HL 5

The bruises were purple and blue, clearly made by a tight grip. They sat on the prominent bones of his ankles like stark brands. The outlines of several fingers were distinct, with the thumb marks especially deep—the skin still bore the indentation of pressure.

“Sorry.” Ying Yusheng averted his gaze, fidgeting as he touched the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

It was no wonder Ying Yusheng felt awkward.

Handprints didn’t usually appear on the ankles. If they did, the implications were hard to ignore—

Only someone who’d been held by the ankles and taken for a very, very long time would have marks this deep.

“Shall we, um, continue the treatment—”

Before he could finish, Xu Nanxiao shoved Ying Yusheng away hard. The man nearly toppled off his chair. Once he’d steadied himself, he watched helplessly as Xu Nanxiao, face flushed bright red, fled the room through gritted teeth.

“Feeling any better now?”

“It’s okay—keeping clients’ secrets is basic professional ethics.”

“Take some time to rest. Reach out when you need me.”

…

Staring at the stream of messages popping up from Ying Yusheng, Xu Nanxiao felt a wave of irritation. He figured the man was pitying him—probably thinking he was some victim of rough play in desperate need of counseling.

Just the thought made Xu Nanxiao not want to see Ying Yusheng again. He buried his face in his pillow in frustration.

Two months had passed since he’d first discovered those kissing photos. In those two months, Xu Nanxiao had tried every method he could think of, yet found no trace of the hooded man.

He felt like he was being toyed with by that bastard. Maybe, while he was raging here, the hooded man was watching him from some dark corner, enjoying his powerlessness.

It felt like being licked by a dog’s tongue—damp and disgusting.

Just then, Xu Nanxiao’s phone buzzed. He opened it to see a Bluetooth pairing request.

Frowning, he assumed some clueless neighbor was trying to connect to the wrong device and tapped “Reject.”

A few seconds later, the pairing request came again. He rejected it again.

The phone finally fell silent. He rubbed his brow and was about to put it down when the Bluetooth request popped up once more. But this time, the device name had changed—

[Accept or I’ll send it to others ^_^]

Xu Nanxiao was about to mutter “who’s the psycho” when his brain suddenly jolted like an electric shock. He realized something, quickly tapped “Accept”—his fingers were so stiff it took three tries to get it right.

After pairing succeeded, the other party sent him a compressed file that required a password to unzip. Xu Nanxiao tried six 8s and six 0s—both wrong. He attempted almost every simple number combination until one guess surfaced in his mind. He tried his own birthday—and it actually worked, which made him even more nauseated.

Xu Nanxiao steeled himself before opening the video, but the moment he saw the content, his breathing faltered.

The first thing that appeared on screen was a lower abdomen—his own lower abdomen. It seemed to have been overstimulated; his abdominal muscles were spasming rapidly, his narrow waist arching upward unconsciously. The smooth, fair skin was slick with sweat, gleaming with an enticing sheen.

Then, a pair of hands in black leather gloves appeared in the frame. Even through the gloves, it was clear the fingers were slender and long.

That hand lingered over his lower abdomen like an artist admiring a masterpiece, drawing deeper tremors from him.

Then, the recorder’s distorted electronic voice asked: “Do you like this?”

In the video, Xu Nanxiao nodded frantically with a sob, answering obediently: “Yes.”

“You’re definitely lying—doesn’t Nanxiao like women?” The hand made as if to pull away.

He panicked, quickly explaining: “I don’t like women!” Then, he lifted that hand and began peppering the black leather glove with delicate kisses, looking up from below, testing: “I like you.”

The video ended there.

Xu Nanxiao stood frozen like a patient who’d just received devastating news. Before long, the dry air stung the membranes of his eyes. But before anger could seize his brain, a chill ran down his spine and every hair on his body stood on end.

Wait—if this person could send him a video via Bluetooth, that meant he was nearby right now! The hooded bastard had actually tracked him down!

Xu Nanxiao had lived in this rental for a long time. Though he didn’t really know the neighbors upstairs and down, he at least recognized their faces. Since this wasn’t one of them, there was only one possibility.

Xu Nanxiao immediately opened the real-time feed from his door camera. Sure enough, he saw a figure in a hoodie flash past and then race downstairs.

He cursed loudly, threw off the covers, and bolted out the door.

