Lin Xun was covered in blood, though he couldn’t tell whose it was.
Dragging his aching body down the staff hallway, he walked into the shower room. He tore open his top, which had been shredded by the wolf’s claws, and checked himself front and back in the mirror. Fortunately, aside from his old injuries, there were no claw marks or bite wounds on his body; only the skin around his ankles had been rubbed raw by the shackles. Standing under the showerhead, the water running over them sent a stinging, burning pain through his legs.
The wolf’s blood was foul and pungent. Closing his eyes, Lin Xun could still smell the hot, bloody breath spraying from the wolf’s jaws.
He used up nearly half a bottle of body wash, scrubbing himself raw several times until his skin turned red before changing into clean clothes and stepping out.
Pushing open the door to a random breakroom, Lin Xun fished out a roll of bandages from the standard first-aid kit.
The night of the banquet, a nearly two-centimeter wound had been left on his left palm. Compared to the injuries he had suffered in the past, it was truly insignificant, but Lin Xun cared about it immensely.
He secretly treated this minor wound as a gift from Huo Tingxiao.
Perhaps others would find such a thought absurd or even somewhat twisted, but Lin Xun felt fortunate to be mute, enabling him to conceal his inner thoughts so quietly and well.
He wrapped his hand up like a person wrapping a present.
He began to carefully savor the lingering imprint of fingers left on his wrist, the dry, warm palm of Huo Tingxiao, and the secret thrill triggered when the glass shard was pulled out—over the past brief two days, he had done so countless times.
Just as he was immersed in his thoughts, a man and a woman rushed in kissing passionately. Completely ignoring his presence, they immediately began putting on an explicit, age-restricted scene.
Lin Xun sat nearby watching for a moment, then got up and left to make room for them.
The hallway outside was chaotic; people playing cards, drinking, and playing drinking games gathered together, making enough noise to make one’s ears ache.
Dangling a cigarette from his mouth, he intended to head toward the fire stairwell to seek some peace and quiet.
Ah Qing sent him a message asking if he had finished his match. Lowering his head to reply, he walked toward the stairwell.
The moment the fire door was pushed open, his expression turned icy cold, and he whipped around with a fierce punch.
Yet unexpectedly, this punch hit empty air.
In the darkness, a large hand clamped onto his throat with even greater speed, slamming him against the wall with an irresistible force.
Lin Xun raised his leg, intending to attack the other person’s lower body. However, his opponent had already pressed close; a leg forcefully squeezed between his knees, shoving upward with brutal dominance.
Lin Xun was nearly lifted off the ground by this move, forced to stand on tip-toe just to barely touch the floor.
The stance forced the two of them into extreme proximity, and in an instant, Lin Xun caught a clear view of that handsome face.
He immediately ceased his struggling, his pitch-black pupils flooding with astonishment.
“Good vigilance, quick reactions,” Huo Tingxiao evaluated him like so.
Yet Lin Xun seemed frozen on the spot, blinking numbly only after a few seconds had passed.
The five fingers clamped around his neck tightened slightly. Lin Xun’s breath hitched, but he didn’t budge, allowing Huo Tingxiao to hold his neck—looking every bit the opposite of the praise he had just received.
The distance was simply too close—
Lin Xun carefully took a breath, wanting to confirm that the foul stench on his body had been completely washed off and wouldn’t offend Huo Tingxiao.
Yet filled within his breath was only the faint, cold, woody fragrance of the man himself.
While his mind was wandering, Lin Xun heard a soft chuckle.
The force around his neck loosened accordingly.
Huo Tingxiao stepped back two paces, standing within a beam of light that snuck through the crack of the fire door.
His expression was gentle, the corners of his lips slightly raised.
Lin Xun stood straight against the wall, awkwardly picking at the wall paint for a moment before remembering to look for his phone.
His phone had been knocked down earlier, but luckily the screen wasn’t shattered and it still worked.
He opened his notepad, fearing Huo Tingxiao would be kept waiting, and quickly typed out three words: Looking for me?
Before handing the phone over, he even used the bandage on his hand to wipe the screen clean.
