Rising, he bumped the desk corner—hard. It hurt, but his beaten areas throbbed more; he ignored the table.
Moments later, spotting the faint bruise circling his wrists, Li Ran suddenly thought of his dad.
Did Li Ang, nearly forty, get thrashed like this too? Grief welled up; his nearly stopped tears refilled his eyes.
“Why are you still crying?”
Chi Mo pulled him over to wipe his tears, sighing helplessly, his voice soft and soothing like coaxing. “Don’t cry, little treasure.”
Li Ran said sadly, “Does my dad get hit too? That’s awful.”
Chi Mo: “…”
What wild train of thought.
That night, Li Ran didn’t sleep lying down; he lay prone all night, feeling wronged.
In his dreams, Chi Mo’s “smack-smack” echoed; he clutched the quilt corner, whimpering softly as if still not done crying.
The AC was on, keeping the room warm. Li Ran didn’t cover up. Normally off, tonight’s chill made covers comfy—but pressing on his butt felt heavy and painful. After debating, he shoved the quilt aside and slept with the AC.
Good thing it was Saturday tomorrow; otherwise, he’d have to stand through class.
After ensuring Li Ran slept soundly, Chi Mo lingered by the bed, opened his silenced phone, and found Qi Zhi’s chat.
No need to search; Qi Zhi had sent many messages that evening asking about the situation, even called several times.
Chi Mo had been occupied, ignoring him.
Now he had time.
At midnight, Chi Mo replied curtly: 【Qi Zhi, no next time.】
It wasn’t the first time he’d said this to Qi Zhi, but this felt more like a warning.
Qi Zhi’s joking confession to Li Ran; Qi Zhi hugging Li Ran at home; Qi Zhi outing his orientation to Li Ran… Chi Mo knew it all but hadn’t taken Qi Zhi seriously.
Anyone not an idiot would get the hint after a word or two.
Qi Zhi got it. His cousin had always been a lone wolf; suddenly bringing someone home, picking him up after self-study—it was abnormal.
Terrifying, even.
But Qi Zhi always felt that Chi Mo’s lack of interference with Li Ran’s public coming out had other implications.
It was as if Chi Mo was using him to give Li Ran a buffer period to accept “being gay.”
Whoever came out as gay first would be the one Li Ran distanced himself from first. Chi Mo was the hunter lurking in the shadows.
Now, it was time to close the net.
Qi Zhi had waited half the night for a message, only to receive that one sentence.
Their childhood friendship had been eroded away in a piece of chocolate that Chi Mo had made himself but got discovered by the parents.
That piece of chocolate was Chi Mo’s secret treat to himself, one of the few snacks he had. Out of kindness, he shared one with Qi Zhi. But Qi Zhi, who had everything and was used to being pampered by everyone, didn’t know to cherish it. He didn’t finish it and should have quickly destroyed the evidence to protect Chi Mo’s effort, but he never thought about what it meant to Chi Mo. He ate it with chocolate smeared all over his mouth, got caught by his parents on the spot, and the loose-lipped adults immediately told Chi Mo’s parents.
Even now, when Chi Mo had set up his own little chocolate factory, Qi Zhi never had the chance to see a second piece.
The weight of Chi Mo’s warning was self-evident.
He held grudges fiercely.
Qi Zhi called Chi Mo, and as soon as he picked up, he said, “Li Ran doesn’t like men. You can’t force him, right?”
Chi Mo looked at the sleeping Li Ran and repeated a certain phrase with heavy sarcasm, as if emphasizing a joke: “Force him?”
“If he’s willing, of course I won’t force him. If he’s not willing, so what if I force him?” Chi Mo said indifferently, countering, “What can you do about it?”
Qi Zhi grew anxious: “You…”
Chi Mo muted the call, so the other side’s words didn’t come through, but his side could still be heard.
As soon as he spoke, Li Ran’s brow furrowed slightly, and he groggily woke up.
The bedroom was unlit, with ambiguous moonlight spilling from the window, casting a layer of silver on the floor. Combined with the glow from the phone screen, that was all the light there was, making the entire view dim and gray. Chi Mo sat at the head of the bed with an inscrutable expression, his pitch-black eyes fixed unblinkingly on Li Ran.
Chi Mo had appeared in his bedroom like this before, though not often—just twice. Li Ran never asked why; after all, his brother surely had his reasons.
He didn’t feel scared. He just rapidly guessed at why Chi Mo had come in the middle of the night. Was he going to beat him again? Weren’t those dozen or so spanks enough? Even if not enough, he couldn’t beat him anymore.
Li Ran immediately yanked the blanket over his lower back and butt, waking up fully and trembling slightly.
“Bro…”
“Do you listen to me or not?” Chi Mo touched Li Ran’s head and tossed the phone aside casually. “Say you listen.”
“Listening” had permeated Li Ran’s seventeen years of life so far. No one understood pleasing others better than he did, wrapping “obedience” around himself as a cloak for navigating the world, currying favor with others.
Fierce toward Bai Qingqing, gentle toward Li Ang… Their parents’ authority, whether harsh or soft, made Li Ran willingly bow his head.
