At this moment, Kevin’s emotions could no longer be described simply as “terrified.” One second ago, he had been accompanying Brother Chu San through a life-and-death crisis—his last memory was being rescued from a speeding van in pain and confusion by Xia Liu Yi, watching helplessly as Brother Chu San was taken away. The next second, upon opening his eyes, he saw Qin Hao laughing uncontrollably…
That Qin Hao—the serious, aloof, iceberg-faced Qin Hao???
Was he happy seeing how miserable I am?? I only tricked him into one night, and that doesn’t even count as tricking—I didn’t do it on purpose!
Kevin was so frightened he thought he was still in a nightmare. He curled up under the blanket like a rolled-up gecko, not daring to move. The medical staff had no choice but to physically straighten him out with Qin Hao’s help. Before leaving, Qin Hao asked whether he could feed him now. The doctor advised avoiding hard food—he had just suffered a concussion, and chewing too forcefully would worsen the dizziness.
Qin Hao brought over a bowl of porridge and fed Kevin, carefully lifting the spoon to his lips. “Eat slowly. If you chew too fast, you’ll get dizzy.”
Kevin was indeed still dizzy. He swallowed a small bite slowly, only to feel even dizzier. He waved his hand, signaling he would stop for now. In a daze, he asked, “Where’s Brother Chu San?”
“He’s fine. Xia Liu Yi and his family are taking care of him.”
“What about Xie Ying Jie?”
“Arrested.”
“Oh.” Kevin let out a breath of relief, then asked blankly, “Why are you here?”
“I…” Qin Hao couldn’t quite explain everything that had happened over the past few days. “I’ve been here taking care of you.”
Kevin looked dazed. “Why? Where’s my mom?”
“You have a mom?” Qin Hao had indeed heard him call out “Mom” earlier.
“Huh? You don’t have one?”
“…” Qin Hao really didn’t have one.
Aside from He Chu San, no one knew Kevin still had a mother. With both Kevin and He Chu San unconscious, no one had informed Qin Hao to notify her—such was the sorrow of a side character’s mother. For the past few days, Kevin’s mother had thought her son had gone missing. Upon finally receiving news, she rushed to the hospital, hugging her son while crying and scolding him nonstop.
Qin Hao had already finished feeding the porridge and stood awkwardly at the side. “Then… I’ll go first.”
Kevin patted his mother’s back and turned his head. “Are you going back to work?”
“Not for the next couple of days.” He had taken a week’s leave to take care of Kevin—there were still two days left.
Kevin looked at him eagerly. Now that the masked man’s dizziness had eased and his mind had cleared—after being fed porridge by Qin Hao—his thoughts began to stir again. “If you’re free… could you come visit me again? Can you bring me a book tomorrow?”
“What kind of book?”
“Anything with words. Brother Chu San told me to read more.”
Qin Hao nodded and turned to leave. His back still looked cold and distant.
But Kevin was very happy. Clinging to his mother’s arm, he asked, “Mom, don’t you think he’s cute? Handsome?”
Romance.
“Who is he? What does he do?” his mother asked.
“A new friend. He’s a police officer—impressive, right?”
“You brat, running around pretending to be a thug all day—now look where it got you, lying in a hospital! And now you say you’re friends with a police officer? Who are you fooling? He’s probably here to arrest you!”
“No, Mom, really—I’ve been studying finance with Brother Chu San, trading stocks. Very respectable.”
“People who trade stocks are not good people!” his mother declared firmly. “Uncle Wong from across the building lost everything in stocks and his whole family jumped off a building! Brother Chu San is so smart—why didn’t he teach you properly? Did he go bad after getting a boyfriend?”
“That’s not how it works…” Kevin tried explaining for a long time, but failed. In the end, his mother smacked him on the head.
“Don’t hit me! I have a concussion…”
…
The next day, Qin Hao brought a book titled Ultimate Techniques of World Boxing Champions. It even had colored pages. Every page featured shirtless, golden-ratio, muscular men posing with fists raised.
Kevin flipped through it, feeling even dizzier.
“You don’t like it?” Qin Hao observed his expression.
“Cough,” Kevin said tactfully, “I want something with more words.”
Qin Hao flipped to the later pages, where there were dense illustrated explanations. “There are words here.”
“Cough…” Kevin couldn’t keep being tactful. “I’m not really into this type. I prefer the type like Brother Chu San.”
“Gentle, refined, and elegant?” Qin Hao thought. “That’s not my type.”
But Kevin had said he found him cute, and that he wanted to start as friends.
“Maybe he just wants to be friends… and occasionally hook up,” Qin Hao thought again.
