The next morning.

When Lin Zhu got up and washed up, he still felt a bit unaccustomed, but it was undeniable that—it really looked much cleaner and more pleasing to the eye.

It might be because the impression Yan Ruoyun left on him was too profound, leading to his exceptionally good level of acceptance.

Anyway, he didn’t dislike it.

Today was a school day.

Lin Zhu tiptoed out of the bathroom, took off his pajamas and hung them on the wooden coat rack, then took his school uniform out of the wardrobe and changed into it. Finally, he turned back to glance behind him.

The curtains in the room were tightly closed, leaving it dim and lightless.

The man was sleeping extremely soundly. His silk pajamas were slightly open, the blanket only covering the area of his stomach, with his long arms and long legs all kicked outside.

Lin Zhu let out a silent sigh.

The weather had been getting cold very quickly lately. He quietly stepped forward, smoothed out the blanket, and wrapped the man up.

After moving in with Yan Ruoyun, Lin Zhu realized that in daily life, the other party was the complete opposite of him. He was highly suspected of being someone who had a hard time getting out of bed, which shattered the domineering CEO filter in his impression.

But it also added a bit of realistic flavor.

Lin Zhu carried his school uniform jacket and walked out of the bedroom, gently closing the door, careful not to make any noise.

The originally clean and tidy living room had changed a lot, with many more miscellaneous small items scattered around. He put on his jacket while grabbing his backpack left on the sofa last night. Before going out, he conveniently took a bottle of pure milk and a pineapple bun from the living room cabinet.

Bought for him by Yan Ruoyun.

Arriving at school.

Lin Zhu didn’t walk towards the study abroad preparatory class, but instead turned into another classroom that accommodated nearly forty people.

The mid-term exam scores and rankings had come out last week.

Lin Zhu dropped into the front ranks of the senior year grade with an unbelievable score, nearly shattering the eyes of a whole bunch of people, and once again became a prominent figure on campus.

There was no drama more attractive than a ‘prodigal son’s return.’

Regarding this, Lin Zhu’s internal thought process was:

…Actually, I just started slacking off.

Because the gap between Lin Zhu’s grades and his performance in previous years was too large, after discussion, the grade administration pulled up the surveillance footage of the exam room to confirm. In the end, they smoothly processed Lin Zhu’s class transfer procedures.

On the day of the class transfer.

Huang Canran hugged his arm and sighed continuously: “Deskmate, I didn’t expect our fate to be so short-lived… Will we meet again in the future? You must be happy, you must be joyful.”

Lin Zhu said speechlessly: “I’ll just be next door.”

The days after transferring into the regular class were no different from before, or even no different from his life in his original world—opening his eyes to study, closing his eyes to sleep, and occasionally taking a walk.

The only difference was,

There was an extra Yan Ruoyun by his side.

Whether he opened his eyes, closed his eyes, or took a walk in the community at night to relax, he was no longer alone.

This kind of life was too beautiful, too dreamy, coupled with the fact that the system had been unreasonably silent lately, no longer chattering away in his head like when it was first bound… This gave Lin Zhu an illusion.

It was as if he had already become a part of this world.

After school on this day.

Lin Zhu specifically asked the driver to drop him off at the community gate, and then he carried his backpack, dragging his heavy steps slowly towards home.

The sky was gradually darkening.

Two buttons on the blond youth’s shirt were unfastened. His face was expressionless, his narrow eyes half-drooping, making him look increasingly world-weary and irritable… but in reality, he was just purely tired.

Lin Zhu wasn’t made of iron. He was just used to the year-round high-intensity studying, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get tired.

He walked a distance, blowing in the wind the whole way.

Lin Zhu stepped on his own shadow and slowly arrived downstairs of his apartment. He subconsciously craned his neck and glanced upwards. The towering giant shadow lit up with several orange-yellow squares, like the strange pupils of an alien creature.

Until he saw that familiar window also light up.

It was hard for Lin Zhu to describe his feelings at this moment… He just slowly, very softly exhaled a breath, and his footsteps suddenly became brisk and bouncy. He took the steps in a few strides, stepped into the elevator, and finally used his fingerprint to unlock the smart lock of the front door.

