Ying Qiuman woke with a start, and sure enough, there was Xu Shuyuan standing beside him, looking down at him without expression.
“I…” He instinctively wanted to explain, but Xu Shuyuan turned his head and looked elsewhere.
It wasn’t anyone else Xu Shuyuan had turned to look at, it was Ying Qiuman’s advisor, Wei Boju.
“Professor Wei, your student can’t hold his liquor. Don’t bring him next time.” His tone was perfectly even, neither warm nor cold, as if he were offering sincere advice except that the subject of it was Ying Qiuman.
“Let him see a bit of the world. Wasn’t that last drink you’re doing, anyway?” Wei Boju patted Xu Shuyuan’s shoulder, then reached out toward Ying Qiuman.
Ying Qiuman shrank back slightly, guiltily lifting his eyes to look at Xu Shuyuan. But the man still didn’t look at him, smiling faintly as he said goodbye to Wei Boju, then turned and left.
Not even the slightest scrap of attention was spared for Ying Qiuman.
Wei Boju’s hand, reaching to grab Ying Qiuman’s arm, closed on nothing. Thinking he’d misjudged the distance because he was tipsy, he turned his head and saw his student’s gaze following Xu Shuyuan out the door. He laughed twice and said, “All right, all right, they’ve all gone. I won’t make you drink any more!”
Ying Qiuman drew his gaze back and lowered his head. After dozing for a while, he’d sobered up a bit, though the alcohol still left him somewhat sluggish.
It was only nine in the evening, there were still two hours before the dormitory curfew.
Wei Boju walked him to the hotel entrance and pressed a bottle of honey into his hands. “We’ll send you back to school in a bit. Once you’re in the dorm, remember to message me!”
Ying Qiuman walked out glumly. Then, all at once, he caught sight of a car in the distance. Its headlights flickered on and off, yet it had been sitting there for a long time without pulling away. He recognized at a single glance that it was Xu Shuyuan’s car, and his eyes suddenly lit up.
“Teacher, I need to go home for a bit, so I won’t trouble you any further.” Ying Qiuman spoke a little fast, looking somewhat anxious. Wei Boju still wanted to see him off, but Ying Qiuman waved him away. “I’ll take a taxi.”
Watching him walk off toward a car by the roadside, Wei Boju squinted and recognized it as a Cayenne. He couldn’t help sighingthese days even people driving Cayennes were out here picking up taxi fares?
Ying Qiuman ran over and pulled the car door open. Seeing Xu Shuyuan sitting inside, still indifferent to his arrival, he suddenly hesitated.
“Sorry.” He didn’t know why he was apologizing. And when Xu Shuyuan asked him about it, he only got more tongue-tied and couldn’t get a word out.
Xu Shuyuan finally lifted his eyes to look at him. His deep gaze seemed faintly cold. Then Ying Qiuman said something with a touch of feeling: “I think you’re angry.”
Whether it was alcohol or something else, Ying Qiuman suddenly found his own words a bit funny. Because after hearing them, Xu Shuyuan actually laughed, and even shifted over to signal him to get in.
Ying Qiuman felt weak all over. Sitting off to one side, with Xu Shuyuan there, his hunger and anxiety worsened a little, but in the end he chose to lean against the car window. As the car drove on smoothly, he slipped into a drowsy sleep.
His sleep was rather light. Even under the influence of alcohol it wasn’t very restful, so when the car door on his side opened, he was startled awake.
From Xu Shuyuan’s vantage point, he looked like a lightly sleeping lamb once disturbed, it didn’t bolt right away, but instead lifted its eyes obediently, gazing blankly at the hunter staring it down.
“If you can’t drink, why didn’t you refuse?” the hunter asked. Ying Qiuman didn’t catch it at first, only managing a vague “Hm?”
Xu Shuyuan didn’t repeat himself. He bent down and lifted him out of the car.
With the distance so close, Ying Qiuman couldn’t tell whether his cheeks were hot because he was drunk or because he was near a source of warmth. Either way, even the cold wind of the deep winter night couldn’t disperse the heat between them.
