Yun Qi lay on the side near the window, and Duan Xingge, facing him sideways, had half of his face bathed in the moonlight.
The face that could bring a company back from the dead was right there, inches away, smiling at him. Whether it was because the ice water punishment in the afternoon was too cold, or because he had spent too long drying his hair earlier, his voice sounded lower than usual, ringing in Yun Qi’s ear with an unprecedented magnetism.
With such a superior voice, one couldn’t help but want to forgive every offense he uttered.
When they learned they had to wear couple rings in the morning, Yun Qi had only been nervous. Later, when forced to live together, he had only felt speechless. Even when he accidentally fell onto Duan Xingge in the afternoon, he had only felt a bit of shame and annoyance.
Never had there been a time like this, leaving him both angry and shy, his heartbeat deafening in the darkness.
“…If you want to hear anything, go find it in your dreams; dreams have everything.” Yun Qi was so angry he shoved that hand away and turned over, directly showing his back to Duan Xingge.
His flushed red earlobes clearly displayed his internal turmoil, but Yun Qi himself didn’t know it. Instead, fearing the other would see the clues, he tried to cover it up: “Don’t forget who fed you until you grew this big; it’s not yet decided who will go hungry tomorrow.”
In the darkness, Duan Xingge seemed to pause upon hearing this, then laughed softly after a long while: “Yes, yes, yes, President Yun is mighty, so let’s see President Yun’s performance tomorrow.”
His laughter was right in his ear, like a small brush intentionally tickling his heart.
Yun Qi gritted his teeth and cursed silently in his heart, keeping his eyes closed and ignoring him.
Seeing him remain unresponsive, Duan Xingge persisted: “Are you really asleep?”
Yun Qi pressed his lips together and didn’t speak, and Duan Xingge didn’t make another sound. A long time passed like this; the sound of the waves and tides faded together. Just as Yun Qi was about to fall asleep, he heard a soft voice from behind, sounding like sleep-talking: “Alright, then…”
“Goodnight, Brother.”
That goodnight, sounding like a dream, couldn’t have been any smaller, yet Yun Qi woke up from his half-asleep state upon hearing it. A strange, indescribable emotion surfaced in him after waking up; for a moment, he dared only to pretend to be asleep, and only his constantly trembling eyelashes betrayed his true state.
However, his back-turned posture meant the person behind him couldn’t see anything.
Since the day they parted ways, Duan Xingge had feared that Yun Qi would never acknowledge him as his younger brother again, so he had only dared to call him that in his dreams. Even now, as bold as he was, he only dared to call him that after Yun Qi had fallen asleep.
Duan Xingge waited for a long while without a response, appearing somewhat regretful, but he still smiled in the darkness, not knowing if he was laughing at his own greed or his own cowardice.
Eventually, Duan Xingge turned over gently and fell asleep, and Yun Qi, pretending for a while, also drifted off.
Early the next morning, the sky was clear and vast, and the ocean was a deep blue. The livestream room was as lively as ever, except this time, many new faces appeared:
“Ahhhhh, I’m here because of that big battle last night!! Where is the ‘younger top/pseudo-incest’ couple?! I am shipping this so hard!!”
“I would like to call yesterday’s trending list scene the turning point of the second war; it was truly lively, damn it.”
“? What, what happened, what happened?”
“Does anyone actually not know? Yesterday, a fan named ‘Bai Yun Ai Ai’ (White Clouds and Snow) became the moderator of the ‘Xing-Yun’ super-topic, deleted all the ‘unclean’ content, and posted twelve Weibo posts to spray back at the opposing side. Her combat power was truly outstanding (though I felt most of the content was just rumors, the feeling of slapping faces in a crazed manner was really refreshing).”
“Ahhhhh, but it was really refreshing! Clearly, our Xing-Yun was here first; after being suppressed for a phase, we’ve finally stood up!!”
However, what followed were some comments from fans of Ming Jiao that were different from the past:
“Our ‘All-Jiao’ is also trending, okay… Don’t make it look like your ‘Xing-Yun’ is the only one dominating, can’t we have a hundred flowers blooming?”
“+1, Jiao fans have plenty of their own content to eat; we don’t have time to go to your super-topic to eat crap. Don’t engage in imaginary target practice for no reason.”
