TAMW CH24

Yuqing’s body had been steeped in jasmine incense for years, exuding a fragrance that seemed to penetrate to his very bones; even though his neck was slick with sweat, he remained incredibly fragrant.

His almost instinctive reaction was to push the man away, but his body lacked the strength. Besides…

He hadn’t been touched by anyone for five months.

He was used to living alone. After his adoptive father died, he remained in this house.

Guarding this empty Zhou family estate.

He had always thought of himself as a man of cold emotions and scarce desires. Yet, after becoming pregnant, aside from the discomforting symptoms of the pregnancy, in the dead of night, his body would quietly awaken with yearnings he had never experienced before.

He had even dreamed a few times of Zhou Xiao doing exactly what he was doing right now—pecking and biting at his jawline, a sensation somewhere between grinding and nibbling.

Kissing him until his whole body trembled…

A tingling, numbing sensation spread from his toes all the way up to the back of his neck, an itch that made him want to whimper, as if he were being licked by a pitiful little puppy.

This little puppy whimpered discontentedly in his arms, wagging its tail and begging for affection despite its reluctance, making Yuqing’s heart instinctively want to soothe him.

As a man, he had to bear a child.

After his adoptive father died, the entire Zhou family estate was left to him, someone with a different surname.

And Zhou Xiao could also be considered a part of the inheritance his adoptive father had left him.

Therefore, Zhou Xiao had been his possession for a very long time.

His arms trembled slightly as he stroked the hair on Zhou Xiao’s head, tilting his head back as his neck was bitten.

Yuqing was very slender, which made his Adam’s apple stand out sharply. Zhou Xiao seemed unable to resist any protrusions on his body, opening his mouth to bite at the Adam’s apple. The tip of his tongue pressed tightly against it, and with a forceful suck, Yuqing almost couldn’t swallow, letting out a stifled, hoarse groan of resistance.

“Zhou Xiao…”

Are you a dog? Even a dog doesn’t bite like this.

“Hmm?” Zhou Xiao’s other hand slipped behind Yuqing to support his slightly arched lower back. “I’m here…”

Because he answered so obediently, Yuqing actually found him somewhat endearing.

Looking down, he met Zhou Xiao’s glistening eyes. He had no idea where all his grievances came from. They were bright, clear eyes, yet they held an expression that made one want to coddle him.

It looked as though if Yuqing were to refuse, Zhou Xiao would burst into tears.

Where did he get all these grievances from…

Zhou Xiao’s ears flushed red. “The doctor said you were in pain. You won’t even let me help?”

Yuqing’s neck near his Adam’s apple was inexplicably sucked on again, producing a wet pop sound. He was clearly doing it on purpose.

“You won’t let me…” Zhou Xiao reached inside his long gown. Even through a layer of undergarments, Yuqing could still feel the thin layer of calluses on his rough palm. He gave a squeeze. “I heard that pregnant people have strong cravings… If you don’t want it, does that mean you’re sick here?”

He asked, pressing close to Yuqing’s ear, “Or do you prefer to do it yourself?”

“You could before, but now that your belly is big, I’m afraid that won’t work.”

“Zhou Xiao!” Yuqing raised his knee, almost hitting him. Zhou Xiao cried out in pain, and afraid of pressing on Yuqing’s stomach, he propped himself up on his arms and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Anxious?” Zhou Xiao acted like a child deliberately causing trouble just to get a parent’s attention, enjoying misbehaving.

“What am I anxious about?” Yuqing saw through his provocation and let out a muffled laugh. “Is it that you want to eat and are trying to force me to be anxious, or is there something else you want?”

“It does hurt, but I’ve lived through the five months the Young Master hasn’t been back just fine. Even if my body is uncomfortable and I have to relieve it myself, the Young Master’s body is precious. How could I trouble you to do it for me?”

Yuqing patted his head. “It’ll be very hard work. I’m not easy to serve.”

Zhou Xiao forcefully supported his waist, bringing Yuqing’s upper body and his own chin even closer.

He merely wanted Yuqing to admit it.

To make Ruan Yuqing admit that he needed him.

Not for him to say he wasn’t easy to serve, trying to push him away.

In his dreams…

If he didn’t serve him, was he going to let that lowly servant Zhao Fu do it? How could a dog servant born into the household have the right to touch Ruan Yuqing?

“Then who serves you well?” he asked, glaring with a hint of anger.

