Chapter 19 - 3#
Zhao Xing wanted to smash the rice bowl onto Zhou Ming’s face.
Zhao Xing gritted his teeth: “Those two are both men.”
Zhou Ming: “Then it’s same-sex love. What era are we living in!”
Zhao Xing: “…”
Zhao Xing: “Have you actually read any books on mental illness?”
Zhou Ming’s voice dropped, and he confessed: “Sorry, Brother Zhao, to be honest, I haven’t read a single one.”
Zhao Xing turned around and left.
Zhou Ming hastily collected the bowls and caught up with him: “Brother Zhao, with the situation you described, anyone who hears it would think it’s love.”
Zhao Xing: “That’s a dirty way of thinking. Can’t it just be brotherly affection?”
Zhou Ming: “Who would take a beating from their own brother without fighting back, or take insults without retorting? Brother Zhao, are you an only child?”
Zhao Xing did have brothers, but his family situation was special. Whenever they fought, it was to the death, so it wasn’t a good reference point.
Zhou Ming: “Brother Zhao, don’t doubt me. There are no brothers in this world with a relationship as good as what you described. Besides, the two people you’re talking about aren’t even real brothers!”
Zhao Xing stopped in his tracks.
Zhou Ming pressed on: “Brother Zhao, one last question. Does that friend have possessive feelings toward the neighbor? Like, not allowing him to have a girlfriend or something. This question is very important—it can basically decide everything.”
Zhao Xing frowned: “He doesn’t have a girlfriend, but…”
“But?” Zhou Ming’s eyes lit up. “But what?!”
But, Luo Mingshan had never liked him playing with other kids since he was little.
Even the clay dolls he made, if they were poorly done, could only be given to Luo Mingshan, not to anyone else.
When he made a small wooden motorcycle for Lü Xiaofeng, Luo Mingshan was unhappy for a long time.
Lü Xiaofeng and Zhou Ming, the ones who got close to him, Luo Mingshan didn’t like either. And now… he had even moved out of the dormitory with him.
Zhao Xing frowned and shook his head: “Just childishness. It doesn’t prove anything.”
Zhou Ming sighed.
He couldn’t understand why Zhao Xing, a seasoned gay man with a wife, was so insensitive to this kind of thing.
Could what Zhang Yue said be true—that they still hadn’t gotten together?
Just then, something occurred to Zhao Xing, and he shot Zhou Ming a cold glance: “We’ve gone off-topic. I only want to know if his lying about the neighbor to prevent him from leaving proves he has a mental problem and needs treatment.”
Zhou Ming: “You said he was very young. How old? Ten? Nine?”
Zhao Xing: “Five.”
Zhou Ming: “…”
Zhou Ming: “Brother, five! A five-year-old kid doesn’t even know what one plus one equals, and you’re already trying to diagnose him with a mental illness?!”
Zhao Xing: “I wasn’t that stupid when I was five.”
Zhou Ming: “Yeah, yeah, you’re smart. But not everyone is as smart as you. Maybe that kid is just dumb, just single-minded. He truly believes that if he tells a lie, the neighbor brother he likes will stay with him forever.”
Zhao Xing frowned and said nothing more.
Luo Mingshan had indeed been stupid in some ways when he was little.
He would eat anything strangers gave him, didn’t know to run away from danger, didn’t cry when his hand got accidentally cut, and only whimpered softly when his nyctophobia kicked in…
He had even only started learning to speak at three years old.
Zhou Ming shook his head: “But anyway, whether this kid is smart or stupid, twisted or mentally ill, he must really, really, really like that neighbor brother of his.”
When Zhao Xing returned to the double-occupancy dormitory, Luo Mingshan was still sleeping.
His eyes were closed, his skin as white as snow, his long hair as glossy as silk, and his long, curled eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks. He lay quietly and obediently on the dark green bed.
Like an elf sleeping in the forest.
Zhao Xing didn’t believe a single word of Zhou Ming’s nonsense about love, but he knew another thing Zhou Ming said was definitely true.
—Whether he is smart or stupid, twisted or mentally ill, he must really like that brother of his.
Zhao Xing’s gaze slid from his eyes to the corner of his mouth.
There was a bruise there, bluish-purple, from when Luo Mingshan had scraped his mouth on the ground during today’s “sparring.”
Zhao Xing also knew that his palms were swollen, and there should be bruises on his shoulders, chest, and abdomen.
Zhao Xing lifted the blanket to look at his hand and found that his right hand was already bruised purple.
A sudden pang of regret flashed through Zhao Xing’s heart.
—He had hit him too hard.
Zhao Xing took out some ointment and gently applied it to Luo Mingshan’s palm. Then he began to unbutton his shirt.
But after only undoing two buttons, Zhao Xing realized something and turned his head to look at the 360-degree surveillance camera on the wall.
Frowning, Zhao Xing grabbed a bedsheet and tied it to the railing of the top bunk to make a simple curtain.
Technically, there might not be anyone behind the camera. Even if there was, it would be a male prison guard. Taking off a shirt and applying medicine wasn’t something shameful.
But… Luo Mingshan was different from others.
Back during the Sugg case, that prison guard who had never even seen Luo Mingshan in person could blurt out Luo Mingshan’s name and act so familiar with him. Clearly, he had watched Luo Mingshan on the surveillance footage countless times.
