Xie Yi looked at Su Zhi for a while without saying anything.
The room was brightly lit, but his gaze still naturally carried a certain somber quality, as if it could envelop and devour someone. “How do you know I want to agree?”
Su Zhi was just guessing, relying on his almost reflexive understanding of Xie Yi.
But of course, he couldn’t say that.
He turned the question around, “You don’t want to agree? Then don’t agree. I didn’t force you to agree.”
Xie Yi looked at him, saying nothing more.
He didn’t say whether he intended to agree or not.
He just kept looking at Su Zhi, as if he could do something substantial with his invisible gaze.
Those eyes weren’t exactly explicit; desire was only a small part of what they contained.
They were just very deep and intense, making one unconsciously feel a sense of suffocation, as if even breathing was slowly being restricted.
Normally, people need space between them, even the closest lovers need their own space. Excessive staring naturally makes people feel uncomfortable.
Su Zhi felt a bit uneasy under his gaze, but after a while, he got used to it.
He had been stared at by that illusion with the same face as Xie Yi’s for so long in his previous life, and that was much more intense.
The illusion was unreasonable, appearing when he was walking or working was considered a friendly timing. The inappropriate times were indescribable. Once, Su Zhi drank too much water and intended to go to the bathroom. As soon as he entered the stall, he was confronted by that lingering shadow.
Almost scared him to run out immediately.
“…”
But things didn’t get much better afterwards.
With a face like that staring at him eerily, even though he knew it was an illusion and not real, he really couldn’t muster the courage.
He unbuckled his belt halfway and buckled it back up countless times.
When he walked back to his workstation ten minutes later, he was utterly dejected.
A familiar colleague asked, “Are you feeling unwell? Is your stomach acting up again?”
How could Su Zhi possibly explain the real reason, so he made up an excuse.
He waited uneasily for over an hour, then cautiously went to the bathroom again. This time, nothing unusual happened, and he finally resolved that embarrassing issue.
It was resolved smoothly this time.
But he was still very angry, his heart heavy and restless. He cursed Xie Yi for a long time, calling him a bastard who was even more perverted dead than alive.
If there was a competition for this challenge, Xie Yi would definitely win a special prize.
He cursed over and over.
When he washed his hands at the sink, Su Zhi saw his reddened eyes in the water-stained mirror.
He didn’t know if it was from anger or something else.
He thought it should be from anger. It should be.
His skin was thin, and the red marks were particularly noticeable. He washed his face several times and calmed down for ten minutes before returning to work.
…
It seems like people’s limits are meant to be broken.
He’s experienced worse things, so ordinary over-the-top events don’t seem so bad anymore.
Su Zhi quickly stopped caring.
He recalled a bizarre incident from his previous life that he couldn’t describe. For some reason, he felt a bit cold, as if the coldness from washing his face too many times that day had seeped into his perception and etched itself into a corner of his soul, following him into this life.
That lingering coldness.
His body instinctively sought warmth, leaning towards the man.
—But they were already close enough. Su Zhi just let go a little, and naturally, he was held tighter.
Xie Yi noticed his inexplicable softening but didn’t expose it. He just pinched the flexible waist under his hand.
Su Zhi snapped back to reality after being pinched. Noticing that the candy he handed out hadn’t been taken for a while, he looked down and said, “Aren’t you going to eat it?”
If not, he’d put it away. He didn’t want to hold it out like a fool.
Xie Yi’s gaze followed Su Zhi’s to the candy. He said, “Eat.”
Su Zhi: “?”
Then take it.
Xie Yi: “You feed me.”
“…”
Su Zhi wanted to throw the candy at his face.
His shamelessness knew no bounds!
But he didn’t waste food. He just planned to put the candy away.
Xie Yi’s hand around his waist tightened again. He liked doing these small gestures, not just out of desire, but simply because the act of doing something to Su Zhi and getting a reaction was enough to fascinate him, something he liked to savor repeatedly.
He timely stopped Su Zhi from stingily putting the candy away.
He looked up at him, gesturing with his fingers, “Didn’t you say I couldn’t use this hand?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Su Zhi: “…”
Ktja’r agef.
Lf jmmlvfcajiis obguba jybea atja!
Wlf Tl rwlifv revvfcis, rjslcu ab tlw, “Lfiq wf bea, yjys. P kjca ab fja.”
Ve Itl tjv rffc Wlf Tl rwlif yfobgf. Jbwqjgfv ab atf mbiv vfwfjcbg tf rtbkfv batfgr, Wlf Tl jmaejiis vlrqijsfv j mfgajlc glmtcfrr bo fwbalbc jgbecv tlw.
