Hot steam billowed and mist swirled. The lights on the ceiling flickered in and out of sight, their halos turning into a river of stars reflected in Liao Ran’s wet eyes. When he cleared up the current situation, his pupils dilated in an instant, and a rush of blood pooled in his chest.
Caught off guard by the intimate contact, Liao Ran should have felt repelled. However, the spot where he was bitten felt as though thousands of tiny insects were gnawing and grinding at every single nerve ending, the sharp pain mixed with a numbing itch that felt so good it reached his scalp, causing his tense muscles to relax.
Countless tiny black insects permeated Liao Ran’s skin, flying up and down and wrapping around him to whip up a layer of black mist.
Before his reason completely surrendered, like a drowning person fighting for survival, he closed his eyes and thrashed about blindly.
A crisp, resounding slap landed on the man’s skin, leaving a bright red handprint on his fair cheek.
Liao Ran’s arm, suspended in midair, trembled slightly. Amidst his astonishment, he tripped over the edge of the bathtub, fell backward, and tumbled down.
Just as he lost his balance and was about to crash against the tiled wall, the irregular black mist converged into ribbons to cushion his back.
Originally, Bai Ji had intended to reach out himself, but he hesitated, checked by the burning, stinging pain on his cheek.
Crooking his finger, he drove the gu-insects to steady Liao Ran back up, then with a wave of his large hand, they vanished instantly. Bai Ji gently supported his left cheek, his expression a mix of grievance and light banter.
“You even know how to hit people?”
This was indeed the first time Liao Ran had raised a hand against anyone. With his illustrious family background, he was respected and held in high regard no matter what circle he entered. His exceptional personal capability and fine upbringing left him with virtually no competitors or peers. His confident, neither humble nor arrogant demeanor carried its own radiance and charm. The moment he appeared, he was the focal point, someone everyone spontaneously rallied to protect, unwilling to let him suffer even the slightest grievance.
Yet possessing a noble, aloof temperament, he was like a jade statue, hollow on the inside. In Liao Ran’s eyes, emotional connections were binding shackles that impaired subjective judgment. Appearance was truth, evidence was supreme, and feelings were nothing more than illusions. They were neither real nor counted for anything. People were no different from moving corpses, and they could not stir his thoughts.
“I…” The apology could be spoken to anyone, yet he could not utter it to the person right before him. “…You! I am capable of doing anything to you! Do not be so presumptuous again.”
His threatening words carried a faint tremble. The stray hairs standing on end atop his head were on high alert, making him look like a little white rabbit pushed to the edge of a cliff, erecting its soft fluff. Yet the effect was entirely the opposite, making one want to bury their face right in and take a deep breath.
Bai Ji relaxed the muscles in his jaws, his dark gaze gloomy. “When you came back with me, you should have guessed we would do this. You agreed to it, did you not? Or were you just pretending to be innocent? You do not need to put on an act in front of me. It is not like I haven’t seen what you are like in bed, so wild your waist twists straight.”
Liao Ran covered his ears, but no matter how hard he resisted, those dissolute scenes kept resurfacing. Slender ankles crossed, veins bulging on entangled arms, hearts colliding in rhythm, sweat droplets flying off his back fusing with tears, wetly plunging them both into the deep sea, exchanging breaths, waves crashing, connecting as one, endlessly shifting locations like an endless nightmare.
“Stop forcing those groundless things back into my memories! Get out!”
The more he repelled and tried to escape, the less Bai Ji wanted to let go, because the moment he left him, he would only crawl back into that man’s arms. “Want to renege on it? It does not matter. I can help you remember from the beginning.”
The man’s scorching breath burned away the remaining oxygen, and his arms wrapped around the slender Liao Ran like chains.
Their ribcages collided, jarring their internal organs.
Shadows loomed over the fair cheeks. Liao Ran resisted, pressing his hands against Bai Ji’s chest without pushing open even a sliver of space.
His lips were bitten, and his heart plunged into an abyss carrying a chilling coldness. His own will was swallowed by the tongue running amok in his mouth, and Bai Ji did not care in the slightest.
He was never a good person to begin with. It was he himself who had harbored expectations. Liao Ran dropped his arms, his lips parted slightly, neither yielding nor resisting, like a marionette letting him drive forward and crash inside his mouth.
Tasting sweetness, Bai Ji swept away all the bathing tools on the sink with a single wave of his arm, excitedly picking him up and setting him upon it.
A warm droplet fell onto his cheek, scorching his flustered heart.
Bai Ji wiped it with his hand and tasted it in his mouth. It was salty.
“You hate being with me that much!” Bai Ji clenched his fists, retreating half a step to better capture all his subtle expressions.
