Chapter 39
Xie Ning had said before that he rarely reacted. It had something to do with his healthy, regular routine, and also with the fact that he simply never had those kinds of thoughts and was rather indifferent by nature.
So now that he had reacted to Pei Zhi—even if it was partly because the early morning hours were a more dangerous time—didn’t that, in a roundabout way, also prove that he liked Pei Zhi at least a little bit?
Pei Zhi became wildly excited.
Although he had more or less known that Xie Ning did not particularly dislike him, the moment he received even a bit of positive feedback, he still felt overwhelming joy. It was like being on the way to buy a lottery ticket and suddenly getting smashed in the face by a huge pile of cash. Other than exhilaration, he could think of nothing else.
At first, Pei Zhi had wanted to go into the bathroom with Xie Ning. Whether it was to help each other out or simply to talk, in any case, he really wanted to see Xie Ning and stay by his side.
But he held himself back.
It was too rude, and far too much like something a pervert would do. He should pretend not to know and leave enough space for both of them to preserve their dignity.
But at the same time, he could not truly pretend he knew nothing.
Xie Ning was still in the bathroom. Pei Zhi did not dare make any reckless move. He held his breath and listened carefully to the sounds coming from inside, trying to hear something.
But he heard nothing at all.
At that moment, Pei Zhi seemed to want something to happen very badly—?? a perfectly reasonable excuse would appear so that he could go into the bathroom and see Xie Ning. Unfortunately, he was destined to be disappointed.
Xie Ning washed up and changed all inside the bathroom. By the time he came out, he was already fully dressed. As he packed his things and checked his class schedule, he saw Pei Zhi going into the bathroom. After thinking about it for a moment, he asked, “You have training today, right?”
Pei Zhi had already finished washing up. “Yeah, but it’s fine. I’ll take you to class first.”
“Don’t you have training?” Xie Ning asked.
Training time should have been about the same as ordinary students’ class time. Xie Ning’s class started at 8:10, so Pei Zhi’s training should also begin around 8:10.
“I told my coach I had a stomachache and would be twenty minutes late,” Pei Zhi said. “Perfect timing. I can walk you to your classroom first, then head to the gym. There’s plenty of time.”
“You…” Xie Ning was so surprised he did not know what to say.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have lied,” Pei Zhi apologized very quickly. Looking at Xie Ning with a rather pitiful expression, he said, “I just really wanted to walk you to class.”
“I wanted to be with you. Even one more minute is worth it.”
Before, Xie Ning had never realized that Pei Zhi was this good at saying sweet things. Ever since last night, it was as if Pei Zhi had completely thrown away all restraint—now he said whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
If it were someone else, they might have fallen under the spell of such sweet talk. But Xie Ning was not an especially emotional person. Sometimes, when he heard words like that, his first reaction was simply embarrassment.
To stop Pei Zhi from continuing, he would usually agree to at least something.
“Don’t lie to your coach next time,” Xie Ning thought for a moment, then said, “If you really want to walk me to class, we can just get up earlier and make some extra time so you can still go back to the gym.”
There was absolutely no need to lie to his coach.
What if later on Pei Zhi really had an emergency and needed to ask for leave, but in his coach’s eyes he had already lost credibility and could not get approval? Besides, something this small was not worth lying over in the first place.
“Okay.” Pei Zhi glanced at his phone again. “Coach said he still has to prepare some things, so training time got changed a bit. I have almost an hour free. Can I go with you to class?”
That was quite a coincidence. Xie Ning checked the group messages, and this time Pei Zhi really had not lied. Pei Zhi’s coach had planned to bring something for the team, but apparently forgot where he had put it and had to drive back to get it. Since the coach lived out in the suburbs, going there and back really was a hassle.
“You really want to go to class with me?” Xie Ning asked. “This one is Dress Aesthetics. It sounds pretty boring.”
“It won’t be boring.” Pei Zhi took Xie Ning’s hand and kissed his knuckle. “How could it possibly be boring with you by my side?”
“Then come,” Xie Ning said. “But if you really can’t sit through it, you’re not allowed to sleep.”
He added, “Because I sit in the front row.”
