The cool beauty forcibly bids for top A: Chapter 45

[Are you coming back today?] (anxious.JPG)

[Are you busy? (poking face), I made you something good.] (food.JPG)

In the picture was a beautifully presented steamed leopard coral grouper and a pot of fish maw chicken soup cooked to just the right doneness, steaming hot, carrying a homey, lived-in warmth.

[Took the puppy for a bath.] (Tang dog.JPG)

In the picture, that silly little Tang dog had white foam all over its head, two front paws gripping the edge of the bathtub, a pair of wet eyes staring innocently at the camera.

Looking at that dog, the tight corners of Shen Yanzhou’s lips unconsciously relaxed.

[I checked the weather forecast today. Do you know what kind of weather today is good for?]

Shen Yanzhou glanced at the night outside the study.

[If you don’t answer, I’ll tell you.]

[Today is good for missing you. Besides missing you, I can’t do anything.]

After a while—

[Hehe, I was just saying that. If you don’t like me sending this kind of thing, I won’t next time.]

After quite a while longer—

[But missing you, that’s real.]

Finally, it came with a [puppy looking pitiful] sticker with drooping ears.

It was clearly a corny line to the point of being cringeworthy, yet Shen Yanzhou didn’t feel disgusted like he used to. Instead, something soft bumped against his chest.

This was the fourth day since returning from the international waters cruise.

After the rut period ended and the two returned to Hong Kong City, Shen Yanzhou had given the man his phone back. Since then, for several days straight, Shen Yanzhou hadn’t returned to the Hillside villa at all, only going back and forth between the company and the Shen family estate.

For one thing, work really was too busy.

The batch of “Icarus” on the international waters had been completely destroyed. Because the Shen family had cut off the transport line in advance and hadn’t gotten involved, they naturally emerged completely unscathed from this storm.

Logically speaking, with such a large-scale shootout and hijacking happening on a cruise ship in international waters, if it had been any other family in Hong Kong City, the tabloids and financial news would have been splashed across front page headlines the very next day. Yet these past few days, the news had been eerily quiet, not even a splash of water stirring.

This was the Fu family, with their hand covering the sky.

Most likely Fu Sihan had used power and money to forcefully stuff this sky-sized hole back into his stomach, and also silenced the Hong Kong media.

But since he had witnessed with his own eyes how terrifying that thing was, Shen Yanzhou absolutely couldn’t turn a blind eye to it. That kind of inhibitor that could permanently alter glands and turn people into addicted wrecks, as long as Fu Sihan didn’t give up, would sooner or later make a comeback.

These past few days, he and Shen Xici had practically been working around the clock sorting through recordings from the cruise ship, surveillance footage, and Arthur’s overseas background information. They had categorized all the evidence, encrypted it layer by layer, and anonymously submitted it to the Hong Kong City highest police headquarters and the International Anti-Smuggling Investigation Bureau.

For another thing… Shen Yanzhou knew very well in his heart.

He was running away.

Running away from the relationship between the two of them.

He had initially called that man “Thirty Million” as a reminder to him and also to himself that this was nothing more than a clearly priced transaction, and neither should cross the line.

He had thought he could draw a clear line between “love” and “lust,” no talking about feelings, only talking about desire.

But now, this relationship had clearly gone off the rails.

When did it start gradually spiraling out of control?

Was it when he saw him protecting those orphans in the walled city? Was it when he saw him rather slash his own wrist in self-harm than force himself during rut period? Or was it in the day after day of living together? In bed?

Shen Yanzhou closed his eyes and rubbed his throbbing temples.

Reason frantically tugged at his nerves, warning him that there was a black and white chasm between them. If he continued keeping this man by his side, the Shen family’s century-old foundation would sooner or later be affected.

But the moment he closed his eyes, his mind was full of the man holding him in his arms, red at the corners of his eyes, asking him “do you have even a little bit of liking me.”

Shen Yanzhou’s fingertips hovered above the screen for a long time.

In the end, he let out a sigh and flipped the phone over, face down on the desktop.

“Shen Xiuming, Brother is working inside, you can’t just go in!” Violent shoving came from outside the door, it was Shen Xici’s voice.

“Get lost! Who do you think you are to dare block me?! I want to see my brother! Let me in!”

Immediately after, the study door was brutally shoved open. Shen Xiuming stumbled in with red-rimmed eyes, his suit disheveled, his tie crooked from being pulled, and behind him followed Shen Xici with an ashen face.

“Brother.” Shen Xiuming dropped to his knees with a thud, completely without dignity. He crawled forward on his knees two steps, both hands gripping the edge of the desk, looking at Shen Yanzhou pitifully.

