Chapter 20
In the end, the three of them fixed their eyes on a rock not too far behind them. Two people were there, groaning one after another, utterly oblivious to anyone else.
You really had to admit foreigners were open-minded.
In the middle of the night, they could just pick a random spot by the sea and let loose.
The three of them instantly lost all desire to keep watching the ocean.
Xia Fengsheng felt as if he had been struck by lightning: his ears.
With all mood for sea-viewing ruined, the three of them kicked at the rocks by the shore and prepared to head back to the car.
Just as they were about to leave, a whole group suddenly came rushing over from the distance.
Leading them was a white man in a suit, saying, “Quick, it’s right up ahead.”
Behind him followed two police officers and a blonde girl in sportswear.
The group darted behind the rock like minks, and shrieks instantly exploded.
“Ah!!!!!!!”
“Ya!!!!!!!!”
The girl in sportswear looked at the two naked people tangled together on the ground. “Didn’t you say you were going to work? What exactly are you doing!!!!”
As she spoke, she swung her hand and slapped the man on the ground across the face.
The smack rang out crisp and loud. The footsteps of Xia Fengsheng and the other two slowed more and more, slower and slower, until in perfect unspoken agreement they stopped where they were.
Authentic American TV drama.
Xia Fengsheng suggested, “The moon looks nice tonight. Let’s watch the moon a little longer.”
Shi Ye and Ding Qizhen answered in unison, “Sure.”
The three of them tacitly said nothing more, and the sounds behind them became even clearer.
The white man in the suit pointed at the two on the ground. “Officer, it’s them. They’re the ones ruining the environment here. You have an obligation to arrest them.”
The man on the ground shot up in fury and grabbed the white man by the collar. “Wasn’t she the one you introduced to me? This whole thing is your setup!”
The white man said, “Officer, that’s slander. Add another charge and arrest him immediately!”
He did not even forget to provoke the man’s girlfriend. “He isn’t sincere toward you at all. Just look at him now.”
The man hurriedly tried to explain to his girlfriend. “Honey, listen to me. It’s all a misunderstanding.”
The girlfriend slapped his hand away, the nail art with crushed diamonds on it stabbing toward his face. “Lank, enough! We’re done. You disgust me!”
She turned and left without another glance, while the man shouted after her, “Honey! Honey!”
Just then, the woman on the ground also started sobbing. “Oh, officer, he raped me—please help me!!”
The girlfriend did not turn back. The woman on the ground bit back instead, and the man knew he was finished. In a rage, he swung a punch straight into the white man’s face. “You piece of shit! This was all your setup! This is all because of you!”
Both men worked in finance. For the sake of a deal, the white man had deliberately hired a call girl to lure the philanderer over, tricked him into coming to the location, and let him go wild.
Then he contacted the police and the man’s girlfriend.
Everything had been under control from the start.
In the end, the man was arrested by the police and taken to the station. The group left, and the seaside returned to silence.
What a melodramatic night.
No one had expected competition in the finance world to be this intense. At the same time, it deepened the stereotype of men and women sleeping around.
Ding Qizhen clicked his tongue. “That’s really going all out for business.”
As an insider to the industry, Xia Fengsheng said, “Pretty normal.”
Men die for money; birds die for food.
Resources were limited. If you wanted a share of the soup, then wolves, tigers, and leopards were bound to surround you.
Ding Qizhen said, “Men really are trash. He’s got a girlfriend and still messes around.”
Xia Fengsheng drove the knife in deeper. “He was probably juggling several others too, he just didn’t get caught. This is already letting him off easy.”
“How do you know?” Ding Qizhen asked.
“Most people are like that.”
Xia Fengsheng had seen so much of it that it no longer surprised him.
By moonlight, Shi Ye watched Xia Fengsheng’s profile, his deep-browed face unreadable.
The three drove back to the hotel. The presidential suite Shi Ye had booked was a full three hundred square meters, with six rooms. Ding Qizhen came along too.
Seriously, with a presidential suite to stay in, who would go back to sleep in an apartment?