“Could I have refused?” Ying Qiuman had refused once before, and his project had been cut afterward. So at tonight’s dinner, even though Wei Boju had told him not to push himself because this body couldn’t handle alcohol well once his mind started to blur, fear crept in: fear that refusing would once again get his work stopped.
Xu Shuyuan frowned and glanced at him. “It was a gathering of friends. What do you think?”
Ying Qiuman was still clutching the honey his advisor had given him. After they got inside, he was tossed onto the sofa and the honey was taken away. He could only look helplessly at Xu Shuyuan, but the man seemed set on teasing him. Shaking the honey he’d confiscated, he asked, “Is this something your advisor taught you?”
Taught him what? To drink whatever liquor anyone handed him?
“No.” It really wasn’t. Even with his muddled mind, Ying Qiuman couldn’t let his teacher take the blame, so he answered firmly. Yet for some reason, Xu Shuyuan’s brows knit even tighter, and he looked even angrier.
“It really wasn’t.” Ying Qiuman repeated his explanation, but he couldn’t say it was his boss who’d made him drink after all, he was still just a university student who hadn’t graduated.
He denied it twice, then felt drained, knowing the other man wouldn’t believe him. So he lowered his head and stopped talking. Xu Shuyuan, met with his silence, walked off as well.
Ying Qiuman’s eyelids drooped heavily. He wanted to get up, but his head tipped, and he slumped down along the sofa.
Before he could fall asleep, Xu Shuyuan shook him awake again. He was like a prisoner interrogated and tormented over and over, dragging his heavy body and hazy mind along, still guarding his secret as he endured the questioning.
“Honey water.” Xu Shuyuan held the cup in front of him. The sweet scent told him it really was honey water, not the unpleasant alcohol anymore.
He reached out to take it, but Xu Shuyuan drew his hand back. Ying Qiuman looked up at him, confusion written across his face.
Xu Shuyuan met his gaze, then brought the cup back to his lips and urged, “Drink it quickly.”
Ying Qiuman couldn’t make sense of it, and afraid the water would be taken away again, he quickly wrapped both hands around the cupalong with Xu Shuyuan’s hand and gulped down more than half of it.
He wanted to keep drinking, but realized Xu Shuyuan’s wrist had gone stiff and the cup wasn’t tilted enough, he couldn’t reach the water at the bottom. He lifted his eyes, meaning to ask or remind him, only to find Xu Shuyuan holding up his phone, aimed at him.
“Are you taking pictures of me?” Ying Qiuman asked outright. Xu Shuyuan moved the phone away, his voice cool and flat: “No.”
Ying Qiuman looked at him for a while, then lowered his head toward the honey water, as if it might show his reflection. After a long moment, he mumbled, “I don’t look good like this.”
Hearing that, Xu Shuyuan swiped back to the previous screen. On it was a drunken young man holding on to his hand while drinking water. Unlike his usual silence or shyness, he looked rather adorablehow was that not good-looking?
“I already told you I didn’t take a picture of you.” Xu Shuyuan lifted the bottom of the cup, forcing Ying Qiuman to tip his head back and swallow. The last few mouthfuls went down too fast, and he choked a little.
His lips, reddened by the alcohol, were coated with honey water, glistening faintly under the white lights of the living room.
Xu Shuyuan looked away and carried the cup off toward the kitchen.
The alcohol had left Ying Qiuman a bit irritable. Not only had he been made to choke, he wasn’t even handed a tissuetruly overbearing and unreasonable.
But there was nothing he could say about it. This was someone else’s home. After sulking for a while, he simply wiped the water from his lips with the back of his hand.
He looked at the spiral staircase leading up, and his head suddenly swam.
He sat on the sofa waiting for a long time, but neither Uncle Liu nor Aunt Liang appeared, and even Xu Shuyuan was nowhere to be seen.
Knowing no one would come to help him, Ying Qiuman took a deep breath and stood up from the sofa.
