Chapter 24

Mwah—

Qi Jing planted a quick kiss on Bo Chengyan’s chin.

Lin Se’s medical kit hit the floor. The young man stood there frozen like a wooden statue.

996’s beady black eyes stared unblinking at the scene.

“Ah!”

[Ah!]

They looked just like two prairie dogs popping out of their burrows.

Bo Chengyan wasn’t entirely in his right mind. He gripped the neck of the person in his arms and pulled him back. Qi Jing’s cheeks flushed red, his gaze cast downward.

He refused to look at him.

“Lin Se.”

The young man had been standing in the doorway like a statue. At the sound of his name, he snapped back to life, bent down to grab the medical kit, and hurried over.

Kneeling on one knee, he pulled out a syringe and expertly expelled the air from the needle.

An IV injection was nothing difficult.

Even in this state, Bo Chengyan didn’t let go of Qi Jing. The boy stayed perched on his lap until the matter was fully resolved.

“Can’t you at least put him down?”

Lin Se couldn’t hold back any longer. After spending so much time around him, he often felt like this man teetered between normal and total freak.

“The hotel’s filthy.”

Lin Se: “…”

No, that’s not it.

In truth, sedatives couldn’t fully solve the problem. Most aphrodisiacs on the market messed with blood pressure, caused rapid heart palpitations, and blurred vision—serious damage to the body.

But no one outside knew Bo Chengyan was sexually aloof. He rarely went to the hospital. The hallucinations and pounding heartbeat actually stimulated him intensely in a certain way.

It was addictive.

“What about clothes, then?”

Lin Se trailed behind like a moral crusader, relentlessly calling him out until Bo Chengyan replied coolly, “He’s allergic. No spare clothes.”

“. “

Lin Se refused to believe the man was some upright gentleman. It couldn’t be helped—with such a big age gap, even if the boy took the initiative to kiss him, the temptation was undeniable.

Not until Bo Chengyan instructed the driver to head to the hospital.

?

Lin Se sat in the front seat, utterly baffled. “The hospital? Won’t that get us photographed for sure?”

But then he caught the gaze in the rearview mirror.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Lin Se leaned back against the seat, his mind racing. Frowning, he realized this really was the best option.

What was wrong with Lingyue Group’s president sharing a night of passion with his person?

Qi Jing’s photos weren’t widely circulated; few people knew what he looked like. If anyone dared post them, Lingyue would sue them into oblivion.

The rumors about a sugar baby had only just died down—they’d probably flare up again.

“…”

The young man kept his eyes glued to the rearview mirror. He’d watch his bro forever.

Forever.

Qi Jing had kissed him once but remained absentminded throughout.

His brain felt like mush as he stared blankly at his own feet.

But his wrist was still held in a firm grip.

996 had blue-screened the entire time. It couldn’t control the protagonist bottom, so it had tried every trick to stop him from hiring escorts.

But in a moment of negligence, the protagonist bottom went fully OOC. He’d blown half a month’s savings on the top host—and was the top in the encounter.

Ah!

The bottom turned top!

Dao heart shattered—this was definitely a shocker!

Totally impure now, and the pairing reversed.

996 couldn’t advance the plot. It just wanted to drag Qi Jing away quick. Save who you can.

But then…

It checked the changing room—empty. Base had been sneak-attacked.

Failed to keep watch. After struggling to hitch a ride on an NPC to the upper floor, Qi Jing had already changed out of his shirt into his sugar daddy’s clothes, clearly lost in a haze.

He’d even learned to kiss proactively.

One false step leads to eternal regret.

996 was kicking itself. Its host was so young, the protagonist top so old—this was an open scheme!

Never mind Qi Jing’s youth; the key was he’d grown up in the mountains, never exposed to a world of luxury and vice. He could easily be drawn in, easily swayed.

Such immature feelings were incredibly dangerous.

…

[Sorry.]

