The thick curtains in the private room were pulled tightly shut, barring any sunlight from streaming in.
Once Xie Qingcheng finally woke up, he had no idea how much time had passed.
He felt sore everywhere, disoriented and lost, and it was a long time before the terrifying memories from last night finally slammed into his mind like a crashing car.
He was speechless.
Last night, he had been…
Xie Qingcheng's eyes were crimson. For a moment, he was sure he must have had a horrible nightmare caused by exhaustion. He even closed his eyes for a while before opening them again, weakly wishing to find himself in his dorm room at the medical school, or the old residence at Moyu Alley.
But he wasn't.
No such miracle happened.
He was still in this private lounge room reeking of sex, lying completely nude and utterly bedraggled on the huge bed with half the sheets spilling onto the floor.
He Yu had already left.
With his bloodshot eyes open, Xie Qingcheng tried to force himself to stand, only for an agonizing stab of pain emanating from his lower body to bolt through him, causing him to collapse heavily back onto the bed.
At least He Yu had used a condom, even if nothing else he'd done was humane.
When Xie Qingcheng pushed himself slightly upright on the bed, he could see several used condoms strewn over the bedding. The sight of their contents turned even the tips of his fingers red with humiliation and fury.
True, he did feel remorse toward He Yu. He did feel that he'd been too heartless before, that he'd never treated He Yu as an equal.
Prior to this outrageous incident, he'd been thinking of trying to build a new relationship with He Yu—one that had nothing to do with that of a doctor and patient, one that was simply between He Yu and himself. He'd never considered forming a long-term bond with a youth before, but when He Yu had reached out to him without hesitation, Xie Qingcheng's paternalistic heart had finally been moved.
In that moment, he'd realized that perhaps he might've really been in the wrong with the way he'd handled certain things. He Yu was just young; his emotions weren't weaker than anyone else's. Perhaps Xie Qingcheng shouldn't have chosen to leave so brusquely back then.
He'd thought that, as long as He Yu forgave him, he was willing to keep He Yu company for a long while this time around—as long as He Yu needed it, as long as he was still capable.
But He Yu had committed this beastly, abominable act that went completely beyond the confines of Xie Qingcheng's imagination.
Xie Qingcheng couldn't accept it, even on pain of death.
A straight man had actually fucked another straight man.
And the condoms on the bed bore witness to how many times he'd done it.
But what was more terrifying was that by the end of the ordeal, Xie Qingcheng had completely lost control because of the drugged wine. He'd madly remained on all fours while getting fucked so hard he started dripping. He'd even climaxed repeatedly from being filled. Eventually, even though he had nothing left to release, his body still frantically sucked He Yu's cock in, his legs sprawled apart as his hips swayed from the force of the thrusts.
Now sober, Xie Qingcheng felt so humiliated that he wanted to die, so disgusted that he wanted to throw up. He reached up and rested a hand over his eyes, hiding everything from his view. He spent a long time resisting the urge to lash out, but in the end, he couldn't stop himself from grabbing the lamp from the bedside cabinet and smashing it to pieces.
He Yu had gotten so into it by the end that he'd snapped the restraints on Xie Qingcheng's wrists. Even now, there were still red marks on Xie Qingcheng's skin.
Thank god He Yu had left. If he were still here, Xie Qingcheng couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't do something beyond the bounds of rationality.
He Yu had almost driven him crazy.
Ding.
The phone that had been thrown onto the ground along with his clothes started ringing.
Xie Qingcheng was irate, and he had no intention of picking up. But the ringing persisted as if it wouldn't stop until it had dug him out of this grave of sex. Xie Qingcheng swore furiously. He made himself grab his phone, his body aching as he reached over, and picked it up with difficulty.
It was Chen Man.
"Ge."
"What is it?"
Chen Man started with shock. "Why does your voice sound so hoarse?"
Xie Qingcheng stayed silent for a moment. Then he sighed deeply. "If you have something to say, just say it. If you don't, then I'm hanging up. I'm busy."
Chen Man hastily replied, "Something's happened at home…"
The events of last night had affected Xie Qingcheng deeply. His heart pounded as waves of weakness washed over his body. On hearing what Chen Man said, cold sweat beaded all over his back as his grip on the phone grew white-knuckled. "What happened?"
Half an hour later, Xie Qingcheng appeared in the main hall of the club in his wrinkled, wine-stained shirt.
When he first woke, he couldn't even stand up. His legs buckled when he got off the bed and an unfamiliar yet terrifying throb of dull pain accompanied his every movement. Xie Qingcheng had grabbed the corner of the bedside drawer, the veins on the back of his hand protruding.
