Chapter 52
Shi Ye pressed his lips together lightly. Water dripped from his chin onto the carpet, and his hair had not escaped the disaster either, though it had not been soaked through. It was left in that sharp, clean, just-damp state.
The moment he saw the scene inside, the light in Xia Fengsheng’s eyes dimmed. His glossy black leather shoes stepped into the lounge.
Shi Ye lowered his head and wiped the water from his face. He had dyed his hair in Hawaii so it would look good in photos and match the scenery there, choosing a bright tangerine-orange shade. He had come over without styling it, so his hair lay smoothly down, which gave his tall frame an extra hint of obedience. He looked like a giant orange with dog ears and a dog tail.
Drops of water still clung to the ends of his new hair. Xia Fengsheng strode up to him and asked in a low, magnetic voice, “What happened?”
He did not know why Shi Ye was here, nor did he stop to think about it.
Shi Ye did not look at him. He only left Xia Fengsheng the strong, handsome line of his profile and said in a muffled voice, “Nothing much. I got into an argument with Qi Qianli, and he threw water on me.”
He had no tissues in hand, so he could only wipe the water from his face with his sleeve. Even the collar of his shirt was wet now, clinging to his collarbone and chest.
At a glance, Shi Ye had obviously just come back from Hawaii. His clothes, straw hat, and coconut all carried that tropical island feel.
On the phone before, he had kept saying they should go to Hawaii together again.
Xia Fengsheng turned cold eyes toward Qi Qianli and sharply demanded, “If you had something to say, why couldn’t you say it properly? Why did you throw water on him?”
Qi Qianli felt as if some tyrannical prison warden had suddenly thrown him into jail. Having now seen Shi Ye’s two faces, he cried out in grievance, “N-no, that’s not…”
A moment ago, Shi Ye had clearly been the one humiliating him first, speaking so viciously it made Qi Qianli want to rip off his own ears. He had only splashed the water because he could not take it anymore.
Who knew Shi Ye would now turn the tables, pretending to be wronged and pitiful after being bullied.
Qi Qianli: Shameless!!!
Even if you handed him that kind of move, he still would never use it.
But in front of someone he had feelings for, he suddenly did not know how to explain himself. “It was him, he was the one who first…”
Xia Fengsheng frowned. “First what?”
Before Xia Fengsheng could press further, there was movement beside them.
Shi Ye had been rubbing his eyes the whole time, as though they hurt badly. The prettiest feature on his face was those peach-blossom eyes, always looking deeply affectionate when he looked at someone.
Xia Fengsheng asked, “Did water get in your eyes?”
Shi Ye nodded. At an angle Xia Fengsheng could not see, his peach-blossom eyes shot Qi Qianli a smug glance. “He threw it really hard just now.”
Qi Qianli felt an unnamed fire rise in him the moment he saw it.
Shi Ye caught hold of Xia Fengsheng’s hand. “My eyes hurt a little. Check if they’re red for me?”
He bent down, bringing his face close to Xia Fengsheng. He deliberately filled his eyes with grievance, and his high nose bridge and deep eye sockets added a handsome, rugged edge to that cuteness.
Shi Ye’s eyes really were red.
Only not because Qi Qianli had splashed them.
He had rubbed them red himself.
Faced with Shi Ye’s blatant framing, Qi Qianli gaped in shock.
“No! He wasn’t like this just now! He was cursing me a moment ago!” Qi Qianli was dumbfounded and hurried to defend himself.
Xia Fengsheng’s expression turned severe. “Apologize.”
Qi Qianli said, “Xia Fengsheng, listen to me—”
Xia Fengsheng’s gaze sharpened, and he said coldly, “I’ll say it one more time. Apologize.”
A fire burned in Qi Qianli’s chest. His gaze slowly lifted past Xia Fengsheng and landed on Shi Ye behind him.
Shi Ye: Ov<
Qi Qianli: ……
Damn it, dead green tea.
Qi Qianli clenched his fists, utterly unwilling, and apologized to Shi Ye anyway.
