This was a truly unique experience.

Crude, violent, and filled with a dizzying, reality-inverting intoxication.

Xie Jinghe felt as though he had boarded a train bound for outer space; his vision was stripped away by the speed of light, and kaleidoscopic clouds of color exploded in his mind. Particles danced in the endless darkness, flickering up and down before his eyes, driving every one of his nerves to jump in unison.

A faint scent of gunpowder drifted from behind him—he didn’t know where the fire was.

The train jolted violently. Xie Jinghe bit his lower lip, barely managing to swallow the scream rising in his throat. His hands were tied with a “safety rope,” the other end held firmly by the man behind him.

He reached out his fingers with great effort, finally brushing against the man’s palm.

Then, he locked his fingers tight.

The man was wicked; he had greedily drained all the oxygen from the air, leaving Xie Jinghe in a vacuum. Once the oxygen in his lungs was exhausted, he could barely breathe. After enduring it for so long, his face turning bright red, he finally couldn’t help but plead in a low voice.

“Mm… slow down, a little slower…”

His volume was no louder than a mosquito.

Shi Linchuan heard him but acted as if he hadn’t, even maliciously grinding in a circle. Almost at that exact moment, he felt Xie Jinghe’s entire body shiver, his shoulder blades trembling, his fingernails nearly digging into the flesh of his palm.

Xie Jinghe’s nails were rounded, offering limited lethality.

Shi Linchuan felt a dull ache, but he exhaled a puff of gray mist, indifferent to the pain—beneath his impeccably dressed exterior, his soul was restless. He continued to do as he pleased, completely subverting his style from the past three years; he was as ruthless and wicked as he could be.

Xie Jinghe looks like he’s about to have a total breakdown.

He’s probably going to start screaming in the next second, Shi Linchuan thought.

Just then.

Someone knocked on the hotel room door.

Shi Linchuan paused, his scalp tingling slightly. He let out a soft hiss but firmly pushed forward another half-step, whispering coldly, “Gripping so hard—are you trying to make me snap it off?”

Xie Jinghe’s mind was likely blown; he let out a muffled groan with the movement, then tremblingly asked in a small voice: “Was I… was I too loud? Did other people hear?”

You fool. It was his own doing.

Shi Linchuan curled his lips, choosing to pour oil on the fire.

“Yeah. The whole building heard.”

Hearing this, Xie Jinghe grew even more tense.

But the next second, Shi Linchuan’s own breathing grew ragged. He tugged at his tie in annoyance, forcing Xie Jinghe to focus, his voice tightening.

“Don’t clench.”

The words had barely left his lips when another few knocks sounded at the door.

It took Shi Linchuan two or three minutes to get Xie Jinghe to the door.

Seeing that he couldn’t stand steadily, Shi Linchuan, while passing the counter, helpfully crushed his smoldering cigarette butt into the ashtray. He freed one arm and hooked it around Xie Jinghe’s waist like a safety rail to ensure he wouldn’t fall.

Even with support from both front and back, Xie Jinghe stumbled violently, whispering pleas over and over: “Don’t… I don’t want…”

Shi Linchuan turned a deaf ear.

The walk was barely ten meters, but for Xie Jinghe, it felt like trudging through a sea of knives and fire. He leaned his forehead weakly against the door panel, his breathing ragged, letting out soft, indiscernible whimpers.

He sounded deeply wronged.

Just then, Le Yan’s voice came from outside.

“Xie-ge, are you in there?”

This was the drawback of having no phone.

Le Yan couldn’t reach him, so he had come to find him personally.

Xie Jinghe was indeed in his room.

And he… was inside Xie Jinghe.

Shi Linchuan leaned forward, bringing his mouth to the other man’s ear, blowing a breath into his auricle before asking politely, “Your assistant is looking for you. Shall we open the door?”

His tone was brimming with righteous hypocrisy.

Xie Jinghe didn’t move; he just violently turned his head and shook it hard.

The answer was self-evident.

It seemed he couldn’t communicate with his assistant on his own right now.

Shi Linchuan stared at the sweaty, arched nape of his neck, thinking this, and kindly answered for him: “He’s here. Do you need something?”

The outside went silent for a moment.

Then, Le Yan replied: “Um, Shi-ge… Xie-ge asked me to buy some clothes earlier, your size. He said he was coming to see you, but he forgot to bring the clothes…”

Shi Linchuan answered crisply: “I’ll come by and pick them up later.”

After saying that, he added,

“Anything else?”

“…”

Le Yan seemed hesitant, but replied “No” and left.

Silence returned to the room for a few seconds.

Shi Linchuan accurately felt Xie Jinghe relax, even letting out a long sigh. He released the hand around his waist and brushed against him, feeling a bit surprised.

“So energetic? Do you like this?”

In their three years of marriage, they had had intense moments, but back then, Shi Linchuan never stinted on comfort and soothing; no matter how fierce the force, the undertone was always gentle and intimate.

Unlike now.

Fierce, overbearing, and wicked to the bone.

Yet, hearing the man’s question, Xie Jinghe couldn’t shake his head as decisively as before. He stammered, eventually breathing out,

“Go back… go back to the bed.”

Even though Le Yan had left, members of the production crew were still wandering around. The footsteps were muffled by the carpeted hallway, but fragments of conversation drifted in through the door gap.

They were standing by the door, and they could still hear some noise.

Xie Jinghe’s toes curled, his nerves stretched to the limit.

However, Shi Linchuan refused firmly.

“No.”

He wanted to be right here.

