Shang Xianwang opened his eyes because he heard a rustling sound at his door. The villa had a cleaning lady who came to tidy up when he wasn’t there. Most of the time, this house was occupied by only him extremely quiet, and he had grown accustomed to that cold solitude.
Shang Xianwang threw off the covers, got up from bed with his hair in disarray, walked to the door, and pushed it open, saying in an unpleasant tone, “Who… A-Yan.”
“Big brother, you’re awake too.” Shang Xueyan stood up straight.
Shang Xianwang closed his eyes and opened them again, even clenching and unclenching his fists. When he opened his eyes once more, the handsome young man was still there before him bright-eyed, with rosy lips.
“Big brother, big brother, are you still not awake?” Shang Xueyan waved a hand in front of Shang Xianwang’s eyes.
Shang Xianwang grabbed Shang Xueyan’s wrist in one swift motion. The warm sensation traveled into his palm, and he suddenly smiled. “A-Yan, yesterday wasn’t a dream.”
Shang Xueyan couldn’t help but curve his eyes into a smile. “Big brother, of course yesterday wasn’t a dream. Are you sure you’re fully awake? Though when I first woke up, I was a bit confused about where I was too. I had to think for a moment before realizing I was at your place.”
Shang Xianwang stared at him, then suddenly said, “You only lived to be thirty-two?”
Shang Xueyan looked away. “Didn’t we already talk about this yesterday? Big brother, I’m hungry. I want breakfast.”
“I’m really starving. What are we having this morning?” Shang Xueyan raised his hand to cover his stomach, his two thick dark brows furrowing slightly.
“What do you want to eat?” Shang Xianwang said.
“Anything is fine.”
Shang Xianwang went to the bathroom to wash up, changed into a set of loungewear, and came downstairs to boil dumplings for Shang Xueyan. The only thing left in his refrigerator was some frozen dumplings.
He went to the kitchen to get vinegar, then returned to the cold white dining room. At the snow-white long table, a young boy was holding a pair of wooden chopsticks, opening his mouth wide and biting off half a dumpling in one go. Shang Xianwang’s heart, which had maintained a fixed and slow rhythm for so long, now had a slight ripple.
He took the vinegar dish, poured some vinegar into it, and placed it beside Shang Xueyan’s hand.
After finishing breakfast, Shang Xianwang put the dishes and chopsticks into the dishwasher. Shang Xueyan followed behind Shang Xianwang into the kitchen. “Big brother, what is this?”
“A dishwasher.” Shang Xianwang closed the dishwasher and explained patiently, “It cleans the used dishes and chopsticks.”
Shang Xueyan suddenly understood. “Oh.”
“You’ve never seen one before?” Shang Xianwang said bluntly. “A-Yan, where did you live before? I’ll help you move.”
“?”
“Don’t want to live with me?”
“It’s not that.” Remembering the short drama he’d watched right after transmigrating, where the female lead’s husband ended up losing his wife and children because he was too good to his younger brother, Shang Xueyan had once imagined that if his big brother also transmigrated and married and had children, he definitely wouldn’t live with him anymore.
In their past life, the brothers had been close, but he had seen cases where brothers turned against each other after marriage due to sister-in-law conflicts.
But his big brother wasn’t married now no wife, no need to worry about getting along with a sister-in-law. Shang Xueyan didn’t not want to live with his big brother, after all, they had lived together for over a decade.
“Where did you live before?” Shang Xianwang asked again.
“Today is Monday. Don’t you need to go to work?” Shang Xueyan said.
“It doesn’t matter.” Shang Xianwang said. “I can skip the company today.”
After a moment, Shang Xueyan tried to persuade him, “Big brother, I don’t have much stuff. You don’t need to help me move, I’ll just go pack it up myself whenever I have time.” His gaze was upright and sincere.
“Where do you live?”
Shang Xueyan: “…”
After Shang Xianwang finished washing the dishes and changed his clothes, he took Shang Xueyan out. When grabbing the car keys at the entrance, he instinctively reached for the Maybach keys, but then, as if something crossed his mind, he picked a different set instead.
