Chapter Three
The weather had turned cool lately. Beibei’s health wasn’t good—she caught a fever after being exposed to night wind. The woman had to stay at the hospital to take care of her. Qu Tongqiu helped sell goods during the day and went back at night to cook some food and bring it to the hospital.
That day, while he was running his stall, he saw that man walking over again. Qu Tongqiu trembled a little, but forced himself not to run.
Ren Ningyuan didn’t do anything. He just stood there, watching him.
But with Ren Ningyuan present, no one dared to come buy anything. Everyone just stared.
Qu Tongqiu gradually couldn’t stand it anymore. “I’m trying to do business. If you’re not buying, don’t block the way.”
Ren Ningyuan pursed his lips, then really did pick out a few items and paid. Qu Tongqiu silently made change, packed the goods, and handed them over. This repeated several times. The entire afternoon was spent “doing business” with Ren Ningyuan. Finally, Qu Tongqiu couldn’t take it anymore. He simply packed up his stall, hoisted the large bag of goods onto his back, and headed home.
Ren Ningyuan followed behind him. There was nothing he could do about it. He had already hit him, cursed him—his bad temper had limits. He didn’t have that much anger left to burn.
On the way back to where he lived, the residents all showed obvious surprise and curiosity toward a visitor like Ren Ningyuan. It wasn’t quite gawking, but not far from it.
Qu Tongqiu opened the door and went inside. He tried to ignore the man behind him and started fixing himself something to eat. There was still a big box of leftover rice on the table, along with a basin of pork belly with preserved vegetables. It wasn’t anything special, but it filled you up. No wonder he’d gained weight.
But with Ren Ningyuan standing in the room, even if he’d been hungry for days, he couldn’t swallow a bite. After sitting for a while, he finally said, “What do you want?”
Ren Ningyuan looked at him. “I just want to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m doing fine.” One person full, the whole family not hungry. When you stop expecting things, you stop being afraid all the time.
Ren Ningyuan surveyed the cramped semi-basement. Bare walls on all sides—walls, ceiling, floor, all felt the same. A bed was shoved into one corner. There was almost no furniture; even if there were, there’d be nowhere to put it. There was only one chair.
The room was dim, lit by a single energy-saving bulb overhead. There was no ventilation. Though there was a small window half above ground, it was clearly rarely opened.
On the way in, the dark corridor, crisscrossed with clotheslines like spider webs and hung full of laundry, had already been an eye-opener. The cold, damp chill in the room—one door away from the outdoors—made even his coat feel insufficiently warm.
He had always lived high above. Only now did he see that beneath the city’s splendor, there were countless people at the bottom, tough as ants, working and surviving. And this man was now one of them.
Ren Ningyuan looked around the room, then at him again. “I have several empty apartments. If you don’t mind—”
“I don’t need your help,” Qu Tongqiu said quickly. He could rely on himself for everything now.
“This isn’t easy for you.”
“There’s nothing hard about it. I’m living well,” Qu Tongqiu shoveled down a few mouthfuls of rice and swallowed. “I’m not mistreating myself just to make you feel guilty. How I live is my own choice. I’m really doing fine now. You don’t need to think too much.”
Aside from the poor living conditions, he didn’t shortchange himself in other ways—especially food. His thicker, sturdier body compared to before was proof enough.
He felt he could understand Ren Ningyuan’s guilt. When someone does something wrong, it’s hard to let go. Of course he’d want to come see him.
Actually, people like him—small, insignificant—were the hardest to kill. Even if the sky collapsed, as long as there was one crack left, he could squeeze through and survive.
He tried his best to think it through. After a year, sometimes he even felt that he didn’t hate Ren Ningyuan that much anymore.
Back then, in the depths of unbearable pain, he had hated Ren Ningyuan to the bone. He had lost everything. He needed a culprit to take responsibility for the ruin of most of his life.
But in truth, who could bear full responsibility for him?
Everyone had been wrong. Even he himself had made mistakes. Life’s accounts were impossible to settle cleanly.
