HL 68

Ying Yusheng didn’t answer immediately, as if Xu Nanxiao had said something with long, complex syntax. It took him a while to process it, then he blinked and tentatively replied: “Maybe I’ve gotten used to it—it feels much better now. Just a slight itch in my nose.”

“If you’re allergic, why do you still keep him with you?” Xu Nanxiao took a sip of his noodle soup. “If it’s really too much, have someone under you take care of him.”

“Because…” Ying Yusheng’s voice was very soft, almost a whisper, “I always thought that if you ever missed him, you might come back to see him.”

And then I could take the chance to see you.

Xu Nanxiao caught the unspoken meaning and had no words to respond.

A few days later, Mu Yuanyuan came running out of the tutoring center across the street and charged toward Liang Sihua. “Uncle!”

“Yuanyuan’s here again!” Liang Sihua spun the little girl around, making her giggle.

“How’d it go today?”

“Great, really great! We had a pop quiz today, and I scored five points higher than Wang Youyi.”

“Don’t get cocky—keep it up. Wait here for a bit; your uncle will take you out for something good after work.”

“Okay!”

“Mu Yuanyuan.”

Suddenly, a gentle, pleasant male voice came from behind. The two turned around and saw Ying Yusheng following out with a test paper in hand.

“You forgot your paper.”

Liang Sihua immediately shook her head. “Hey, you’re so grown up now—how are you still forgetting things every day?”

Mu Yuanyuan struggled and muttered under her breath: “That’s weird—I’m pretty sure I picked it up.”

After handing the paper to Mu Yuanyuan, Ying Yusheng didn’t leave immediately. Instead, he peered into the shop.

Ye Qiaozi couldn’t stand it anymore. She walked over to Ying Yusheng and said, “Teacher Ying, Xu Ge isn’t here. He’s sick—took the day off.”

She had complicated feelings about this man.

On one hand, because Xu Nanxiao hated him, she hated him by association. On the other hand, he had helped her keep the shop that was more important to her than her own life. Ye Qiaozi couldn’t quite bring herself to greet him with a smile, nor could she outright snub him—it was a very awkward position.

“Sick?”

“Yeah, a fever. It should be down to a low-grade one by now. It’s good to let him sleep more—he can’t usually sleep even if he wants to…” Halfway through, Ye Qiaozi suddenly frowned. She leaned in and sniffed near Ying Yusheng.

“Ms. Ye, what are you—” Ying Yusheng smiled and subtly stepped back.

“Oh, sorry.” Ye Qiaozi quickly straightened up, embarrassed. “I just suddenly realized—how come you smell the same as Xu Ge?”

“What?”

“It’s this tea scent. Xu Ge used to have this smell on him too. But it’s changed now—seems like it’s been that way ever since you showed up…” Ye Qiaozi’s voice trailed off. She seemed to grasp something on an instinctual level and suddenly froze.

And Ying Yusheng understood what she hadn’t said. He was dazed for a moment, then without another word, he turned and ran out of the shop.

Having a fever really is miserable.

A sour ache seeped into his bones, and his temples throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Consciousness was a thin layer, beneath which lay nothing but hazy fog. The sheets underneath him grew damp, then dried, carrying a faint itchy feeling.

If he could just fall asleep, it might be easier to endure. But Xu Nanxiao was suffering from insomnia on top of everything—the double debuff made him feel like he’d be better off dead.

Since he couldn’t sleep anyway, Xu Nanxiao decided to take a shower and cool down a bit.

He dragged his weak, aching body to the bathroom and turned on the showerhead. Cold water immediately poured down over his head. The stream ran along his neck, lingered in the hollow of his collarbone, then traced over his full chest and firm abdomen before disappearing into the shadows of his groin.

He braced himself against the wall for a while, then reached for the shampoo, but accidentally knocked over a bottle of body wash beside it.

The body wash clattered to the floor and rolled to his feet.

Xu Nanxiao groggily looked down and froze—it was that bottle of tea-scented body wash he’d left unused for so long.

