Chu Yanyi raised the bathroom temperature by two degrees and took a quick shower. Stepping into his bathrobe, he saw the man in the mirror whose face was blurred by white steam.
He tilted his head, staring at the shadow-draped reflection, and let out a deceitful smile.
After a moment, he lowered his eyes. Most of the scars on his body had faded to near invisibility, save for the longest and deepest one cutting across his chest—a mere inch away from taking his life back then.
As his fingertips pressed slowly against the newly regenerated tender skin, Chu Yanyi’s eyes gradually darkened. Ying Yu hadn’t completely fallen out with him back then, yet he had already dealt a fatal blow. Afterward, Ying Yu hypocritically sent his deputy with a bound culprit to apologize before Chu Yanyi, claiming it was poor discipline on his part and leaving the offender entirely at Chu Yanyi’s mercy.
Chu Yanyi hadn’t done anything, merely curling his lips: “Go back and tell Mr. Ying it was just an accident; no need to take it to heart.”
People often spoke of fighting to the death for a beauty, yet Ying Yu had gone to such lengths over a fellow Alpha.
Zhou Yi…
Chu Yanyi exhaled softly, tied the belt of his bathrobe, picked up a towel nearby, and wiped his hair.
The screen enlarged on the far side was still broadcasting the recent interstellar situation, two anchors opening and closing their mouths in measured, restrained tones devoid of personal emotion: “…the trade agreement between the Beastmen Alliance and the Empire has officially taken effect. The circulation of raw materials is undergoing another reshuffle, with expectations…”
Leaning against the wall, Chu Yanyi listened to the report expressionlessly. Putting on his glasses, he pulled up other windows on the screen, where complex data and financial sheets instantly filled the view. Multicolored numbers flashed past his blue pupils; after skimming through them briefly, he dragged several buyers’ profiles into the chat box and forwarded them over.
Three light knocks sounded from the door. Chu Yanyi glanced at the figure on the surveillance feed, raised an eyebrow, put on his slippers, and leaned on his cane to walk into the study attached to the bedroom. He pressed a button on the side of the desk.
Standing at the doorway, Zhou Yi lifted his foot to step inside, but froze for a second upon taking in Chu Yanyi’s rather… relaxed home attire, refraining from advancing further.
The corners of Chu Yanyi’s mouth curved into an unreadable arc. He draped the towel around his neck: “Come in.”
The ethereal moonlight drifted outside, where the distant mountain forests were draped in a faint veil of mist. The warm glow of the desk lamp cast a hesitant shadow of the visitor, intertwining directly with Chu Yanyi’s.
Chu Yanyi sat unhurriedly in the swivel chair behind the spacious desk, continuing to dry his hair while speaking: “Are all those people handled?”
Zhou Yi’s lips twitched slightly as he nodded.
Raising his eyes, Chu Yanyi suddenly noticed that Zhou Yi looked quite different from earlier in the day. His disheveled gray hair was neatly combed back, his beard shaved clean, and his collar buttoned straight up to the top. His cuffs were spotless, and his hands… were wearing the gloves he had given him.
Going out of his way to clean himself up properly before coming over? Chu Yanyi admitted he was slightly amused by this little effort.
Multicolored candies clinked against each other inside an exquisite box. Chu Yanyi let out a soft laugh at the bewildered Zhou Yi, tapping the intricate raised patterns on the box before pushing it toward the edge of the desk: “They said this flavor is very popular lately, so I brought some back for you to try.”
Zhou Yi once again wore an expression that appeared somewhat silly in Chu Yanyi’s eyes. Biting his lip, he bowed deeply to Chu Yanyi, made a gesture for “thank you,” then pointed to his own hair and stepped toward Chu Yanyi.
Silence blanketed the room, broken only by the occasional call of an unknown bird from outside the window. Water droplets dripped down his hair onto the towel as Chu Yanyi watched his movements impassively.
Despite looking completely lacking in confidence, Zhou Yi walked with a steady stride. For a split second, Chu Yanyi experienced the illusion of seeing the fiercely arrogant Zhou Yi of the past—had his left hand not been trembling continuously, that is.
Bending down slightly, Zhou Yi extended both hands in a requesting posture. Chu Yanyi raised an eyebrow and handed him the towel.
It had to be said that Zhou Yi’s pressure… was far more suitable than when Chu Yanyi did it himself.
Leaning back comfortably against the chair, Chu Yanyi narrowed his eyes to browse the news on his terminal, taking a sip of the cold tea remaining on the table.
The intrinsic bitterness of the cooled tea burst across his tongue, making him frown slightly.
Warm water tilted slowly into the teacup. Chu Yanyi raised his eyes to look at Zhou Yi, who was pouring tea for him with one hand, speaking as casually as an acquaintance chatting about daily matters: “Your right hand is inconvenient; is sign language quite hard to learn?”
Zhou Yi set down the teapot gently, shook his head, then nodded, gently massaging the ends of Chu Yanyi’s hair.
Amused, Chu Yanyi toyed with the warm teacup in his grip: “Stop wiping, it’s mostly dry now. So is it easy to learn or not?”
Zhou Yi pondered with a frown for a moment, then crossed his fingers in front of Chu Yanyi to indicate it wasn’t that easy.
“If it really doesn’t work out, just type on the terminal. Practicing more with your left hand shouldn’t make you too slow.” Chu Yanyi turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the Alpha’s wrist; the bruise from earlier today had yet to fade.
