LQDBA 12

Chapter 12

The landlady grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds, ate a couple, and said, “These delivery drivers are always racing around like maniacs. Just the day before yesterday, one of them smashed into my umbrella stand right outside my door.”

Wu Xing chimed in with a few polite remarks. Turning around, he saw that A-Jiu had already brought everything from the tricycle inside.

“Xing-ge, you can relax now. I’ll take you to the hospital.”

Wu Xing touched his ankle. The swollen area felt soft; it probably wasn’t broken. “It’s fine. I don’t need to go to the hospital. Let’s just open the shop first.”

Wu Xing’s logic was simple: a sprained ankle wouldn’t stop him from wrapping wontons; at most, he’d just be a bit slower when cooking them. A-Jiu thought Wu Xing really didn’t care enough about his own body. He looked out at the heavy rain and sighed.

Because of the storm, they had lost the entire morning and only opened up near noon, receiving only a handful of online orders. Wu Xing’s second-hand phone was completely dead, but luckily, the shop had a backup phone specifically for delivery orders. Wu Xing picked it up and saw that the shop had received a new positive review, so he clicked on it immediately.

The review included four photos. The customer had ordered the mixed-sauce dry-tossed shrimp and crab roe wontons, specifically praising the sauce and the wontons, and mentioned how much they liked the refreshing, cleansing vegetable base. Wu Xing counted the review—it was twenty-three words long, well over the fifteen words required to boost the shop’s rating. He smiled happily.

“A-Jiu, look! Someone likes our new…”

Wu Xing stood up, but in his excitement, he forgot about his injured ankle and almost slipped on the tile floor. A-Jiu didn’t even look at the review; he reached out, caught Wu Xing by the waist, and pulled him into his arms.

A notification popped up at the top of the phone screen—a Level 2 typhoon warning, reminding all merchants in the slum district to close up early.

“Xing-ge, the typhoon is about to make landfall.”

“If you won’t go to the clinic, let’s go home and rest early. Your foot looks even more swollen than before.”

The terrain of Peace Second Street was low-lying; there was no telling what would happen once the typhoon hit. Wu Xing directed A-Jiu to reinforce the doors and windows, connected the shop’s security camera to the backup phone, and downloaded the payment app to link his account.

In the continuous curtain of rain, the illuminated sign for Wu’s Wonton Shop went dark. Wu Xing splurged, booking a private car half an hour before the ride-hailing platforms shut down. The driver had just been smoking, and the inside of the car smelled awful. The bumpy ride left Wu Xing feeling dizzy and lightheaded; he increasingly felt like he had wasted his money.

The two finally returned home. Wu Xing endured the discomfort to take a quick shower and change into dry clothes. A-Jiu dug a bottle of medicinal wine—the one Wu Xing had mentioned—out of the first-aid kit and pushed open the bedroom door.

Wu Xing was in the middle of putting on his trousers. His full backside caused the thin mattress to sink slightly, and his pale, bare legs were resting on a small stool.

“Xing-ge.”

The Alpha had forgotten to knock. He stared at Wu Xing’s bare legs for two seconds before averting his gaze. Wu Xing felt a bit awkward, pulled his pants on, and didn’t say anything.

“Just give the medicinal wine to me.”

A-Jiu walked over to Wu Xing, crouched down, and gently gripped the injured ankle. He looked up and asked, “Will it get better if we rub this on?”

Wu Xing felt the heat of the other man’s hands circling his ankle and explained, “You have to pour the medicinal wine into your palms, rub them together to warm it up, and then massage the ankle with your hands.” He had sprained his ankle when he was little, but no one noticed, and it was a neighbor who told him to do this. “Go take a shower, I can do it myself.”

A-Jiu stared at the fair, tender legs in front of him. His teeth ground together, making a faint, strained sound.

“It’s not convenient for Xing-ge to put on pants anyway. Just let me do it.”

Wu Xing blushed at that—it made him feel like a helpless toddler in kindergarten. A-Jiu poured the medicinal wine into his palms, rubbed them quickly to heat it up, and pressed them onto Wu Xing’s red, swollen skin.

“How do I massage it?”

The heat made Wu Xing shrink back, but he still obediently extended his foot. “Just like you’re kneading dough.”

A-Jiu couldn’t gauge the pressure correctly at first. Wu Xing’s eyes filled with tears from the intensity, and he whimpered, “Lighter.”

The words themselves weren’t much, but paired with the Omega’s pitiful expression and his brows furrowed in pain, the impact was doubled.

“I’m sorry, Xing-ge.”

“I’ll be gentler.”

“Mm…”

“Tell me if it hurts, don’t hold it in.”

Wu Xing closed his eyes as if enduring some form of torture. A-Jiu’s hands were warm and powerful, kneading the medicinal wine into his skin bit by bit.

“Mmm…”

The skin beneath the Omega’s eyes, as white as rice paper, became flushed with a slight, intoxicating tint of red—a touch of allure.

“A-Jiu.”

“Don’t rub anymore.”

“That’s enough.”

