Qi Zhi had already felt a bit uncomfortable in the morning, and after falling into the swimming pool, he felt dizzy and heavy-headed upon returning to the dormitory and taking a shower. Li Jian suggested that he go to the infirmary to get checked out, but Qi Zhi didn’t want to cause a hassle and simply took a few more seasonal cold tablets.
“I’ll sleep for a bit. I’ll call you if anything happens; you should go down and rest too.”
“Alright.”
Li Jian did not press the issue. Tucking the quilt in for Qi Zhi, he left Dormitory 502.
In a daze, who knew how much time had passed when the dormitory door was pushed open. It seemed as though someone had walked in, the sound of the footsteps slightly resembling Zhuang Yuexiang’s.
“A-Xiang, could you help pass me some water?” Qi Zhi’s throat was so dry it felt as if it were about to burst into flames.
The visitor reached out and picked up the water cup on the desk. Qi Zhi also slowly moved his hand out from beneath the quilt. Just as he was about to touch the handed-over water cup, the other party released his grip without any warning. The ceramic cup crashed to the ground with a massive bang, shattering into countless pieces, and water splashed all over the floor.
“Apologies, my hand slipped.”
Hearing that the voice wasn’t right, Qi Zhi opened his eyes and discovered it was Qi Ran.
Hadn’t he gone to the hospital?
Back so soon?
Qi Ran scoffed: “Heaven’s retribution truly goes in cycles; so it turns out you’re sick?”
Qi Zhi was in agonizing distress and couldn’t summon the strength to get out of bed. Looking at Qi Ran’s gloating expression, he abandoned the thought of drinking water and closed his eyes once more.
Qi Ran, however, grew increasingly energetic. Taking advantage of Qi Zhi’s weakened physical state that left him unable to deal with him for the time being, he not only turned on all the lights in the dormitory but also deliberately used a badminton racket to strike the metal bars of the bunk beds, producing piercing, clattering noises.
He was making it glaringly obvious that he would not let Qi Zhi sleep peacefully.
Qi Zhi endured it without uttering a sound, mainly because he lacked the energy to bicker with him.
With a beep, it was the sound of the air conditioner switching on, followed by several consecutive beep-beep-beep-beep sounds.
Qi Zhi opened his eyes with great difficulty, only to find that Qi Ran had actually adjusted the air conditioning to its lowest setting, while simultaneously saying in a sarcastic, mocking tone: “I just ran up the stairs and it’s so hot. I’m turning on the air conditioner Qi Zhi, you won’t mind, right?”
Fuck.
If this can be tolerated, what cannot?
Qi Zhi wanted to sit up to argue, but he felt terribly unwell. The moment he sat up, he felt the world spinning around him and fell right back down, leaving him with no choice but to lie back and wrap his quilt tightly around himself.
Already feeling miserable to begin with and now being bullied like this, the rims of his eyes gradually turned red.
“With this piece-of-trash moral character, Qi Zhennan truly must be blind,” Qi Zhi muttered in a raspy voice.
“What did you say?” Qi Ran heard him. Approaching the edge of the bed, he forcefully yanked at Qi Zhi’s quilt. “Say it again if you’ve got the guts!”
Qi Zhennan was his literal untouchable reverse scale; anyone else could speak of him, but Qi Zhi absolutely could not.
Qi Zhi gripped the quilt to contest the pull, but due to his body’s lack of strength, he quickly lost the upper hand. He wanted to grope around for his phone to call Li Jian, only to remember that his phone had been thrown into the swimming pool.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!
What kind of grudge, what kind of enmity—why was he always the unlucky one?
Qi Zhi was genuinely feeling too miserable, so he simply gave up resisting, turning his body over to hug himself as he curled into a ball to continue sleeping.
Seeing this, Qi Ran let out a sneer. With a roll of his eyes, a new idea suddenly struck him. “Counting it as your bad luck to fall into my hands, I’ll give you something good to look at today.”
Climbing onto the bed in a couple of swift movements, he straddled Qi Zhi’s abdomen and forcefully began to strip the pajamas off Qi Zhi’s body.
“What are you doing?!” Qi Zhi struggled, trying to sit up, but with his abdomen pinned down, he couldn’t exert an ounce of strength.
What am I doing?
To take a few beautiful photos, of course!
Although Qi Zhi wasn’t a girl and taking nude photos wouldn’t cause him immense damage, the level of humiliation was extremely high. Furthermore, he could distribute them to those rich second-generations who originally disliked Qi Zhi anyway; when that time came, let’s see how he could still mingle in that circle.
