Shi Linchuan didn’t like candy, let alone a cheap compound made entirely of artificial coloring and saccharin, but Xie Jinghe was exceptionally fond of it.

Whenever they went to the supermarket together, Xie Jinghe would always grab a couple of bags, toss them into the shopping cart, and look at him with pitiful, expectant eyes, begging Shi Linchuan to buy them for him.

Yet afterward, he would frequently mutter, “It doesn’t seem to taste like it used to when I was a kid.”

After saying that, he would stuff two more pieces into his own mouth and ask in return, “Linchuan, what do you think?”

To be honest, aside from the taste of artificial sweeteners, Shi Linchuan had no idea what “that kind of taste” could possibly be. Perhaps it was because he had never encountered such cheap snacks during his own childhood, meaning he lacked the mental filter to romanticize or elevate it.

Back then, he had merely caressed Xie Jinghe’s face with a superficial display of tenderness, casually brushing him off: “If you don’t like it, don’t eat it. Watch out for cavities.”

But now.

Shi Linchuan’s throat swallowed. He casually crumpled the empty plastic wrapper into a ball, shoving it right back where it came from—Xie Jinghe’s coat pocket—before offering a thoroughly disgusted critique: “Tastes awful. I don’t know why you always insist on buying this stuff. If you have money, spend it on decent food.”

Xie Jinghe had only managed to snatch half a piece of candy throughout the entire ordeal. The solid confection had long since dissolved on the tip of his tongue, leaving behind only a trace of lingering sweetness.

Following the man’s movements, he looked down at his pocket, which was currently being utilized as a trash can, then raised his head to gaze at the man’s profile half-hidden in the shadows. He offered a completely non-sequitur response: “This is your jacket.”

Hearing this, Shi Linchuan smoothly countered: “Then why are you wearing my clothes? Do you not have any clothes of your own?”

Xie Jinghe: “…”

How did the conversation suddenly derail into this?

Forget it. Xie Jinghe didn’t dwell on it, honestly voicing his true thoughts: “I feel like your jacket is warmer than mine, and it has a nice, fragrant scent.”

Upon hearing those last few words, the expression on Shi Linchuan’s face instantly became quite unspeakable. He couldn’t resist darting a look at the person beside him, using a gaze reserved for someone with pica.

This wasn’t the first time. Xie Jinghe frequently praised him for smelling “fragrant.”

Shi Linchuan disliked wearing cologne. Initially, he assumed that this man simply harbored a particular obsession with the scent of their household laundry detergent or home fragrance. Consequently, every time he heard Xie Jinghe say this, Shi Linchuan would discreetly switch out the scent.

Yet no matter how many times he changed it, the other party would persistently and genuinely utter the exact same compliment.

One day, Shi Linchuan finally couldn’t take it anymore and demanded to know exactly what scent he carried. Xie Jinghe merely replied that he didn’t know either. But it was just a nice, sweet fragrance.

It was, truly, a completely illogical statement.

To Shi Linchuan, a person like Xie Jinghe was simply too difficult to comprehend. He possessed an incredibly thick filter for the things he loved—even if he felt the candy no longer tasted as delicious as it did in his childhood, he would still buy it; even if he discovered that the husband he had been married to for three years possessed two entirely different faces and had been deceiving him from start to finish, he still refused to back down.

It gave a distinct impression of “refusing to turn back until hitting the brick wall, and even after crashing into it, wanting to crash into it again.”

Precisely because of this, Shi Linchuan detested him so intensely. The depth of this aversion verged closely on outright resentment. Shi Linchuan often wondered: why did such an eyesore of a person have to exist in this world? And why did he have to appear right in front of him, making him feel irritated and disgusted with a single extra glance, yet entirely unable to rid himself of him?

Fortunately, the final divorce task was drawing to a close. Shi Linchuan couldn’t wait to escape this world where Xie Jinghe existed.

The night deepened, and the wind on the rooftop grew fiercer.

