Night was falling fast, and the light outside the window was gradually swallowed by darkness. Inside, the room was bathed in a warm orange glow. Heavy curtains blocked out the outside world, leaving only a single wall lamp casting enough clear light to illuminate the entire space.
On the wall hung photographs capturing the same person with different expressions and states across various settings. There was also an oil painting: a man with his white lab coat half-slipped off his arms, his neck taut as he leaned back, thin sweat beading on his skin. Every drop of sweat was so exquisite that it felt as though every stroke of the brush could convey the deep emotion hidden beneath it.
The conveyed emotion, layered together with the sheer visual impact of this scene, was enough to leave Su Lixu completely incapable of thought in the moment.
Even at that very instant, what he felt was neither fear nor a sudden realization that danger was closing in behind him, but simply a profound sense of why.
“Why?”
The moment Su Lixu asked, he felt a warm body press up against his back, carrying the gentle scent of someone who had just taken a shower. Yet the very second an arm looped around his waist, that warmth turned aggressively dangerous.
“Because I like you. I like you so much I am going crazy.”
A voice hovering between that of a boy and a young man, paired with warm breath and this intense expression of emotion, tumbled into his ear. Su Lixu could not help trembling. He furrowed his brows, ripples of utter disbelief spreading across the depths of his eyes, and glanced sideways at Fu Xingran behind him.
“You…”
His gaze crashed straight into Fu Xingran’s deep, burning, and scorching eyes. Just like those words spoken a moment ago, they scorched his thoughts into chaos, finally making everything Fu Xingran had done over this past period fall into place and make sense.
Clearly, they had met less than two months ago.
He never could have imagined that the person Fu Xingran had been talking about this whole time was actually himself.
How could this be possible?
Feeling the oppressive presence of Fu Xingran pressing closer and closer, Su Lixu unconsciously clenched the hem of his apron with his hands at his sides, his throat tightening. Was Fu Xingran doing this to take revenge on him?
Did he genuinely think that it was Su Lixu who had refused to treat him back then, viewing that as a form of abandonment?
Fu Xingran lowered his gaze to look at the man who stood roughly level with his brows, carefully studying Su Lixu’s expression now that the secret was out. His gaze traced downward inch by inch, the lighting outlining that slightly pale face with its tightly pressed lips, clearly terrified, yet forcing himself to remain calm.
Finally, his eyes landed on Su Lixu’s hands clutching the corner of his apron, his knuckles turning pale and faintly straining with blue veins from the sheer force of his grip.
How beautiful.
“Do you know what you are doing?” Su Lixu took a deep breath and then raised his eyes to meet Fu Xingran’s. “Are you trying to get revenge on me?”
Hearing the slight tremor in Su Lixu’s voice, Fu Xingran kept his expression carefully under control as he took in every reaction.
At this very moment, he had completely stripped Su Lixu away from the role of Dr. Su in his mind.
“I like you, and I want you. The person I have been talking about this whole time is you. It is just that, older brother, you did not seem to notice, even though you are so smart.” Fu Xingran once again let Su Lixu look openly at his tattoo. “Isn’t it obvious enough?”
A pitch-black tattoo of the letters SLX was carved right over his left chest, the deep shade carrying the weight of time, etched into skin and flesh along with his emotions.
This was definitely not a new tattoo.
Su Lixu still found it utterly incomprehensible.
“Why?”
Four years ago, they had simply been in a pure doctor-patient relationship. Back then, as Fu Xingran’s attending physician, he had treated him just like any other patient during his hospitalization. At most, because Fu Xingran was the youngest patient, he might have shown a little extra care. He had not even dared to project personal emotions into it casually, wanting only to do everything in his power to help Fu Xingran out of his predicament.
Fu Xingran moved around behind Su Lixu, wrapping both arms around him and resting his chin on his shoulder. His gaze drifted past the soft, fair earlobe inches away and landed on the oil painting on the wall, while his nose caught the fragrance of Su Lixu that he was so obsessed with, filling his body and soul to the brim.
He chuckled softly. “Because you saved me. Only you were willing to listen to me speak, only you waited patiently for me, and only you were willing to stay with me. Apart from you, nobody in this world had any patience for me. They did not understand me; they just thought I was being dramatic.”
“Do you remember that first month I was hospitalized? I could not control myself from wanting candy, and I kept flying into rages, yet you did not get angry at all. You just stayed right beside me and coaxed me the whole time. No one had ever coaxed me before; they only ever thought a boy acting like that was just terrible.”
“You were even willing to draw with me. You told me my drawings looked good, and I was so happy.”
“Every time I saw you, you wore a smile, and I was so happy.”
“No matter what I did, you encouraged me and praised me, and I was so happy.”
The room echoed with the young man’s smiling, choked-up voice, repeating that he was so happy over and over again. Though it was a joyful tone, it was suffused with an endless sorrow, looking upon this room full of forbidden secrets as if overturning a deeply buried, secret romance.