Xu Nanxiao clenched his jaw, cold water dripping from his hair and streaming messily down his face. He suddenly let out a furious roar and kicked the bottle away. It slammed heavily against the doorframe, fell, and cracked open, its thick pale-yellow liquid slowly seeping out.

Xu Nanxiao slumped weakly against the tiles, the cold making him shiver uncontrollably. He pressed his hand to his forehead, feeling the world spin, his stomach knotting up and pushing upward violently.

The tea fragrance quickly filled the small bathroom, like the sharpest, most acrid mockery. He had become a pried-open clam, with no corner left hidden. But inside that clam, there was no treasure—only desires he couldn’t even face himself.

Looking back over the first thirty years of Xu Nanxiao’s life, he wasn’t a man of strong self-discipline. That was why he’d picked up so many bad habits he couldn’t shake—tobacco, alcohol, sex, pain, and… Ying Yusheng.

During those days of unrelenting fever, he saw many hallucinations in his half-awake, half-asleep state. The image that appeared most often was of his mother hanging herself. In the dim main room, a figure gently rotated, toes pointing downward, one foot still wearing a slipper.

Xu Nanxiao couldn’t understand how a person’s bottom line could be dragged so low—not being loved, forgiven; being humiliated and called a slut, forgiven; being beaten, forgiven; even death, forgiven.

Xu Nanxiao swore he would never become like his mother.

On the day he left, Ying Yusheng had asked him: “So in your heart, what your father did to you and what I did to you—are they the same?”

The same—how were they any different?

Both were tyranny, both were oppression, both left wounds that would never heal.

But deep down, he felt there was really something different. He didn’t want to think about it, because admitting there was a difference meant that his feelings toward Ying Yusheng couldn’t be summed up simply as “hatred.” It meant that in that relationship built on deception and coercion, there were other things mixed in—things hard to define.

But how had they ended up like this?

He had once played with Ying Yusheng’s palm, counting every line on it. He had once woken up, seen Ying Yusheng’s sleeping face, and felt his chest swell. He had once been lost in Ying Yusheng’s eyes during passion, believing they held all the love in the universe…

In so many moments, Xu Nanxiao had thought of forever.

That very thing he once scorned, refused to consider, and was too ashamed to speak of—forever…

Knock, knock, knock.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and Xu Nanxiao snapped back to reality.

He figured it was Ye Qiaozi and the others, coming by after work to see if he’d kicked the bucket.

“Coming,” he said aloud, then grabbed a towel to dry himself off, put on some clothes, and went to open the door.

But when he opened it, he was stunned. It wasn’t Ye Qiaozi and the others—it was Ying Yusheng.

“Nanxiao, I heard you were sick. Are you feeling any better? I went to the pharmacy to get some medicine and also made a bowl of light congee,” Ying Yusheng said with a gentle smile.

Xu Nanxiao’s canine teeth bit into his cheek. He hung his head, his bangs covering the upper half of his face.

Xu Nanxiao said nothing and didn’t step aside. The two of them just stood there at the doorway in a standoff.

In the end, it was Ying Yusheng who gave in first. He let out a soft sigh, then raised the tote bag. “I’ll go now. I won’t disturb your rest.”

“I don’t want it.” Xu Nanxiao pushed the tote bag aside.

“At least keep the congee. Don’t cook while you’re sick.”

“I said I don’t want it!” Xu Nanxiao roughly slapped Ying Yusheng’s hand away. Ying Yusheng, caught off guard, lost his grip, and the medicine and congee crashed to the ground. The glass bowl containing the congee shattered, and the milky-white porridge splattered everywhere. Xu Nanxiao stepped forward, planted his foot in the congee, and ground it into a sticky, mushy mess.

“Ying Yusheng, do you know how much you disgust me? In so many ways, you make me sick.” Xu Nanxiao took another step forward and shoved Ying Yusheng hard in the shoulder. “You haunting your way over here—that disgusts me. You settling down here, pretending to teach students—that disgusts me. You remembering my taste in food, taking me to see that Lu guy’s movie—that disgusts me…”

With each sentence, he took another step, shoving Ying Yusheng back until he stumbled.