Yang Miao had deceived him. Chu Mo had abused him. Zhuang Wei had forced himself on him, abandoned him. Those people all owed him too, yet he had never thought of collecting those debts.
So maybe there was no reason for him to spend every single day hating only Ren Ningyuan.
With his naturally submissive temperament, he extended the kind of tolerance only a small person could give to these powerful figures. Only then could he suffer a little less and live each day with a bit more peace.
But even if the hatred in his heart had dulled, the moment he truly faced Ren Ningyuan, his insides churned. His heart was in chaos. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sit still. He simply couldn’t learn that calm, unchanging composure Ren Ningyuan had.
“Qu Tongqiu,” Ren Ningyuan looked at him, “do you miss Little Ke?”
The man jumped as if stabbed, glaring at him with reddened eyes. “Y-you… what do you mean?”
Everything he had tried so hard to forget surged back in an instant. Or perhaps he had remembered everything all along—never truly forgetting a single thing.
“Come back with me. Little Ke really misses you.”
The man ground his teeth. “Y-you don’t get to use her as a tool!”
“Haven’t you worried at all about how she’s doing now?”
“Wouldn’t you take good care of her?”
“Having me isn’t enough,” Ren Ningyuan paused. “I never told her. She only acknowledges you as her father.”
The man stood there, stunned, his gaze hollow.
“Do you really not want her anymore?”
“…”
“Do you dare say you don’t miss her at all?”
“…”
“You have no idea how heartbroken she was after you left.”
The man bent over and clutched his head, as if a tightening curse had been recited over him.
“She still doesn’t know you’re alive. If you were willing to go back and see her—”
“No!” The man cried out almost in panic. He was terrified of Little Ke seeing him like this. There wasn’t the slightest trace left of the “dad” she remembered.
“She’s still young. She can’t do without you.”
The man stared at his own hands, rough and misshapen, his eyes burning red.
Ren Ningyuan only looked at him. “Have you ever thought that maybe the three of us could live together?”
The man’s eyes were bloodshot. Ren Ningyuan grabbed his hand as it desperately tried to pull back. “Little Ke needs you. And I—”
“Fatty…”
The woman pushed the door open. Seeing the scene inside, she looked slightly startled.
Ren Ningyuan was also taken aback and let the man pull his hand free.
“Ah, I came to get a blanket for Beibei. I left it here last time.”
Qu Tongqiu hurriedly stood up, turned to open the cabinet, and awkwardly wiped his face with the back of his hand before taking out the folded blanket and handing it to her. “Is Beibei any better today?”
“The fever hasn’t gone down yet, but her appetite seems a bit better.”
“I’ll simmer some soup later and bring it over.”
“That’s really too much trouble for you…”
The woman took the things and left. The two men remaining fell into silence for a moment.
Ren Ningyuan spoke first. “Your girlfriend?”
Qu Tongqiu froze. He had never thought of it that way. After all, A-Mei had a husband. But people joked about them often, and the two of them with Beibei did look like a family. Thinking about it, he said nothing.
“So it’s fine if you don’t want Little Ke anymore?”
Qu Tongqiu looked startled. “Ah…?”
“With a new one, you can throw away the old, is that it?”
“…”
“What is this supposed to be?”
His tone wasn’t exactly heated—perhaps it didn’t even count as an accusation—but the pressure he gave off made one instinctively shrink, goosebumps rising. Qu Tongqiu watched as the man took a step toward him, and he was swallowed by shadow.
His throat tightened. Just as he forced himself to say something, Ren Ningyuan lowered his head. Qu Tongqiu only felt the man’s face closing in, and before he could even process it, his lips were blocked.
For a moment he couldn’t breathe. The touch of lips was moist and soft, the familiar yet unfamiliar scent—but like a bolt of lightning splitting down, it froze his entire body. Qu Tongqiu’s mind went blank. It took nearly two minutes before he struggled up, lashing out wildly at Ren Ningyuan like a madman, cursing incoherently, “Pervert! You’re a pervert!”
