“Give it back to him.” Fu Hui raised his head.
The bodyguard was a little surprised. “You’re going to let him contact other people?”
“It won’t do him much good even if he does.”
The bodyguard thought about it and realized that was true.
So he picked up the tray and started walking out again.
“Wait.” Fu Hui suddenly stopped him again and took the phone.
The phone did not even have a passcode. Fu Hui easily swiped into the home screen, opened the app store, downloaded five games for Lan Xi, then downloaded two social-media apps as well.
Afterward, he disabled the call forwarding before putting the phone back on the tray.
Fu Hui’s fingers brushed across the notebook’s cover, and his gaze followed.
Why did Lan Xi value this thing so much? Could the answer to all the strange things about him be hidden inside?
Fu Hui picked it up and opened the first page.
A string of strange writing filled the first page.
Beneath that strange script were the two Chinese characters “Lan Xi,” written crookedly.
It was obviously a kind of signature, intended to tell other people whom the notebook belonged to.
Then… did that string of strange writing also represent a “name”?
Fu Hui flipped farther in.
The first things that caught his eye were two numbers.
5, 17.
It was a standard diary format, indicating an entry from May 17.
But the large blocks of writing beneath were in the same strange script as the front page, making it impossible to tell what they said.
Some obscure language?
Fu Hui photographed it and sent the image to a linguist he knew.
He turned to the second page. It was still filled with entries in that strange script.
The third page was the same.
Fu Hui did not put the notebook down. Instead, he pinched its edge and rapidly flipped through the pages. Finally, on one page, the writing changed into familiar Chinese.
He saw Wen Ming’s name and Wen Yue’s name, and at the very end, his own.
Symbols had been drawn after each name, their meanings unclear.
…But why is my name last?
Fine. That was not important yet.
Fu Hui continued flipping through.
[It’s really so hard to sleep with him!]
Fu Hui’s eyelid twitched.
Who was “him”?
The bodyguard beside him noticed something wrong with Fu Hui’s expression and hurriedly retreated, closing the door behind him.
Fu Hui unconsciously crumpled the page, but quickly realized that might leave a trace.
Suppressing his anger, he did his utmost to lighten his movements and turned another page.
[Is Wen Ming an idiot?]
The corner of Fu Hui’s mouth twitched in agreement.
But… did the “him” on the previous page refer to Wen Ming?
Fu Hui squeezed his knuckles hard before continuing to turn the pages.
[I discovered that as long as I get close to Wen Ming in front of Wen Zou, Wen Zou heats up.]
Fu Hui: “…”
Wen Zou. That meant Wen Yue, presumably?
[Is Wen Zou an idiot?]
Fu Hui badly wanted to agree, but he was worried that if he turned another page, he would find [Is Fu Hui an idiot?] written there.
Back at the little Western-style house, he had even gone out of his way to teach Lan Xi how to write the character “Fu.” If he had known, he would not have taught him.
[Wen Ming isn’t home. Only Wen Zou left. Haha]
[Wen Zou tells stories worse than Fu Hui]
Fu Hui finally saw his own name. He read that sentence twice over, and it felt as though the words had struck his heart—not too hard, not too lightly.
He decided it was a good thing he had taught Lan Xi after all.
Otherwise, it would have been “Cun Hui” sitting beside “Wen Zou.”
He remained on that page and read it twice more.
He had heard many things about Lan Xi from Wen Yue and Wen Ming. But the diary gave him Lan Xi’s perspective, a perspective the Wen brothers knew nothing about.
Fu Hui pressed his lips tightly together, warmth stirring in his chest.
He wanted to see more.
[Younger brother again. They don’t believe me when I say I’m not. Are they idiots?]
[Fu Hui isn’t replying]
Lan Xi had been so angry he had not even bothered with punctuation.
Fu Hui checked the date written above… It was exactly the twenty-third. He truly was not as angry anymore about Lan Xi working two fronts at once.
If he had replied to Lan Xi that day, would Lan Xi still have told Wen Yue, “I want you to like me”?
[Fu Hui is so annoying]
Farther down.
Unsurprisingly, he found [Fu Hui is a dumbass].
Fu Hui: “…”
Was this really a diary? Or some kind of grudge list?
But probably because he had already seen Lan Xi curse Wen Ming and Wen Yue, Fu Hui was surprisingly calm at the moment.
