Although Zou Beiqi used to take showers in the dorm and occasionally go shirtless while horseplaying and fighting with his brothers, massages felt a bit excessive no matter how he thought about it. At least for him.
“Are there other ways?”
“Hot compresses. I will find a doctor here directly.”
“I don’t want to bother. I’ll just endure it for a while.” Zou Beiqi disliked staying in the hospital and only came often because of his parents. Besides, there was no need to make a fuss over normal, natural pain.
“Your expression doesn’t look like it. If you think it’s troublesome at the hospital, let’s go home.” Heng Shi reached out to help him up. “Can you walk? The driver is almost here.”
Zou Beiqi nodded, supported by Heng Shi as he walked into the elevator, went downstairs, and got into the back seat of the car.
After arriving at the villa, he was led into a room by Heng Shi and lay down. Just as the other was about to raise his hand, Zou Beiqi stopped him by speaking up: “I can do it myself.”
“Alright. I’ve contacted Dr. Xie. He’ll be here shortly with a hot compress pack.”
Zou Beiqi met Heng Shi’s gaze without moving for a long time. Heng Shi noticed his abnormality: “What’s wrong?”
“Aren’t you going to step outside first?” Being watched by Heng Shi while receiving a massage felt extremely awkward no matter how Zou Beiqi thought about it.
Heng Shi didn’t move: “You are not feeling well, so I should stay with you.”
“I’m not used to being watched.”
Heng Shi turned his back toward him: “Now you can.”
Zou Beiqi began moving his hands. The pain gradually eased, but his hands couldn’t help growing sore. Right at that moment, Xie Jinglian rushed over with a hot compress pack, which could be said to have saved his life.
Through his clothing, Xie Jinglian placed the hot compress pack on the corresponding spot and asked Zou Beiqi how it felt and whether the temperature was appropriate. Zou Beiqi nodded hurriedly; the hot compress was much more comfortable than he had imagined.
Only then did Heng Shi turn back around: “You don’t mind being watched while having a hot compress?”
What was there to mind about this? Zou Beiqi shook his head.
“Then why did you mind just now?”
How was he supposed to explain? Because the movements looked very lewd? Because watching felt awkward? Did that make him look too filthy?
Heng Shi chuckled softly.
Zou Beiqi strongly suspected that Heng Shi had already understood what he meant without words.
Very well, he was relieved, and Heng Shi was just as filthy.
“A single glance makes you this sensitive, and I’m really curious how you persuaded yourself to sleep with me while claiming you don’t like men.”
Zou Beiqi was petrified.
He couldn’t refute a single word of what Heng Shi said. Being sensitive to a man’s gaze? Correct. Sleeping with a man? Also correct. Even more absurdly, he was pregnant with a man’s child; who would believe he was straight?
Coming to this world, being straight meant you were destined to keep it hidden in your heart.
“I admit I’m not straight, alright?”
Heng Shi laughed again, entirely the kind of laughter born of amusement.
“I understand. Aside from when we are in front of others or when necessary physical contact is triggered by your physical discomfort, I will keep my distance from you.” Heng Shi purposely pulled the chair and the side of the bed apart by a certain distance.
“Mhm.”
Turns out avoiding that subtle feeling was so simple. If he had known, he wouldn’t have bothered putting up a straight-man persona.
Zou Beiqi had just realized the benefits of dropping the straight-man declaration when he quickly suffered for it as well.
For instance, he was forced to look through a magazine plastered with muscular men in a coffee shop alongside Sheng Wanzhong.
Zou Beiqi initially resisted strongly, but Sheng Wanzhong patted his shoulder and persuaded him: “It’s fine, just looking doesn’t count as anything. Your Heng Shi won’t get jealous over this, right?”
“He probably will.”
“Then just don’t let him know. The two of us can appreciate it.”
Zou Beiqi offered no response.
At that exact moment, Zou Beiqi realized for the first time that he was bad with muscles.