He wasn’t ignorant of the fact that Ren Ningyuan slept with men. But he couldn’t imagine that after he had become like this, Ren Ningyuan could still do something like that to him. Even as a bystander, the image would feel like watching a monster movie.
Ren Ningyuan grabbed his wrist and stared at him. “Qu Tongqiu. We’re not the same as before.”
The man was still panting heavily, drenched in sweat from fear—more terrified than when Ren Ningyuan had discovered him in the alley. All he wanted was to run, to get out, to care about nothing else.
“Stop running away, Qu Tongqiu. It’s useless.”
This time, the man couldn’t calm down no matter what. He shoved Ren Ningyuan with all his strength, making him stumble, then staggered out the door.
After that, Qu Tongqiu no longer dared to set up his stall in the same place. He moved to another area, separated from the old street by nearly half the city, and had to take a long bus ride every day.
Ren Ningyuan probably couldn’t find him anymore, though he did come by his residence a few times looking for him. Qu Tongqiu just pretended not to be home, shrinking inside, not responding even when the door was knocked. The person outside would wait a while, then leave.
After some time, Ren Ningyuan stopped coming.
Qu Tongqiu couldn’t even say what he was hiding from. That day, he really had been scared—but he didn’t think Ren Ningyuan would actually do anything to him. On his way to set up his stall, he would pass shop windows, and the glass reflected his current appearance so clearly that he truly couldn’t imagine “that kind of thing”—unless Ren Ningyuan was so desperate he’d gone mad.
He couldn’t make sense of it. He couldn’t digest it.
Lips touching could mean countless things in this world—but none of them applied to him and Ren Ningyuan.
Maybe Ren Ningyuan had lost his head. Maybe he wanted to bite him. Maybe he’d lost his balance and bumped into him. Or any number of bizarre possibilities. Anything but a kiss.
In his eyes, Ren Ningyuan had once been a god. Now he was a demon lord. But he could never be someone who would kiss him.
During this time, Qu Tongqiu had unknowingly lost a great deal of weight. Nothing was more tormenting than being unsettled. In the past, during those calm, monotonous days, food and sleep were his only comforts after hard labor.
Now he couldn’t eat during the day, nor sleep at night. The fat he’d accumulated over a year was worn away layer by layer by this restless life.
One day, Qu Tongqiu finally realized that even tightened with a belt, his old pants were still too big. He hesitated over whether to have them altered or to go pick out a couple of the cheapest pairs from a fellow vendor. After all, labor costs were high these days.
Anything that required spending extra money now made him hesitate—he’d put it off if he could, delay it as long as possible.
He went to set up his stall wearing those oversized pants. Before long, a tall man came over, looking around at the goods on the stall and at him.
The man was handsome, with a kind, approachable air and smiling eyes that naturally drew people close. Though he was dressed far better than the average person who shopped at street stalls, he stood there without any sense of incongruity—warm and pleasant. After looking over the goods, he said, “Boss, can I buy all of this?”
Qu Tongqiu was startled. He sold small household ornaments—bright and interesting to look at, but the workmanship was ordinary, not durable. There was nothing worth buying in one sweep. If someone wanted bulk goods, they shouldn’t be looking for him.
“If you buy everything… won’t you have no use for them?”
“It’s fine,” the man smiled. “Actually, I’m buying them as a gift for a friend. He’s been in a bad mood lately, and I want to cheer him up. You just need to wrap everything up and deliver it to his place.”
Qu Tongqiu thought about it. Rich people did have strange ideas sometimes. Receiving a big bundle of all sorts of odds and ends might actually be fun.
“I’ll pay you first. How much is it altogether?”
As he spoke, the man took out his wallet and wrote a note. “This is the address. Please deliver it later, and make sure you don’t send it to the wrong place.”
Qu Tongqiu had never done such a big deal before—nervous but happy. Even after giving the man a discount at wholesale prices, it was still a very good income. After the man left, he hurriedly packed everything up, bought two cardboard boxes and some foam padding, carefully packed and tied them, then hoisted them onto his shoulder to make the delivery.