The little lamb had completely shed its disguise, revealing itself to be a crying, vicious wolf.
Feeling the cool droplet land on his neck, Su Lixu’s body instantly stiffened.
Did this guy cry?
Talk about the villain filing a suit first.
“So why did you abandon me? I was really so sad, I was so sad I thought I was going to die.” Fu Xingran pressed his cheek against Su Lixu’s, sliding his hands down from his shoulders to clasp Su Lixu’s cold hands in his. “Dr. Su, you are so cruel.”
A grievance-laden, choked accusation sounded right beside his ear. Su Lixu lowered his gaze to look at his hands, which were now forcefully interlaced with Fu Xingran’s fingers, and felt a headache coming on. Being remembered by Fu Xingran in this way made him feel genuinely wronged.
It seemed Mr. Fu hadn’t mentioned this part yet.
“And you didn’t even recognize me. I had to take the initiative to greet you before you remembered me. That made me even sadder,” Fu Xingran added.
Su Lixu opened his mouth to speak, but Fu Xingran immediately continued:
“There were other men around you too, and I was so jealous. What should I do? So I could not hold back anymore, and I had to tell you. Even though I hate you a little bit for leaving me, I love you way more than that. So I am going to love you. I will not hate you, and I will not hold back either; I am going to love you.”
Unlike the aggrieved emotion just a moment ago, this low, husky whisper carried a smiling undertone right by his ear, brimming with a paranoid sentiment like the words of a demon wrapped in danger.
The warmth of that broad chest was scorching, and Su Lixu could feel Fu Xingran’s lively heartbeat thumping against his back, alongside his hurried breathing, letting him clearly catch that the young man behind him was excited.
Excited because he was expressing his true emotions.
Excited because Su Lixu now knew his secret.
A normal person would hardly experience such intense emotional fluctuations, but the emotions of someone with borderline personality disorder are fierce and overwhelming. Much like Fu Xingran right now, who felt as though he had plunged headfirst into a passionate romance, even after discovering this wall of photographs and paintings, even knowing this behavior was wrong, he was desperately eager to express his love, unable to hold it back.
Paranoid, morbid, yet intense enough to resemble a blooming red rose carrying a staggering impact.
If he were to issue a stern reprimand right now, he knew exactly what would happen.
Though he was no longer a clinical doctor, he once had been, and the young man in front of him had once been his patient. He knew precisely what could unfold. Once Fu Xingran’s emotions crossed a certain threshold, he would inevitably spiral into extreme loss of control, and the manifestation of that loss of control would be hurting not others, but himself.
“If you get angry, I will go crazy. You know that, don’t you?” Fu Xingran’s hand drifted up to rest over Su Lixu’s left chest, as if searching for some trace. “Just like back then. You said you couldn’t, but I insisted. You said let go, but I refused.”
When his touch landed, Su Lixu instinctively grabbed Fu Xingran’s restless hand, managing to suppress the harsh rebuke rising in his throat with a surge of cold logic the very next second.
He couldn’t get angry, couldn’t rush. He had to stay calm.
He took a deep breath and pulled Fu Xingran’s hand down. “I think we need to talk.”
Mr. Fu’s well-intentioned lie had only amplified Fu Xingran’s feelings for him, and this attachment was very likely the catalyst that had driven Fu Xingran to develop romantic feelings for him in the first place.
How could he possibly dare to casually detonate this ticking time bomb?
“Right, we should talk. Like the fact that I love you.” Fu Xingran released Su Lixu’s hand, gently cupping his cheeks from behind and turning him toward the oil painting on the wall. “What do you think of this painting? Pretty, isn’t it?”
Su Lixu silently lowered his eyelids, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Pretty? It was practically unwatchable.
“Want to try it?” Fu Xingran asked with a smile.
Su Lixu raised his head in astonishment, wearing an expression that practically screamed that you were out of your mind, right before he saw Fu Xingran smile. It was a brilliantly radiant smile, yet it made him look like a wicked little demon.
“Come.” Breaking the embrace, Fu Xingran walked over to Su Lixu’s side, took his hand, and led him toward a chair nearby. “Sit.”
Looking at the chair right beside the oil painting, Su Lixu felt his head ring with a loud buzz. In an instant, he heard his own heartbeat suddenly accelerate, crashing violently against his eardrums. Catching the amusement in Fu Xingran’s eyes and decoding what this guy was planning, his throat tightened.
“Fu Xingran, cut it out.”
“I am not cutting it out.” Fu Xingran placed his hands on Su Lixu’s shoulders. “Four years ago, it was you who gave up on me, wasn’t it? If I had died because of you back then, you would have felt guilty, right? So now that I am alive, I just want to get some official status from you. That is all.”
As he spoke, he applied a tiny bit of pressure, prompting Su Lixu to sit down in the chair.