“Speechless. Xing-Jiao fans have been the ‘American Empire’ (top tier) for so long, and you guys aren’t as capable of ‘KY’ (knocking/pairing) as Xing-Yun.”
“Just a passerby, it’s just a variety show. There’s no way anyone actually thinks that people of their status will really be together, right? Since the CP is fake, your ‘1v1’ isn’t any more noble than the ‘all’ orientation.”
As a result, before the guests even appeared, the bullet comments started bickering directly:
“Laughing to death. As soon as ‘Xing-Yun’ sits at the table, you guys start ‘Age History’? Everyone acts like a ‘White Lotus’?”
“Excuse me, if love isn’t 1v1, then it’s bullsh*t love; ‘pure love’ sheers everything.”
“!! Bullet comment teacher, you speak so well, QAQ. What kind of love isn’t 1v1!”
“Xing-Jiao is worthy of being called the ‘American Empire’? Whose tag has ‘breaking up families’ every day? Clowns.”
The more they argued, the fiercer it became, almost looking like they were about to stage everything that happened on Weibo last night all over again. When the guests finally arrived late, led by the host, onto the deck.
To protect against the sun, Ming Jiao wore a gauze jacket and a white baseball cap, his slender arms faintly visible beneath the gauze. His fans immediately lost interest in the argument.
However, before they could refresh the bullet comments, Duan Xingge, wearing a simple short-sleeved shirt, and Yun Qi, who was almost fully armed, appeared under the lens.
Yun Qi wore a rare pair of sunglasses, with half of his face covered, making him look even more cold and arrogant.
Duan Xingge, on the other hand, was almost the complete opposite. Aside from a short-sleeved shirt and casual pants, he had no protective measures at all. And it was precisely because of this that the very obvious scratch marks on his wrist were brazenly exposed to the sunlight.
Even with sunglasses on, the viewers could sense the unkind gaze Yun Qi cast toward Duan Xingge. Yet, Duan Xingge acted as if he hadn’t noticed; when he waved to the camera to say hello, he even used that injured hand. The viewers weren’t fools, and seeing this, they instantly became excited:
“! There are scratch marks on his arm!! You kid, you did that on purpose, right?!”
“I originally wanted to say President Yun is so ‘A’, but once these scratches were exposed, ahhhhh, baby, you’re so spicy!!”
“Xing-Xing:? Who are you calling baby?”
“I don’t even dare to imagine what they did last night!!”
“Although there’s a high probability they did nothing, can some fanfic writer write an IF line! The kind where they haven’t reunited yet, but are locked together and forced to ‘ooxx’!”
Seeing the scratch marks on Duan Xingge’s wrist, Ming Jiao, who was usually as curious as a baby, didn’t say a word this time.
The other guests, as if they had understood something, didn’t open their mouths to ask either.
But this obviously didn’t stop Duan Xingge from entertaining himself. He insisted on using that hand to say hello. Yun Qi glared at him several times to no avail; finally, he could only press his lips together and turn his head away, ignoring him.
Just like in the previous life, the host first had professionals give them a demonstration, and after providing guidance one by one, the sea fishing competition for the day officially began.
After a morning passed, Duan Xingge’s harvest remained among the best. His appearance of being proficient in all eighteen martial arts left the audience stunned.
Ming Jiao, unsurprisingly, was empty-handed again. However, perhaps because Duan Xingge’s words from yesterday really acted as a provocation, Yun Qi actually caught more fish than in his previous life, and his technique was much more proficient than before.
In a place where the camera couldn’t see, Duan Xingge was slightly startled upon seeing this, but moved his gaze away after a moment, saying nothing.
A morning passed. Although Ming Jiao hadn’t caught anything, he won the sympathy of the guests with his cute appearance and pitiful expression, and naturally, someone shared their fish with him.
It was just that, in this life, among the people who shared their fish with him, the figures of two people were missing.
Lunch was settled via barbecue on the deck, according to the production team’s plan.
The intense midday sun shone on the sea, sparkling in a way that made it impossible to look away.
Several people who knew how to cook followed the chef to the kitchen to get tools. Yun Qi stood on the deck, looking at the familiar sea surface, somewhat lost in thought.
A short two months passed in the blink of an eye. Yun Qi realized belatedly that this time seemed to have been stolen by him; if his fate was already decided, this would be his final day.
And when tomorrow ended, no one could guarantee whether a miracle would occur.