A faint, inexplicable sense of disappointment stirred in his heart. Qin Hao said, “I’ll go buy another one. Would a finance book be okay?”
“No, no—don’t,” Kevin quickly grabbed the corner of his clothes. His intention had never really been about the book. “Just sit and talk with me for a while.”
Qin Hao sat down by his bedside, but for a moment didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t a man of many words. Kevin waited for a bit with no response, then had to speak first. “My mom went home to cook. This morning I even asked her to bring you breakfast—I thought you’d come early.”
“I went to buy the book this morning,” Qin Hao said. After a moment, he added, “I go back to work tomorrow. Can I come see you before my shift?”
“Sure. Come have the soy milk my mom makes. She cooks it herself—it’s really fragrant.”
Qin Hao gave a soft “mm,” and then fell silent again.
They both sat quietly for a while. Qin Hao made an effort to find a topic. “You…”
“You…” Kevin spoke at the same time.
They both paused. “Uh, you go first.” “No, you go first.”
Kevin gathered his courage. “Why were you taking care of me these past few days?”
“I thought you didn’t have any family.”
“No other reason?” Kevin asked, both nervous and hopeful.
Qin Hao looked at him. “Last time you said we could start as friends. Does that still count?”
“Yes, yes, it counts.” Kevin nodded quickly.
“If we’re friends… can I hug you?”
Kevin immediately opened his arms. Qin Hao leaned in and held him tightly, breathing in the scent at his neck—Kevin’s mother had helped him bathe. It smelled like lemon soap, faintly sweet and fresh, very cute.
Romance.
“A few days ago, the doctor said your head injury might leave you in a vegetative state. I was really worried,” Qin Hao said, holding him. “It’s good that you woke up.”
Kevin rubbed his face against Qin Hao’s shoulder. “You didn’t finish. Why did you take care of me?”
“To thank you for that night… for staying with me.”
“And?”
“You’re very cute.”
Kevin sighed softly. “Do you… maybe like me a little?”
“I don’t know. What about you?”
“I don’t know either.”
Even as they said they didn’t know, the two clung to each other like koalas, reluctant to let go. Kevin hesitated, then asked, “If we’re friends… can we kiss?”
“Probably not.”
Kevin felt a bit disappointed—the feeling of kissing Qin Hao had been really nice. But Qin Hao lowered his head and kissed him anyway, gently. After the kiss, Qin Hao himself blushed first. Kevin felt slightly breathless as well and murmured, “Then… maybe we should just start as boyfriends instead?” He wrapped his arms around Qin Hao’s neck.
The two of them lingered together, kissing for a while longer. Then Qin Hao suddenly remembered something and pulled back slightly. “Then you can’t be a thug anymore. I don’t want to have to arrest you one day.”
Kevin blinked in confusion. “I’m not a gangster. Brother Chu San and I are both informants for the ICAC, just like you’re undercover.”
Qin Hao looked skeptical, so Kevin continued explaining, “I used to hang around on the streets for a while, but after following Brother Chu San, I quit that life. Back then, when Brother Chu San set you up, it was because your identity had already been discovered by Old Shopkeeper. He ordered Mr. Xia to kill you. So Brother Chu San acted first and intercepted the situation. We were trying to save you.”
Qin Hao frowned. “You were trying to save Xia Liu Yi.”
“Cough… well… that too. Sorry.”
Qin Hao looked at him for a while. “Fine. One more kiss and I’ll forgive you.”
Kevin immediately kissed him. Qin Hao smiled, tugging lightly at Kevin’s soft earlobe, still finding him very cute.
Then let’s just start as boyfriends.
…
That very night, under the pretense of staying to accompany the patient, Qin Hao remained. After locking the door, the two of them quietly fulfilled their “boyfriend duties,” continuing what had been left unfinished from their previous encounter.
Despite still being injured and unable even to get out of bed, Kevin stubbornly insisted on drawing Qin Hao closer. Qin Hao carefully climbed onto the hospital bed, straddling him, leaning down to kiss him as they slowly removed each other’s clothes. Soon, Kevin was enveloped by him—the powerful tension of Qin Hao’s body making him gasp softly. The rising waves of sensation felt like being tossed in a stormy sea, leaving him completely at a loss of control, his mind growing hazy—quite literally, given his concussion.
“So dizzy… mm… so dizzy…”
“Do you want me to slow down?”
“N-no… ah… you’re so tight…”
At the height of it, Kevin nearly blacked out from the intensity. Afterwards, Qin Hao handled the cleanup himself. Kevin lay weakly curled under the blanket, waiting for Qin Hao to return and hold him as they slept—utterly soft and dependent.
