The breathing of another person was sprayed against his ear, and Xuan Congnan stood stiffly with his hands hidden beneath the blanket, tilting his head slightly to let Gu Shi pull him into an embrace.
Using the exact same excuse as “Gu Jian touched his hair, so I want to touch it too,” when Gu Shi asked if he could give him a hug, Xuan Congnan felt a lingering panic mixed with his bewilderment: “Why?”
Gu Shi answered without changing his expression, “Gu Jian hugged you, so I want to hug you too.”
Compared to Gu Jian, Xuan Congnan naturally had a much closer relationship with Gu Shi, leaving him entirely speechless.
“Are, are you done yet?” Xuan Congnan’s voice didn’t even sound like his own anymore.
“Not yet,” Gu Shi said.
His arms were propped on either side of Xuan Congnan, applying just a fraction of his weight as he pressed down, the bridge of his nose brushing against Xuan Congnan’s hair. They used the same shower gel and shampoo, yet Xuan Congnan smelled so wonderfully sweet.
And his skin was so pale, his neck looked just like a swan’s.
“You really are exceptionally healthy,” Xuan Congnan said, remaining completely motionless.
“Hm?” Gu Shi didn’t quite catch his meaning.
Still keeping his head turned, Xuan Congnan murmured, “Your heartbeat—pressing right against me like that, it’s beating so fiercely.”
The vibration felt so intense it was as if it could shake someone right out of their sleep.
Even though Xuan Congnan wasn’t even asleep yet.
Gu Shi stood up, breaking the contact with Xuan Congnan, and went back to lie down properly in his own spot.
After catching his breath for a moment, he let out a soft laugh. “Yes. I’m exceptionally healthy.”
With the other person’s body heat vanishing, Xuan Congnan let out a very quiet sigh of relief, shrinking his chin a little further down into the blanket.
Gu Jian didn’t come over to disturb them again for the rest of the night. Xuan Congnan kept his guard up for half an hour waiting for a life-or-death knock on the door, but when none came, he finally let himself drift off to sleep.
Little did he know, Gu Jian had only quieted down because he had pocketed Gu Shi’s two-thousand-yuan bribe along with a strict warning not to come over.
“Hahaha,” Gu Jian muttered, lying face down on his bed working on his 5.3 math problems while holding a phone marathon with Meng Xiaozhu, kicking his legs back and forth. “I just made another two thousand bucks!”
Meng Xiaozhu praised him warmly, “Hahaha, brilliant, simply brilliant.”
Having stayed up late, Xuan Congnan thought he would fall asleep easily, but he had overestimated himself.
With an extra person nearby and such a strong presence, every time he drifted into a semi-conscious state, Xuan Congnan would jerk awake at the thought of Gu Shi lying right beside him, instantly wide awake.
Whether Gu Shi was asleep or not was hard to tell, but his breathing remained steady and even.
It was just a simple embrace between roommates, and the other guy didn’t seem bothered at all, why was he overthinking things so much? Xuan Congnan gently swept a few strands of hair that had strayed over to Gu Shi’s side back onto his own pillow, making sure not to crowd the other’s sleeping space.
Gu Shi slept very quietly, lying flat on his back with his hands placed neatly over his lower abdomen, exactly like him. Xuan Congnan half-suspected he would maintain that stiff, board-like sleeping posture the entire night.
As soon as Gu Jian left tomorrow, he absolutely had to make Gu Shi go back to sleeping in his own room.
Sharing a single room was simply too inconvenient.
Clinging to this firm resolution, Xuan Congnan didn’t manage to truly fall asleep until three in the morning.
After sleeping for a mere three hours, he woke up at six, only to find that Gu Shi had woken up even earlier than him. When Xuan Congnan reached out to touch the adjacent spot on the mattress, it was cold, proving Gu Shi had been up for a while.
Lacking sufficient sleep meant no working out; no matter how alert or energetic his mind felt, his body wouldn’t allow it. Xuan Congnan got up to wash up and skipped his morning jog.
Stepping out of the bedroom, he saw Gu Jian sitting bleary-eyed and yawning in the living room sofa, hugging a throw pillow and crying tears of exhaustion as if he could collapse at any second.
Xuan Congnan asked curiously, “Why are you up if you didn’t get enough sleep?”
Spotting him like a beacon of hope, Gu Jian leaped up and lunged forward. “Brother! Save me, you have to get justice for me!”
Xuan Congnan instinctively dodged backward.
