Chapter 6#
The Cowardly Office Worker 6#
Unexpectedly, Xie Yuzhi said nothing. Clutching the bedding set and pillow, he followed behind Shen Xifu and returned to the room.
Having been caught in such a situation by his wife’s younger brother, Shen Anyu sat alone in embarrassment for quite a while before he could barely suppress the shame in his heart.
By the time Shen Xifu returned to the bedroom, no matter how he coaxed him, Shen Anyu refused to continue. After a moment of silence, Shen Xifu held Shen Anyu close and whispered by his ear, “Go to sleep.”
“……”
A good night’s sleep.
After that night, Shen Anyu spent the following days silently avoiding Xie Yuzhi.
As a result, over the course of a week, in this eighty-square-meter house, the number of times the two of them met could be counted on one hand.
Shen Xifu expressed no objection to this.
He only brought meals to the bedroom in person at every mealtime.
Sometimes Xie Yuzhi would run into him, and under his complex, hesitant gaze, Shen Xifu would calmly push open the bedroom door, then close it again.
Until Shen Anyu’s sick leave came to an end.
No matter how much he didn’t want to go to work, at seven in the morning, Shen Anyu still crawled out of bed on sheer office-worker instinct.
Working so much that you developed a biological clock for it—that was the most terrifying thing in the world.
Shen Anyu could now precisely silence his alarm the second before it rang, then rise from bed stiffly like a corpse and get up.
By the dining table in the living room.
Shen Anyu had just finished washing up when he saw Shen Xifu, wearing an apron, setting breakfast on the table.
Morning sunlight streamed through the living room window, falling across Shen Xifu’s face and perfectly outlining his slender lashes and sculpted features.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that the night before, at Shen Anyu’s sobbing pleas, he had kept Shen Anyu up until one in the morning—
—then perhaps this scene would have looked more perfect in Shen Anyu’s eyes.
Dragging his weary body, Shen Anyu walked to the table.
Seeing him, Shen Xifu asked, “Want me to help you with your tie?”
Shen Anyu nodded. A faint hint of dark circles beneath his eyes revealed his exhaustion. Sitting down in the chair, Shen Anyu rested his chin against Shen Xifu’s lower abdomen, breathing in the faint fragrance on him, waiting for him to finish adjusting the tie.
“Lift your head, hubby,” Shen Xifu said softly.
Shen Anyu drowsily tilted his head up, his bangs messy, while Shen Xifu’s gentle movements around his neck made him feel sleepy.
The black tie passed through the white shirt, then looped around Shen Xifu’s slender fingers.
After adjusting the tightness for Shen Anyu, Shen Xifu said, “Done.” He tousled his husband’s soft hair. “Want to eat at home? Or eat on the way to the company?”
“……”
Shen Anyu was still a little sleepy. He lingered in Shen Xifu’s embrace for a long while before lowering his head and typing: Eat at home.
In the face of the misery of going to work, Shen Anyu didn’t even find Shen Xifu’s pathological possessiveness terrifying. He just wanted to stay home and refuse to go out.
Across the dining table.
Shen Xifu asked, “Will hubby forget to check in again this time?” He lowered his eyes and said, “That kind of thing only needs to happen once. Hubby doesn’t want to know what the price would be if it happened a second time, right?” His tone was light.
“……”
Shen Anyu gave a faint “mm,” grateful that he was currently a “mute” so he didn’t have to respond much to that question.
He ate breakfast with a nervous heart the entire time.
After the meal, Shen Anyu stood at the entrance as usual, letting Shen Xifu pick out a loose suit jacket to put on him. If he weren’t someone with perfect vision, Shen Anyu suspected Shen Xifu would have even put a pair of thick black-rimmed glasses on him.
Preferably covering his entire face.
“Kiss me.”
Shen Xifu was asking for his daily good-morning kiss.
Looking at “her,” Shen Anyu often couldn’t understand why Shen Xifu, as the female lead, would harbor so much possessiveness toward a nobody like him.
Clearly, the refined and noble male lead, or anyone else for that matter, was a hundred times better than him—this cowardly, dull office worker.
But every time he asked this question, Shen Xifu would only calmly and repeatedly say the same line—“Because I love you, hubby.”
The tone was calm, yet it gave Shen Anyu a creeping, chilling feeling.
As if, even before they had met, Shen Anyu had already been marked as prey in Shen Xifu’s eyes.
Now, hearing Shen Xifu’s words, Shen Anyu obediently raised his head, brushed against Shen Xifu’s lips, and closed his eyes out of habit as they kissed.
Breaths tangled messily.
Shen Anyu’s lashes trembled lightly.
In the cramped space, it seemed like only the sound of their heartbeats could be heard.
Not far away, the faint sound of footsteps approached.
Xie Yuzhi, who had managed to get up early for once, wanting to avoid overlapping mealtimes with his weak-willed brother-in-law, said: “……”
The next second.
Shen Xifu—who had been pushed away by a startled Shen Anyu at the sound—stared coldly at Xie Yuzhi.
If looks could kill, perhaps Xie Yuzhi would already have been sliced into a thousand pieces by Shen Xifu’s gaze.
“……”
Xie Yuzhi hadn’t expected to stumble upon this scene either. He wanted to say “sorry,” but the moment he opened his mouth, he felt a wave of frustration.
After all, it wasn’t as if he had deliberately walked in on them.
