Translator: Helliot
Editor: P’Raikantopeni
–
Meng Yi told Meng Fu the bits and pieces of everything that happened in the few days he was gone, including Gu Ze’s outbursts, which made Meng Fu’s chest throb in pain.
The wintersweet tree was cut down that day. Gu Ze interrogated Meng Yi harshly and shut him in his room, forbidding him any food.
His hatred for that man began to deepen. Yes, Gu Ze accused him of hating him, and he was right. He was a person with feelings too. How could he not hate him?
It was just the guilt of the blood of two lives staining his hands that had been spreading the hate in his heart all this while.
Meng Yi looked at Meng Fu with his big eyes, then he did something unexpected. He pulled Meng Fu’s blanket off and before Meng Fu could react, Meng Yi had pulled his shirt up.
“Xiao Yi, what are you doing?!” He panicked.
However, Xiao Yi was studying the marks on Meng Fu’s body with curiosity, especially the circle of teeth marks around his nipple. He couldn’t endure the urge to touch it, the scene of Gu Ze leaning down to lick the raised nub occupying his mind.
Meng Fu tried to pull his shirt back down, but Meng Yi stubbornly stopped him from doing so.
He was getting a little impatient. “Xiao Yi!”
He didn’t want anyone to see those marks on his body.
The usually well-behaved child had grown unruly. He looked up at Meng Fu and asked, “Does Meng-Meng taste like candy here?” He poked his finger on Meng Fu’s red nipple.
It hurt a little. After Gu Ze had been biting and sucking on it like mad that night, just touching it felt painful. Frowning, he pulled Meng Yi’s hand away, his anger becoming increasingly evident. “Xiao Yi, stop it!”
His body was unwell and just this much effort had already taken a lot out of him. He could not overpower Meng Yi at this moment.
He leaned down and was about to lick it like Gu Ze did, but Meng Fu covered Meng Yi’s face in horror. “Xiao Yi, don’t be so naughty!” he chastised him with a sternness that was never directed at his brother before.
Meng Yi was taken aback, but then he pouted. “Why does Big Brother get to lick it but I can’t? I know Meng-Meng definitely tastes like candy there!”
If it didn’t taste like candy, then why would Big Brother enjoy licking it so much?
Meng Fu’s face was beet red. While Meng Yi’s grip was loose, he took that opportunity to pull his shirt down. He wanted to try and explain the situation, but he could not find the words to do it. He never thought that Meng Yi would catch him and Gu Ze doing those things.
He was just a child, how could he be exposed to such things?
“No, it doesn’t taste like candy.”
Pale-faced, he squeezed out an answer.
“It doesn’t taste like candy?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Then why did Big Brother lick it?”
Faced with Meng Yi’s naive gaze, he mulled over his answer for a long time before saying, “That’s because Big Brother did something bad, and that’s why Mr. Gu has to punish me.”
“Meng-Meng is lying! Yesterday Meng-Meng said Big Brother wasn’t bullying you!”
His eyes darted around, but he couldn’t find the right words. “It wasn’t bullying, Xiao Yi. It’s… It’s…”
“It’s what?” Meng Yi was anxious to know.
“It’s none of your business.” Gu Ze’s heavy voice suddenly emerged in the room.
Meng Yi shrank back in fear, an instinctive habit he developed recently with Gu Ze.
Meng Fu could sense the unusual way that Meng Yi was reacting. He took his hand gently and spoke softly to him, “Xiao Yi, go back to your room for today. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Meng Yi nodded obediently.
After Meng Yi left, Meng Fu pulled the blanket back over himself and only glanced at Gu Ze standing at the doorway once before turning to look out the window.
Gu Ze entered the bathroom without speaking and washed Shui Qing’s smell off of himself. After putting on a bathrobe, he went over to Meng Fu’s side with only the faint smell of mint body wash left on his body.
Meng Fu scooted slightly, an attempt to get just that much further from Gu Ze.
One hand going over his waist, Gu Ze pulled Meng Fu to him and whispered, “That’s not bullying, Meng Fu. That’s called making love.”
His toes curled up, his urge to run growing more intense by the second. “Mr. Gu, please. Don’t do that in front of my brother again.”
“Fine.”
“I won’t leave or lie to you again. I’ll stay here obediently and you can have your way with me. You can do whatever you want, just please don’t hurt my little brother or Zhenzhen’s baby.”
He kept his back to Gu Ze, curling up just like a ball.
How nice would it be if he had his own place to run away to? He really missed his old run-down apartment.
“…Fine.”
Gu Ze buried his face in Meng Fu’s back, holding him tight and taking in his scent, light and clean, unlike the sweet scent of a woman.
His heart was thumping fast.
Don’t go, Meng Fu. The two of us will just bind each other like this. No matter whose child it was in Zhenzhen’s belly, it has nothing to do with you. In this world, the dead He Manyu can’t do it and neither can Shui Qing. Meng Fu, only you can make me yarn so fervently for you.
I can’t stop longing for you even when you’re by my side.
And that’s how fervently I’ll keep hating you as well.
The night grew deep and the color of ink pervaded every corner. Holding him, he shut his eyes, but neither of them could sleep.
–
What lies at the end of the world?
There wasn’t an end.
The endless tide waded over, submerging all the rocks into the ocean.
Meng Fu had grown more used to daydreaming. Sometimes, he could even spend the whole day on the sofa doing nothing but staying blankly out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, but the wintersweets were no longer there, so who knew what he was staring at.
Perhaps he was staring at the invisible wind.
Ye Ting’s engagement banquet was already over. With Ye Yan’s schedule freed, he took Meng Yi away again. Meng Yi was overjoyed the day he left, saying that it was too boring in the house.
After some thought, he added that it was just like staying in prison.
Meng Fu leaned against the sofa, his toes curling up and spreading out again. That quip at the end made him a little irritated.
Prison… Wasn’t it just like prison here?
No… it wasn’t prison either. At the very least, he could talk to Di Jun and the others in prison. Here, he could do nothing but spread his legs for Gu Ze.
Meng Fu, if only that accident never happened… he had that thought countless times.
That day, Gu Ze tossed a phone to him after returning home.
“I don’t need it.”
“You do need it. Didn’t Meng Yi take your phone away? Just use this one from now on.” Moreover, he still recalled that jumble of people whose numbers he had saved on that phone, all people that he had cut out from his life.
“There’s nobody I need to contact, what would I need a phone for?” Meng Fu asked bluntly.
“Use it to contact me.”
The phone was right beside him. He glanced at it and remained silent, not picking it up either. Contact Mr. Gu? For what reason would he do that?
Gu Ze took the phone and pulled over Meng Fu’s hand, placing it in his palm. “My number is saved into it.”
“Mm.”
He didn’t care about the phone, and neither did he see it as his own possession. When Gu Ze left for work during the day, he remained on the sofa, leaving the phone to lay silently on the table as if it did not exist.
Then, the phone rang. Ring-ring, ring-ring, it sounded again and again through the silence. Only then did he turn his head hesitantly to look at it. There, two words appeared on the screen, “Gu Ze”.