Chapter 9: Hold Me

Zhou Yili entered the bedroom with a cold expression, carrying the person in his arms. Not only did he have to fetch warm water and medicine, but he also had to relocate this ancestor from the garden to the bedroom. The only reason was that he never forgot—Shen Jixing feared the cold.

His constitution was weak; as soon as the weather turned chilly, he’d fall ill every other day. In the past, Zhou Yili would always turn the music room’s fireplace to its highest setting before Shen Jixing arrived. Outside, tiny snowflakes drifted past the window. Inside, branches crackled in the fireplace. Shen Jixing would sit on the carpet, knees drawn up and head propped in his hand, as if he could spend the whole day just watching him.

“Stop playing dead. Get up,” Zhou Yili said, not particularly gently, tossing him onto the bed. He turned away to open the medicine box, squeezed out two pills, and commanded, “Take the medicine before you sleep.”

The person on the bed didn’t react. His pale cheeks rubbed against the pillow, but he didn’t wake.

Zhou Yili’s patience wore thin. He threatened with the water cup, “Hurry up. If you don’t wake, I’ll force you to swallow it.”

He was too noisy.

Shen Jixing, muddled with fever, opened his eyes. His usually cool gaze was now lost and unfocused. He asked softly, “Force me to swallow what?”

……

His thick lashes cast soft shadows, his skin delicate and pale.

Zhou Yili’s Adam’s apple bobbed slightly. His voice was low and icy: “Don’t play games with me. I’m telling you to take your medicine.”

Shen Jixing, his mind clouded, couldn’t even process the words.

Medicine.

He vaguely caught that word, frowned slightly in resistance, but finally opened his mouth quietly. “Mm.”

Zhou Yili: “?”

I meant for you to take it yourself.

This man exuded an air of noble arrogance, as if saying, “Serve me.”

Zhou Yili was nearly exasperated to the point of surrender.

He knelt on one knee by the bed, leaned over, gently pried open Shen Jixing’s jaw, dropped the pills into his mouth, then turned to fetch the water from the bedside table.

When he looked back, he was stunned. “You swallowed it?”

Shen Jixing kept his eyes closed, his long lashes trembling softly. “Mm.”

Holding the cup, Zhou Yili fell silent.

These pills lacked a sugary coating; the bitter taste lingered on his fingertips. Without water, Shen Jixing had just swallowed them directly?

No one would willingly suffer like that.

The only explanation was that he was used to it.

In more urgent moments, when there was no time to find water, he’d have to gulp down the pills dry to ease the pain.

Zhou Yili gazed at his serene, cold sleeping face, unable to describe the feeling in his heart.

“What’s the point of working so hard?”

“In the end, you can’t even manage the people closest to you.”

There was no such thing as overnight scandal or justice descending from the heavens; it was always the betrayal of those most trusted.

There was a traitor close to Shen Jixing.

“Stop making noise, Zhou Yili.”

Shen Jixing found him bothersome. “Go away, I want to sleep…”

“You’ve been sleeping all day and still can’t get enough? Are you Sleeping Beauty?” Zhou Yili said, but still left the bed.

Suddenly, something felt off. He turned back, scooped him up, brushed aside the fine hair on his forehead, and checked his temperature.

“Incredible,” Zhou Yili uttered from the heart.

He’d caught a breeze and now had a fever again.

“Are you made of paper?”

“How have you survived all these years?”

His indifferent tone verged on annoyance. Shen Jixing, disturbed by the noise, opened his cool, watery eyes and glared weakly.

……

Zhou Yili pressed his lips together coldly, placed him back on the bed, and left the guest room without a word.

He searched the apartment for every bit of medicine, finally found something for the fever, but worried it might conflict with the stomach medicine he’d just given, and poison him.

Zhou Yili sat cross-legged on the carpet, back against the bed, typing obscure drug names into the browser to check their effects.

“Open your mouth.”

Shen Jixing was already feverish and confused.

When this man wasn’t lucid, he was inexplicably obedient. Asked to open his mouth, he did. Fed anything, he’d eat it. If it was bitter, he’d wrinkle his brow; given water, his brows would relax.

Zhou Yili knelt on one knee, amused, and called, “Shen Jixing.”

No answer.