Holding some indescribable feeling, Xie Yuzhi knocked on the doorframe and frowned. “It’s past eight, almost nine. In broad daylight, could you two check the time before getting all lovey-dovey?”
“……”
Shen Anyu stood at the entrance, feeling a rush of heat climb from his cheeks to his ears.
If he could speak, then at this moment, “I’m sorry” would already be tumbling out of his mouth repeatedly.
In the silence.
Shen Anyu hung his head, pushed Shen Xifu away, picked up his briefcase, and walked out.
As if doing so would keep the embarrassing scene from engulfing him—he even forgot to tell Shen Xifu that he was heading to the company.
.
The entire morning, Shen Anyu was wrapped in the embarrassment brought on by that morning’s incident.
Because he was a recovering patient, and his language disorder hadn’t healed yet, the occasional work his colleagues gave him was also relatively light.
Fortunately, before he was injured, the work he had to rush through every day wasn’t the kind that required constant speaking. Now, even the occasional necessary communication could be covered by text messages.
During the lunch break.
Shen Anyu had planned to send Shen Xifu a message telling “her” he was on break, but when he opened his phone, he saw on the message page that, fifteen minutes ago, in the chat window marked 【Wife】, several red notification dots sat quietly.
Wife: Is it break time yet?
Wife: I have work today, and I happen to pass by your company, so I came by to bring you lunch.
Wife: Hubby?
Three minutes later.
Wife: I’m downstairs now.
“……”
By the time Shen Anyu saw these messages, twenty minutes had already passed since the last one was sent.
He quickly got up, wanting to go downstairs, but rationality told him the most urgent thing was to reply to Shen Xifu’s messages. Standing in place, he typed frantically.
Sorry, I set my phone to silent and didn’t hear it.
I’m on break now, Xifu.
I’ll be right down.
Shen Anyu hadn’t expected his phone to have been set to silent.
After thinking about it for a long time, he remembered—last night, not wanting to be disturbed, Shen Xifu had held his hand and, in the darkness, set both their phones to silent.
This was the first time since their marriage that Shen Anyu had replied to Shen Xifu’s messages so late, and he didn’t know what consequences he would face. A thin layer of sweat broke out at the tip of his nose. Only when he stepped into the elevator did Shen Anyu truly start breathing again.
But the phone tightly gripped in his hand never rang with a new message notification.
Shen Anyu kept his head slightly lowered, unconsciously biting his lip. The smooth interior of the elevator reflected his current fluster in full detail. But he never expected to hear a familiar “Mr. Shen” at that moment.
Following the voice, Shen Anyu turned his head and saw Jian Lixu standing in the corner.
“……” Even though he couldn’t make a sound, Shen Anyu was so startled his breath hitched.
He hadn’t expected to run into the male lead.
Then, recalling the original story’s plot, he realized that by now, Jian Lixu, who already had Shen Xifu’s contact information, was going downstairs with him to meet his wife—Shen Xifu.
And the one Shen Xifu was bringing lunch to was not only him.
As a roadside character, Shen Anyu would only step offstage after receiving his wife’s loving lunch. Later, when the male lead received the other truly loving lunch from the female lead, Shen Anyu would coincidentally stumble upon the scene, but because of his weak personality, he chose to bury everything in his heart.
Shen Anyu: “……”
Am I just part of your little play?
Shen Anyu, who had originally been anxious about forgetting to reply to Shen Xifu’s messages, now inexplicably calmed down upon recalling the matching original plot.
He nodded at Jian Lixu in the elevator. After that, Shen Anyu perfectly played the role of an office worker who didn’t want to see his boss during break—head lowered, trying hard to shrink himself into the corner without drawing anyone’s attention.
Praying for the elevator to descend faster, and faster still.
But heaven did not comply. Since it was lunch break, many employees were going down, and the elevator stopped floor by floor as it descended.
During this time, Shen Anyu was squeezed by the crowd right next to Jian Lixu.
“……” Even worse.
Perhaps unwilling to let the silence stretch on, Jian Lixu said, “Going down now… to eat?”
Shen Anyu nodded, a faint “mm” rising from his nose.
Jian Lixu said warmly, “Still can’t speak? Why not go see a doctor again? I know a friend in psychology—I can recommend him to you.”
Shen Anyu couldn’t understand why Jian Lixu, a big president, would squeeze into the regular employee elevator with the rest of them. He shook his head and typed in the gaps between the crowd:
—I’ve already seen a psychologist… She said it would recover gradually with time. Thank you, President Jian.
Jian Lixu glanced at the words on the screen and curved his eyes slightly. “You’re welcome. I just hope you don’t mind my calling you ‘Anyu’ the other day.”
Shen Anyu stayed quiet, head lowered.
Like a mushroom growing in the corner, he didn’t take out his phone to type again.
Because during their conversation, the elevator had reached the first floor, and he was afraid that when the doors opened, Shen Xifu would see him talking with Jian Lixu.
During these days of paid sick leave, because he was a patient and truly injured, Shen Xifu had let go of his former pathological possessiveness. Sometimes, he was even gentle in a way that made Shen Anyu want to sink into it.
But Shen Anyu knew that this didn’t mean the things from before had simply been let go by Shen Xifu.
On the contrary.
Shen Xifu would only bring up the old matters again once his wound was healed, and in the daily routine of life, he would occasionally set traps, waiting for Shen Anyu to fall into them.