There was nobody outside the door. Feeling somewhat curious, Pei Shuchen poked his head out to look down both sides of the hallway. When he still saw no one, he closed the door.
Hiding in the stairwell, Si Jinnian clutched his chest and panted heavily.
The rain outside was growing heavier, showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Penniless and homeless, Si Jinnian had wanted to follow his mother’s suggestion and come find Pei Shuchen to take him in, but the moment the door was knocked on, he suddenly remembered their relationship.
His pride made it too difficult for him to save face, so the moment he heard footsteps inside, he quickly hid in the stairwell.
As a young master accustomed to luxury and pampering since childhood, when had he ever suffered such humiliation? His pride made him unwilling to lose face in front of Pei Shuchen.
Yet if he didn’t turn to Pei Shuchen, where could he possibly go with not a single penny to his name?
Having walked for an hour and a half to get here, his feet were chafed raw, and he had been caught in the rain. Now, he was freezing cold and his feet ached. If he didn’t treat himself in time, he was bound to fall sick and get an infection.
Torn by indecision, Si Jinnian walked back up to Pei Shuchen’s front door once more.
He would just crash for a single night, take a hot shower to prevent a cold, and leave as soon as daylight broke tomorrow.
He raised his hand, but hesitated the instant he was about to knock.
He must look so disheveled right now, and Pei Shuchen would definitely mock him if he saw him like this.
If the guy refused to take him in, wouldn’t he lose all his dignity?
Forget it, he should just think of another way!
He turned to leave, but he had already made every phone call he possibly could, and not a single person was willing to help him or put him up. To make matters worse, he couldn’t find a single coin anywhere on his body.
Fine, losing face it is. He couldn’t just sleep on the street, could he?
Besides, all of this was Pei Shuchen’s fault in the first place. Taking him in was only right and proper.
Ding-dong.
Just as Pei Shuchen had lain down in bed and was about to turn off the lights to sleep, the doorbell rang once more.
Pei Shuchen paused. Just as he was hesitating over whether to get up, a few more knocks followed, thud, thud, thud, sounding somewhat urgent.
Pei Shuchen got up, walked to the doorway, and hesitated for a moment right before opening the door. A second later, he stood behind the door and asked, “Who is it?”
Hearing Pei Shuchen’s voice, Si Jinnian shivered. When he wanted to open his mouth to speak, a sudden wave of awkwardness and shame washed over him.
“Who’s outside?”
Receiving no response, Pei Shuchen asked again. Si Jinnian hesitated, turned around, and fled back into the stairwell once more.
He still couldn’t shed his pride.
Doing this right now, wasn’t it equivalent to throwing himself at his mortal enemy for help?
What if Pei Shuchen not only refused to take him in, but also mocked him? Wouldn’t that make him look utterly pathetic?
When still no response came, Pei Shuchen looked out through the peephole. Seeing nobody at the door, he grew inexplicably nervous.
Reaching out to grab the baseball bat by the entryway, Pei Shuchen opened the door again, stood on the threshold to check both sides of the hallway, and frowned when he still saw no one.
“What is going on?”
Murmuring to himself, Pei Shuchen turned around and prepared to head back to his room when he suddenly noticed a small puddle of water right by the doorway.
It hadn’t been raining outside when he came back, so he could be certain this puddle wasn’t made by him.
The inexplicable appearance of the puddle instantly put Pei Shuchen on edge. This sudden puddle proved that someone definitely had been here just now, but what on earth were they trying to do?
What was the meaning of knocking on the door and then hiding?
Remembering what Lin Jiayi had told him earlier, Pei Shuchen’s heart skipped a beat. Could it be that he had been targeted by a psycho?
Turning back toward his room, Pei Shuchen locked the front door securely.
Even though he was a grown man with enough fighting capability, this situation where the enemy was hiding in the dark still filled him with tension and fear.
Clutching the baseball bat, Pei Shuchen sat on the sofa for half an hour. Only after hearing no more knocks or other movements did he finally succumb to exhaustion and head back to his room to sleep.
The next morning, Pei Shuchen was woken up by his alarm.
He got up, washed up simply, changed into athletic wear, and prepared to head out for a morning run.
