Lu Guang Ming shamelessly camped out at Xie Jia Hua’s home for two weeks. During that time, Xie Jia Hua had one day off and discovered that the brat did nothing at home except sleep or watch television, barely moving like some sleepy-eyed sloth. Fortunately, he still possessed a certain instinct for survival and knew to occasionally crawl up and sweep the floor or wash the clothes to curry favor with the master of the house. Otherwise, he really would have lazed himself into a puddle of mud.
Unable to stand watching any longer, Xie Jia Hua dragged him out for a run at six o’clock the next morning. Lu Guang Ming clung desperately to the bedpost and wailed, “Someone will recognize me if I go outside!”
“Who would recognize you this early in the morning if you wear a mask?”
“I still have a fever!”
“Fever, my ass! Didn’t you recover the day before yesterday?”
“I want to sleep! You fucked me until three in the morning last night, you freakishly strong Big Sweet Potato! My butt hurts!”
In the end, he was still dragged outside whimpering. The two left the residential complex and ran along the walkway beside the seawater channel toward the ocean. Lu Guang Ming ran like a newborn fawn that had not yet learned to stand, staggering from side to side. After only a few steps, he stopped behind Xie Jia Hua with one hand braced against his waist. “My butt really hurts. I want to go back…”
Xie Jia Hua had been running ahead with strong, vigorous strides. At this, he doubled back with a dark expression. “Didn’t we use a condom last night?”
“It still hurts even with a condom! Let a piledriver pound you until three in the morning and see how you feel!”
Xie Jia Hua felt the tiniest trace of guilt, but he still suspected Lu Guang Ming was pretending to be miserable just to avoid exercise. Over the past several days, he had already experienced the full extent of the brat’s ability to play pitiful and act shamelessly. Frowning, he grabbed Lu Guang Ming’s butt once, looking very much as though he wanted to strip off his trousers and inspect him on the spot. From the corner of his eye, Lu Guang Ming noticed several other people out exercising that morning and hurriedly covered his backside. “Inspector Xie, don’t be even more shameless than I am.”
“So you know you’re shameless?” Xie Jia Hua glared at him.
“I’m not arguing with you. I’ll go back by myself.” Lu Guang Ming furtively tried to slip away.
Xie Jia Hua grabbed him and hauled him back as though catching a chick. “No. Run a little longer. Your health is terrible. You’re constantly getting fevers and falling sick. From now on, you’ll come out and run with me every morning. Doesn’t the ICAC arrange physical training for you?”
“Did they? Didn’t they? I don’t know. I don’t attend those things.”
“How has your superior not thrown you out when you’re this disobedient?”
“Because I’m cute.”
“…”
“Don’t hit me, don’t hit me! It already hurts, you violent maniac…”
Whimpering, Lu Guang Ming was dragged along by the arm for another stretch. Xie Jia Hua pulled him tirelessly the entire way, and as they ran, neither of them noticed when their grip gradually turned into the two of them holding hands. Trailing behind with Xie Jia Hua’s warm palm wrapped around his own, Lu Guang Ming fixed his eyes on that firm, taut backside rising and falling in front of him and involuntarily swallowed. He still wanted to top him.
The morning sun rose above the distant horizon, its warm red glow spilling across the blue sea. A sea eagle shrieked as it glided overhead. Xie Jia Hua stopped and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He glanced back at Lu Guang Ming, then touched his forehead in confusion. “Do you have another fever?”
“No.”
“Then why is your face so red? Are you genuinely exhausted? Are you having trouble breathing? Does your heart feel uncomfortable?”
He grasped Lu Guang Ming’s wrist to check his pulse, lowering his head and staring intently at his watch as he calculated the time. Lu Guang Ming looked at the beads of sweat covering his forehead and thought, Does he realize how concerned he is about me? How does he explain it to himself?
“One hundred and eighty? Why is your heart beating so fast?” Xie Jia Hua raised his head and looked at him, making no attempt to conceal the worry in his eyes.
“Huh? Me? I…” Lu Guang Ming stammered. He could hardly admit that it was because he had been staring at Xie Jia Hua’s butt, so he could only continue pretending to be ill and miserable. “I-I’m having a little trouble breathing. I’m so tired…”
Xie Jia Hua wiped Lu Guang Ming’s sweat away with his own sleeve, then removed the small water bottle tied around his waist and handed it to him. “Drink a little, but not too much. There’s a bench over there. We’ll walk over slowly and rest for a while.”
Blushing with his heart pounding, Lu Guang Ming allowed himself to be led to the bench. Wherever his body pressed against Xie Jia Hua’s felt as though it were on fire. Meanwhile, the projector in his head kept replaying images of the two of them drenched in sweat and tightly entwined the previous night, leaving him shifting his butt restlessly, unable to sit still.
“Does it really hurt?” Xie Jia Hua misunderstood. He removed his sports jacket and rolled it into a bundle. “Get up. Sit on this.”
Lu Guang Ming’s butt did not actually hurt very much. It merely felt somewhat swollen and strange. He carefully sat on Xie Jia Hua’s jacket, not daring to look at his face again, feeling unbearably hot and restless.