Although many university professors would not interfere much with what students did in class, and would even turn a blind eye if they played on their phones, falling asleep in such an obvious spot as the front row was simply too blatant—and too disrespectful to the teacher.
Xie Ning gave him a warning in advance.
Pei Zhi promised he would not sleep. Then, stepping forward, he pulled Xie Ning into his arms and lowered his head to kiss his lips. Xie Ning seemed to freeze for a moment, tilting his face up in surprise as he looked at him.
“If we add in the time for you to eat breakfast and for me to walk you to the teaching building… we should still have about fifteen minutes left.” Pei Zhi lifted a hand to cup Xie Ning’s face, his thumb pressing down on Xie Ning’s lower lip and gently drawing it downward. “Can we kiss?”
“Why do we still need to kiss?” Xie Ning said. “Wasn’t yesterday just a test?”
When he had asked Pei Zhi to help him, that did not include kissing.
“Yesterday only confirmed that I’m gay. I react to kissing you. But you’re still not sure,” Pei Zhi said. “You have skin hunger. Even if you do feel something or react, it’s hard for you to compare it properly.”
“If we kiss a little more, then we’ll know.”
Xie Ning: “……”
Pei Zhi was making things up again.
Pei Zhi pinched Xie Ning’s cheek. “Does kissing feel good?”
Xie Ning answered honestly, “It does.”
“Then that proves it.” Seeing how focused Xie Ning’s gaze was, and how he really seemed to be thinking seriously about whether Pei Zhi’s words were true, Pei Zhi almost laughed. He cupped Xie Ning’s face. “I was lying to you just now.”
“It’s not because of anything else. I just want to kiss you. There’s no other reason.” Pei Zhi lowered his head and affectionately rubbed his nose against Xie Ning’s. “Just like I like you without needing a reason.”
Even though those words were a little old-fashioned, and carried such obvious intent and affection,
Xie Ning finally understood why so many people were moved by sweet talk.
Because it really did sound beautiful.
“Not for too long,” Xie Ning said, tilting his chin up slightly. “Done within ten minutes.”
Pei Zhi looked at Xie Ning’s lips, then said, “I’ll do my best.”
They were the only two people in the dorm. The curtains by the balcony were wide open. Completely unlike last night’s stormy, thunderous rain, the weather today was beautiful. Brilliant sunlight streamed in from outside, making everything inside—and every expression on their faces—much clearer.
From Xie Ning’s lashes downward, Pei Zhi’s gaze moved with almost physical weight across the small, elegant bridge of his nose, finally settling on his slightly swollen lips. Xie Ning half-turned as if to pull the curtains shut, only to have his wrist seized and be yanked straight into Pei Zhi’s arms.
Caught off guard, Xie Ning stumbled into Pei Zhi’s chest. Pei Zhi took the chance to clamp a hand over the back of his head and press him down hard. With his head fixed in place, Xie Ning instinctively let out a breathy gasp, and the instant his lips parted, that rough, forceful tongue lunged all the way into the deepest part of his mouth.
With a short whimper, the tongue he had tried to hide was hooked out.
Xie Ning’s lips were not as swollen as before, their texture plump, tender, and springy, almost like jelly that melted on the tongue. A soft hum slipped slowly from between his lips, as though he were melting, only to be quickly ground into sticky, wet sounds.
One of Pei Zhi’s hands circled his waist, while the other clamped over the back of Xie Ning’s head. Knowing that Xie Ning liked skin contact, he deliberately increased the amount of exposed skin touching him. His fingers could not stop rubbing lightly over Xie Ning’s scalp, setting off wave after wave of electric shivers.
Skin contact was too much of a temptation for Xie Ning. After all, he suffered from skin hunger. His lips were being occupied, his sensitive scalp was being lightly stroked, and heat-sweat beaded faintly at the tip of his nose. Unable to help it, he let out a muffled cry that sounded almost like sobbing—“Mm—” only to have his lips seized again, swallowing every sound back down.
In a daze, Xie Ning squinted his eyes. The ceiling light above was glaring, making hot tears gather at the corners of his eyes. At last, he remembered what he had forgotten to say.
He had forgotten to tell Pei Zhi not to kiss him so hard. He still had class later…
But now it was already too late.