“Get lost!” Although his body couldn’t break free, his hands were still free. Qi Zhi scratched fiercely toward that loathsome face.
“Hiss—”
Catching Qi Ran off guard, several bloody scratches were left on his cheek. Driven to fury, he balled up his fists and began to rain heavy blows ruthlessly down upon Qi Zhi’s body and head.
“You actually dare to scratch me? You’re looking for death!”
“Qi Ran, you mad dog!” No matter how unwell Qi Zhi felt, he wasn’t about to take a beating without fighting back; seizing the opportunity, he grabbed Qi Ran by the hair and tangled into a brawl with him.
However, he was sick and one of his legs was injured to boot; he was quickly overwhelmed and pinned beneath Qi Ran as the beating continued.
Qi Ran struck heavily, nearly every punch hitting meat. Qi Zhi was in agonizing pain, crying out for help in a raspy voice: “Lan An… Lan An, save me! Save me!”
He didn’t call for Qi Zhennan. Even though he was sick to the point of being light-headed, he knew that Qi Zhennan wouldn’t come, and even if he did, he wouldn’t help him.
“Call out, go ahead and call with all your might, let’s see if he will come to save you,” there were no outsiders in the dormitory at this hour, so Qi Ran wasn’t afraid at all.
As for afterward?
Even for the sake of the Qi family’s face, Qi Zhi wouldn’t dare to blow the matter out of proportion.
Thinking up to this point, Qi Ran’s blows became increasingly heavy. Especially regarding that face that drove Qi Zhennan to infatuation, he wished he could use a knife to slice it into fragments bit by bit.
With a massive crash, the locked dormitory door was suddenly kicked open by someone. Lan An stood at the doorway with a sullen face, while behind him, a clean-cut young man held up a phone, seemingly recording a video.
Lan An really came?
Qi Ran’s heart instantly panicked, and he stopped his hands, not daring to strike any further.
Qi Zhi didn’t dare to blow things up, but Lan An did—this guy was a literal lunatic.
Just as he intended to retreat off the bed, his ankle was seized by Lan An. Accompanied by a pulling force and a sharp pain in his hip, Qi Ran was dragged straight down.
With a thud, his head slammed against a wooden chair. His vision went black, and he passed out cold.
“Lan An?” Qi Zhi lay limply on the bed, his brain thoroughly in a daze. He thought he was dreaming; otherwise, how could Lan An have appeared the very moment he called out his name?
Standing by the bedside, Lan An looked at the bruised and utterly wretched Qi Zhi, his heterochromatic eyes gloomy to the absolute extreme.
When he witnessed Qi Zhi, powerless to resist, calling out his name to beg for help, he felt as though he were looking at his childhood self who was similarly bullied by others and unable to fight back.
He wanted to kill Qi Ran, just like he killed those people who sought to harm him in the story world.
But he couldn’t.
This was the real world, not the chaotic modern metropolises within books.
Taking a deep breath, Lan An abandoned the intention of kicking Qi Ran to death. Leaping onto the bed in a single bound, he assisted Qi Zhi up, only to discover that his entire body was burning hot.
“Do you have a fever?”
“Lan An?” Qi Zhi grew increasingly dazed.
“It’s me,” the young man who followed them inside hurriedly handed over some clothes, and Lan An haphazardly put them onto Qi Zhi. “Don’t be scared, I’m taking you to the hospital right away.”
“Wu~~~”
Confirming that it was Lan An, Qi Zhi’s eyes instantly turned red. Flattening his mouth, he lodged a grievance in a thoroughly aggrieved and dazed manner: “Qi Ran… Qi Ran, he bullied me.”
“It’s fine now, I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“Mmh~”
Once his clothes were on, Qi Zhi extended both arms and swayed them slightly. His meaning was glaringly obvious: he wanted a hug!
Only now did Lan An discover that aside from being prone to crying, Qi Zhi would also act spoiled when he was sick.
Just like Tang Mianmian in the book.
If it hadn’t been for modifying the novel today, Qi Zhi wouldn’t have been pushed into the swimming pool, let alone catch a fever, fall sick, and be pinned down and beaten by Qi Ran.
He couldn’t find it in himself to refuse.
Supporting Qi Zhi to sit by the edge of the bed, Lan An jumped down first, then hoisted Qi Zhi down into a carry, taking the coat handed over by the man beside him to wrap the person up tightly.