“Coincidence,” Huo Tingxiao answered.
Lin Xun sheepishly pulled his hand back, deleting the three words one by one.
He didn’t know what else to “say,” his thumb holding down the delete key continuously.
Huo Tingxiao looked at him for a moment and asked, “Is your hand feeling any better?”
Lin Xun froze slightly, then nodded.
Huo Tingxiao added: “The performance just now was very impressive.”
So he had come to the club to watch the performance; Lin Xun realized belatedly, his face flushing warm at his self-flattering question earlier. Lowering his head to type, he wrote: It’s chaotic here. It’s unsafe for you to come.
“What about you then?”
Huo Tingxiao took a step closer toward him, asking despite knowing the answer: “Don’t you work for Scorpion? Why are you here?”
Huo Tingxiao was half a head taller than him. It was fine when standing at a distance, but now that he was close, when Huo Tingxiao lowered his eyes to look at him, the sense of looking down from above along with the innate pressure of a superior became exceptionally pronounced.
Lin Xun tightened his grip on his phone, not particularly wanting to answer.
Yet Huo Tingxiao was waiting with immense patience.
He had no choice but to open the notepad with sluggish movements. Just as he typed out a single letter, a new SMS text suddenly popped up in the message preview bar. Since Huo Tingxiao was watching him type, he naturally caught sight of this message as well.
[Ah Qing: Grab a box of crayfish on your way back, will ya? I’m craving it.]
Lin Xun felt as if he had been granted a grand reprieve, using this text message to shift the topic: A friend. I’m crashing at his place.
Huo Tingxiao uttered a low “Mm,” his tone flat and unreadable.
Lin Xun started a new line, editing back and forth. He wanted to find a new topic to “chat” a bit more with Huo Tingxiao, yet he was terrified that Huo Tingxiao might bring up the past again—completely oblivious to the fact that his entire conflicted thought process had been witnessed by the other man.
In the end, he wrote: I should head back.
After typing it, he shot a secretive glance at his side.
That day, Huo Tingxiao was wearing a black leather jacket over a white T-shirt. The jacket was left unzipped, and the T-shirt fitted his build closely, rendering the subtle contours of his chest muscles faintly visible.
Lin Xun felt his face warm up by another degree.
Then, he heard Huo Tingxiao say, “I should be going too. Goodbye.”
Lin Xun nodded.
He reached out his right hand, fingers slightly bent, waving it gently up and down in a subtle motion to say “goodbye” to Huo Tingxiao in sign language.
The light in the stairwell was far too dim; he didn’t know if Huo Tingxiao had clearly seen his farewell. But in a place like the club, with its complex mix of people and high risk factor, it was better… not to meet again.
Lin Xun tilted his head back against the wall, raising his hand to stroke his neck.
On the right side of his neck was an old scar—a thin, sharp scratch about two knuckles long. This was the very first “gift” Huo Tingxiao had given him, as well as his final thread of connection to Huo Tingxiao during his impoverished youth.
To commit it to memory, a tattoo had been added to the side of his neck.
—H.T.X, styled in ornate script, each letter the size of a fingernail, neatly arranged right along the scratch mark.
At the mere thought that Huo Tingxiao had touched this tattoo just moments ago, Lin Xun couldn’t help but feel a surge of excitement.
Tightening his fingers, he closed his eyes, greedily savoring every single detail of that brief contact.
After a long while, he let out a long, slow sigh and sat on the stairs to smoke a cigarette.
By the time he returned to the basement room Ah Qing rented, it was just past midnight.
Lin Xun set the takeout box on the table and went to take a shower. When he came out wearing a black tank top, Ah Qing caught sight of the bruises on his shoulders and neck, wincing with a sharp hiss.
“Got beaten up today?”
Ah Qing peeled a crayfish and offered it to him.
Lin Xun waved a hand, plugged his phone in to charge, pulled over a chair, and sat beside it, staring blankly at his phone’s memo pad.
Having finished the entire box of crayfish, Ah Qing washed his hands, dug out a bottle of safflower oil, and said to Lin Xun, “Come here, let me rub some medicine on you.”