The delivery address was a hotel room. Qu Tongqiu’s mind flashed through a few twisted serial-killer novel scenarios, but none of them would be so blatant—or set the scene in a five-star hotel.
The ordering customer had already informed the front desk, and with a bellboy helping him carry the boxes, he was able to take the elevator. By all appearances, the place was extremely secure. There was nothing to worry about.
He carried the boxes to the door and knocked. The man who opened it was the same customer who had placed the order. Seeing him, the man smiled. “Hey, that was fast. Thanks for your hard work.”
The bellboy accepted a tip and politely took his leave. Qu Tongqiu waited for the man to check the goods, but instead heard him call inside, “Xiutuo, come take a look and help check the delivery. If everything’s right, we’ll tie the red ribbons.”
The name sounded familiar. As Qu Tongqiu was trying to recall it, the person inside came out. He was also tall, with peach-blossom eyes. Qu Tongqiu met his gaze for a moment, then finally remembered and quickly took a step back.
Ye Xiutuo pulled his hand out of his pocket and gave a bitter smile. “Sorry about this.”
Ren Ningyuan had just brewed himself a pot of tea. Drinking tea at night would keep him awake, but he could listen to the radio and flip through a magazine to pass the time—by then it would almost be dawn anyway. He had gone to Qu Tongqiu’s place several times, only to have the man hide and refuse to see him.
That fact made him feel slightly awkward. It was the first time in his life that someone had so clearly rejected and detested him. Even setting aside the hatred, that man simply could not accept him. It had nothing to do with status or conditions. Even if he was Ren Ningyuan of T City—someone everyone feared and flattered—the man’s inability to accept him was absolute.
Ren Ningyuan slowly read five or six pages of the magazine, then couldn’t help rubbing his temples.
He ought to do his best to make amends and soothe that man. But in truth, he had no experience in this. He had never needed to please anyone. Being high above others was what he was used to; this was a skill he had never practiced in his life.
His all-powerful aura had completely lost its effect in front of that person. For someone like him, once he felt at a loss, there truly was no solution.
Today, Rong Liu had invited him to the hotel to try the new pastry chef’s desserts. After eating, there was nothing particularly memorable—just a bit dull. He booked a suite upstairs to rest, but couldn’t rest either. Luckily, he always carried National Geographic with him.
After flipping through a magazine for a while, he heard a knock at the door. Ren Ningyuan knew it was most likely Rong Liu coming again to drag him out for nightlife. To be honest, he wasn’t very interested. He himself ran nightclubs—what cabbage grower would enjoy eating cabbage? He crossed the hall to open the door. Standing outside were indeed Rong Liu and Ye Xiutuo.
Ye Xiutuo pressed his lips together, while Rong Liu grinned. “Ningyuan, we brought you a gift.”
A bound man was pushed inside. Ren Ningyuan was startled for a moment, but reacted quickly, reaching out to catch him.
“If you’re a man, be straightforward—just do it,” Rong Liu added with a smiling face, offering this so-called maxim. The door closed again.
This “gift” gave Ren Ningyuan an instant headache, his feelings a tangled mess. The man was tied up and clearly drugged—his face flushed, rubbing against Ren Ningyuan through the clothes without stopping. Ren Ningyuan could only untie his hands first, then lift the face that was burrowing and rubbing against his chest. “Qu Tongqiu.”
The man was panting, even his neck red, eyes unfocused, who knew if he even recognized Ren Ningyuan.
“Do you want some water?” The man ignored him, instead kissing his neck, his chest, clinging to him and trying to push him down to the floor. Ren Ningyuan didn’t move at first. After a while, he forced himself to say:
“Qu Tongqiu, I don’t want to force you.”
Outside, Rong Liu was practically about to kick the door down. “Damn it, has his function in that department really degenerated?” Ye Xiutuo smacked the back of his head. “Ningyuan has his difficulties—you know that.”
