Ji Xu frowned when he heard this, about to say something, but was taken aback when Song Yi suddenly burst into laughter.
“Don’t misunderstand,” Song Yi said with a smile. “I mean literally, just sleeping together. You could tell him a short story every night before bed, spend a bit more time talking with him, and try to understand him better. In all your interactions, you need to signal to him that he’s needed and important to you. Of course, it’s up to you to find the right balance.”
Ji Xu nodded, thinking for a moment. He unconsciously reached up and touched the bite mark on his neck.
He could sense that Cheng Yue had more affection for him than he had expected. This situation was something he either facilitated or welcomed.
Moreover, Cheng Yue’s feelings for him were gradually changing, possibly due to his intentional guidance. Ji Xu hoped to catch his prey in one net as it grew in his trap.
But now, he was unsure whether Cheng Yue’s feelings were just dependency or something more.
Because, from Cheng Yue’s perspective, Ji Xu might just be a support, a refuge, the only light in the fortress of Cheng Yue’s shattered world.
This realization left Ji Xu feeling unsettled, even somewhat defeated.
Song Yi saw Ji Xu’s expression darken and noticed him lightly touching the bite mark on his neck, which was clearly a human bite mark. She squinted and suddenly spoke, “His dependency and affection for you are not mutually exclusive. But if you’re worried whether his feelings are familial or romantic, there’s a very direct way to test it.”
Ji Xu looked up sharply, his expression still troubled, and asked, his voice tinged with a hint of menace, “What’s the method?”
“Desire,” Song Yi said, looking at Cheng Yue, who was slowly walking toward them. Her smile was gentle.
“See if he wants to be intimate with you.”
Ji Xu was taken aback and followed Song Yi’s gaze to Cheng Yue, who was approaching after finishing in the restroom. His eyes held a cold, calculating glint.
Cheng Yue shivered suddenly as he walked halfway, feeling a chill. By the time he reached the dining table, he was still rubbing his arms, which had goosebumps.
“Are you cold?” Ji Xu frowned at him, offering his coat.
Cheng Yue wasn’t actually cold, but he quickly took Ji Xu’s coat and wrapped it around himself.
“Thank you for treating me to dinner today,” Song Yi said with a smile, standing up with her bag.
She patted Cheng Yue’s head and said with a double meaning, “Once you take off this coat from your uncle, it’s rare you’ll get to wear it again.”
Song Yi, being tall and wearing high heels, could easily overpower Cheng Yue, who couldn’t resist the gesture. Only Ji Xu, who was of a similar height, could keep up with a woman like Song Yi, who showed no regard for men.
After Song Yi left, Cheng Yue stood behind Ji Xu, quietly stretching up on his toes, thinking about Song Yi’s height and calculating when he might reach that height himself.
“What are you doing?” Ji Xu turned around and pulled Cheng Yue forward, leading him into the car.
“She used to hire you for some kind of lawsuit?” Cheng Yue asked as he buckled his seatbelt.
“Divorce lawsuit,” Ji Xu started the car.
“How did it turn out?” Cheng Yue asked curiously, then remembered Ji Xu’s professional ability and complimented, “You’ve never lost a case.”
“Actually, it was mostly her doing. She gathered first-hand evidence within three days after her husband’s first affair. She intentionally created situations for subsequent affairs, setting traps for him to fall into immediately,” Ji Xu smiled.
“In the end, her husband left with nothing and had to compensate her for her losses. I didn’t do much.”
Cheng Yue was surprised, finding it hard to believe that the seemingly gentle woman could have such decisiveness.
After dropping Cheng Yue off at school, Ji Xu went straight to Tang Jing to borrow a small surveillance camera.
Tang Jing, living alone, had a messy house and frequently lost things due to a dishonest maid. After installing a camera, Tang Jing caught the maid red-handed and had her taken to the police.
Later, Tang Jing cleaned up his house himself, leaving the camera unused. When Ji Xu borrowed it, Tang Jing even helped him set it up.
“This is how it works,” Tang Jing adjusted the camera and handed Ji Xu his phone. “If you want to watch, just click here. It’s live, with three days of backup footage. The footage will be overwritten every three days.”
Ji Xu opened the phone, seeing a clear black-and-white view of the living room.
“What’s wrong? Did you have a break-in at home?” Tang Jing asked with a hint of schadenfreude.
“Just a shake-up. Yours went off; mine didn’t,” Ji Xu said, checking the time. He drove to the school gate to pick Cheng Yue up before his evening study session ended.
