“Mr. Lin, when you say… ‘bed-warming’…” The woman paused, as if the word were too embarrassing to say aloud. After a moment, she managed to finish her question, though not very smoothly.
“When you say bed-warming… what exactly does that involve?” She took a deep breath as she looked at the figure on the daybed in the distance.
The room fell silent for a few seconds, as though he were considering the question. Then a cool, faintly languid male voice came from ahead. “What it says on the tin. Mm, I might need a few things during the day, too.”
His voice rose slightly at the end, sounding either uncertain or eager about what they were discussing. Whatever the case, there wasn’t the slightest hint of embarrassment.
The woman’s hand trembled slightly around her pen.
The literal meaning?
Meaning she should wash herself clean, get herself smelling sweet, then climb into bed before her master and warm the covers, like a bed-warmer in ancient times.
Then, her task would be done. She could leave behind a nice, warm bed and slip away in silence, her good deed done without anyone knowing.
Did he think someone who’d been chewed up and spat out by society would believe that?
He was telling her the “bed-warming” in a kept-man contract was just… bed-warming?
Yeah, right.
The woman twitched the corners of her mouth. When they wouldn’t move, she gave up and continued revising the contract with a straight face. “Mr. Lin, what exactly would you need during the day?”
As far as she knew, the person her boss had his eye on was about to enter the entertainment industry. Artists who had to live in the public eye had far more to worry about than ordinary kept lovers.
And the other man had already turned her boss down once. If she didn’t get the details straight, she’d probably end up with the same result as before.
Lin Luoting frowned slightly.
The humans who’d worked in his castle had all known who he was. No matter how well they hid it, he could always see the fear and trepidation in their eyes.
It made him irritable and impatient, so after a few attempts, he’d stopped bothering.
But here and now, no one knew his identity. No one knew he was a vampire. The timing, the setting, and the company were all perfect. He could indulge a little wish he’d set aside for who knew how many years.
He could lie drowsily on a daybed in the warm afternoon sun, his cold feet resting beneath a human’s thin shirt, pressed against the scorching heat of his abdomen, his insteps rising and falling with the human’s breathing.
Or he could curl up in a human’s arms and listen to him read poetry in a deep voice. Humans were said to be born with rich emotions. Perhaps hearing a poem from one would move him in ways reading it himself never could.
A human’s warm embrace would surely be more comfortable than a cold chair or couch.
At the thought, Lin Luoting’s frown eased. His rose-colored lips parted, and he happily gave his answer. “A lot.”
The woman drew in a sharp breath. A string of scenes that would need censoring flashed through her mind: balconies, sofas, kitchens, parking lots, offices, changing rooms; day and night, seven times a day…
Good grief. A gay powerhouse. Terrifying.
Still, she didn’t think her boss was likely to get what he wanted this time.
Besides the career opportunities that would come later, the contract now included covering the other man’s mother’s medical bills and finding a kidney donor. But from what she’d heard, Lu Chengyi’s agent had managed to get him an audition for the third male lead in Director Fang Yiming’s production.
That was Fang Yiming, a big-name director with a reputation for quality and good ratings. Not everyone got an audition, even for a minor role.
The fact that Lu Chengyi was auditioning for the third male lead meant his agent had decent connections. And Lu Chengyi had the looks and the legs. If he worked hard, he could make a living in the industry, unless her boss got in his way.
After all, Lu Chengyi was a contracted artist under her boss’s company, Shuangmu Entertainment.
Come to think of it, the main thing was that Lu Chengyi didn’t seem like the sort to sell his body. He’d rejected her boss the first time he proposed keeping him, and now, on top of that, her boss had added “a lot” of daytime “needs” to the deal…
Yikes.
She didn’t dare ask what “a lot” specifically entailed. What if her boss gave her another answer packed with information?
The woman put away her notebook. “All right. I’ll revise the contract and then get in touch with him?”
“Mm.”
In the quiet room, high heels made a deliberately soft sound against the floor. The door opened and closed, and silence settled over the room once more.
Some time later, Lin Luoting, still curled lazily on the daybed by the French windows, finally opened his eyes.
Beneath long, thick lashes, his light brown eyes drifted toward the golden sunlight slanting through the window.
It was 4:30 in the afternoon, exactly one week since Lin Luoting had realized he’d transmigrated into a book.
A week had been enough to figure out what had happened to him and get used to his new circumstances.
Luoting, a vampire, had become Lin Luoting, a human.
A vampire prince over a thousand years old had become a thirty-five-year-old human man.
His countless paintings, antiques, jewels, and shares in various companies had vanished in an instant, replaced by a single second-tier entertainment company.
There was no butler who’d looked after him for a thousand years. Instead, there was Lin Luoting’s honest, unassuming father, his sharp-tongued, grasping mother, his timid older sister, his brother-in-law with a touch of cunning, and his little nephew, his sister’s spoiled brat.
The source of all this was nothing more than a book, a clichéd male-oriented novel called Stars and Sea.
In the novel, the male lead, Lu Chengyi, grew from an ordinary university student into a famous actor with tens of millions of fans and an international reputation. Then he decisively retired from acting to take over the family business, turned Lu Group’s fortunes around, expanded it several times over, and became the most eligible bachelor in the eyes of women everywhere.
Lin Luoting hadn’t finished the novel. His butler had brought it back from outside when he’d been bored, and he’d left it by his bedside, picking it up now and then to read before bed like a bedtime story.
