By nightfall, Lin Zhuo walked out of the classroom.
The night was heavy and thick, with a chilly breeze rustling.
Just as he stepped down to the first floor, Fu Baizhou called him.
He swiped the screen to answer, and the other person’s voice was low and pleasant, “How much longer until you come out?”
The campus was filled with laughter, chatter, and the sounds of people horsing around. The dim streetlights acted like insignificant suns, stretching and shortening his shadow.
Walking as he spoke, Lin Zhuo answered, “Five minutes and I’ll be at the school gate.”
He walked up to a shared bicycle, scanned the code to unlock it, held the phone in one hand and gripped the handlebars with the other.
Up until now, Lin Zhuo still felt a sense of unreality about re-entering school.
It felt like a grand dream, waking up to find his life remained desolate.
Yet the grueling, sleep-deprived studying over this period told him those weren’t dreams at all. They were real, except all of this came from that contraption called a system.
“I’ll wait for you where you get off.” Fu Baizhou didn’t hang up the phone, listening to the wind and the noisy sounds on the other end.
To him, these noises were all noise pollution, which he disliked, but he couldn’t bear to hang up either. At least he knew the person holding the phone was the one he loved.
Lin Zhuo said a brief word, hung up the phone, put his phone away, and rode the bike to the school gate.
After returning the bike, he walked over to the school gate and saw Fu Baizhou standing beneath a streetlight. His strands of hair seemed gilded with a layer of golden light under the lamp, shining brilliantly.
Before he could speak, Fu Baizhou seemed to sense his presence, his gaze locking onto him.
The next moment, he covered the distance to Lin Zhuo in three or four long strides.
Seeing that Fu Baizhou was about to speak, Lin Zhuo worried he might use an inappropriate form of address and moved to stop him just as he heard, “How was school?”
Not calling him wife was a true stroke of luck.
He breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that Fu Baizhou still remembered their agreement.
Pondering for a moment, Lin Zhuo said, “It’s alright, just a bit boring.”
Fu Baizhou didn’t answer him immediately, complex emotions roiling in his eyes. After suppressing them, he said, “Let’s head to the car first.”
Once the two of them got into the car, Fu Baizhou suddenly grabbed Lin Zhuo’s hand.
Lin Zhuo instinctively wanted to pull his hand back. After all, they were still outside the school, and it wouldn’t look good if people saw.
Yet seeing Fu Baizhou’s injured expression, he held back.
The space inside the car grew cramped, even though the SUV An Wan had prepared for Lin Zhuo was quite spacious.
Perhaps it was because Fu Baizhou was tall and carried an oppressive presence.
“Can you not go to school anymore? I don’t get to see my wife all day, and it makes me unhappy.”
This was the first time the two of them had been separated for this long.
Initially, Lin Zhuo had wanted to beg his aunt to get Fu Baizhou into school as well, but getting himself into school was already troublesome enough. Adding another person might give his aunt even more headaches to manage.
He was already being selfish enough.
Lin Zhuo said, “You can send me messages. I’ll reply whenever I see them.”
He knew that as long as he coaxed Fu Baizhou just a little, he would rein in his petty tantrums.
This was an experience he had gathered from their months of getting along.
At first, Lin Zhuo didn’t want to use this tactic, but later he found that avoiding unnecessary trouble was better than courting it, so he gradually grew accustomed to coaxing a moody Fu Baizhou.
He just treated him like a child.
“But wife takes a long time to reply.” Fu Baizhou remained unhappy.
Lin Zhuo stated, “I’m there to study, so naturally my replies won’t be very fast.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t go to school anymore.” Fu Baizhou probed tentatively.
Lin Zhuo had studied bitterly for several months and had even relied on pulling strings to get crammed in there. If he quit on the very first day, he wouldn’t even need his aunt to take action; he would beat himself to death first.
“Fu Baizhou, if you keep acting like this I’m going to get angry. If you’re genuinely bored, you can go out and find a job.”
His willingness to keep Fu Baizhou by his side was entirely to observe his motives. Finding that he had no world-destroying ambitions, he naturally didn’t want to keep tabs on him too tightly.