After Cheng Yue finished his shower and settled on the sofa, Ji Xu came out of the bedroom with a slightly troubled expression.
“What’s wrong?” Cheng Yue asked, standing up to look at him.
“I accidentally spilled water on the bed,” Ji Xu lied smoothly, his face showing six parts annoyance and four parts regret.
Plus one part… anticipation.
“Huh?” Cheng Yue immediately suggested, “Then you can sleep in my room.”
Realizing what he had just said, Cheng Yue nervously looked at Ji Xu, fearing he might refuse.
“Okay.” Ji Xu nodded and sat on the sofa with the clean cup, making himself comfortable.
Cheng Yue smiled, noticing Ji Xu’s unchanged expression and thinking he was still upset. He patted Ji Xu’s shoulder, trying to sound nonchalant, “It’s okay, it was just a spilled cup of water. Even horses stumble sometimes.”
Ji Xu: “…”
Cheng Yue then realized he used the wrong idiom and tried to salvage it. “I used to wet the bed, so spilling water is really…”
This time, Cheng Yue fell silent.
Ji Xu laughed.
Cheng Yue continued, “I don’t do it anymore.”
After saying that, Cheng Yue couldn’t help but mutter under his breath…
Ji Xu, seeing this, laughed and pinched Cheng Yue’s nose, “Ah, you fool.”
Cheng Yue, with his nose pinched, blushed and moved backward.
“Alright, time to sleep,” Ji Xu said, smiling. Checking the time, he patted Cheng Yue’s head and went to Cheng Yue’s bedroom.
Cheng Yue, calming his racing heart, followed slowly.
When they were both in bed, Ji Xu suddenly asked, “Do you want to hear a story?”
“A story?” Cheng Yue, hugging the blanket, looked at Ji Xu with interest. “Sure.”
“What do you want to hear?” Ji Xu asked, tilting his head.
“Anything,” Cheng Yue said, noticing the distance between them, swallowing nervously, and moving back slightly. “Anything you read will be fine.”
“Okay.” Ji Xu agreed but struggled to remember a fairy tale.
Looking at Cheng Yue’s expectant eyes, Ji Xu shamelessly began, “The fundamental principles of our country are the principles that all state power belongs to the people, the principles of guaranteeing citizens’ rights and obligations, the principle of democratic centralism, and the principle of socialist rule of law…”
Cheng Yue listened to Ji Xu reciting legal terms, feeling his whole body start to tingle.
He could barely hear anything after catching a few words at the start, his attention entirely on Ji Xu’s serious profile and the slight movement of his Adam’s apple.
Cheng Yue slowly moved backward, realizing that if Ji Xu came over later, he would find out that Cheng Yue was more affected by the legal jargon than he let on…
He suspected Ji Xu might kill him.
As the pressure built up, Cheng Yue felt more and more like a pervert, unable to believe he could be turned on by hearing legal regulations.
Ji Xu’s voice grew hoarser as he continued, oblivious to what he was reciting.
He felt the warmth and the faint breath coming from beside him and had to suppress the desire in his lower abdomen as he began to silently recite the Law on the Protection of Minors…
In the room, one person couldn’t hear anything clearly, while the other person made mistakes while reading.
When they finally turned off the lights and went to sleep, both of them lay there with their teeth clenched, trying to keep their eyes open and staring at the ceiling.
The next morning, after breakfast, Ji Xu took Cheng Yue to school.
In the afternoon, after finishing work, Ji Xu recalled what Song Yi had said about observing what Cheng Yue did alone at home.
He estimated Cheng Yue’s arrival time after school and turned on the phone.
The phone screen instantly showed the living room.
After waiting for less than ten minutes, Cheng Yue’s backpack suddenly appeared in the still video.
The backpack was tossed into the middle of the living room, and Ji Xu frowned. He had never seen Cheng Yue throw his backpack before.
Then Cheng Yue appeared in the video.
Cheng Yue walked over to the backpack, stood in front of it for a while, and just stood there motionless for nearly three to four minutes.
Ji Xu began to vaguely understand what Song Yi had mentioned: Cheng Yue would unconsciously hide from him.
Cheng Yue wondered why Ji Xu hadn’t come to pick him up today. Ji Xu usually had less work on Fridays, so even if he was very busy that week, he would always come to pick Cheng Yue up on Fridays.
Why didn’t he come today?
Cheng Yue stared at the backpack for a long time, trying to comfort himself that maybe Ji Xu was just too busy today.
