Hearing this, Fu Baizhou lowered his head, his gaze dark and obscure.
When he raised his head to look at Lin Zhuo, his eye sockets were brimming with tears. “Is my wife planning to abandon me?”
Normally, a grown man crying like this would make Lin Zhuo feel disgusted. Perhaps because Fu Baizhou’s face was simply too pretty, he found himself unable to spit out any harsh words.
As expected, humans were visual creatures.
Lin Zhuo handed Fu Baizhou a tissue and said, “No, I just meant where do you plan to go once your injuries heal?”
The afternoon sunlight streamed in through the glass, slanting across the white floor tiles and shining with a faint glare.
Lin Zhuo sat on the hospital bed with his back to the light, his facial features somewhat blurred in the shadows.
Fu Baizhou stared intently at his face, the air in the room condensing into a misty haze, unclear and vague.
After a long moment, his voice rang out in the ward with a resounding certainty: “Wherever my wife goes, I go!”
Hearing this answer, Lin Zhuo let out a sigh of relief.
Judging by how things were developing, keeping Fu Baizhou by his side was the best course of action.
The system had told him to stop Fu Baizhou from destroying the world, and right now, he did not even know what kind of person Fu Baizhou was. Naturally, he needed to keep the man close so he could observe his motives at any time.
Moreover, Fu Baizhou’s memory was messed up, treating him as a life-saving benefactor and showing a great deal of reliance on him. Perhaps this could also be used to keep his behavior in check.
“Then you have to be obedient, or else I will throw you away.” Facing Fu Baizhou’s pretty face, Lin Zhuo could not bring himself to say anything too harsh.
As soon as Lin Zhuo relented, Fu Baizhou pushed his luck, wrapping his arms around him and resting his head on his shoulder as he promised, “I will definitely be very obedient to my wife.”
Seeing Fu Baizhou compromise so quickly, Lin Zhuo thought to himself that this little dog was really obedient after losing his memory, so he said, “I want to discuss something with you.”
Fu Baizhou nodded in acknowledgment. “Go ahead, Wife.”
Lin Zhuo felt a bit awkward. “Can you not call me wife? I have a name, and it is Lin Zhuo.”
Fu Baizhou refuted him with almost no hesitation. “You are my wife, so of course I have to call you that. Besides, this is my exclusive nickname for you alone.”
To say he was foolish was not entirely true; he even knew what the word wife meant.
Seeing that Fu Baizhou refused to budge, Lin Zhuo thought about it for a few seconds and felt there was no need to provoke a rebellious attitude in the other person over a mere term of address.
“Then you cannot call me that in front of outsiders, okay?” Lin Zhuo took a step back.
When all was said and done, he still cared deeply about the opinions of outsiders. He did not want to be mistaken for a homosexual, especially since he was not one in the first place.
Fu Baizhou agreed readily and with too much promptness, leaving Lin Zhuo with no time to even utter a single word of the reasons he had lined up.
Night fell.
The towering, densely packed buildings lit up with neon lights, and the noisy streets below gradually grew quiet.
Lin Zhuo ate the hospital’s special dinner and lay on the hospital bed browsing short videos.
The phone had been bought for him by An Wan that afternoon, which was the latest model from the fruit brand, and the top-tier configuration at that.
At first, Lin Zhuo felt a bit bad about spending An Wan’s money, but considering he had arrived here for no reason and was forced to stop Fu Baizhou from destroying the world, treating this money as work-injury compensation seemed completely reasonable.
Besides, he could not take this money back to the real world anyway. It would be a waste not to spend it, so why should he wrong himself?
Fu Baizhou lay on the other bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Originally, he had wanted to squeeze onto the same bed with Lin Zhuo, but Lin Zhuo had refused.
Lin Zhuo did not pay much attention to Fu Baizhou’s low spirits, as being able to reach this point was already his limit.
He turned over with his back to Fu Baizhou, occasionally shaking his shoulders as he let out a few chuckles.
Fu Baizhou did not like being ignored by Lin Zhuo. “Wife, I want to go to the restroom.”
Lin Zhuo was too engrossed in his video and did not hear the call.
Looking dejected, Fu Baizhou clutched his wound, threw off the blanket, and got up to walk toward the bathroom.
A moment later, a loud crash suddenly echoed from inside the bathroom.
