The sun is scorching, massive, and eternal. Whether piercing through the clouds or sinking behind the mountain peaks, it remains intensely vibrant and bursting with life.

The sunflower loves the sun, but it must bear the consequences of constantly turning to follow it. The sun cannot remain gentle forever; once June arrives and the blistering heat sets in, it transforms into a tyrant, baking the sunflower’s head, scorching its disk, and causing its leaves to wither.

Xiang Zhen’s fingers slipped weakly down from the posture of embracing the sun. Fortunately, he belonged to a heat-resistant species that could endure intense light—as long as he wasn’t suffering from dehydration and scorching heat at the same time.

Outside, a torrential downpour engulfed the city.

The window panes of the floor-to-ceiling windows rattled violently in the wind as raindrops pelted against the glass. Everything in nature made a thoroughly drenched, dripping sound in the rain, masking the faint whimpers of the little sunflower.

Moisture rushed in from all directions, replenishing the sunflower’s excessively intense transpiration effect.

Lightning split the sky like cracking open the celestial light, and rumbling thunder rolled across the midair like a giant train.

Terrified, Xiang Zhen shrank back into Zhou Sicheng’s embrace. Compared to lightning that could spark wildfires, he would rather hide in the sun’s fiery chest, where he could feel certain of its existence.

Zhou Sicheng knew Xiang Zhen was afraid of thunder. Even if Xiang Zhen couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to push him away, the moment lightning flashed outside, he would obediently shrink back, wrap his arms around him, and sit down even deeper, as if seeking protection while feeling his presence.

Zhou Sicheng never missed an opportunity when his wife needed him.

The heavy rain cooled down the daytime heat, but the air remained sticky. The entire bedsheet was soaked—half with Zhou Sicheng’s sweat, and half with Xiang Zhen’s fluids.

“Hubby, I want a drink of water,” Xiang Zhen said softly.

Zhou Sicheng stretched out his long arm, grabbed the straw water bottle on the nightstand, and gave Xiang Zhen a sip.

Xiang Zhen felt as if he were experiencing the four seasons of a sunflower’s life rotating around the sun. First, it was the warmth of spring coaxing the flowers to bloom, immediately followed by the blistering heat of midsummer. After trembling from the intense heat, Zhou Sicheng would wipe down his body, leading into a comfortable, crisp autumn period, followed by a lingering warmth akin to the winter sun.

However, Zhou Sicheng was about to enter spring again very soon.

Day after day, year after year, the cycle repeated endlessly.

To Xiang Zhen, days felt like years.

After going through two full cycles like this, Xiang Zhen clutched his wilted “leaves” and said pitifully, “Hubby, I don’t even have the strength to drink water anymore.”

“I’ll feed you,” Zhou Sicheng replied. He wasn’t one for heartless extortion; he knew how to judge his wife’s condition.

Xiang Zhen was in excellent condition. The faster the friction, the softer and smoother he became. What kind of words could describe his wife’s extraordinary natural talent? Zhou Sicheng didn’t want to describe it to anyone else, so he didn’t even bother to find the right phrasing to ponder the mystery.

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

Customer service messages started rolling in.

Xiang Zhen opened his eyes: “I need to work!”

Without replying to the messages, Xiang Zhen couldn’t feel at peace. The ding-dong sound of customer service notifications was already wired into his bone marrow.

Zhou Sicheng let out a soft laugh and took control of the computer. He didn’t even have the strength to drink water, yet he still had the energy for customer service.

Zhou Sicheng kissed him: “It’s fine, I’ll reply for you.”

[Customer: How exactly did your shop pack and ship this express delivery! The box is completely crushed! How do I know if mice haven’t crawled in and rubbed against the outer packaging! How am I supposed to dare eat this!]

[Sunflower Customer Service: Full refund.]

Xiang Zhen didn’t trust Zhou Sicheng’s customer service skills. Every time Zhou Sicheng took ride-hailing orders, Xiang Zhen had to follow right behind him to appease the passengers.

“Hubby… we can’t get a bad review.” Xiang Zhen’s eyelids were red, looking like two rose petals blown onto a sunflower disk, fluttering gently.

His negative review quota for the month was already maxed out.

“Don’t worry, we won’t.” Zhou Sicheng was brimming with confidence. He scooped up his wife, taking advantage of his defenseless state. “Wife, just hold on a bit longer, and I’ll give you a five-star review.”

With barely any sanity left, Xiang Zhen instinctively murmured, “Thank you, darling.”

Zhou Sicheng: “Good boy, five-star review.”

Ding-dong.

[Customer: This packaging is so hard to tear open.]

[Sunflower Customer Service: Full refund.]