Snfc ktfc tf rwlifv, atf wjc mjgglfv j rbwyfg, qgbobecv jegj. Llr tlut ygbk ybcfr jcv cjaegjiis vffq-rfa fsfr fzevfv jc lctfgfca vfqat.
Su Zhi had seen many of Xie Yi’s smiles: gloomy, cold, filled with desire, and occasionally genuinely happy ones.
But this smile seemed different, unlike any of those.
He couldn’t pinpoint exactly how it was different.
Su Zhi looked at him, feeling that the man’s eyes seemed even whiter under the cold white light, making his black eyes look even darker.
It was still the usual somber smile Xie Yi often had, but somehow, he couldn’t look away.
Su Zhi, somewhat dazed, met his gaze for a while, feeling as if he was being drawn into those deep, pure black eyes.
When he came back to his senses, he realized his fingers had somehow already unwrapped the candy and brought the small candy to the man’s lips.
Xie Yi opened his lips and took the candy.
And unexpectedly, after taking the candy, he suddenly sucked Su Zhi’s fingers into his mouth, pressing them along with the candy with his tongue. His Adam’s apple moved subtly, and there was a faint sound of water.
The sound wasn’t loud, but it was exceptionally clear in the quiet study.
Su Zhi snapped back to reality, realizing that Xie Yi had almost swallowed his entire finger. His fingers were long, and he wondered if they would reach the base of his tongue.
The man didn’t show any sign of discomfort, still looking at him calmly. There was a dark swirl in his eyes.
Su Zhi hurriedly pulled his finger out, and the man bit down on the area just below the knuckle near his palm before letting go, allowing him to withdraw it.
His entire finger was coated with saliva. Su Zhi: “…”
He felt like he should be angry, but Xie Yi was so thick-skinned that getting angry would be pointless.
Su Zhi decided not to waste his life arguing with someone so shameless.
He viciously wiped the saliva off his finger onto the man’s shirt, then started pushing his shoulder, “Let go of me, I need to wash my hands.”
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
Considering the time, it should be the maid saying that the meal was ready.
So, Su Zhi inevitably felt a bit nervous, “I asked the maid to make dinner when I got back. It should be ready now. Let me go quickly.”
He said helplessly, “Don’t make me look like a fool in front of others…”
Xie Yi didn’t forcefully stop him from leaving. He kissed Su Zhi on the cheek, the sound somewhat muffled because of the candy in his mouth, “Okay, thanks for the candy, baby. It’s so sweet.”
Following Su Zhi’s wish, he let go of the hand holding his waist.
Su Zhi bent over and jumped out of his embrace.
Like a startled little animal, he darted to the door and ran out.
However, before leaving, he didn’t forget to say, “Remember to come down for dinner. It’s impolite to keep them waiting.”
When the door closed, Xie Yi heard him talking to the maid.
He only caught a few words before the door closed, the soft sounds isolated by the door’s excellent soundproofing. As the door shut, the room returned to silence.
Xie Yi sat in the chair without moving.
The small piece of candy Su Zhi fed him had almost dissolved, leaving only a little bit, which he held at the base of his tongue.
It was a lemon-flavored candy. Su Zhi might not have noticed that these small candies were mixed flavors, distinguished only by the color of the wrappers, which was not very obvious. Most people wouldn’t expect such a strange taste.
Upon entering the mouth, it was ninety percent sour, only revealing the core of syrup at the very end.
This final bit of sweetness dispelled all the previous sourness and bitterness.
Since Su Zhi urged him to come down for dinner, he didn’t delay.
He picked up his phone and replied to the two messages sent over an hour ago: [Okay.]
His expression was calm, revealing no emotion.
His tongue unconsciously licked over his teeth, as if searching for the lingering sweet taste, seeking the soft, slick piece of finger that had only been in his mouth for a few seconds.
…
Su Zhi walked out of the study.
As expected, the maid came to say that dinner was ready.
She had prepared the ingredients when Xie Yi returned but hadn’t started cooking until the employer gave the word, so the cooking went quickly.
The maid asked, “Mr. Su, should I add a soup? Just a small sweet soup as a dessert, it won’t be too filling. We made fewer dishes today, so adding a small dessert would be nice.”
She enthusiastically said, “I’ll go cook it now. It should be ready just as you finish your meal, the timing will be perfect!”
Su Zhi thought of the sweet taste and felt a bit tempted, nodding, “Alright, add that. Thank you. I’ll go get something and be down in a couple of minutes.”
The maid went downstairs to make the sweet soup.
Watching her leave, Su Zhi immediately rushed to the bathroom. When talking to the maid, he had been careful to keep the licked hand behind his back.
Su Zhi squeezed the hand soap several times.