Qin Hao soon came back, carefully squeezing onto the narrow hospital bed and placing a kiss on Kevin’s forehead. Kevin returned the kiss and sighed softly. “Sorry… once I’m better, I’ll properly make it up to you. I really am a pure top, I’ll be a good husband.”
Qin Hao smiled and kissed him again. “Alright. I’ll wait.”
…
Qin Hao visited Kevin every day before and after work. Sometimes, he would run into Xie Jia Hua in the elevator, moving hurriedly—naturally, on his way to see Lu Guang Ming.
On one such day, after exchanging greetings, Xie Jia Hua couldn’t help but ask, “You’re here to see Kevin again?”
“Mm.”
Xie Jia Hua looked puzzled. “You and him…”
“He’s my boyfriend now,” Qin Hao said.
Xie Jia Hua was quite surprised, though he knew Kevin was He Chu San’s assistant and had no issues with his character. “That’s good. I wish you both well. But… how did you two get together?”
“A one-night stand,” Qin Hao replied.
He was still smiling even after leaving the elevator. Thinking of Xie Jia Hua’s stunned expression made him want to laugh. Catching his reflection in the glass of a passing window, he rubbed his face, realizing he had smiled more in the past few days than in his entire life.
So this is what being in love feels like—it really does make people happy.
Romance.
He entered Kevin’s ward. Kevin was currently flipping through Ultimate Techniques of World Boxing Champions together with his mother.
Kevin’s mother said impatiently, “No matter how much I look, none of these are as handsome as Hao Hao.”
“Of course not,” Kevin said proudly.
When Kevin’s mother looked up and saw Qin Hao enter, she said, “Perfect timing. Hao Hao, you stay with him—I’ll head back first.”
“Take care, Auntie,” Qin Hao said.
She walked over, pinched Qin Hao’s arm, lifted his sleeve to take a look, then said to Kevin, “Much better-looking than those in the book—and a police officer too. The boyfriend you found is better than your Brother Chu San’s.” Then she patted Qin Hao on the back and left, leaving Qin Hao bewildered and Kevin smug.
Qin Hao closed the door and asked, “Your mom knows about us?”
“I told her today.”
“She… didn’t say anything?”
Kevin happily pulled him over and kissed him, saying casually, “I told her when I was a teenager that I liked Brother Chu San—that I like men. She couldn’t accept it at first, but later she got over it. I treat her well, my boyfriend treats her well—so she basically has two good sons, right?”
Qin Hao nodded, but felt a faint unease in his heart. This relationship seemed too simple, too smooth, too fast—without even the slightest obstacle. Compared to Xie Jia Hua and Lu Guang Ming’s complicated entanglements, or He Chu San and Xia Liu Yi’s stormy relationship, he couldn’t help but wonder if something was wrong with his and Kevin’s.
“The doctor said I can get out of bed and walk around a bit,” Kevin said. “Will you come with me to see Brother Chu San?”
In the past few days, He Chu San had passed the critical stage. After caring for him through that period, Xia Liu Yi proposed a breakup and was taken back into custody. He Chu San was deeply shaken. He had no appetite, vomited whatever he ate, and could only rely on intravenous nutrition. His cheeks had grown sunken. Lu Guang Ming had visited him the day before; after a few words, he managed to persuade Lu Guang Ming, but he himself remained lifeless and drained.
Qin Hao supported Kevin as they went to visit him. He Chu San struggled to sit up, weakly examining Kevin from head to toe and asking after his condition. “Kevin, I dragged you into this.”
“Don’t say that, Brother Chu San. You saved my life. The path I chose was my own. You should focus on getting better—you’re worrying everyone like this.”
He Chu San lowered his gaze. His eyes were dim and lifeless. “These past days… every moment I’m awake, all I think about is killing him.”
Instead, Kevin leaned closer and said seriously, “That’s right, Brother Chu San. Wanting to kill him is right. Killing him requires strength, timing, and the right method. You need to eat well, sleep well, and live properly. Wait patiently until the day you see him again—then stab him, carve him a thousand times, and vent your hatred.”
He Chu San laughed. He raised his pale hand and rubbed his eyes, sat there in a daze for a moment, then couldn’t help but laugh again.
He understood what Kevin meant: when despair comes, you don’t have to love him—hatred can keep you going too.
Romance.
“Thank you, Kevin.”
…
With Qin Hao’s support, Kevin left the ward, patting his chest in lingering fear. “Wow… if Mr. Xia finds out I said something like that, he’ll definitely beat me to death. My legs were shaking after I said it.”
“You’re inciting murder. I could arrest you for that,” Qin Hao said.
“So scary, Officer, spare me. How about tonight you handcuff me and play with me instead? I’ve never tried that before.”
“Don’t mess around.”
Futile Devices Scans 
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