Ding-dong.

[Customer: [Screenshot of a five-star review for a 5-yuan cashback]]

[Sunflower Customer Service: Full refund.]

Each ding-dong sound acted like a carrot dangling in front of Xiang Zhen’s sanity, leaving him with no choice but to let the proxy customer service agent bully him.

While Zhou Sicheng was passionately engrossed on his end, the customer service manager noticed something was off. Why was everything a full refund tonight?

[Manager: Xiang Zhen!! What are you doing! Yu Yuanyuan just left, do you want to get fired too?! Making a mess like this means you’ll have to pay it back!]

[Sunflower Customer Service: I have money.]

The CEO Zhou was acting grand tonight, treating all destined souls to melon seeds.

Spending a little money to achieve great things.

Meanwhile, a trending post appeared on a certain app:

[Is this shop’s customer service crazy? No matter what I inquire about, they give a full refund! Is it a bot?!]

Others in the comment section had encountered the exact same thing and left replies:

[No idea, but the refund actually went through.]

[Did they set the wrong keywords for the AI customer service?]

[It’s not AI, it’s a human customer service agent. I verified it. I asked him if he was crazy, and he said ‘I’m happy to.’]

[Words were like gold. I asked for the reason so many times, and he only said it was because of marriage after getting annoyed.]

[What else can I say? You treat me to melon seeds, so I can only—]

[Wishing you an early birth of a precious child +1]

[Did the person behind the screen change? I have an impression of this customer service agent. He usually acts with a sort of beautiful indifference that lacks human touch.]

[Could it be the boss?]

[On the contrary, it brought some traffic to the shop.]

A batch of curious netizens flooded into Sun Youzhi’s livestream room. Confused by what was happening, he looked into it and realized Xiang Zhen was stirring things up. The assistant suggested capitalizing on this wave of traffic by introducing Xiang Zhen to the highly curious netizens, as Xiang Zhen’s face was perfectly capable of catching this massive wave of viral traffic.

Recalling how Xiang Zhen had repeatedly refused to become a streamer, Sun Youzhi shook his head: “Forget it.”

Xiang Zhen had been giving out full refunds continuously, and Feng Chujun was incredibly stingy. Without receiving any explicit notice allowing Xiang Zhen to bring traffic to the shop this way, Sun Youzhi was worried Xiang Zhen might end up losing his own money while working, so he revoked his customer service permissions.

Although most netizens were just watching the spectacle, some people actually brought out their Chinese New Year holiday orders to demand refunds.

Fortunately, Xiang Zhen still retained some sanity when dealing with that segment of people.

Zhou Sicheng refunded the after-sales orders worth tens of yuan. As for those who wanted to freeload on New Year gift boxes bought for over one or two hundred yuan, Zhou Sicheng wasn’t foolish or rich enough to go that far—he was happy today, not losing his mind.

Once the refund floodgates opened, how was he supposed to sleep with his wife tonight?

Zhou Sicheng didn’t know a post had gone viral, but a sudden influx of messages poured in.

Xiang Zhen assumed Sun Youzhi’s livestream room had hit a massive spike in orders. He couldn’t let Brother Youzhi down, so he struggled to get up and reply.

Zhou Sicheng didn’t dare let his meticulously budgeting wife find out what he had done, so he patiently replied on his wife’s behalf.

Why are netizens so annoying and gossipy about the reason?

Xiang Zhen asked anxiously: “Did you reply?”

Zhou Sicheng answered patiently: “Marriage.”

Netizens: “Wishing you an early birth of a precious child.”

The trend of the refunds suddenly turned into a screen full of blessings, and even passersby who hadn’t bought anything came to join the trend.

As Zhou Sicheng watched, he got carried away. His urge to dote on his wife exploded, and he sent out ten thousand password-protected red packets on Alipay.

Taking off the title of being stingy felt great.

Tonight was all about pure satisfaction.

As the clouds cleared and the rain stopped, Zhou Sicheng lifted his wife up, firmly supporting his bottom with one strong hand while using the other to rip away the soaked bedsheet, pulling a fresh one from the closet to spread it out.

It was all because this rented apartment was too small; there was no way to switch places. The bathroom could barely accommodate two adult men standing. Xiang Zhen lacked the strength to stand up, so Zhou Sicheng could only keep him on the bed the entire time.

He found the sunflowers by the window increasingly an eyesore, feeling as though his territory had been invaded. If it weren’t for them, they could have been by the floor-to-ceiling windows instead of being confined to the bed the whole time.

Taking advantage of his wife’s weakest moment, Zhou Sicheng attempted to compete with the sunflowers for domestic status, whispering into his ear, “Wife, can we move the sunflowers somewhere else?”

