Shi Linchuan considered himself a man who carried things through from start to finish. Once he initiated a task, he absolutely refused to allow it to fizzle out unproductively in his hands. A fickle, backtracking behavioral display like Xie Jinghe’s was, in his estimation, thoroughly obnoxious and entirely beneath contempt.

Granted.

This did not imply that he harbored any genuine craving for Xie Jinghe to recite a story to him.

After all, across the span of his thirty-odd years of existence, not a single soul had ever read him a bedtime story, yet had he not survived perfectly well up to the present moment? Shi Linchuan executed a highly rational analysis within his mind, smoothly filtering out the noisy, persistent grumblings of his internal system.

“Host! If it weren’t for my intervention, the grass on your grave marker would be three meters high by now!”

The system droned on like a resentful, neglected gossip, rehashing its ancient grievances over and over again.

“That is precisely why you shouldn’t constantly view me as some malicious entity harboring sinister, ulterior designs against your person. Cast aside your unnecessary vigilance and cold shoulder! I am fully prepared to swear upon the future destiny of the Space-Time Bookstore! This system is, without a single shred of doubt, a thoroughly benevolent entity!”

Shi Linchuan: “Heh.”

Over the course of these past few days, the pair had remained distanced from the urban sectors. The moment night descended, the entire world dissolved into a state of absolute, tranquil silence—there were no flickering city lights, nor was there the relentless roar of heavy traffic. Due to the extreme, biting chill of the climate, even the chirping of insects and the calls of birds were a rare luxury.

The interior of the room was more silent still.

Weathering the man’s razor-sharp, piercing gaze, and subsequently hearing his sudden, frigid sneer, Xie Jinghe originally assumed he would be overcome by an instinctual wave of profound trepidation—terrified that the other party might erupt into fury or subject him to a cold shoulder.

Yet, at this precise moment, he was experiencing a highly subtle surge of emotion.

This specific sentiment could not be simplistic categorized into a standard positive or negative matrix; it felt infinitely more intricate.

Xie Jinghe fell into a brief pocket of calculation before his mind successfully linked the sensation back to the flavor profile of the half-piece of lemon confection he had brutally hijacked from the man’s lips earlier—it was sweet, it was tart, and it was the profound realization that this sophisticated, thoroughly mature man actually possessed a volatile, hidden facet to his character, which he was only now being permitted to glimpse.

It was a profound sense of squandered time.

Shi Linchuan kept his hand clamped over the sleeping mask, suddenly registering that Xie Jinghe’s eyelashes were fluttering with extreme velocity before the youth lowered his head to look down at him. Those deep eyes harbored an absolute torrent of roiling waves, surging forward like a massive landslide or a deafening tsunami.

It looked poised to entirely submerge him.

“I haven’t even uttered a single syllable yet, so do your absolute best to avoid bursting into tears on the spot,” Shi Linchuan let out a soft click of his tongue, initiating a preemptive strike. “Lest the entire world assumes I have subjected you to some horrific mistreatment.”

Xie Jinghe lacked the vocabulary to clearly articulate the precise nature of his psychological state. Falling silent for a few seconds, he suddenly hoisted the thin storybook to entirely screen his face, lowering his voice to murmur an accusation: “Who told you to relentlessly refuse to kiss me prior to this?”

Shi Linchuan rolled his eyes with immense impatience.

“Are your thoughts still anchored to that?”

Xie Jinghe countered: “Am I forbidden from thinking about it?”

Shi Linchuan’s gaze swept across the incredibly thin volume masking the youth’s face, lingering for less than a fraction of a second. With an expression written with profound irritation, he violently yanked the black silk mask down to rest around his throat, immediately following up by hoisting the heavy blanket straight over his head. Utilizing his forearms as structural pillars, he instantaneously engineered a tiny, vaulted dome beneath the covers.

The makeshift enclosure possessed just enough clearance to accommodate exactly two heads.

The man was clad in a set of casual loungewear, the collar heavily skewed due to his flat posture to expose a distinct section of his stark, linear collarbones. The precise junction of his throat was securely bound by the black band of the sleeping mask, rendering his silhouette exceptionally sensual.

The winter blanket was incredibly thick and heavy, entirely sealing out the dim overhead illumination while simultaneously obstructing the line of sight of the production crew’s stationary cameras.

