Su Jingyan breathed a sigh of relief and opened his eyes. He found himself still lying in Lu Yichen’s arms, and, after a pause, he glared at the boy who was staring at him intently.
Su Jingyan looked at the clock with Roman numerals hanging on the wall and was horrified to find that it was already eleven o’clock in the morning.
How could I have slept so long?
Su Jingyan’s drowsy mind woke up instantly. He broke free of Lu Yichen’s arms and climbed out of bed, planning to wash up.
Just as he squeezed out the toothpaste, Lu Yichen came over and stuck to him, clinging to his back and hugging him tightly, in a domineering way that treated him as his own property.
Su Jingyan had spent almost a day and a night with him and had a general understanding of his temper.
Although it had been so short a time, Su Jingyan felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity from the bottom of his heart, as if he had known Lu Yichen for many years.
In his eyes, Lu Yichen was like a giant dog, very clingy. If he responded to him even a little, he would wag his tail and beg for more.
While brushing his teeth, Su Jingyan jabbed his elbow back into Lu Yichen’s chest and glanced at him coldly.
The meaning was simple and clear: get away from me.
But Lu Yichen turned a blind eye and hugged him tighter, resting his head in the crook of Su Jingyan’s neck.
There was a mirror in the bathroom. Looking at the reflection, Su Jingyan realized that the boy was almost a head taller than he was, with a slender figure, broad shoulders, and a narrow waist. There were muscles in his arms, though not as exaggerated as an athlete’s. It was a very well-proportioned, model-like physique.
And being held in his arms made Su Jingyan look even smaller, inexplicably giving him a suffocating feeling about his height that couldn’t be put into words.
And I’m 178 centimeters myself!
After a long time tussling in the bathroom, Su Jingyan finally finished washing up, despite the boy’s many interruptions.
As the saying goes, human beings have seven emotions and six desires, as well as various physical needs.
For example, going to the toilet.
Su Jingyan blushed and mumbled something as he drove the boy out, finally gaining a brief moment of space and time alone.
The boy looked at Su Jingyan with a half-smile and took advantage of him for a long while before letting him go.
When Su Jingyan came out of the bathroom, he saw the boy standing by the door, closing it.
Su Jingyan blinked and asked, “What’s wrong?”
The boy stepped forward, unable to resist, and kissed Su Jingyan’s tear mole again. Seeing that Su Jingyan’s face was about to burn once more, he explained, “An invitation to eat.”
Hearing this, Su Jingyan paused, a little hesitant. “Don’t they deliver meals here today?” The boy shook his head slightly.
Su Jingyan hesitated. To be honest, he didn’t want to show his face when there would be so many people.
Thinking about it, he was in a dilemma.
The boy saw through his thoughts, leaned close to his ear, and said quietly, “You can order takeout.”
Su Jingyan choked, ignored him, took a brand-new mask out of his suitcase, put it on, and pulled his hoodie’s hood up again.
Just in case, he pulled the drawstring of the hoodie as long as it would go, tightened it, and tied a knot.
The boy looked at him, dressed like an ostrich, and reached out to rub the top of Su Jingyan’s hood, earning another annoyed look.
“System, what’s going on? Why are people still dying in Xiyi Hotel?” Wang Haoer scratched his head and rubbed his cheeks, a look of anxiety and urgency on his face.
Wang Haoer was a murderer. He should have been arrested by the police, but he had accidentally been bound to a self-rescue system.
Since binding with the system, his luck had turned 180 degrees in an instant. He won when he bought lottery tickets and won when he bet on horses. Everything went smoothly, and even when he broke the law, he got away with it.
Just when he thought he was about to reach the pinnacle of his life, the system suddenly told him that he had overdrawn his luck index, that he would soon be arrested by the police, and that he would finally be sentenced to death.
When Wang Haoer heard this, he immediately panicked.
But think about it: how could anyone be willing to die after finally living a carefree life and doing whatever they wanted?
The system then told him the last way to save himself, which was to come to Xiyi Hotel and stay for seven days.
He had thought it would be easy to just stay for seven days and had been secretly a little happy.
He hadn’t taken the business of the pig’s eye yesterday seriously at all.
But when he woke up this morning and found someone dead, he immediately realized that things weren’t as simple as he had first thought.
As the saying goes, there was no such thing as a free lunch.
“Does the host know what Xiyi is?” The system’s voice was icy and cold, like an emotionless robot’s, accompanied by an electric whine.
Wang Haoer had a low level of ideological awareness and little education, or he wouldn’t have become a murderer. He frowned at the question. “What the hell is it?”
Perhaps it was Wang Haoer’s imagination, but he seemed to hear a sneer from the system, very brief and unreal.
The system explained, “When a person dies, he becomes a ghost. When a ghost dies, it becomes a spirit. When a spirit dies, it becomes a wraith. Ghosts fear spirits, just as humans fear ghosts.”
Wang Haoer was stunned and confused, but he vaguely understood something, and said in horror, “You mean all the staff in the hotel aren’t human, and there are ghosts here?”
Although Wang Haoer hadn’t studied much, he had received an atheist education. When he first bound the system, he had been skeptical and hadn’t believed it at all.