From the stairwell looking down, he could see someone hurrying downstairs. Xu Nanxiao gave chase without a second thought.

“STOP RIGHT THERE!!!”

Adrenaline made his heart race in his chest, his gasps and heartbeat deafeningly loud, echoing through the narrow stairwell. But when he burst out of the building and looked left, then right, there wasn’t a shadow in sight!

The hooded man had gotten away!

“Fuck!” It took every ounce of Xu Nanxiao’s strength not to hurl his phone at the ground. His fists clenched tight, veins bulging on the backs of his hands.

“Professor.”

At the same time, graduate student Mao Ke knocked on Ying Yusheng’s office door.

A moment of silence from inside, followed by a pleasant male voice: “Come in.”

Mao Ke entered and found Ying Yusheng sitting at his computer watching a boxing match. The young woman was surprised—her gentle, refined professor apparently had such a wild hobby.

It was a lightweight boxing match. One handsome, flamboyant man easily caught her attention.

The man had a narrow waist, lean muscles, and very pale skin. The bruises and wounds left by his opponent stood out vividly—the white skin contrasted with purplish black, giving him a kind of ravaged beauty.

Suddenly, the air split! He landed a heavy punch square on his opponent’s jaw. The burly fighter flew back like a marionette with its strings cut, crashing hard against the ropes and bouncing back before collapsing limply to the mat, unable to get up.

The referee rushed over excitedly, slapping the mat while counting: “5—4—3—”

Before the count was even over, the man had already stepped calmly over his fallen opponent and knelt down.

He crossed his legs casually, fine beads of sweat glistening under the bright lights. His soaked shorts clung to the full, powerful muscles of his inner thighs, revealing the enticing contours beneath.

He lowered his head, his gaze sweeping slowly across the audience. Then, his right arm shot up, his clenched fist thrusting into the air like solid rock.

“…2—1—Congratulations, Mr. Xu!”

Time froze for an instant. That silent gesture, like a victory goddess raising a torch, made the entire arena explode.

Deafening cheers and screams engulfed everything—but vanished the next second as Ying Yusheng pressed pause.

“Something you need?” he asked Mao Ke with a smile.

Mao Ke snapped back to reality, embarrassed as she touched her nose and explained: “The results from the last double-blind experiment are in—please take a look.”

“Reproducible?”

“Yes, the results across multiple trials were highly consistent.”

“That means the new drug in partnership with Shenghua Pharmaceutical is performing well. Just leave it here—I’ll review it in detail later.” Ying Yusheng’s eyes curved as he flipped through the report. “Once we can move it to clinical application soon, it should help a lot of patients.”

Hearing this, Mao Ke’s admiration for Ying Yusheng grew even more.

There was hardly anyone as good as Professor Ying in the world. Since joining the university, he’d never been caught up in unsavory scandals—corruption or academic fraud were utterly unheard of. He also had a true scholar’s sense of duty, striving to ensure his research benefited as many people as possible.

These qualities sounded easy, but in reality, those who could actually live up to them were few and far between. In comparison, his impressive credentials and handsome appearance seemed almost trivial.

“You’ve all worked hard during this period. Once the project wraps up, I’ll treat you all to a meal,” Ying Yusheng said gently.

“Oh, we couldn’t possibly—” Mao Ke waved her hands quickly.

“I insist. Pick the restaurant—I don’t eat out much, so I wouldn’t know which ones are good.”

Mao Ke stopped protesting, grinning: “Alright then!”

She was about to take her leave when she noticed the man on the computer screen with his arm raised, and couldn’t help asking: “Professor, do you usually watch boxing matches?”

Ying Yusheng’s answer was: “No, I just happened to come across it.”

His expression was so clear and open, as if every word out of his mouth could be trusted. Mao Ke would never have guessed that if she closed the video at that moment, she’d see thousands of videos and tens of thousands of photos in her professor’s cloud drive.

And every single one featured the man from that match.

There were interviews, matches, candid shots—smiling, angry, disdainful, embarrassed… and even many videos showing things that would make anyone’s face burn just to watch.

Mao Ke asked: “Who’s the winner here?”

Ying Yusheng glanced at the screen, then turned to Mao Ke. There was a subtle strangeness, a dissonance, beneath his gentle gaze.

He smiled and answered: “I don’t know him, either.”