“M-Mr. Fu?” Someone called out, though nobody knew who.
The sound instantly snapped everyone out of their stunned horror.
“Why is Mr. Fu here?”
They murmured among themselves, collectively pretending not to have seen the teacup Lan Xi had just thrown.
It was rare for them to get the chance to see Fu Hui, so naturally they wanted to say a few more words to him. But they had enough sense to know that in a situation like this… they needed to make themselves scarce!
One after another, they said their goodbyes. Because the doorway of Room 703 was so narrow, they had to twist their bodies into extremely strange positions, carefully greeting Fu Hui while squeezing past him.
Some assistant who had come with one of them even picked up the broken pieces of teacup from the floor on the way out, lest Fu Hui step on them.
In the blink of an eye, only Aunt Zhou Lin and the two Wen brothers remained. Even Luo Jin got scared and hurriedly fled.
Everyone’s feelings were complicated now.
Zhou Lin was dumbfounded. She had never imagined Lan Xi and Fu Hui interacted like this. The only reason she could still muster the courage to remain was her instinct as an elder. If the conflict became too intense, she wanted to be there to stop them.
Wen Yue, meanwhile, was thinking that he had finally gotten a chance to speak to Lan Xi.
Wen Ming took two steps back. Now that everyone else had cleared out, he suddenly felt as though he had nowhere left to hide. He almost did not dare meet Lan Xi’s eyes, afraid of seeing even a trace of disgust in them. After all, the impact of what Lan Xi had said to him on the phone last time had been too great. Even today, the words still seemed painfully sharp in his ears.
Everyone was tense, as though waiting for a great battle to break out at any moment.
At that moment, Fu Hui started moving again and walked toward Lan Xi.
One step, two steps…
Lan Xi had stopped being angry about Song Fan’s bullshit long ago. Something as useless as Song Fan was not worth a demon wasting any thought on.
What Lan Xi cared about was Fu Hui himself.
He bit his lip harder and hurled another cup at Fu Hui.
Zhou Lin’s heart clenched as she watched the cup graze Fu Hui’s cheekbone, leaving it bruised.
Before she could say anything, Wen Yue spoke first. “Mr. Fu, Lan Xi doesn’t seem to want to see you.”
Fu Hui lifted his eyelids. “So this is how you handle things? Lan Xi tells you to get lost, so you get lost, and nothing you did before needs to be made up for anymore?”
Wen Yue’s eyes trembled.
Fu Hui had struck precisely where it hurt.
And Fu Hui still had to follow it with another blow. “Back at the beginning, I don’t recall Young Master Wen being this obedient to Lan Xi.”
Wen Yue choked hard.
Back then, he had been full of resistance toward Lan Xi and refused to listen when he should have. Now, burdened with guilt, he obediently listened to things he should not.
That was the sorest point inside an already painful wound.
“Then does Mr. Fu feel very accomplished, chasing him relentlessly and forcing Lan Xi into his current state?” Wen Ming could not help cutting in.
Fu Hui had very little patience for wasting time arguing with them.
If these two brothers had been even slightly useful when put together, they would have managed to cheer Lan Xi up in the first place.
Fu Hui shifted his gaze and happened to catch the look of great interest on Lan Xi’s face.
Lan Xi was watching them.
Fu Hui: “…”
Had he really driven Lan Xi into “this state”?
After Lan Xi disappeared, whenever Song Qingming and the others tried comforting Fu Hui, they liked to bring up the things Song Fan had said.
He left because he cared.
So that means he likes you.
Really?
Does Lan Xi even know what jealousy is? Does he know what liking someone means?
Does Lan Xi care?
He was clearly like a creature born in the wild.
He made no distinction between good and bad. He liked and hated purely as he pleased.
Fu Hui stopped paying attention to anyone else. He strode forward and, before Lan Xi could pick up another teacup, reached out and locked a hand around Lan Xi’s wrist.
The force made Lan Xi lean backward. His fingertips trembled, and the cup still slipped free and shattered into pieces on the floor.
“Fu Hui! Don’t get angry with him!” Zhou Lin shouted in alarm.
Fu Hui leaned forward, nearly enclosing Lan Xi inside his arms.
He lowered his head and looked at him.
Lan Xi’s gaze trembled. There was little expression on his face, and a few strands of hair lay messily across his cheeks, making his skin look white as snow.
No one knows that what he wants even more is to see my face twisted with anger.