Seeing that he really wasn’t easy to tease, Yuqing pretended to think. “Let me think…”

“Don’t you dare!” Zhou Xiao nudged open the collar button he had unfastened with his tongue using the tip of his nose, impatient to burrow into his embrace.

Yuqing giggled. “So, Young Master, who is the anxious one?”

He seemed to have figured out Zhou Xiao’s habit, and instead of holding him tightly, he let go of the arms wrapped securely around his head, looking as if he didn’t care what he did.

Losing the enveloping sensation of Yuqing’s embrace, Zhou Xiao felt as if a large chunk was missing from his heart. His eyes grew unfocused. “What are you doing…”

“If the Young Master truly wants to, as your wife, Yuqing naturally cannot refuse. You said I was anxious, so I had to let go to show I’m not. Otherwise, wouldn’t you be unwilling?”

Zhou Xiao froze.

It was true. He had clearly been provoking him on purpose. Yet now, when Yuqing was actually letting him eat and simply wasn’t holding his head anymore, why did his heart feel so empty?

Without that enveloping sensation, Yuqing didn’t seem to be enjoying it either. Even if Zhou Xiao was parched with thirst, he found it hard to proceed, feeling unsettled.

Zhou Xiao lowered his head awkwardly.

Beneath him was Yuqing’s already exposed chest. The clothes worn during pregnancy were hard to put on, so he had discarded the inner garments. Opening the long gown revealed his bare skin.

With his robe half-undone and his long black hair disheveled, his half-closed eyes looked sickly. His fox-like eyes shimmered with a watery glint, and because of a light sweat, the skin from his neck to his collarbone gleamed under the candlelight.

Reaching out, Zhou Xiao met his slightly swollen pregnant belly.

A slight bulge at his lower abdomen, and as for his chest…

His skin was snow-white—a sickly pallor born from growing up in the dark, gloomy depths of a grand mansion with little sunlight, making the pale blue veins starkly visible.

This area looked no different than usual. How much could a man’s chest really swell? He wasn’t a woman. Even if it was filled with food, the skin could only stretch so far.

Just a thin layer of softness.

It looked… pink.

The flickering flame of the white candle gave the illusion that it was very small and very hot.

Zhou Xiao felt like a moth in that moment.

Driven by instinct, wanting to dive into the fire without a care for his life.

The smoke from that burning fire was all his jasmine scent.

Zhou Xiao’s chest heaved violently. The corners of his mouth turned down slightly, making him look even more aggrieved.

Without Yuqing holding his head, a vacuum formed in his heart, leaving a gaping hole.

So when Yuqing gently asked him, “Yuqing is very hard to serve.”

“So, does the Young Master want to serve me?” He softly rubbed Zhou Xiao’s earlobe, his fingertips seemingly kissing him. “Do you want to fulfill your duties as a husband? Hmm?”

All the tenderness Zhou Xiao had never experienced growing up seemed to have been found in Yuqing.

He remained silent, simply burying his cheek deeper into the robes.

Impatient to touch his skin with his teeth, yet afraid of hurting him. “Just helping you out…”

His voice was so light, so soft, it was quieter than the wet tsk tsk sounds coming from his mouth.

After all, half of this child belonged to him too.

He had to contribute somehow.

The old-fashioned notion was to abandon the wife once she got pregnant, but that wasn’t being a man. A husband who didn’t take responsibility or provide guidance was practically no different from being dead.

A true man had to be responsible and contribute to his family.

Even if it was a forced marriage…

Heavens, a thought of self-denial flashed across Zhou Xiao’s heart. To hell with duty—he wished he could hold Yuqing in his mouth for the rest of his life. This gentle Yuqing was born to embrace his wife, to share his burdens. It was both a duty and an instinct.

In the early days of the Republic of China, there were many poor, homeless children on the streets.

Why was it Yuqing that the Old Master brought back?

Why was it Yuqing who happened to spot that inconspicuous Three Character Classic in the study?

Why was he so ambitious? So resolute that he could manage the Zhou family? So clever to use his pregnancy to rightfully become a member of the Zhou family?

They shared a father—a father Zhou Xiao didn’t want, but whom Yuqing treated as a treasure.

Everything about the Zhou family made him want to escape. But now, things remained the same while people had changed. The new replaced the old.

The Young Madam of the Zhou family became the First Madam of the Zhou family.

The First Madam he once hated the most had been replaced and became his own wife.

This was what you called a twist of fate, a match made in heaven.

