“Just a hand touch. One million per time.”
After his initial confusion and shock, Cen Wan found himself suspiciously tempted.
It was just two grown men touching hands surely that was no big deal. He didn’t know why the guy wanted it, but that was one million.
One million!
Oh wait, no he still owed the man a life debt. Either way, a hand touch shouldn’t cost this much.
“Two million.” Seeing Cen Wan’s hesitation, Shen Xianyu coldly and crisply doubled the price.
“Deal!” Cen Wan agreed loudly.
Then, eyes brimming with tears:
“For free. No charge.”
Bitterly reflecting that his life was worth two million, Cen Wan felt even more motivated to complete his missions.
Seeing that he’d gotten his answer, Shen Xianyu said nothing more.
The two descended the stairs in silence, then sat down together on the living room sofa in an oddly awkward atmosphere.
Though with a vast gulf between them.
Cen Wan’s lips had been bitten and chewed until they glistened, and his fingers were nearly wearing holes in his pants yet F4, all the way at the other end of the sofa, remained completely still.
Cen Wan stole a sideways glance. All he could see was the thoroughly bundled-up F4, one hand propped on the leather armrest, head lowered as if lost in thought.
Cen Wan suddenly remembered this big shot’s nickname in the original novel was,
The Demon Sealed in Fabric.
Because F4 had severe manic-depressive tendencies, but he also suffered from intense mysophobia and misanthropy, hating physical contact with others. He wrapped every inch of his skin in clothing, leaving only his head exposed.
Someone who suppressed such deep desires year-round if he ever truly indulged, he’d probably fuck someone to death.
Cen Wan shuddered and lit a candle for the poor protagonist shou.
As for today’s incident, the big shot had probably just had a moment of madness, wanting to test whether his condition was improving and had happened to run into Cen Wan, a disposable tool with no power or status, someone no one would believe even if he told.
“Come here.” Shen Xianyu finally spoke. Cen Wan snapped back to attention and hurried over.
Finally, less awkward.
Shen Xianyu’s eyes were still half-lidded, looking perpetually half-asleep, not even glancing at Cen Wan.
“Sit.”
Cen Wan sat down at a slight distance.
Sensing the silence from the other side, he quickly scooted closer, to within an arm’s reach of F4.
F4, who looked severely kidney-deficient, finally opened his eyes and turned to look over, the whites streaked heavily with red.
Cen Wan stared back at him, toes curling into the floor. Then that sharply chiseled face suddenly loomed right up to Cen Wan’s.
Startled, Cen Wan leaned back, but the face veered sideways and downward, stopping extremely close at his neck. Cen Wan could even clearly feel the heat of the man’s breath.
“You smell good.”
Unable to tell if that was a compliment or an insult, Cen Wan leaned back a little further and answered in a strained, nasal voice:
“Haha, next time I’ll buy the same body wash for you?”
Shen Xianyu didn’t respond to that.
“Give me your hand.”
Shen Xianyu had already removed his gloves. Skin that never saw sunlight was so pale it was bloodless, blue veins coiling across the back of his hand like snakes, his knuckles distinct and slender. Only some old scars scattered across them marred the aesthetic.
Cen Wan obediently held out his hand.
Compared to Shen Xianyu, Cen Wan’s white was much healthier a lustrous, delicate white, like fine jade. Cen Wan’s hand was also much smaller, slender and soft, looking easy to hold and squeeze. There were even a few red marks on the back of it, freshly scratched out by himself; his skin was the kind that marked easily.
Shen Xianyu lowered his eyes to look at that hand, his expression cold, and combined with his thin lips pressed into a straight line, he looked like someone psyching himself up for something.
Cen Wan held his hand up for so long that his arm began to ache before he saw the fingers resting on F4’s lap twitch, and finally, a hand lifted.
Cen Wan secretly breathed a sigh of relief only to watch F4 put his hand back down.
Cen Wan:
For the sake of his benefactor. Small matter, small matter.
“Forget it.” Shen Xianyu raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose and let out a breath.
Cen Wan: ?
Shen Xianyu had already leaned back against the sofa. He switched to a different question:
“Do you know how to give massages?”
Cen Wan rubbed his neck, sore from being held up so long, and nodded. “A little.”
