No problem?
How could there possibly be no problem?!
The problem was huge, alright?!
Fu Nian’s words, “Yu Cheng can sleep with me,” had just reached his throat when they were choked back by Chu Hanfeng’s words. Immediately afterward, he heard a hesitant and reluctant refusal sound beside him: “Better not…”
After pondering for a moment, Yu Cheng still said: “My sleeping posture isn’t great. The burden of sleeping with my idol is just too heavy.”
Chu Hanfeng remained unmoved: “Your sleeping posture is bad, yet I don’t feel burdened at all. What burden do you have?”
Yu Cheng: “…”
Chu Hanfeng smoothly spat out a single sentence: “Finding me repulsive?”
Yu Cheng: “!”
The other four pairs of eyes fixed squarely on him. Yu Cheng swallowed hard and replied unwillingly: “How could that be…”
Chu Hanfeng nodded, his lips parting casually: “Alright then.”
And just like that, it was settled.
Originally, the production team was agonizing over how to scale even greater heights on top of their rising viewership ratings, but Chu Hanfeng pulled this stunt, acting so easygoing that it exceeded everyone’s expectations.
This was only the first day, yet the promotional talking points were already countless; they had even pre-imagined the trending searches for when the time came.
These included:
#Chu Hanfeng’s Reality Show Debut#
#Kou Xiangzhong Talks About Song Feiwan and Recalls the Past#
#Chu Hanfeng Catches Crabs#
#Chu Hanfeng and Yu Cheng Share a Cottage Room#
#Yu Cheng Successfully Chases His Idol#
Especially Yu Cheng’s persona as a loyal fanboy chasing his idol, his fondness for Chu Hanfeng was frequently roasted to no end by netizens, and the phrase “riding on coattails” was practically worn out by his haters.
Yet, appearing on the same show this time, Chu Hanfeng actually insisted on sharing a room with Yu Cheng.
Tell me, who wouldn’t be green with envy?
The director’s crew could even anticipate the viewers’ reaction after this episode aired; that segment was definitely going to blow up!
However, Yu Cheng didn’t care in the least whether the show blew up or not.
He was the one about to blow up anyway.
Consistent with the style of the front courtyard cottage, the bed provided in the second-floor room was also made of carved antique old elm wood. Fearing the guests wouldn’t sleep comfortably, the production team had even thoughtfully laid down an extra thick cotton quilt and a cashmere blanket for Chu Hanfeng.
At this exact moment, Yu Cheng had his arms crossed over his chest, squatting like an old man on the small wooden stool in front of the bed. Even his chin was tucked inside his loose, high-necked turtleneck sweater, leaving only his youthful brows, eyes, and refined nasal tip exposed as he silently and secretly pondered whether he should just swipe that blanket off the bed and make a floor pallet right beside it.
After all, sharing the exact same bed with Chu Hanfeng…
He didn’t dare imagine that picture.
Otherwise, closing his eyes would bring up the unbearable image of the two of them tumbling together onto the soft bedding in the past, where even their fiercely restrained breaths and limbs that didn’t dare act rashly felt entirely impure and affectionate in this recalled memory, as if he had genuinely taken some sort of advantage.
In the past, he could still excuse it as youth and ignorance.
There was no way he could repeat the same mistakes now.
Just then, Chu Hanfeng walked out of the bathroom, his hair damp at the tips and water droplets sliding down the contours of his slender neck to drip onto his collar, staining a small patch of fabric.
Yu Cheng raised his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the T-shirt and long pants Chu Hanfeng had just changed into. It was clearly a very casual and simple daily outfit, yet falling into his eyes, it carried a touch of domestic coziness, even diluting quite a bit of that man’s usual cold and unapproachable aloofness amidst his slightly disheveled strands of hair.
Chu Hanfeng wiped the tips of his hair with a towel, lowering his gaze right into Yu Cheng’s sizing-up stare.
In a flash, Yu Cheng quickly averted his gaze. But realizing it belatedly, since this guy insisted on sharing a room with him, what was there to cover up or conceal if he looked openly?
So Yu Cheng glanced over once more. The moment his gaze met Chu Hanfeng’s, the outer corners of his brows involuntarily pressed slightly downward, and the corners of his lips tightened into a somewhat dissatisfied expression.
