It was the bag he had been carrying ever since they set off from Haicheng.
Xie Chun grabbed the straps, propped his palms on the bed, and knelt up.
He shuffled on his knees two steps closer to Xu Yanghe and, with a very shy expression, pulled open the zipper.
Inside the bag, among the layers of belongings, a square package tumbled out.
Xu Yanghe: “…”
He snatched the small square packet and threw it away!
“Hey…” Xie Chun reached out his hand in an attempt to stop him.
“What is this!” Xu Yanghe gave Xie Chun a push, and Xie Chun fell weakly back onto the bed.
He let out a yawn, grabbed a pillow to hug, and closed his eyes again. “Condoms. Didn’t you know…”
Of course Xu Yanghe knew.
The blood rushed to his head. He pressed the back of his hand against his forehead, not daring to imagine how red his face had become. “I mean, why would you bring something like that?”
“Shouldn’t I have?” Xie Chun’s voice was lazy. “Isn’t that what you meant?”
Xu Yanghe remembered the day they departed. It was snowing, and he had gone to get the car; when he came out, he saw Xie Chun standing in the snow, slightly out of breath.
Turns out, he had specially run back home at that moment to grab these.
“What if I didn’t mean that?” Xu Yanghe asked him.
“What if you did?” Xie Chun said. “You gave me so much money… what if you said I had to sleep with you or pay it back, and I couldn’t afford to…”
What kind of crude, straight-to-the-point adult movie plot intro was this!
Xu Yanghe stared at Xie Chun’s innocent face, a surge of frustration trapped in his chest, unable to go up or down. Better just kiss this guy into a daze again.
And so, Xu Yanghe kissed Xie Chun into a daze once more.
…
The next day, Xu Yanghe was the first to wake up.
A person feels miserable after a hangover. He desperately wanted to take a shower, but he couldn’t—he still had the “evidence” of Xie Chun’s “crimes” from last night on his body.
Xu Yanghe grabbed his tablet and leaned against the headboard to write a proposal for a share acquisition.
After waiting for an hour, Xie Chun finally showed signs of waking up.
Xie Chun was likely uncomfortable as well, letting out a few groans with a furrowed brow.
Xu Yanghe put down the tablet and turned on his side. “Awake?”
Xie Chun’s eyes snapped open, his entire being a mess of confusion. He turned his head slightly to see a bare-chested Xu Yanghe beside him, then looked straight ahead again, continuing to be dazed.
“Do you remember what happened last night?” Xu Yanghe asked gloomily.
Xie Chun: “I remember.”
Xu Yanghe: “Tell me about it.”
Xie Chun searched for his memories of last night. The process at the bar before going upstairs was still clear and continuous. “We drank.”
“And then?” Xu Yanghe pressed.
And then he should have gone upstairs with Xu Yanghe, and then he didn’t know how he fell asleep.
The memories after that were a chaotic mess, with only a few fragments remaining.
He and Xu Yanghe entered the same room, and then… “Kissed you?”
Xu Yanghe’s face flushed. Why did this guy make it sound so strange? “And then?”
Two more moments flashed through his pitch-black mind. Xu Yanghe seemed to have whispered in his ear: “I like you,” “Do you know I like you”…
“You said you liked me?” Xie Chun said blankly.
“Don’t talk about that mushy stuff,” Xu Yanghe cleared his throat. “Do you remember the important part?”
“Ah?” Xie Chun didn’t think there was anything else.
The things Xu Yanghe had done last night, fueled by alcohol, had already broken through his bottom line many times over. Telling one more lie was nothing. “We… had ‘drunken sex,’ do you remember?”
“Ah!” Xie Chun sat up in shock. He twisted his waist slightly and checked the sensation in his rear. “I don’t think so?”
There was no feeling at all!
Surprisingly, he wasn’t that easy to fool. Xu Yanghe pointed at Xie Chun’s upper body. “If we didn’t sleep together, then what are these on you?”