“What’s wrong with you?” Xie Jia Hua suddenly grabbed his wrist. Lu Guang Ming was so startled that he nearly sprang upright and instinctively tried to evade him, only for Xie Jia Hua to grip his chin and force his head around. Xie Jia Hua touched a finger beneath his nose, and a drop of blood ran down it.
“You have a nosebleed!” Xie Jia Hua said with a frown. Naturally pinching Lu Guang Ming’s nose, he looked around and spotted a man and woman jogging together. “Pinch it yourself for now. I’ll ask whether they have any tissues.”
Before long, Xie Jia Hua hurried back with a packet of tissues. Once they had barely managed to stop the bleeding, he turned his back and crouched halfway down, gesturing for Lu Guang Ming to climb onto him. “We should go back early and let you rest. Don’t stay out in the sea breeze. Put on my jacket.”
Wearing Xie Jia Hua’s jacket, Lu Guang Ming silently climbed onto his back. With one exertion of strength, Xie Jia Hua lifted him securely and strode back the way they had come, reproaching himself as he walked. “I shouldn’t have forced you to come out. I didn’t believe you just now. That old habit of mine acted up again. I’m sorry.”
With a huge wad of tissue stuffed beneath his nose, Lu Guang Ming did not dare tell him, I’m not actually sick. I’ve just eaten too much roast goose lately and gotten heaty, plus I was staring at your butt just now. For once, he lay quietly and obediently against Xie Jia Hua’s shoulder without making a sound.
Elio’s Notes: “Heaty” refers to 上火, a traditional Chinese concept of excess internal “heat,” popularly associated with symptoms such as nosebleeds.
Xie Jia Hua stopped and turned his head to look at him worriedly. Seeing that nothing seemed seriously wrong, he resumed walking quickly.
“Go back and sleep for a while longer. If you still feel unwell by noon, call me…”
Lu Guang Ming finally spoke in a tiny voice. “Don’t call an ambulance. I’m currently pretending to be ‘dead.’ And don’t call that caregiver either. He chews betel nut every day and never brushes his teeth. His breath stinks.”
“I know. Call me. Unless there’s something important at work, I’ll take leave and come back.”
Lu Guang Ming fell silent again and buried his face against Xie Jia Hua’s sweat-dampened shoulder. After a while, he sniffled softly.
Heavens, he whispered inside his heart. Dad, Mom, Brother Jia Qi—I really, really like him.
Then he thought of what he and He Chu San were currently doing and suddenly felt very sad again. There were only two possible endings to this matter. In one, they failed and were killed by Xie Jia Hua’s father. In the other, they succeeded, and Lu Guang Ming personally arrested Xie Jia Hua’s father. Whichever it was, he and Xie Jia Hua would never again have an intimate moment like this.
He knew he ought to treasure the present, so he secretly raised his head and carefully kissed Xie Jia Hua’s hair.
At that moment, the fiery color of the rising sun dyed a vast stretch of sky behind them crimson. Lu Guang Ming did not know that the light breaking through the night had cast their figures onto the crystal-clear surface of the water beside them. Xie Jia Hua saw it.
…
The moment of parting arrived very soon. Early the next morning, He Chu San sent someone disguised as a food-delivery worker to bring him a coded message. It meant that the materials Lu Guang Ming needed to formally open the case had already been hidden at the secret location they had agreed upon beforehand. It was time for him to “come back to life.”
He retrieved the materials, then spent most of the day thoroughly cleaning every corner of Xie Jia Hua’s home. He carefully folded every item of clothing or ironed it and hung it up, leaving everything neat, clean, and orderly. He did not know what else he could possibly do to make it up to Xie Jia Hua.
While washing one of Xie Jia Hua’s jackets, which was stained with a little blood, he found a tiny shark woven from grass inside the pocket. Its teeth were bared in a fierce little grimace, making it exceptionally adorable, and it was obviously something meant for a child. Yet Lu Guang Ming’s investigation had never uncovered any young children among Xie Jia Hua’s relatives. The little shark had been slightly crushed and wrinkled, and there appeared to be a trace of blood and mud on its tail. Somewhat curious, he thought, I’ll ask Xie Jia Hua when he gets home. Surely he wouldn’t hide something this trivial from me, right?
Xie Jia Hua truly was not hiding much from him now. Whenever Lu Guang Ming told him something, even when it was obviously complete nonsense, Xie Jia Hua would still adopt an attitude of Fine, I’ll believe him for now, or the little thing will get another fever or nosebleed, very clearly indulging him.
He likes me a little, doesn’t he? He isn’t merely doting on me as a “younger brother,” is he? Who goes to bed with their “younger brother”? He’s so serious and gentle when he kisses me. Even if we’re only fuck buddies, he must like me at least a tiny bit, right?
But there was no longer any point in thinking about that.
Will he be sad if I die?
There was no point in thinking about that either.
Lu Guang Ming wrapped a specially duplicated copy of the materials inside a folder and hid it deep within the wardrobe in Xie Jia Hua’s home. If he and He Chu San both died in the attempt, then at the very least, the last person in the world still trying to uncover the truth for Tang Jia Qi would be able to learn it. Hidden together with the documents was a note he had written to Xie Jia Hua. Writing that note took him nearly an hour.
He tore it up and rewrote it, then tore it up and rewrote it again. In the end, he still wrote only a few simple words of apology.
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