”hiss–“
The sudden impact to Shen Mingjin’s lips felt like his brain had been pounded by an AK assault rifle. Every nerve seemed to be covered in the word “pain.” He groaned, his vision went black, and he heard a buzzing sound like a telegraph short circuit. A few seconds later, in addition to the excruciating pain, fragments of memories swept through his brain like swirling snowflakes.
Shen Mingjin suddenly remembered that he seemed to have actually dated Xu Duwan.
Strictly speaking, that wasn’t really a relationship at all.
At that time, the two were only in their second year of high school. Xu Duwan followed him home every day and always wrote him love letters. Even after he rejected him, he was not discouraged and persisted in stuffing love letters into his desk every day.
Later, Shen Mingjin discovered that whenever Xu Duwan appeared, all the suitors around him would automatically disappear and no longer dare to appear in front of him to harass him. At the time, Shen Mingjin did not think carefully about the mystery, but now he realized that Xu Duwan had probably secretly taken care of it behind his back.
At that time, Shen Mingjin was extremely averse to trouble and hated being stared at with greedy eyes, so he was not disgusted by Xu Duwan’s behavior. He even tacitly approved of Xu Duwan’s approach and did not shy away from indulging Xu Duwan’s slightly intimate behavior towards him in front of others. Even when Xu Duwan deliberately tried to feed him steamed buns, Shen Mingjin only hesitated for a moment before eating them.
Then the next day, for some reason, Xu Duwan suddenly didn’t bring him breakfast. Shen Mingjin couldn’t help but ask him, but Xu Duwan gave a vague answer:
”I’m worried it might be unsafe for you to eat it.”
As Xu Duwan spoke, he lay on the table rubbing his stomach, his face looking rather pale, with some bruises on his hands and face.
Shen Mingjin glanced at his lower body and saw that his school pants were dirty, covered with mud and grass clippings, and he was walking with a limp, as if he had been injured in a fight.
Seeing this, Shen Mingjin did not ask any further questions, perhaps because he was too lazy to ask.
After all, there were too many people who liked Shen Mingjin back then. Xu Duwan was just a little thick-skinned, a little difficult to deal with, and a little good at fighting. Other than that, he had nothing else that made Shen Mingjin care about him.
Most importantly, Shen Mingjin didn’t like men at that time.
For him, Xu Duwan was nothing more than a useful and effective shield.
It’s the kind of thing you can’t shake off no matter what you do.
When the whole school was buzzing about their relationship, Shen Mingjin didn’t publicly deny it for various reasons, so Xu Duwan started to claim he was his boyfriend. During that time, Xu Duwan would often develop inexplicable injuries, but Shen Mingjin never asked him how they came about. He would occasionally tell him perfunctorily not to fight because he didn’t like it, and Xu Duwan would then tone it down a bit.
The way he concealed it was to wear a long-sleeved school uniform in the middle of summer to cover up the wound on his arm so that Shen Mingjin wouldn’t see it, and to pretend to be well-behaved.
When Shen Mingjin saw this, he could roughly guess what was going on. He thought Xu Duwan was incredibly stupid, and even a little ridiculous. Sometimes he would even wonder if it was the right decision to let Xu Duwan be his rumored boyfriend.
At the age of sixteen or seventeen, having such a person to pursue him satisfies the boy’s vanity while also making him feel ashamed from the bottom of his heart.
Shen Mingjin couldn’t remember why he and Xu Duwan broke up, but at this moment, he remembered that he was a native of Ningcheng, with both parents alive, his family owned an antique shop, and his grandfather was a famous master craftsman and appraiser with a certain status in the antique circle.
Although he didn’t know why he fell into the sea and was eventually rescued on the beach, he now knows that he is not some fisherman’s adopted son. He has his own family, friends, and… a very stupid ex-boyfriend.
Shen Mingjin looked up at Xu Duwan, who was crying out in pain, tears streaming down his face, clutching his forehead. He licked his broken lip, feeling both speechless and amused. His voice unconsciously softened, and his demeanor was noticeably different from before his amnesia.
“Have you ever practiced Iron Head Kung Fu?”
”I don’t.”
Xu Duwan looked at him with teary eyes and said aggrievedly, “My head hurts, I just want you to kiss me…”
”And now?” Shen Mingjin sighed.
Xu Duwan honestly replied, “My head hurts even more now.”
”puff–“
Shen Mingjin glanced at Xu Duwan, whose eyes were slightly downturned due to grievance, and felt as if he were seeing a kitten whining to him. He almost burst out laughing at this, but after laughing, he sighed.
”Do you call this kiss?”
”I don’t care,” Xu Duwan narrowed his eyes, removed his palm from the reddened forehead, and said domineeringly and righteously:
”This is a mark, it means you’ve kissed me.”
”I don’t.”
Shen Mingjin’s voice was very calm.
Upon hearing this, Xu Duwan’s eyes widened, and he sat up abruptly from Shen Mingjin’s lap, exclaiming, “You clearly did it!”
In his excitement, Xu Duwan’s movements were a bit too exaggerated. His buttocks slid across a certain area beneath Shen Mingjin, causing Shen Mingjin’s expression to change. He gasped and instantly reached out to grab Xu Duwan’s waist, pulling him back to prevent him from rubbing against where he shouldn’t. Then, with a forced smile, he deliberately said:
”No kiss.”
Upon hearing this, Xu Duwan dared not speak out in anger. His hair, looking dejected, seemed to droop and fall limply across his neck.
He stared at Shen Mingjin for a long time without saying a word, seemingly both angry and aggrieved, and touched his forehead with heartache.
All that pain for nothing.