Click.

The door opened, and light warmer than the sensor lights in the hallway spilled out from inside.

Lin Zhu hastily pushed the door and walked in, moving so fast that his shoes were kicked off crookedly. He quickly turned back, straightened them out, and then poked his head inside.

Usually, at this time, the auntie had already finished cooking and gotten off work. Lin Zhu only needed to take out the fresh food and eat it directly, not even needing to wash the dishes, as the auntie would clean up the next day.

Sure enough.

The person in the kitchen wasn’t the auntie.

The man, dressed in casual loungewear with his sleeves rolled up, was pinching a pair of chopsticks and fiddling in a steaming pot.

Seeing his little boyfriend return, Yan Ruoyun turned his head and said, “The auntie asked for leave today. We’re having the dumplings she wrapped yesterday for dinner, is that okay?”

Lin Zhu put down his backpack and walked over.

“Ge, you came back early today.”

Yan Ruoyun smiled and replied, “The work for this phase is finished, so I’ll be relatively free coming up. You might often be eating the terrible late-night snacks I cook recently, are you scared, Little Dog Lin?”

Lin Zhu had a habit of eating late-night snacks. Fortunately, a young person’s metabolism was very fast, and studying drained a lot of mental energy, so he didn’t gain an ounce of fat and his weight was very stable.

“…Not terrible,” he replied.

It’s not that there was completely no such thing as not knowing how to cook, just that the taste might not be so good.

Lin Zhu stared at the man’s back, and couldn’t help but step forward, putting his arms around his waist, but quickly letting go.

“Acting spoiled?”

Lin Zhu rubbed his nose, didn’t answer, and just washed his hands and took…

Now Lin Zhu didn’t care so much about efficiency when eating, and his speed had slowed down a lot. He seemed to have been influenced by Yan Ruoyun’s unhurried eating style, dividing one plump dumpling into three bites.

After dinner.

The two rested for a moment and entered the study one after the other.

Originally, there was only one desk in the study. After Lin Zhu moved in, the man bought him another ergonomic study desk and chair set, and equipped it with an all-in-one computer.

Lin Zhu took his bag and sat down, taking out his books and study tools. Yan Ruoyun paced over carrying two glasses of water, placed one in front of his desk, suddenly leaned over and asked, “Lin Zhu, what is this stack…?”

Upon seeing clearly, Yan Ruoyun fell silent.

He was referring to—A4 printing paper that looked completely out of place among a pile of test papers. The pages weren’t thick, just a few, held together by a vertical folder. Several tags were pasted on the side, covered with dense small print, and key paragraphs were highlighted with a fluorescent pen.

At first glance.

Yan Ruoyun thought it was some kind of collection of college entrance exam knowledge points.

Never did he expect that this was not a collection of college entrance exam knowledge points, but a collection of knowledge points concerning the lifelong marking between Alpha and Omega…

Yan Ruoyun paused and asked:

“Little Dog Lin, what are you looking at in school?”

Lin Zhu: “…”

Careless.

When Huang Canran found out, Lin Zhu’s expression didn’t change; when Yan Ruoyun found out, he hemmed and hawed, hastily shoved the materials into his backpack, and muttered:

“…Nothing, just look at it occasionally between classes.”

Yan Ruoyun gave a meaningful ‘hmm’, then sat down at his own desk with his water glass, staring at the young man’s profile for a long time, suddenly saying, “Lin Zhu, I always feel… you don’t seem to resemble what I heard before at all?”

“Didn’t go to school every day before, but ranked at the top as soon as you took the exam?”

“And your study habits, they can’t be cultivated in a short time… Could it be that you secretly studied in nightclubs, attempting to amaze everyone?”

“Oh, and those materials of yours…”

Yan Ruoyun propped his left elbow on the desk, resting his chin on his palm, tutting continuously, “I thought several times, are you really Lin Zhu? Could it be that you were replaced by someone else? Or like the cliché settings in TV dramas, twins or something…”

As Lin Zhu listened, he suddenly broke out in a cold sweat.

Yan Ruoyun was quiet for a while, then continued, “You look very nervous, could it be that I hit the mark?”