The sticky saliva was quickly washed away, but the bite mark was still clear, around the lower knuckle of his index finger, circling the finger, slightly red and stinging.
It looked like a small, strange ring.
Su Zhi felt embarrassed by his own strange thoughts.
He washed his face to calm down, noticing his slightly red cheeks in the mirror, not sure if it was from the cold water or something else.
Maybe washing his face made him more alert, as Su Zhi suddenly remembered that when Xie Yi asked him to feed him the candy, why didn’t he just have Xie Yi use his free hand to take it?
Although Xie Yi had done bad things with one hand, the other hand was clean! It had just been resting on his waist.
How did he stupidly go along with the man’s idea?
He ended up being taken advantage of for no reason.
Su Zhi: “…”
What’s going on?
He wondered if there was something wrong with his intelligence.
—
In the study.
Xie Yi initially planned to go down for dinner after replying to the messages, but just as he sent the reply, a voice call came in.
The notification unexpectedly popped up, and the ringtone echoed in the study.
“…”
Xie Yi stared expressionlessly at the incoming call screen for a long time without moving, only accepting the call just before it was about to end.
With a “beep,” the call connected.
He didn’t know if he should be relieved, but his stepfather’s voice was the first thing he heard.
As a foreigner, his Chinese was quite good compared to others, but it still carried an accent.
Xie Yi later heard that he had learned Chinese so well in order to pursue his mother, which was a rare achievement for someone whose native language had a simpler structure.
However, after living abroad for a long time, his mother stopped speaking Chinese, and his stepfather’s Chinese skills had deteriorated significantly. This wasn’t apparent in writing, but it became obvious when he spoke.
Thinking about it, Xie Yi hadn’t communicated much with him in years.
His stepfather, the tall white man, seemed to sigh deeply and said in somewhat broken Chinese, “Xie Yi, I know your mother owes you a lot. She hasn’t been a good mother, but she’s also a pitiful girl, a victim. You can’t expect her to be perfect, right? And since bringing you abroad, I’ve given you all I could materially. Even if we had another child, they wouldn’t get more than you.”
He hurriedly presented numerous arguments.
Xie Yi didn’t refute them; he had no grounds to. Although the points were somewhat deliberate, they were indeed facts.
Even in a mutually beneficial arrangement, he had still received many benefits.
He wouldn’t be ungrateful in such matters.
He responded lightly, “I understand.”
Publicly available information indicated that he had made his start abroad.
This was not hard to find out. The first sum of money that Xie Yi used to establish himself came from his stepfather, and he had continued to receive help from him in the early stages.
Otherwise, it would have been a fantasy for someone with no roots or connections to make a name for himself at such a young age in a foreign land.
Stepfather: “If she said anything impolite, please don’t get angry. Thank you, thank you.”
He had a habit of using foreign expressions, making his speech somewhat awkward.
However, Xie Yi didn’t laugh. After answering the call, his emotions seemed very calm.
Like a deep well that wouldn’t stir up any waves no matter how it was disturbed.
Xie Yi even had the idle thought that compared to the first time he saw his stepfather at the airport—a tall, young man with deep-set eyes—his stepfather had indeed aged and lost much of his imposing presence.
He was almost pleading as he spoke.
Xie Yi replied calmly, almost indifferently, “I won’t.”
His stepfather sighed in relief, “Then I’ll let her speak.”
Xie Yi: “Mm.”
“Xie… Yi.”
A soft, slightly hoarse female voice.
Xie Yi once thought that if he hadn’t heard a voice for a long time, his memory of it would fade.
But the truth proved otherwise. The moment he heard it, he quickly recalled the last time he had heard this voice.
It was just as soft and hoarse.
That was the day the woman left, the day his father’s death case was judged. Even though the Xie family was powerful and influential, the case was too clean, and the main perpetrator was too young to be prosecuted under the law.
There was no evidence against the others, not even enough to successfully charge them with incitement to murder.
At that time, Xie Yi hadn’t seen her for a long time, only receiving a phone call.
The woman on the other end said, “Mommy is leaving first. Once I’m settled outside, I’ll try to bring you over…”
The voice was somewhat distorted through the phone of that era, mixed with crackling electrical noises.
She hung up hurriedly after a few words, in a rush to board her flight.
…
She hadn’t spoken much Chinese in years, and it took her several attempts before she could smoothly say, “Xie Yi.”
Unlike foreigners, it was her native language, so even after not using it for years, it was easy to pick up again.
The woman didn’t use any terms that indicated their mother-son relationship, just called his name in a strange, unfamiliar way.
As if calling a stranger.
In a way, two people who hadn’t spoken or seen each other in over a decade were no better than strangers by definition.