Xie Chun looked down and saw his body covered in strange, circular “hickey” marks. There were many of them, mainly distributed near his collarbone, with a few on his arms and waist—all perfectly circular and the same size.
“These shouldn’t be hickeys, right?” Xie Chun didn’t think he had ever seen this style before.
“Are you denying it now because you don’t want to take responsibility for me?” Xu Yanghe pinned a heavy accusation on him.
“I’m not,” Xie Chun felt a bit wronged. “But why do they look so… round?”
“My mouth is round, okay?” Xu Yanghe said righteously.
“Okay.” Xie Chun accepted it.
But it wasn’t just a matter of being round or not. Every “hickey” was dark on the edges and light in the center; combined with the small, round shape, they looked exactly like mini cupping marks.
“Now look at the ‘plum blossoms’ from last night.” Xu Yanghe got out of bed and flipped back the duvet.
On the bedsheet where Xu Yanghe had slept, there was a scattered patch of bloodstains—ambiguous yet startling.
Xie Chun: “Ah?”
Xu Yanghe turned around. His bare back was covered in nail marks, practically a bloody mess. “This was all your doing.”
Xie Chun looked at his own hands—there were traces of blood under his fingernails!
While Xie Chun was still in shock, Xu Yanghe was confident he had successfully tricked him. He grabbed his clothes to head to the shower. “Stop overthinking it, boyfriend. It’s settled. Hurry up and wash up; we’re heading back to Haicheng after breakfast.”
Xu Yanghe entered the bathroom.
Xie Chun looked at the bedside table and saw his bag.
Right, the stuff he specially brought.
He opened it and counted—a few were indeed missing!
In the bathroom, Xu Yanghe flushed the toilet.
Tricking a fool is easy, smooth, and leak-proof.
During breakfast, Xie Chun was still having a hard time accepting it.
Xu Yanghe ordered a lot of extra food for him. “Eat more. Look how thin you’ve become.”
“I’m not,” Xie Chun argued.
Xu Yanghe said, “Can’t I care for you in my capacity as your boyfriend?”
Xie Chun didn’t say another word.
Yu Dashan was gone before they even woke up.
Xu Yanghe contacted him, and Yu Dashan sounded like he was in a very vast, open space. “I’m fine, bro. I just don’t know where the hell I am!”
Then, a series of monkey hoots and hollers came through the phone.
“Dashan?” Xu Yanghe asked again.
“Holy crap, Yu Tianhe…” Then the call was hung up.
After breakfast, Xie Chun returned to his obedient self, appearing to have completely believed Xu Yanghe’s lies.
As the two got into the car, Xu Yanghe said, “It’s still a two-hour drive on the highway. Sleep if you’re tired.”
“Oh.” Xie Chun looked at Xu Yanghe suspiciously.
Xu Yanghe felt inexplicably guilty. “So… you believe everything I said, right?”
“…” Xie Chun nodded. “I believe you.”
Xu Yanghe breathed a sigh of relief.
“But, there’s one problem,” Xie Chun said.
This problem was very important.
Xie Chun asked him, “Why is it that after sleeping together for a night, I don’t feel anything at all right now?”
What was this guy saying!
Xie Chun’s suspicious gaze gradually fell toward Xu Yanghe’s crotch. Could it be that Xu Yanghe…
Xu Yanghe felt a chill in his lower half.
Xie Chun lunged from the passenger seat. “Let me see, just a quick look!”
Xu Yanghe struggled. “Hey! I’m driving! Don’t touch me!”
Fortunately, they hadn’t hit the highway yet. Xu Yanghe pulled over for a moment to lecture Xie Chun.
“Say it again: under no circumstances should you do what?”
Xie Chun said obediently, “Cannot interfere with the driver.”
Xu Yanghe: “Fine. Get in.”
Once on the highway, Xie Chun still didn’t fall asleep.
This made Xu Yanghe a bit uneasy.
Xie Chun looked at his phone for a while, then asked worriedly, “Xu Yanghe, is eating bull penis useful? Can it cause a ‘second development’?”