996 froze for a second before realizing Qi Jing was speaking. The boy sat groggily in the car, fever sapping his strength.

[I shouldn’t have kissed someone else’s… husband.]

Qi Jing only snapped out of it once he was settled in the car. He wasn’t the protagonist. Bo Chengyan belonged to someone else.

He kept curling and uncurling his fingers.

He pondered how to address it. Everyone in those videos called it “hubby,” so Bo Chengyan must be the protagonist’s…

He felt awful.

[996, did I mess up the plot…?]

The boy’s temperature kept climbing. He came fully back to himself, slipping into that same disoriented state from the changing room.

The hotel’s seductive atmosphere slowly faded away.

Bo Chengyan had pushed him away.

He didn’t like him.

996 panicked. [No, no!]

Qi Jing didn’t buy it. His eyes rimmed red, he said logically, [I kissed him… now he’s impure…]

[…]

996’s beady eyes devolved into static.

Did the kid think he was some kind of virus?

[The protagonist bottom’s already in R18 territory. And you’re here yapping away.]

Qi Jing didn’t catch the meaning, but suddenly his waist was pulled close. His damp bangs were brushed aside, and cool fingers pressed to his forehead to check his temperature.

Bo Chengyan frowned. “Drive faster.”

The AC was already cranked low.

Qi Jing’s cheeks stayed unnaturally flushed. Bo Chengyan pinched his soft cheek, and the boy turned his head slightly away.

Someone else’s husband.

996: […]

Baby.

“What are you thinking about?”

Bo Chengyan asked, but Lin Se coughed from the front. “For allergies, I can’t just give a fever reducer via injection. We need the ER to check it out.”

“Uh, and you.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

~~~

Qi Jing was carried out of the car. It was actually hot outside, but the fever made him feel cold.

He kept trying to huddle down, wanting the suit jacket to cover him completely. But Bo Chengyan gripped his chin and lifted his face outward.

With considerable force.

“Mm.”

The boy’s eyes were red and watery. He twisted his face away in discomfort, his fever-clouded mind barely coherent.

Lin Se shut the car door and said briskly, “I had someone register us and get in line ahead of time. Let’s go.”

This was a civilized society. Family doctors weren’t miracle workers. Only public hospitals offered round-the-clock service to the people.

“Little Jing’s allergy should clear up with an IV, but yours—I still don’t think—”

Lin Se glanced back and saw they weren’t following.

Qi Jing’s temperature was sky-high, his breaths hot. But after the sedative, Bo Chengyan’s had dropped, and oblivious to it all, he nuzzled right over.

Burying his cheek against Bo Chengyan’s Adam’s apple.

“Come on.”

Bo Chengyan’s expression darkened inscrutably as he adjusted his hold, hugging the boy lower, and strode forward.

The chief assistant was already waiting, holding two sets of clean clothes, his face etched with concern.

“He has a fever?”

Qi Jing’s whole face was abnormally red. Once set down, he flailed vaguely in the air, dazed.

Lin Se frowned. “Has this kid hallucinated from the fever?”

It was actually 996.

To maximize the effect, it had slowed its data processing, turning the entire jelly blob ice-cold.

Qi Jing grabbed at it a couple times, and 996 automatically stuck to his face. Only then did the boy calm down.

But right at that moment—

“Give me the clothes.”

The chief assistant handed them over, puzzled, but his boss showed no sign of putting them on.

How strange.

About ten minutes later.

The injection was finally done, and the allergy meds were hooked up to the IV. The nurse glanced over. “One small bottle—forty minutes tops. No need for a whole crowd to hover.”

Bo Chengyan sent the assistant back.

But he kept Lin Se there.

Lin Se had actually let his guard down. Someone immune to those aphrodisiacs for so long was a rare breed.

But…

What if Qi Jing really was a must-have for him?

Age-gap romance, brother-sister vibes… Nothing rare in modern society.

Plenty went for ten years older or more.

Lin Se stayed silent for a while. If they actually ended up together, the sexual frigidity…

Wouldn’t be great for Little Jing.

Maybe get some treatment?

“Um…”

Bo Chengyan pried open Qi Jing’s mouth to take his temperature with the thermometer the chief assistant had brought. Qi Jing tilted his head back obediently.

Lin Se thought it looked a bit pervy, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why.

Until Bo Chengyan put the thermometer away and said calmly, “I’m getting him a bottle of water. Watch him.”

Lin Se gave a thumbs-up. No problem.

But only after he left did Lin Se realize—why not mention it when the assistant arrived?

