As dawn broke, his biological clock promptly awakened his body. Lin Xun opened his eyes, only to unexpectedly find himself staring right at a heavily perspiring Beta.
Drops of sweat hung from Li You’s forehead, the tip of his nose, and his eyelids. His slightly pale lips were parted as he breathed heavily, a soft flush creeping up the side of his face.
Having been jolted awake by a nightmare, Li You was still utterly dazed.
Lin Xun lifted the blanket and realized his other arm was being clutched tightly by Li You, so firmly that he couldn’t even pull it free.
“Let go,” Lin Xun’s deep voice sounded beside his ear.
Li You froze slightly, then slowly pulled his fingers away. “I’m sorry, I… I was just having a nightmare.”
Li You muttered to himself, and a few seconds later, several sheets of tissue paper were draped over his face. Aside from a sheet of white, he couldn’t see a single thing.
Lin Xun got up to wash and freshen up, and Li You scrambled out of bed to follow him. Although they had shared a bed all night, and the Alpha’s attitude toward him wasn’t as icy as it had been yesterday, Li You still didn’t quite know how to get along with him.
“What… what did we usually do when we were dating back then?” Li You asked tentatively.
Sitting across from him, the Alpha unhurriedly set down his cup and said faintly, “Have sex.”
Lin Xun carefully savored the expression of utter collapse on the Beta’s face, then slowly drew out the highlights to add: “Three times a day. The bedroom, the bathroom, the balcony, the home theater, the office…” The Alpha curled his lips slightly and pointed at him across the space, “You liked the last, ”
“Alright!” Li You grabbed the plain water beside him and gulped it down to calm his nerves, frantically cutting him off: “That’s enough! Um, no need to say any more!”
“I’m saying,” Lin Xun stood up, walked over to stand right in front of him, and looked down at him from above, “you liked the last two the most.”
Li You helplessly covered his eyes.
Lin Xun licked his lips and deliberately slowed his speech: “Model student? What on earth are you thinking about in that head of yours?”
Li You attempted to talk back: “I’m older than you. Don’t call me that.”
Lin Xun let out a meaningful snicker. “Is that so? But every time, you ended up crying and saying you couldn’t take any more.”
Li You felt restless and thoroughly speechbound.
How… how on earth could this Alpha say such things without even blinking!
Losing interest, Lin Xun tossed a new phone over to him and instructed, “Rest and recover at home. Don’t wander around.”
Clutching the phone, Li You nodded and gave a soft “Okay.”
In truth, aside from occasional headaches, he didn’t have any other injuries on his body.
Lin Xun left the house, leaving him all alone. The phone was brand new, and the number had been changed. The contact list was completely empty, with the sole remaining string of numbers belonging to Lin Xun.
In Li You’s current memory, he was still a fresh middle school graduate preparing to enter high school; he could hardly believe he had already graduated from university and had been working for several years.
Li You slipped back into last night’s secondary bedroom, trying to search through that pile of clutter for his lost memories.
These belongings didn’t quite seem like what Lin Xun had described as “hastily left behind after eloping with someone else,” because his clothes, identity documents, and various personal items were all here. He even managed to dig out a graduation certificate and a few scattered graduation photos from a file folder pressed at the very bottom.
One photo in particular successfully caught his attention.
This photo didn’t seem to have been taken by class; there were only a dozen or so people in it. He stood on the far left, and the man standing beside him possessed an exceptionally refined and elegant air, smiling gently at the camera. Coupled with those gentle and scholarly features, he looked immensely comforting to behold.
Li You matched the names at the very bottom of the photo one by one until his gaze locked onto three characters, Lin Zhaoning.
This name…
Li You’s heart skipped a beat, and the sensation was far from pleasant.
Lin Zhaoning?
Those dreams from last night… “A-Ning”… was he calling out to him?
But why was it that just seeing this name caused his heart to ache so violently, a pain so excruciating it almost suffocated him?