It wasn’t as if he’d never drunk himself weak in the limbs before, but for safety’s sake he’d always force himself to leave. Originally he was the type who grew clearer-headed the more he drank, but this body wasn’t like that, just a few drinks left him dizzy, with his heart pounding especially fast.
Xu Shuyuan’s house was decorated in a minimalist style. As Ying Qiuman made his way across it step by step, his pace was unsteady, yet he didn’t bump into anything and reached the staircase railing without trouble.
Just as he was about to gather his strength to climb, his vision blurred, he misjudged the step, and one foot came down on empty air. His body swayed twice and tipped backward but fortunately he had decent arm strength, and by grabbing the railing with one hand, he steadied himself.
Xu Shuyuan, watching from behind, was alarmed. Seeing that he still meant to keep going on his own, he crossed the distance in two strides, wrapped an arm around his waist, scooped him up, and carried him toward the second floor.
Ying Qiuman was slow to react. After being set down, he subconsciously trailed after Xu Shuyuan, until they reached a doorway. Xu Shuyuan turned back and asked, “Why are you following me?”
It took him a moment to register, and then he remembered his own bedroom was on the other side. Lowering his head, he apologized, “Sorry, I went the wrong way.”
Coming home with him of his own accord, and then trailing him all the way to the bedroomXu Shuyuan felt his self-control was already quite good. But when he thought of that absurd yet vivid dream he’d had, then compared it to the coy, seductive way Ying Qiuman had behaved in it, his present self could be considered downright innocent.
Although in reality the first time had been Xu Shuyuan taking the initiative during his susceptibility period, and Ying Qiuman had never afterward shown any of the behaviors from the dream, Xu Shuyuan still stayed on his guard. He believed that as long as he never showed Ying Qiuman any trust, the things from the dream would never come to pass.
But now…
Ying Qiuman had staggered crookedly only a few steps when his wrist was suddenly seized. Somehow the whole room spun, and then he crashed into a firm, powerful embrace. A hand slid along his cheek and lifted his chin, and his lips, slightly parted out of confusion, just happened to make things convenient for the other man.
His heart pounded even harder. His dulled nerves made him forget to breathe at the very start, but fortunately his free-diving had always been excellent, so he was able to endure Xu Shuyuan’s forceful plundering for quite a while.
He silently counted off the seconds in his head, trying to keep track, but his muddled brain made him lose his place before he hit double digits, forcing him to start over again. At some uncounted point, Xu Shuyuan suddenly let him go.
They were so close that Xu Shuyuan’s smiling expression struck him as especially vivid.
“Don’t you need to breathe?”
In Xu Shuyuan’s eyes, Ying Qiuman saw his own reflection. The instant he caught his breath, his heart began racing even faster along with his heavy gasps, pounding as if it cared nothing for survival.
“My longest breath-hold can reach five minutes,” Ying Qiuman answered honestly. But once he’d said it, he realized he had no experience learning free-diving in this life, and panic welled up again.
Fortunately, Xu Shuyuan didn’t doubt him much. He was still smiling, lifting a hand to brush lightly against the tip of his nose. “That impressive?”
Ying Qiuman couldn’t tell whether this was praise or not, though it didn’t seem like something Xu Shuyuan would do. So he figured he must have done something wrong again. He blinked twice and lowered his head.
Drinking really did cause trouble. He felt like he’d made every mistake of his life in a single day, yet when he thought it over carefully, he couldn’t pin down what exactly he’d done wrong.
This haze and confusion left Ying Qiuman feeling helpless. Silently, he drove a stake into his own heart: he would never drink carelessly again.
Seeing him fall quiet again without a reaction, Xu Shuyuan brushed aside the slightly long hair on his forehead and said gently, “Go take a shower and sleep.”
Ying Qiuman’s gaze followed Xu Shuyuan’s hand as he stated the obvious: “I can’t wash.”
His whole body was weak right now. Just making it to the bed would be good enough, a shower was out of the question.
But hearing his answer, Xu Shuyuan didn’t seem to understand it at all. Instead, with a slightly reproachful tone, he said, “Stop acting spoiled.”