“Is manipulating someone who doesn’t even recognize himself giving you a huge sense of accomplishment? That is not me. What difference is there between the sex you want and animals? If you do not even mind this, you can pin me down and mate right now.”
Liao Ran, covered in thorns, was someone Bai Ji could likely never hope to reach in his lifetime if not for the gu-insects.
Having his sordid, dark side dissected and fleeing the bathroom in disarray, the moment Bai Ji shut the door, he hunched over and steadied himself against the wall. A salty, metallic taste spread in his mouth as dark blood trickled down the corner of his lips. The scars on his back emerged, and the blooming blood-red plum blossoms stained his snow-white shirt.
As the footsteps faded away, Liao Ran turned his head. In the mirror’s reflection, the skin on his back was clean and tender, and only then did he dimly realize what he had done. His whole body felt light, and the exhaustion and pain had vanished.
A few minutes later, the bathroom door was knocked upon with a gentle, barely audible force.
Given his abilities, sneaking through any gap was effortless, yet Liao Ran hesitated before pulling the door open. A set of clean clothes was neatly folded on the adjacent cabinet, but there was no sign of anyone.
Wiping his hair dry with a towel, Liao Ran walked out to the living room. The meals on the dining table were already prepared, but there was only a single set of utensils.
Having gone hungry for a day and a night, he still lacked any appetite. Liao Ran returned to his bedroom, picked up an anatomy book from the bedside table. He had read it at least five times since arriving here, and the familiar words brought a sense of stability to his heart.
As night approached, the evening glow outside the window was scarlet, and migrating geese added a touch of dynamism to the picturesque canvas at the edge of the sky. Liao Ran watched that line of dark shadows vanish into the horizon line.
His stomach rumbled with hunger. For Liao Ran, eating was not a pleasure, but a survival task that needed to be completed. He understood the mechanics of the human body, knowing that three meals a day helped maintain human energy and that even their psychological impact was self-evident, troublesome, but indispensable.
The moment he stepped out of the bedroom, the ajar door of the laboratory immediately clicked shut. That room had been converted from a study, filled with various glass apparatuses and petri dishes. Bai Ji had not gone out. He was simply hiding from him.
The food on the dining table was still hot, having been reheated several times, turning its texture soft and mushy.
Lying in bed at night, Liao Ran tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. He could sense that Bai Ji was sleeping right on the sofa just a wall away, yet his heart felt as though it was being tangled and pulled by countless vines. Unlike the previous agitation of the gu-insects, these vines gathered together, wanting to break free from their shackles yet feeling utterly helpless, densely scattered in the corners in quiet sorrow.
Until a droplet of sour tears slipped from the corner of his eye, Liao Ran sat up. This was not him crying.
The dead of night in the living room was dim and desolate. The cool moonlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting fractured light and shadows like a spotlight focusing on the person lying on the sofa. His face was buried very low, and the vast patches of blood on his back still carried moisture, causing him to tremble uncontrollably from the pain.
Realizing footsteps were drawing near, he did not turn his head.
Until Liao Ran’s hand touched the scars on his back, so cautious, as if cherishing him.
“Leave me alone.” Bai Ji’s voice was muffled, as if separated by a layer of gauze. “Because of the gu-insects, I cannot stray too far from you. I know you do not want to see me.”
Drawing back his hand, Liao Ran squatted down to the side, hugging his knees. “By transferring the injuries, I suffered through the gu-insects, can you not heal yourself?”
“Wounds repaired, pain accumulated, and erupting at moments of weakness, that is the backlash.” Every tiny scratch was a tendon-snapping, bone-breaking punishment to Bai Ji.
His wounds would never truly heal. They would only grow more painful.
“You have important matters you want to accomplish. Why not be a little more selfish and protect yourself?” Feeling his frailty, Liao Ran unnaturally rubbed the back of his hand.
Bai Ji slowly sat up, looking down at him from top to bottom. “I do not want you to hurt.”
His gaze was firm and scorching. Liao Ran did not know how to respond. Having known each other for such a short time, he could not comprehend where this blind willingness came from.
“I cannot give you anything, Bai Ji, do you understand?” It was not that Liao Ran was unwilling to give, but that he had nothing to offer.
His heart stopped beating as if shrouded by thick, dark clouds, suffocatingly wrapped up. Bai Ji had never experienced such a crushing defeat.
Suddenly, a drop of rain drifted down, and Liao Ran reached out, catching it in his palm.
He could feel the man’s emotional shifts, such profound sorrow. Liao Ran clenched the tear tightly against his heart. “Do not suddenly act like that. I am not mentally prepared.”
Bai Ji stopped sobbing. “I do not understand. Do you mean next time I ask, it will be okay?”