Lin Zhu didn’t dare to turn his head to look at him at all. He stared at the flatly spread test paper on the desk, but his vision blurred into a patch, feeling like his heart was about to jump out of his chest.

…He found out?

Will it trigger any adverse effects?

Lin Zhu frantically called out to the system in his mind, but there was no response.

Just then.

The man seemed thirsty, gulping down the water in his cup in one breath, then walked behind Lin Zhu, resting his chin on the center of his hair whorl, rubbed against it, and added:

“Lin Zhu, no matter if you were giving up on yourself before, or intentionally seeking attention… you can’t do that anymore, because I want you to be responsible for yourself, okay?”

“And me.”

“—You have to be responsible for me too.”

“…”

Until this second.

Lin Zhu finally knew that the man’s earlier words were all a deliberate build-up to tease him, and these last few sentences were his true thoughts.

He mistakenly thought that Lin Zhu’s past experiences based on his character setting were a deliberate display of depravity and rebellion by the teenager, guessing that the teenager was banishing himself.

According to the scumbag ex-husband character setting, Yan Ruoyun’s guess was mostly correct, but only Lin Zhu himself knew that he was not a part of this world, he was just… a soul from another world.

It was exactly as the system had said.

No one would doubt his identity.

Lin Zhu should have breathed a sigh of relief and felt fortunate for this.

But he didn’t.

The teenager’s eyes were very deep, pure ink color. Even though his head was bowed, staring at the test paper, his gaze had no focal point.

After a long time, Lin Zhu picked up the pen and wrote down the correct answer stroke by stroke on the paper.

His knuckles were white with exertion, his strength deep and heavy. The silent pen tip was like a knife cutting into the paper. At first glance, they were all wrong strokes.

But he didn’t stop, and… he couldn’t stop.

Lin Zhu called out to the system in his consciousness again.

The system still didn’t appear.

---

For a long time after that, Yan Ruoyun was really free. Not only did the number of times he worked overtime decrease significantly, but he also found time to return to the Yan family’s mountain-encircling manor.

When he came back, it was just past twelve midnight.

It happened to be the weekend.

Lin Zhu hadn’t slept yet.

When the man opened the door and came in, he had just finished showering, a towel on his head, wiping his hair with both hands, only wearing a bath towel around his body.

Yan Ruoyun was dressed much warmer than him, a thin turtleneck sweater paired with a dark long trench coat, slightly reducing his sense of distance, making him look somewhat gentle.

The man’s cheeks were slightly red, and he gave his little boyfriend a very frivolous whistle.

Lin Zhu: “…”

After a period of living together, Yan Ruoyun cared less and less about his image in front of him. Sometimes he couldn’t get up in the morning and would pretend to be a vampire, insisting on him closing the curtains.

Lin Zhu was amazed, so he closed the curtains and was swallowed in one bite by the vampire draped in a blanket.

The brief recollection ended.

Lin Zhu suddenly caught a scent, hastily took off the half-wet towel, leaned over to confirm, and asked, “Ge, did you drink?”

His tone inexplicably tightened.

Yan Ruoyun didn’t know why, smoothly took the towel, continued to wipe the little boyfriend’s hair, and asked, drawing out his words:

“What’s wrong? Don’t like me drinking outside? I just drank a little with my grandpa at his place, it’s his home-brewed rice wine.”

This smell of alcohol was sweet, faintly carrying a bit of osmanthus fragrance, exceptionally enticing, yet it caused Lin Zhu’s mood to fluctuate violently.

He felt like he had forgotten something.

Yan Ruoyun was still saying,

“I originally asked him for some yak bone powder. The old man is well-connected, the things given by others are all good things that money can’t buy on the market… However, there are too many things in the warehouse, and they couldn’t be found for a while.”

“I’ll bring it back then and have the auntie make soup for you.”

The man’s clear, cold voice was moistened by the alcohol, and his rambling voice made the base of Lin Zhu’s ears go soft.

He diverted a strand of attention, still thinking:

What did I forget?

At this time, the man added: “That yak bone powder not only supplements calcium, but also promotes sleep… I feel your sleep hasn’t been very good lately.”

