“Dr. Su, is it okay?”
He was pulled up by Fu Xingran and was sitting on the edge of the bed.
Fu Xingran supported himself with one hand by Su Lixu’s side, his deep voice sounding by Su Lixu’s ear once again. It was a casual tone, yet it carried an ulterior motive when he called out the three words “Dr. Su,” bringing the ambiguous atmosphere right in front of them to the absolute extreme.
His other hand casually touched the bow.
Su Lixu watched as Fu Xingran’s fingers looped through the gaps of the bow and gently tugged on it. This single pull gave Su Lixu’s heart a gentle tug as well, yet this fellow turned his head with a smile and looked right at him, asking for his consent.
Every single action of this guy felt meticulously designed.
Could he still say no?
If he said no, would he even be able to walk out of this door?
He lowered his gaze, brewing a wave of extreme embarrassment. Then, he slowly raised his hands in front of Fu Xingran, pressed his lips together, and took a deep breath. “Please, please untie me.”
The dark-colored bed sheets formed a sharp contrast with the man’s pale, cool skin. Lifting his hands tied with a bow, his flushed face burning red, this appearance was so striking that it was impossible to tear one’s gaze away, to say nothing of the sentence spoken with trembling difficulty while fighting off intense embarrassment.
Fu Xingran held back the corners of his lips from curving upward too much. The more shy this man was, the more he wanted to tease him.
The Dr. Su from back then, who wore a white lab coat and carried patient records, was someone whose status kept him from daring to get close. But things were different now.
“Alright,” Fu Xingran said with a smile, and then untied the bow.
With a sense of full ceremony, Fu Xingran’s untying motion was light and slow. Yet precisely because it was undone bit by bit, the ambiguous, clinging tension suspended in the air became all the more agonizing.
Su Lixu couldn’t help but shift slightly. “Can you hurry up?”
He wanted to dig a hole and bury himself right now!
“A man shouldn’t be told he’s fast.” Fu Xingran raised his gaze and swept a glance over him. “You have to take it slow. Fine work comes from slow and steady efforts.”
Su Lixu averted his gaze. He didn’t want to look at Fu Xingran anymore, feeling that this guy was currently radiating an aura entirely beyond what Jinjiang could accommodate, and even speaking words containing content difficult for Jinjiang to parse.
He suddenly felt as though he had returned to his days at the psychiatric hospital, spending his entire time playing wits with patients. Only this time, he could no longer use the rules of a doctor to rein in Fu Xingran, whose emotions remained like a roller coaster, completely unpredictable as to when or how they might morph into something else.
The moment he was stern, Fu Xingran would turn obedient and gentle.
The moment he was indulgent, Fu Xingran would push his luck.
His disguise over this period had been completely exposed simply because he pushed open a door. As expected, he had let his guard down, and Fu Xingran had disguised himself too well.
The bathrobe belt fell against his legs as it was finally untied. Just as Su Lixu thought to move his wrists, his hands were caught by Fu Xingran.
He watched as Fu Xingran lowered his head and pressed a light kiss to his wrists, where red marks had been pinched into the skin. The warmth and gentle vibration of those lips plucked at his heartstrings, and he stared in a daze, colliding directly with Fu Xingran’s gaze.
“I’m sorry, I was too impatient,” Fu Xingran apologized. “Making you cry, Brother, was never my intention. Did I scare you?”
“Get out.” Su Lixu quickly pulled his hand back, turning onto his side so he wouldn’t have to look at Fu Xingran.
His mind was already in chaos. Right now, he needed to reorganize his relationship with Fu Xingran and figure out what to do. They were no longer in a doctor-patient relationship; he could no longer use rules to bind Fu Xingran. If he showed intense rejection, he knew what would happen.
He remembered Fu Xingran’s behavior back then with absolute clarity.
A dull ache flared automatically beneath his left ribs.
“Do you hate me now?” Fu Xingran sat on the edge of the bed without moving closer. He gazed at Su Lixu’s turned figure, his fingers tracing along the sheet until they reached Su Lixu’s side, brushing lightly against the back of his hand. “Brother, I know I was wrong.”
Hearing this guy apologize with a weak act once more, and feeling the tingling numbness where his hand had been brushed, Su Lixu immediately pulled his hands up against his chest and shot him a wary look.
“Get out.”
Sharing a room with Fu Xingran right now was practically inviting a ferocious wolf to close quarters.
“I admit my thoughts about you are too much and too scummy, a bit starved and impatient, which is why I schemed to get close to you and wanted to catch your attention. But I didn’t expect you to feel nothing for me at all, so I got a little anxious.” Fu Xingran shifted an inch closer to Su Lixu.