“Shut up…” Xu Yanghe said.
Xie Chun: “Oh.” His eyes still looked suspicious.
Xu Yanghe felt his future safety was a major concern. “You are not allowed in our kitchen from now on!”
After a moment, he felt guilty again. “You really believe me, right?”
“I believe you,” Xie Chun said.
“And you agreed to be together so easily,” Xu Yanghe said. “Why?”
Xie Chun looked at him. “Because you’re very handsome.”
Xu Yanghe’s heart jolted. Xie Chun wouldn’t lie, but, “I rarely hear people say that.”
“Usually when people meet me, they say Zhou Lan is handsome, Yu Dashan is handsome, and I’m cute. After getting to know me for a while, they say I’m a psychopath…”
Xie Chun stared at him without blinking. Xu Yanghe asked, “What do you want to do?”
“Cannot interfere with the driver,” Xie Chun said, looking down.
Xu Yanghe said, “As long as you don’t attack me.”
So he extended a finger. First, he tapped Xu Yanghe’s cheek—that was a dimple. He slid down the jawline; Xu Yanghe’s face was soft, not the sharp, typical ‘handsome guy’ face shape. He moved over the lips; the corners of his mouth turned upward, so he looked like he was smiling even without an expression. He brushed over the eyebrows; they were long, close to the eyes, and the eye sockets were deep.
Xie Chun concluded, “You’re just very handsome.”
Xu Yanghe swallowed, his heart drumming against his ribs.
…
Back in Haicheng, Xu Yanghe drove directly to the spinning mill group-rental building.
During the few days they were away, much of the construction waste piled up below the building had been cleared. The road had become wider, and Xu Yanghe could drive directly to the bottom of Xie Chun’s building.
For some reason, the light between the buildings seemed much brighter—likely the plan to evict the tenants had already begun.
Xie Chun’s landlady was sitting at the entrance to the stairs.
Xu Yanghe stopped the car and unfastened his seatbelt. “Today’s the day. Pack all your things and move into my place.”
“Why?” Xie Chun froze.
Xu Yanghe reached out and patted Xie Chun’s curly head. “We are a couple now, right?”
“I guess…” Although it was completely different from the relationship process he had imagined.
“Couples should live together.” Xu Yanghe brainwashed Xie Chun with the concept.
Xie Chun naturally accepted it. “Okay.”
The landlady hadn’t seen Xu Yanghe’s license plate before; she stood at the stairs, staring at the car with some wariness.
Xu Yanghe got out of the car.
“Who are you? Haven’t seen you around here,” the landlady questioned him in the local dialect.
She didn’t expect the person getting out of the passenger seat next to be Xie Chun.
The landlady immediately relaxed her guard. It wasn’t one of the people evicted before coming back to cause trouble.
“Hey, Xiao Xie,” the landlady called out to him. “Where have you been running off to these past two days? No one was in the room, and you even changed the door lock yourself. You think this is your own home? I’m the owner of the house. Do you know that changing the lock privately is a violation of the contract?”
Xu Yanghe pulled Xie Chun along and said to the landlady, “Alright, stop shouting. He’s moving out right now.”
The landlady had originally intended to use that excuse to kick Xie Chun out, but she didn’t expect them to bring it up first. The rest of her words were stuck in her throat.
“Um,” Xie Chun looked at Xu Yanghe, thought for a bit, and then said to the landlady, “Auntie, the contract doesn’t say I can’t change the lock.”
“Is there a security deposit for this place?” Xu Yanghe asked him.
Xie Chun shook his head, and the rent for this quarter happened to be due.
Xu Yanghe tapped him on the back. “Then go up and pack your things first.”
Xie Chun obediently went upstairs.
The landlady couldn’t quite understand the turn of events. She had originally thought this household would be the hardest to evict—how did they just move out on their own?
“You better really be moving. Don’t think you can use this method to fool me,” the landlady scoffed.
“What, do you want to watch Xie Chun move?” Xu Yanghe’s expression darkened. “Or are you going to help him move?”