This guest room was stacked with a lot of clutter, but Li You could tell at a glance that these were his own belongings.
He got down on his knees and groped around on the floor, finally pulling out a ring box from deep within the pile. Opening the box, he found a ring resting inside.
Li You tried slipping the ring onto his left ring finger. It was neither too big nor too small, fitting perfectly over the faint ring mark on his skin.
It seemed this ring truly belonged to him.
But why was it buried in a pile of clutter?
Li You took off the ring and clutched it tightly in his palm, unwilling to believe that he had once thrown it away with his own hands.
As his fingertip inadvertently brushed across the inner side of the band, he suddenly felt a subtle, uneven engraving. Li You’s movements paused briefly, and he reached out to trace the tiny line of characters carefully.
Two letters were engraved on the inside: XY.
They were the initials of the last characters of Lin Xun’s name and his own.
So… everything he said was actually true…
Li You stowed the ring away carefully, stood up in silence, and pulled open the bathroom door, preparing to wash up.
Lin Xun stood quietly outside the door. Less than three minutes after waiting, he heard the door inside being pushed open again.
The Alpha walked unhurriedly into the bedroom, leaving the bedroom door slightly ajar.
“The water heater in my room is bro, ” Li You knocked symbolically twice on the door, not expecting it to swing open on its own. Midway through his sentence, the sight of the Alpha’s back, wrapped entirely in bandages, caught him completely off guard.
Lin Xun was bare-chested. His lean, firm back was largely hidden beneath thick layers of stark white gauze, with faint specks of red blood seeping through in places.
“Are you injured?” Li You remained standing at the doorway, his hand frozen in a knocking position.
Lin Xun turned around and said coldly, “What does it have to do with you? Get out.”
Li You uttered a soft “Oh” and took half a step backward.
Lin Xun snapped with a expressionless face, “Get back here!”
Li You was cornered against the wall. The Alpha braced both arms on either side of him, leaning down close to his earlobe to ask, “Since when were you ever this obedient?”
Due to the momentum of his movement, his arms were fully extended. The lines of his forearms were tight and bulging, and the defined muscles of his upper arms stood out prominently, firm and powerful. His two arms built a solid wall, forcefully trapping Li You in a tiny space.
“I… I don’t remember,” Li You bit his lip, lowering his head to stare at his toes. As if remembering something, he raised his left hand to present it before Lin Xun’s eyes and said in a small voice, “I found this ring. Our initials are engraved on the back. From now on, I’ll wear it properly.”
Lin Xun let go of him and began unraveling his bandages on his own, asking as he unraveled, “Instead of staying properly in your room, what are you doing here?”
Li You seemed to just remember his original purpose: “The water heater in my room is broken, and the other two guest bedrooms are locked, so I wanted to come over and borrow your bathroom.”
“Is that okay?” The Beta seemed worried that the man in front of him would refuse. Seeing no reaction for a while, he tilted his head and leaned in to look.
Lin Xun had completely stripped off the bandages, revealing extensive burn-like scars across his back. Two-thirds of the dark red scabs had not yet sloughed off, and the deeper wounds remained raw, inflamed, and red, looking thoroughly horrifying. The skin on his back was coated with unabsorbed ointment, glistening wetly under the illumination of the room light.
Seeing the wounds, Li You instinctively touched his own arm, which was similarly wrapped in bandages.
Lin Xun jerked his chin toward the bathroom: “Go ahead and use it.”
Li You snapped back to reality and walked toward the bathroom, turning his head back with every step.
After a short while, the Beta jogged back out.
He ran over to Lin Xun, carefully taking the tube of ointment from the Alpha’s hand, and said, “Let me apply it for you. You can’t see back there anyway; it’ll be troublesome if you hurt yourself again.”
Lin Xun didn’t stop him, taking it as silent permission.
Li You used a cotton swab to gently spread the ointment over the wounds. Almost every time he applied a dab, he would blow on it softly, terrified of causing the Alpha pain. When wrapping the bandages, he deliberately tied a neat, sturdy bow in the back.
“All done,” Li You packed up the supplies. When his gaze caught a few white scars on the normal skin, he reached out his index finger to touch them. Feeling no raised tissue typical of normal scars, he blurted out, “What are these?”