At first, she tried to stay calm and started a conversation, “I heard you’re dating a boyfriend.”
Xie Yi responded with a “mm,” his voice still calm, but his brows furrowed suddenly.
How did she know about this?
Many thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant.
The woman’s emotions collapsed after the first sentence: “How… how could you do such a thing? Does forcing someone who doesn’t love you make you happy? Why, why have you become like him—”
Then there was a chaotic noise. She screamed and broke something in a fit of rage.
Amid the clattering, he could faintly hear his stepfather’s voice, comforting her quickly in a foreign language, the woman’s sobs mixed with the man’s low voice.
Xie Yi listened quietly, saying nothing.
He wasn’t surprised by this situation. After growing older, his stepfather had told him about his mother’s condition.
The woman couldn’t fulfill her promise to bring him over, and it wasn’t entirely her fault.
She fell ill shortly after going abroad, a long illness that might have started in China and only surfaced when she relaxed.
It wasn’t right to blame a sick person. But as a child, his feelings couldn’t accept that.
Before taking this call, Xie Yi thought he might lose control.
But he didn’t. He even rationally analyzed some past events, like a cold, detached observer standing outside the clouds.
“Sorry,” Xie Yi glanced at the time, seeing that ten minutes had passed since the call started. He remembered Su Zhi urging him to come down for dinner and asked, “Can we continue this another time? I have an appointment.”
It seemed like a question in form.
But without waiting for an answer, he hung up the phone.
His expression remained cold, seemingly unmoved.
After a few seconds, he squeezed his phone, cracking the screen.
With a “crack,” the crack spread like a spider web, splitting his reflection into countless tiny fragments.
Like some absurd film.
—
In the dining room.
Su Zhi had waited for over ten minutes, but Xie Yi still hadn’t come down for dinner.
The dishes were already on the table, freshly made and warm, courtesy of the maid’s thoughtful timing. Su Zhi didn’t have the heart to ask her to reheat them.
But considering the other person in the house hadn’t arrived, it felt wrong to finish eating alone and leave.
He was caught in a dilemma, so he nibbled slowly at the food, trying to delay until the man came down.
Feeling stuck.
After waiting for about twenty minutes, the maid had already served two bowls of sweet soup when he finally saw Xie Yi coming down from the second floor.
The man had changed into fresh clothes and seemed to have washed his face, his hair still damp.
When he sat next to Su Zhi, he carried a cool, damp air. His expression was heavy.
Xie Yi usually looked almost the same, so Su Zhi didn’t think much of it.
He pushed the sweet soup towards the man, “The maid just made this soup. It’s sweet.”
Xie Yi: “Mm, thanks.”
Su Zhi was choked by his curt response: “…”
He had told Xie Yi earlier that the meal was ready, asking him to come down quickly.
Yet this annoying man took so long! Making him sit here awkwardly alone.
The more Su Zhi thought about it, the angrier he got. Adding up old and new grudges, he realized he’d been bullied by Xie Yi all day like a fool. He didn’t want to admit his own intelligence had deserted him, so it must be Xie Yi’s fault.
He glanced to see the maid busy in the kitchen, no one else around, and boldly grabbed Xie Yi’s arm.
The man, caught off guard, tensed momentarily, his muscles tightening as if ready to retaliate from long-honed instincts.
But he quickly relaxed, letting Su Zhi do as he pleased.
Su Zhi didn’t notice the momentary danger the man exuded. He thought he had swiftly bitten Xie Yi’s arm, finding the soft, unflexed muscle easy to bite into.
Feeling vengeful, he said, “That’s for standing me up.”
Rarely doing something bad, Su Zhi planned to run after his sneak attack.
He had already lifted his butt, ready to change seats and escape from Xie Yi.
Unexpectedly, the man grabbed his arm and pulled him back with slightly too much force. Su Zhi heard Xie Yi’s breath hitch.
The man turned to look at him, a look in his black eyes that Su Zhi couldn’t understand.
After a few seconds, Xie Yi said, “Why run? Bite again.”
Su Zhi: “?”
What’s wrong with him?
havent you heard of this, biting is love scolding is affection?
Ngl I thought Xie Yi just enjoyed having Su Zhi mark him 💀💀
Ah yes, Su Zhi you should vent your anger by biting your perverted lover who is clearly obsessed with you.
Thank you for the update!
So, Xie Yi was forced to kill his father, the father who most likely forced Xie Yi’s mother to be with him? 🤔
the nerve of that woman and her husband… tsk how do these shitty parents even get bitches? they literally have NOTHING going for them.
i proclaim su zhi and xie yi: the dog couple
How can you ever reason with a perv su zhi? 😂