[Luo ○ is pretty good. Like him a little]
Fu Hui guessed that meant Luo Jin.
He had to admit that Luo Jin, who had earned a “pretty good” evaluation the moment he appeared, did attract a certain amount of hostility.
Fu Hui stared at that line for no less time than he had spent looking at Lan Xi’s [Wen Yue tells stories worse than Fu Hui].
[Fang ○○ is so poor. Keep him around for now]
What did keep him around for now mean?
[Is Heaven really going to be okay with this many idiots?]
Fu Hui: “…”
Why did Lan Xi mention “Heaven”?
[Want to go to another banquet. Everything sparkles. Want to take all of it away]
[Saw Fu Hui again. Didn’t do anything! But food was good]
[Fu Hui is so annoying]
[Fu Hui is coming to pick me up. Haha]
Around this point, Wen Ming had been preparing to take Lan Xi and run away overnight, only for them to end up in Hai City.
Lan Xi had not brought the notebook with him, so several days passed before he recorded anything new. [Like Secretary Lin a lot. Like Hai City. Wen Ming is a huge dumbass]
After that came the period when Fu Hui had taken Lan Xi away.
[Fu Hui was good today]
[Fu Hui was bad today]
[Fu Hui was very good today] [Fu Hui taught me English. I really have it hard]
The tension in Fu Hui’s muscles slowly eased, and the corners of his lips softened slightly.
What followed was a long stretch of very plain entries:
[Fu Hui gave me grilled lamb chops and beef braised in red wine]
[Fu Hui gave me lobster risotto. Didn’t know how to write it. He taught me. b(￣▽￣)d]
[Fu Hui gave me lion’s head meatballs, shumai, and glutinous-rice lotus root. Didn’t know how to write them. He taught me again. b(￣▽￣)d]
…
Mixed in among the long series of food-centered entries were occasional notes like:
[Fu Hui’s hands are so hot. Will he burn me to death?]
[The thigh garter Fu Hui bought is good. Sparkly. Like it. Want to keep wearing it]
[Fu Hui was very bad today. Wouldn’t let me keep wearing the thigh garter]
Fu Hui laughed softly, his heart gradually softening entirely beyond his control.
It was like walking past a cotton-candy shop. You did not need to buy anything; the sweet scent had already blended into the air and forced its way into your body.
It was an unfamiliar, faint, yet endless sweetness.
He turned another page.
[Fu Hui gave me ██ to eat]
Fu Hui’s eyelid twitched again, and he shifted his gaze away.
Lan Xi really wrote absolutely everything in his diary…
He turned another page and once again saw that sentence: [It’s really so hard to sleep with him!!!]
[How long does he need to prepare?]
Fu Hui’s heart finally drifted back down to solid ground.
So the person Lan Xi had been trying to sleep with earlier had been him too?
He flexed his slightly stiff fingers and only then realized that his heart had been hanging in suspense the entire time.
It felt like being trapped in a low-oxygen environment for too long, silently tormenting both the heartbeat and the brain.
The next page gave Fu Hui an even clearer answer.
[Slept with him. Felt great. Who should I pick next?]
Fu Hui checked the date.
There was no mistake. Lan Xi had slept with him.
He looked again at [Who should I pick next?] and found “Wen Yue?” written beside it.
This time, Lan Xi had even written the name correctly.
Fu Hui finally crumpled the edge of the notebook.
…
The bodyguard had no idea how long he waited quietly outside before he finally heard the door open.
He instinctively looked up and saw Fu Hui walk out and put the notebook back on the tray. It was difficult to say whether his expression was happy or angry. He looked like someone who had only just laughed freely, then suddenly gone through an enormous emotional rise and fall, leaving behind a strange, twisted calm.
The bodyguard shuddered. “Should I return it now?”
“Mm. I’ll go see him too.”
The bodyguard silently followed behind Fu Hui.
Lan Xi had been placed on a large bed. The mattress was very soft.
At first he had been a little nervous, but because there was genuinely nothing to do, he began memorizing vocabulary words. As he recited them, he grew sleepy.
Then came the hard sound of leather soles striking wooden flooring, drawing closer little by little and becoming clearer.
Lan Xi jolted fully awake.
He heard the newcomer enter the room and sit beside the bed.
The overly soft mattress sank slightly, making him slide a little toward the newcomer.
