Chapter 29 Part 1

Shen Yu couldn’t tell for a moment whether Zhou Jinsheng’s question was genuine or laced with malicious sarcasm.

That feeling was all too wrong. He could sense the tides surging layer by layer beneath the sea, dense and frenzied waves crashing toward him from all sides, trying to knock him down and swallow him whole.

But if it was madness, it still felt too superficial.

If not madness, then what was it?

Click.

The handcuffs were unlocked and fell onto the sound-absorbing carpet.

Shen Yu’s back immediately pressed against a scorching chest. Zhou Jinsheng buried his head in Shen Yu’s neck, where the carotid artery throbbed visibly under his gaze and the hot bursts of breath.

Zhou Jinsheng sucked and kissed at Shen Yu’s snowy white shoulder and neck. Noticing Shen Yu’s silence, a cruel and icy smile curved his lips. “Shen Yu, do you like the gift I prepared for you?”

Shen Yu’s gaze swept up and down the golden cage, trying his best to control his expression as he let out a silent sigh: 【007, since this is a gift from Zhou Jinsheng to me, it belongs to me now. Can I take it back to the original world?】

007: 【No.】

The mental exchange happened in an instant.

Zhou Jinsheng’s breathing grew ragged. He suddenly grabbed Shen Yu, slamming his back against the golden cage. Zhou Jinsheng gripped the back of his head, fingers threading into his black hair, and forcefully kissed Shen Yu’s lips.

Wet heat passed between them, breaths turning to steam. His tongue pried open Shen Yu’s teeth and plunged straight in. The scents of cigar and cologne mingled indistinguishably.

Shen Yu was kissed and rubbed until he reacted too, his forehead bangs growing slightly damp. He parted his lips and turned defense into offense, seizing the thin oxygen between their mouths.

Zhou Jinsheng’s other hand undid Shen Yu’s suit jacket, stroking his chest through the shirt. A tingling friction shot through his fingers.

Shen Yu’s waist nearly went numb, and his face darkened instantly.

Why was this unfolding exactly like last time?

Shen Yu grabbed Zhou Jinsheng’s wandering hand and flung it away, shoving the man back to end the suffocating kiss. He loosened his tie slightly, revealing a stretch of snowy collarbone marked with red hickeys, and headed toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower first.”

Before he could react, a sharp pain and force surged through his shoulder. Zhou Jinsheng pinned him to the wall by the shoulders while his other hand went for Shen Yu’s belt.

Shen Yu’s body tensed like a fully drawn bow. His waist was slim, with broad shoulders narrowing to it—an hourglass figure from shoulders to hips. Zhou Jinsheng’s eyes darkened, blood surging through his veins, desperately needing an outlet.

Zhou Jinsheng’s strength was immense. The human body had three weak points: eyes, throat, and knees. With the belt of his slacks undone, they loosened immediately.

Shen Yu braced his palm against the wall to steady himself, then lifted his leg and slammed his calf backward into Zhou Jinsheng’s knee.

The pressure on him eased at once. Shen Yu broke free and counterattacked, sweeping a kick toward the man’s face.

Zhou Jinsheng jerked his head aside. A fierce gust whistled past Shen Yu’s ear as his arm lashed out like a striking python.

Shen Yu reacted swiftly, sidestepping the blow and blocking with his arm. Using the momentum, he seized Zhou Jinsheng’s wrist. His other hand quickly and precisely pressed the man’s shoulder. A dinner knife hidden in his cuff slipped free, its razor-sharp blade pressing ruthlessly against Zhou Jinsheng’s neck.

The blade gleamed coldly, its icy edge stark against the dark red surging in Zhou Jinsheng’s eyes.

Shen Yu’s lips, sucked red, parted as he panted.

His hand was steady despite his breaths. “Zhou Jinsheng, I told you, I don’t bottom.”

They were pressed impossibly close, face-to-face, muscles against muscles, noses touching. From another angle, they looked like a passionately kissing couple—no one would guess a lethal blade lay between them.

At such proximity, they could both clearly feel each other’s explosive reactions.

The rush of blood, the pounding pulses, the hot breaths—they nearly wanted to tangle and crash wildly together. But the more intense it got, the less either wanted to yield.

Zhou Jinsheng stared at him darkly, his voice terrifyingly hoarse. “Let go.”

Shen Yu didn’t budge.

Zhou Jinsheng tilted his neck back slightly, a cruel, manic arc at his lips. “Do you want to kill me?”

Shen Yu fell silent for a moment, then shook his head. “Never.”

“Heh.” A laugh vibrated from Zhou Jinsheng’s chest, his eyes glaring fiercely. “But I want to kill you.”

Shen Yu froze, but not because of the words.

It was because, the instant Zhou Jinsheng said them, a massive surge of warm sunlight-like energy flooded into his limbs.

This descent was incomparable to the previous two times. Shen Yu felt like he was floating in the world’s warmest ocean, so comfortable he wanted to moan aloud.

A sharp sense of dissonance rose in Shen Yu’s heart. He stared at Zhou Jinsheng—the man’s weathered features were profoundly chiseled, sharp as if carved by a knife. His words about killing didn’t sound like a bluff.

Shen Yu’s grip loosened involuntarily. He repeated oddly, “You want to… kill me?”

Was this some new form of confession?

Zhou Jinsheng didn’t answer. His face darkened like storm clouds. Seeing Shen Yu lower the dinner knife, he strode to the liquor cabinet, yanked a bottle of vodka from the ice bucket, twisted it open, then grabbed a pill bottle from the cabinet and dumped all the white tablets into the alcohol with a clatter.

Shen Yu watched, heart pounding in dread.