“Right,” Sheng Wanzhong flipped to the last page, slammed the magazine shut, and shoved it into Zou Beiqi’s hands. “We still have to go to the hospital this afternoon.”
“Are you sick?”
“What are you saying? I’m as healthy as can be. I’ve been following the news recently about the exorbitant medical fees at the Central Hospital. I managed to sneak in yesterday, and I’m getting somewhere. There’s a single mother who feels there’s something wrong with her child’s test results.”
The Central Hospital wasn’t far from the First Municipal Hospital where his father was staying. “Are you going to talk to that single mother this afternoon?”
“Yes. If anything happens, I’ll call you so you can find someone to help, but don’t come yourself, you’ve got a baby bump.”
“Is it really that dangerous of a matter?”
“Hard to say. Who knows if they have any backing behind them.” Sheng Wanzhong shrugged.
“Alright, call me anytime.”
Hearing Zou Beiqi agree, Sheng Wanzhong shouldered his bag and hurried out of the coffee shop, leaving a magazine of muscular men resting quietly on Zou Beiqi’s lap.
He had been completely absorbed in the topic earlier and forgot to return this thing. Zou Beiqi had no choice but to keep it for now and return it the next time he saw Sheng Wanzhong.
Zou Beiqi shoved the magazine into his bag, walked out of the coffee shop, and took a taxi to the hospital. His father had resumed trying the new medicine, and his condition was beginning to show improvement. He noticed that his mother’s smile carried a bit less forced awkwardness; she was genuinely happy for his father.
Heng Shi happened to be there today as well, and upon seeing him arrive, he reached out his hand toward him: “Qiqi, come sit.”
Zou Beiqi sat down beside Heng Shi and then expressed some concern regarding his father’s condition. In truth, even without asking, he could see that although his father remained emaciated to the point where people couldn’t bear to look too closely and was still plugged full of tubes, his complexion had improved considerably.
The temperature had been rising lately, and although the indoor temperature was maintained by air conditioning, the patient’s constitution was delicate after all, so the temperature regulation couldn’t be set too low. Beads of sweat seeped onto his father’s forehead, and Zou Beiqi subconsciously rummaged through his bag for a tissue, but accidentally let the magazine of muscular men fall out.
And it was picked up by Heng Shi, who flipped through it roughly.
“It’s not mine,” Zou Beiqi hurried to explain.
“Qiqi, stop looking.” Heng Shi gently grasped his wrist and pulled him toward his own direction. “Whatever they have, I have too.”
Zou Beiqi wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
Upon seeing that their relationship was good, his parents smiled.
Heng Shi probably smiled too upon seeing his flustered appearance.
Only Zou Beiqi felt utterly desperate.
“It’s Sheng Wanzhong’s, I didn’t look,” Zou Beiqi explained further, biting the bullet. “He loves looking at them.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Heng Shi pinched his chin, forcing him to meet his gaze.
“I’m not.”
“Good boy.”
Just as the words fell, the phone in Zou Beiqi’s pocket vibrated without warning. He made a gesture to the people present, stepped outside the hospital ward door, and answered the call: “Sheng Wanzhong? What happened?”
Recalling their conversation back at the coffee shop, Zou Beiqi’s heart leapt into his throat.
“Nothing, just wanted to tell you I’m done, don’t wait for my call.” Sheng Wanzhong sounded clearly in a good mood. “Just finished questioning people over there, now grabbing the materials and getting ready.”
“Hello?” At that point, Sheng Wanzhong suddenly went silent, and Zou Beiqi called out several times with no response from the other end. He pulled his phone away from his ear and checked the screen only to find the call had ended.
Zou Beiqi’s heart skipped a beat. Could an accident have occurred? He hurriedly tried calling back, but it wouldn’t connect.
“Driver, go to the Central Hospital.”
