The Antidote
In the empty living room, Jiang Zhuoye’s panicked, uneven breathing could be heard—hurried, frantic.
He had thought that after losing his temper, Bo Yun would at least take the hint and back off.
But Bo Yun frowned, staring at him, and instead grasped his hand.
“They drugged you? Do you know what kind? How are you feeling?”
As he spoke, Bo Yun was already fumbling with his phone, preparing to call a doctor.
Damn it.
Jiang Zhuoye reflexively pressed Bo Yun’s hands down. He might be shameless, but he still had his pride.
He didn’t want a doctor involved in something like this.
It wasn’t that he was afraid of treatment—it was simply unnecessary.
“No need to call a doctor,” Jiang Zhuoye ground out through gritted teeth. “Chloe just sent me the ingredients—it’s only a tiny stimulating component, harmless. I can… handle it myself.”
The last few words came out painfully.
God, Buddha, Virgin Mary—anyone. Just someone, anyone, deal with this for him.
Bo Yun frowned, skeptical, but seeing Jiang Zhuoye’s flushed face, he reluctantly believed him.
After a moment’s pause, as if weighing Jiang Zhuoye’s reliability, he scooped him up in his arms.
Jiang Zhuoye was stunned. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to the bathroom.”
Bo Yun carried him into the bathroom, filling the tub with slightly cool water, and helped Jiang Zhuoye settle inside.
His own clothes were soaked as well, clinging to his shoulders and abs.
Jiang Zhuoye was already on the edge of exploding. He curled up instinctively and snapped at Bo Yun: “Get out!”
Bo Yun looked at him for a long moment, then stepped back.
The moment Bo Yun left, Jiang Zhuoye couldn’t wait to reach down.
As he dealt with his own predicament, he thought: he had never felt so frustrated in his life. Truly a run of bad luck.
But soon, he discovered an even greater misfortune.
He couldn’t… release.
When this realization hit, Jiang Zhuoye froze completely.
….
Bo Yun had left the bathroom, but didn’t go far—he stood on the balcony, smoking.
The tip of his cigarette glowed red in the darkness, flickering like a warning light.
Outside, the sea stretched wide, soft sand beneath, a sparse, starry night—a beautiful scene.
But inside, an unnamed anger burned in him.
He knew Jiang Zhuoye was different from that sibling duo.
Maybe he was a bit childish, a bit too easygoing and cheerful, which drew attention.
But Jiang Zhuoye wasn’t reckless. Though the Jiang family had spoiled him over the years, they had taught him well—not to touch what he shouldn’t. Yet his brilliance always drew others with intent to tempt him.
Still, seeing Jiang Zhuoye crouched in the hotel bathroom on the club floor, buttons undone, lips split, Bo Yun felt a surge of indescribable anger.
A subtle, unspoken, destructive desire.
He narrowed his eyes, his face cold as ice in the night breeze.
This was his fiancé since childhood.
The partner with whom he had exchanged rings in front of friends and family.
Even if their marriage was fake, merely for convenience or profit, seeing Jiang Zhuoye exposed like that in front of others still made him deeply unhappy.
Which was irrational, Bo Yun thought.
Completely irrational—they were only fake partners, a relationship destined to end.
He didn’t need to take on any “important” role in Jiang Zhuoye’s life to lecture him.
Yet the fire burning in him wasn’t fake—it licked at his insides, slowly consuming him.
Bo Yun pressed out the cigarette in the ashtray, the veins on the back of his hand standing out.
The extinguished tip seemed to sigh in the night sky.
Because of Jiang Zhuoye’s warning, Bo Yun didn’t immediately enter. He stood on the balcony, staring at the distant shoreline, lost in thought.
After a while, he frowned and glanced at his watch.
Jiang Zhuoye had been inside for some time—half an hour, theoretically nothing to worry about. Maybe Jiang Zhuoye, compared to an average man, was just more enduring. He could manage himself.
Yet when Bo Yun peeked into the room, doubt arose.
Jiang Zhuoye had forbidden a doctor and insisted on handling it himself.
But Bo Yun couldn’t fully trust that sibling duo—who knew if they had added anything illicit?
After hesitating briefly, even while internally cursing his own indecision, Bo Yun returned to the room and entered the bathroom.
He first knocked lightly, but there was no response.
So he pushed open the sliding door.
The bathroom was steamy, the white marble floor damp with pooled water.
The space was so empty that footsteps echoed.
Bo Yun circled the partition wall and finally saw Jiang Zhuoye.
Through the mist, he saw him clearly.
Pale all over, with a pink flush, sitting in the huge round bathtub—not in pleasure, but in agonizing discomfort.
“…Jiang Zhuoye,” he called softly. “What’s wrong?”
He asked, knowing the answer.
Jiang Zhuoye felt like he was going insane. Who knew what lasting components were in that duo’s smoke?
He had never realized he could be so unyielding.
Half an hour had passed, and there was no relief in sight.
He was so frustrated he almost wanted to ask Bo Yun to fetch a doctor, some miracle cure, instant relief.
But he couldn’t.
Who wanted to speak to Bo Yun about this?
Especially in such a humiliating state.
Yet, amidst his exhausted struggle, he heard someone calling his name.