It was Xie Jinghe who said it—

Give me more.

Shi Linchuan was a man of his word.

He gave it as promised, giving even more—exceeding the other man’s capacity to the point that, in the end, Xie Jinghe lay in a hotel bathtub filled with hot water, looking utterly disheveled, gasping for air.

Not only was the tub full, but he was too.

The tub had a disposable liner; he tilted his head against the white porcelain wall, his cheeks still pink, a ring of marks around his neck, though no bruising. Compared to his neck, his wrists resting on his lower abdomen looked more terrifying—the red marks from the tie were deep.

But the tie was no longer there.

The dark red fabric was soaked through, the color deepening.

Xie Jinghe’s eyes were blindfolded with the tie, the excess fabric tied into a dead knot behind his head, proving the perpetrator’s determination to strip him of his sight.

Shi Linchuan had done it on purpose.

He was still dressed as a suave scoundrel in his suit, though the long trench coat had been an obstacle during their last clash; he had taken it off and tossed it onto the back of the sofa.

The man leaned against the edge of the vanity, a cigarette in his mouth. With a “click” of his lighter, the tip flared, and gray-white mist spilled from his slightly parted lips.

The smoke and the steam from the hot water mingled, inseparable.

Through the ethereal fog, Shi Linchuan withdrew his gaze from the man in the bathtub who hadn’t yet returned from outer space. He turned in silence, wiped the condensation off the mirror, and collided with a pair of long, narrow eyes.

He saw a coward.

The coward was hiding inside the mirror, afraid to let anyone but himself see his face. Even though the skin around his eyes had returned to normal and showed no signs of having cried, he still cursed silently with a cold face: “Bastard Xie Jinghe, idiot Xie Jinghe, the most hateful Xie Jinghe in the whole world!”

Really, I should have just found a knife and gouged Xie Jinghe’s eyes out, right?

Shi Linchuan thought, his expression dazed.

After the violent emotional outburst and physical interaction, he suddenly felt so calm—it seemed he had never been this calm before, to the point that…

He felt a bit sad.

A very strange emotion.

But it seemed it had always been there.

It was just that, at this moment, Shi Linchuan was finally willing to look at it directly.

Splash.

Suddenly, the person in the tub moved, creating ripples and breaking the stifling silence of the bathroom.

Xie Jinghe seemed to have caught his breath, but when he spoke, his voice carried the dazed confusion of someone who had lost track of time. “Linchuan, are you smoking again?”

The next second.

He added, “I really want to smoke, too.”

Having held back his screams for the entire evening, his voice wasn’t hoarse, but it was laden with exhaustion and weakness, as if he had just survived a life-or-death battle and had lost decisively, only saved by the other party’s mercy.

Shi “Hand of Mercy” Linchuan: “…”

Rare to face one’s heart for a second.

This idiot pulls me right back to reality with a single random sentence.

Forget it, forget it. He’s just Xie Jinghe.

What else can I expect?

Shi Linchuan turned back, refusing coldly: “You smoke my ass.”

Xie Jinghe: “You’re so annoying.”

Shi Linchuan sneered: “I should be the one saying that, shouldn’t I?”

After a few seconds.

The man with the blindfold seemed to think of something. He suddenly shrank down into the water, bit his lower lip for a while, and then asked quite embarrassedly: “Then, the things you said before about hating me… was it like how I am now? Actually, deep down, you…”

Shi Linchuan hurriedly cut him off. “I’ll let you have a drag.”

However, he still didn’t untie the tie. He couldn’t—it was a dead knot; he’d probably need scissors to remove it. Xie Jinghe didn’t ask for it to be removed either; he just pulled himself toward the edge of the tub, leaning over, his mouth opening instinctively.

Shi Linchuan crouched by the tub and threatened him.

“Forgotten your lesson already? Want to see if I feed you something else instead?”

He was referring to the bitter coffee he’d fed Xie Jinghe in the office last time, but this guy didn’t know where his mind had drifted. His expression blanked, then he exclaimed in shock: “Are you going to pee in my mouth?!”

Isn’t that a bit too much!

Shi Linchuan: “…”

What the hell? Disgusting.

He gritted his teeth and countered: “When did I ever say I was going to pee in your mouth?!”

Xie Jinghe whispered: “You said it just now.”

The man had been so overbearing and dominant, pinning him to the door and deliberately whispering outrageous, dirty nonsense in his ear, making him blush so hard he wanted to plug his own ears.

One of those things was, cough.

Fortunately, Shi Linchuan’s memory was also quite good. He immediately recalled it too, but remained exceptionally calm as he clarified: “I was talking about…”

“The other mouth.”

Just talking.

Xie Jinghe didn’t mind the filth, but he did.

He shoved the moist cigarette butt into Xie Jinghe’s mouth. Unexpectedly, the guy inhaled half of it in one go, then blew out a few small smoke rings. At the same time, his wet fingers hooked onto his cuff, and he said righteously: “My clothes were ripped by you, I can’t wear them anymore…”

Shi Linchuan: “So?”

“So, can I sleep with you tonight?”

Before Shi Linchuan could answer, he continued: “Didn’t you tell Le Yan earlier that you were going over to get the clothes yourself? While you’re at it, can you bring mine over too?”

“Oh, and my bag.”

“And my…”

Before he could finish, there was a splash.

Shi Linchuan scooped up a handful of water and splashed it onto Xie Jinghe’s face, thinking carelessly,

Why didn’t I just kill him off just now?

Shi Linchuan decided for today:

He would continue to hate Xie Jinghe.