Chapter 65#
Darkness instinctively amplifies a person’s senses.
Their breaths mingled; the warmth on his lips lingered and pressed deep, yet restrained, not driving straight in.
Ji Yang could tell that Nie Xu kissing him was impulsive, because fundamentally he was not an impulsive person. And precisely because Ji Yang’s established impression of him was so deep, Nie Xu’s impulsive behavior seemed to seep, along with his breath, into every pore of Ji Yang’s body.
That tense trembling, brought on together with the environment, made Ji Yang shake involuntarily.
The hand not holding the document went from pushing him away to clutching the clothes on Nie Xu’s shoulder, tighter and tighter.
The knocking outside the door continued without stop.
Ji Yang could feel the vibration coming through the door panel behind him, could hear the violent wind and rain outside the dormitory window, and also smelled the scent on Nie Xu that had originally been cold and sharp but now seemed scorching.
With nothing to rely on and no way to break free, Ji Yang subconsciously chose to trust the person in front of him.
It was precisely after noticing his movement that Nie Xu finally stopped.
He retreated slightly, but did not fully retreat.
He did not even loosen the hand covering Ji Yang’s eyes.
His gaze felt tangible.
Ji Yang knew he was looking at him. The feeling made him restless, as if needles were at his back, and he reached up and pulled his hand down.
His first reaction was to look behind him.
When he realized there was no one else in the dormitory, he let out a long breath of relief.
“No one,” Nie Xu said hoarsely.
As he spoke, his hand moved up along Ji Yang’s shoulder and took hold of his neck. His middle finger scraped over the vertebrae at the back of his neck, then brushed the wet ends of his hair, and he said in a low voice, “Soaked like this.”
Ji Yang could hardly stand being this close and replied randomly, “The wind was too strong.”
Even now, his mind was still muddled.
Nie Xu had just kissed him!
Ji Yang really wanted to ask why he had kissed him.
Before he could ask, he felt Nie Xu’s hand brush his ear again. “Was this ear monitor given to you by Jiang Lei?”
That small silver ear clip looked like an ornament, but it actually wasn’t.
Ji Yang subconsciously murmured in assent.
“Take it off,” Nie Xu said. “It doesn’t mean much now.”
Ji Yang’s ears grew hot from his constant movements. Afraid the people outside would hear, he had to lower his voice. “Jiang Lei told me not to take it off. He said it can listen in…”
Ji Yang stopped talking there.
If it really had a listening function, Jiang Lei probably would have cut it off by now.
Nie Xu gave a low laugh.
Ji Yang looked up and glared at him, then raised his hands to push him away.
He couldn’t push him.
It was no different from pushing a wall.
The person outside had knocked for ages with no response, and now there was no more movement either, but they definitely had not left. From the slight noise on the door panel, he could tell that the person outside had likely pressed their ear against the door, trying to hear something.
Ji Yang half-truly, half-falsely kicked the front of the other’s shin with his iron foot. His voice was not loud, but he could guarantee the people outside would hear it. “Let go of me! I was worried and specially made an excuse to come see you, and this is how you treat me?!”
Nie Xu pressed his knee forward, and Ji Yang was once again trapped behind the door.
“So you made yourself like this?” Nie Xu’s voice also returned to a normal volume; his voice was calm, but his eyes remained fixed on his face. His hand moved downward as he asked, “Was saying the scar hurt outside just now also an excuse?”
Ji Yang had not expected him to have heard. On one hand, he felt Nie Xu seemed to be playing along with him for the people outside to hear.
On the other hand, it seemed he was truly asking him seriously.
That bit of discomfort was actually bearable.
During this period, he had been living very well in Berman and had not had phantom limb pain even once.
But he remembered the urgency he had felt before leaving, and the feeling along the way that nothing could stop him.
He nodded in action, but his mouth said, as if acting spoiled, “Yeah, an excuse. I just wanted you to feel more sorry for me. Will you feel sorry for me?”
After saying that, he mouthed to Nie Xu: Reject me quickly, with a colder tone.