Suddenly, a figure breached the edge of Shi Linchuan’s peripheral vision. Xie Jinghe shifted over inch by inch, crowding into his personal space, and with absolute shamelessness, extended an invitation: “It looks like the cameras can’t capture us from this angle, so… care to share a kiss?“

Shi Linchuan turned his head to stare at him, watching him for so long that Xie Jinghe shrank his neck back and silently averted his gaze. He pretended to be deeply engrossed in the distant scenery of mountains and sea shrouded in the pitch-black night, acting as if he hadn’t uttered a single word just seconds ago.

Seeing this, Shi Linchuan couldn’t help but ask, “Xie Jinghe, are you pretending to be innocent?”

“…”

“Speak.”

With those two light words from the man, Xie Jinghe was forced to tilt his head back, continuing to look at him as he murmured softly, “I’m just a bit shy. It feels as though we’ve only just started dating.”

What on earth was he talking about? A creature like Xie Jinghe was truly beyond comprehension.

Moreover, Shi Linchuan couldn’t stand hearing the word “shy” right now. He immediately suffered a knee-jerk reaction, spinning on his heel to leave. Hearing the rapid footsteps catching up behind him, his strides grew wider and wider, until he was practically sprinting.

Xie Jinghe gave chase from behind. The two of them thudded all the way downstairs, creating a thunderous racket.

The wind whipped against the man’s face, lifting the stray hairs across his forehead and leaving his eyes exceptionally dry. Shi Linchuan was forced to narrow his eyes, executing a sharp turn to dash into the bedroom before slamming and locking the bathroom door behind him.

Xie Jinghe was a step too late, left locked outside the door.

The bathroom was plunged into absolute darkness. The confined space still retained the humid moisture from their earlier showers. Left entirely alone inside, Shi Linchuan suddenly heard a sharp click sound from outside, and the dim overhead bulb flickered to life.

He glanced up, his eyes inadvertently sweeping over the rudimentary mirror nailed to the opposite wall. He caught sight of a highly unfamiliar smile plastered across his own reflection—the corners of his lips were turned gently upward, every facial muscle completely relaxed. It was so genuinely heartfelt that it made him sick to his stomach.

Disgusting.

Shi Linchuan wiped the expression from his face, opening his mouth to reveal a tongue completely stained a vivid blue.

The man didn’t emerge for a long time. Xie Jinghe sat on the edge of the bed waiting for a while. Seeing no sign of him, he decided to pass the time by tidying up the room. Working with a single functional hand made his efficiency quite slow, which was perfect for killing time.

Halfway through straightening up, he realized he was unconsciously humming a tune. Xie Jinghe couldn’t resist casting a glance at the tightly locked bathroom door, idly pulling the crumpled plastic candy wrapper from his pocket.

For some inexplicable reason, he felt a sudden reluctance to toss it into the trash can. Instead, he smoothed out the creases across his thigh, lifted his backpack from the chair, and began rummaging through its compartments.

I’ll just slide it into a script to use as a bookmark, Xie Jinghe thought, his mood considerably lifted.

Because the production crew had notified the guests in advance that their phones would be confiscated, Le Yan had suggested that he pick out a few intriguing scripts from his offers to print out, so he could look over them during the journey. At the time, Le Yan had said: “Brother Xie, you look your absolute smartest when you’re reviewing scripts.”

“…” Did that mean he was typically stupid?

However, the show’s recording had already reached its third day. Aside from flipping through two pages during the filming of the pilot episode on day one, Xie Jinghe hadn’t paid them any attention whatsoever. His mind and vision were entirely occupied by a single individual.

Right at that moment, the tips of Xie Jinghe’s fingers reaching into the inner compartment of the backpack brushed against something. Unlike the printed scripts secured with transparent folders and slide binders, this object possessed a hard cover, yet felt remarkably thin.

Pinching the edge, Xie Jinghe pulled it out to take a look—it was a book. The title read: 《王子的魔法咒语》 (The Prince’s Magic Spell).

Xie Jinghe quickly deduced that it was likely some bedtime reading material Le Yan had slipped into his bag. The hardcover possessed a distinct, premium texture, featuring a dark forest of thorns rendered in shades of black and deep blue. The twisting, tangled briars looked like something pulled from a dark fairytale designed to terrify children.