What was wrong with him eating from Yuqing’s breast?

There was nothing wrong with it. It was perfectly justified.

The child was tormenting Yuqing, and as the father, he had to repay that debt.

A father always had to give something to his son—perhaps paving the way for him, perhaps currying favor with certain people for his sake, or perhaps cultivating Yuqing into a good wife, a good… mother?

Zhou Xiao’s nose gently nudged against Yuqing’s chest.

Yuqing exhaled softly. He was supposedly able to endure pain, and feeling unwell wasn’t just a recent occurrence.

When discomfort arose there, even if his lower abdomen felt heavy sometimes, he tried his best to lie flat, as lying on his side pressed against it and caused pain.

Sometimes he even had to quietly pad two pieces of cloth inside his clothes, which was completely undetectable under his large cloak.

He wasn’t that far along, and he usually wore incense, which masked the scent very well.

Even Yuqing himself hadn’t really smelled it.

To be honest, Yuqing also felt a bit embarrassed.

He touched Zhou Xiao’s earlobe, gently turning his cheek away, refusing to watch what Zhou Xiao was doing, only allowing himself to feel it.

The tightness in his chest these past few days felt like a heavy boulder pressing down, making it hard to breathe.

He was terrified Zhou Xiao would move recklessly and hurt him, but he indulged him and let him be.

However, the anticipated pain didn’t arrive; instead, there was a warm, wet sensation.

The doctor had only said that for the child’s development, he needed to consume more medicinal diets.

But eating too much made his chest uncomfortably tight. Lately, he had been very careful with his meals, even trying to eat as little as possible.

Yet at that moment, a sudden, sharp pain flared up—a sensation like a needle prick.

It lasted only a second, but Yuqing trembled in pain. Before he could cry out, Zhou Xiao let out a muffled “Mmph.”

He looked up, a mix of confusion and pleasant surprise on his face. On his eyelashes hung a droplet of incredibly pale liquid.

Zhou Xiao wiped it off with his fingertip and then tasted it.

Yuqing’s face flushed even redder than his body, a layer of pallor spreading over his neck, looking quite embarrassed…

“It really isn’t easy being a mother,” Zhou Xiao said righteously, his words unforgiving. As if afraid it would run out too quickly, he applied less pressure, moving very, very slowly…

So slowly it made Yuqing’s scalp tingle.

Zhou Xiao, having tasted the marrow, buried himself deep again, finally discovering a fragrance in Yuqing’s embrace that wasn’t jasmine.

He grew up eating rice paste.

When he was young, the old nanny who raised and cared for him would occasionally talk about his birth.

Old Master Zhou loved his mistress so much he was almost willing to give up the family business, until the Old Madam coughed up blood from anger. Only then, with no other choice, did he bring his lover home.

Zhou Xiao’s mother died in childbirth. Her dying wish was for the Old Master to protect the child and let him grow up.

Fearing Master Zhou would leave again, the First Madam adopted him and kept him by her side.

She loathed him but had no choice but to raise him. She didn’t even hire a wet nurse for him; only when he was on the brink of death would she settle for feeding him goat’s milk or rice paste.

When the Master came to visit and was in high spirits, she would personally feed him goat’s milk, playing the part of a loving mother.

Zhou Xiao didn’t understand, so he threw up the milk. The more he threw up, the more furiously the Madam fed him.

Even when he was three, the Madam would still hold a bowl of milk and force him to drink it whenever the Master came to see him. Zhou Xiao would whisper, ‘Mother, I don’t like drinking this.’

The Old Master would frown beside her and ask, ‘If he doesn’t want to drink it, don’t you have a cook in your courtyard to make something he likes?’

The First Madam lived like a mannequin. She didn’t hate her husband; she only hated that Zhou Xiao had learned to talk.

How did he grow up?

That day, Zhou Xiao was force-fed milk until he vomited. From then on, he never touched anything with a gamey or milky smell again. He even hated those milky-white things, finding them purely disgusting.

He had never tasted anyone’s breast milk, never had a real mother, and no one had ever truly embraced him when he was young. Later, when he grew up and lived abroad, no one thought his tall, sturdy frame needed an embrace.

Yuqing seemed to be nursing the young Zhou Xiao.

He buried himself deeply in Yuqing’s embrace, loving the feeling of being held so tightly.

This yearning, buried at the bottom of his heart for countless years, seemed to have met Yuqing, like a dead tree greeting spring, its branches and buds climbing wildly.