Xia Fengsheng changed into the hotel slippers handed over by the butler. The room was extravagantly luxurious. He pulled open the floor-to-ceiling window and stepped onto the viewing terrace, taking in the city’s glittering nightscape all at once.
After that, he began inspecting his room. It was a sunny twin room with a terrace, clean and tidy, filled with the scent of aromatherapy.
When he stepped into the bathroom, an enormous sunken tub came into view. A few steps away was a separate shampooing area.
There was even a massage chair so you could lie down while getting your hair washed, though naturally that required someone to wash it for you.
Xia Fengsheng walked out of the room. Shi Ye was in the dining area drinking water. He had already changed clothes and was now wearing a loose T-shirt and athletic pants.
He had always kept up a fitness habit, and under the overhead lighting his body looked firm and defined through the T-shirt. The curve of his chest showed clearly, and his shoulders were broad enough that he looked massive just standing there.
“Shi Ye.”
Shi Ye looked up when he heard Xia Fengsheng calling him. “What is it?”
Xia Fengsheng asked, “Do you like playing with water?”
Shi Ye: ?
Two minutes later—
Shi Ye stood there lifelessly holding the shower head, rinsing Xia Fengsheng’s hair.
“Why didn’t you ask the butler to call for service staff?”
Xia Fengsheng said, “Calling you is more convenient.”
Shi Ye pressed his lips together. Over the sound of the water, he watched Xia Fengsheng’s closed eyes. His lashes were long, each one distinct and fine. With his eyes shut, they looked like butterfly wings, very pretty.
His nose bridge was straight and high, and the skin on his forehead felt delicate to the touch.
“Let me tell you a story,” Shi Ye said suddenly.
A story?
Well, it was not like they had anything better to do.
“Go ahead.”
Xia Fengsheng listened with his eyes closed.
“A long, long time ago, there was a fisherman. Every day he went out to sea and came back with a full catch. But after he got married, his harvest got smaller and smaller, until eventually he could barely even keep food on the table.”
“In the end, his wife divorced him too. He didn’t know why, so he ran all the way to the distant edge of the world to ask the sea god and beg for an answer.”
Shi Ye asked, “Guess what the sea god said?”
That was pretty interactive.
Xia Fengsheng played along. “What did the sea god say?”
Shi Ye said, “The sea god said it was because after marriage, the fisherman wronged his wife. It turned out that shortly after getting married, the fisherman started having affairs—not just one, either. After the sea god found out, he punished him by making him destitute. Once the fisherman learned the truth, he was filled with unbearable regret and never dared keep several boats going at once again.”
“This story teaches us that love should be met with unwavering loyalty.”
One hand full of foam, Shi Ye asked, “What do you think of the story?”
Xia Fengsheng lifted his eyes. “You made that up, didn’t you.”
Shi Ye: ……
*
After each of them washed up, the three collapsed into the soft beds to rest. In the dark, Shi Ye lay there scrolling on his phone.
He opened Instagram. The direct messages section went on and on without end. Unlike before, when it had mostly been people blowing rainbow farts at him and asking for his contact info, the messages this time were different.
Delicious Old Hen: “Bro, is this you?”
Attached was an extremely low-resolution photo showing him and Ding Qizhen standing there holding hands like they had only each other left in the world.
Delicious Old Hen: “Bro, you look way too damn good. I recognized you at one glance.”
Delicious Old Hen: “Is the one who argued with that rude guy your friend? What’s his Instagram? I want to follow him.”
Sexy Big Macaque: “Blogger, I saw you today in Chinatown! So handsome, like a model.”
A Kangaroo Appearing in Siberia: “Can you give me the contact info for the pale guy who looked like he could cast curses that was with you today?”
A Fish Swimming in the Rift Valley: “Is that your friend? I think I’m a little in love with him.”
Cool Mantis: “Can you post more photos with your friend next time?”
Most of the new direct messages were basically related to Xia Fengsheng.
Xia Fengsheng had the kind of face that carried a strong air of Eastern mystery.
Shi Ye tossed his phone aside, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
Second by second, time passed. Outside, the moon in the night sky gradually sank lower.