The moment he pulled open his front door, a figure collapsed heavily right at his feet with a soft thud.
Pei Shuchen was startled at first, instinctively taking a step back. Then he lowered his gaze and froze in utter shock upon seeing the person lying on his doorstep.
“Si Jinnian? Why are you here?”
Receiving no response from Si Jinnian, Pei Shuchen belatedly noticed that something seemed wrong with the man. His eyes were tightly shut, his complexion was deathly pale, and his entire body was trembling uncontrollably.
Bending down close to Si Jinnian, a clear wave of heat hit Pei Shuchen, making his heart skip a beat. He reached out to touch Si Jinnian’s forehead and realized it was burning hot.
How did his fever get this high?
“Si Jinnian, what’s wrong with you? Wake up! Why did you burn up like this? Wake up!”
After calling out Si Jinnian’s name a few times and failing to wake him, Pei Shuchen let out a sigh.
He helped Si Jinnian up from the floor, and just as he was about to close the door, his peripheral vision caught sight of a suitcase placed right by the entrance.
Pei Shuchen paused slightly, muttering inwardly. Why is this guy dragging a suitcase along?
Did he come looking for him on purpose?
Filled with a bellyful of questions, Pei Shuchen first settled Si Jinnian onto the sofa, then stepped outside to haul Si Jinnian’s suitcase into the apartment as well, before walking back over to the sofa to call out to Si Jinnian a few more times.
“Si Jinnian, wake up. Why were you lying at my front door? What happened?”
Dazed and groggy, Si Jinnian felt someone calling him. He slowly opened his eyes, taking a long time to bring Pei Shuchen into focus.
Yet his head hurt terribly right now, and his entire body was so dizzy that he couldn’t speak at all.
His mouth opened for a moment as he stared at Pei Shuchen. Then a wave of intense dizziness washed over him once more. Feeling the world go black before his eyes, he could no longer hold on and lapsed back into unconsciousness.
Even though Pei Shuchen detested Si Jinnian, the guy was still his godparents’ son. Left with no choice, he could only retrieve the medical kit and pull out a digital thermometer to check Si Jinnian’s temperature.
“Thirty-nine point seven degrees Celsius? That high?”
Staring at the numbers on the thermometer, Pei Shuchen frowned deeply. He glanced sideways at Si Jinnian and quickly rummaged through the medical kit for fever-reducing medication.
Unfortunately, Si Jinnian couldn’t be woken up, making it impossible for him to take medicine on his own. In this emergency, Pei Shuchen had no choice but to pry open Si Jinnian’s mouth and, biting the bullet, use the traditional mouth-to-mouth method to pass the fever medicine into Si Jinnian’s mouth.
Dazed and half-conscious, Si Jinnian felt someone kissing him. He opened his eyes and saw Pei Shuchen leaning down, taking advantage of his vulnerable state.
Si Jinnian wanted to resist and push away this sanctimonious hypocrite of a man, but his body refused to obey commands at the moment. Left with no alternative, he could only passively endure Pei Shuchen’s molestation while secretly vowing in his heart that once he recovered, he would definitely make Pei Shuchen pay the price for this.
After feeding Si Jinnian the medicine, Pei Shuchen turned and headed to the bathroom, wetting a towel and placing it across Si Jinnian’s forehead.
Once all of this was done, Pei Shuchen made a phone call to Li Shuhe. He originally intended to tell her that Si Jinnian had fallen ill with a fever so she could hurry over and take him back, but he never expected to be rejected by Li Shuhe.
To make matters worse, she informed him that as of last night, Si Jinnian had been kicked out of the Si family and no longer had any ties to them.
When Pei Shuchen wanted to ask for more details, Li Shuhe hung up on him under the pretext of being busy.
She didn’t utter a single word about Si Jinnian’s medical condition.
Listening to the busy tone coming from the phone, Pei Shuchen stood in a daze, his hand holding the phone slowly dropping to his side.
Standing blankly in place, Pei Shuchen’s gaze involuntarily fell upon Si Jinnian, and after a long moment, he murmured to himself.
“Si Jinnian, what on earth did you do to make your mother ruthless enough to kick you out of the house?”