He had never seen his biological mother, and having been raised by others, he didn’t know what a mother was supposed to be like.

Was she gentle as water, or smart and clever?

He didn’t know.

Zhou Xiao originally thought he would be lonely for the rest of his life.

He never believed that someone in this world would be inexplicably tied to another person.

Yet, the red thread of fate quietly bound him and Yuqing together.

Starting from the day Yuqing stepped into the Zhou residence, the day he wanted to replace him as the young master of the Zhou family.

Eight years ago, two strangers who had never met planted the roots of a lifelong entanglement.

Yuqing’s child flowed with his blood, and the child also flowed with its own blood.

So, his flesh and blood were growing inside Yuqing’s body.

His heart pounded; when this thought formed in his mind, he actually felt a secret joy.

His flesh and blood would be raised by Yuqing, right in his warm and soft embrace…

“Can you help me put my clothes on?” Yuqing said in a low voice.

Zhou Xiao’s face turned from red to a pale green. He sat up straight awkwardly, his lips still glistening. Yuqing stepped on his thigh, “I said, dress me.”

“Oh… oh.” Zhou Xiao cleared his throat and asked hypocritically, “Are you feeling better?”

He reached out to button Yuqing up, then reluctantly said, “You’ve sweated; you should change.”

Yuqing didn’t like feeling sticky either. Standing at the port for so long had indeed made him somewhat uncomfortable.

He called someone to prepare water and set up a mother-of-pearl folding screen.

The sound of water trickled, and Yuqing’s discarded clothes hung over the screen.

Zhao Fu hadn’t returned, and normally, he was the one who managed these clothes.

Since becoming pregnant, Yuqing couldn’t wear tight undergarments. Occasionally, when meeting with various bosses, he would simply wrap himself with a sash. These were folded and kept in the wardrobe.

Zhou Xiao sat in the outer hall examining his suit. Sure enough, it was a bit wrinkled, and the shadow in a certain area still hadn’t subsided.

The lingering taste in his mouth was not quite what he had expected.

The taste was too faint, slightly sweet, without the scent of jasmine from Yuqing’s body. It was just a pure fragrance, and the sweetness of the aftertaste was truly lingering.

“Does the Young Master still need the silver dollars?” Yuqing asked softly, leaning back in the steam.

“Yes, but I’ll figure out a way.” Zhou Xiao was rejecting his demand for a sixty percent cut.

Yuqing said, “What a heartless husband. You run wild at home, but the moment you get out of bed, you wipe your face and refuse to acknowledge me.”

“What nonsense are you talking about…” Zhou Xiao lowered his head, his face flushing red. “That was helping you out. After all, you’re pregnant because of me.”

“Could you fetch me a change of clothes?” Yuqing sighed, “If you would be so kind.”

“Alright.” Zhou Xiao stood up and went to the wardrobe.

The room was large, split into left and right wings from the entrance, with the outer hall in the middle. While Yuqing bathed on the left, the folding screen blocked everything; nothing could be seen except the rising steam.

On the right was the wardrobe and a small heated brick bed, all relics of the old era. It was vastly different from the Western-style mansions outside. Entering this room felt like stepping back into the previous dynasty; the smell of age hit you right in the face.

The wardrobe stood next to the small brick bed. Opening it revealed layer upon layer of Yuqing’s long gowns, neatly stacked.

“Why do you scent them with jasmine?” Zhou Xiao reached out and cautiously stroked the topmost garment, afraid the calluses on his palm would snag the silk gown.

Yuqing replied, “The first living thing my father gave me was a jasmine plant. When it bloomed, my father and I admired it together.”

“He said that when I was born, the jasmine was in bloom, and my mother loved jasmine when she was alive.”

Zhou Xiao let out a cold laugh, glanced back at the steam continuously rising from behind the folding screen, and confidently buried his face into a hanging long gown inside the wardrobe. “So you don’t actually like jasmine.”

Yuqing: “It smells very nice.”

Zhou Xiao: “But you don’t like it.”

Yuqing tilted his head, his slender fingertips flicking the surface of the water. “What should I say to make the Young Master happy?”

He thought to himself, the Young Master was probably going to say something about considering his own feelings again.

Yuqing had truly been moved by those words before. Living this long, confined within the deep courtyard walls, watching his mother wither away, his origins pitiful, he had never lived according to his own wishes just to survive.