Pei Zhi kissed him like a starving dog gone mad, gnawing and devouring him. Even his teeth were licked over carefully, every corner of his mouth thoroughly invaded. The sensitive roof of his mouth was scraped again and again, and his poor tongue was tightly wound up and devoured, with no chance at all to escape.
Pei Zhi kissed hard, and Xie Ning was starting to struggle for breath. It was only his second kiss. Even though he learned quickly, he still had not yet learned how to breathe properly while kissing. He tried hard to escape the kiss, or at least stop Pei Zhi from kissing him this fiercely. But in the end, he was only kissed harder.
Their height difference was obvious. Even though Pei Zhi deliberately bent down and lowered his head, and Xie Ning rose onto his toes, kissing was still a little difficult. More than that—while kissing him, Pei Zhi kept watching his expression. Xie Ning’s mouth was blocked, and he could not say a word. He looked like he was having a hard time, tears gradually dampening the corners of his eyes. He looked far too pitiful, yet at the same time gave off an unbearably seductive air.
He was already being kissed hard enough, yet Pei Zhi remained greedily unsatisfied. He could not tolerate this kind of distance. So he simply lifted Xie Ning face-to-face into his arms, making him cling to him, then tilted his own head up and chased Xie Ning’s lips, kissing him again.
With only one hand supporting him under the thighs, and the other holding the back of his head, Xie Ning felt terribly insecure. He wrapped both legs tightly around Pei Zhi’s waist, afraid of falling. At the same time, however, he still tried to lean backward, wanting Pei Zhi not to kiss him so deeply.
Unfortunately, Pei Zhi noticed his intention and viciously chased after his lips, sucking at them, his tongue stirring recklessly through the soft flesh inside his mouth. Xie Ning’s skin hunger was being satisfied to the limit. Kissed so fiercely, his chest arched upward, his body tipped back, his eyes going completely unfocused, his whole body trembling.
He wanted to close his mouth, but it was forced open so he could be sucked on and devoured. He looked unbearably pitiful, as though he were enduring something terrible. Both hands clutched tightly at Pei Zhi’s shoulders. His mind held not a single coherent thought, and in such an intense kiss, even the pitch of his voice changed. His beautiful face was covered in tears.
From time to time, the tip of Pei Zhi’s tongue brushed against the sensitive soft flesh inside his mouth, sucking at it over and over. Unable to help it, Xie Ning let out low gasps, while great swathes of red spread across his pale skin.
In the quiet room, there were only the rough, heavy breaths and gasps caused by their fierce kissing, along with the repeated wet sounds of suction—sounds so explicit they made one’s face burn.
When it ended, Xie Ning’s lips had been licked and sucked into a vivid, gorgeous color. As they parted, transparent silver threads still connected them. The sight was indescribably decadent.
There was still a faint sheen of moisture on his lips, and Xie Ning’s expression was blank, as though he still had not caught up with what had happened.
Even after being released, he remained dazed, still not fully back to himself. He sat there blankly in Pei Zhi’s embrace, only to have his chin seized and turned. Pei Zhi said, “Look down, baby.”
Xie Ning obediently lowered his head like a machine.
At some point, Pei Zhi had sat down. He opened a video on his phone.
At first the video was shaky and blurry. No one knew from what moment onward the image suddenly turned clear—and the very thing captured on screen was Pei Zhi’s large tongue hooking Xie Ning’s out and licking it, eating it, the two tongues tightly tangled together like snakes, inseparable, exchanging saliva, glittering wetly.
The small tongue, licked into a wet red, looked especially frail by comparison. Even the pointed, pale chin had been sucked red, with a bead of saliva hanging from the tip.
The video was not long, but throughout the whole thing, their mouths were glued together in obsessive kissing.
Xie Ning kept panting, the vague little breaths and soft hums, the flushed, almost seductive look all over his face, the slight twisting of his shoulders as though uneasy and overwhelmed.
At the very end of the video, he looked toward the camera with tears all over his eyes, a little innocent and pitiful, but… also impossible to look away from.
Xie Ning was obviously stunned.
Pei Zhi held the tip of his chin, squeezing his face slightly out of shape. “Your expression is so beautiful.”