Shen Mingjin stared at him coldly, knowing exactly what Xu Duwan was thinking. He found it amusing to tease Xu Duwan, but seeing that he was about to cry, he realized he had gone too far with his joke.
He sighed and straightened up, his palm sliding down Xu Duwan’s neck and down to his lower back, slowly pressing the listless Xu Duwan, who looked like a dehydrated blade of grass, into his arms.
Xu Duwan didn’t know what Shen Mingjin wanted to do, but he still obediently buried his face in Shen Mingjin’s neck, sullenly smelling the other’s faint laundry detergent scent, feeling somewhat drowsy.
However, the next second, Shen Mingjin’s action made his eyes widen instantly, his sleepiness vanished without a trace, and he even felt like he was about to explode with anger—
Shen Mingjin pulled him into his arms, lightly stroking his waist with his palm before lowering his head and gently kissing his forehead.
This was their first kiss in the strict sense.
Xu Duwan clutched his pounding heart, a rush of blood to his head, feeling weak in the knees and limbs. Reason had deserted him; not a single cell in his body obeyed his brain’s commands. In a daze, he heard Shen Mingjin laughing lightly as he said to him:
”This is what a kiss should be like.”
Fool.
Who would ram their head against someone’s lips? Those who know the situation might think it’s a kiss, but those who don’t might think it’s a fight.
Shen Mingjin’s voice was very soft, like willow catkins, gently brushing against his heart. Xu Duwan’s ears tingled, his body went limp, and a tingling sensation spread from his heart, making him feel hot all over, as if his bones were burning red. He collapsed into Shen Mingjin’s arms. He felt even more dizzy, wondering if he had drunk fake alcohol tonight, otherwise why was he so drunk?
He glanced cautiously at Shen Mingjin, his brain, churned up by drunkenness, struggling to function before giving up again. Xu Duwan, in a fit of desperation, reached out and hugged Shen Mingjin’s waist.
”My head still hurts.”
Shen Mingjin chuckled and then leaned down to kiss his forehead again:
“Is this enough?”
The roles of the two seem to have reversed. Before, Shen Mingjin would make requests and Xu Duwan would fulfill them; now, Xu Duwan makes requests and Shen Mingjin indulges him.
Sure enough, the next second, Xu Duwan made an even more shameless statement:
”My back hurts too!”
”Here?” Shen Mingjin’s palm brushed against that smooth spot, and Xu Duwan immediately clenched his teeth. He grabbed Shen Mingjin’s collar, gritting his teeth to suppress the moan that was about to escape his lips, his teeth almost bleeding.
”It hurts here?”
Shen Mingjin lowered his head and gently kissed Xu Duwan’s delicate skin. Xu Duwan fell onto the soft bed, burying his tense face in the blankets, only his red, bleeding earlobes showing. He gritted his teeth and remained silent, feeling as if the part of his body below his waist no longer belonged to him, a tingling and numb sensation.
He could even feel the tip of his tongue gliding across his skin, the sensation of his lips gently rubbing against his skin, and the warmth of his mouth made him almost cry out.
However, what made him want to cry the most was that the person who kissed him was Shen Mingjin. This realization was like a top-grade aphrodisiac being poured into his brain, making him lose his mind and allowing him to have whatever he wanted.
Shen Mingjin didn’t know where Xu Duwan’s waist injury came from. Xu Duwan had a very faint white scar on his lower back, as if it had been cut by a sharp instrument. No wonder he kept complaining of pain.
I guess he felt pain when he was injured.
Remembering that the other person had said his knee hurt, he glanced at Xu Duwan who was still pretending to be dead, pulled him over, rolled up his trouser leg, and traced his fingertips upwards to his knee.
The moment the knee landed, Shen Mingjin paused, suddenly stunned.
His knee looked as if it had suffered a severe blow, its shape slightly deformed, making Xu Duwan’s knee-bending movements appear stiff and unnatural.
Shen Mingjin didn’t immediately kiss that spot. Instead, he leaned down, staring intently at Xu Duwan, and whispered:
“What happened to your knee?”
”……” Xu Duwan was a little dizzy from the kisses and also felt sleepy, so he obediently said:
”It was smashed by Shen Lian and his men with iron bars…”
At that time, he had just “broken up” with Shen Mingjin, and afterwards he suffered revenge from Shen Mingjin’s admirers. For a long time after graduation, he was unable to do strenuous exercise, and he still can’t to this day.
For some reason, Shen Mingjin felt as if ants were gnawing at his heart. He trembled for a moment from the pain, and after a long while, his fingertips gently caressed that spot. As if confirming, he said in a deep voice:
“Is it… because of me?”
Xu Duwan neither said yes nor no, but just hummed impatiently, turned his head away, his eyelids drooping quietly, his breathing even, as if he were asleep.
Seeing this, Shen Mingjin stopped arguing with him.
He lifted Xu Duwan’s leg, kissed his knee, then lay down and pulled the restless Xu Duwan into his arms.
Xu Duwan hummed and snuggled closer to him, pressing him against him.
Shen Mingjin held him, staring at Xu Duwan’s face for a while. After a moment, he brushed aside the bangs that were sticking to Xu Duwan’s forehead with his fingertips, thought for a moment, and whispered:
”I agree.”
Xu Duwan was still half asleep, snuggling into his arms like a kitten. His brain, still fuzzy, couldn’t keep up with his words, and he instinctively asked:
”What?”
”Didn’t you tell me to be with you before?” Shen Mingjin didn’t care whether Xu Duwan was sober or not, or whether he understood what he meant. He rested his chin on the top of Xu Duwan’s head, and his voice, coming from above, was very flat and emotionless:
”I agree now.”