In the part he’d read, Lu Chengyi was still unmarried. Plenty of men and women threw themselves at him, but only four caught his eye enough to count as female confidantes.
Lin Luoting wasn’t especially interested in any of that. He didn’t care which of those women would eventually marry Lu Chengyi. The only thing on his mind now was how to get Lu Chengyi to agree to the kept-man contract.
After all, a whole week had gone by, and he still hadn’t found anything to pass the time.
In short, Lin Luoting was bored.
After staring into space for long enough, the person on the daybed looked away and pushed himself upright, shifting from lying down to sitting.
It was early April, and the weather was no longer cold. Apart from the rooms on the first floor where guests were received, the Lin Residence had soft, pale carpets laid throughout the upstairs.
The pale purple pile brushed against the cool, fair skin of his feet. Lin Luoting flexed his toes, looked around, and spotted the phone that had somehow fallen onto the carpet.
He bent to pick it up, unlocked it, and opened the photo album with practiced ease.
The person in the photo was very young, twenty at most. He wore a white T-shirt under a short-sleeved black shirt, his long legs clad in black trousers. He looked at the camera with an impatient expression.
A mask covered most of his face, but his exposed brow and nose were striking, as if carved from stone. His brows were sharply defined, and his gaze carried a natural edge. His whole bearing was defiant.
He swiped to the next photo, taken at the university basketball court.
The young man in a black-and-white jersey lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his cheek. The honey-toned muscles of his abdomen glistened with sweat. His arm muscles, flexing slightly with the movement, were lean and firm. His hair was damp with sweat, and his focused gaze was fixed on the court.
The third photo had been taken in a classroom. The person at the desk showed the camera only an impossibly handsome profile…
The fourth photo…
The fifth…
…
This was Lu Chengyi, the male lead of the novel.
After transmigrating into a book, wasn’t it only natural to pay attention to the protagonist? And after discovering that the protagonist was even better-looking than the novel had described, wasn’t it normal to want him close by, where he could look at him whenever he wanted?
Being fond of beauty was a vampire’s common affliction. Lin Luoting was especially susceptible, and Lu Chengyi’s looks would have ranked among the best even in a world full of beautiful vampires.
As for himself…
His thirty-five-year-old human body already had wrinkles. His unpampered skin was rough and dry, and his muscles had gone slack from years of sitting in an office without exercising.
Worse, he had a paunch.
It was too unpleasant to look at. Lin Luoting avoided seeing himself whenever he could, and it wasn’t until a couple of days ago that he’d accidentally noticed the changes in his body.
He’d lost weight. The fat around his stomach was gone, his skin looked younger, his eyes had lightened, and his features had shifted slightly, taking on traces of his original appearance.
More subtly, his nearsightedness was improving, and his hearing and sense of smell had grown sharper.
A word came to Lin Luoting: awakening. His vampire bloodline was recovering.
Did that mean this place had some kind of connection to reality? Might he eventually find a way back?
He’d lived too long to care much about where he lived. For the moment, he’d rather spend his time thinking about how to keep Lu Chengyi.
He pushed the scattered thoughts from his mind and swiped to the last photo.
The person on the phone screen wore a black down jacket and a beige scarf. Snow fell thickly from the sky. He stood beneath a streetlight, his nose and mouth hidden, only his eyes visible as he looked steadily up at the camera.
What a beautiful rose.
His lips curved faintly. He slipped on his slippers, set down the phone, and left the room. The phone lay quietly on the daybed where its owner had been resting. A moment later, it vibrated twice with a “brr, brr.”
He was looking forward to meeting Lu Chengyi.
【Life Assistant Han Meimei: Mr. Lin, these are the photos of Lu Chengyi you asked me to collect. They’re from T University’s forums and message boards.】
【Life Assistant Han Meimei: [Photo] [Photo] [Photo] [Photo]…】
After sending the photos, Han Meimei leaned back and slumped into her computer chair, limbs sprawled. She did it with such force that the chair let out a weak creak. She had to admit, Lu Chengyi was really handsome, all broad shoulders and long legs!
Shame her boss had set his sights on him.
Her boss was good-looking, and lately he’d been getting younger and more handsome by the day, but he was already thirty-five.
An old bull eating young grass. Tsk. She wondered if he’d pull it off this time.
Han Meimei stared blankly at the ceiling, her eyes darting as she thought. Suddenly, a “ding-dong” notification sounded from the computer, and she sprang upright as if rising from her deathbed.
Had the boss replied that quickly? Did he want more photos of Lu Chengyi?
There weren’t any more. She’d already scoured T University’s forums and message boards, as well as the official account. If he wanted more, she’d have to hire a private investigator!
She looked at the screen. The message wasn’t from her boss, Lin Luoting, but from Lu Chengyi.
【Lu Chengyi: I don’t understand what you mean.】
Huh? He didn’t understand?
Han Meimei looked back at the chat history.
【Mr. Lu, it’s what I mentioned before. Mr. Lin is willing to fully support your mother’s treatment, including the medical expenses and finding a kidney donor.】
【All you have to do is “warm Mr. Lin’s bed” (literally) and provide a few “daytime services.”】
Warm his bed… Daytime services…
He didn’t understand.
Han Meimei fell into thought.
Shouldn’t Lu Chengyi have rejected him outright? Why did that sentence sound so fresh and innocent, like a white lotus and green tea?
Was it because she’d taken the liberty of changing “a lot” to “a few”?