His technique was professional. After applying it to his shoulders, he had Lin Xun roll up the hem of his tank top to reveal a back covered in blood stasis—injuries sustained from falling or being scraped by iron chains that night.
Lin Xun had pale skin, looking like a vampire who went years without seeing the sun, making the scattered patches of purplish-blue bruises appear exceptionally shocking to look at.
Ah Qing gasped repeatedly while applying the oil, yet Lin Xun showed no reaction whatsoever.
Thinking back over the few years they had known each other, he always seemed lifeless, frequently getting hurt yet strangely numb to pain. Ah Qing couldn’t help but remark, “Do you just not feel pain?”
Hearing this, Lin Xun raised his head and gave him a rare, faint smile.
Ah Qing couldn’t understand how he could still manage a smile.
Regarding recent events, Ah Qing had caught wind of a few rumors. As a friend, he could temporarily put Lin Xun up, but this wasn’t a long-term solution. Scorpion’s men would find this place sooner or later. As for a place like the Blackstone Club that ate people whole without spitting out the bones, hiding inside it for a lifetime was even less of an option.
“You’ve only been in there for a single day and you’re already injured like this! No matter how good of a fighter you are, how long can you last in there?! Who’s to say you won’t kick the bucket one of these days!”
Ah Qing felt a wave of worry just thinking about it.
Lin Xun typed on his phone: Taking it one step at a time.
Seeing the bandage on his hand, a stroke of inspiration struck Ah Qing: “Hey! You could go find Huo Tingxiao!”
Lin Xun froze. Ah Qing turned him by the shoulders and said, “You passed him information last time and even fell out with Scorpion over it. One way or another, he owes you a favor. Why don’t you use that blown-up factory as your certificate of allegiance and ask Huo Tingxiao to arrange a good way out for you? No matter how long Scorpion’s reach is, it definitely can’t extend into the Huo family’s turf.”
The more he talked, the smarter he felt. Ah Qing excitedly slapped his own thigh, “How’s this idea of mine!”
It was a good idea, but Lin Xun had no such intention.
He was a clear-headed adult man who took responsibility for his own actions. From the moment he aimed his gun at Scorpion’s head, he was already mentally prepared to be placed on a hit list. He accepted all consequences in full and didn’t need anyone to clean up his mess.
—This was his choice, and it had nothing to do with Huo Tingxiao.
Passing the message and going to the banquet last time were merely to confirm Huo Tingxiao’s safety with his own eyes, giving himself peace of mind.
Lin Xun didn’t want Huo Tingxiao to misunderstand that he was trying to be opportunistic or demanding a reward.
He wanted even less to cause Huo Tingxiao the slightest bit of trouble over his unprompted feelings.
Lin Xun typed out a brief: Forget it.
Ah Qing looked at him as if he were an absolute idiot, crying “Why?!” several times in a row before painstakingly breaking down the pros and cons for him. Yet Lin Xun remained entirely impervious, wearing an attitude of “if I die, I die, it doesn’t matter,” driving Ah Qing so mad his stomach hurt.
What the hell was wrong with him?! Heavily self-destructive, and fucking stubborn to boot!
“Suit yourself.” Ah Qing tossed a pillow at him in annoyance. “You sleep on the floor today!”
After switching off the lights, Ah Qing scolded him a few more times for being a stubborn mule, frustrated at his lack of sense. Lin Xun listened quietly with his head resting on his arm, his mind still untroubled by any waves.
He was indeed very stubborn; once he set his mind on something, he would go down that path single-mindedly, finding it hard to turn back.
Liking Huo Tingxiao was like this, and staying far away from Huo Tingxiao was the exact same.
Someone like him never should have appeared in Huo Tingxiao’s world in the first place.
Not alarming him, not intruding—that was the proper boundaries he ought to keep.
[1]
【Author’s Note】
Lin Xun: o.o Got choked today, felt… so good
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References[+]
【Author’s Note】
Lin Xun: o.o Got choked today, felt… so good
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