Wu Xing gasped with his eyes closed, his voice trembling slightly, and tears spilled from his eyelids. A-Jiu raised his hand to wipe them away, his Adam’s apple bobbing uncontrollably.

Wu Xing’s eyes were rimmed with red. He felt humiliated by the sounds he had just made and wanted to vanish into thin air. It was just too embarrassing.

The next second, A-Jiu swept him up into his arms, moving so quickly Wu Xing couldn’t even react.

“The sound Xing-ge just made…”

“Can you not let anyone else hear it?”

The gale battered the glass windows, making bang-bang-tap-tap noises, just like Wu Xing’s erratic heartbeat at that moment. A-Jiu placed him on the bed and leaned close to Wu Xing’s face, resting his forehead against the other’s.

“Xing-ge.”

“Your forehead is so hot. Are you running a fever?”

Chapter 11: Sincerity

A-Jiu’s movements were so natural that Wu Xing didn’t even realize how close they were—like the intimacy between lovers. What did those two sentences he just said mean?

The slow-witted Wu Xing couldn’t come up with an answer. He timidly said, “I feel a bit unwell.”

A-Jiu’s voice sounded near and then far, muffled as if wrapped in wet cotton balls, unclear and hard to make out. The embarrassing tear stains still hung at the corners of the Omega’s reddened eyes, making him look fragile and pitiful, evoking a strong desire to protect him.

“A-Jiu… I’m not feeling well.”

The Alpha’s breathing hitched. A sense of inexplicable sourness rose in his throat, and he reached out to stroke the Omega’s cheek. Wu Xing sniffed, his heart seemingly beating even faster in his chest.

A-Jiu reached back to touch his own forehead and said in a deep voice, “Xing-ge, your temperature is much higher than mine. Where else are you feeling unwell?”

Wu Xing tilted his head. Feeling warm all over, he answered honestly, “My head is a bit dizzy, my heart is beating very fast, and I feel a bit cold.”

Dazed and confused.

“Go get the thermometer; it’s also in the first-aid kit.”

A-Jiu disinfected the mercury thermometer and carefully placed it into Wu Xing’s mouth. Wu Xing lifted his chin slightly, leaning against the headboard. His small face had a faint pink flush, like the evening glow on the horizon, and his petal-like lips were closed, obediently holding the thermometer.

A-Jiu sat on the edge of the bed, staring at Wu Xing without blinking. In truth, just looking at his face, you couldn’t tell that the Omega was nearly thirty; he looked more like a fresh college graduate. The Alpha didn’t think the face was particularly “exquisite,” but he found it increasingly comfortable and pleasing to look at.

Wu Xing couldn’t speak with the thermometer in his mouth. Being stared at like that made his earlobes turn slightly red. He felt embarrassed, thinking he was being a burden again.

Three minutes later, the thermometer was removed. It inevitably carried a bit of the Omega’s saliva, thin silver silk strands tangling with the transparent glass—it was damp. It indicated that Wu Xing’s body temperature was 38.6°C (101.5°F).

He was indeed running a fever.

A-Jiu furrowed his brows. He felt they shouldn’t have opened the shop today; otherwise, they wouldn’t have waited until now to discover Wu Xing was sick. The Omega was just too used to enduring things; he could pretend he wasn’t feeling well even when he was suffering. He was so obtuse that it made one feel both heartbroken and angry.

Either way, it was a bad habit.

“Xing-ge.”

A-Jiu’s expression was so dark it could drip ink. Wu Xing, thinking he was going to be lectured again, simply curled up into the quilt.

“Is there fever medicine in the house?”

He only heard Wu Xing give a muddled “Mm” before he drifted off into a deep sleep.

He hadn’t dreamed in a long time, and he couldn’t quite tell the difference between dreams and reality.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are…”

His long-dead grandmother was holding him, singing, while complaining about Wu Xing’s good-for-nothing gambler of a father. Then, suddenly, his grandmother crawled into a small box and was buried in a barren hillside.

Little Wu Xing had been too young then to understand what death meant; he only knew that the grandmother who loved him was gone, and he cried until his brain was starved of oxygen.

His mother never came to pick him up. It wasn’t until a long time later that the Zhao family finally relented and allowed him—the “dead weight”—to move in.

Little Wu Xing had just arrived when the neighborhood bullies called him a “bastard,” and he ran to find his mother, his neck flushed red from crying. That day, his mother was unusually gentle; she wiped the tears from his face and said, “Mommy has a little baby brother in her tummy now. Are you happy, Little Xing?”

Little Wu Xing was stunned and whispered, “No.”

His mother’s face darkened instantly as she taught him, “You have to say you’re happy so Uncle Zhao will be happy.”

Little Wu Xing was forced to change his answer. He lived according to his mother’s wishes, becoming quieter and quieter in this home that didn’t belong to him. By the time his brother grew up, he was sent away to a boarding school and rarely returned home. The room he had briefly lived in soon became the world of his Alpha brother; his only kitchen toys were thrown downstairs by his brother and shattered into pieces.