Years had passed, and he had long lost his guiding light in life. Even if given freedom, he would choose to live out his days in the mansion—stable, without a single ripple.

“I just like stability.”

“Stability?” Zhou Xiao unfastened his trousers and thrust his hand into the layers of folded clothes. Smelling the long gown, he said, “Do you know that stability and being dead inside are two different things?”

Yuqing remained silent. He thought to himself that he was very old-fashioned, and often couldn’t provide answers to the progressive words the Young Master spoke.

“You work very hard.” Zhou Xiao slowly pushed open the clothes.

The texture was satin, with cotton and linen fabrics folded on top. The satin underneath was cooler, contrasting with his own heat.

This sensation made him want to let out a deep breath; it was simply too comfortable.

“Do I?” Yuqing’s hands were still drawing circles in the water. Soaking and sweating out a fever made for a faster recovery.

“You shouldn’t teach the child to be like this,” Zhou Xiao said.

Yuqing gave an “Mhm,” “Alright.”

After a while, he heard rustling sounds near the wardrobe, as if Zhou Xiao was still rummaging through it. “Young Master? Did you find it?”

“Any piece will do.”

“I know…” Zhou Xiao’s voice sounded somewhat strained, and the sound of fabric rubbing together became clearer.

Yuqing naturally couldn’t guess what he was doing and wanted to get up, but sitting in the water with his inconvenient body, he was afraid of slipping.

“You know what my courtesy name is.” Hearing the sound of him trying to get up, Zhou Xiao’s Adam’s apple suddenly bobbed.

He looked down, lifted the layers of long gowns that had been somewhat messed up, and leisurely adjusted his own clothing.

Yuqing was stunned: “You have a courtesy name? I never heard Father mention it.”

By the time he was named, it was already the Republic of China. His father gave him his given name, but courtesy names were always given by the mother, traditionally embodying a mother’s expectations for her child.

But as it happened, he didn’t have one.

Zhou Xiao used a long gown to cover the clothes he had gotten wet, selected a light cyan one, and brought it over.

When Yuqing reached out for him to support him, he hypocritically turned his back, not wanting to see the messy bite marks around the man’s collarbone. He couldn’t remember how much force he had used…

His skin was so pale, it made them look that obvious.

Yuqing saw his ears turning red again and the awkward way he turned away. Wrapped in a towel, his long wet hair cascaded down his back.

His soft lips parted to ask, “So, what is it?”

Zhou Xiao looked a bit like a child eager to share his secrets with someone he liked, wanting him to know everything about him, his eyes darting away. “Zezhi.”

“Zhou Zezhi.” His name was caught in Yuqing’s mouth, as if pulling out his very soul. “A good name.”

Zezhi, the ze from “a bird choosing a good tree to roost in.”

Zhou Xiao hadn’t had a choice since birth, so he desired freedom.

After hesitating for a moment, he added, “I chose it myself. That dead old man doesn’t even know.”

Yuqing nodded. “Oh… that’s quite nice.”

Zhou Xiao frowned and turned back to look at him: “That’s it?”

Yuqing had already put on the long gown. Supporting his lower back, he slowly dried his hair. “Is there any other meaning?”

Zhou Xiao ground his back teeth: “Why don’t you talk about yours?”

He was indignant that his opening up had yielded nothing in return. Out of frustration, he snatched the towel and began drying Yuqing’s hair himself, lest he get too tired and his fever worsen.

Yuqing paused, tilting his head like a kitten. “I don’t have a courtesy name.”

“You don’t?”

“Mhm.”

After the fall of the previous dynasty, these traditions weren’t popular in the Republic of China. The era they were born into fell right during the transition between the two periods; some people had them, some didn’t.

The Ruan family had too many children, and Yuqing was the most inconspicuous one.

His mother, Liu Xiang, was illiterate. Liu Xiang was just the name given to her by the madam in the red-light district.

“In the Ruan family, even if courtesy names were given, it wouldn’t be my turn. Boss Ruan was very busy, busy everywhere looking for concubines to have children. By the time he came to the Zhou family, it was too late; it was already the Republic of China.”

Zhou Xiao frowned, his hands softening. “How could the old man not know to give you one? He didn’t treat you very well either.”

Yuqing let out a chuckle, not resisting him. “Alright then.”

The young master, whose heart yearned to fly outside, had given him a courtesy name.

Yuqing, who grew up and lived in the grand mansion, never cared about such things.