An hour later, a Rolls-Royce that stood out starkly against the urban village pulled up on the shabby road. Not far away, a trash bin emitted a rancid stench. Shang Xueyan led Shang Xianwang forward a short stretch until they reached the building where he lived.
The concrete exterior wall of the building was gloomy, plastered with small ads for job postings and apartment rentals. At some point, a stray cat had wandered into the stairwell and left behind an uncovered pile of cat feces.
Shang Xueyan brought Shang Xianwang up to the third floor and unlocked the aging security door with his key. The rust-red iron door swung open, and darkness was the first thing to greet them. Shang Xueyan flicked on the light, illuminating a narrow hallway less than two square meters.
Shang Xueyan unlocked his own room with his key one room, one lock. He didn’t trust the other tenants in this building, so of course he locked the door whenever he left.
Opening the door, Shang Xueyan turned on the light first. Shang Xianwang, carrying a twenty-six-inch suitcase, followed him inside. The room was cramped, shabby, and cluttered a single bed, a plastic wardrobe, and a cheap desk basically filled the entire space.
Shang Xianwang swept his gaze across Shang Xueyan’s room in one glance. “You’ve been living here for the past few months?”
His big brother took up too much space once he was inside, there wasn’t even room to open the suitcase. Shang Xueyan shooed his brother back to the doorway, crouched down, unzipped the suitcase, and started organizing his things. “This place is pretty good too. Look, the room is tiny doesn’t it feel kind of safe and cozy? And the location is great! Just a few kilometers from the city center, so it’s convenient to get anywhere!”
“Besides, I lived in big houses my whole last life. Isn’t living in a place like this a fun new experience?” Shang Xueyan said with sparkling enthusiasm.
Shang Xianwang watched Shang Xueyan. His eyes shone with vitality, and when he looked at him, his brows were lifted and his expression bright no shadow of gloom, no forced cheerfulness. He genuinely meant it.
Shang Xueyan seemed to possess an innate gift for making himself happy, whether as the young marquis of the Great An Dynasty or as the bullied little star of a company a thousand years later.
Shang Xianwang took a big stride, stepping over the suitcase lying on the floor to reach Shang Xueyan. With an open suitcase and two men over 1.8 meters tall, the room was packed to the brim, Shang Xueyan could barely even turn around.
Before he could speak, Shang Xianwang’s arms looped around Shang Xueyan’s from both sides, suddenly pulling him into a tight embrace, his cheek pressed against Shang Xueyan’s head.
Shang Xueyan froze for a moment, then hugged his big brother back with equal force, burying his jaw into his shoulder. His nose twitched slightly as he took a deep breath of the scent on him.
Shang Xueyan didn’t have much stuff the twenty-six-inch suitcase Shang Xianwang had brought was nearly enough to hold it all. The suitcase Shang Xueyan kept under the bed didn’t even need to be used.
After packing their luggage, the two of them walked out of the room. Just as they stepped into the hallway, the closed front door was pushed open from the outside. Shang Xueyan’s male roommate stumbled in, locked in a passionate kiss with another man as he wrapped his arms around him not the roommate from the next door, but the guy who lived in the master bedroom.
Shang Xueyan’s roommate caught sight of him and awkwardly tried to shove away the man who had him pressed against the wall, but the man remained unmoved.
Soon enough, Shang Xueyan’s roommate gave up resisting and closed his eyes, responding to the man with fervent, fiery enthusiasm. When Shang Xueyan saw both of their hands already creeping into each other’s pants, he quickly grabbed Shang Xianwang and strode out of there in a hurry.
With a smack, the door slammed shut, and once the two men who were biting and gnawing at each other were out of his sight, Shang Xueyan finally let out a sigh of relief. Irritated, he said to Shang Xianwang, “There are too many gay people in this world.”
Suddenly reminded of something, Shang Xueyan couldn’t help but shudder all over. “A bunch of disgusting freaks.”
Shang Xianwang’s steps, as he followed Shang Xueyan down the stairs, paused almost imperceptibly. “Ayan, is it disgusting for men to like men?”
“Of course it’s disgusting!” Shang Xueyan replied without a second thought, then immediately revised himself, “Maybe there are some who aren’t disgusting? But every one I’ve come across has been.”