Clutching his chest, Li You continued looking through the rest. The remaining photos behind it were, without exception, two-person shots of him and Lin Zhaoning, their relationship appearing unusually intimate.
After flipping through every single photo, he couldn’t find a single picture of himself with Lin Xun.
“The ceremony is about to start. Your father and I will stay here and watch over A-Ning. You go over first to keep an eye on things so the guests don’t make a laughingstock out of us.”
Yang Wan gave her instructions to Lin Xun, but the father of the Lin family sharply interrupted with a harsh tone: “It’s just going through the motions anyway. If it weren’t for the fact that he’s still occupying…”
The person lying on the bed stirred and slowly woke up. Sharp-eyed, Yang Wan gave her husband a subtle look. “Old Lin, ”
“A-Ning is awake. He’s only just quieted down after a few days, so don’t provoke him again.”
Father Lin flicked his sleeve and let out a cold snort. Lin Xun straightened his cuffs and strode down the stairs in a few steps.
He was wearing a sharply tailored dark black formal suit paired with a pristine white shirt underneath. His tie was impeccably fastened, and apart from the white flower pinned to his chest, there were no other decorations.
“How come it’s just you alone?” Qin Yuzheng, dressed in a nearly identical outfit, was waiting by the car. Seeing that only Lin Xun had come out, she took two steps forward, turned slightly to look behind him, and asked in surprise, “Are your parents and your brother not attending?”
“It’s not convenient for them,” Lin Xun’s voice betrayed no emotion whatsoever. His expression remained as calm and flat as it had been from beginning to end.
Qin Yuzheng fell silent for a moment before deciding to turn and comfort her only close friend since childhood. “The dead cannot come back to life. No one expected something like this to happen… my condolences.”
The driver in the front row automatically lowered the partition screen. As her words landed, Lin Xun nodded without a ripple of emotion. “Thank you.”
Qin Yuzheng looked as if she wanted to say more, her expression extremely complex. Lin Xun’s emotional control was simply too flawless; one couldn’t spot even a shred of grief on him.
She tried to change the subject, asking, “How is your brother doing? What are the chances of a full recovery?”
Lin Xun replied, “Neuronal damage with cognitive impairment. As for recovery, ” The Alpha let out a faint scoff from his nose, so quiet it was nearly imperceptible. “Who knows.”
With that, Lin Xun leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes to rest. Qin Yuzheng tactfully shut her mouth, and after a few minutes, let out a long, heavy sigh.
“We really are fellow sufferers at the ends of the earth!”
Lin Xun opened his eyes and stared straight at her. “Did your girlfriend dump you?”
Qin Yuzheng: “…”
“Hey, don’t stand there talking snide remarks at a time like this,” Qin Yuzheng drooped her eyelids listlessly. “My mom has been nagging about marriage between us every single day. If you don’t help me win her back, when the elders of both families put a knife to our necks, what’s fake will turn into reality.”
The composure Lin Xun had maintained all along finally cracked slightly.
“Forget it,” Miss Qin waved her hand, muttering softly in complaint, “with those terrible ideas of yours, it’s a miracle if they don’t scare her away.”
Lin Xun said blankly, “I’ve never pursued anyone before. How would I know?”
Qin Yuzheng made no effort to hide her look of utter disgust. “Brother Li must have been blind to ever be willing to stay with you.”
“Thank you. Your girlfriend was, too.”
Just as the two were stabbing each other in the heart until blood flowed like a torrential river, a ringtone descended from the heavens like a peaceful bugle call halting World War III, temporarily quelling the brewing conflict.
Lin Xun glanced at the caller ID, then answered the call.
A gentle, refined male voice came through the other end: “When are you coming home?”
Lin Xun checked the time, resting his other hand on his knee. “An hour. Is something wrong?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Li You thought for a moment and said, “I wanted to try baking some cookies, but I don’t know if you’ll be used to the taste.” The Beta muttered softly to himself over the line, “If you don’t like it, I’ll put in less sugar…”
Lin Xun couldn’t quite grasp Li You’s behavioral logic, thinking that having to bake his own cookies made it look like he had locked the man at home and forced him into doing something wicked. Thus, he cut him off: “Don’t make them. I’ll buy some for you on the way. Just wait for me at home.”