Qi Zhi nestled inside obediently and allowed himself to be manipulated. Even though his fever rendered his head unclear, he still distinctly understood that at this current moment, the only person who would help him was Lan An, and the only person he could rely on was also Lan An.
At least, this would remain true until the novel was modified and concluded.
“I’ll take him to the hospital. You handle things here,” Lan An adjusted his hold on Qi Zhi, lifting him slightly higher as he instructed the young man.
“Alright.”
The young man was named Bian Jiong, twenty years old. He was one of the study companions for this body of Lan An’s, as well as his future roommate, having just rushed back from abroad today.
As Lan An departed, Bian Jiong looked at the unconscious Qi Ran. He originally wanted to splash a bucket of water to wake the person up, but discovered that blood was seeping out from beneath his head.
Well, this one had to be sent to the hospital too.
…
Qi Zhi was woken up by a needle prick, discovering that he was in a hospital. Outside the window, the city lights were already beginning to glow. The nurse was currently administering his intravenous drip, and Lan An was sitting to one side, accompanying him.
“You’re still here?” The moment he opened his mouth, he discovered his voice was raspy to the extreme.
Lan An: “Mmh.”
Qi Zhi’s fever had reached 39.5 degrees; he couldn’t just leave him be.
“I want to drink water,” Qi Zhi licked his lips, his throat incredibly dry.
Supporting the person to sit up properly, Lan An brought over the warm water that had long since been poured. Following his hand, Qi Zhi gulped down a large cup in one go. “I want more.”
Lan An poured him another cup.
Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, ah, With two cups of warm water down his stomach, Qi Zhi felt considerably more comfortable, letting out the smacking sound of an old drunkard.
Lan An: “…”
What kind of manners are these?
“Oh, right,” Lan An suddenly pulled a new phone from his pocket and handed it to Qi Zhi. “Compensating you.”
His original purpose in going to the dormitory had been to deliver the phone; he never expected to run right into Qi Zhi being bullied.
Lan An said, “The phone from the pool was sent by Li Jian to be repaired, to see if it can be fixed and the original manuscript restored.”
Even though the copyrights were secured and there was a backup, what if?
To Qi Zhi, it was merely a manuscript; if it was lost, it was lost, since there was a backup anyway. But to him, it represented a world he might never be able to return to, as well as his awakened consciousness and life.
Even an ant clings to life, let alone him.
Qi Zhi understood this as well. Accepting the phone, he said, “If it really doesn’t work out, I’ll just rewrite it in the original document. You don’t need to worry too much.”
Lan An didn’t say anything.
Qi Zhi also knew that this kind of comfort wasn’t worth much, but he truly couldn’t think of a better solution. It was all that bastard Qi Zhennan’s fault.
“If you really vanish, I…”
“I will absolutely beat Qi Zhennan to death before I vanish.”
“…”
Fine then!
Qi Zhi didn’t dare to court Lan An’s displeasure at a time like this either. Wriggling his bottom to lie down properly, he began to fiddle with the new phone.
…
Following that, the two of them just minded their own business. Lan An pulled out a book from somewhere and began to read it, while Qi Zhi dabbled with his new phone with one hand while stealing glances at his own fictional character “son.”
In the book, although Lan An was the villain, he wasn’t truly bad to an incurable degree; on the contrary, in many instances, he was actually more alluring than the male lead, Dan Laiyun.
He came from a good family background, was handsome, and possessed strong capabilities. Although he was somewhat passionate and dissolute, ever since meeting Tang Mianmian, he had never fooled around again.
As for his excessive possessiveness and his psychological paranoia regarding his feelings for Tang Mianmian?
Which villain in a novel didn’t have a bit of psychological trauma? Childhood shadows combined with being unable to obtain what one desired naturally led down the path of becoming twisted.
Ultimately, it was also to cater to the readers’ preferences.
“Sigh~~”
If he had known it would turn out like this, he would have arranged a beautiful childhood for Lan An. Pure psychological twistedness was actually quite good too, wasn’t it?
Sensing Qi Zhi’s gaze, Lan An said without even lifting his head, “Don’t stare at a person constantly, otherwise you will fall in love with him.”
Qi Zhi: “…”
Vomit—
Offering a heavy reward for a pair of eyes that have never stared at Lan An.
Falling in love with Lan An?
Not even in the next lifetime.
…