The man on the bed lay with eyes closed, long lashes scattering beautiful shadows, pale red lips glazed with moisture, a silver chain glinting in the hollow of his collarbone.

So exquisitely noble, it was unreal.

Zhou Yili openly admired the face hailed as the divine beauty of the East.

Though his IQ wasn’t high, his taste was excellent.

He’d been captivated by that face at first sight, and he’d managed to win him over.

“Do you think everyone is as foolish as me, willing to keep your secrets without hesitation?”

Zhou Yili had known about those scandals long before they hit the trending topics. He could drag this man down from his pedestal at any moment.

Threaten, entice, at worst lock him up and break his pristine, snowy wings.

He had a thousand ways to destroy Shen Jixing, but Zhou Yili never did—not even considered it.

Perhaps it wasn’t his style.

It was too ugly.

……

“Bro, you’re ghosting me again!!!”

As soon as Zhou Yili answered the phone, Xiao Mo’s tenor nearly blew him away.

He glanced back at the bed; the man was still asleep.

“You’re so loud, maybe you should sing all the songs from now on?”

Zhou Yili closed the guest room door and strode downstairs.

Xiao Mo was pitiful. “My voice is always loud~”

His brother had never complained this much before.

“You promised to send me the new album demo this afternoon. Don’t tell me it’s still in your head and hasn’t been recorded yet?”

Zhou Yili descended the stairs. “Don’t slander your brother’s reputation; it’s long since finished.”

Xiao Mo was shocked. “And you still didn’t send it to me!!!”

Realizing he’d raised his voice even more, he braced for scolding.

Unexpectedly, his brother said nothing, just gave a lazy “Mm,” and replied, “Forgot, I’ll send it now.”

“What’s keeping you busy?”

Xiao Mo found it odd.

His brother’s temperament was unpredictable; sometimes good, sometimes bad. When writing songs, he was at his worst: no gigs, no ads, no interruptions allowed. Xiao Mo didn’t even dare text him today. How was he so busy?

“Taking care of…” Zhou Yili pulled out a chair, voice pausing, “a pet.”

“You have a pet now?” Xiao Mo perked up. He was a warm-hearted citizen, with plenty of stray cats and dogs at home. He asked cheerfully, “What kind of pet?”

Zhou Yili’s long fingers gripped the mouse. “A rebellious little white bird.”

Xiao Mo: “?”

Xiao Mo didn’t get it, but he understood.

“Rebellious pets are like that. My cat at home can be fierce, sometimes even likes to hit me when bored…”

Zhou Yili’s lips unconsciously curled.

Xiao Mo continued, “But sometimes it’s really sweet. When you scold me and I cry, it comes over and rubs against me, and suddenly everything feels okay.”

There was a reason Xiao Mo was constantly scolded.

But this time, the other end was silent for a long while. Just as Xiao Mo was about to speak again, Zhou Yili’s faint voice drifted over.

“That does sound nice.”

He finished exporting the files and sent them over to Xiao Mo.

His fingers hovered for two seconds, then he sneered, “He doesn’t even know how to nuzzle.”

Shen Jixing was cold and arrogant to the extreme.

Forget rubbing against anyone; even if someone tried to get close to him, he’d recoil in distaste.

Zhou Yili never expected that a casual remark would come true that very night.

At midnight, amidst thunder and lightning, the garden’s greenery swayed.

Zhou Yili picked up a thin blanket from the swing and, turning back, saw the man on the guest room bed, curled up alone, looking as if he’d already ascended to some ethereal realm.

His shell had been kicked to the floor.

……

Zhou Yili draped the blanket over his shoulder, feeling his patience was absurdly good.

“Are you determined to die in my house?”

He stepped through the storm-tossed green leaves, into the guest room’s warm golden glow.

He yanked the blanket from his shoulder and wrapped the man up like a caterpillar.

He pondered how to tie a knot behind him, so he wouldn’t kick it off in the night…

The person leaning on his shoulder suddenly moved.

Under the white pajamas, his arms were slender and wrapped around Zhou Yili’s slim waist; he buried himself into his embrace and slowly rubbed against his neck.

“Cold… hold me.”

——

Brother Zhou: Mo, suddenly I feel everything is pretty good too.