Fu Hui’s knuckles tightened, but when his hands finally came down on Lan Xi, he still could not bear to use much force. Lan Xi’s skin reddened far too easily.
“Everyone out,” Fu Hui said quietly.
Zhou Lin was worried.
Song Qingming was still at the research institute. She wondered whether she should call him over to salvage the situation.
Wen Yue certainly refused to leave so easily. He said coldly, “What could Mr. Fu possibly have to say that you can’t say in front of us?”
Fu Hui’s tone was even colder. “I can say it. I’m only afraid you won’t dare listen.”
He paused, lowered his head, and looked at Lan Xi’s expression again. “…I saw your diary.”
Lan Xi froze.
Fu Hui could not read it… Right, later on, Lan Xi had gotten lazy and started using the new script, so Fu Hui could read those parts.
Lan Xi turned his gaze away.
Fine. So what?
He saw it, so he saw it!
Lan Xi could not resist quietly turning his eyes back again, and caught sight of the restraint in Fu Hui’s gaze.
Lan Xi blurted out, “Are you angry? Or sad?”
He truly understood nothing…
Inside Lan Xi’s heart was an entire set of rules about angels and demons. He saw himself as a demon and everyone else as angels. His “seduction” was not a demon longing for an angel’s salvation. It was his way of “destroying” angels.
He was interested in no one.
He was addicted only to the act of “destruction” itself.
Fu Hui’s throat tightened.
He wanted to cover those bright eyes of Lan Xi’s and bite him hard.
But at that moment, Lan Xi raised a hand to Fu Hui’s shoulder and poked his head out beside it. “It’s fine. I don’t care if you tell them…”
Fu Hui seemed sad.
Lan Xi could make everyone else be sad together with Fu Hui.
“What is it?” Wen Yue could not hold back. “What exactly does Mr. Fu want to say?”
Fu Hui slowly straightened and accepted something from a bodyguard.
He tossed it onto the table.
Wen Yue recognized it at once. “That’s… the notebook Lan Xi insisted on taking with him the last time he left.”
If Fu Hui had found it a month ago, Lan Xi would still have been annoyed and worried that it might interfere with his grand plan.
Now?
Lan Xi did not care whether Wen Yue and the others lived or died… He said lightly, “If you want to read it, you can.”
Wen Yue’s heart beat faster, as though he were looking at Pandora’s box.
Yet he still could not resist picking it up.
He turned one page, then another… Wen Yue saw his own name, Wen Ming’s, even Fang Nianqing’s…
They were like NPCs in a game, recorded by the “player,” Lan Xi.
Lan Xi had carefully recorded what he said, what he did, and what kind of reactions those things produced in them.
Changes in body temperature had become the standard he used to evaluate them.
In his eyes, they had never even counted as people.
He had thought about sleeping with them… Wen Yue’s heart jolted when he reached that part, but the feeling was quickly twisted into a knot.
Because the diary stated very clearly that after sleeping with Fu Hui, Lan Xi had already planned to sleep with the next person…
They would not have escaped that pattern either.
Lan Xi would only keep searching for the next one, and the one after that…
If Fu Hui had not forcibly kept Lan Xi with him…
Would they also have ended up walking the same path and imprisoning Lan Xi?
Wen Yue’s expression looked so terrible that Wen Ming could not resist taking the diary from him and lowering his head to read it too.
In only two short minutes,
everything Wen Ming had worried over and regretted during this period was overturned by the words inside.
Now there was one more person standing there completely lost.
Wen Yue finally found his voice again. “He thought we were angels. That’s why he approached us. And when he discovered we weren’t…”
That was why he had become so angry and so despairing.
Why he had cursed them as useless and told them to get lost.
Fine.
Now they did not even count as game NPCs.
Unable to grow wings, they were probably worth less than a passing ant in Lan Xi’s eyes.
A crushing tightness filled Wen Yue’s chest. This had gone beyond something he could comfort himself over by thinking, Lan Xi is sick.
Lan Xi pushed Fu Hui away, rose from the sofa, and walked over to Wen Ming.
His face had become even more beautiful. His hair fell softly along his cheeks and collarbones.
Wen Ming’s heart felt as though an invisible hand kept squeezing and releasing it. He did not even dare look at Lan Xi’s face.
Lan Xi pulled the diary away and said, “I told you a long time ago that we shouldn’t see each other anymore.”