Fortunately, the title brimmed with childlike innocence, suggesting it was probably a healing, fantasy-based story. The book was exceptionally thin, likely containing no more than twenty pages in total. Xie Jinghe figured it wouldn’t take him more than a minute to flip through it from cover to cover.

However, when he was poised to open the front cover, a sharp sound echoed from the direction of the bathroom—the old wooden door was pulled open.

The man emerged from within, his face newly washed and the stray hairs across his forehead damp. Shi Linchuan had meticulously brushed his teeth for a full five minutes before finally managing to suppress the nauseatingly cloying sweetness coating his mouth, washing his face along the way.

Of course, he hadn’t succeeded in scrubbing away the blue artificial dye, meaning his tongue still looked as though it had been harvested straight from an Avatar.

Having consumed too much sugar, Shi Linchuan’s throat felt sticky and parched. Ignoring the gaze of the room’s other occupant, he walked straight toward the nightstand, grabbed the half-empty mineral water bottle left over from this morning, and downed it in a single gulp.

Before he could even swallow, Xie Jinghe abruptly asked out of nowhere, “Linchuan, it’s getting late. Shouldn’t we head to bed and rest?”

It was indeed getting late. Shi Linchuan had no idea what this man was plotting now, merely darting a subconscious glance toward him, only to see Xie Jinghe lifting the book in his hand, the corners of his lips turning up slightly as he spoke: “Would you like me to read you a bedtime story?”

Shi Linchuan turned his face away in sheer exasperation. “Do you think I’m a child?”

First offering candies, now attempting to read bedtime stories. Shi Linchuan genuinely had zero desire to engage with him, but ever since hearing him utter the word “happy” earlier, Xie Jinghe had been behaving with an abnormal level of excitement. He acted exactly like a young boy single-mindedly pursuing a crush—far more clingy than usual, completely incapable of processing a rejection. Or rather, even if he understood it, it proved entirely useless.

Shi Linchuan lay completely flat on the bed, his eyes concealed beneath a black sleeping mask. Meanwhile, Xie Jinghe was occupied with something that produced a continuous series of rustling sounds, taking several minutes before finally climbing onto the mattress and leaning close to his ear to whisper, “Should I begin?”

Shi Linchuan pulled the blanket higher with immense impatience. “The mouth belongs to you. What does it have to do with me?”

In the next second, he heard Xie Jinghe let out two soft coughs, followed by the faint rustle of turning paper, and then the other man’s clear, melodious voice filled the space.

“Late one night, deep within a kingdom shrouded in thorns, a prince was born…”

The silk sleeping mask was exceptionally soft and smooth, lined with complete blackout material. Wearing it, Shi Linchuan felt entirely stripped of his sight, yet his remaining senses were drastically heightened. His hearing, in particular, became acutely sharp.

Xie Jinghe’s natural vocal timbre was exceptional. As an actor, he had spent his early years working extensively with a dialogue coach to refine his enunciation and cadence. When he recited a story, it drifted out in an elegant, captivating flow. Shi Linchuan used to occasionally help him run lines for scripts. Back then, Xie Jinghe always looked drastically different from his usual self.

“But he was not the king’s only child.”

At this exact moment, Xie Jinghe was leaning back against the headboard with his knees drawn up, propping the illustrated book flat across his thighs so it faced him directly. The illustrations within the pages were aligned perfectly with his line of sight.

Childlike storybook prose, accompanied by storybook illustrations. A tiny prince stood squarely in the center of the frame, surrounded by a dense crowd of his own brothers and sisters. Every single face was stretched into an intensely exaggerated, manic smile, yet their eyes were rendered a piercing, bloody crimson—staring down at the prince like a pack of rabid hounds, looking as though they wanted to pounce and tear him to pieces.

Smack!

Xie Jinghe abruptly slammed the book shut. “Linchuan, this looks like a dark cult classic or something creepy. Maybe we should just skip it and go straight to sleep?”

The words had barely cleared his lips before the man forcefully ripped off his sleeping mask, snapping his eyelids open to level a frigid, piercing glare right at him.