Of course Liao Ran did not have that in mind, but the words were already out, and moreover, he could sense that the person before him had perked back up. Unwilling to strike him down again, especially since he was bearing injuries and suffering pain on his behalf, he gave a slight, hesitant nod.
A look of delight crossed Bai Ji’s face. He tugged at the corner of Liao Ran’s shirt. “Then can I hug you?”
Of course not. Liao Ran shook his head, searching for a tactful way to refuse. Amidst their tangled thoughts, Bai Ji’s arms had already reached out, scooping the half-squatting person into his embrace.
Pressed closely together, Liao Ran’s hands awkwardly wedged between the two of them.
Bai Ji’s chin rested on Liao Ran’s shoulder. With a slight tilt, his lips brushed against the skin of his neck, capturing the soft flesh, his tongue lightly licking and massaging the writhing Adam’s apple.
Liao Ran shuddered involuntarily, biting his lip to keep from making any sound. “Stop this…”
Fearing he would feel repelled, Bai Ji chuckled softly and sat straight up, using his thumb to gently wipe his neck, where his own moisture still lingered.
“Do you know how sweet you are?”
With a human pH value between 4.5 and 6.5 leaning acidic, Liao Ran shook his head. “Not sweet. You talk nonsense.”
“Practice brings true knowledge. Want to taste?” Bai Ji lifted the back of his hand to give it a light kiss, then brought it right to Liao Ran’s lips.
Half-doubtful, Liao Ran extended the tip of his tongue to lightly lick the back of his hand. A faint milky scent, the fragrance of shower gel. He shook his head definitively.
Seeing how seriously he was testing it, Bai Ji curved his lips and gave it a few light bites. “Looks like only I get to enjoy this delicacy.”
With fixed hours for meals and rest, Liao Ran’s biological clock was as precise as a robot’s. Considering Bai Ji was injured and the sofa was narrow, Liao Ran simply took his hand, yawned, and led him back to the bedroom.
The heavy, gloomy mist in his heart dissipated, and soon Liao Ran drifted into a deep sleep.
Lying on his side, a source of heat pressed against his back. An arm wrapped tightly around him like a giant python, its soft tongue lolling out, hot breaths scattering against the back of his neck.
Adjusting his uncomfortable sleeping posture, he turned around and rested his head directly on Bai Ji’s arm, lying flat in his embrace.
Bai Ji’s fingers smoothed down his slightly messy hair. Knowing full well he wouldn’t get an answer, he asked as a matter of routine, “I want to kiss you, is that alright?”
“Uh… mm…”
In his dream, Liao Ran returned to his childhood. Before leaving, his mother had bought him a cotton candy. As her figure gradually faded into the distance, Liao Ran, who didn’t yet know that was their final parting, tasted the sweetness with his whole heart and soul. The moment he parted his lips, he was filled with softness, the sweetness flowing deep inside. Finding it increasingly difficult to breathe, he opened his arms.
Thinking he was about to be pushed away, Bai Ji’s gaze darkened. Having finally made him let down his guard a little, he was about to ruin all his progress. He blamed himself for being too impatient.
“Don’t go…”
Liao Ran murmured softly, wrapping his arms around his neck, hooking his tongue with a hesitant, floating response. Once reason fell asleep, this person transformed into a bewitching fox, curling his toes around his knees and trapping him within his gentle harbor, while Bai Ji acted as though he had been bewitched, gladly drinking the poison.
Fearing he would dirty the person in his arms, Bai Ji flicked his finger, and the black mist-insects gathered behind his back, erasing his wounds and bloodstains instantly.
Even if it hurt for a few more hours, it was worth it.
In the early morning, with a dry and hoarse throat, Liao Ran was awakened by thirst.
Greeting his eyes was a pale, terrifying face. His eyelids were bruised black, and blood vessels crisscrossed like spiderwebs, tearing his skin apart. Liao Ran raised his arm, hesitating yet failing to push the man away.
Awakening, Bai Ji saw his own reflection in Liao Ran’s bright eyes.
Subconsciously covering his face, flustered and lacking even the time to slip into slippers, he fled into the laboratory.
Liao Ran spent the entire day working before heading home in the dusk. The apartment was pitch black and unsettlingly quiet.
“Are you alright, Professor Bai?”
He just wanted to knock to confirm, but he found the door unlocked. The scene felt eerily familiar, flashing back to corpses eroded by gu-insects.
Liao Ran hurriedly pushed the door open, crashing headfirst into solid muscle.
Dizzy for half a second, he steadied himself on the man’s shoulders, frowning as he looked up. “You are fine. Why didn’t you answer me?”
Bai Ji’s thumb caressed his jawline, his warm voice failing to mask his fluttering excitement.
“You were worried about me?”