“Brother, please help me.”

Shen Yanzhou leaned back in his chair and deliberately asked: “What is it.”

“Five hundred million… five hundred million Hong Kong dollars.” Shen Xiuming swallowed. “I owe five hundred million from doing business abroad. The people over there have made it clear that if they don’t see this money to fill the hole within ten days, they’ll send me to Stanley Prison.”

“Brother, please help me, just this last time! I’m truly at the end of my rope!”

Shen Yanzhou looked at his tear-streaked face and said faintly: “Why should I help you?”

“I won’t help you, figure it out yourself.”

Shen Xiuming lifted his head, looking at Shen Yanzhou in disbelief, then his gaze shifted to Shen Xici standing nearby, and he screamed with red-rimmed eyes: “Brother, if today the one in trouble was Shen Xici, would you help him?! Would you watch him die with your eyes open?!”

Shen Yanzhou’s gaze grew even colder: “Shen Xici wouldn’t be as stupid as you, touching that kind of conscienceless thing.”

“Who is he putting on airs?!” Shen Xiuming shrieked hysterically on his knees: “Brother! I’m clearly the blood-related younger brother you have! We’re the real family!”

“What kind of thing is Shen Xici?! He’s just an unwanted orphan! If not for you taking pity on him back then and picking him up like a stray dog, he would have long since died in some garbage heap! Why do you favor him everywhere? Why do you entrust him with such important matters in the group, yet guard against me like a thief”

Before he could finish speaking, Shen Yanzhou slapped him twice.

Shen Xiuming was slumped to the ground, the corner of his mouth instantly split open. His ears buzzed, and he held his swollen cheek, blankly lifting his head to look at this cold face before him. “Brother, why?”

“Why?” Shen Yanzhou asked back.

“Growing up, every time you got into trouble, who was it cleaning up your mess?”

“At eighteen, you got caught in a honey trap at a Macau casino and owed ten million in gambling debts. Who brought cash overnight to ransom your leg?”

“At twenty, you got drunk and beat up someone from the Zhao family. Who swallowed their pride to smooth things over, using connections to send you abroad overnight to lay low?”

“At twenty-three, for some third-rate little star, you ruined a several billion dollar development project in the North District. Who shouldered the losses alone at the board meeting?!”

Shen Yanzhou looked at him, his gaze like he was looking at trash: “When there’s trouble, I’m the good brother, you kneel on the ground begging me to help you. When there’s no trouble, you team up with outsiders to scheme against me behind my back, wishing you could kill your brother right away so you can rightfully take over the Shen family.”

“When you do something wrong, you never look for the reason in yourself, only blame others.”

“Shen Xiuming, blood relation isn’t your excuse to be useless. If you’re incompetent yourself, don’t blame others for being better than you.”

Shen Xiuming covered his face, large tears splashing onto the carpet. “Brother, it’s all your fault, and Shen Xici’s fault too! You clearly only had me as your younger brother at first!”

“No matter how hard I try, how much I want your attention, in your eyes I’ll never measure up to him!”

“Is it wrong for me to want your attention?!”

Shen Yanzhou looked at him, sat back in his chair, and rubbed his throbbing temples: “Yes, it is wrong.”

“Shen Xiuming, do you think I have nothing better to do?”

“Leave first. I’ll think about your matter. I’m very tired today.”

Shen Xiuming wiped his tears, staggered to his feet, and walked out of the study. As he left, he looked back three times with every step, putting on pitiful eyes.

After Shen Xiuming left, Shen Xici walked to the desk, looked at the exhausted Shen Yanzhou, and asked softly: “Brother, are you going to help him?”

“I still remember when he was little, always following behind me all day, calling out Brother Brother, and when he fell he would grab my sleeve and cry. Thinking about him back then, he was actually quite cute.”

Shen Yanzhou let out a light sigh: “How did he grow up to become like this?”

Shen Xici replied: “Maybe it’s because of me. Like he said, without me, Brother would only have him as your younger brother.”

Shen Yanzhou leaned back in his chair, his voice carrying a deep sense of powerlessness: “It has nothing to do with you. What I want to say is, I can’t bring myself to really send him to prison.”

“But sometimes, I also want to be like him, just once, living without caring about anything.”

Hearing these words, Shen Xici looked at Shen Yanzhou’s face and asked the question he had been holding in for several days:

“Brother, the person who picked you up from the cruise ship that day, was it Thirty Million? Do you know he is…”

“The underground boss?” Shen Yanzhou interrupted him.