He was too easy to attract attention, too easy to attract perverts.
Just thinking that there might be a prison guard peeping from behind the camera made Zhao Xing’s breathing uneven and filled him with irritation. He wanted to hang up two more layers of curtain.
After hanging the curtain, Zhao Xing took off his shoes and climbed onto the bed.
When he undid the last button, Zhao Xing noticed that Luo Mingshan’s eyelashes were trembling uncontrollably.
Zhao Xing smiled: “If you’re awake, stop pretending to be asleep.”
Luo Mingshan slowly opened his eyes.
Whether it was because the space was too cramped or too hot, Luo Mingshan’s cheeks were flushed.
He looked at Zhao Xing above him, clearly flustered: “…Brother Zhao, what are you doing?”
Only then did Zhao Xing realize how awkward their position was.
The single bed was a bit cramped. Without the curtain, Zhao Xing could sit on the edge of the bed. After hanging the curtain, he could only kneel on the bed, straddling Luo Mingshan—though he was hovering above him.
Seeing Luo Mingshan’s flustered state, Zhao Xing felt like teasing him. He deliberately undid the last button very slowly: “What do you think I want to do, Luoluo?”
Luo Mingshan’s lips moved, but he said nothing. His gaze was anxious and a little lost.
He finally closed his eyes, but even then, it was obvious he was panicking badly: “Whatever brother wants to do… do—”
But he couldn’t get the words “do whatever you want” out.
Zhao Xing somehow felt a little flustered too.
He leaned over, grabbed a towel hanging by the bed, and threw it over Luo Mingshan’s face to interrupt him: “What are you thinking? I’m putting medicine on you. Be quiet.”
Luo Mingshan was silent for two seconds, then softly “oh”-ed. He slowly pulled the towel to the left to cover his reddening ears.
Zhao Xing quickly applied medicine to Luo Mingshan’s upper body: “It looks like you have injuries on your legs too. Want to take off your pants as well?”
“No!” Luo Mingshan grabbed the blanket covering his lower half, looking flustered.
How strange.
Luo Mingshan’s mind was in a mess, filled with genuine confusion: Human bodies are really strange.
He thought while fumbling to button up his shirt.
After Luo Mingshan had buttoned up, Zhao Xing pulled down the “curtain” and got off the bed.
“Brother Zhao,” Luo Mingshan called out, holding the ointment, “you haven’t applied medicine to your hands yet.”
He was referring to the injuries on Zhao Xing’s knuckles—his fists had hit the wall, and the wounds were not light.
Zhao Xing held out his hand. Luo Mingshan carefully cleaned the wound, applied ointment, and wrapped it with gauze.
Zhao Xing winced and turned his head away, frowning deeply.
After finishing the bandaging, Luo Mingshan glanced at Zhao Xing, then gently blew on the wound.
He didn’t childish say “pain, pain, go away” like last time, nor did he lean in to kiss Zhao Xing’s cheek. He just held Zhao Xing’s hand and blew on it a couple more times, as if that could make up for something.
After treating Zhao Xing’s wound, Luo Mingshan still didn’t let go of his hand. He kept holding it.
He looked down and asked softly: “Brother Zhao, I lied to you and staged such a terrible thing. Why are you still so good to me?”
Zhao Xing snorted: “I just put some medicine on you. That counts as being good to you? Have you forgotten how you got those injuries?”
Luo Mingshan looked at Zhao Xing, smiling innocently and brightly, as if he wanted to show him his heart: “Those are two different things. Brother Zhao putting medicine on me is being good to me.”
Zhao Xing was stunned, a bit unable to handle his gaze.
He looked away from Luo Mingshan’s eyes and flicked his forehead lightly, smiling: “A puppy that doesn’t learn from its mistakes.”
It wasn’t that he had completely forgiven Luo Mingshan, nor that he didn’t care about what Luo Mingshan had done anymore… It just wasn’t necessary.
When he parted ways with Little Fatty Liang today, Liang had called out from behind: “Zhao Xing, the ideological assessment is in three days. You’re definitely not going to pass like this. But if you’re willing to spend some money, I have a way…”
At the time, Zhao Xing was so furious that he hadn’t paid attention to what Liang said. Now that he had calmed down, he extracted the key information from his memory.
—The ideological assessment would start in three days.
He was about to leave this place and be selected to go to the surface.
Barring any surprises, he and Luo Mingshan would never see each other again in this lifetime.
With only three days left, he really didn’t need to argue with a puppy who had eyes only for him but was just a little messed up in the head.
It didn’t matter whether this puppy was a good dog or a bad dog—he was going to abandon it anyway.
“Puppy,” Zhao Xing laughed, scratching Luo Mingshan’s chin, “tomorrow is your eighteenth birthday, isn’t it?”
Not his actual birthday, but the birthday of that “Luo Mingshan” who had died long ago and whose body had been kept in his mother’s refrigerator.
But it didn’t make a difference.
Luo Mingshan looked up at Zhao Xing, his eyes sparkling: “Is brother going to celebrate my birthday?”
Zhao Xing nodded: “Is there any gift Luoluo wants?”
Luo Mingshan: “I’ll like whatever brother gives me.”