“Sorry!”
After the apology, Xia Fengsheng turned and began to walk away, holding Shi Ye by the wrist.
Seeing Xia Fengsheng about to leave, Qi Qianli hurried over and blocked his path, anxiety written all over his face.
Why was he leaving all of a sudden?
Qi Qianli said, “Where are you going? There’s still the family dinner tonight!”
Xia Fengsheng ignored him. If he skipped the Qi family dinner, he could explain it to Qi Mingyue himself. He had a thousand and ten thousand reasons ready if he wanted to avoid it. Just using the excuse that it was inappropriate for an outsider to join a family banquet would be enough to get him out cleanly.
Besides, his surname was Xia, not Qi. He was here for work, not because he had sold himself to the Qi family.
Xia Fengsheng said, “I’ll explain my reason for being absent to President Qi myself.”
Absent?
Qi Qianli’s heart dropped to the bottom. “So you’re not coming, then?”
“Th-then… are you still staying at my house?”
Xia Fengsheng did not answer, but the answer was obvious. He was only here as Qi Lianshan’s caretaker. Now that Qi Lianshan had stood up again, his task was naturally finished.
Qi Qianli wanted a satisfactory answer from Xia Fengsheng’s own mouth.
But things did not go his way. Xia Fengsheng was not going to keep any connection with him, especially now that he had splashed water on Shi Ye and earned nothing but cold treatment.
Xia Fengsheng started walking again.
Qi Qianli called after him, “Don’t go.”
Xia Fengsheng acted as though he had not heard. Holding Shi Ye’s wrist, he strode away.
Shi Ye strolled lazily behind him. He turned back like a victor and flashed a grin full of white teeth at Qi Qianli, who looked like a drenched stray dog.
Then he mouthed two words.
“Idiot.”
Qi Qianli’s fists clenched so hard they shook. Watching Xia Fengsheng’s resolute back, he grew so anxious he nearly jumped in place, then shouted at the top of his lungs, “Xia Fengsheng! Shi Ye is nothing like what you think! I advise you to break up with him sooner rather than later, or you’ll regret it when the time comes!”
Regret what? What was there to regret? Shi Ye grumbled inwardly. He had been trying very hard lately to be a good boyfriend. He had not done anything wrong.
Xia Fengsheng remained cool and rational, not paying attention to Qi Qianli’s words.
Seeing that Xia Fengsheng still ignored him, Qi Qianli suddenly shouted even louder, “Shi Ye is impotent!”
Shi Ye: !
The sudden slander made Shi Ye go stiff all over, his fur practically standing on end.
You’re the one who’s impotent. Your whole family is impotent.
From childhood to adulthood, every physical exam he had ever taken came back perfectly normal. In fact, because he had developed so well, nobody even wanted to stand beside him when using the restroom.
Even without a partner, he handled his own physical needs on a regular basis. He got morning wood too. Healthy could not begin to describe how healthy he was.
He had never expected Qi Qianli’s methods to be this dirty, to actually spit blood and accuse him like this.
Shi Ye fixed Xia Fengsheng with a firm look. This kind of lie was obviously nonsense. Surely Xia Fengsheng was not going to believe it.
And yet, to his horror, Qi Qianli’s words did draw a reaction from Xia Fengsheng.
Shi Ye: !
He quickly leaned in and began trying to brainwash him, speaking right into his ear. “He’s lying. Don’t listen to his nonsense.”
Don’t, under any circumstances, believe Qi Qianli’s rubbish.
Otherwise how was he supposed to prove it to Xia Fengsheng? Did that mean… did that mean…
Shi Ye’s face heated up. Would he have to prove it in bed? Ever since getting back together, they had not once even spent a night in the same bed. That one time during the livestream, he had climbed up once and Xia Fengsheng had kicked him straight back down.
If he had to prove it, then let alone sleeping in the same bed, clothes… clothes could not stay on either.
The more Shi Ye thought, the more chaotic his mind became. Wouldn’t that mean Xia Fengsheng would get to take advantage of him?