“You really are…” His tone was indeed extremely cold, but the next second Ji Yang’s right leg was lifted. Nie Xu braced his upper body and exerted force, and Ji Yang found himself lifted into Nie Xu’s arms. His legs were parted, and he had to hang his arms around the other’s neck, lying over the other’s shoulder in that kind of embrace. Nie Xu turned his head and buried the second half of the sentence by Ji Yang’s ear: “You could make your voice even more pitiful.”
Ji Yang: “…”
The warm breath made half his body go numb.
The next second, Nie Xu lifted his foot and kicked the door.
“Get lost!”
From outside the door came a startled, trembling apology: “Sorry, sorry, I’m leaving right now.”
Ji Yang was turned around and placed on the bed.
It was still the same one he had slept in before.
He looked at the door and thought that Nie Xu’s “get lost” just now had a pretty good effect. It really had the flavor of a young master who had been tracked down and was so annoyed that he lashed out at innocent bystanders.
Within ten minutes, everyone in the supervision team would probably feel that letting him in had not actually been very meaningful.
But why had Nie Xu kissed him?
That question remained.
Ji Yang sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at the busy person.
Nie Xu first pulled down the towel from the head of the bed and tossed it to him, motioning for him to take off the damp coat he had worn outside. Then he turned and went into the bathroom. About five minutes later, he came out carrying a bucket of steaming water.
“Soak first,” he said. “I’ll have someone bring you a change of clothes later.”
Ji Yang stopped rubbing his hair and let the towel stay on his head as he slowly began, “Just now…”
He suddenly stopped there.
He felt as if there was no need to say anything.
But Nie Xu spoke at that moment. “Just now, I couldn’t help myself.”
“Couldn’t help yourself?” Ji Yang asked. He was wondering, had that phrase really come out of Nie Xu’s mouth?
The next second, Nie Xu lifted his trouser legs and squatted down in front of him.
He directly reached out to remove Ji Yang’s prosthetic limb, and looked up at him as he said, “I’m only human too.”
“You mean…” Ji Yang remembered the topic they had discussed before, and his first reaction was, “You have desire for me?”
Nie Xu used a bit of force to unfasten the buckle, making it snap and drawing a hiss from Ji Yang.
Nie Xu laughed in exasperation.
He looked at those large, beautiful eyes, with the towel still draped over his head, leaning closer in question.
A person had just come running over like this.
Blocking his door, saying in a soft voice that his leg hurt.
And now he was telling him that he only suspected he had desire for him.
While Nie Xu found it funny, a place in his heart was collapsing. He had to admit that just now at the door, the moment he saw him get out of the car, he had heard the sound of his inner self suddenly collapsing.
He had once thought he did not have the emotions ordinary people should have, and he deliberately made himself not sink too much into emotional entanglements.
Unfortunately, from the first time Ji Yang said he wanted to cooperate with him, from when he entered Haicheng and had his position restored, then left Haicheng, he had begun, frequently and ceaselessly, to have an increasingly strong presence in his eyes.
The fact that his surname was Ji had originally been an insurmountable chasm for him.
His feelings for Ji Yang were no different from interpreting that saying: falling in love with the enemy’s grandson. Absurdity and incredibility showed everywhere.
But he did not know when it had started.
He did not feel that Ji Yang was a member of the Ji family.
He did not feel that the surname Ji should, along with everything of the Ji family, stick any label on him in any form.
Perhaps it started from when he made up an excuse saying his memory had been affected by medication; perhaps from seeing him truly break free from the shadow of his leg ailment; or perhaps from every one of his tiny, shining moments.
Since he entered the Ji family, he had seldom looked back on the past.
Recently, however, he had frequently recalled things about Ji Yang.
Only by remembering more clearly could he remind himself that he needed to restrain himself at all times.
Haicheng Tower was on the verge of collapse. Building Four, as a transit station operating between the Ji Corporation and Jianyuan, was now like an exclusive cage.
Yet someone had just charged in like that.
His leg ailment seemed never to have become his shackles; on the contrary, he could turn it into a tactic and weapon at any moment.
Nie Xu admitted that he had lost control.
Covering his eyes was because he did not want him to see the emotions bursting in his eyes.
When all loss of control was reined in, and disorder returned to reason.
That one sentence—asking whether he desired him—made Nie Xu realize for the first time that being insensitive, or rather, not doubting that possibility, was not necessarily a bad thing at certain times.