Li You let out a slow “Ah,” and explained, “No, you misunderstood. I’m just too bored staying at home and wanted to find something to do.”
“I remember when you were little you didn’t like sweets, and I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to stand desserts either, so I wanted to ask.”
“Definitely don’t buy any,” the Beta urged repeatedly, “if you buy them and nobody eats them, it’ll just be a waste.”
It wasn’t until Li You brought up that topic that Lin Xun managed to piece together a few scattered memory fragments from his long-accumulated past.
Back then, when he was picked up and brought home by Li You, his emotions hadn’t stabilized yet. He always liked to hide away in pitch-black, blind corners, or pull himself behind Li You, refusing to come out. Later, it was Li Qingyun who grabbed a handful of fruit candies to coax him, barely managing to soothe him completely.
In truth, Lin Xun didn’t like eating candy. When he was very small, he had gotten into a dispute with his brother over a piece of chocolate. Lin Zhaoning was a few years older than him; it wasn’t that he was particularly fond of eating it, but rather that he simply enjoyed monopolizing it, delighting in watching him cry at his side until his face was a pathetic mess of tears and snot.
When word of this reached Yang Wan, his mother deemed him useless for crying his eyes out over a piece of chocolate, and he was inevitably subjected to another round of criticism and harsh scolding.
In the end, he had cried, he had been scolded, yet he never got the chocolate. From that moment on, he never liked eating sweets again. That was why the big handful of candies Li Qingyun had used to coax him back then were all quietly stuffed back into Li You’s hands by him, one by one.
It was merely a minor detail, one he himself had never paid any mind to. He hadn’t expected that Li You would actually still remember.
Lin Xun straightened his back, turned his head to look out the window, and said softly, “Anything is fine by me. Up to you.”
“Oh, okay, I got it. Then… goodbye?”
“Yeah, goodbye.”
The call hung up, and the phone screen automatically went dark. Lin Xun stared at the pitch-black display, silently locking eyes with the dark pupils reflected in its glassy surface.
Was Li You… thinking about him?
He had asked him when he was coming home.
Home…
It was a very strange feeling.
Qin Yuzheng eerie-ly leaned her head over from behind, drawing out her tone: “Who was that on the phone, ”
Because her relationship hadn’t been going smoothly lately, Qin Yuzheng’s complexion had consistently been quite poor. Even with makeup on, she couldn’t hide the dark circles beneath her eyes. At this moment, with her eyelids drooping, her tone bitter, and her voice full of grievances, combined with her shoulder-length hair draped right in front of him, she really looked a bit terrifying at first glance.
Lin Xun’s forehead was lined with black marks: “…What does it have to do with you?”
As a teacher who had been soaked in the honey pot of love for six years, thoroughly nurtured by romance and immensely experienced, Qin Yuzheng could tell right away the moment Lin Xun’s tone was even slightly off.
Love was truly intoxicating, akin to an exorcism spell that suddenly granted an Alpha who hadn’t looked human for years a human skin, cloaking him in an exterior of truth, goodness, and beauty.
Qin Yuzheng slammed the gavel down, forcefully slapping a label on him: “Scumbag!”
Perhaps it was because of that phone call just now, but even the Alpha’s mood seemed to brighten as he retorted, “What did I ever do to you?”
You didn’t do anything to me, but the one you betrayed was Brother Li! Talking about some white moonlight you couldn’t forget for over a decade, and what happened?! Didn’t you turn around and find another little vixen to pass the time with anyway! Qin Yuzheng thought indignantly. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got, rolling her eyes countless times in contempt for Lin Xun’s actions as she spurned: “Heartless man!”
Lin Xun unhurriedly put away his phone. “Oh. Then go ahead and report me.”