Chapter 97
Chapter 97
Xiao Huai said, “It’s getting late. Let’s go back up.”
He placed one hand on Lu Zhi’s shoulder and quickly guided him upstairs.
Before anyone could clearly see their figures, the two were already gone.
As far as Xiao Huai was concerned, there was no more important information to find there.
What Lu Zhi had deduced was enough.
Xiao Huai did not know why Lu Zhi’s eyes were red, but he understood the desire to hide one’s tears.
He said nothing more and simply escorted him out. He wanted to say something, but worried that he might frighten the boy.
So he merely smiled, touched his stomach, and said, “I’m hungry.”
Lu Zhi’s pupils widened slightly. He nodded hard. “I’ll go see if the food in the dining hall has been replenished!” With that, he wiped his nose and hurried away.
Xiao Huai had offered no comforting words. Everything he did had been calm and gentle.
Yet he had found exactly the right balance, neither touching the boy’s fragile heart nor depriving him of his dignity.
As Xiao Huai watched him leave, Lu Yuanshi’s soft voice sounded beside his ear.
“You’re so gentle,” he breathed into Xiao Huai’s ear.
Xiao Huai instinctively stepped to the left. His ears were sensitive, and when someone spoke too close to them, his skin easily changed color.
Xiao Huai stared ahead indifferently. “I’m just bad at comforting people.”
He did not know how to comfort someone who was crying, nor did he have much experience with tears himself.
Sometimes he understood why others felt miserable and cried, but if he were in their place, he was certain he would not cry.
After all, crying accomplished nothing. He disliked wasting energy and time on useless things.
Perhaps the only tears that would ever appear in his eyes were the involuntary ones caused by yawning or sneezing.
“Oh? Is that so?” Lu Yuanshi studied Xiao Huai with interest and raised an eyebrow. He lifted his knuckles and lightly tapped the air.
Yet the gesture seemed to cross the space between them and touch Xiao Huai’s lashes.
Lu Yuanshi said, “I think he felt comforted.”
If you cried, would you want someone to comfort you?
Lu Yuanshi had only spoken the question in his mind, yet Xiao Huai turned and met his gaze at that exact moment. His thin lips parted as though answering him.
“Maybe he didn’t need comfort.” Xiao Huai lifted his chin slightly and looked away again, remembering Lu Zhi’s tightly clenched fists.
He said softly, “No one wants others to see them at their weakest.”
Just as Lu Yuanshi was about to continue, Xiao Huai’s stomach growled.
Xiao Huai fell silent.
When he said he was hungry, he had not been lying.
He truly was hungry.
Using his brain too much always made him hungry.
The faintest smile curved Lu Yuanshi’s lips. He caught Xiao Huai by the wrist and, before Xiao Huai could react, pulled him outside. “Come on. I’ll take you to eat something delicious.”
The wind brushed gently over their cheeks. Xiao Huai’s pupils widened slightly as Lu Yuanshi’s warmth traveled through the hand gripping his wrist.
At that moment, the sunlight seemed to favor Lu Yuanshi alone. As he glanced back, Xiao Huai noticed the curve of his eyes and the upward arc of his lips.
Every detail seemed magnified, carving itself deep into Xiao Huai’s eyes.
Lu Yuanshi led Xiao Huai straight back to their room. Only after they entered did Xiao Huai pull his hand free.
He looked up at Lu Yuanshi. “If we’re going to eat, why did you bring me back to the room?”
A wicked smile spread across Lu Yuanshi’s face as the door clicked shut and locked behind them.
He turned, raising an eyebrow. “Guess. What are we going to eat?”
Xiao Huai frowned. “What are you planning…?”
The look Lu Yuanshi gave him made every hair on his body stand on end, and he retreated one step.
In the next second, Lu Yuanshi narrowed his eyes with a grin and produced a box.
“Your favorite.” In a few quick steps, he reached Xiao Huai and placed the box in his palms.
“My favorite?” Xiao Huai’s brow twitched. His fingers touched the box and slowly opened it.
When he saw what was inside, his eyes widened slightly and lit up.
Glutinous rice dumplings.
Lu Yuanshi had made them in Diamond Magnate as well. They were sweet and delicious.
“Where did you…”
Before Xiao Huai could finish, Lu Yuanshi bent down and leaned close to his shoulder. When he raised his eyes, there was an indescribable allure in them.
“I made them especially for you. It was exhausting.” As he spoke, he lazily rested his chin directly on Xiao Huai’s shoulder.
Lu Yuanshi was slightly taller than him.
Xiao Huai shook his shoulder. Lu Yuanshi’s chin moved with it, stubbornly refusing to leave him.
Xiao Huai took a glutinous rice dumpling in one hand and, without another word, brought it to Lu Yuanshi’s mouth.
“If you’re tired, eat more yourself.”
The faintest curve touched Lu Yuanshi’s lips as he opened his mouth. “Ah.”
Xiao Huai was speechless.
So Lu Yuanshi really did expect to be fed.
Forget it. He had received something good from Lu Yuanshi, so feeding him a bite was no great matter.
Xiao Huai’s fingertips moved toward his lips.
In that instant, time seemed to slow ever so slightly.
The barely visible tip of Lu Yuanshi’s tongue brushed gently against his knuckle.
Xiao Huai reflexively jerked his hand away, but Lu Yuanshi caught him by the wrist.
When he lifted his gaze, his thick black lashes and bottomless eyes seemed to conceal a black hole that drew the other person in.
His canine tooth rested against Xiao Huai’s knuckle, then bit down.
“Mm…” Xiao Huai pulled hard, but Lu Yuanshi had already left a tiny tooth mark on his knuckle, and a faint pink flush immediately spread over his pale skin.
“Are you insane?” Xiao Huai yanked his hand free.
In an instant, Lu Yuanshi switched back to his innocent act, as though he had not been the one to bite Xiao Huai.
He ate the glutinous rice dumpling and smiled. “Now I’ve paid you back.”
Paid him back? Xiao Huai frowned.
Suddenly, he remembered being pinned against a wall by Lu Yuanshi in Diamond Magnate. When Lu Yuanshi covered his mouth, Xiao Huai had bitten him hard.
Xiao Huai let out a dry laugh. “You really hold a grudge.” Yet the roots of his ears were a little red.
After all, it was not a particularly pleasant memory.
Lu Yuanshi asked, “Does that make us even?”
Xiao Huai frowned. Lu Yuanshi’s words were becoming increasingly inexplicable.
“Even for what?”
“You don’t want to be anyone’s prey, so become a hunter beside me.”
Hunters always stood above everyone else. They disdained becoming entangled with their prey, and between the two, there was no such thing as owing or repaying.
Lu Yuanshi had never said to anyone that he owed them, or that he had repaid them.
To him, the only things he gave others were favors and commands, destruction and reconstruction.
Yet from the moment he said, “Now I’ve paid you back,” their positions began to change.
He no longer wanted to look down upon everything from above.
That was why he had chosen to appear beside Xiao Huai as a player.
Yet he had never understood why he kept wanting to remain at Xiao Huai’s side.
He had thought it was a hunter’s interest in his prey, the patience of a hunter waiting for his quarry to fall into a trap.
Later, he realized he had been wrong.
Because that person had never been his prey, not from beginning to end.
Instead, Xiao Huai had always been the one hunting.
And what he hunted was Lu Yuanshi’s heart.
If it were you, perhaps you truly could take it away.