His whole body burned like a pot of boiling water. Xia Fengsheng could clearly feel how hot Shi Ye’s palm was where it wrapped around his hand.
When he looked up, Shi Ye had his head lowered, broad straight shoulders leaning over his back. Heat rolled off him, his whole face flushed. “Don’t listen to him. It’s not true.”
Expressionless, Xia Fengsheng replied, “Oh.”
Since he was not attending the Qi family dinner after all, Xia Fengsheng simply planned to stay at a hotel outside that night.
He called Qi Mingyue and explained his reason for not going to dinner in a perfectly tactful and polished way. Qi Mingyue understood. Added to the joy of her father’s recovery that day, she ended up talking with him on the phone for quite a while. She also promised to have someone send the luggage Xia Fengsheng had left at the Qi house over to the hotel.
Qi Mingyue said, “I look forward to working with you again.”
She was very satisfied with Xia Fengsheng’s professional conduct, thanked him once more for helping her father stand again, then ended the call.
Shi Ye came out of the bathroom toweling his hair dry after his shower. As for why he had been in Hawaii one second and suddenly appeared at the Qi family’s annual banquet hotel the next, Shi Ye had already explained that himself.
He said he had received an invitation to the Qi family banquet and, in his excitement over hearing that the old master had recovered, had accidentally misread the date and thought the banquet was being held today, so he had rushed right over.
The excuse was logical and well supported, and Xia Fengsheng did not suspect anything.
Walking into the master bedroom, Xia Fengsheng saw Shi Ye sitting on the edge of the bed holding two coconuts. The moment he saw Xia Fengsheng come in, he patted the space beside him.
“Come here.”
His eyes shone like the sun in the sky.
Xia Fengsheng had no idea what he was up to, but he walked over and sat down beside him. The bed was very soft, and his body bounced lightly twice when he sat.
Maybe because Shi Ye had been splashed with water today, Xia Fengsheng’s attitude toward him was a little better than usual.
“What is it?” Though his tone was still as cold as ever, his expression was much gentler.
Shi Ye stuffed one of the coconuts into Xia Fengsheng’s arms. “Try it. I had it locally in Hawaii and thought it was really good.”
The coconut had already been opened. Shi Ye had violently cracked it open himself in the kitchen, and when he brought it into the bedroom he had even thoughtfully inserted a straw to make it easier to drink.
Xia Fengsheng stared at the coconut in his hands for a moment. He had specifically brought this back for him?
Shi Ye sat there staring at him without blinking. Under that gaze, Xia Fengsheng hesitated, then finally put the straw between his lips. As he sucked, sweet coconut water fragrant with a fresh, clean scent flowed into his mouth.
The taste was crisp and refreshing, and even his breathing carried the scent of coconut.
“Is it good?” Shi Ye asked. His face was lit up with a huge, brilliant smile, his whole body radiating dog-like sunshine.
Xia Fengsheng licked his damp lips and nodded. “It’s good.”
Watching his throat move as he swallowed the juice down in gulps, Shi Ye immediately said, “Then this one’s yours too.”
He pushed the other coconut into Xia Fengsheng’s arms as well. “I brought back two specially because I thought it was good.”
Shi Ye had first drunk the coconut juice at a beach stand in Hawaii. At the time, he had planned to go check out the surfing spots and thought he might come surf there during some free time from work.
Because the weather was hot, he had felt thirsty the moment he got to the beach. While looking for something to drink, he spotted a coconut stand by the road.
The coconuts were being sold by a dark-skinned local auntie bursting with vitality. Her stall was wildly popular, with a huge line of people. The coconuts were all freshly picked that day, bright and full of water.
Shi Ye drank one on the spot and immediately decided he had to bring some back for Xia Fengsheng to try.
Coconut juice could be found anywhere, of course, but… Hawaii coconuts were bound to be a little different somehow.
He wanted Xia Fengsheng to try them too. Xia Fengsheng had always loved sweet drinks.
