Chapter 37: That Night Part 2

Later, grown-up Lai Li tolerated strangers but still preferred Dai Linxuan’s cuts. Dai Linxuan indulged him, always making time… except the past two years.

Clippings fell with soft rustles. No mirror, so Lai Li couldn’t see Dai Linxuan’s face, but he could imagine his focused, serene expression. The gloom from two years apart finally lifted a little.

Lai Li tapped play on the video from Dai Linxuan’s twenty-eighth birthday.

Behind him, Dai Linxuan’s movements flowed seamlessly without pause.

But Lai Li wouldn’t let it slide. “Have you watched these recordings?”

“Yes.” Many times.

Dai Linxuan leaned down slightly, lifting a stray lock. “Bro apologizes. I touched your stuff without permission. Sorry.”

The camera screen stayed black—they were still hugging, only the rustle of clothing audible.

Out of nowhere, Lai Li said, “You kissed me then.”

Dai Linxuan: “…”

The video brightened, his own voice emerging—

[“No lie. A couple days ago, I accidentally spilled coffee on the Cactus Ball. Not sure if it’ll survive.”

“Nothing happened?”

“No.” Two years ago, he asked softly, “If the ball dies, can you forgive Bro?”]

It survived in the end, but only for two more years.

Lai Li, nearly nineteen, had bought that Cactus Ball from a roadside stall for ten bucks. He insisted Dai Linxuan keep it on his desk—a reminder of him amid work, prompting random messages.

Dai Linxuan had already misunderstood Lai Li’s intentions at the time and could no longer treat this gift ordinarily. No matter how he handled these overstepping feelings, he had to take good care of the Cactus Ball to avoid letting it die and upsetting Lai Li.

He hadn’t thought back then that one day Lai Li would smash it with his own hands.

Dai Linxuan’s gaze lowered slightly as he continued trimming Lai Li’s hair, as casually and relaxed as pruning flower branches.

He said, “You’re remembering it wrong.”

Lai Li grabbed Dai Linxuan’s hand and touched the skin behind his ear. “You kissed right here.”

“…”

Over the past two years, Dai Linxuan had reviewed the camera footage many times and remembered clearly what he had done to his past self.

When Lai Li had asked why he wasn’t holding a birthday party and why he was in a bad mood, Dai Linxuan had made up a random excuse and, with selfish motives, asked for a hug.

Before letting go, his lips had lightly brushed the skin behind Lai Li’s ear.

On one hand, he thought Lai Li’s “feelings” were just youthful impulsiveness; on the other, he couldn’t control his own heartbeat. He took advantage of Lai Li’s unguarded closeness to do something secretive and sinful.

It could truly be called despicable.

Dai Linxuan denied it completely, his expression indifferent. “It must’ve been an accidental brush.”

Since it was a mistake, a sin, it was enough for him to remember it himself. There was no need for another person to agonize over it.

Lai Li didn’t speak, and it wasn’t clear if he believed it.

By the time Dai Linxuan finished cutting his hair, Lai Li had just finished watching the hiking footage from that day. Apart from the hug, nothing special happened. After going down the mountain, the video stopped recording, with no footage from the Vacation Villa.

Dai Linxuan’s fingers threaded through Lai Li’s hair, gently combing it. “Go take a look in the mirror and see if you like it.”

“I like it.” Lai Li didn’t even look, suddenly calling him by his full name. “Dai Linxuan.”

Dai Linxuan: “Hm?”

Lai Li stood up, turned around, and stared into his brother’s eyes. “Did you tamper with the camera?”

Dai Linxuan raised an eyebrow. “Tamper how?”

Lai Li stated flatly, “You deleted the video from that night.”

Dai Linxuan made a thoughtful sound, as if recalling. “The camera ran out of battery when we got back that night. You didn’t record any video at all.”

Lai Li braced one hand on the chair back and suddenly leaned in close to Dai Linxuan, while holding his waist to prevent him from retreating. He emphasized every syllable. “I never knew you were such a good actor—bro-ther.”

“…”

“Your lies are very logical.” Lai Li was so close that every exhaled word landed precisely on Dai Linxuan’s face. “But no one understands me better than I do myself. That was the first time we spent your birthday alone outside. There’s no way I wouldn’t record the moment of eating cake or your reaction to the birthday gift.”

Dai Linxuan: “You didn’t…”

Lai Li scoffed. “I didn’t bring a charger? Bro, I told you, no one understands me better than I do. There’s no way I didn’t bring one.”

The atmosphere tensed into a standoff in that instant, as if this Schrödinger’s footage were some unspeakable incriminating evidence.

A moment later, Dai Linxuan relaxed his breathing and suddenly smiled. “The camera really did run out of battery. I don’t know if you brought a charger. But you drank a lot that day, so it’s possible you just forgot to charge it.”

Whether Lai Li believed him or not, he had no evidence anyway—

“We slept together, didn’t we?”

Lai Li stared straight at Dai Linxuan, asking bluntly. With the excuse of a drunken blackout, he wasn’t afraid of Dai Linxuan noticing anything off.