“The person’s right in front of him. He can do whatever he wants. Does he need us to teach him how?” Rong Liu said.
Ye Xiutuo laughed. “If one day Xiao Teng let you do whatever you wanted, but hated you to death in his heart, would you be happy?”
Rong Liu thought for a moment, then grinned. “Ah, Xiao Teng hasn’t let me do whatever I want yet, so I don’t know…”
“You,” Ye Xiutuo said.
Rong Liu dropped his playful look and said seriously, “Honestly, I really don’t see what’s so good about that guy, worth Ningyuan being like this.”
Ye Xiutuo entered the elevator with him. “That’s not easy to explain. Whether someone’s good or not isn’t for us to say. It’s like drinking water—only the drinker knows.”
“That’s true,” Rong Liu said happily. “You all think Xiao Teng is hard to digest, and that’s great—no one competes with me. I get him all to myself!”
Ye Xiutuo smiled bitterly. “If everyone were as direct as you, life would be easier.”
“Wow, if not direct, is Ningyuan still planning to play the gentleman tonight? Just take off his pants and make that person live and die in pleasure—once he tastes it, he won’t forget!”
Ye Xiutuo slapped the back of his head again. “You’ve been unsatisfied lately, haven’t you? Always coming up with such lewd ideas. You know Ningyuan—he’s used to holding himself up, can’t let go of his pride. If you stir things up like this, how is he supposed to clean it up? Watch how he deals with you tomorrow.”
Rong Liu rubbed his head and laughed. “That’s exactly it. He can’t keep his airs for a lifetime. You have to let that person see what Ningyuan looks like when he drops his posture—only then is there a turning point.” He wagged his finger. “This is called: no breaking, no building.”
Ye Xiutuo looked at him and thought for a moment. “Hey, are you really thinking this through, or are you just pulling a prank?”
Rong Liu grinned. “Huh? Have I ever pranked anyone? Anyway… at the very least, Ningyuan can have a taste before dying, right…”
When this pair of accomplices swaggered away, Qu Tongqiu was soaking fully clothed in a bathtub of cold water. The room wasn’t warm, yet he was drenched in sweat.
It felt like there was fire burning inside his body. Other than sex, there was nothing else in his mind. With no outlet, he could only grope and caress himself in a muddle. Even the cold water couldn’t calm him down. Under the control of desire, people become primitive and raw, with no inhibitions at all—panting in the tub, legs spread wide, hand reaching into his pants.
His whole body felt light, as if freed from gravity. Even the pleasure felt unreal, everything like a dream.
In the chaos, he couldn’t control his strength. The friction made his lower body ache. No matter how he touched himself, the desire didn’t ease at all. Using only his own hands felt insufficient. Qu Tongqiu grew more agitated, gasping, unable to control his voice.
Finally, a pair of hands landed on his waist. The pleasure of skin touching skin quenched his thirst for a moment, only to make him even more restless and desperate. When the other person lifted him up, he instinctively clung tightly.
The moment he touched those lips, his body seemed to catch fire. Even without much response from the other side, the kissing and caressing quickly grew heated. That person’s scent drew him in; guided by instinct alone, he clutched the person and wouldn’t let go.
For an instant, he thought that person was Ren Ningyuan. After a hitch in his chest within the illusion, he became inexplicably even more excited. His whole body burned as he groped the person’s chest, tugging at clothes, trying to pin him beneath himself.
Then his own clothes were stripped away. The belt loosened, oversized pants slipping easily to his ankles. The other person stepped into the bathtub as well. Entwined naked in the water, the sensation nearly made Qu Tongqiu’s brain boil.
Without realizing it, he was straddling the person’s waist, kissing wildly, almost suffocating. Just kissing alone nearly pushed him to climax. When the other tried to pull away, he clung stubbornly, insisting on kissing.
They parted only when their lips ached. Then his chest was bitten, gnawed at, making him twist incessantly on the other’s waist, moaning without pause. Kisses and licks traveled downward from his chest, growing more exquisite, until they reached the inner thigh and peaked—his restless, frantic place was enveloped by something warm.
