Chapter 63
Chapter 63
“Huh?” Lu Yuanshi stared at Xiao Huai with wide eyes.
Xiao Huai seemed to realize how strange the question sounded. The tips of his ears reddened.
He reached up and pinched one earlobe.
It turned even redder.
“Let me be clear. I don’t mean anything discriminatory by it,” Xiao Huai said. “I just wish you’d stop doing things to me that people could misunderstand.”
Lu Yuanshi suddenly laughed. “Such as?”
Xiao Huai fell silent. Several images flashed through his mind, but he mentioned none of them.
He only said, “I’m a coldhearted man. Don’t waste your time on me.”
Xiao Huai was detached and indifferent to desire, and particularly slow when it came to certain matters.
He excelled at reasoning through games, but outside that, he sometimes failed to understand even the most obvious implications.
He had only begun to suspect something about Lu Yuanshi’s sexual orientation because Sophie had given him some unusual books to read during his idle days here.
The couples in those books did not seem to match the conventional definition.
And some things the protagonists did were remarkably similar to what Lu Yuanshi had done to him.
For example… that strange embrace after they got off the motorcycle.
In the book, however, the couple did other things after the embrace.
Xiao Huai had not dared read much further. But once he realized this might explain Lu Yuanshi’s strange behavior, everything made sense.
A hand gently ruffled his hair. By the time Xiao Huai glared over, Lu Yuanshi had already withdrawn it.
The corner of Lu Yuanshi’s mouth lifted. “Unfortunately, I’m the same kind of person you are. What interests me is you yourself. From the first moment I saw you, I’ve looked forward to your death. That hasn’t changed.”
He speared the piece of meat Xiao Huai had placed on his plate and ate it.
As though struck by a thought, he laughed. “I’ve never fallen for anyone, man or woman. So, Xiao Huai, why don’t you try seducing me? See if you can make me fall for you. If you actually succeed, that would be quite something.”
Xiao Huai rolled his eyes. “Your first answer was more convincing.”
Seduce him? In his dreams. Xiao Huai would not even know where to begin.
The first answer was far more believable. Lu Yuanshi probably really was interested in watching him die.
At least a large portion of the divine audience in Xiao Huai’s livestream had come to watch him fail.
At the end of dinner, Xiao Huai took out a pink box and handed it to Lu Yuanshi. “A gift for you.”
Lu Yuanshi raised an eyebrow. “For me?”
“Mm. Want to open it?”
Inside the box lay a fresh, vivid rose that looked newly picked.
Lu Yuanshi smiled. “Did you pick it yourself?”
Xiao Huai nodded. “More or less. Everyone has to wear formal clothes to the diamond showcase tomorrow. Why don’t you wear the flower?”
“All right.” Lu Yuanshi nodded.
They walked outside together. The stars seemed to drift lower, illuminating the dark sky.
Snowflakes fell. Xiao Huai looked up and held out one arm. A flake landed on his skin. The cold stung, yet he did not react at all.
Warm breath brushed his ear. “Does it hurt?” Lu Yuanshi asked.
Xiao Huai did not look at him. His eyes remained quietly fixed on the snowflake.
But he answered, “No.”
“I meant these.” Lu Yuanshi’s hand suddenly touched the puncture wounds on Xiao Huai’s arm. As his lightly callused fingertips passed over the skin, Xiao Huai shuddered.
He stepped back and shook his head. “Not really.”
Frost settled in Xiao Huai’s eyes. In the mingled moonlight and shadow, the flower buds resembled hands extended by sirens, while the moon was the roses’ Poseidon, forever beyond their reach no matter how high they climbed.
Light and darkness intertwined in his gaze. No emotion touched his voice.
Whether it hurt or not, what did it matter? Pain was only an ordinary sensation.
What the world desired was brilliance and abandon beneath the sun: a beautiful specimen that would never hurt and never be wounded.
Suddenly, a warm overcoat settled around his shoulders. Xiao Huai froze, then glanced at the man beside him.
Starlight fell in scattered sparks.
Lu Yuanshi’s voice reached him. “I’m rather good at taking care of others.”
In truth, Lu Yuanshi had never cared for a human before. He had only raised a few cats, and he was not sure whether Bai Ze counted.
Bai Ze was a divine beast that could occasionally assume human form.
In any case, Lu Yuanshi felt he had finally spoken one rare truth.
An image flashed through Xiao Huai’s mind. When they had gotten off at the station, he had handed something to Lu Yuanshi, and Lu Yuanshi seemed to have said something.
Remembering the shape of his lips, the words had appeared to be…
“I can take care of you.”
Lu Yuanshi’s voice traveled along Xiao Huai’s nerves and entered his mind with an inexplicable current.
Xiao Huai paused, clutched the coat tighter, and walked away. “Thanks.”
Back in his room, he tossed and turned in bed as though possessed.
Xiao Huai had never felt like this before.
When he suffered, someone offered comfort. When he was cold, someone draped a warm coat around him. When he was hungry, someone brought him a bowl of hot soup.
These were ordinary human kindnesses, yet he seemed never to have experienced them.
And still, they were memories shared by nearly every human being.
Once he accepted another person’s kindness, how could he escape that common human nature? How could he stop himself from thinking of the one who offered it?
Xiao Huai pulled the blanket over his head. As the air beneath it dwindled, the feeling of suffocation made him increasingly calm.
He knew Lu Yuanshi’s words at the station had been a joke. Had Xiao Huai kept watching, Lu Yuanshi would probably have added: *If you beg me.*
They were the same kind of person. Neither would inexplicably treat another well. Every kindness rested upon mutual benefit.
Xiao Huai still did not understand why Lu Yuanshi wanted so badly to witness his death.
But after these days together, he was certain Lu Yuanshi had revealed genuine emotion only a handful of times.
Even when confronted with corpses and monsters, he had been far too calm.
It was as though he were always acting.
Every display of fear was false.
Xiao Huai stopped dwelling on it. Perhaps Lu Yuanshi did not fear bloodshed because he was accustomed to it, or perhaps he was a player who had descended from a higher floor.
Either way, once this instance ended, Xiao Huai truly did not want to work with another player like Lu Yuanshi.
More precisely, this instance had simply left him exhausted.