Chu Hanfeng squinted slightly, waiting for Yu Cheng to speak.
Before long, he saw Yu Cheng turn off his microphone, bristling all over as even his tone carried complaints: “Why did you come?”
He had held it in for too long and was here to settle accounts.
Knowing what Yu Cheng meant, Chu Hanfeng casually blocked the camera with his towel before sitting down leisurely on the edge of the bed, his every movement exuding that same cold demeanor.
He didn’t look like someone willing to entertain others.
Yu Cheng instantly began to regret it again, wondering why on earth he had to take the initiative to go chat with him.
Then he heard Chu Hanfeng reply with unruffled calm: “I can’t come?”
The subtext of those words was: If I had known you were coming, I wouldn’t have come.
“So?”
Chu Hanfeng looked at Yu Cheng’s face, heavily radiating the attitude of what do other people’s words have to do with me.
Yu Cheng felt a lump in his throat and muttered back: “Didn’t you dislike it? Why come here to suffer.”
After all, Chu Hanfeng had stated in interviews long ago that he was unwilling to place his every word and action entirely under the camera’s gaze, amplifying every unintentional detail before the audience’s eyes, which was why he had rejected reality show invitations over and over again.
A good actor should try his best to separate work from life, leaving more room for imagination and development for the audience through the characters he played.
Yu Cheng lacked confidence, his voice trailing off soft.
If they really wanted to split hairs, whether Chu Hanfeng came or not was Chu Hanfeng’s own business; if he kept arguing, it would just look like he was being unreasonable.
It was just that the pent-up frustration in his heart had nowhere to vent, and once the deep of night arrived with nobody else around, it instantly breached the floodgates.
In the original book, running all over the world clinging shamelessly to the man and ultimately ending up in such a miserable state was entirely his own fault.
Yet now, clearly having taken great care to keep his distance from Chu Hanfeng, how did things still look no better than before?
Meanwhile, Chu Hanfeng looked at him for a few extra moments without responding, simply taking out his phone to briefly reply to a few messages before turning his head to inspect Yu Cheng’s heavily bundled outerwear and sweater up and down, asking softly: “Not hot?”
Yu Cheng: “…”
With the indoor heating on, saying he wasn’t hot would be a lie.
At first, he was overwrought with anxiety, his eyes filled entirely with that bed, leaving him zero bandwidth to care about anything else.
Yet suddenly being asked like this by Chu Hanfeng made Yu Cheng feel terribly stripped of face, especially since he had just tried every possible means to pick a bone with Chu Hanfeng. How could he possibly surrender at a juncture like this? He immediately put up a front and retorted: “Not hot, mind your own business.”
With that, he sat firmly on the small wooden stool, even straightening his back unconsciously.
Little did he expect that Chu Hanfeng’s talent for infuriating people remained undiminished since the old days, his brow furrowing even tighter as he gazed thoughtfully at Yu Cheng.
It was just like back then when he looked at his error-ridden collection of wrong answers, wearing an expression full of why is such a simple question so hard to understand that was truly insulting.
Sure enough, the next second Yu Cheng heard Chu Hanfeng ask unceremoniously: “So frail now?”
Frail your…
Yu Cheng had a breath stuck in his throat, almost choking to death.
After holding it in for a long time, Yu Cheng replied dryly: “That’s none of your business either.”
As he spoke, Yu Cheng stood up, grabbed his change of clothes from his suitcase, and plunged straight into the bathroom where the residual heat hadn’t yet dissipated.
With a loud clatter, he closed the door tight, exuding the overwhelming momentum of never paying attention to anyone ever again, domineering to the extreme.
Chu Hanfeng’s gaze lingered on that door for a long time.
It really was…
So very different from the little tail that used to obediently trail behind him from time to time.
Though in truth, there were moments when he was driven to extremes as well.
Just like during those past six months, every time he was required by Song Feiwan to tutor Yu Cheng, that guy always looked less than fully focused, either unceremoniously picking at his fingernails or inexplicably asking questions unrelated to his studies, occasionally staring blankly at him while wondering who knows what.