Xiang Zhen: “No, hubby.”

These sunflowers were planted late to begin with; they could only grow faster and catch up with the others by staying by his side.

A dark gleam flashed across Zhou Sicheng’s eyes. Having failed to win the favoritism contest against the sunflowers, he said, “Didn’t you say you’d move them to the rooftop once they grew up?”

He used to look forward to that day because the space wasn’t large, and he couldn’t accept growing vegetables in the bedroom. Now, he found it even more intolerable because he had other uses for the window space.

They had already grown past his knees—were they still not weaned yet?

Xiang Zhen was incredibly overindulgent toward the sunflower plants. Lying in Zhou Sicheng’s embrace, he said with a voice as faint as silk, “They’re still small.”

Holding his wife, whose body was flushed pink against white, Zhou Sicheng glanced over at the green plants. They really were getting a bit too tall. The sixteenth floor didn’t have mosquito screens, and it was close to a lake. Once the plants became lush, mosquitoes and caterpillars would come.

He didn’t want to hold his completely bare wife to sleep at night only to find her covered in seven or eight mosquito bites.

It would break his heart.

He had plenty of methods.

Xiang Zhen fell asleep from exhaustion.

Zhou Sicheng’s excitement hadn’t faded yet. After his mind cooled down slightly, he first spent money to settle the customer service incident and deleted the online posts.

He pushed all the blame onto Fan Hao, claiming Fan Hao did it because he lacked a brain and loved throwing money around.

In any case, Xiang Zhen was in a daze and wouldn’t be able to look closely into whether he had handed the account over to someone else.

The next day.

Xiang Zhen woke up with an aching body. Thinking back to the previous night, which felt like living through five whole years, a sudden blush crept onto his cheeks.

He used his solar energy to relieve the soreness in his body and sat up. Fortunately, Zhou Sicheng wasn’t into BDSM; otherwise, with how fierce and capable he was, if Xiang Zhen fought back, they would have definitely ended up at the police station last night.

But it wasn’t much better either.

Because Zhou Sicheng wasn’t like that, Xiang Zhen could only tolerate and bear it all.

Ah, hubby is really too fierce.

Thankfully, I’m a spirit.

“You’re awake. Come have some porridge.” Zhou Sicheng had brewed ribs and yam porridge, bringing it to the bedside along with toiletries.

He squeezed the toothpaste out and held Xiang Zhen’s chin to help him brush his teeth.

Xiang Zhen felt a bit self-conscious: “The sun looks quite nice today. Have the clothes and sheets been washed?”

The washing machine in the rental unit had been used by who knows how many previous tenants, so Xiang Zhen usually washed his own clothes by hand.

Later, Zhou Sicheng mentioned that his company lounge had an all-in-one washer-dryer, so he would take Xiang Zhen’s dirty clothes away every day and bring them back clean at night.

Zhou Sicheng: “Washed.”

Xiang Zhen’s eyes darted around. After such intimate contact, now that they were dressed, he didn’t dare look directly at his husband. Letting his gaze wander, he said, “The sunflowers are growing so well.”

Xiang Zhen suddenly noticed that one of the short sunflowers had already grown a flower bud.

It was likely that a dwarf sunflower seed had gotten mixed into the batch.

Xiang Zhen lamented, “It’s still a baby and it’s already blooming.”

Zhou Sicheng suddenly narrowed his eyes: “Are you sure you’re not moving the sunflowers away?”

Xiang Zhen: “Not moving them.”

Zhou Sicheng: “Fine, eat the ribs porridge first.”

When it was his turn to “eat” Xiang Zhen, he intentionally fed his wife a lot of water.

When Xiang Zhen said he needed to use the restroom, Zhou Sicheng embraced him from behind, lifting him up as he suggested maliciously, “Wife, didn’t you say the sunflowers haven’t grown up yet? Why don’t you give them some fertilizer? Didn’t you plant them in the bedroom just to make this convenient?”

Xiang Zhen: “…”

No! No! No!

Xiang Zhen felt an overwhelming sense of shame. It couldn’t be done! No matter how nutritious urine was, it would be an insult to his companions!!!

Zhou Sicheng asked again: “Have the sunflowers grown up?”

It was a blatant threat. Whimpering, Xiang Zhen nodded his head: “They’ve grown up.”

Satisfied, Zhou Sicheng knew that a single lesson would teach someone well.

……

Two hours later, taking advantage of Zhou Sicheng going out to buy groceries, Xiang Zhen dragged his recently ravaged body and impatiently carried the pots of sunflowers up to the rooftop terrace one by one.

If he didn’t move them now, he was going to end up on the rooftop along with the sunflowers.