While lost in thought, Duan Xingge, wearing an apron, walked out with the prepared fish and others.
His face was already good-looking. At this moment, wearing a short-sleeved shirt, the water droplets that had splashed onto him while washing vegetables dripped down his lean, capable forearms. Yet, outside of this hormone-exploding outfit, he wore an apron. That sense of domesticity filled with contrast instantly overwhelmed the bullet comments:
“Grass, Xing-Xing is such a virtuous man, knowing both how to fish and how to cook, what a hexagon warrior.”
“Ahhhhhhh, these muscles, Xing-Xing must be very good at stir-frying, slurrp.”
“?? Is that stir-fry you mentioned proper?”
“The contrast is so big, ahhhhhh, I can’t help but start imagining kitchen PLAY.”
While others were exclaiming in surprise, Yun Qi, upon seeing this, thought of Duan Xingge when he was in high school cooking at home.
This little bastard claimed that it was too hot in the summer and that the house was still very hot in the winter after the heat was on; since cooking was even hotter, he would cook topless, wearing only an apron.
No matter how skilled he was, it was inevitable that he would get splashed by oil. As a result, every time he received even a hair-sized wound from the oil, he would whine and demand that Yun Qi apply medicine for him.
Setting aside his other skills, this little bastard’s talent for acting cute and selling innocence was simply peerless.
Just as Yun Qi was recalling this, Bai Yiming walked out next to Duan Xingge, exaggeratingly gesturing to Cheng Xi: “You don’t know, we just went to the kitchen, Jiao-jiao didn’t even find where the apron strings were, and his ‘Brother Xing’ directly put it on him… President Duan, if you ask me, in the neighboring island country, you’d at least be sealed as an ‘Apron Immortal’.”
Ming Jiao was moved to laughter by him; after laughing, he looked at Duan Xingge with sparkling eyes: “Sorry, I’m just an idiot… holding Brother Xing back.”
Duan Xingge, while placing the grilled fish on the rack, didn’t even lift his head: “Small matter.”
Ming Jiao couldn’t help but ask: “Does Brother Xing often cook at home?”
“I cooked often before, but I haven’t done it for a long time, so I’m a bit rusty.” Duan Xingge didn’t specify exactly when “before” was. “If the first batch of grilled fish doesn’t taste good, don’t blame me.”
“How could that be.” Ming Jiao smiled understandingly, “Brother Xing looks so agile in an apron. Does choosing an apron require any particular care? I worked in a cake shop before, and the cream kept getting on me; I couldn’t wash it off, it was so annoying.”
“You asked the right person; I’ve bought no fewer than eight hundred or a thousand aprons.” Duan Xingge bragged while expertly grilling: “Back in high school, when I was learning to cook at home, in order to prevent oil from splashing on my clothes, I ran to over a dozen shops to try on many aprons”
“Really?” Ming Jiao blinked: “I thought Brother Xing would be the sporty type; I didn’t expect you to be so virtuous.”
Duan Xingge raised an eyebrow: “If you don’t believe me, ask President Yun.”
Ming Jiao was momentarily stumped; it seemed he only suddenly realized upon hearing this that Duan Xingge had also lived with Yun Qi in high school.
Those years that he hadn’t participated in and had never known about—the two of them had always been together.
Yun Qi was lost in thought; hearing Duan Xingge call his name, he came back to his senses: “What?”
Ming Jiao pressed his lips together, not knowing why he was somewhat unwilling to speak. Bai Yiming, who had heard the whole thing on the side, kindly said: “President Duan said he learned to cook at home every day in high school; Jiao-jiao didn’t expect him to be so virtuous. President Duan also said that in order to prevent oil from splashing on his clothes, he specifically ran to several shops to pick out thousands of aprons—”
“Thousands? Why doesn’t he say his family sells aprons?” Yun Qi was immersed in memories; hearing this, he sneered without thinking: “Listen to his nonsense. Afraid of oil splashing on his clothes? When he cooked at home in high school, he didn’t like wearing clothes at all”
Halfway through the sentence, Yun Qi suddenly realized something and immediately cut off his train of thought, but everything seemed to be too late.
The air instantly went quiet. The bullet comments, which were still excited about Duan Xingge’s physique a second ago, were suddenly silenced, as if choked.
Follow-up question: Would you like me to proceed to the next chapter, or is there a specific interaction or plot detail you would like to analyze?