He’d been giving the old director massages since he was seven or eight. Because as a child he’d been very clingy, with extremely high emotional needs. While his mom and dad were still alive they could satisfy that, but the orphanage strictly forbade physical contact with the children. There were too few staff to go around, and most volunteers vanished without a trace after a month or two.
Yet the children they secretly favored would stubbornly wait for those people to come back, until hope was finally shattered and those already emotionally deprived children would suffer an even more serious second wound.
Back then, Cen Wan believed it was because he hadn’t been good enough, obedient enough that he’d driven away all the big brothers and sisters who liked him, which was why they never came back. So he did everything he could to make himself more useful: eating very little, refusing toys, washing his own clothes, helping with chores, helping look after the younger children, When he was sad, he would only cry with his eyes open, silent tears, never making a sound.
The old director suffered from severe migraines, so Cen Wan figured out on his own how to massage her. She was a very kind person, though always fierce-looking, she was up in years and still worked many part-time jobs, putting all the money back into the welfare home.
Cen Wan missed her very much.
Unfortunately, in his past life the old director had passed away the year he turned twenty, and the welfare home was later sold off and converted.
So although his technique was amateur, Cen Wan did have several years of massage experience.
“Mm. Add another million.” F4 leaned back against the sofa and dropped another bomb.
Cen Wan was shocked yet again, and squeezed out a reply, syllable by syllable, in a voice even more strained than when he’d refused before:
“R-really, there’s no need! This is just what I should do.”
[Tongbao, I get it now]
0813: [Mm?]
[He just wants a masseur who won’t cause any trouble!]
0813: [Mm??]
[Look how overworked F4 looks he must want a massage to relax so he can sleep!]
0813 silently: [With that much money, couldn’t he hire a master to do it.]
Cen Wan: [Oh.]
Rising and circling around behind the sofa, Cen Wan began massaging the God of Wealth.
His fingers were very soft, and when they touched skin they put a person completely off their guard. Yet the pressure was surprisingly firm; his technique was mediocre, but he made up for it with effort.
Most importantly that faint fragrance.
It lingered softly at the tip of the nose, strand by strand soothing Shen Xianyu’s chronically restless, pricking nerves, granting him a rare, brief moment of peace.
Cen Wan pressed down until her fingertips ached with numbness before she realized that F4 had, at some point, already fallen asleep with long, even breaths.
Based on this brief stretch of time together, F4 currently showed little aggression and was quite generous at dropping gold coins. With her eyelids already drooping, Cen Wan felt at ease returning to the other end of the sofa, curling up her legs and quietly falling asleep.
When Shen Xianyu opened his eyes again, it was already six in the morning. He hadn’t slept this well in far too long, and for once, his thoughts were a little sluggish.
A small sunset lamp glowed warm in the room not harsh on the eyes, but enough for Shen Xianyu to clearly see the beautiful boy sleeping soundly with his eyes closed at the other end of the sofa.
Shen Xianyu’s gaze fixed on Cen Wan for a long moment. Then, slowly, he began to remove his glove.
When the back of his hand touched the tender, warm flesh of the boy’s cheek, the emotion that surged up wasn’t violent discomfort, but something novel a calm so deep it felt like soaking in warm water.
But that peace lasted only two seconds before Shen Xianyu immediately pulled his hand back.
Such unfamiliar emotions were, to him, all the more dangerous. Shen Xianyu would never allow himself any weakness for others to exploit.
Still, this person had some use value.
His gaze grew silent as several thoughts shifted through his mind. Then Shen Xianyu withdrew his eyes, turned, and left the room.
Cen Wan hugged her phone and counted it over and over, dozens of times ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands, millions.
A full three million!
She confirmed with 0813 once more: [F4 really is a good person!]
“Cen Wan…”
Hearing someone call her, Cen Wan lifted her head from the desk and met Chu Zhili’s bright face. Her expression was conflicted, brows furrowed, looking hesitant.
The rest of Class F was also unusually quiet.
Cen Wan looked at her with a blank, unfocused gaze.
Chu Zhili dodged his eyes several times before finally gritting her teeth and holding out a phone.
“The forum thing… you should go explain quickly. Young Master Fu’s people are furious.”