Lin Zhuo’s breathing skipped a beat. Glancing over and seeing no one on the other bed, he hurried out of bed and headed toward the bathroom.
Fu Baizhou had collapsed onto the floor. Having hit his head on something unknown, a new bump was already swelling up right before Lin Zhuo’s eyes.
Just as one wave subsided, another rose. The spot he had hit yesterday had not even healed yet, and now he had one on each side, achieving complete symmetry.
Lin Zhuo helped Fu Baizhou up. “Are you alright?”
Fu Baizhou did not speak for a moment. Only after he was seated on the bed did he seem to regain his senses. “I am fine.”
His voice trembled slightly as if he were in extreme pain, carrying a hint of stifled sobbing in his tone.
Lin Zhuo called for the nurse. Not only did Fu Baizhou need his forehead wound tended to, but his abdomen had also torn open again from the violent strain, bleeding quite a bit.
After the nurse finished treating Fu Baizhou’s wound, she worried about infection and hung another bottle of anti-inflammatory medication for him.
Once only the two of them were left in the ward, Lin Zhuo suppressed his rising anger and spoke, “Fu Baizhou, do you not want to get better?”
“Wife, it hurts so much.” Fu Baizhou looked at Lin Zhuo with an aggrieved expression, his handsome face looking somewhat comical with the bump on his head.
Lin Zhuo had a low threshold for amusement and barely managed to hold back his laughter. Glaring at the man, he said irritably, “I think you completely deserved this.”
Fu Baizhou muttered softly, “Clearly it is because my wife was ignoring me.”
Lin Zhuo heard him. “Are you saying this is all my fault?”
Fu Baizhou lowered his head and said nothing more.
The bottle of anti-inflammatory medicine quickly emptied out. The nurse came to remove the needle for Fu Baizhou and instructed Lin Zhuo on the side, “With him repeatedly tossing and turning like this, it is very hard for him to heal properly. As his partner, you should keep a closer eye on him.”
Lin Zhuo froze for a few seconds. “I am not his partner.”
The nurse glanced at him, said nothing more, and left the ward.
Ever since coming back, Lin Zhuo had stayed in the ward with Fu Baizhou all the time. That could only mean Fu Baizhou must have said that to the nurse who came to change his dressing and IV fluids earlier that morning.
Homosexuality was already rare to begin with, coupled with Fu Baizhou’s extraordinary face, word spread from ten to a hundred, and a baseless relationship was thus circulated around.
Thinking about how Fu Baizhou’s thought process was abnormal, he could only force his temper back down.
“Go to sleep. You are not just torturing yourself, you are torturing me too. I must have owed you in my past life.” Lin Zhuo yawned repeatedly, turned off the lights, and lay down on the bed.
“Wife, you did not owe me.” In the dark, Fu Baizhou’s voice sounded faint and ethereal, as if coming from very far away yet very close at the same time.
Lin Zhuo ignored him, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep shortly after.
His breathing gradually grew steady. In the dark, Fu Baizhou softly called out, “Wife?”
The only response he received was the sound of deep breathing.
Fu Baizhou turned toward Lin Zhuo. The next moment, two thick tentacles lifted Lin Zhuo up.
Opening his arms, Fu Baizhou caught Lin Zhuo as the latter fell into his embrace.
“Wife.” Fu Baizhou affectionately kissed Lin Zhuo’s face and neck, rubbing against the side of his neck as he greedily drank in his body heat.
His hand rested on Lin Zhuo’s waist, and immediately afterward, a tentacle probed in from beneath the hem of his shirt.
The cool, soft sensation wandered across Lin Zhuo’s skin, causing him to shiver and shrink back involuntarily, but with his entire body held tight in Fu Baizhou’s arms, there was no way to escape.
Fu Baizhou’s ink-black pupils gradually turned red.
He stretched out two fingers, pried open the seam of Lin Zhuo’s lips and teeth, and hooked his tender red tongue to play with it.
Saliva that Lin Zhuo was too late to swallow slowly trickled down the corner of his mouth. His breathing grew heavy, and he turned his head away in an attempt to escape.
His brows furrowed slightly, prompting Fu Baizhou to use his thumb to smooth out his brow.
Inhaling Lin Zhuo’s scent, Fu Baizhou felt as though the depths of his soul were being soothed.
Cannot play too rough.
Pulling back his hand, he hugged Lin Zhuo tightly and kissed his cheek.
“Wife, good night.”