Nie Xu emergency-stopped at the cliff edge, raised an eyebrow, nodded, and said, “If you want to understand it that way, there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Right?” Ji Yang pulled the towel down, glanced over the black tank top on Nie Xu, and said with a clear conscience, “Then we’re the same. This way I won’t have much guilt.”
Nie Xu’s hand paused. “The same?”
“Yep.” Ji Yang was very candid about his own feelings. He felt that his appearing here tonight was the accumulation of many factors and emotions; there was definitely no escaping that there was fondness. There was also, beneath Nie Xu’s heavy background, that indescribable heaviness and bitterness rising from the bottom of his heart. But now that he was here in person, that kiss seemed to have suddenly diluted the emotions piled up to his throat. He slowed down and turned his attention to the source of all these emotions in himself. Whatever it was, Ji Yang could not deny the premise of all this: “My feelings for you have always started with your looks.”
Nie Xu wrung out the wet towel from the bucket and said, “Is this considered affirmation?”
“Absolutely,” Ji Yang said. “So I understand you. Falling in love with this young master is the fate of every looks-obsessed person.”
The next second, Ji Yang let out an “Ah” and struggled. “It’s hot.”
“Don’t move.” Nie Xu pressed down on his thigh. “It’s starting to get cold now, and you got caught in the rain. Just because it’s not serious now doesn’t mean it won’t hurt at night.”
Only now did Ji Yang react. From the moment he entered, he had been led along the whole time, as if he had tacitly agreed that he would stay the night.
Ji Yang adjusted to the heat of the towel and looked around the dormitory. “Why is it just you alone?”
“It’s been like this recently,” Nie Xu said.
Ji Yang said silently, “I just came to sign something.”
“With such heavy rain, you still want to go out and get drenched again?” Nie Xu glanced up at him, pressed his palm down slightly, and said, “Also, why aren’t you wearing the protective gear I gave you?”
Ji Yang: “…I decided on the spur of the moment. I didn’t remember.”
Nie Xu paused and said nothing.
After massaging for a while, he put the towel back into the bucket.
Ji Yang looked at his leg and accused, “It’s all red from the heat.”
“This temperature won’t hurt you,” Nie Xu said, glancing at his leg. “The essence of a hot compress is vasodilation; the depth of your skin color determines the degree of redness… It’s because of your own constitution.”
Ji Yang: “…”
He lowered his head and blew on himself.
Nie Xu changed the water twice, and only after Ji Yang said the bone pain was completely gone did it finally end.
The heavy rain did not stop.
It really looked like it was going to rain all night.
An hour later, Ji Yang had changed clothes and lay down on the bed.
He was wearing a set of Nie Xu’s army-green short sleeves and shorts. The top had been worn before, but the shorts were new; they were a bit too big, but still fine for sleeping.
“Where are you sleeping?” Ji Yang looked at the other beds and found that none had bedding. He asked the person who was hanging up his own coat, “Are you going to make another one?” Thinking that he had even washed his clothes for him—how was this a bodyguard? An all-capable man. Ji Yang’s conscience bothered him, and he probed, “Squeeze in with me and make do for a bit?”
Nie Xu hung up the hanger and glanced at the door. “Someone’s come outside again.”
Ji Yang lifted himself a little and looked toward the door too.
“Are these people bored or what? Don’t tell me they still want to eavesdrop?”
Nie Xu walked back, lifted the blanket, and naturally got into bed.
He sat at the head of the bed.
Ji Yang shifted inward.
He shifted once, then again, and kept moving his hand around under the covers.
The iron-framed bed kept making noises with his movements.
Nie Xu watched for a few seconds, and finally spoke slowly. “What are you doing?”
Ji Yang raised his face to look at him and said innocently, “Your shorts are too big. They fall down whenever I move.”
Nie Xu did not speak for a good while.
Two seconds later, he reached out and covered his mouth, leaned down halfway over him, and said, “Stop moving. Do you still want the people outside to hear a sex scene?”
“Do we need to?” Ji Yang said muffled, eyes bright.
Nie Xu pressed close to his ear. “No need. I don’t want to.”
At the same time, his hand reached down.
Hooking the waistband, he pulled up the shorts that had slipped down to Ji Yang’s hips.