“What’s wrong?”
Yu Huaiting watched Fu Songcheng standing not far away with his back to him, feeling a little uneasy.
“Did you find something?”
Fu Songcheng didn’t answer immediately.
He was feeling the urge in his heart to get closer to Yu Huaiting, to kiss him.
Fu Songcheng almost never doubted himself. His decisions were always carefully considered. Even if they were wrong, he wasn’t afraid to bear the consequences.
But now he doubted whether this feeling in his heart came from his own true self.
Fu Songcheng turned and looked straight into Yu Huaiting’s eyes. “Yu Huaiting, since we entered this instance, have your feelings toward me—or rather, has your attitude toward me—changed?”
Yu Huaiting was taken aback, not expecting Fu Songcheng to ask such a sentimental question.
Seeing Fu Songcheng’s extremely serious expression, he still seriously pondered it.
“Changed…”
Yu Huaiting’s gaze unconsciously swept over Fu Songcheng’s lips, where faint traces of the blood he’d left still lingered.
His Adam’s apple rolled up and down, his eyes flickering slightly. “I feel like we’re closer now.”
“You gave me so many surprises today.” Yu Huaiting moved closer to Fu Songcheng, pressing against him from behind, feeling his own quickening heartbeat. “I feel so good—like I really married you.”
Fu Songcheng’s ears burned a little too. He was already desperately suppressing feelings on the verge of overflowing, and Yu Huaiting’s nearness was practically about to ignite him like dry tinder.
He stepped forward, moving a little away from Yu Huaiting, trying to dispel the restlessness in his heart.
“Don’t you think that since entering the instance, our emotions have been a bit too hard to control?” Fu Songcheng didn’t turn to look at Yu Huaiting again—afraid his mind would be thrown into disorder. “Before this, had you ever thought about kissing me in an instance?”
Yu Huaiting’s eyes drifted away.
He had. Actually, he had.
During the Avalon instance, watching Fu Songcheng chat happily with Brother Dao, Yu Huaiting had mentally rehearsed countless times killing Brother Dao, then shutting Fu Songcheng up.
Fu Songcheng saw Yu Huaiting’s reaction and thought he’d overestimated him after all.
He took a deep breath. “At least I never thought about it.”
“If even in the rest area I wasn’t so given over to emotion, then in a life-or-death instance, I certainly wouldn’t recklessly express feelings to you.”
“What do you mean?”
Yu Huaiting didn’t understand—and he didn’t want to understand.
What was Fu Songcheng saying?
He’d been thrilled all night over Fu Songcheng’s response, and now Fu Songcheng was telling him that wasn’t really him?
“I don’t believe it.”
Yu Huaiting’s chest heaved violently, his eyes full of stubbornness and hurt.
“You actually know me.” Fu Songcheng sighed and explained gently. “We’ve been in contact so long. You know I wouldn’t get swept up emotionally and put myself and my teammate at risk.”
“I don’t know.”
Yu Huaiting suddenly cut him off.
Fu Songcheng was slightly stunned.
“No matter what instance, you are you. Last night, you were the one who kissed me first.”
Yu Huaiting turned and strode backward, retreating all the way to the wide, soft bed.
He flopped down spread-eagle onto the bright red brocade quilt covered in peanuts and longans.
Then he grabbed the edges of the quilt with both hands and yanked hard, rolling twice across the bed like a giant silkworm cocoon, wrapping himself up tightly—even his head buried inside.
On the vast bridal bed, only a bulging, bright red quilt bundle remained, still huffily squirming. Occasionally the quilt lifted a small corner, revealing Yu Huaiting’s aggrieved eyes.
Fu Songcheng stood in place, looking at that “giant red silkworm cocoon” on the bed, his taut nerves suddenly drained of strength.
What had he been hoping for?
He’d actually hoped to discuss these things Yu Huaiting didn’t want to hear.
Fu Songcheng figured it out—Yu Huaiting had to be coaxed. Say anything he didn’t like to hear, and back when they first met, he’d have blown up; now he was a little better—he’d run off and sulk, then blow up.
Fu Songcheng raised his hand and rubbed his faintly throbbing temples, letting out a heavy sigh in his heart.
Forget it.
He looked around.
Either way, he couldn’t leave this room tonight. He’d already checked everything inside; there was no information to be found. He could only wait for dawn to make plans.
At that thought, Fu Songcheng nimbly undid the toggle buttons and stripped off that heavy, elaborate outer robe, tossing it casually onto the redwood chair beside them.
Leaving only a somewhat thin white inner garment.
Fu Songcheng walked to the bedside.
The red quilt bundle still didn’t move. Yu Huaiting seemed determined to express his protest this way—but Fu Songcheng could still see his fixed stare through the gap.
Fu Songcheng lay down expressionlessly on the outer side of the bed. The early-spring night carried the eerie, damp chill unique to old Republican-era mansions, and he wore only a thin inner garment—yet the bed’s only large red brocade quilt had been rolled up entirely by Yu Huaiting.
Fu Songcheng suddenly reached out, grabbed the corner of the quilt, and yanked hard toward himself.
“Eh?”
Yu Huaiting inside the quilt was caught off guard. Pulled hard by Fu Songcheng, half-reluctantly, with a muffled thump, Yu Huaiting rolled onto the floor.
“Fu Songcheng!”
Yu Huaiting stared at Fu Songcheng in disbelief, letting out an aggrieved “ow.” “Why did you kick me?”
“Get changed before you sleep.”
Fu Songcheng looked down at him, his tone proud, straightening the quilt and sweeping all the fallen peanuts and red dates off the bed.
Yu Huaiting pursed his lips, muttered a few words under his breath, walked to the brass basin beside them, casually splashed some water on his face, stripped off that troublesome wedding robe, and only then climbed back onto the bed.
But he didn’t settle down after that.
Fu Songcheng lay flat on the outer side, eyes tightly shut, trying hard to steady his breathing.
Under the instance’s interference, he could clearly feel the heat radiating from Yu Huaiting beside him, his breathing, and even catch the particular sun-dried scent on his body.
Worse still, Yu Huaiting was utterly restless.
The bed was clearly large, yet he kept inching toward Fu Songcheng little by little.
Fu Songcheng’s mind simply couldn’t settle. Several times he snapped his eyes open, only to find Yu Huaiting looking at him with a half-smile.
Finally, when Yu Huaiting was about to burrow his head into Fu Songcheng’s neck, Fu Songcheng could bear it no longer.
He sat up abruptly, using a pillow to build a “Chu-Han border” between them.
“Behave yourself.”
Fu Songcheng shot Yu Huaiting a warning look, then turned his back and forced his eyes shut.
Yu Huaiting looked at the pillow wall separating them, then at Fu Songcheng’s reddened ears. His eyes full of cunning, he quietly shifted a little closer to the pillow wall, then closed his eyes in satisfaction.
…
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