Only when he put on a stern face and assumed a posture of walking away would that person quiet down for a moment and obediently admit his mistake. And if he refused to buy it, this person’s inherent young master temperament would start cropping up, crossing his legs with a take it or leave it expression, while his eyes still periodically peeked toward his direction to observe his reaction.
Yet even then, he was much cuter than now.
It seemed that over the years, what had grown wildly wasn’t just his height, but also that incorrigible young master temper.
The sound of running water echoed from inside the bathroom, making the surrounding environment suddenly grow much quieter.
The phone screen lit up unceremoniously, bringing a stream of untiring greetings from the self-perceived neglected Xue Ji, including a string of unreplied messages masking a heart full of deep gossip between the lines:
[Xue Ji]: The whole world is saying you wouldn’t go. Seeing you show up, was Yu Cheng surprised? Was he shocked?!
[Xue Ji]: Aren’t you super happy?
[Xue Ji]: Wasn’t my idea just perfect!
[Xue Ji]: Where did you go???
[Xue Ji]: So busy you don’t even have time to look at your phone?
[Xue Ji]: I thought about it, and Yu Cheng’s looks are pretty much my type. If you really don’t like him, why don’t you hand him over to me, and I’ll try chasing him.
[Xue Ji]: Who knows, it might actually work, and then I’ll be your step-brother-in-law from a different mother.
The next second.
[Chu Hanfeng]: Think you’re funny?
The bathroom door abruptly opened.
When Yu Cheng walked out slowly with his head hooked and dragging his feet, the lingering mist from inside also diffused into the surrounding air like an extra injection of warm current, baking the already warm room until it was slightly over-warmed.
Chu Hanfeng casually tossed his phone beside his pillow, his gaze lightly skimming over the post-shower damp brows and slightly flushed face of the person before him.
The young master wasn’t someone who liked doing chores on ordinary days; if he could lie down, he would never stand, and his entire person was very tender. Not just his face, but even his neck, arms, and calves were suffused with a layer of rosy tint baked by the heat, bleeding out from beneath that thin skin, glistening with undried water droplets that seemed to emit a faint glow under the lights.
At the same time, probably feeling a bit itchy, Yu Cheng raised a hand to scratch the back of his neck. His oversized T-shirt swayed slightly at the hem with his movement, exposing a narrow, slender, and fair stretch of waist before he had time to tuck the hem back into his waistband.
That flash of a picture lingered in Chu Hanfeng’s eyes, leaving nothing in his mind except that shallow, indented dimple at the small of the other’s back.
Noticing Chu Hanfeng’s gaze, Yu Cheng shuffled lazily in his slippers for a few steps, unable to hold back any longer as he raised his head: “What?”
As he asked, he turned his head to glance at the landscape decorative painting on the side, whose framed glass surface dimly reflected Yu Cheng’s figure, long limbs that counted as tall, though compared to Chu Hanfeng, he still looked somewhat more slender.
The compulsion to compare everything and fight for a win or loss was a common failing of most men, and Yu Cheng was no exception.
Yu Cheng whipped his head up and down to size up Chu Hanfeng, and that competitive urge that had just sprouted immediately withered away.
It just made his own arms and legs look a bit weak.
Consequently, Yu Cheng began looking for footing elsewhere again, muttering as he started picking a fight: “What are you looking at?”
Chu Hanfeng didn’t move his eyes away, simply saying indifferently: “How do you know I’m looking at you?”
“I…”
Yu Cheng sucked in a breath, realizing that this too sounded a bit unreasonable.
The room wasn’t big to begin with, so glancing over casually was normal.
Besides, the subtext of Chu Hanfeng’s words was clearly: If you weren’t looking at me, how would you know I was looking at you?
This logical problem was simply insolvable.
But how could Young Master Yu let it rest like that, especially since he had suffered quite a bit on account of the other person? He had to find some excuse to vent his anger.
Wearing a stinking face, Yu Cheng switched topics and snapped unpleasantly: “Then move aside.”
As a result, Chu Hanfeng showed not the slightest intention of budging.
Yu Cheng frowned: “Give me the cashmere blanket you’re sitting on, I’ll make a floor pallet.”
A veneer of unshakeable calmness still hung on Chu Hanfeng’s face as he gave him a meaningful, extra look.
A moment later, he gave a light chuckle.
“What, will sharing a bed with two people cause it to collapse?”