Without thinking much further, he flagged down a taxi on the street. In the car, he didn’t forget to send a message notifying his family that something urgent came up and he had to leave first.
With the Central Hospital being so vast, Zou Beiqi would search blindly without knowing when he might find Sheng Wanzhong. If he used the single mother as a clue, the nurses would also refuse to disclose any information citing privacy.
Zou Beiqi took the elevator to the fifth-floor inpatient department. Looking out over the entire row of hospital rooms, sorting through them wouldn’t be something he could accomplish in a short time.
Just as he was about to try stopping a passing patient to ask around, quite by coincidence, the very first person Zou Beiqi bumped into was Sheng Wanzhong, who had just stepped half a step out of a ward.
“Beiqi? Why are you here?” Sheng Wanzhong was stunned.
“Your call suddenly dropped, I thought.”
“Someone accidentally bumped into me just now, and my phone directly flew out and broke, it’s fine.” Sheng Wanzhong patted Zou Beiqi’s arm, seemingly noticing the exhaustion on the other’s face. “You must be tired rushing over in such hot weather. Want to head inside and sit down?”
“Shouldn’t you be leaving?”
“I was going to, but my phone is broken and I have no money for the subway, so I borrowed some loose change from someone here. It’s safer than I thought. Go on in, there are chairs inside, nobody bothers you.”
Sheng Wanzhong led him into the hospital room. A woman sitting beside bed number one immediately smiled and nodded at him. Lying on the hospital bed was a little girl around seven or eight years old, engrossed in reading a fairy tale book.
“Ms. Lin.” Sheng Wanzhong addressed her politely. But the woman merely gazed blankly at Zou Beiqi, making the latter feel somewhat uncomfortable: “Hello, may I ask if there is something on my face?”
“Zou Beiqi? You don’t remember me? I am Lin Huixi.” The woman’s tone was astonished. “We were in the same high school class, and I even chased after you.”
It would be a miracle if Zou Beiqi remembered.
“Sorry, it was too long ago.”
“It’s fine. You’re married?” Lin Huixi seemed to notice the ring on Zou Beiqi’s hand and asked.
“Mhm.”
“Your relationship must be pretty good, right?” Lin Huixi sighed imperceptibly, her gaze subconsciously falling upon her own empty finger. “I’m divorced. My ex-husband is really.”
As she continued, Lin Huixi seemed unwilling to elaborate further, but quickly changed the subject upon seeing Zou Beiqi’s blank expression: “Never mind, I probably shouldn’t be saying these things to you.”
“It’s fine.” Zou Beiqi waved his hand to indicate he didn’t mind.
Seeing that he couldn’t break into the conversation, Sheng Wanzhong bid farewell to the two of them in advance. Lin Huixi casually struck up a conversation with Zou Beiqi about high school days, mentioning how he had won quite a lot of attention in class back then thanks to his face, and that she had seen love letters frequently placed on his desk with her own eyes.
If Zou Beiqi had truly been as outstanding as Lin Huixi described, it was no wonder that when Heng Shi looked down on him, the version of himself written in the original book would fly into a rage from embarrassment.
Just as the two of them were chatting pleasantly, the door of the hospital room was suddenly flung open violently from the outside. Thinking it was Sheng Wanzhong with something else to say, Zou Beiqi was about to open his mouth to ask when he saw an aggressive-looking stranger confronting Lin Huixi’s gaze viciously: “Where is the money?”
“What money? Aren’t you responsible for our daughter too?” Lin Huixi flared up instantly. “You were the one who took that money out to cure our daughter’s illness, and now that we’re divorced you want it back?”
“I don’t care about any of that, give the money back!” With that, the man rushed toward Lin Huixi. Zou Beiqi instinctively stepped in front of the woman: “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What does it have to do with you?” The man reached out, about to shove Zou Beiqi aside, when someone from behind grabbed his wrist with a force strong enough to practically crush his bones and twisted it backward.
“Don’t touch him.”