Lin Zhu’s tone was somewhat hollow: “Mm.”

Suddenly, Yan Ruoyun pulled down the towel wiping his hair, cupped his little boyfriend’s blank face, and softly asked:

“It’s the weekend, I don’t go to work and you don’t go to school, so… do you want to do something that helps with sleep?”

Lin Zhu was instantly stunned.

Midnight. Drunk.

A private occasion for the two of them.

He suddenly remembered what he had exactly forgotten.

At the same time.

The system’s long-absent voice sounded from the depths of his consciousness, its electronic voice lively and impassioned.

“Host—I’m back! Insufficient power a while ago, entered a low-power sleep state!”

“Detected the role-playing node of the third key plot point, I’ve been automatically awakened! Um… do you need this system to broadcast the key points of the role-playing task for the host?”

Lin Zhu was silent for a good while, and refused.

…He knew it.

At this time, Beidu had already entered winter.

The indoor constant temperature system automatically operated, intelligently adjusting the optimal sensory temperature. The bathroom door swung open, and the man walked out from inside, adding a bit of humidity to the air.

A faint sea breeze scent spread out.

Yan Ruoyun didn’t wear anything.

He walked over stepping on water droplets, bent down, and pulled out an individually packaged mat from the bottom layer of the nightstand, very consciously kneeling in the center of the bed and smoothing it out…

Lin Zhu swallowed unconsciously, his throat hurting.

Yan Ruoyun really had changed a lot.

At first, he was extremely resistant to the mat, feeling it was too embarrassing. But now… he already knew how to spread the mat himself.

Lin Zhu had asked him before.

At that time, the man was lying on the mostly wet mat, groggily saying: “It’s very useful… saves you the trouble of cleaning the dirty bedsheets after being tired for so long. I can’t bear to let you.”

But now, after spreading the mat, the man lay prone on it with his long arms and long legs, his calves unconsciously hooking up, the red mole on the inside of his left ankle bright and eye-catching.

He pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand, took out two small square pieces from inside, hesitated for a few seconds, and took out another one.

In every gesture.

It revealed his own magnanimous naturalness towards pleasure.

However.

Lin Zhu leaned over, took the three small square pieces from his hand, looked down at them for a few seconds, and suddenly swung his long arm, throwing all of them into the trash can.

Making a ‘thud’ sound.

The main light in the bedroom turned off.

Leaving only a dim night light.

Lin Zhu sat on the edge of the bed, his back to the man, and said this sentence with exceptional difficulty.

“Ge, let’s not wear it tonight, okay?”

Yan Ruoyun was lying on his side. From his angle, he could only see the young man’s tense jawline, and his occasionally bulging masseter muscle…

Has his susceptible period arrived? He thought.

The air was quiet for about two or three minutes.

Suddenly, Lin Zhu heard the man lightly answer, “Okay… if you don’t want to wear it, then don’t wear it.”

As soon as he finished speaking.

Lin Zhu abruptly turned his head to look back, and saw the man turn from lying on his side to lying flat, his hands clasped and resting on his lower abdomen.

The light and shadow were hazy.

The man was like a piece of warm jade, making it impossible for people to look away.

Yan Ruoyun had drunk alcohol, and after taking a hot shower, he was even more flushed with blood, looking rosy-cheeked, carrying a wet dampness.

He was looking at Lin Zhu, revealing a very shallow smile.

But Lin Zhu…

Lin Zhu felt like he was watching a tragedy play out right in front of him with his own eyes, his breathing heavy to the point of trembling—he looked at Yan Ruoyun, he looked at this Yan Ruoyun who practically gave whatever he asked for…

The words from the original novel flashed through his mind one by one.

…One day, he will make Yan Ruoyun very sad, but the other party will heal, will let go, and will live well in this world, with a smooth path ahead.

He has a responsibility towards Yan Ruoyun. Lin Zhu thought.

So, he slowly leaned over, his arms propped on either side of the man’s face, leaned close to the man’s ear and said the key lines for tonight.

He said,

“Don’t be afraid.”

“—I have plenty of time.”