He was filled with extreme hatred and extreme shame.
Before he left the private room, he took an arduous shower in the bathroom. He always acted with swift decisiveness and never did things sloppily, but now, it took him a long time to put on even a single article of clothing. When he tried to put on his slacks, his face went white with pain.
He took a deep breath to gather himself, acting as though nothing wild and uncontrollable had happened, then strode out of the private room, pale as a sheet. He was practically gritting his teeth as he walked, expending a significant amount of his energy to straighten his back and maintain his usual posture.
But when the staff saw him, they were still shocked.
Xie Qingcheng's skin was too pallid and as thin as paper. He looked like a ghost stepping into the dim light of dawn.
"Sir…do you…need any help?"
"No," Xie Qingcheng replied.
"In that case, please settle last night's bill, sir."
Xie Qingcheng thought he'd gone deaf.
"Sir?"
"…"
Xie Qingcheng was accustomed to acting like a true man's man, and being fucked for an entire night couldn't change that. Even if he thought He Yu was much too shameless, he'd still foot the bill because that was what a man ought to do.
Thus, he responded with an ashen face, "All right. I'll pay."
"Sir, would you like to pay by card or…"
"By card."
"Please come with me to the reception desk."
The staff member tapped away at the computer and pulled up a bill.
Out of habit, Xie Qingcheng asked, "How much is it?"
The staff handed him the bill and very respectfully said, "The total for last night's private room comes to 1.68 million yuan."
Xie Qingcheng, who was in the middle of extracting his card, paused. All faculties of speech left him. He took the bill and glanced at it. The astronomical number written on it made him wonder if there might be something wrong with his eyes too.
It really was 1.68 million.
Sky-high alcohol fees, service fees, room fees, and compensation fees for damages.
Xie Qingcheng pressed a hand against his forehead. "I need to make a call. Do you have cigarettes? And a clean shirt."
With the 1.68 million yuan bill before him, Xie Qingcheng had totally given up on caring about the price tag of these items—the cigarettes and shirt would be a drop in the bucket.
After he borrowed the bathroom and changed into the shirt that a hostess brought him, Xie Qingcheng leaned against the sink, tapped out a cigarette with trembling hands, and lit it with his lashes lowered. He took a long drag before dialing the number of the person he currently wanted to murder.
If he'd had the money, he would have rather paid for it himself. But unfortunately, he couldn't fork out the ridiculous 1.68 million that had been spent overnight.
1.68 million yuan…
It was such a shockingly auspicious number that it could give someone a heart attack. He Yu had fucked him all night, but it was Xie Qingcheng who had to pay the 1.68 million yuan for the alcohol, service, and room?
What exactly did he order? A fucking massage service?!
That bastard had even fucking run away, just like that.
"Hello, the user you have dialed is currently unavailable. Please try again later…"
Xie Qingcheng irritably ended the call. He went to He Yu's WeChat profile, forcefully tapped out some words, and then hit send.
To his surprise, WeChat immediately sounded with a notification. He'd been about to toss his phone aside, but he paused—and his eyes widened, reflecting a bright red exclamation mark on the screen.
"The message you sent has been rejected by the recipient."
Xie Qingcheng stared at the screen in grim disbelief. Now he'd really gone blind.
He Yu had blocked him?
"Fuck," Xie Qingcheng muttered in a low voice. He was so hoarse he sounded like he was about to start emitting smoke.
He Yu. Actually. Had. The. Nerve. To. Block. Him?!
It was a blessing that Xie Qingcheng didn't really use social media, otherwise he would have realized that He Yu's actions were remarkably similar to those of some particularly contemptible youths who deleted the other person's contact information seconds after a one-night stand.
But this didn't stop Xie Qingcheng from becoming enraged. After such a disgusting turn of events last night, shouldn't he be the one blocking He Yu instead? Did He Yu even have the right to block him?
Xie Qingcheng very rarely lost control of himself, but at this moment, when he threw his phone onto the sink with a clack and lifted his eyes, the man looking back at him from the mirror seemed as ferocious as a ravaged beast that had been driven into a corner.
"He Yu…!"
Meanwhile, Young Big Shot He had genuinely forgotten about paying the bill.
By now, his madness had already subsided slightly, and the effects of the alcohol had likewise worn off. But his mind was still in turmoil.