Cool, clear, like jade striking jade—entirely out of place in this steamy, oppressive bathroom.
Jiang Zhuoye nearly had a heart attack.
When he scrambled to look up, he saw his most hated “partner” in the world, standing beside the tub, watching him.
Still impeccably dressed, completely unbothered, witnessing all his disgrace.
Jiang Zhuoye wanted to smash a ceramic ornament at Bo Yun’s face.
But the shock drained all his strength.
He could only croak, “Are you crazy, Bo Yun? Why are you even here? What, really trying to… help me out?”
He was exhausted, yet his eyes challenged Bo Yun.
Even in such a pitiful state, Jiang Zhuoye’s eyes were bright.
A strikingly handsome face, aggressive in appeal, now sitting in the round tub, flushed cheeks and lips, lashes and hair damp from steam, carrying a fragile vulnerability.
A contradictory mix in one person.
Bo Yun, seemingly indifferent, thought: no wonder Jiang Zhuoye attracts so many gazes. Much of this was his own doing.
“Came to make sure you didn’t drown,” Bo Yun said calmly. He ignored the wet edge of the tub, sat beside him casually.
“You don’t look like you’re doing fine,” he mocked, observing Jiang Zhuoye’s pink-tinged nose and overly moist eyes. “Still haven’t solved it? Quite enduring, huh.”
Pure sarcasm.
Jiang Zhuoye ground his teeth, wishing he could bite Bo Yun to pieces.
Yet perhaps due to the drug or the steamy bathroom, even Bo Yun’s infuriating face seemed… oddly attractive.
Jiang Zhuoye bit his lips harder.
“Out.”
He whispered to Bo Yun, “Now. Who said you could just come in?”
Bo Yun, however, didn’t move.
He sat on the edge of the snow-white bathtub, his gaze sharp as the most precise surgical scalpel, scanning every inch of Jiang Zhuoye’s skin.
He asked softly, “Can you handle it yourself? Must be uncomfortable, right?”
“None of your damn business.”
Jiang Zhuoye had reached his limit. Surely there had to be a boundary to watching someone enjoy his misery.
He was lying there, humiliated beyond measure, and Bo Yun was just… reveling in it?
His eyes darted around the room, looking for something to throw at Bo Yun, anything to make him leave.
Before he could act, he saw Bo Yun’s strong, pale, slender hand slide into the water.
The wet water soaked the cuff of Bo Yun’s shirt, covering his fingers and back of his hand, climbing upward until even his arm was damp.
Jiang Zhuoye’s voice got stuck in his throat. He widened his eyes, staring at Bo Yun in disbelief.
A drop of water fell from the tip of his nose—sweat or water, he couldn’t tell—and landed on the surface, spreading tiny ripples.
Bo Yun had him in his grasp.
The water was warm.
But Bo Yun’s hand felt cold, like a shadowy yet agile jellyfish.
Jiang Zhuoye didn’t know whether he was being stroked or strangled.
“What are you doing?” His voice hoarse from fear.
“You tell me,” Bo Yun countered.
“Consider it me doing a good deed today,” he said, watching Jiang Zhuoye with eyes like the winter morning sun—bright, yet devoid of warmth. “You’d better be grateful.”
….
Jiang Zhuoye endured the longest ten minutes of his life.
The bathroom was vast, pure white like snow—cold to the eyes, yet paradoxically making his body flush, almost dizzy.
He gripped the edge of the tub with one hand, struggling to restrain himself from making a sound.
The water was shallow, rippling faintly.
Small waves constantly teased his shame.
He didn’t dare lift his eyes, couldn’t even open them—any glance would meet Bo Yun.
Bo Yun.
He exhaled hot breath from his lips, his mind still hazy and swollen.
He couldn’t believe it: the person he hated most, the one he gritted his teeth at, the arrogant bastard… was doing this.
Bo Yun had lost his mind, right?
Jiang Zhuoye vaguely wondered if marriage could damage the brain, causing genetic-level absurdity.
Before he could finish the thought, the ripples on the water suddenly grew.
He bit his lip.
Seconds later, he clutched the edge of the bathtub tightly, finally opening his eyes under the intense sensation.
He stared blankly at Bo Yun.
Bo Yun paused, lifting his hand from the water; droplets slid off his fingers, falling onto the water’s surface.
In the vast bathroom, each tiny splash was deafening.
Humiliating beyond measure.
Jiang Zhuoye tried to stifle his sound, but his breathing was heavy, chest rising and falling, unable to speak.
And Bo Yun continued to taunt him.
“Pathetic.”
Bo Yun said this with an expression unchanged, still impeccably dressed as if attending a meeting, ignoring the dampness of his clothes and hair from the steam.
He stared at Jiang Zhuoye, his face devoid of both amusement and ridicule. Just dark eyes, misted by the bathroom steam, black like a bottomless lake, fluttering slightly like an approaching storm.
After several seconds, he said softly, “Jiang Zhuoye, if you had gone and done it with that sibling duo tonight, you would be a million times more humiliated than you are now.”
Jiang Zhuoye finally lost it. He grabbed a bar of soap and threw it.
“Screw you,” he croaked.