~~~

In the hotel bathroom, the belt buckle clicked open. Cold water poured down from above.

Desire was a disgusting thing.

The Bo Family had spawned second, third, and fourth branches because of it—like reverting to primitive beasts. Bo Chengyan felt physical revulsion just thinking about it.

The current generation of Bo descendants—no few had impure origins. No proper weddings: teahouses, brothels, high-end clubhouses… Woman after woman showing up with kids in tow, demanding status.

What about the legal wife?

Nothing. Just endure the disgust.

His mother had withered away from it all. Her love destroyed, her legitimate son forced to fight those shady offspring for inheritance. Even secluded in the old estate, she found no peace.

She died.

Overwhelmed, she took her own life. But young Bo Chengyan saw it as murder. He flew back from across the Atlantic to handle it.

His decrepit father still thought it utterly unnecessary.

Bo Chengyan had uncovered the person who had been repeatedly provoking his mother, as well as the one who had specially supplied that rare chemical poison.

He had that culprit thrown in jail.

The funeral was a grand affair, attended by throngs of mourners.

Yet on that very same day, his father was still cavorting in a hotel room.

The woman with him was quite young.

From that point onward, Bo Chengyan believed he had lost all desire for women—not due to any external prejudice, but because of the poison sown in his original family.

He had even asked the woman what she wanted.

A formal title, it turned out.

Bo Chengyan agreed.

He wanted his father to die in the most undignified way possible.

And as slowly as could be.

~~~

Looking back, his past was shrouded almost entirely in gloom, like shadows pooling at the bottom of a lake, far from the light of day.

In the bathroom, the cold water blasted full force, but it did nothing to cool the feverish heat in his veins.

Bo Chengyan couldn’t fathom why fate had drawn him to Great Cool Mountain, as if some unseen hand had guided him there to pick up a stray soul.

He had begun raising the boy with a veneer of propriety.

He liked him.

He had always known it.

Yet why hadn’t he stamped out those feelings two years sooner?

The cold water soaked into his skin bit by bit, chilling it through until he felt like a block of ice.

Bo Chengyan thought Lin Se was right.

He was a pervert.

Addicted to that pure, bewildered devotion.

He craved to possess it exclusively, all without bearing any responsibility for it.

For a lifetime.

But it was never just one side that sank into the abyss. When the one in power felt his emotions stir, those invisible shackles clicked into place.

Age had become his ultimate taboo.

Any initiative was a mistake.

The manacles of his soul were already locked tight, with the oblivious youth at the other end, tugging away innocently.

~~~

Qi Jing’s fever came and went in waves afterward. The allergic reaction had subsided, and when the emergency doctor stopped by for a check, he let out a tsk.

“What’s going on here? A grown man should be on the mend after one IV drip, but he’s still burning up?”

More than an hour had passed by then.

Lin Se gave the doctor a quick rundown. “I run a clinic. This kid used to spike fevers from school anxiety. They always hit at night and lasted three or four hours.”

“They’d ease up by the early hours.”

The doctor looked stunned but pressed on. “Are you family? How do you know the timing so exactly?”

“No, the night watchman told me. I’m just the family doctor…”

The doctor chuckled at that. “Night watchman? That’s a nice way to put it. Who else but parents would care this much?”

Lin Se went still for a long moment, only then seeming to grasp the truth of it.