Cen Wan found it even stranger she remembered having no real grudge against Fu Xingjian.
Cen Wan took the phone. On the screen was a highly upvoted post.
【BREAKING】【The real culprit behind Young Master f’s injury turns out to be…】
Posted yesterday at 19:34:03
1F [Image ×3]
2F [??? Young Master f hasn’t come to school these past two days was it because he was sick and went to the hospital?]
3F [AHHHH my husband bled so much, half his face was covered, why hasn’t it been bandaged yet? What are the bodyguards and assistant around him even doing!]
4F [Still calling him “my husband”? Look carefully isn’t there someone in your husband’s arms?]
5F [They didn’t catch that person’s face. Is Young Master f’s injury related to him?]
6F [Word on the grapevine is Young Master f won’t be coming to school for a while. Not sure of the exact reason, but it should be connected to the expulsion of that little clique.]
7F [Isn’t that Cen Wan?]
8F [? What is the person above saying? What does this have to do with Cen Wan?]
9F [The person Young Master f was holding it was Cen Wan. Someone in my family works at the hospital and happened to see it.]
10F [??]
11F [And Young Master f’s injury was probably caused by him, though no one knows why.]
12F [??]
13F [??]
15F [??]
..
28F [I’d just started to change my opinion of him thought he’d been keeping his head down lately, and his face isn’t bad either. Then he turns around and causes a disaster this big?]
29F [Is something wrong with him? If this is real, I’m not letting him off for this.]
30L【It’s still not confirmed whether it’s true or not. Let’s not jump to conclusions, or we might wrong him.】
31L【Setting that aside, there’s something even more disgusting. Cen Wan drugged Young Master F too and I mean the kind of drug you’re all thinking of.】
32L【??】
33L【This one’s verified. Someone found out that the reason both of them ended up in the hospital was the drug. Then they found that Cen Wan recently made a transaction for the exact same drug. Put it together with the context, and the facts are pretty obvious, right?】
34L【Are they brain-dead? How is Saint Rhodes admitting anyone these days? Someone with such low character should just be kicked out.】
35L【But Young Master F carried him to the hospital? Feels kind of strange.】
36L【Young Master F is such a good person, saving even someone like that.】
37L【I can’t stand this. Daring to drug Young Master F how thirsty can you get? No wonder his face looks so seductive and sleazy.】
38L【To be fair, he is pretty.】
..
487L【So is anyone going with me to confront him and get a straight answer?】
488L【He still hasn’t explained himself. Guilty conscience, obviously.】
489L【Right, no need to even ask. Chances are he wasn’t wronged at all.】
490L【AHHHHH I hereby declare Cen Wan the most shameless person at Saint Rhodes, bar none.】
491L【I heard he didn’t even go back to his dorm last night…】
492L【No way, don’t tell me he went off to do that that’s too…】
493L【Saint Rhodes, don’t let him turn you into a brothel.】
..
690L【I’d advise everyone not to get too worked up. Young Master F hasn’t even said anything. And word is, Young Master Luo is very interested in Cen Wan took him out to eat yesterday.】
691L【??? Young Master Luo too??】
692L【Isn’t Cen Wan just a pretty face?? I don’t get it??】
693L【Wasn’t Young Master Luo interested in the new special-admission student? How did it become Cen Wan?】
694L【Maybe he found that Cen Wan without makeup is more his type.】
695L【I’ve been wanting to say this, I remember Cen Wan never used to look like this. Don’t tell me he got plastic surgery or something.】
696L【LS, better not make claims like that. Cen Wan shouldn’t have had time to get surgery anyway, or everyone would have noticed.】
697L【That’s true, but he used to wear heavy makeup all the time. Doesn’t it seem suspicious that he suddenly got this pretty?】
698L【Whatever else, he’s definitely had minor work done. I refuse to believe that if he’d always been this pretty, he’d hide it and never let anyone see.】
699L【Bumping this. I think something’s fishy too.】
..
After that, the thread was just the same accusations over and over Cen Wan drugging Fu Xingjian, maybe even hitting him, getting plastic surgery, staying out all night, and so on.
Cen Wan scrolled down in silence, from burning rage to calm.
Something about the way this thread was going felt off.