He bowed so low that he eventually lost himself.
This thing he’d lost for over a decade was methodically uncovered by Chi Mo, thread by thread pulled out. They soaked through… perhaps life, perhaps emotions, perhaps feelings, perhaps Li Ran himself with a luster that surrounded him, making him vivid and alive.
He wasn’t just “obedient.”
“I listen.” Li Ran’s obedience answered. Half his face buried in the pillow, his eyes open and seemingly awake, but his mind was muddled in the dim view. “Of course I listen to you, Bro.”
The self that Chi Mo had taught him immediately followed: “You have to be good to me. If you’re not good to me… I won’t listen.”
The ending syllable vanished into the renewed drowsiness. He spoke as if sleepwalking and fell asleep again, as if he had never woken.
Chi Mo chuckled in satisfaction: “Mm.”
He hung up the phone when Li Ran mumbled “listen.” He watched Li Ran’s peaceful sleeping face for a while at the bedside, then leaned down to kiss his forehead lightly before leaving.
He also applied ointment for Li Ran, to the soft places that had been beaten and the wrists bound with red marks.
During it, the feel of one spot was so good that he almost didn’t want to stop.
…
The wrinkled clothes could only be sent to the cleaners; Li Ran couldn’t handle them himself.
The more precious something was, the more delicate it became—more delicate than people. When he woke up and saw that pile of suits wrinkled like orange peels, Li Ran truly felt troubled.
Chi Mo resolved his troubles.
He directly threw the clothes away.
He didn’t haggle when buying groceries, but if he did, Li Ran wouldn’t have spent an extra cent. A five-figure outfit was tossed into the trash like rags right in front of him, and Li Ran shouted, “Bro, what are you doing? Sending it for dry cleaning would’ve been fine!”
“No picking it up.” Chi Mo said with a cold face.
The skin on his palm was rough, the skin on Li Ran’s butt tender. The mutual force of a dozen impacts left Li Ran’s butt still swollen, while Chi Mo’s palm had long recovered.
At his cold face, Li Ran recalled his miserable fate from last night. The hands that had been about to dig through the trash recoiled sharply, clasped behind his back as he kept his distance from Chi Mo: “But it’s so expensive…”
“Seeing these clothes annoys me.” Chi Mo handed Li Ran the pair of cufflinks he was wearing today for the main task.
Li Ran took them and deftly put them on for him. His peripheral vision reluctantly tore away from the trash bin. Even by the time they went downstairs for breakfast, he still couldn’t figure out why a suit that neither spoke nor caused trouble had upset Chi Mo.
It had taken half a month to make, worn only once.
A one-time reimbursement product.
Li Ran thought sourly: “These damn rich people. So excessive.”
“Little Ran, why are you eating standing up? Did Chi Mo punish you so you can’t sit?” Cheng Ai Mei wasn’t the nagging, annoying type of old lady. Li Ran had cried so fiercely yesterday, so Chi Mo must have beaten him too hard. Young people wouldn’t say the reason, and elders shouldn’t pry; she didn’t want to act superior and lecture the young ones with life advice she wasn’t even sure was right.
After asking, Cheng Ai Mei clicked her tongue inwardly: “Still too nosy.”
Eating standing up, unable to sit—must’ve been the butt.
She glanced at Li Ran again. The kid’s face was flushed red, bowl held higher as if to bury his face in it. Earlier, Chi Mo had picked food for him and he’d accepted it, but now with the big bowl blocking, Chi Mo—the culprit—was out of sight, so Li Ran just shoveled rice dryly.
A pair of chopsticks moved back and forth by his face, and the occasional glimpse of his earlobe peeking past the bowl rim was red enough to drip blood.
The look of utter shame and fury—definitely the butt!
“Ah, it’s nothing, nothing. Grandma was just asking casually. If you want to eat standing, go ahead—young people have so many hobbies.” Cheng Ai Mei quietly pinched the clueless Ye Ze. Amid her old man’s sudden “Ow!”, she regained her feigned ignorance and said, “Eat more, eat more.”
“Chi Mo, you should really control that dog temper of yours. Don’t scare Little Ran someday. How is he like Chi Wei in any way? …Big pervert and little pervert.”
Cheng Ai Mei sighed and dropped it.
Li Ran’s gaze slid along the bowl rim to Chi Mo, quietly observing.
His brother was called a pervert, but there was no offended expression on his face. He even humbly listened to the elder and nodded reservedly.
“Mm.” That counted as a response.
On weekends, the school gates were closed, but the company’s revolving doors stayed open.
Li Ran went to the company with his backpack. Chi Mo worked, and he did homework.
In the afternoon, Hua Xue Fan knocked and brought files. Her ten-centimeter heels clicked rhythmically on the floor. She paused for a moment after pushing the door open.
She saw that the office furnishings, unchanged for years, had transformed—more precisely, ever since Li Ran arrived, their boss’s cold demeanor of “live if you can, die if you can’t” had softened considerably, and the office had gradually gained many new items.