Catching sight of this, Su Lixu immediately scooted further inward, then pointed a wary finger at Fu Xingran, indicating the one-arm-length gap remaining between them. “One meter distance. Don’t move.”
“What if I do?”
“I’m calling the police.”
Fu Xingran looked instantly hurt, his eyelids drooping as he gazed at Su Lixu with resentful eyes. “Brother, you’re so cold.”
“Fu Xingran, is this a matter of me being cold? You fail to realize your own problem, you fail to realize that you’re doing something dangerous.” Hearing this tone from Fu Xingran made Su Lixu somewhat irritated. He had been tricked by this exact side of Fu Xingran before; the thought of that room full of photos and that oil painting made his blood boil. “Your feelings for me aren’t love. Maybe it’s just because I saved you, or maybe it’s because the misunderstanding your father created made you think I gave up on you. So what you feel for me is nothing more than an unyielding obsession.”
“This is love. I love you,” Fu Xingran said. “I’m very clear on that.”
Su Lixu thought to himself that he was in no mood right now to debate clarity with Fu Xingran. All he wanted was to calm down. He took a deep breath and pointed toward the door.
“Get out.”
“But I haven’t eaten the cake yet.”
“Take it back and eat it.”
Fu Xingran stared at Su Lixu in silence. This man truly wouldn’t even look at him; his previous act of weakness and compromise had all been just to appease him. But did he regret doing it? He did not.
If he hadn’t done it, if he hadn’t spoken up, that was when he would have truly regretted it.
Perhaps because the silence thickened the atmosphere, Su Lixu noticed the sudden drop in Fu Xingran’s mood beside him, his hands resting on his knees slowly tightening into fists.
If this were anyone else, he would have called the police long ago, but it just had to be Fu Xingran.
Fu Xingran’s personality disorder was a ticking time bomb, and his emotions were the fuse. Whether it was anger or sadness, either could detonate that bomb. Precisely because he used to be Fu Xingran’s attending physician, he knew and understood this all too well, and he had already exercised immense restraint to avoid knowingly triggering it.
“Brother, I…”
“Fu Xingran.”
The two of them called out to each other at the exact same time, freezing the moment their eyes met.
Su Lixu glanced at Fu Xingran and then looked away. “I’ll speak first.”
How could the newly promoted Little Wolf Dog Fu dare to talk back? “You speak first, Brother.”
“If I didn’t know your condition, I would definitely have called the police.”
The implication was that he was letting him off this once.
Yet this conditional statement felt like a sharp, piercing blade driving deep into his heart, nearly shattering his illusions.
Hearing this word once again made Fu Xingran feel a suffocating tightness in his chest. He lowered his head, staring at the bathrobe belt beside his hand, his eye sockets burning hot, his lips pressed tight and jawline tense.
“So, Brother, do you hate me?”
“I’m afraid of you,” Su Lixu stated bluntly.
With medical rules no longer binding him and Fu Xingran, the distance between Fu Xingran and him would only shrink step-by-step due to his own indulgence, leading to coercion or whatever else—anything Fu Xingran wanted would simply be within arm’s reach.
No. That wouldn’t do.
Fu Xingran grabbed the bathrobe belt, clutching it so hard that the veins on the back of his hand stood out faintly. Yet he made not a sound, trying his utmost to suppress the suffocating, wall-bumping urge in his heart. After a brief silence, he twitched the corner of his mouth, raised his eyes to look at Su Lixu, and forced a smile.
“I get it. Then can you say happy birthday to me?”
The young man’s smile looked bitter and forced, bearing no resemblance to the fierce, predatory look from earlier. He looked like a deflated wolf pup, yet even after taking a beating, he still had to beg for a blessing.
It made him look inexplicably pitiful.
Su Lixu thought to himself that this guy only knew how to use this trick to manipulate him. If he fell for it again, he would truly fail his thirty years of life. So, he said flatly, “Happy birthday.”
“Okay.” Fu Xingran stood up. Before leaving, he gave Su Lixu one deep, lingering look, then turned around and walked away.
“Wait.”
A flicker of light sparked in Fu Xingran’s eyes, and he spun around abruptly, only to be struck squarely in the chest by his own tossed bathrobe belt. The light in his eyes dimmed instantly.
Su Lixu glanced at Fu Xingran’s disheveled appearance, his exposed abdominal muscles, and promptly looked away. “Put your clothes on properly instead of wandering around.”
Fu Xingran said, “Then I’m leaving.”
“Remember to take your cake,” Su Lixu said.
Fu Xingran replied, “But I haven’t made my wish yet.” His voice trembled at the end, his eye sockets growing redder as he stared fixedly at Su Lixu, his eyes filled with absolute entreaty.
Just look at me for a second, please. I know I was wrong.
