A deathlike sense of suffocation surged over Qi Mu like a rising tide.
His vision gradually blurred.
He had no time to wonder why his world had become so dangerous, as though the slightest accident could kill him and leave him to die a completely meaningless death.
No…
This was not his world. It was Jiang Shao’s.
In Jiang Shao’s world, killing someone was no more significant than crushing an ant. But Qi Mu did not want to die an insignificant death.
Involuntary tears welled at the corners of his eyes. He struggled to move his lips, forcing out a hoarse, broken voice. “It’s… me… It’s me… Wake… wake up…”
Jiang Shao stared coldly at him, entirely unmoved, savage violence mingling with mockery in his eyes.
He did not release Qi Mu, but neither did he tighten his grip. Perhaps he wanted to hear what Qi Mu was trying to argue…
To hear him more clearly, Jiang Shao bent down and lowered his head toward Qi Mu. His breath fell across Qi Mu’s face as he slowly moved closer. Like a beast toying with its prey, he was cold, mocking, and cruel, watching the prey tremble in his grasp. Finally, he stopped beside Qi Mu’s ear, his lips almost brushing the outer rim and making Qi Mu shudder.
Qi Mu obediently relaxed and stopped struggling. As expected, Jiang Shao’s grip loosened slightly.
Finally able to draw a little air into his lungs, Qi Mu hurriedly said, “You have a fever. Cough, cough… I only came to bring you medicine. I don’t mean you any harm…”
After speaking, he forced his eyes wide and looked earnestly at Jiang Shao to show that he was sincere.
But Jiang Shao continued staring at him with that cold, mocking gaze.
Qi Mu’s eyes shifted. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll take one myself.”
He opened the hand he had kept tightly clenched. The glass had been knocked over during the struggle, but he had held on to the cold medicine the entire time. His palm was slick with nervous sweat, and the tablets had nearly begun to dissolve.
Qi Mu slowly brought his hand to his mouth, took one of the tablets, and swallowed it right in front of Jiang Shao.
“See…? It really is only cold medicine.”
While maintaining a sincere expression, Qi Mu complained inwardly. I was only trying to give you some medicine. Why are you acting as though I tried to poison you?
You believe I don’t mean you any harm now, don’t you?
Suddenly, the man pinched Qi Mu’s cheeks and forced his mouth open. Qi Mu’s expression changed, and he nearly began struggling again, but he quickly realized Jiang Shao was checking his mouth. Not wanting to provoke him further, Qi Mu forced himself to remain still.
Jiang Shao stared intently into Qi Mu’s mouth with a slight frown. Then he pushed his thumb between Qi Mu’s lips, moved his tongue aside, and repeatedly inspected his mouth with meticulous care.
Qi Mu had never expected Jiang Shao to do something like this. His entire body went rigid.
The rough pad of Jiang Shao’s thumb pushed against the tip of his tongue and scraped along the inside of his mouth. Saliva quickly pooled and spilled from the corner of Qi Mu’s lips. His eyes grew even redder, and his body trembled faintly…
Just as Qi Mu’s patience was about to reach its limit—
Jiang Shao finally seemed to finish his inspection. A trace of confusion appeared in his dark eyes, like the first crack across the surface of a frozen river. The fracture quickly widened, and bewilderment gradually replaced his violent hostility.
He still radiated danger, but the killing intent had faded considerably.
Qi Mu could feel Jiang Shao’s breath close to his own. The man studied him like prey, sniffing first at his mouth, then slowly moving down to his neck, taking in his scent little by little as though he intended to smell every inch of him.
Qi Mu’s heart nearly lodged in his throat. He had no idea whether Jiang Shao had regained his senses…
The room was so quiet that he could hear his own heartbeat and the sound of their breaths tangling together.
One second passed after another.
Finally, Jiang Shao slowly removed his hand from Qi Mu’s throat. His eyes were no longer filled with violence and bloodlust, but they remained shrouded in an unreadable darkness.
Qi Mu finally breathed a sigh of relief. Before he could sit up, however, Jiang Shao suddenly caught his wrist, lowered his head, and used the tip of his tongue to sweep the remaining tablet from Qi Mu’s palm.
His slick tongue rubbed across Qi Mu’s skin.
It was both numb and ticklish.
Qi Mu shuddered as though an electric current had passed through him and violently snatched back his hand, staring at Jiang Shao in disbelief.
Have you lost your mind?!
But Jiang Shao’s expression did not change in the slightest, as though he had no idea what he had just done. He merely gazed steadily at Qi Mu with those dark, shadowed eyes as his Adam’s apple moved once.
He swallowed the tablet.