His thin clothing pressed against the chair behind him, the faint coolness of the metal rocking his reason.
The chair faced the oil painting directly. Perhaps because the painting carried such an overwhelming visual impact, Su Lixu felt as though the next second he would transform into the person inside it, bound by the stethoscope, bound by the blushing, burning atmosphere, and bound by the little demon standing right behind him.
No. This wouldn’t do.
“Xingran, like you said, you only thought I gave you up. You just couldn’t reconcile with it and didn’t understand why I had to leave. That is an obsession, not love.”
Fu Xingran leaned down, placing both hands on the back of Su Lixu’s shoulders, looking at the painting on the wall while sharing the exact same field of vision as Su Lixu. “I know very well that I love you. Didn’t I already say so?”
I want to sleep with him.
The sentence instantly popped into Su Lixu’s mind, leaving him momentarily speechless.
“I am sick, but I am not an idiot. I know how to tell what love is.” Feeling the tense body beneath his palms, Fu Xingran smiled. “If I did not love you, I would not want to get close to you, I would not want to hold you, I certainly would not want to kiss you, and I would not want to sleep with you. I only feel this way about you.”
Once again, such blunt words left Su Lixu with no room to reply. He had underestimated Fu Xingran’s capacity for expressing emotion, and he had overestimated his own ability to handle the situation.
Looking at this painting and this chair was genuinely driving him crazy.
What should he do?
Fu Xingran gently turned the chair around, pulled Su Lixu’s hand over, and placed it directly against his own left chest, gazing at him with devout reverence. “Did you feel that? My heartbeat. I am still alive because of you. To find you, I gritted my teeth and survived.”
Feeling the powerful, steady beat beneath his palm, Su Lixu raised his eyes slightly to meet Fu Xingran’s burning gaze, a fierce, inescapable fixation.
With the distance now closed to inches, everything had completely changed flavor. The skinny, frail boy from four years ago was no longer small or weak; instead, he had grown remarkably tall and strong. All the fragility and pity he had imagined were simply webs spun by Fu Xingran. His emotions might have been real or fake, but the goal remained identical: to possess him.
Because he understood this, he knew that the persistence and possessiveness born of borderline personality disorder were not things that could be understood or resolved overnight.
At the very least, the grip holding onto his hand right now was a force he simply couldn’t break free from.
Yet he was no longer Fu Xingran’s doctor; their current relationship barely scraped by as teacher and student, or perhaps friends, or older and younger brothers if that layer was stripped away.
“This life was saved by you. If you don’t want it, I will just smash it to pieces.” Hearing no response from Su Lixu, the look in Fu Xingran’s eyes grew even deeper, laced with panic.
Listening to those near-paranoid words echoing by his ear, much like that stormy night when the boy had cried out in cowardly fear, begging for rescue, caught in an unspeakable attachment, alongside this irresistible physical strength and the suffocating pressure washing over him, Su Lixu felt his reason being driven to the brink of testing.
Dr. Su, I keep wanting to bite you. Am I going crazy?
Can you just let me bite you a little longer? Please hold me, I am so scared.
Dr. Su, you have to save me, okay?
“Do you want me or not?” Fu Xingran asked again.
“Fu Xingran.”
“I am here.”
Hearing Su Lixu call his name, Fu Xingran’s heart tightened instantly. Then he noticed that Su Lixu no longer looked as gentle as he usually did; his face had gone as cold as frost and snow, carrying a detached chill in his eyes that made him extremely nervous.
Lifting his eyelids slightly, Su Lixu looked straight at Fu Xingran. “What if I said no?”
The tone was very light, yet it clearly conveyed the displeasure simmering beneath it.
Without a doubt, these words acted like a spark igniting a fuse.
The emotions in the depths of Fu Xingran’s eyes roiled like ink. He moved his hand to his bathrobe tie, fixed his gaze on Su Lixu, and slowly pulled the soft belt loose. It felt like watching a slow-motion scene as an overwhelming, dangerous aura flooded the entire room.
Watching this action, Su Lixu involuntarily glanced at the stethoscope painted in the oil painting.
His eyelashes trembled slightly as he lifted his gaze to crash into Fu Xingran’s eyes. Their dark, roiling depths felt like a thick fog masking unreadable emotions, as if they wanted to tear him apart and devour him alive. He held his breath instinctively.
Yet he stubbornly stood his ground.
Fu Xingran gazed down at the man before him, taking in every single expression on his face as if unsatisfied. He turned his face away and chuckled softly. Bracing his hands on either side of the chair, he straightened up and turned toward the door.
Su Lixu watched as Fu Xingran’s hand touched the door.
With a gentle push, the light from outside gradually narrowed, casting a shadow that obscured Fu Xingran’s features.
Then do not cry later.
With a heavy bang, the sound slammed hard into Su Lixu’s heart.
The door clicked completely shut.