But since he already believed in the system’s existence, it wasn’t so hard to accept, after hearing it, that everything here was inhuman.
But what worried him more now was whether he would die.
“Then what should I do? I don’t want to die!” Wang Haoer’s breathing was a little short.
If he had wanted to die, he wouldn’t have come to this godforsaken place.
“One person must die every night in Xiyi Hotel,” the system said simply.
But Wang Haoer seemed to grasp its meaning within seconds, and his eyes lit up. “Do you mean that as long as others die, I don’t have to, and as long as I go kill people, the ghosts won’t come to do the same to me?”
The system didn’t respond.
Wang Haoer thought the system had acquiesced to his conclusion. He clenched his fists and began to calculate his chances of killing someone.
After all, if people didn’t act selfishly, they would be destroyed by heaven and earth.
Wang Haoer, who mistakenly thought he had guessed the system’s meaning correctly, was still complacent, while the system kept sneering silently at him.
It was a self-aware system, and it couldn’t be manipulated at will according to the demands of humans.
At this thought, the system was filled with disgust for Wang Haoer.
From the day it was bound to Wang Haoer, it had been full of calculation. It had first let him experience superhuman luck and treatment and let his ugly, filthy heart sink into it. From beginning to end, the purpose had been to put Wang Haoer at its mercy.
There was no such thing as overdrawn luck. It was just a trick to lure Wang Haoer here.
And its purpose…
Was for one person.
So that it could protect him from dying in Xiyi Hotel one day.
As soon as Su Jingyan went out, he noticed that something was off.
Because his room was in a different direction from the others’, he could see only vaguely that a certain room down the corridor seemed to be cordoned off.
A group of people were covering their eyes and noses as they walked around that room toward the elevator.
Su Jingyan was even more puzzled.
From where he stood, everyone looked as if they had eaten a fly. They were as pale as could be, their faces ashen, and they looked devastated.
Su Jingyan, who had gotten up late, didn’t know about the death that morning, so at the moment he was naturally a little ignorant.
The boy stood beside him and didn’t say a word the whole time. He didn’t make any ambiguous moves as he had in the room, not because he didn’t want to, but mainly because of Su Jingyan’s thin skin.
The boy’s eyes were glued to Su Jingyan’s body, watching him closely. Several times he wanted to hold Su Jingyan’s hand but was shyly pushed away, though he still happily grabbed it.
Su Jingyan always felt that the boy’s gaze could see his face through his hood, and it was so hot that he couldn’t ignore it, so he immediately ducked his head lower.
The two of them didn’t follow the others. Since it was only one floor, Su Jingyan chose to take the stairs without hesitation.
Su Jingyan glanced at the boy beside him and, for some reason, felt as if an electric current had passed through his brain.
His footsteps stopped.
Su Jingyan stared at the boy’s face and moved his lips in a daze. “Yichen?”
The voice was very small. It didn’t sound like calling someone but a bit like the murmuring of someone dreaming.
The boy’s steps halted, and his whole body trembled. It was like a meteorite falling into a calm lake, causing huge waves, almost destroying the whole lake.
The boy grabbed Su Jingyan’s wrist, making Su Jingyan stagger back a few steps in fright.
The boy’s eyes were a little scarlet, exactly as when he had suddenly gone crazy the night before, and there was a brief crack in his expression, with an ecstasy and obsession he couldn’t conceal, like a madman’s.
His body twitched slightly, the corners of his mouth were stretched wide, and his eyes were fixed on Su Jingyan. His voice was hoarse, with something like pleading in it. “Say that again!”
Seeing him like this, Su Jingyan was stunned for a moment, then instinctively reached out to touch his face, hesitated, and called again, “Yichen.”
In the next second, Lu Yichen held him tightly in his arms and answered hoarsely, “I’m here.”
When Su Jingyan heard those two words, his heart ached inexplicably. He blinked, his little doe eyes glittering with tears, and felt something indescribable.
This time, Lu Yichen never let go of Su Jingyan’s hand, holding it firmly in his palm.
Su Jingyan bowed his head and followed his steps to the second floor in a daze. He could even clearly feel that the fingers holding his hand were trembling uncontrollably.
As if restraining some emotion.
Xiyi Hotel really was big. The second floor had a cinema, a billiards room, a gym, a yoga room, a bar, a karaoke room, and more. There was so much on offer for entertainment that one glance made people feel the extravagance.
As soon as they reached the second floor, they saw a row of female receptionists standing in the corridor, all in short skirts and white shirts, with long hair, graceful and charming, and all looking to be in their early twenties.
Su Jingyan felt even more strange.
There didn’t seem to be this many people yesterday. Why does this hotel have more staff than guests?
And all the receptionists seemed to be stirred by something the second Su Jingyan appeared. Their eyes lit up, and several of them even struck seductive poses, unbuttoned a few buttons at the collar, and arranged themselves more attractively, showing off their curves.
They looked as if they were in heat.
“…” Su Jingyan was stunned.
In the next second, Lu Yichen blocked his view to keep him from being abducted by the ill-intentioned people outside.
Su Jingyan blinked and looked at him.
Lu Yichen’s face was indifferent, and his eyes narrowed with a rather dangerous message. He sneered. “Dirty. Don’t look.”
???