In the unrestrained passion, Qu Tongqiu completely lost his reason, his senses fading away, leaving only the pleasure of bodies pressed together.
He was deeply intoxicated by that person’s scent. In the brief weakness after each climax, he needed to stay tightly entwined with that body to avoid feeling empty. He had never experienced such full, satisfying sex. Even in the chaotic dream, he felt he liked it—liked it very, very much.
When Qu Tongqiu woke up, he felt as if most of his body had been hollowed out, drained dry—sore waist, weak legs. Lying on the bed, he didn’t even have the strength to sit up. Opening his eyes, he saw the ceiling of a hotel room. Straining to recall, his memory only reached as far as being ambushed by Ye Xiutuo and that smiling man the night before.
Being attacked should have been terrifying, yet the current situation didn’t quite match an assault, leaving him unable to feel afraid at all. Not to mention those two wouldn’t be that indiscriminate. Even if he really had been sexually assaulted, he shouldn’t be in such an overly blissed-out, limp-all-over state now.
He was puzzled, unable to figure it out. The room seemed empty except for him. Heavy floor-length curtains hung down, the light dim, everything unclear.
Qu Tongqiu struggled to climb out of bed, bracing himself against the wall, bending over just to take a couple of steps. His legs shook badly—purely the condition of overindulgence. He was even a bit afraid he might die from exhaustion.
“Morning.”
Qu Tongqiu was so startled he almost dropped to his knees.
A tall man stood at the bedroom door, tone calm. “Hungry? Eat something.”
In Qu Tongqiu’s widened pupils, the pushed-in dining cart vanished. All he could see was Ren Ningyuan in a bathrobe, hair still slightly damp, weariness on his face. The memory fragments he couldn’t find before suddenly burst out in a mess. Pieced together, it was like thunder crashing down, shocking him into a stammer.
“I—I, did I…?”
“Mm?”
The thought that he had raped Ren Ningyuan made the world spin and go dark. His face went pale. “I—I, did I do something to you…?”
Ren Ningyuan froze for a moment, then smiled. “You’re overthinking it. Nothing like that happened.”
Qu Tongqiu’s rigid body finally softened little by little. Thinking about it, he couldn’t possibly have forced Ren Ningyuan anyway. If he really had taken him by force, he’d be struck numb all over, not knowing what to do.
Ren Ningyuan set out breakfast. “I just helped you take care of it. Don’t worry.”
“…”
Seeing him still looking thunderstruck, Ren Ningyuan added, “I thought you were suffering and might need help. I hope I didn’t offend you. I’m sorry you ran into that situation. My friends acted on impulse and didn’t think it through. I’ll give you an explanation for this.”
Amid the rolling thunder in his head, Qu Tongqiu finally vaguely remembered how Ren Ningyuan had helped him. Instantly, his scalp to his feet went numb. Ren Ningyuan had spent the whole night serving him with his mouth. This was even more earth-shattering and unbelievable than if he had gone berserk and r*ped Ren Ningyuan. He couldn’t move for a long time, then became restless and unsettled, his mind not here.
After a moment of silence, Ren Ningyuan asked, “Are you okay?”
Qu Tongqiu felt he couldn’t even look at those thin lips. One glance and it felt like a boulder smashing into his chest. Whether Ren Ningyuan belonged in heaven or hell, to him, he shouldn’t exist in the same parallel world at all.
He could worship him, he could hate him to the bone. Even if someone said Ren Ningyuan was a mass murderer, he could accept it. But he simply couldn’t imagine him giving him oral sex.
Ren Ningyuan remained calm, lifting a bowl of fresh shrimp congee for him. “Eat a bit while it’s hot.”
As if no matter what he did, it wouldn’t damage his lofty presence—or perhaps he had always been someone who could do anything.
Qu Tongqiu suddenly felt that he had never truly understood Ren Ningyuan.