Shi Linchuan lay dead-center beneath the blanket, leveling a frosty glare right at him.

Even though he hadn’t uttered a single word, Xie Jinghe’s toes instinctively curled beneath the sheets, rubbing lightly against the bed linen twice before he decisively rammed the storybook beneath his pillow, shifting his entire frame beneath the covers to press flush against the man’s body.

Both individuals were turned on their sides, crowding onto the exact same pillow.

Shi Linchuan and Xie Jinghe lay face-to-face, their nasal ridges practically resting against one another. The man executed a minor structural adjustment to slightly offset their profiles, simultaneously closing the residual distance between them.

The heat exhaled from their lungs remained entirely imprisoned beneath the heavy blanket, turning the pocket of air intensely sultry and suffocating.

Shi Linchuan spat out two frigid words.

“Open up.”

Hearing those two intimately familiar words, Xie Jinghe’s consciousness experienced a brief, volatile dislocation, his mind instantaneously flashing back to the events that had transpired within the man’s corporate office a month prior. Yet, before the agonizing heartache could fully constrict his chest, the thoroughly impatient man raised his hand to pinch his nostrils shut, forcing him to part his lips to draw oxygen.

A rogue tongue breached his defenses, driving straight in.

Every pocket of residual oxygen was instantly vacuumed away by its presence; every ounce of available space was entirely monopolized by its path.

Xie Jinghe felt as though his frame were floating away into the stratosphere, yet simultaneously plunging down into the absolute depths of a dark ocean—hovering on the precise threshold of asphyxiation, his entire existence and survival suspended entirely upon the man’s whim.

And yet…

It feels unbelievably exquisite.

This proved to be an incredibly protracted, exhaustive kiss.

Just as Xie Jinghe’s complexion began to flush a deep crimson due to the severe lack of oxygen, his fingers instinctively reaching up to violently clutch at his own collar, Shi Linchuan finally retracted his domineering, unrestrained tongue. Yet, his hand offered no release; instead, he smoothly, deliberately breathed a fresh pocket of air directly into the youth’s mouth.

Perceiving the crushing restriction around his collar loosen by a fraction, Xie Jinghe reciprocated the gesture by relaxing his grip, simultaneously backing away by a few centimeters to quietly observe the absolute state of Xie Jinghe’s expression—the corners of his eyes were mapped with a faint crimson flush, his eyelids half-closed over pupils completely devoid of focus, his respiration drawn out into slow, dragging intervals.

Shi Linchuan pivoted to clamp a hand over his jaw, his thumb locking firmly into the bone structure as his palm pressed flush against the rapidly heating skin, his remaining four fingers execution a light, rhythmic tapping against the side of Xie Jinghe’s face.

“Wake up. Did you lock up your brain entirely?”

Approximately two minutes passed.

The youth’s erratic respiration finally smoothed out into a stable rhythm, his gaze slowly re-anchoring its focus.

Shi Linchuan abruptly discovered that Xie Jinghe was once again gazing up at him with that exact brand of absolute, unadulterated infatuation that had characterized their past history—except the intensity this time was magnified tenfold. The youth even tilted his face slightly, delivering a succession of soft, lingering pecks right against the man’s fingers, his countenance radiating a profound, intoxicating rapture that was entirely impossible to ignore.

After a protracted silence.

He leaned in to deliver a bare murmur against his ear: “Linchuan… I feel as though I am suffering from oxygen toxicity.”

The moment the words cleared his lips, he eagerly tacked on an extra line:

“It feels so wonderful.”

Shi Linchuan collapsed into silence for two solid seconds, the expression written across his features becoming quite complicated. The ear that was pressed deep into the pillow felt intensely hot and flushed. He attempted to suppress the irritation, but found it entirely impossible to stomach, offering a critique laced with an incredibly intricate emotional weight:

“Xie Jinghe, I am starting to realize that you are, to some degree, a complete degenerate.”

Receiving such a blunt label from the man didn’t elicit a single shred of humiliation or degradation within Xie Jinghe. Instead, the heat radiating from his cheeks spiked dramatically, his lips compressing instinctively as he lowered his volume to mumble indistinctly:

“You are entirely the one who corrupted me into this state.”

“Stop slandering me.”