Although Jiang Shao appeared perfectly calm now, his gaze made Qi Mu’s scalp prickle. A shiver crawled up his spine, and for some reason, Jiang Shao seemed even more frightening than before.
That had to be his imagination, right?
Qi Mu drew a deep breath and cautiously tried again. “Can you let me go now?”
The man was still on top of him!
Qi Mu kept his expression mild, but his legs were quietly gathering strength. Jiang Shao had visibly relaxed. If he lost control again, Qi Mu would not hold back. This was an excellent opportunity to fight back.
But Jiang Shao did not attack him again.
He merely looked at Qi Mu with an indescribable expression, watching him silently. Then he suddenly closed his eyes and, as though he had exhausted his last trace of strength, collapsed directly onto Qi Mu.
Qi Mu: “…”
He pushed Jiang Shao off him.
Looking at the unconscious man sprawled on the bed, Qi Mu was so furious his teeth ached.
He was seething, with nowhere to direct his anger.
He could hardly land a couple of solid punches on an unconscious patient, could he?
Qi Mu rarely lost his temper like this. In fact, no one had ever made him this angry. Even when the procurement manager had accepted kickbacks, Qi Mu had not been nearly this furious. Jiang Shao was the first person ever to make him angry enough to want to hit someone.
It took him a long while to calm himself down.
He turned and looked at Jiang Shao again.
Although Qi Mu was genuinely furious, reason told him that it was better for Jiang Shao to remain unconscious.
He truly had no idea how he was supposed to face Jiang Shao while the man was awake.
Especially after such an unbearably awkward scene…
After what had happened, Qi Mu wanted nothing more than to leave and let Jiang Shao fend for himself. He had come here out of kindness, only for this man to suddenly go rabid on him. It was truly rotten luck.
But now that Jiang Shao had fainted, abandoning him would be far too inhumane.
Qi Mu’s last shred of conscience screamed desperately at him.
He could hardly argue with someone who was delirious from a high fever, could he?
Qi Mu sat on the edge of the bed and sighed repeatedly. In the end, he resigned himself to staying. Meeting this formidable ancestor was simply his bad luck. Jiang Shao truly was the bane of his existence.
Qi Mu took Jiang Shao’s temperature. It was still extremely high, so he placed a damp towel on his forehead. But even after changing the towel several times, the fever refused to come down.
Qi Mu frowned.
He went to the bathroom and brought back another towel, soaking it in a basin of cool water. Lowering his gaze toward the sleeping man on the bed, he hesitated for a long moment before slowly placing his hand on Jiang Shao’s collar.
He remembered how aggressive and oppressive Jiang Shao had felt when he leaned close to him earlier—and the tingling sensation of that tongue sliding across his palm…
Qi Mu repeatedly chanted to himself, Those were accidents. They were both accidents. We’re both straight. We’re both straight.
Then he closed his eyes, wearing the expression of a martyr going bravely to his execution, and reached out to undo Jiang Shao’s collar.
The man’s broad, solid chest was exposed. It was not the first time Qi Mu had seen it, but he still turned his eyes away and did not dare look for long. He wrung out the towel and wiped beneath Jiang Shao’s arms, then across his chest and abdomen.
Although Qi Mu was already being extremely careful, his fingertips still accidentally brushed against Jiang Shao’s skin. The taut, powerful muscles were so hot that Qi Mu felt as though his fingertips had been burned.
When Qi Mu had been drunk, he had already noticed that Jiang Shao’s body temperature ran high. Now that he had a fever, his entire body was as hot as a furnace.
Qi Mu took a deep breath, pushed aside all irrelevant thoughts, and focused on caring for the patient.
Time passed quickly.
Qi Mu wiped Jiang Shao down several times, then placed a hand on his forehead again. At last, it no longer felt as hot as before.
Only then did Qi Mu release a complete breath of relief. His body finally relaxed as he looked at the sleeping man with a complicated expression.
In the dream, Qi Mu had already witnessed Jiang Shao’s cold-blooded and merciless nature. He knew how Jiang Shao disregarded and trampled upon human life.
But since meeting him in reality, the Jiang Shao Qi Mu had seen appeared perfectly normal apart from his somewhat arrogant young-master temper. He had even genuinely shown up for work every day.
Although Jiang Shao had a willful and reckless side, he always seemed to know exactly where to draw the line. He had never truly put Qi Mu in a difficult position.
Jiang Shao had even risked himself to save someone…
Gradually, Qi Mu had lowered his guard. He had nearly forgotten what kind of person Jiang Shao had been in the dream.
Until just now—
Jiang Shao’s undisguised violence and brutality, along with the hands wrapped around Qi Mu’s throat, had instantly brought that nightmare rushing back.