Lin Xun replied calmly, “Old injuries. Left scars.”
Li You was surprised. “Who did that to you?”
Lin Xun put on his pajamas, slowly buttoning them up: “My mother.”
“When I was little, I disobeyed and made her angry. She broke three bamboo slats over me. Anything else you want to ask?”
Li You was stunned, his mind going blank: “Then why did you…”
In his memory, Li Qingyun had always been gentle and amiable, rarely even raising her voice, let alone beating or scolding anyone. He couldn’t imagine what kind of rage could drive a mother to lay such a ruthless hand on her own child.
Lin Xun turned around and looked at Li You: “To become someone else.”
Li You was thoroughly confused and asked back, “Isn’t it good to just be yourself? Why become someone else?”
Lin Xun threw out a line, carrying an air of self-abandonment: “What’s so good about it? No one likes me anyway.”
Li You knelt by the bed lost in thought, looking completely dazed. A moment later, he reacted swiftly, grabbing the Alpha’s clothes tightly. The two stood in silent confrontation.
“Let go.”
Hearing his harsh and unfriendly command, Li You gripped the fabric even tighter and said in a muffled voice, “I will try to like you.”
Lin Xun’s arm, which was about to pry the Beta’s wrist away, froze in midair. His expression remained listless, wearing a skeptical look that clearly said, ‘Do you really think I’ll believe your lies?’
“You? On what grounds?”
You are no different from those people. You like Lin Zhaoning too.
Li You slowly released his grip. “You said it yourself, I’m your boyfriend. I definitely wouldn’t date someone I have no feelings for.” He looked up, his eyes slightly squinted from the bright glare of the overhead light. “Even though I can’t remember right now, if I could fall in love with you once, I can fall in love with you a second time.”
“Liar.”
After a long pause, Lin Xun stared at the face in front of him and slowly spat out those two words.
You never liked me even once. Not even once.
Yet you abandoned me countless times.
Lin Xun grabbed the person on the bed by the waist, pulled him up, and pressed him into a tight embrace. The Alpha squeezed him so hard it was almost suffocating, refuting his words with absolute seriousness and determination: “I don’t want you to just like me.”
Li You rested his chin on Lin Xun’s shoulder, a hint of confusion in his clear eyes. Immediately after, he heard the Alpha say word by word right beside his ear: “It’s not enough.”
A very faint sound of confusion escaped Li You’s throat: “What?”
“I want you to love me.”
I want you to return all the love that once belonged to me. I want you, from now on, to look at no one else but me.
The Beta raised his hand and gently stroked the hair on the back of the Alpha’s head, an extremely patient and tender gesture of comfort.
Lin Xun’s hair was very coarse, feeling a bit prickly after rubbing it for a while.
“You have to give me a little time, don’t you?”
It’s this sentence again…
Just a few days ago, a panic-stricken Beta had made the exact same promise to him for the sake of his husband.
Li You had merely lost his memory; he had simply forgotten Lin Zhaoning. Once he remembered, he would still head off without hesitation toward that hypocrite.
Lin Xun suddenly tightened his fingers, lightly gripping Li You’s neck to force him to lower his head, kissing him without giving him a chance to object.
Their wet breaths intertwined, and Li You was once again kissed into a state of dizziness and disorientation.
“Since you picked me up and brought me home, you have to be responsible for me for the rest of your life,” Lin Xun wiped the clear saliva from the corner of the Beta’s lips, narrowing his eyes as he threatened in a raspy voice, “If you ever dare to abandon me and run off with a wild man again, every time you run, I’ll drag you back. Run twice, and I’ll drag you back twice.”
“That’s impossible!” Li You pulled his neck back. His fierce momentum collapsed within three seconds, turning him right back into a timid quail. “There must be some misunderstanding. Cheating is wrong.”
Lin Xun raised an eyebrow, teasingly mocking him: “So your moral standards are that high?”
“What are you? A model student? A paragon of virtue?”
Li You hugged his knees and argued back, “That’s just basic decency…”
Lin Xun turned off the lights and lay down on the other side with his arms crossed, speaking with utter disdain, “What’s the use? You still got played like a fool by others.”