Yet he still didn’t see Su Lixu turn back. At that moment, as if his pride had been thoroughly reawakened, he stood up and left the room without a single look back.
Yet halfway out, he stopped in his tracks, turned his head back once more, and said:
“I’m sorry.”
Forcing himself to pull back his gaze, this time he really left.
Su Lixu didn’t turn around. He listened to the shuffling movements behind him. After about a few minutes, he heard the sound of the front door gently closing, very soft, accompanied by the beep of the passcode lock.
In an instant, as if all his strength had drained away, he collapsed backward onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling light. All the repressed emotions from just now burst forth, and he panted heavily.
Perhaps the chandelier was too glaring; he raised his arm to block his eyes.
That is love, I love you, I am very clear on that.
So, Brother, do you hate me?
Can you say happy birthday to me?
But I haven’t made my wish yet.
Closing his eyes, Fu Xingran’s words echoed repeatedly in his ears, shifting from conviction to probing to grievance as if they had just happened, hammering at his heart and making him feel like a heartless person rejecting the burning, intense love of someone with a personality disorder.
He couldn’t bear it.
Yet he was terrified of this excessive, blazing love.
That wall full of photos, that oil painting, that room with that chair, that closing sound of the door, that bathrobe belt. The thought of them filled him with dread.
How were they supposed to interact from now on? He could no longer be Fu Xingran’s doctor, and he could no longer make promises to Mr. Fu, because they had already gotten far too close.
As his thoughts drifted, he suddenly realized that his entire mind was still filled with Fu Xingran.
Brother, I’m sorry, I was wrong.
Then I’m leaving?
I’m sorry.
Su Lixu sat up abruptly from the bed and got to his feet. As if struck by a thought, he stripped off his apron while walking, tossed it casually onto the nearby sofa, and walked out of the room. As he stepped out into the living room, he saw that the cake was still sitting on the bar counter.
He had been talking about it the whole time, yet he actually left without taking the cake?
He stared at it in a daze.
Could this guy do something foolish?
He walked quickly to the entryway, opened his front door, went over to next door at 1214, and pressed the doorbell. He pressed it several times, but no one opened the door. Panic welled up instantly. He was genuinely afraid Fu Xingran might do something stupid.
In his panic, he opened the passcode box above the fingerprint scanner and hastily punched in the code.
With a beep, against his expectations, the door popped open.
The passcode was 115115, his birthday.
He pushed the door open. The apartment inside was brightly lit, yet dead silent.
“Fu Xingran?” Su Lixu walked in and called out. No one was home; silence was his only reply.
At that exact moment, a chill surged up from the soles of his feet.
On the highway, the long, winding tunnel carried the roar of a beast. A silver-gray Lamborghini gleaming with hard metallic luster was tearing down the road at over two hundred miles per hour, its silhouette resembling an arrogant wild bull.
The lighting at the top of the tunnel swept gradually across the sharp, aggressively styled lines of the car body, gliding past the windows to cast shifting light and shadow over the person in the driver’s seat.
Fu Xingran gripped the steering wheel. Light and shadow traced up and down his chiseled contours, alternating between brightness and darkness, while his tightly clenched jawline exuded a hint of ferocity. An unapproachable, heavy pressure radiated from his entire body, seeming to blend and vent alongside the roaring engine.
Yet as the light swept past his chin, clear tear tracks were visible, sliding down his Adam’s apple and vanishing into his collar.
His gaze was gloomy as he stared at the deep, dark tunnel ahead, completely ignoring the soaring speedometer. Hearing the engine roar, he pressed down harder on the accelerator.
Doesn’t want me.
Hates me.
Said he’d celebrate my birthday with me and then backed out.
What’s so great about making a cake anyway?
As Fu Xingran spoke, his eye sockets grew even redder.
Waaah, how can you hate me?
Shouting at me to get out like that.
And threatening to call the police to have me arrested.
Su Lixu, you’ve changed.
The highway stretched long and empty, accompanied only by the roaring Lamborghini.
Fu Xingran tasted the salt of his tears at the corners of his lips, his grip on the steering wheel tightening gradually. He stared out the window through the glass, so was he supposed to just give up? Was he supposed to give up just because Su Lixu said he hated him?
To hell with knowing when to retreat, to hell with propriety and decorum, he was going to charge forward against the odds.
So, what if he cursed him out? He’d take it.
Whatever Su Lixu disliked, he would change.
Whatever Su Lixu liked, he would learn.
He just liked Su Lixu, and he was going to be with Su Lixu.
If it didn’t work the first time, he would try again.
No matter what, all he wanted was Su Lixu.
He wanted no one else.
After tearing down the road for ten minutes, the Lamborghini finally slowed its speed, made a U-turn at the off-ramp, and headed back the way it came.