But even in the dream—
Jiang Shao had always remained aloof and indifferent, deciding the fates of others with only a few words. He had never displayed such naked savagery.
This Jiang Shao—
Was even more frightening than the man from the dream.
And Qi Mu seemed never to have truly understood him.
At that thought, Qi Mu let out a faint laugh. But why should he understand Jiang Shao? They had originally been strangers whose paths should never have crossed. In the dream, Jiang Shao had stayed here for only a few months before acquiring Qi Mu’s company, eliminating him as cannon fodder, and moving on to the next setting in his own story.
Jiang Shao would continue moving forward.
Qi Mu would remain where he was.
Sooner or later, their paths would separate.
Qi Mu stood and placed the kettle and medicine together in a conspicuous spot on the desk so Jiang Shao would know to take them when he woke. Then he quietly opened the door and left.
Click.
The door closed.
Jiang Shao opened his eyes.
Perhaps he was exceptionally skilled at pretending to sleep, or perhaps Qi Mu was simply too oblivious. Either way, Qi Mu had never once noticed that Jiang Shao was not actually asleep.
He had originally been trapped inside a nightmare.
In the dream was Jiang Zong Chao’s hypocritical, sickening face.
The man walked toward him, and the violence inside Jiang Shao erupted. He wanted to kill him. But when Jiang Shao finally had him under his control… that face became Qi Mu’s instead.
The man lay beneath him, aggrieved yet compliant, his eyes red and veiled with tears. Even after being treated so viciously, he continued trying to explain himself with complete sincerity: I don’t mean you any harm…
He had tried so hard to earn Jiang Shao’s trust that he swallowed one of the tablets himself.
Jiang Shao looked at the man gazing tearfully at him, pitiful yet tempting. For some inexplicable reason, he lowered his head as though possessed and ate the tablet directly from Qi Mu’s hand.
He had never suspected that Qi Mu would harm him.
He had simply thought of doing it and acted.
Only when he came back to his senses and saw Qi Mu’s shocked expression did he realize what he had done.
Jiang Shao was not someone who liked running away from things.
But when faced with Qi Mu’s disbelieving gaze, he suddenly had no idea how to respond. He did not want to see fear or disgust appear on Qi Mu’s face, so he did something more absurd than anything he had ever done before—
He pretended to faint.
Jiang Shao closed his eyes.
He had assumed Qi Mu would take the opportunity to leave.
After all, Jiang Shao had gone far too far. Qi Mu had no reason to stay. Surely, he would walk away without the slightest hesitation.
But he did not.
Qi Mu had actually stayed.
Jiang Shao heard his sighs, the quiet rustling of his movements, and his footsteps going in and out of the room. In the end…
Qi Mu remained beside him, wiping down his body with a towel, patiently checking his temperature, and gently moistening his lips with water.
Jiang Shao used every ounce of self-control he possessed, yet he could not slow his racing heart. Fortunately, Qi Mu also seemed distracted and unsettled, so he did not notice.
Jiang Shao could no longer remember the last time someone had cared for him this way.
The memory was so distant that it had grown indistinct.
Perhaps it had been long, long ago—before his mother became unstable and consumed by self-pity, back when his parents had still loved each other as they once had…
His mother had once treated him with the same tenderness.
But later, she had barely been able to care for herself.
So she stopped paying attention to him.
Jiang Shao tightly closed his eyes.
He had never expected Qi Mu to come.
Because he was accustomed to no one ever coming to find him.
But Qi Mu had come.
He had awakened Jiang Shao from the nightmare and, in the end, given him a beautiful dream.
Jiang Shao could no longer deceive himself by claiming that what he felt toward Qi Mu was only a momentary impulse or a physical instinct.
His heart pounded fast and hard like a war drum, every beat striking painfully against his chest.
But then the image of his hands around Qi Mu’s throat suddenly surfaced before him again. Qi Mu’s face had flushed red as he struggled to breathe, unable to break free…
And Jiang Shao had watched coldly as Qi Mu fought for his life.
If he had not regained his senses in time, would he have accidentally killed Qi Mu?
He seemed incapable of controlling himself completely. His heart was warped and ugly, filled with rage and violence. He was a cold-blooded, selfish man, exactly like his father. He did not believe that anything truly beautiful existed in the world, and some part of him even felt the urge to destroy it.
He knew perfectly well that people like him and Jiang Zong Chao would never meet a good end…
Nor would anyone close to them.
Since Qi Mu had never been part of his plans to begin with, he should not become part of them now.
Jiang Shao thought—
He truly should stop indulging himself and sinking any deeper.
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