As if a thought suddenly struck him, Zhou Yi’s frown deepened. Clenching his left hand, he took a deep breath, set down the towel, walked around to stand before Chu Yanyi, and pointed at the paper and pen beside Chu Yanyi’s hand.
Tilting his head, Chu Yanyi glanced at the sheets of blank paper and the documents pressed underneath: “Writing with your left hand is much harder than typing.”
Zhou Yi bit his lip, his hand movements carrying a touch of urgency. Immediately after, he simply knelt before Chu Yanyi, bowing his head and clasping his hands together in a gesture resembling a plea.
From Chu Yanyi’s perspective, he could only see a fluffy, gray head.
“Alright, alright, if you insist.” Chu Yanyi made his tone sound as helpless as possible. Chuckling with a sigh, he pulled out a sheet of white paper: “You can try.”
Zhou Yi snapped his head up in disbelief, grinning broadly at Chu Yanyi to reveal a neat row of teeth.
When the man smiled, a canine tooth was particularly noticeable. Chu Yanyi stared at that canine for a moment, unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen, and handed it to Zhou Yi along with the paper.
Lowering his gaze, the Alpha lay crouched at his feet, the slender, pale skin on the back of his neck exposing a scorched brand that couldn’t be fully hidden. No traces of past needle pricks could be seen on his nape, which looked remarkably smooth, while the key dangled back and forth right before Chu Yanyi’s eyes.
A high-grade Alpha indeed; even when injured, his healing ability is far superior to that of an ordinary Alpha. Chu Yanyi set down his terminal unhurriedly, watching Zhou Yi write with great interest.
The entire room fell quiet, leaving only the sound of their breathing and the friction of the fountain pen dragging across paper against the floor. Although writing in this posture was somewhat awkward, Zhou Yi’s movements with his left hand were noticeably more proficient than before—even more standard than some people’s right-handed writing.
After a long while, he raised his head, a nervous smile resting on his pale face as he lifted the three words he had written and presented them on Chu Yanyi’s knee.
Written in fountain pen was the name “Chu Yanyi”—identical to the standard font inside terminals.
The smile on Chu Yanyi’s face paused slightly. He remained silent for nearly a minute, his fingers slowly stroking the lightweight paper before he drained the warm tea in his cup in one gulp.
He could feel Zhou Yi’s secretive glances stealing toward him—like a hamster hiding in a burrow it dug itself, yet unable to resist peeking outside.
Thus, Chu Yanyi stroked Zhou Yi’s gray hair, pinching the paper as he praised: “Nicely written. What about your own name? Can you write it?”
Zhou Yi nodded silently, reaching out to take the paper to continue writing, but Chu Yanyi caught him by the wrist.
“Isn’t writing while lying down tiring? There’s a chair right there.”
Zhou Yi froze for a second, straightened his body, sat down opposite Chu Yanyi, bowed his head, gripped the pen firmly, and wrote stroke by stroke even more earnestly than before.
Chu Yanyi picked up his terminal. Before he could even reply to Zhang Rongtian’s message, Zhou Yi had already set down the pen and stood to the side with a lowered head.
It was still the two characters “Zhou Yi,” without the slightest deviation from standard font.
“Have you been practicing writing all this time?” Chu Yanyi scrutinized Zhou Yi with an amused air, an absurd thought flashing through his mind. “What tasks do they usually assign you? Helping out in the kitchen?”
Zhou Yi nodded, slowly telling Chu Yanyi in sign language that he practiced at night and had never made any mistakes during the day, though he didn’t know how to write every word yet.
“That’s good, take your time.” Chu Yanyi glanced at his schedule, replied to Zhang Rongtian with a time and location, and stood up leaning on his cane. “Have you been taking your medicine on time? Doctor Wu mentioned you asked for painkillers several times due to headaches?”
Zhou Yi stared at his toes somewhat hesitantly. He wasn’t sure if the master permitted him to use those, or rather permitted a slave to waste extra medication. He had seen slaves tortured by illness to their last breath—devoid of any medication, awaiting the death they longed for.
The cane stood merely a few steps away from him. He prepared himself to receive a stroke of the cane, yet only Chu Yanyi’s gentle voice landed beside his ear: “I told her to just give you a whole bottle directly, but don’t abuse them; it’s bad for your body.”
“However…” Chu Yanyi drew out his tone slightly, standing before Zhou Yi. “All of these will be deducted from your wages, understood?”
After a moment, Zhou Yi nodded slowly.
“In that case, Xiao Yi, write a few more words for me?” Chu Yanyi patted his shoulder, speaking softly.
Zhou Yi immediately sat before the desk, picking up the pen and waiting for Chu Yanyi’s instructions.
“Write the name Ying Yu.” Chu Yanyi leaned over the back of the chair, letting out an ambiguous laugh that sounded as if coated in a layer of mist: “Do you know how to write it?”
The streetlights outside the floor-to-ceiling window turned on right on schedule. A massive shadow completely enfolded the trembling Zhou Yi within Chu Yanyi’s embrace. Chu Yanyi reached out to slide the pen from Zhou Yi’s hand, his warm breath mixed with moisture brushing past Zhou Yi’s earlobe.
Zhou Yi’s fingers trembled violently, allowing a drop of ink to fall onto the paper, smudging the five characters of “Chu Yanyi” and “Zhou Yi” arranged one above the other.
“Although you’ve forgotten the past, I’m quite curious—do you know your relationship with Ying Yu now? Do you know the relationship between Ying Yu and me?” He lowered his head, calmly scrutinizing Zhou Yi’s emerald eyes from below, leaving him with no path of retreat.