It was also Xie Ning’s first time seeing himself like that. His voice held a trace of bewilderment. “I… looked like that?”
“Mm.” Right in front of Xie Ning, Pei Zhi deleted the video, then deleted it again from Recently Deleted. He placed the phone into Xie Ning’s hand and let him check it however he wanted, while burying his own face in Xie Ning’s neck. “Did you see my expression?”
“…Mm.”
“I really want to mark you,” Pei Zhi said in a muffled voice. “I want everyone to know that you’re mine.”
That was not right—they were not even together yet. But what surprised Xie Ning even more was this: “Are you a dog? You want to mark me? What, are you planning to pee on me?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that. You like being clean.” Pei Zhi gently bit the tip of Xie Ning’s chin and said hoarsely, “You can pee on me instead.”
“Pei Zhi!” Xie Ning’s voice shot up sharply.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said something like that.” Pei Zhi lowered his head and admitted fault, sounding entirely sincere. “I promise I won’t do that again.”
Pei Zhi always apologized. Every time, he said he would not say weird things anymore. But every time, he still did—and each time, what he said was more outrageous than before.
There was not a shred of credibility in anything he said.
Xie Ning wiped at the moisture on his lips with the back of his hand, realized he could not wipe it clean, frowned lightly, and turned his face away.
“Are you mad?” Pei Zhi pulled out a tissue and helped wipe him off, coaxing him gently as he did so. “Don’t be mad, baby.”
“I’m not your baby,” Xie Ning said.
“Then who is?” Pei Zhi said. “Whoever cried is.”
“I didn’t cry. I just…” Xie Ning really had not been crying. He was not sad. It was just that under that level of stimulation, tear glands could not be controlled. He said, “I just felt too good.”
To be made to feel like this from just a kiss—it made Xie Ning feel a little embarrassed about himself too.
But Pei Zhi said, “Mm, got it. Next time I’ll keep working hard and make my baby feel even better.”
Xie Ning was both speechless and amused. Curious, he asked, “How will you work hard?”
“I’ll go online and study, see how other people kiss,” Pei Zhi said. “But I hate watching those kinds of scenes. When I see other people kissing, I think it’s disgusting.”
He had never liked watching kiss scenes in dramas since he was little. Forget two men—even men and women kissing was too much for him. Then he said, “But it’s weird. I really like kissing you.”
Xie Ning did not know what to say. He liked kissing Pei Zhi too, because it felt good. But if he said that right now, it would sound a little strange. So all he said was, “Mm.”
His attitude was cool, but Pei Zhi did not mind at all. Instead, he lightly pecked at his lips. “I like you so much.”
“I want to pursue you. Is that okay?” Pei Zhi added. “It won’t affect me helping you.”
Xie Ning felt a little resistant to the topic of dating. First of all, he had never once included romance in his life plans before. It was an unexpected thing. Becoming friends with Pei Zhi had also been unexpected, but romance was still romance—a much deeper kind of relationship.
He had always had his own plans, but now those plans seemed to be at risk of being disrupted. His first reaction was unease and rejection. He wanted things to go back to how they were before.
In Xie Ning’s silence, Pei Zhi continued, “Even if you reject me, I’ll still help you. The two things don’t conflict. I’m not using this to threaten you. I’m discussing it with you.”
“I…” Xie Ning started.
“Listen to me first.” Pei Zhi pinched Xie Ning’s cheek. “It’s your first time thinking about dating, and it’s my first time pursuing someone. Neither of us has any experience. Don’t rush to give me an answer, okay? Let’s take it slow.”
“I’ll slowly pursue you, and you can think about it slowly. If you feel like I’m not a bad person and maybe we could give it a try, then say yes to me. If you feel like I don’t meet your standards, then string me along or make things difficult for me—I’m fine with either.” Pei Zhi took Xie Ning’s wrist and slowly lifted it, burying his face in Xie Ning’s palm. He bent down very deeply, deliberately placing himself in the lower position, lifting his lashes to look up at Xie Ning from below. In a soft voice, he said, “I’ll be very obedient. I won’t make you angry.”
“But you… don’t go looking for anyone else. Okay?”