So if you’re sad now, you brought it on yourselves.
Wen Ming, however, clung tightly to the diary and flipped several more pages as though deliberately tormenting himself. “…You want to go back to Hell?”
He ground out, “How the hell are you supposed to go back to Hell?”
How could someone heartlessly plan to toy with all of them while also thinking, with no attachment at all, about going off to die?
Lan Xi paused, but unusually, he did not answer.
I want to go back to Hell!
But I can’t get back to Hell!
Then should I stay?
That question had circled through Lan Xi’s mind more than once already.
“Get out,” Fu Hui said in a low voice.
“But…” Wen Ming had not finished speaking when Fu Hui took the diary from him and put it back into Lan Xi’s arms.
Fu Hui repeated, “Get out.”
This time, the bodyguards moved.
Whether they wanted to or not, everyone was forcibly cleared out of the room.
Zhou Lin had not understood what had just happened at all, but as she left she still added worriedly, “Talk it out properly!”
The instant the door closed, Fu Hui locked Lan Xi tightly in his arms. His lips came close to Lan Xi’s ear, his voice low. “Happy now?”
The stubble Fu Hui had not had time to shave prickled Lan Xi’s skin, making him shrink his head back.
Fu Hui sighed softly. “Lan Xi, I know you must be happy.”
Lan Xi’s eyelashes trembled. He reached back and stroked Fu Hui’s cheek, then said three words. “You got thinner.”
Then, perfectly clearly, Lan Xi let out a soft laugh inside his arms.
Fu Hui answered by biting a heavy kiss into the side of Lan Xi’s neck.
Rough yet restrained, the collision of those two emotions created exactly the distortion Lan Xi most wanted to see.
“Do you still want to go back to Hell?” That was what Fu Hui cared about most right now.
But Lan Xi did not answer. Instead, he asked, “Did you secretly watch me?”
“…” “Yes.”
“From across the street?”
“Mm.” Fu Hui gave him the building number.
Lan Xi could not even be bothered asking how Fu Hui had discovered he was here. Fu Hui had always been very capable anyway…
What he was more curious about was this. “You clearly managed to hold yourself back and not come see me. Why couldn’t you hold back anymore?”
“You talked to Fang Nianqing a lot.”
“You were in the same room with Fang Nianqing. When you came out after your shower, you were wearing nothing but a thin nightshirt.”
“You made Fang Nianqing dry your hair.”
Every scene, every detail, Fu Hui had seen far too clearly.
They became fine needles probing into Fu Hui’s throat, swimming through his blood, then burying themselves deep inside his organs.
“How many days do you think I could endure?”
Lan Xi smacked his lips. “Before, you even called Wen Yue over to cheer me up…”
“That’s exactly how I learned they’re completely useless.” Fu Hui gripped his waist. “I should be the only one beside you. I’ll use every method I can think of to keep hold of you. If one way doesn’t work, I’ll use another.”
He said calmly, “No matter whether you cry, run away, or shout that you want to die.”
Lan Xi: ?
I’m not going to die.
“And no matter whether you like me or not.” Fu Hui pinched Lan Xi’s face. “Lan Xi, don’t you love taking possession of everything?”
Lan Xi’s eyelashes fluttered.
Then he admitted it generously. “Mm-hm!”
“Then be a demon and take possession of everything I have.” Fu Hui coaxed him softly.
Lan Xi jerked his face aside, only for Fu Hui to throw him onto the bed.
Fu Hui pressed down on his shoulders and pulled off his shirt. “I’ve thought about doing this many times over the past few days.”
He bent down.
Just like this.
Hard.
Whether Lan Xi was fragile, scheming, wanted to die, or wanted to run… Fu Hui would leave him no time to think about anything else. Not a single opening.
Lan Xi instinctively grabbed Fu Hui’s hair.
Everything that had vanished from Lan Xi’s body when his worldview collapsed finally began, little by little, to return.
He could taste richer sensations again, sweet and sour alike.
His scalp tingled.
Lan Xi suddenly understood. From beginning to end, the only thing the demon had truly been unable to let go of was the fact that Fu Hui was not an angel…
But, but… Fu Hui when he went crazy really did taste delicious to a demon.
Lan Xi bit his lip tightly.
Fu Hui raised his head, intending to look at Lan Xi’s expression, only to first see a pair of horns emerging from Lan Xi’s head.
A pair of… horns???