He had his own private life to attend to as well.
Every time the system reported progress, it always said the mission progress was under ten percent, yet it never rushed him, probably knowing this was an exceptionally difficult task to finish, and thus wanting to let him improvise freely.
Fu Baizhou knew nothing after losing his memory, yet he was completely obedient toward him. Based on this point alone, he could tolerate Fu Baizhou’s occasional willful behavior.
“Wife, don’t be angry, I’ll be good.” Fu Baizhou immediately softened.
Lin Zhuo gave Fu Baizhou’s hair a symbolic pat. In his eyes, this gesture was simply a way of soothing a ruffled animal.
Fu Baizhou started the car and drove off.
As soon as he entered the front door, Lin Zhuo collapsed onto the sofa. Fu Baizhou brought the dishes that had been kept warm in the pot over to the coffee table, saying, “Wife, they’re still hot.”
During evening self-study, he had messaged Fu Baizhou to prepare some steamed dumplings as a late-night snack.
Perhaps Fu Baizhou had spoiled his palate over this period, as he could no longer get used to takeout food from outside.
After finishing the late-night snack, the day’s fatigue dissipated somewhat.
He sat for a little while before heading to the bathroom to wash up, emerging around eleven o’clock at night.
Lin Zhuo thought to himself, though Fu Baizhou currently had no motive to destroy the world, ever since he left today, he had kept the system monitoring Fu Baizhou’s movements, terrified that a momentary lapse in attention would force him to reload a save.
Fortunately, Fu Baizhou had stayed at home all day today, eating, sleeping, and playing video games, with all the remaining time spent sleeping.
Tossing and turning in bed, Lin Zhuo considered that since Fu Baizhou had expressed his feelings, it meant he didn’t want to stay home alone. Should he find him a part-time job to do?
Just as he was pondering this matter, Fu Baizhou suddenly pushed the door open and walked in, holding his phone out in front of him as he said, “Wife, I want to work a part-time job at the school.”
Lin Zhuo blankly took the phone, which displayed a recruitment poster for the school’s snack stall.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Wife, I’ve been so good today, is there any reward?” If he had a tail, it definitely would have curled high up in the air.
Lin Zhuo opened his mouth to say no, but the words instantly morphed on his lips into, “What do you want?”
“Sleeping with wife tonight?” Seeing Lin Zhuo relent, Fu Baizhou’s eyes lit up as he asked tentatively.
Lin Zhuo knocked Fu Baizhou on the head. “No way.”
He always maintained a shred of rationality in this regard.
What Fu Baizhou was thinking, he didn’t know, but every time the man pushed his luck, it felt like a test, testing where his bottom line lay.
The initial kiss, followed by sharing a bed.
If his stance weren’t firm enough, his purity might already be compromised.
Hearing Lin Zhuo reject him so decisively, Fu Baizhou instantly drooped his head like a wilted flower.
“Wife, you’re so merciless.” Fu Baizhou’s eye corners drooped down like an injured puppy.
Being a visual animal at heart, Lin Zhuo found Fu Baizhou’s face too attractive, and when the man put on a grievance-stricken expression, his heart naturally softened.
Whenever this happened, he couldn’t help thinking that he must have owed the guy in a past life, or else why would his heart refuse to harden when facing him.
“Be good, rest early. Don’t you have an interview tomorrow?” Lin Zhuo could only change the subject to keep him from dwelling on this matter.
With a slumped face, Fu Baizhou said, “Wife, goodnight.”
Once Fu Baizhou went out, Lin Zhuo lay back down.
The night was deep and dew-heavy, with moonlight hanging high in mid-air like a cold blade.
Creak.
Lin Zhuo’s bedroom door was pushed open, and the tall man slowly walked toward the bedside.
The person on the bed had already entered deep sleep, showing no signs of being startled awake.
He lay sprawled out entirely ungracefully. His shirt hem was rolled up, exposing a slender, fair patch of waist.
A low chuckle spilled from the man’s throat, a sound chilling enough to cause goosebumps.
Two tentacles grew out from the darkness behind him, extending straight toward the person on the bed.