Then he caught sight of Gu Shi in the kitchen preparing breakfast, and the memory of last night’s hug rushed back, prompting him to warn, “No hugging.”
“Gu Jian.”
The two voices rang out almost simultaneously. Whether it was either of their warnings that did the trick, Gu Jian slammed on the brakes mid-dash, crying miserably as he retreated and collapsed back into the sofa to fake-sob. “Wahhhhh my life is so miserable! I only have one more day of vacation left, and I can’t even get a proper night’s sleep…”
“Sit up straight,” Gu Shi ordered without turning his head.
Gu Jian straightened up with a bitter expression, exactly as Xuan Congnan had seen him when he first came out. He kept yawning from exhaustion, yet instead of returning to the guest bedroom to catch up on sleep or lounging lazily on the couch, he just sat there.
“Are you being threatened?” Xuan Congnan asked sincerely.
“Yes, Brother,” Gu Jian said, pressing his chin against the throw pillow, which caved in deeply. “Sister-in-law said that since I kept disturbing your rest yesterday, he wouldn’t let me sleep today. Brother, do you know what he did? He dragged me out of bed before 4:30 AM and made me sit here watching him mop the floor, wipe the tables, and do the laundry, and now he’s making me watch him cook. I’m so sleepy, wahhhhh.”
Xuan Congnan couldn’t help letting out a chuckle.
Catching Gu Jian’s teary-eyed gaze, Xuan Congnan realized it wasn’t very polite, so he lowered his gaze, covered his mouth with one hand to brush his nose, and stayed quiet.
Gu Jian pleaded, “Brother, let me go back to sleep. Sister-in-law will listen to you.”
They were only in a contract marriage, what part of that meant the other person would listen to him?
Xuan Congnan said, “No.”
Gu Jian blinked. “Huh?”
Xuan Congnan replied, “That’ll teach you to disturb my sleep.”
Gu Jian stared in disbelief. “???”
In the kitchen, Gu Shi didn’t look back, but a soft, light chuckle drifted out into the living room.
Gu Jian demanded loudly, “Sister-in-law, what are you laughing at?!”
Gu Shi turned his head, looked straight at Xuan Congnan, and answered Gu Jian, “I’m happy.”
The moment their eyes met, Xuan Congnan blinked his eyelashes lightly and hurriedly looked away.
With classes for his art students officially starting on Monday, Xuan Congnan’s plan for the next two days was to stay put in the home art studio. Unfortunately, once breakfast was over, Gu Jian threw a small tantrum and went home to sleep, leaving only him and Gu Shi in the apartment.
No matter where Xuan Congnan went, the moment he subconsciously remembered Gu Shi was sharing this space with him, his mind flooded entirely with last night’s embrace, unable to shake it off.
The best of thirty-all strategies is to run away. Hurling a hasty “I have something to do at school” at Gu Shi, Xuan Congnan grabbed his bag and bolted.
Xuan Congnan had nowhere specific to go, with no destination in mind, and he certainly didn’t understand why he was so hung up on an embrace from last night. The more he tried to suppress the thoughts, the more disobedient his brain became.
He hadn’t dealt with this kind of thing when he was with Shen Qian, back then, Xuan Congnan had always remained calm and undisturbed. Today, however, things genuinely felt a bit too bizarre.
He didn’t like having weird, inexplicable emotions.
After walking two laps around the lake, running into the grandpas and grandmas from his old neighborhood and exchanging brief greetings, Xuan Congnan walked a third lap around the lake.
“Ever since Xiao Xuan moved away, he seems to have gotten much happier.” Walking a bit further ahead, an elderly woman who routinely took morning walks with her husband looked back at Xuan Congnan’s retreating figure and remarked.
“Such a young kid, getting harassed all the time at his old place. Now the security where he lives is good, anyone would be happy after moving.”
The woman gossiped, “I heard someone moved into Xiao Xuan’s place, must be his boyfriend.”
“Young people dating is completely normal.”
“Of course it’s normal, I’m just curious who could possibly be good enough for Xiao Xuan,” the elderly woman said affectionately. “Xiao Xuan is such a wonderful child.”
“Stop worrying about other people’s business.”
Schools of plump koi fish floated up to the water’s surface to bask in the morning sun. Xuan Congnan stood behind the railing watching them swish their tails and swim around, regretting that he hadn’t brought any fish food.
Finding the koi pretty and endearing, he felt a fondness for them and took a photo with his phone, planning to sketch them on paper later.