Lan Xi wanted to sit up, or at least remove the blindfold first.
But when he tried, he discovered he still could not do it, as though a seraph had cast some kind of binding spell on him.
“Who are you?” Lan Xi asked.
Fu Hui approached without a word and stared at Lan Xi’s face.
Seeing him made Fu Hui soften, yet also made him angry. There was boundless desire, as well as jealousy that was difficult to control.
Yes, jealousy. It had surged over him because of nothing more than a few words Lan Xi had lightly put to paper… Fu Hui did not avoid acknowledging his jealousy. If desire could arise because of Lan Xi, then there was nothing strange about jealousy growing from it too.
“Fu Hui!” Lan Xi suddenly shouted.
Fu Hui came back to himself. “How did you know it was me?”
Lan Xi said unhappily, “I smelled you.”
Once Fu Hui drew close, there was the scent of his clothes, the scent of flesh and blood, the scent from somewhere deep within the soul… Because they had joined so intimately before, that scent had become a unique mark branded into Lan Xi’s memory.
“You lied to me!” Lan Xi said furiously. “You said you’d let me leave, but you didn’t!”
Fu Hui said, “I let you walk out.”
From his tone alone, nobody could have guessed that he had nearly gone mad with anger moments earlier.
Lan Xi froze. “That counts?”
Fu Hui said, “Mm.”
Lan Xi frowned. “You knew perfectly well I was going to Wen Yue…”
“What’s so good about Wen Yue?”
Lan Xi got stuck.
How could I possibly tell him the truth?
Fu Hui clapped his hands and had a bodyguard bring in a box.
He unlocked the fingerprint lock on the outside, took Lan Xi’s fingertips, and guided them inside.
Cold. There were sharp protrusions, but they did not dig painfully into his skin.
Lan Xi curled his fingers. “What is it?”
“Sparkling gemstones.” Fu Hui guided Lan Xi’s fingertips slowly across them.
Many, many of them.
Lan Xi anxiously tried to pull off the blindfold, but he had no strength.
Fu Hui’s low voice sounded beside his ear again. “If you go to Wen Yue, nobody will teach you how to read the way I do anymore. Nobody will keep changing chefs until you’re satisfied. Nobody will take you everywhere to play and let you try things you’ve never tried before. Nobody will buy you all the sparkling things you like…”
Lan Xi thought back for a moment.
That was true.
At the banquet, when he had wanted someone else’s diamond-studded high heels, Wen Ming had forcibly dragged him away.
Wen Yue was not very good at reading to him either.
Neither brother knew much about appreciating good food…
Lan Xi became sad just listening to it.
“So why do you insist that I can only have you?”
Lan Xi sounded aggrieved. “If you didn’t demand that, I wouldn’t have to leave.”
Fu Hui: “…”
Unsurprisingly, the problem had gone straight back to the beginning.
Because in Lan Xi’s understanding of the world, he genuinely did not think there was anything wrong with it.
Lan Xi’s fingers lightly, weakly traced over Fu Hui’s palm.
He asked very seriously, “Is it because you still don’t like me enough?”
For the first time in his life, Fu Hui experienced the feeling of being tormented almost to madness.
“Fu Hui?”
“Fu Hui, why aren’t you talking?”
“Then do you like me?” Fu Hui suddenly asked.
Fu Hui had never considered that question before, because in bed Lan Xi was particularly good at giving someone the illusion that he was passionately in love with them.
Even if it’s an act, it doesn’t matter. That was what Fu Hui had thought then.
Lan Xi had opened that door himself, so he could only remain tethered to Fu Hui’s side for a very, very long time. As long as Fu Hui did not let go, Lan Xi would have to remain that sort of footless bird until death.
“…”
Dead silence spread through the room.
Fu Hui: “…”
He should never have asked.
His throat tightened slightly. One hand was already pressing down on Lan Xi’s shoulder, and a chill entered his voice. “You even like Luo Jin. You like Secretary Lin. Why is liking me so difficult?”
“I’m still calculating…” Lan Xi said irritably. “Don’t interrupt me.”
“Calculating what?”
“My liking for Luo Jin counts as two points. My liking for Secretary Lin counts as five. For you…” Lan Xi analyzed the matter very seriously.
“It’s hard to calculate,” Lan Xi concluded.
Fu Hui’s eyes shifted, but he did not press him further.