But the reassurance didn’t help much. Cheng Yue grew increasingly irritated by the sight of the backpack. When his palms started to sweat, he kicked the backpack across the room.
The sound of the backpack hitting the wall brought him back to reality. Cheng Yue pinched himself to calm down, picked up the backpack carefully, and placed it beside the sofa. Then he took a bottle of cold water from the fridge and drank half of it in one gulp.
After drinking, Cheng Yue felt much better and forced himself to sit on the sofa to finish his homework.
By the time he finished his homework, it was nearly six o’clock, and Ji Xu still hadn’t come back.
Cheng Yue took out his phone from his pocket and called Ji Xu.
Ji Xu, seeing Cheng Yue on the video taking out his phone, immediately turned off the video. The next second, Cheng Yue’s call came in.
“Hello?” Cheng Yue’s voice was a bit small. “Why aren’t you back yet today?”
“I still have some work left.” Ji Xu glanced at the time. “I’ll be back around nine.”
“Okay.” Cheng Yue pressed his hand to his chest to calm his racing heartbeat, trying to sound normal. “Come back early.”
“Got it.” Ji Xu agreed.
After ending the call, Cheng Yue looked at the clock on the wall, noticing it was still far from nine. He felt a bit suffocated and began to breathe heavily.
He stood up from the sofa and, as usual, started pacing around the living room, saying out loud each hour as he walked.
Cheng Yue knew he had been acting unusually recently, such as sudden anxiety, a tight chest, and uncontrollable temper.
But he didn’t know what was wrong with him, so he could only try to reduce the impact of these issues with his methods.
For instance, he paced in circles to distract himself from thinking about things that scared him.
Ji Xu, who had just opened the video, saw Cheng Yue, who had initially been sitting on the sofa, now standing and walking around the perimeter of the living room with his head down at a somewhat quick pace.
As time passed, Ji Xu’s face grew darker, his eyes reddening with bloodshot veins.
When there was a knock on the office door, Ji Xu stared at the video without even looking at the door.
“Why aren’t you leaving yet?” Tang Jing cheerfully pushed the door open and walked in.
Ji Xu didn’t respond.
Tang Jing noticed Ji Xu’s unusual demeanor and quickly moved closer. “What’s wrong?”
As Tang Jing approached, he saw the surveillance video on Ji Xu’s phone, which showed a very clear image.
Cheng Yue, with his head down, was pacing around the living room walls, making a complete circle.
Tang Jing frowned as he watched. “How long has he been doing this?”
“Almost two hours,” Ji Xu’s voice sounded hoarse.
“That’s not right,” Tang Jing said, looking at the video. “What’s going on with Cheng Yue?”
Ji Xu watched Cheng Yue’s emotionless, even indifferent face on the black-and-white video, feeling a deep sense of despair.
It was at this moment that Ji Xu truly understood what Song Yi meant about Cheng Yue’s psychological issues.
This direct experience was more shocking than any words.
Tang Jing, noticing Ji Xu’s particularly bad mood, sensed something was wrong. “Is Cheng Yue…”
Just as Tang Jing was about to say something, he saw Cheng Yue suddenly stop moving and shouted, “Hey, he’s stopped!”
Ji Xu also saw that Cheng Yue had abruptly stopped in the center of the living room, facing one direction and not moving.
The two stared at the video without blinking.
After ten minutes, Cheng Yue had not moved at all from that direction.
“Is he looking at something?” Tang Jing rubbed his sore eyes.
“That’s a wall over there,” Ji Xu said, frowning.
Before Ji Xu could figure out what was on the other side of that wall, Cheng Yue started moving again, this time toward the door.
“Why is he acting like a pet waiting for its owner?” Tang Jing noticed something was off. “Just waiting at home like that.”
Ji Xu glanced at the time on his phone and suddenly remembered their earlier conversation. His pupils constricted, and he quickly grabbed his coat and phone, rushing out of the office.
Tang Jing was caught off guard and only realized what had happened when he found himself alone in the office.
As Ji Xu ran downstairs, he thought about the wall that Cheng Yue had been staring at.
There was indeed something on that wall.
A clock.
A clock that had already reached nine o’clock.
“Hey, why aren’t you back yet today?”
“I still have some work left. I’ll be back around nine.”
Ji Xu suddenly recalled the conversation between them.
He understood why Cheng Yue had been staring at that wall.
Because Cheng Yue had been watching the clock on that wall, counting the seconds until Ji Xu came back…
The author’s note:
The heartbroken mother asks: What do you do when Ji Xu isn’t home?
Cheng Yue: I wait for him to come back.