Shen Xici was startled, then nodded: “Brother, what do you plan to do? Mom and Dad never let us have contact with that kind of person while they were alive. You know his identity, are you still going to keep him by your side?”

“I don’t know.” Shen Yanzhou replied.

Shen Xici’s hand unconsciously tightened, and he continued: “That day on the cruise ship, were you with Brother? Did he temporarily mark you? I can smell his scent on you.”

That domineering and intense cedar scent, even after several days, still secretly lingered around Shen Yanzhou’s gland.

Shen Yanzhou met Shen Xici’s gaze frankly: “Mn, he was in rut period.”

“What if it was me?” Shen Xici cautiously probed, “If I was in rut period, would Brother also do this kind of thing with me, help me get through my rut period?”

Shen Yanzhou slightly furrowed his brow, looking at him with absurdity and incomprehension: “How could that be? We’re brothers.”

Shen Xici’s face went pale, but he quickly concealed the gloom in his eyes, forcing out a gentle smile: “Mn, I was just joking, Brother don’t take it to heart.”

He paused, then unwillingly continued to press: “Then what if it was someone else? Would you also help them? Like Dr. Su for example?”

“No.” Shen Yanzhou’s answer was still crisp and decisive.

“So, Brother…” Shen Xici hit the nail on the head, “Do you like him?”

Shen Yanzhou didn’t answer Shen Xici’s question, but his gaze subconsciously fell on the desktop.

That backup phone lying face down, a faint glow seeping from the edge of the screen.

Shen Yanzhou flipped the phone over. A new message had popped up on the screen:

[Can’t sleep, always thinking of you.]

Shen Yanzhou stood up, grabbed the black windbreaker draped over the back of the chair, and walked out of the study.

“I’m leaving.”

“Brother!” Shen Xici urgently called out behind him, “Are you going back to see him? But you clearly know—”

Clearly know he’s an extremely dangerous madman, clearly know it’s impossible between you two.

Shen Yanzhou didn’t pay attention to his unfinished words, and directly closed the door.

***

When Shen Yanzhou returned to the Hillside villa, he saw that man, wearing a thin black hoodie, with two extremely long and eye-catching legs folded up, sitting on the steps at the villa entrance.

Hearing footsteps, the man quickly lifted his head.

When he saw who it was, he abruptly stood up, just staring fixedly at Shen Yanzhou, his Adam’s apple rolling violently, even forgetting to breathe.

Shen Yanzhou walked up to him and stopped.

“If I didn’t come back, would you just keep waiting here?”

“Without you, everywhere is the same.” the man said.

He really didn’t know where this guy had learned this line from, but Shen Yanzhou truly wanted to not care about anything, to live just once without caring about anything.

He took a step forward, rose on his tiptoes, stretched out two slender pale arms, and hooked them around the man’s neck.

Then, he kissed him.

The man was somewhat surprised, but the four days of suppressed crazy longing completely collapsed the instant he tasted those soft lips. He turned the tables and deepened this kiss.

Roughly prying open Shen Yanzhou’s teeth, greedily sweeping through every inch of softness in his mouth, rolling his tongue and sucking forcefully, entangling.

The man kissed him while wrapping his arm around his waist and retreating step by step, reaching back to open the villa door, kissing all the way from outside the door to inside.

Shen Yanzhou was pressed by the man against the wall in the entryway.

His smooth silver hair scattered messily, spread across the man’s black hoodie, his head tilted back slightly, forced to endure the man’s storm-like kiss. Silver eyes overflowed with physiological tears, the corners of his eyes dyed with an extremely gorgeous, maddeningly alluring thin red.

“I missed you so much…” The man’s lips finally moved away from those kissed-swollen lips, following his snow-white jawline, all the way fervently kissing to his fragile, slender neck.

His burning hot lips and tongue lingered and licked at Shen Yanzhou’s delicate collarbones, rough calloused fingertips roughly tearing open the buttons of Shen Yanzhou’s shirt inside the windbreaker.

“Mn…” A light gasp spilled from Shen Yanzhou’s throat. His beautiful waistline arched into an enticing curve in the darkness, slender fingers weakly buried in the man’s black hair.

The man lowered his head, burying himself in that patch of snow-white flesh, teeth lightly biting the soft flesh on his collarbone, sucking hard to leave a hickey, effortlessly lifting his entire body up into the air.

“I’ll carry you to shower.” The man’s voice was hoarse. He gazed at that face of extreme cold beauty, silver hair tangled around his reddened eye corners, eyes brimming with bewitching watery light and undisguised lust.

“No.”

“Just do it right here.” he said.