Ever since Gu Shi bought him a new phone, the photos in Xuan Congnan’s album multiplied exponentially every day, mostly consisting of various shots of the sky.
He had told Gu Shi he was going to school, but after pacing around the lake for a few rounds, the temperature had climbed too high to stay outside, so Xuan Congnan headed straight toward the campus.
He spent the entire day sketching the koi, skipping lunch at home though he had remembered to text Gu Shi in advance to report his whereabouts so the other wouldn’t starve himself again just to look pathetic at him later.
By the time he finished the koi painting in the evening, campus streetlights were blinking on across a largely deserted campus, and it was nearly eight o’clock. Xuan Congnan only then realized how late it had gotten. He carefully secured the art studio windows, leaving the painting by the ledge to air-dry so he could list it in his shop tomorrow.
The moment he stepped out of the school gates, Gu Shi’s call came in.
Xuan Congnan pressed answer, speaking before the other could ask: “Heading back.”
“Mm,” Gu Shi said. “I made dinner and even bought a small cake. Waiting for you.”
Xuan Congnan said, “Alright.”
Aside from delivery workers who needed to register in detail, residents returning to the apartment complex had to scan their faces, strictly barring outsiders from entering. Gu Shi had a special status; scanning his face while wearing a mask carried certain risks. The complex management was very considerate, offering residents who disliked face-scanning the option of scanning their palm prints to enter.
Shen Qian wasn’t a resident here, so he couldn’t enter via facial recognition or palm print, leaving him waiting outside.
The cigarette slowly burned down to the filter without a single drag being taken, his eyes locked firmly in one direction.
Amidst the myriad lights of households and streetlamps lining the road, Shen Qian spotted a young man with his long hair tied back into a bundle.
More than two months had passed, and he still hadn’t managed to find out who Xuan Congnan’s roommate was—something he hadn’t anticipated. If the guy truly lacked power and influence, it wouldn’t have been this hard to dig up information.
He was terrified Xuan Congnan was being conned.
For all his cold, detached exterior, Xuan Congnan was fundamentally a very naive person.
He didn’t even know how to kiss.
“Nannan.”
Xuan Congnan’s footsteps faltered, and then he remembered Shen Qian mentioning during their last encounter that he knew where he lived.
Why does he keep intruding on my life? Xuan Congnan frowned. He pulled his gaze away from Shen Qian with a slight look of reproach, acting as if they were nothing more than strangers who would cross paths only once in this lifetime.
“Your roommate is a problem,” Shen Qian pursued him, speaking up.
Xuan Congnan retorted, “What gives you the right to badmouth other people?”
“This isn’t badmouthing,” Shen Qian said earnestly. “Nannan, I’m not trying to hurt you. I simply can’t dig up his background or status at all, that in itself isn’t normal.”
He stepped in front of Xuan Congnan, speaking with a grave expression. “Has he said anything strange to you lately? Promised you any benefits? Those are all empty promises, don’t let yourself get tricked by him.”
They weren’t empty promises at all; the numbers in his bank account didn’t lie. Besides, Gu Shi had even gone to the police station with him, and the police hadn’t raised any red flags.
Xuan Congnan said, “I’m an adult. Shen Qian, in daily life, I believe I’m much more vigilant than you are.”
“I.”
He was right; Xuan Congnan had always been a deeply cautious person. Unless he willingly opened the door, absolutely no one could breach the walls protecting his heart.
Shen Qian fell speechless.
“Anyway, thanks for the well-intentioned warning,” Xuan Congnan said. “But I don’t need you to.”
Buzz—
Xuan Congnan glanced down at his phone: an incoming voice call from “Scavenger.”
He answered.
“Look up,” Gu Shi said over the phone.
Xuan Congnan instinctively raised his head, looking toward the direction of his apartment.
A corner of the curtains behind the balcony had been pulled back. Gu Shi stood there in casual loungewear like an ordinary husband waiting for his beloved partner to return home, gazing quietly out toward the entrance of the complex.
Even though he knew they were far apart and lived all the way up on the sixth floor,沈迁 couldn’t possibly see Gu Shi.
Yet seeing Shen Qian staring fixedly in that direction for so long still made Xuan Congnan uneasy, prompting him to whisper urgently, “Go back into the living room, stop standing out there.”
Gu Shi didn’t budge, even cracking the window open slightly as if forcing the issue.
“Congnan,” he said with a deep, solemn cadence, “Come home. Right now.”