Just as he was about to drift into real sleep, a startling force grabbed his ankle. Shi Ye’s whole body went numb, and he jerked his eyes open in fright, only to see a weak, dark lump sprawled at the foot of the bed.
He rolled over and switched on the night light. Xia Fengsheng was lying there, holding his phone with the flashlight on. His lips were pale, his body covered in cold sweat.
Shi Ye hurriedly sat up and steadied him by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Clutching his stomach, Xia Fengsheng was too miserable to get the words out.
Not long after falling asleep, he had started vomiting and having diarrhea. After two rounds, he realized that if it continued like this, he would dehydrate, so he came for outside help immediately.
Seeing how bad his face looked, Shi Ye did not waste a second. He drove Xia Fengsheng straight to the hospital.
Hospitals in America had a troublesome process. Even in the ER, they waited over an hour before it was finally their turn.
The doctor took a few glances, decided Xia Fengsheng was not going to die, and sent him back with painkillers.
Shi Ye: ……
Xia Fengsheng: ……
No wonder there were so few foreigners.
Painkillers treated the symptoms but not the root cause. Once they got back into the car, Shi Ye unscrewed a bottle of water he had just bought and handed it to Xia Fengsheng. “Take a painkiller first.”
At the same time, his phone was already navigating and searching nearby traditional Chinese medicine clinics.
Xia Fengsheng was a little weak from dehydration. When he tried to take the medicine, his hands had no strength, and water spilled all over his clothes.
There were no tissues in the car. Shi Ye saw it and bent down, using the sleeve of his sweater to blot the water near Xia Fengsheng’s collar. “You spilled it all.”
Usually Xia Fengsheng slicked his hair back, but now, without fixing it, strands hung loose by his cheeks.
While blotting the water, Shi Ye carefully tucked those strands behind his ear.
He took the water bottle from Xia Fengsheng’s hand and held it at his lips. “Wrap your mouth around the bottle opening and drink.”
Xia Fengsheng looked at him once, then sealed his lips around the mouth of the bottle and sucked down water.
He really was a little dehydrated, so for the sake of his own body, Xia Fengsheng drank over half the bottle.
By the end, the bottle was crumpled in. Shi Ye used his sleeve to dab the water from his lips.
Xia Fengsheng turned his head to look at him. Under the moonlight, a fragile, shattered feeling gathered around him.
For a moment, Shi Ye went still.
It was as though he had caught a glimpse of the Xia Fengsheng from high school.
He looked away. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Xia Fengsheng did not answer.
Shi Ye seemed to guess what he was thinking. He smiled brightly, like the sun suddenly coming out. “I’m pretty good, right?”
Xia Fengsheng nodded. For once, he did not have the energy to disgust him. Weakly, he said, “Pretty good. I probably wouldn’t step on other boats.”
So he had understood that story after all.
The fingers gripping the steering wheel tightened. Shi Ye drove another hour or so to a traditional Chinese medicine clinic. Luckily, they had someone on duty, and even more luckily, there was an old Chinese doctor there who really could diagnose people.
The old doctor had Xia Fengsheng sit down and placed two fingers against his wrist to take his pulse.
“You’re not acclimating well, and your spleen and stomach are out of balance. Your eating habits are irregular, aren’t they?”
Xia Fengsheng said, “Occasionally.”
The old doctor nodded. “You’re also quite fond of lying.”
Xia Fengsheng said, “I’m not.”
“There, another lie.”
This was a divine physician.
Sure enough, before Chinese medicine, a person was transparent.
The old doctor gave Xia Fengsheng’s body a full analysis, listing everything good and bad about it. “And there’s one more most important point.”
Xia Fengsheng asked, “What is it?”
The old doctor said, “Your kidneys are a little weak.”
Xia Fengsheng got struck by lightning.
The old doctor finished speaking and turned away to prepare the medicine.
Xia Fengsheng wanted to defend himself a little. How could he possibly have weak kidneys?
He turned his head, only to see Shi Ye standing there with arms folded, his face dark as a pot.
Xia Fengsheng: ……