When he had woken up in the morning and found himself sleeping on his stomach, he could sense that something wasn't quite right. As soon as his eyes refocused, he saw Xie Qingcheng lying under him on the mattress in an utterly wretched condition. He was sprawled out on top of Xie Qingcheng, having slept the entire night with his face tucked into the crook of the man's neck. His posture was just like that of a wounded fledgling dragon that had folded its wings and curled up its tail to rest, having flown arduously across the sea and finally found a warm, humid lair. The little dragon had been so tired, thirsty, and lonely on its journey, so after drinking its fill of water at long last, it clicked its snout, settled into its new den, and slept until daybreak in perfect satisfaction.
But upon waking up, the young dragon was struck dumb. Those shattered, frantic memories from the night before rushed back like a wild snowstorm.
He must have had a nightmare or been possessed by a demon. Or perhaps that Plum Fragrance 59 that he downed wasn't liquor but a magical potion that could rid one of homophobia with just a couple of sips. Otherwise, how could he have done something so completely unhinged with such fervent passion? That was a man!
He had done those things to a man…
He Yu looked down at Xie Qingcheng's face and reached out a hand to turn it toward him, his fingertip brushing against Xie Qingcheng's bloody lips.
Although he was still unconscious, his lips trembled slightly as though responding to He Yu's touch. Xie Qingcheng looked like a crumpled sheet of tissue paper, stark white with a few spots of cinnabar on its surface. That handsome, chiseled face utterly lacked any trace of femininity…
He Yu scrutinized it for a long time with an indescribable feeling in his heart.
Disbelief.
Madness.
Loathing.
But such secrets of the flesh were buried deep below the surface, yet to be uncovered. He Yu looked at Xie Qingcheng like a dragon gazing down at a human sacrifice on a bed of rock. The dragon detested humans, so it should have driven him away or devoured him in a single bite. It should never have madly rampaged onto the bed with that human in tow.
Now He Yu was like a strange creature gradually leaving madness and coming back to his wits. He looked over the crimes that he had wrought, his eyes reflecting the image of the human that he had tormented to the point of devastation.
Normally, he found homosexuality incredibly disgusting. Even he himself had no idea what had happened to him. Had he really been so angry, so drunk, that he had completely lost his mind? No matter how violent or impetuous he had been, he shouldn't have used this man's body to vent his emotions that way.
His illness caused his heart to become desensitized and cold, but it felt as though he had fallen even deeper into an ice cave. He sat up on the bed and looked at the chaotic mess surrounding him, his mind filled with the irrepressible images of Xie Qingcheng with his legs tangled around his waist, falling to pieces before his eyes, full of suffering and desire.
He had really done those things.
He Yu's mind froze over as he stared numbly at Xie Qingcheng's unconscious face. The excitement of having doled out his revenge swirled around his brain even as looking back on his overindulgent descent into madness left him soaked in a chilly mire of regret. How could he have…
He felt extremely disquieted, but ultimately, another burst of resentment welled up within him. Xie Qingcheng only had himself to blame for this. Who asked that man to deceive him for seven years—and then another four after that…?
So, while on the one hand, He Yu was disgusted…on the other, a flower of malice silently unfurled in his heart. It suddenly struck him that he ought to take something as a memento of this crazed, sinful entanglement.
After all, this had been his first time. He wouldn't want to see Xie Qingcheng again; by the same token, he imagined that Xie Qingcheng would hate him to the bone for this and be just as unwilling to see him. And so, after thinking it over, he finally dug out his cell phone from the clothes that were tangled up like the cast-off molted skin of a snake, pointed the camera at the still-unconscious man, and took a few pictures of his soundly sleeping face.
At this very moment, He Yu was looking at the photos he'd taken of Xie Qingcheng's sleeping visage. The man in the pictures looked extremely weak and exhausted, with clear bite marks on the broken skin of his lips. It was obvious at a glance what he had been doing with someone else before falling asleep—as was the fact that he had been on the receiving end.
As He Yu stared, his ruthless, unfeeling mind kept replaying how destroyed Xie Qingcheng had looked beneath him the night before and the handful of hoarse moans that Xie Qingcheng hadn't managed to stifle. He thought coldly, what sexual apathy? How many times did he lose himself last night? As expected, everything about Xie Qingcheng was fake.
But for some reason, a warmth started to seep into He Yu's blood.
As he was lost in thought, his phone began to ring. An unknown landline number was calling him.
"Hello?" he answered.
A voice came from the other end of the line. It was the same voice that had sounded so pleasantly low and raspy when it cried out last night—but right now, it was as cold as hoarfrost.
"He Yu," Xie Qingcheng said, "have you no fucking sense of shame?"