Li You crawled over and poked the Alpha’s face with his fingertip, reminding him: “I haven’t taken a shower yet.”
Lin Xun stuffed him into the blanket, “Shower for what? I already wiped your body down this morning.”
Li You turned his body around, facing away from Lin Xun, and secretly peeled back the bandage on his arm to examine the patch of injury.
It looked like a minor burn; the wound was superficial, and it would completely heal in a few more days.
So why were the wounds on Lin Xun’s back so severe?
Li You suddenly remembered the news broadcast he had seen on television that morning. He flipped over to face the Alpha. Lin Xun had already closed his eyes and fallen asleep. His breathing was smooth and steady, though his brows occasionally knit together unconsciously, as if he were having a nightmare.
Toward Lin Xun, Li You always harbored an indescribable, complex emotion deep inside, his body was intimately familiar with the Alpha’s warmth, yet in countless moments of physical contact, his instincts warned him that he should stay away.
Where this so-called instinctive warning originated from was a truth he had no way of knowing.
Li You couldn’t figure it out, gradually drifting into sleep in his confusion. Coincidentally, the Alpha threw an arm over, locking him securely into his chest. The safe, warm, and comfortable environment soon lulled him completely into the world of dreams.
“A-Ning, A-Ning!”
“A home? Li You, do you even have a home?”
“I’m saving you. You should be thanking me.”
“It’s all because of you! It’s all your fault that I died! You actually joined forces with him to harm me!”
“I should have just let you die in that car crash!”
Noisy human voices, baseless accusations, and numerous phantom white figures stood before his eyes, surrounding Li You in groups of twos and threes. Arguments, clamor, and mocking laughter echoed repeatedly in a continuous loop around his ears. Li You watched as those figures gathered in greater numbers, faintly closing in on him.
Such familiar voices, such familiar words… Where have I heard these before?
Li You tried reaching out to touch those shadow-like figures, wanting to see what they looked like. But the moment his fingertips brushed against them, they turned into wisps of smoke and drifted away, leaving thin, white lines lingering in the air.
Everywhere around him was water, smooth like a mirror. Li You lowered his head to gaze at the reflection on the water’s surface, the face looking back at him felt somewhat unfamiliar.
“Xiao You, let’s go, ”
From far away came the gentle voice of a male calling out to him. Li You looked up in confusion, searching for the source of the sound, only to see a lone figure suddenly appear within the vast, boundless expanse of white.
“A-Ning! Wait for me!”
A young boy hurriedly responded from behind, racing past his body like a gust of wind. Li You was thoroughly astonished: he saw it clearly, that boy bore a seventy-percent resemblance to himself. At a quick glance, one would truly mistake the boy for Li You himself.
“Li You? Your name is Li You?”
The scene shifted rapidly. Several boys dressed as students exchanged looks, the atmosphere turning noticeably awkward. One of them with dyed yellow hair burst out laughing, trying to gloss it over to smooth things out: “Well, that’s… quite a coincidence, really quite a coincidence…”
“What on earth are you guys talking about?” Li You stamped his feet in frustration. Just as he touched one of their clothes, the withered yellow of the world collapsed in an instant, and an overwhelming darkness swept in to engulf everything.
A moment later, the darkness was replaced by a crimson glow. Thick smoke choked his lungs, making his eyes tear up continuously. Everything within his line of sight was blurry, and the waves of heat twisted and distorted the surrounding world.
Li You sat slumped on the ground in defeat, unable to move, lacking even the strength to open his eyes. Another series of crackling sounds echoed, it sounded like something falling from above, but the expected pain never arrived.
Li You felt as though he had turned into a cloud, his entire body weightless. He was lifted up into someone’s arms. The person’s embrace was exceptionally strong, taking steady and firm steps as he carried him out of the devastated ruins.
“I told you, only I am qualified to accompany you to hell.”
His vision suddenly cleared. The soaring flames receded into the background behind him, and a gentle breeze swept past, carrying away the suffocating heat and dust. The remaining half of the sentence was swallowed by the wind, drifting softly into Li You’s ears.
Li You finally heard it clearly, that was Lin Xun’s voice.