upward for leverage, the furnace-like body behind him would wake up instantly.
“Going to the restroom?” Jin Yuan’s voice in the dark was always enviously clear-headed.
Without needing Zhang Lu to speak, Jin Yuan would rise a step ahead, skillfully supporting his lower back to steer clear of the still-aching contusions, half-carrying him to the bathroom.
Even when Zhang Lu was flushing red with embarrassment because his belly was too big to even bend down and untie his pants, Jin Yuan took over without changing expression, conveniently pinching the back of Zhang Lu’s neck with his fingertips to appease him before the older man could throw a fist in anger.
Sometimes it was a sudden midnight dryness in the throat.
Zhang Lu would usually just emit a vague, muffled swallow in his throat, not yet having the energy to reach for the bedside table, when a glass of warm water at just the right temperature was already handed to his lips.
Jin Yuan had even thoughtfully inserted a soft straw into the cup, leaning back against the headboard like this to indulgently watch Zhang Lu gulp down the water through the straw.
What was even more torturous was the belly’s periodic protests.
The fetus was growing at a rapid pace, and Zhang Lu’s lower abdomen would occasionally tighten without warning, hardening like a rock with a faint dragging sensation downwards.
Whenever this happened, Jin Yuan’s hands would naturally cover it.
He seemed to have specifically studied a certain technique, as his warm palms traced the edges of Zhang Lu’s taut belly, rubbing in circles with extreme patience.
“Xiao Xiao, stop tossing him around.” Jin Yuan whispered against his earlobe, sounding as though he were warning the cub inside or coaxing the man enduring pain in his arms.
And under this bizarre yet exceptionally effective pacification, that taut pain would always miraculously fade away slowly.
From Zhang Lu’s initial full-body stiffness and teeth-gritting resistance, to his numb compromise, and now, he would even close his eyes when his belly tightened in the middle of the night, reaching out out of sheer habit to grab Jin Yuan’s hand and guide it precisely onto his stomach.
There was only one thing Jin Yuan refused to take over.
And that was making Zhang Lu read picture books to the little one inside his belly.
This practically cost Zhang Lu his old life.
He had done everything in his life, but he had rarely ever picked up a book properly.
The disappearance of his parents forced him to shoulder the heavy burden of supporting the family and taking care of himself and his younger brother.
Schooling was first just a name on a roster where he occasionally showed up, until later on he simply dropped out altogether.
Now Jin Yuan was forcefully shoving colorful picture books into his hands.
Although those toddler stories were simple, Zhang Lu still constantly ran into characters he did not recognize.
Every single time, as if it were happening for the very first time, Jin Yuan would naturally fill in the character from the side.
As calm and matter-of-fact as breathing.
He did not mock him, nor did he act like he was bestowing a favor, but Zhang Lu knew this was Jin Yuan giving him a way out.
The method was pretending there was no way out at all.
Gradually, as time went on, before he even realized it himself, he had slowly grown accustomed to this absurd pre-bedtime prenatal education ritual.
He even subconsciously softened his voice when reading gentle sentences.
One night, while Zhang Lu was stammering through a story, he suddenly felt the breathing behind him grow exceptionally long and steady.
He paused, turning his head slightly.
Under the warm yellow bedside lamp, Jin Yuan leaned against the headboard with his head tilted slightly up, eyes half-closed, his entire body relaxed.
He was not asleep, because whenever Zhang Lu paused for a bit too long, the fingers Jin Yuan had resting on his waist would tap twice, as if urging him on or responding.
Zhang Lu’s breathing hitched.
A numb sensation abruptly welled up in his chest.
He did not know what that was.
A sudden thought drilled unceremoniously into his mind.
Perhaps the reason this madman was so persistent about having him read picture books was not just for Xiao Xiao.
It was also because of something else.
Zhang Lu thought of himself, and he thought of his younger brother.
In the memories of the two brothers, there had never been a story read to them by their parents at bedtime.
Being able to catch a glimpse of their family members occasionally was already an extravagant wish.
Zhang Lu had never imagined he would have a child; he felt his younger brother might be the one to have an ordinary, conventional happiness.
But not him; he could no longer enter a tranquil and peaceful life.
And the child was never meant to follow him through a life of drifting from place to place.
And now?
He was actually going to have a child, except it was growing right inside his own body.
And right at this moment, he was quietly reading a story.
The person connected by the other half of the child’s bloodline was staying right behind him, listening at leisure.
Could it be that Jin Yuan, this seemingly paranoid and crazy person, had also never experienced a childhood of being held by parents and told stories by the bedside?
In the end, Zhang Lu did not voice the question in his heart, choosing instead to cradle the picture book and read with even more earnestness than before.
Words slowly flowed out from his mouth, sounding as though they were read to the child in his womb, and just as much to the person behind him.
Once the story concluded, a cup of milk warmed to absolute perfection was handed over to the bedside.
Like some sort of ritual, Jin Yuan would pull him into his arms, and the two of them would sink into sleep locked in an embrace.
Zhang Lu understood Jin Yuan’s thoughts less and less, and grew increasingly vague about his own feelings.
Yet he had not extinguished the thought of escaping; he was waiting.