His gaze was almost tangible, trying to pierce his brother from the inside out.

“You’ve got quite the imagination, Little Chestnut.” Dai Linxuan pushed away the hand on his waist, his expression natural. “Did I sleep with you, or did you sleep with me? You blacked out from drinking—could you even get it up? If I slept with you…”

He curved his lips and rubbed his throat. “Haven’t you felt it before? Do you think you could get out of bed normally the next day if you were on the bottom?”

Lai Li’s train of thought was finally derailed. He quickly glanced downward. After a prolonged standoff, he stepped back, circled around the chair, and walked away expressionlessly.

Dai Linxuan didn’t turn around. He stayed quietly alone for a long time, silently exhaling. He gripped the chair back, his palm landing exactly where Lai Li’s had been—a patch of searing heat.

Lai Li’s lingering body heat seeped into his palm through the wound, pervasive and inescapable, just like the heat from that night.

—Realizing that Lai Li didn’t remember anything at all, Dai Linxuan had never understood what he was thinking. He only wondered how he had raised such a wicked little bastard.

Lai Li was the one who started the flirting, the one who confessed sweet nothings, the one who moaned “brother” while pleasuring himself…

Dai Linxuan stood on the shore, pulled along by Lai Li, step by step into the sea of sin and lust tinged with familial bonds. Every wave of desire carried the undercurrent of brotherhood; every bit of flirtation, every skin-to-skin touch felt like a crime.

Dai Linxuan knew it was wrong but still failed to retreat in time.

As the waves grew larger, he gradually couldn’t touch the bottom, losing more and more control.

Dai Linxuan had “resisted” in this vague way for two years.

On the night of his twenty-eighth birthday, he finally couldn’t hold back and sank completely, body and soul.

They had both been drinking, but Lai Li hadn’t had much—his mental and physical state were both normal. Dai Linxuan never imagined he was drunk.

They shouldn’t have been intimate before confirming their relationship, but Dai Linxuan’s condition was poor at the time, combined with mild alcohol numbness and Lai Li’s relentless “temptation”… Of course, it was still because he himself had no bottom line, not even sparing his own brother.

Dai Linxuan had thoroughly fallen into the abyss, committing a sin against the child he had raised.

Afterward, Dai Linxuan didn’t sleep a wink all night.

He took out the two rings designed by He Si and sat in the suite’s living room for a long time. Only when the first ray of morning sunlight entered did he convince himself to head to the bedroom. They were mutually in love, with no blood ties or legal relations—what was there to fear? He was about to enter when he overheard Lai Li on the phone with He Shuxin.

They hadn’t fallen out yet at that point. Upon hearing that Lai Li had sneaked off alone with Dai Linxuan for his birthday, He Shuxin must have speculated something like, “Do you two have something going on?” or “Are you two gay?” Dai Linxuan didn’t know the exact words, but he heard Lai Li’s response—

“Me and my brother being gay? Did a door slam on your head? Keep disgusting me and I’ll twist your head off and use it as a soccer ball.”

If Lai Li didn’t truly think that way, the most he’d reply would be something like “Just say if you want to die.”

Dai Linxuan had plunged headfirst into the sea of love and lust, only to look back and find Lai Li had always been on shore. From start to finish, only he himself had gotten wet.

Dai Linxuan said nothing, did nothing, just took a step back.

But before leaving, he still gave one of the rings to Lai Li—not carrying any special meaning, just an ordinary gift—and concealed the existence of the other.

He didn’t tell anyone about going abroad, but on the way to the airport, Lai Li somehow found out, leading to the widely circulated online video of the “rainy night highway chase.”

Lai Li forced him to pull over on the emergency lane and confronted him in the downpour, demanding why he was leaving the country without a word.

Dai Linxuan was utterly exhausted, but the umbrella he raised instinctively tilted toward Lai Li. He couldn’t bring himself to say a harsh word.

They stood very close, but perhaps the rain was too heavy, blurring their vision, making each other seem hazy and illusory, as if unreachable.

…

After going abroad, their contact didn’t break off. Dai Linxuan even thought that if Lai Li wanted to continue their relationship, he probably couldn’t refuse—he’d just pretend he hadn’t heard that word “disgusting.”

He always indulged Lai Li’s every wish.

Unfortunately, Lai Li treated what happened that night, the words spoken, as nothing more than a disgusting one-night stand and never mentioned it again.

Lai Li would still occasionally press him on why he went abroad. Perhaps Lai Li knew the reason and kept asking only to hear a different answer, one that would make him feel better.

So Dai Linxuan went along with it, giving a reason that suited Lai Li’s conscience, letting him gloss over everything and continue their brotherly harmony. Apart from rarely meeting in person, they didn’t avoid video calls or phone calls, messages were replied to the same day, and when returning to the country for business, he’d even proactively suggest meeting, bringing an expensive but unremarkable gift…

He had elevated “decency” to the extreme.

Until this return, on the night of Dai Yi’s birthday banquet, when Lai Li resorted to his old tricks again, climbing into his bed and groping everywhere, stirring up fires.

Dai Linxuan truly hated that he couldn’t just strangle him.