“You secretly learning our local dialect—that disgusts me. You still keeping Juanjuan—that disgusts me. You coming to see me when I don’t want to see you—that disgusts me…”

Ying Yusheng didn’t resist, letting Xu Nanxiao push him back step by step. Finally, Xu Nanxiao gave one hard shove, sending Ying Yusheng crashing to the ground, and Xu Nanxiao fell right along with him.

“Because you’re so disgusting…” Xu Nanxiao straddled Ying Yusheng, grabbed him by the collar, and screamed through tears, “YOU MAKE ME FEEL DISGUSTING TOO!!!!”

After the roar, the echo lingered in the empty stairwell, trembling faintly. Xu Nanxiao’s eyes were red, his chest heaving violently as if it were about to burst with all the emotions crammed inside.

Ying Yusheng was stunned, staring at him without blinking.

Suddenly, Ying Yusheng reached out, pressed his hand against the back of Xu Nanxiao’s head, and pulled himself up to kiss him fiercely.

When Xu Nanxiao realized what was happening, he fought back violently, as expected. He bit Ying Yusheng’s tongue hard, scratched at his arms, and pounded his fists into Ying Yusheng’s abdomen—but Ying Yusheng didn’t let go.

From a distance, it looked like they were brawling, tearing at each other, and yet also embracing.

Until, at some point, Xu Nanxiao’s body went limp, and he stopped struggling. The next second, he suddenly began kissing Ying Yusheng back with equal ferocity.

The two men stormed through each other’s mouths, fighting for air, gnawing at those soft, nerve-laden tongues. They sucked hard at the tips until they tasted a faint hint of blood.

They wrestled and tumbled onto the bed. Xu Nanxiao straddled Ying Yusheng, trembling hands fumbling with his belt, but Ying Yusheng caught his wrists.

“Not tonight.” His voice was hoarse, as if scorched by high heat. A swollen desire was wrapped beneath a thin membrane, poised but restrained. “You’re still sick.”

Xu Nanxiao braced his hands on Ying Yusheng’s chest and leaned down hard, barking: “If you can’t even do the job of a dildo right, then get the fuck out!!! And don’t ever come back!!!”

Ying Yusheng’s hands froze, and for a moment he didn’t move.

Seizing the moment when Ying Yusheng was distracted, Xu Nanxiao roughly prepared himself, then laboriously guided that rigid length inside.

It had been too long since they’d done this—both of them were in pain. Ying Yusheng swallowed a muffled groan, his disheveled hair spread across the pillow as he looked up at Xu Nanxiao pitifully. He softened his voice, begging him to relax a little.

But Xu Nanxiao deliberately ignored him, forcing himself to move, grinding away. He set the rhythm, caring only about his own pleasure, utterly unconcerned with Ying Yusheng’s condition. It was too hot, too slow, too clumsy. Ying Yusheng’s eyes were red with restraint, and he reached down to press on Xu Nanxiao’s waist, but Xu Nanxiao blocked him.

“If you touch me even once, it ends right here.”

Sick as he was, Xu Nanxiao had little strength—Ying Yusheng could have easily broken free. But he didn’t move, only whispered weakly: “Nanxiao, please, it hurts so much. Can we go a little faster?”

Seeing that Xu Nanxiao still wouldn’t respond, he finally lost control. He grabbed hard at the other’s thick thigh and began thrusting upward fiercely.

“Ahh—stop… don’t…”

Xu Nanxiao felt like the top of his head was about to blow off—that sensitive spot felt like it was being crushed, his insides shifted out of place. Pleasure exploded from deep within his body, and the excess adrenaline spiked his temperature further. On top of the fever, his mind was shrouded in a dreamlike haze, floating in ecstasy.

This was what he wanted—sinking, falling, not having to think about anything, just chasing animalistic pleasure.

At the peak, Xu Nanxiao’s eyes rolled back, and he passed out from sheer bliss.

In the middle of the night, Xu Nanxiao felt a numbness in his limbs and woke up groggily.

He thought it was another side effect of the sleeping pills, but when he looked up, he realized it was because he and Ying Yusheng were holding each other tightly.