Lan Xi’s “liking” was probably exactly as his diary reflected it. If Fu Hui was good today, Lan Xi liked him one point more; if Fu Hui was bad tomorrow, Lan Xi disliked him one point more. With points constantly being added and subtracted, of course the total was hard to calculate.
It made Fu Hui feel that Lan Xi was unbearably adorable and infuriating at the same time.
Lan Xi finally delivered his conclusion. “But overall, I probably still like you.”
Fu Hui stroked the side of his neck and said in a low voice, “Fine. Then let’s say you like me too. Would you be willing, for my sake, to tolerate me having other people around me?”
Afraid Lan Xi would not understand, Fu Hui described it in detail. “Meaning I would do everything I do with you with someone else too. I’d buy them gemstones, hold them while skydiving, kiss them, do intimate things with them…”
Lan Xi said viciously, “I’ll strangle you to death.”
Fu Hui felt better.
He thought he might genuinely have gone insane. Those words sounded exceptionally pleasing to him.
“Lan Xi, do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself.”
“…I don’t understand!” Lan Xi snapped.
“…”
Since he had finally glimpsed a little hope, Fu Hui immediately explained patiently, “If you wouldn’t accept something yourself, how can you demand that I accept it?”
Lan Xi argued loudly, “That’s different!”
“How is it different?”
Lan Xi pressed his lips together and refused to speak. Because I’m a demon. Whatever I do is right. You’re an angel, so you’re not allowed.
Fu Hui did not expect him to understand immediately.
Perhaps this involved the underlying code instilled in Lan Xi since childhood… Thinking of that, Fu Hui lifted Lan Xi into his arms and asked gently, “When you were little, did your parents and relatives… do the same thing? I mean, did they… have many lovers at once?”
Lan Xi immediately perked up. “Yes!”
See? I’m not wrong! Fu Hui shouldn’t object!
So that really was the root of it…
Lan Xi had said they were all dead. He probably had not been lying.
His relatives were all gone, which was why he had ended up wandering through the mountains.
Irritation stirred in Fu Hui’s chest. He could not make those people change what they had taught Lan Xi and instill new ideas in him now.
Even if he dug the dead back up, they could not speak.
“Did any of them ever do anything to you that they shouldn’t have?” Fu Hui asked again.
“What kind of bad thing?”
Fu Hui lowered his eyes and abruptly kissed Lan Xi. He had intended to separate after a brief kiss, but after hesitating, he still pried Lan Xi’s lips apart and kissed him deeper, more fiercely.
“Like that.”
Lan Xi said, “No. I barely saw them a few times in an entire year.”
Demons truly did not have much sense of propriety, but everyone was too busy fooling around outside to bother looking after him.
When Lan Xi was little, he had nearly starved into dried demon jerky.
Fu Hui let out a breath of relief.
Naturally, it was best if Lan Xi did not carry any trauma of that kind.
Fu Hui waited quietly for a while. Lan Xi no longer shouted about going to find Wen Yue, nor did he accuse Fu Hui of “imprisoning” him.
Lan Xi seemed to have fallen into thought.
Fu Hui kissed him again.
Unable to move his limbs freely, Lan Xi seemed to have become a doll that could be handled however someone pleased.
Fu Hui stripped off his clothes, and Lan Xi only let out a soft hum.
It was an experience he had never had before…
Lan Xi felt as though he had been broken into pieces and could not gather himself back together. His whole body had gone soft, leaving him able only to let out faint breaths in Fu Hui’s arms.
Only now did Fu Hui’s hidden anger seem to pour out in full.
Lan Xi vaguely sensed it and badly wanted to remove the blindfold so he could see Fu Hui’s expression.
But he could not raise his hands.
He thought hazily…
What should I do? Am I really supposed to strangle Fu Hui to death when that day comes?
Maybe… from now on, I shouldn’t so recklessly tell Fu Hui to his face that I’m going to see Wen Yue.
Mm… I’ll secretly go after him behind Fu Hui’s back!
Then Fu Hui won’t find out, and Fu Hui won’t do the same things with somebody else.
Once I defeat Heaven’s powerful seraph, I’ll go back to Hell and become Demon King.
Oh, and there’s one more thing… I learned something especially important from Fu Hui.
—Once I become Demon King, I can tie Fu Hui up too.
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