He remembered that even in high school, Xia Fengsheng had liked sweet liquids—not soda, but the natural sweetness of fruit juice. He remembered once when they were eating oranges, Xia Fengsheng preferred to suck them first. With any fruit that might yield juice, he would always test it by sucking first to see if there was any juice to draw out.
Shi Ye had only learned this after they had been together for a while.
Now Xia Fengsheng sat there holding both coconuts, not knowing what to say, so he simply stuck one straw into each corner of his mouth and sucked noisily.
And just as he was losing himself in the coconut juice, drinking with total dedication, Shi Ye suddenly spoke.
“Did you touch Qi Qianli’s face?”
“Pfft—!”
The words hit like thunder. Xia Fengsheng choked on the coconut juice. “Cough cough… what did you say?”
Touch Qi Qianli’s face? The idea was horrifying. He had no idea why Shi Ye would ask something like that.
Shi Ye rested his chin on one hand and stared at him, clearly here to settle accounts. Beneath the calm in his eyes lay danger. “Didn’t you touch his face?”
Flatly, Xia Fengsheng asked, “He told you that?”
Shi Ye nodded.
Xia Fengsheng frowned. How a woman as smart as Qi Mingyue had ended up with a younger brother whose train of thought was this bizarre, he could not understand. The man did not even possess half his sister’s intelligence. His brain had no ability to think, only the freedom to fantasize.
As for whether he had touched Qi Qianli’s face—no, he had not touched it. He had slapped it. Since Qi Qianli wanted to beautify the story, Xia Fengsheng simply said, “If he says I did, then I did.”
“But ever since you lost your memory, you haven’t touched my face even once!” Shi Ye immediately started barking grievances at his side when he heard the answer wasn’t a denial.
Xia Fengsheng said, “Didn’t I touch it during the livestream?”
“That doesn’t count. You only touched my face because the livestream needed it,” Shi Ye said, speaking faster and faster, his words pouring out without pause. “At the time you weren’t sincerely touching me at all, you were just performing for other people to see. If there hadn’t been a livestream, you never would’ve touched me, but now you touched Qi Qianli’s face. What kind of relationship does he have with you? What kind of relationship do I have with you? You touched him but never touched me. And because of that, he was showing off smugly in front of me, and I couldn’t even say one word in rebuttal. If you had touched my face too, then I wouldn’t have felt inferior in front of him.”
The rapid-fire monologue blasted straight into Xia Fengsheng’s ears and drilled through his brain.
Shi Ye’s invisible aura engulfed him. Sitting on the bed holding two coconuts, Xia Fengsheng turned into a pair of little bean eyes.
Faced with Shi Ye’s endless essay attack, he once again recalled the terror of being ruled by little compositions back in high school.
Shi Ye had grown up wrapped in love, so he naturally understood how to feel and recognize love. Xia Fengsheng was not like that. In this area he was slow, and so the two of them had always had a gap in their way of thinking while dating.
Back in high school, Shi Ye had sent him mini-essays every three days and major essays every five.
Each time he opened WeChat, the whole screen glowed green against Xia Fengsheng’s pale face.
Xia Fengsheng: …I’m being emotionally waterboarded.
There had been one time during a stage-play rehearsal in senior year. Xia Fengsheng had been responsible for moving things backstage. The moment he entered the backstage area, he saw a girl standing beneath a stack of boxes that looked dangerously unstable.
The stack was piled very high. No one knew what was inside, but if it fell from that height, it could easily injure someone badly or knock them unconscious.
Someone noticed the danger and let out a shriek, trying to warn the girl to move, but it was already too late. The moment the boxes fell, Xia Fengsheng reacted fast, darting up and throwing his arm above her head.
Thud—
The box landed lightly on the ground and rolled twice. There was nothing inside. Luckily, it was empty and had no weight at all.
The moment everyone realized there was nothing heavy in it, they all let out a collective sigh of relief. Thank goodness nothing serious had happened.
A rehearsal was one of those rare happy school events where nobody had to study. If an accident had happened then, it would really have been awful.