“How come you never wrote about having a courtesy name in your notebook?” Yuqing asked.

“When I thought of it myself, I didn’t know how to write the character ze. By the time I chose it, I had long stopped needing to write it down.”

An image suddenly popped into Yuqing’s mind: a small child, his hand barely large enough to hold a calligraphy brush, secretly giving himself a courtesy name in his heart because everyone else in school had one, but he didn’t.

He went home wanting to secretly write his name, but didn’t know how to write the character ze.

Thinking of that child’s appearance, his heart actually softened; it was incredibly endearing.

Yet Yuqing looked at the man in front of him with some confusion—tall, with a rugged face, not a hint of endearment left.

He couldn’t resist reaching out and pinching Zhou Xiao’s cheek.

Zhou Xiao paused in drying his hair, rolled his eyes helplessly, and bent down slightly to let him pinch, saving him the effort of raising his arm.

Yuqing couldn’t help but smile: “Zhou Zezhi… a good name.”

“You don’t say…” Being praised, the corners of Zhou Xiao’s mouth curved up slightly, then quickly flattened again.

“Sixty percent of the profit. If the Young Master is unwilling, perhaps…”

He needed to be involved in the business of transporting coal from the north to the south. A railway could transport too many things; the profit margin was enormous.

Moreover, the initial agreement with General Jiang was also for a railway. Even though the man’s current whereabouts and fate were unknown, one still had to maintain their credibility.

Zhou Xiao curled his lip, thinking to himself that he knew Yuqing had ulterior motives.

Working so hard to make money, wasn’t it all for the Zhou family?

Who else was left in the Zhou family besides him? It was all going into their own pockets anyway.

He should just give him all the money, let him lower his guard, and take back the Zhou family in the future. By then, Ruan Yuqing would have to beg him.

“I’ll give you seventy percent,” Zhou Xiao said. “On one condition.”

Yuqing was stunned. “Go on.”

“I don’t want to see you playing with guns at the port anymore. You clearly don’t know how,” Zhou Xiao said. “And you’re not good at it either. You’re terribly skinny; who could you possibly intimidate? Except for making yourself sick…”

Yuqing slowly cupped his face, smiling in praise, “Thank you, Zezhi.”

Zhou Xiao looked down, catching a glimpse of the slender, snow-white wrists cupping his face—soft hands, still carrying the heat from the bathtub.

He lowered his head and pressed his forehead against Yuqing’s. “You’re not as hot anymore.”

“Mhm…” Yuqing’s blurry voice sounded even more enticing. “You sucked all the pain away.”

Zhou Xiao knitted his brows, asking somewhat seriously, “Does that count as helping?”

Yuqing wondered what he was unhappy about now. Why did his expression change so quickly?

“It counts?”

“Shouldn’t you give me something in return, or say something nice…”

If he had been useful, why shouldn’t Yuqing give him some sort of reward?

He believed Yuqing wasn’t that heartless, so he slightly turned his head, waiting to hear Yuqing call him by his courtesy name one more time.

Yuqing hesitated for a moment, but still leaned in and kissed his tilted cheek. “Thank you?”

“You…”

Zhou Xiao suddenly flared up again.

He told him to kiss him, so why wasn’t it on the lips? Who kisses on the cheek? Everyone in France kisses on the cheek!

Did he need a kiss on the cheek?!

Zhou Xiao’s ears turned bright red. He took a few steps back, his mind in a daze as if he’d been hexed, then turned back to continue drying his hair. “Forget it, you haven’t had it easy either.”

“You’re welcome.”

Yuqing: “…”

Sometimes Yuqing really didn’t understand what was wrong with the Young Master.

He rested his hands on Zhou Xiao’s neck and shoulders, gently resting his head against his chest. “Is Zezhi unhappy again today?”

“Nonsense…”

He wasn’t.

He was just a little hungry. The appetizer was too good, which meant whatever he ate next would lack flavor.

Thank goodness he didn’t throw that damn doctor into the well to drown. He needed to catch him again and question him thoroughly.

__

Author’s Note:

Yuqing: (Just standing there)

Date Pit Bro: I knew it. If he didn’t love me, how could he be standing on the same earth as me? There are no such coincidences in the world.

Yuqing: ?

A puppy asking for pets is exactly like this.

Date Pit Bro: I need to ask that black-hearted doctor carefully [Milk Tea] if there are any more good things like this.

Doctor Liu: I’m begging you, bro (hands folded in prayer) [Please]