The man threw his head back, Adam’s apple bobbing as he downed the liquor and pills.

Shen Yu started, then rushed forward to clamp down on his hand. “Zhou Jinsheng, are you fucking suicidal? You have a stomach condition and you’re chugging this? And what the hell did you just swallow? Spit it out!”

Light poured down. Zhou Jinsheng set the bottle aside and suddenly gripped the back of Shen Yu’s head, ravaging his parting lips and passing the scorching alcohol breath between them. They stumbled all the way to the bed.

Zhou Jinsheng shoved Shen Yu onto the bed, kneeling on either side of him, leg muscles taut and powerful. He straightened up as the distilled liquor and potent aphrodisiac took effect, burning away his reason and igniting an even fiercer desire.

He began undoing his own clothes. Black tattoos meant to conceal car crash scars crept menacingly upward from his waist and abdomen, rising and falling with veins and muscles symbolizing violence and power, as if ready to break free and bare their fangs.

Zhou Jinsheng furrowed his brows, feeling his sanity incinerate.

His voice was shrouded in a drunken haze, magnetically deep and raspy.

“Shen Yu, that’s enough.”

…

Zhou Jinsheng’s brows locked tight, his muscles spasming wildly as he let out a suppressed roar like that of some massive beast.

Shen Yu lay on the bed, his pale chest heaving dramatically with each breath. His forehead bangs were soaked with sweat, and beneath his long, dense fan-like lashes, his eyes shimmered with waterlight, steaming with heat.

He was like a white petal floating in hot spring water, rising and falling.

A strange sensation stirred in his waist and abdomen. Shen Yu’s lips parted slightly, breaths coming in pants. In his struggles, his hand stroked Zhou Jinsheng’s back, feeling the taut, distinctly ridged muscle groups.

It was hard to imagine that the bones beneath these intimidating muscles had once shattered inch by inch in a car crash, like falling dominoes. Was this what it meant to be a villain sharing the protagonist’s fate?

His fingertips suddenly brushed a scar on the man’s back. At that touch, both froze for an instant.

Shen Yu wasn’t sure how drunk Zhou Jinsheng was or how much awareness he had left.

The scar was long, exactly the length and width of a surgical incision. His gaze flickered with fleeting complexity. Perhaps influenced by the alcohol in the air, Shen Yu blurted out without thinking:

“…Does it hurt?”

He regretted it immediately, but his voice was soft—Zhou Jinsheng probably hadn’t heard.

Zhou Jinsheng’s brows furrowed slightly, thin lips pressed tight, eyes swirling with drunken haze and dark undercurrents.

He gazed at Shen Yu in a daze, watching his lips part and close. The man paused, then suddenly bent down, grabbed Shen Yu’s hair, and bit fiercely and urgently at his lower lip.

…

Somehow, the man produced a gun. The instant Shen Yu gripped his shoulders to push him away and leave, he pressed it to Shen Yu’s forehead.

Shen Yu shuddered violently.

The man stared him down, jaw clenched, sweat of restraint dripping onto his Adam’s apple, voice hoarsely terrifying.

“Dare to leave and see what happens.”

…

Shen Yu passed out amid the storm.

…

The cage meant to hold one person exceeded expectations on its first use. The bedsheets were soaked as if dunked in water, covered in mottled stains everywhere.

When Shen Yu woke, the sheets had been changed to clean ones, and his body had been washed too. He slept refreshingly.

He opened his eyes in a daze, but his turning motion paused abruptly. He shot up.

Shen Yu’s sudden movement made 007 suspicious: 【Host, what’s wrong?】

Recalling everything, Shen Yu’s mind filled with a torrent of curses. He pressed his lips tight, vowing to take being fucked unconscious to the grave!

No one could know!!!

Shen Yu: 【…Nothing. Hunger woke me up.】

Anyway, 007 would be auto-blocked—no third party would ever know!

007 slowly typed out a question mark.

Having sorted his thoughts, Shen Yu got out of bed. The motion brought a clanking of chains echoing in the empty room.

“…” Shen Yu belatedly lifted his right hand.

His old acquaintance encircled his wrist.

After a long silence, he spat out deeply: 【Is my right hand just perfect for shackles or something?】

Big bro, couldn’t they switch hands? He wasn’t left-handed.

His wrist, still marked with fading hickeys, was locked in a metal shackle.

Long chains linked by gold rings provided enough room to move. The thick golden links scattered across the snowy sheets, gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight for an artistic effect.

The end trailed straight upward into the rose thicket, fastened at the very top.

Shen Yu stood, the sheet sliding reluctantly off his smoothly muscled body.

He was completely naked, every inch of skin covered in vivid hickeys. The sunlight outside the window, veiled in mist, seemed to pierce right through him.

Shen Yu extended his shackled hand. The chain slithered across the sheets with another clank.

He stretched his arm to touch the top of the golden cage but only brushed a cluster of metal roses spilling from the dome. His fingertips felt their cold metallic chill.

Shen Yu lightly tapped a rose petal: 【This design is pretty clever.】

The gaps between each rose grew narrower, finally piling into a dense mass.

The deliberately crafted metal chains thinned accordingly, vanishing quietly where they couldn’t be reached or seen, fastened to the cage lock at the apex, out of sight.

Shen Yu narrowed his eyes slightly.

Two years ago, Yu Tingsi had bribed a prison guard in jail to look after Yu Xiao. Every month for two years, the guard updated him on Yu Xiao’s condition. But two months ago, holding his phone as the screen lit up and dimmed repeatedly through the night, he received no reply.

Only this month, with no message on the agreed date, did Yu Tingsi finally conclude it wasn’t a mere oversight by the guard. In the end, he sought out Zhou Jinsheng.