Neither Xia Fengsheng nor the girl got hurt, but because he had protected her, his other arm had instinctively circled around her. His long, strong fingers clasped her shoulder.
“You okay?” Xia Fengsheng lowered his head and asked.
By the time he lowered the arm he had raised above her, the girl in his arms was already bright red, her face like a plump tomato.
Only then did Xia Fengsheng realize how intimate the gesture had been. He hurriedly let go. Back then, Xia Fengsheng was taciturn and simply muttered an apology before turning to leave.
The girl instantly grabbed his hand. “Um…”
She had not even properly thanked him for saving her yet.
Normally, because Xia Fengsheng fought and looked intimidating, most people in class were afraid of him. Some girls were curious about him, yes, but none dared approach. They only secretly watched him during breaks.
Staring at him, the girl’s lips trembled. Eyes shut, face blazing red, she suddenly blurted out in a loud voice, “Thank you!”
Xia Fengsheng froze for a second, then slowly replied, “Oh.”
And went back to moving things.
The moment Xia Fengsheng left, the girl threw herself into her friend’s arms and squealed in a tiny voice, “Ahhhhh! He was so handsome! He rushed over and saved me in one move!”
There was a lovely soap scent on Xia Fengsheng.
Her friend said, “That scared me to death just now. Thank goodness it was an empty box. You have no idea how handsome Xia Fengsheng looked when he rushed over to save you!”
The other girls from class crowded around excitedly. “Well? Well? Was the hand on your shoulder strong?”
The girl blushed and answered, “Of course it was!”
That had been the first real exchange any of them had had with Xia Fengsheng in more than two years of being classmates in high school.
Xia Fengsheng hadn’t taken the rescue to heart and forgot it quickly. What he hadn’t expected was that the exact moment the girl grabbed his hand to thank him, Shi Ye, who had happened to come looking for him, saw it all.
Looking at Xia Fengsheng holding hands with a blushing girl—
Shi Ye: O.O
Shi Ye: O.O.
Shi Ye turned and left on the spot, devastated. Afterward, he didn’t directly ask Xia Fengsheng why he had held someone else’s hand. Instead, he waited for Xia Fengsheng to confess it himself.
Yet an entire afternoon passed, and even by the time school let out that evening, Xia Fengsheng had not once taken the initiative to mention the hand-holding. The moment Shi Ye got home that night, he furiously unleashed several mini-essays in a row.
“I saw you holding hands with a girl today. Why were you holding her hand? We haven’t even held hands that many times, and you’ve barely ever taken the initiative to hold mine. Is it just because I didn’t want to? If I don’t want to, then you won’t hold my hand? But didn’t you kiss me anyway even though I didn’t want that? I waited all afternoon for you to tell me on your own, and you never did. Aren’t we dating? Shouldn’t we tell each other these things? That’s called sharing. Of course, holding someone else’s hand behind my back is wrong, so don’t do it again in the future, or I’ll be upset.”
“If you’re dating me because you like me, then why are you holding hands with someone else, blah blah blah blah balabalbalabalabala…”
Xia Fengsheng had thought that after all these years Shi Ye had long since gotten rid of the mini-essay habit.
Who knew he had only switched to oral delivery.
Faced with Shi Ye’s essay bombardment, Xia Fengsheng’s expression gradually turned blank.
Shi Ye was still at it beside him, muttering nonstop, “You touched his face but never touched mine. The one who loves you most is me~, it’s not fair…”
Xia Fengsheng: ? What was that just now? A lyric just ran past.
“You touching his face made me really sad. You’ve never been that proactive with me. But you’d only known him a few days and you already touched his face. I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight. The second I close my eyes I’ll see you touching his face. Why does he get to be touched when I don’t?”
The more Shi Ye spoke, the more worked up he got.
“Why does he get it when I don’t?!”
“Why does he get it when I don’t?!”
Smack—
A slap landed on Shi Ye’s face.
Xia Fengsheng touched him the same way he had touched Qi Qianli.
Shi Ye covered his face.
And finally shut up.