After exchanging a few more sharp retorts, Shi Linchuan simply maintained his grip on Xie Jinghe’s jaw to forcefully project him right out from beneath the blanket, allowing the crisp, frigid air of the room to assist in cooling his temperature. He then returned to a flat, supine posture, smoothly readjusting the black silk mask back over his eyes.

Finally, the man executed a sharp tug to adjust his blanket, making his absolute desire to sleep entirely apparent.

Xie Jinghe sat up with immense reluctance, falling into a prolonged daze as the residual heat coursing through his veins refused to dissipate. Right at that moment, his memory suddenly registered the illustrated book tucked beneath the pillow. Reaching down to extract the volume once more, he flipped back to the precise page they had abandoned, continuing his soft recitation—

Within the illustration:

The King was clad in magnificent, opulent vestments, a heavy scepter gripped firmly in his palm as he sat enthroned upon a brilliant, shimmering golden dais. He extended both arms outward, delivering a grand proclamation to the assembly gathered below:

“Only the most exceptional child shall inherit my infinite wealth and absolute authority. The failures shall be brutally cast out from my sight.”

The surrounding crowd dissolved into a chorus of frantic whispers, their eyes burning with raw avarice.

With a single glance, Xie Jinghe noted that the prince—who had been depicted as a mere infant on the preceding page—had already aged by several years.

He was arrayed entirely in pristine white garments, featuring pitch-black hair and matching black eyes that mirrored a pair of round, glossy grapes. He looked profoundly alienated from the rest of the assembly, presently occupied with utilizing scraps of food to tease a small dog resting beneath the banquet table.

Amidst the shadowy, dark corruption of the palace interior, his silhouette manifested as a beacon of pure, unadulterated white.

Xie Jinghe had reviewed an immense ledger of dramatic scripts throughout his career. An actor’s honed intuition left him subconsciously breaking into a cold sweat regarding the future trajectory of the young prince’s destiny.

Xie Jinghe turned the page, discovering that the visual perspective had abruptly transitioned into a distorted, fish-eye low-angle shot. The prince’s head merely occupied a tiny fraction of the corner frame; it appeared to operate from his direct first-person point of view, outlining the silhouette of a woman clad in a scarlet gown whose facial features remained entirely obscured.

The woman was bent deeply at the waist, her shadow completely enveloping the prince’s tiny frame, her elongated, skeletal fingers projecting an intensely horrific, sinister aesthetic.

The sense of raw oppression was absolute.

He lowered his voice to articulate the text mapping the page, imbuing his cadence with a vivid, theatrical resonance.

“The Witch reigned as the King’s third sovereign wife. She harbored an insatiable craving for infinite wealth, dreaming of the absolute pinnacle of supreme authority.”

“Consequently, she addressed the young prince, saying: ‘My child, go forth and harvest a golden apple from the highest crest of the world tree for me, shear a pristine fleece from the sheep roaming the great plains, and sever the head of a legendary champion. Your father shall be immensely pleased with your actions.'”

“Yet, the prince merely shook his head in quiet defiance.”

“He spoke,”

“‘I apologize, but my only desire is to perch upon the branches of the world tree to catch the sweet fragrance of the apple blossoms, to run aimlessly across the vast expanses of the open plains, and to listen to the passing champions recount their legendary chronicles…'”

“‘Furthermore, I have my little puppy companion. He requires my constant presence.'”

As Xie Jinghe continued to read down the line, he began to feel that the narrative carried a remarkably healing, innocent undertone. At the very least, the young prince was depicted as an incredibly endearing, sweet soul.

Concluding the prince’s lines, he flipped the page without a single shred of defensive suspicion.

In the very next heartbeat.

A thoroughly malicious, venomous illustration detonated right within his line of sight.

Xie Jinghe witnessed the prince’s little puppy companion—

Resting directly inside a boiling, bubbling cauldron that was actively spitting out thick, dark froth.

Meanwhile, the witch clad in the scarlet gown stood off to the side with her hands resting confidently against her hips, looking down at the weeping, devastated prince as she offered a highly tender, gentle consolation:

“Oh, my darling, let me instruct you in a highly potent, magical incantation. Once you master it, you shall never again suffer a single drop of sorrow from losing the things you love.”

Xie Jinghe: “…”