Less than twenty minutes later, He Yu, who had just turned tail and run after fucking someone, drove back to the Skynight Club. The tall main doors of the club opened, and the hostess welcomed Mr. He in with her head respectfully bowed. He Yu looked just like he always did—clean-cut and minimalist, gentlemanly and courteous. A paragon of propriety.
No one would ever think he'd done something as preposterous as recklessly screwing another man.
When He Yu walked through the doors into the lobby and looked around with his almond eyes, he immediately caught sight of Xie Qingcheng standing next to the reception desk. Xie Qingcheng's face was so pale it was unsightly, but he was somehow still able to stand upright, with his slender waist and long legs ramrod straight.
Just as He Yu appeared to be a respectful and gentle client from a scholarly family, Xie Qingcheng didn't look at all like someone who had just spent an entire night being tormented by a younger man.
He had already changed into another snow-white dress shirt, and his hair had been washed and combed. He had the same domineering aura He Yu was used to seeing, as incisive and chilly as a dagger.
But while nothing seemed different on the surface, their relationship was no longer the same—it was no longer innocent.
Looking Xie Qingcheng up and down now, it was as if He Yu's gaze could cut through his prim and proper exterior to see the blood and flesh, the muscles and bones within. It was as if Xie Qingcheng wasn't wearing any clothes at all.
Meanwhile, the moment Xie Qingcheng caught sight of He Yu, his blood pressure shot up. It was only because they were in a busy lobby and he didn't want to become a household name that he managed to forcibly suppress the urge to kick and stab He Yu to death.
"Mr. He, here is your bill from last night," said the hostess, handing He Yu the receipt.
Although she was well-versed in the service etiquette of her profession, the events from last night were way too bizarre. When the young hostess had verified the items on the bill for the private room on the computer, every line that appeared shocked her to the core. Huh… It looked like they had smashed the entire private room…
Did they fight?
They must have.
But when she read further down and saw that the lubricant in the room was also on the bill, as well as the condoms, the young lady became even more shocked.
After they finished fighting, they slept together?
This was utterly unheard of!
A sense of feminine sympathy arose in her, so when she handed the bill to He Yu, her voice softened a great deal and she was brimming with compassion.
That's right, the one she sympathized with was He Yu.
He Yu looked way too pretty. Though he was tall, he seemed very slender and elegant in his clothes, and his face had an especially delicate, refined, scholarly quality to it. He looked nothing like Xie Qingcheng, who, despite being in so much discomfort he could barely hold himself upright, still managed to arrange his features into an icy-cold expression.
As a result, the young hostess misunderstood completely and had concluded that Xie Qingcheng was the one who had used all those condoms on He Yu. She thought that, with his handsome looks, Xie Qingcheng must be living off his partners, and that, after tormenting Young Master He all night long, he'd turned around and summoned the young master back here to foot the bill.
It was too shameless!
After He Yu settled the payment, the young lady bowed and courageously gave him an encouraging look. Meanwhile, it was only because of her high standards of professionalism that she was able to resist rolling her eyes at that bastard Xie Qingcheng before turning and walking off in her heels.
He Yu and Xie Qingcheng stood in silence by the large, round table in the lobby.
Fortunately, both these gentlemen had some sense of shame in the presence of others. That was the only reason they didn't start a shouting match right there in the club's lobby. The rushing sound of water from the Three Lucky Gods fountain in the lobby became the backing track of their silent stare down.
Xie Qingcheng gazed at He Yu with his bloodshot eyes. He Yu could put on airs with that face of his, but there was a glint of madness in his eyes that only Xie Qingcheng could see. That madness seemed to taunt Xie Qingcheng, as if shamelessly saying, Yeah, I've done it and I don't plan on seeing you ever again. What are you going to do about it?
Eventually, Xie Qingcheng stood up. To the casual onlooker, his posture seemed just as upright and straight as before, and his footsteps as brisk as the wind. But He Yu could see a slight unsteadiness in his stride.
Xie Qingcheng walked up to He Yu, his steps heavy and his gaze terrifying.
For a second, He Yu grew apprehensive and felt the urge to turn tail and run. But he immediately dismissed his kneejerk reaction as ridiculous. The only reason he was feeling that way was because Xie Qingcheng had held that sort of oppressive power over him since his childhood, leaving it practically etched into his DNA. It would still haunt him on occasion even now.
He Yu shoved the unbidden trauma from his mind and swore that he'd never let anyone—especially the person in front of him—know about the thought that had just crossed his mind. He calmed himself down and stared back at Xie Qingcheng unblinkingly. Then, after just a moment, he broke into an unexpected smile and said slowly in a soft voice, "Xie-ge, don't you hate me so much that you want to kill me right now?"