CH 5

Xi Nian has been trying his best to avoid too much involvement with Lu Xingzhe in his last life. He has so many potential black materials in the paparazzi’s hands that he has to be subjected to the other party’s constraints all the time. This made things undoubtedly difficult for Xi Nian to sleep or eat.

He didn’t like Lu Xingzhe, but he didn’t hate him either.

Before the sun rises, the street lights on this long street will always be on, and the warm yellow light will shine on the ground, pulling the shadows of the trees long. Lu Xingzhe didn’t have the strength to stand up again. He touched his kneecap, but because of the dense pain, it was difficult to distinguish the injury, and even the nerves were gradually bordering numb.

He barely caught his breath, looked around and searched his mind quickly for a nearby station route. Who would have thought that a low and indifferent voice would suddenly be heard above his head, interrupting his thoughts.

“I’ll take you to the hospital.”

Xi Nian was wearing a mask, showing only a pair of eyes that were quiet as a cold pool. Although Lu Xingzhe couldn’t see his face clearly, his figure was comparable to that of a male model, unlike that of an ordinary passerby. The other leaned over and stretched out his hand to Lu Xingzhe, but was avoided by the latter’s turning sideways reaction.

“No need.”

For a child who grew up in an orphanage, there was only endless fighting and plundering. Lu Xingzhe was like a wild dog, despicable and selfish, suspicious and sensitive. To him, the unprovoked kindness of others was like sugar laced with poison, and something he especially wanted to avoid.

Facing this man who came out of nowhere in front of him, Lu Xingzhe’s eyes were alert and defensive. He didn’t appreciate Xi Nian’s good intentions. Not caring about the pain, he got up quickly from the ground. He wanted to leave hurriedly with his camera bag on his back, but before he took a step, his neck was strangled.

With a faint smile on the corners of Xi Nian’s lips, like a cat catching a mouse, he clutched Lu Xingzhe’s back collar and asked in a low voice in the other’s ear: “Do you like being a cripple very much?”

Lu Xingzhe had an intuition that the visitor was not good, there was no reason to panic or be flustered. With a ruthless look on his face, he said solemnly, “Let go!”

Xi Nian raised his eyebrows when he heard the words and let go in response only to hear the muffled sound of a heavy object falling to the ground. Lu Xingzhe fell to the ground again, the injury coincidentally knocked on the ground and the pain caused him to hug his leg and curl up into a ball, gritting his teeth and trembling all over, his eyes glared viciously at the person who caused it.

Xi Nian lowered his eyes to look at Lu Xingzhe, with a sense of detachment that was quiet and distant. Sometime in their exchange, he decided that he didn’t like the nonsense that was happening, so he leaned over and hugged the other horizontally, then walked towards the car parked not far away.

Lu Xingzhe was very light, Xi Nian was prepared to use force, but in the end, he didn’t even need to use that much effort.

But he didn’t care.

He hadn’t hugged Lu Xingzhe much in his previous life.

Probably knowing the disparity in strength, Lu Xingzhe did not struggle anymore. He endured the pain and stared at Xi Nian with gloomy eyes, as if trying to discern the man’s features through the mask, his voice was gloomy and hoarse because of too long depression: “I said no need━”

Xi Nian took that position of holding him while pulling open the car door with his fingertips, before then throwing Lu Xingzhe into the back seat: “What? Are you afraid that I’m a bad person planning to sell you?”

There was a very light breath on his placket, like white tea and like cold rain, his sobriety was mixed with cold, and it was fleeting to the touch.

Lu Xingzhe was taken aback for a moment, and then he was manhandled to the back seat. Before he recovered, the door slammed shut from the outside. He raised his eyes and saw the man go around to the other side and sit in the driver’s seat. Then the man started the car, his right wrist was now wrapped in a thick circle of gauze, which was a bit dazzling white.

Lu Xingzhe has been a paparazzi for so many years, and it was false to say that he has never made any enemies. He always felt that Xi Nian’s eyes are oddly familiar, but he can’t remember where he has seen them. He pressed the phone, but it was still in a state of power off. He could only irritably give up.

He fished out his wallet from his pocket and got up slightly to haphazardly put a few large bills into the passenger side. Due to his action that involved moving of his injured leg, his voice was deep along with hissing and drawing cold air: “Put me down at the station ahead.”

Xi Nian looked at the road ahead, the light and shadow swept past his deep facial features, with his voice flat he questioned: “And then what?”

Lu Xingzhe answered, “I’ll take a car by myself.”

Xi Nian asked rhetorically: “What. My car is not a car?”

He was not a kind-hearted person. It was rare for him to be kind-hearted even once, yet the other party does not appreciate it. Xi Nian does not really want to rush back. As he drove towards the hospital, he dropped an ultimatum, “Either you jump down by yourself or just shut up.”

If he was a normal person, he would have shut up by now, but Lu Xingzhe was not afraid of death, he coldly looked at Xi Nian, directly tried to pry open the car door to go down, but unexpectedly he cannot pull it open, and only after a while did he found that the car door was initially unlocked.

Lu Xingzhe slammed the car window fiercely, the back of his hand was injured because of the friction on the ground before, and now it was even more bruised: “Who the hell are you?”

Xi Nian watched him from the rearview mirror, and after a few moments, he withdrew his eyes and sniffed, “A passerby.”

A passerby, he said.

The hospital was just ahead, a tall white building with a red cross marker and lights on 24 hours a day. It was not known if it was because he finally saw the building that Lu Xingzhe finally stopped tossing and turning, instead he curled up in his car seat, slowly calming the pain.

There were scattered things piled up in the back seat of the car, a sports jacket, a case book, and a small plastic bag of medicine. Unfortunately, the light was dim, and Lu Xingzhe couldn’t see the name on the case clearly. He couldn’t control his thinking and began to diverge, giving full play to the paparazzi’s instinct to scribble and guess Xi Nian’s identity indiscriminately.

Healthcare marketer1?

Organ trafficker?

He doesn’t know how to describe it, but Lu Xingzhe has a fucking feeling that he can’t get off this pirate ship2.

The incandescent lights on top of the car made Lu Xingzhe’s dim vision finally brighten up a bit, and he moved his body to get out of the car, only to find a patch of blood on the leather seat━ most likely came from his own leg, he pursed his lips and wiped it out haphazardly with his sleeve.

Xi Nian had just been to this hospital in the afternoon and was quite familiar with the route. He parked the car, went around to the back and pulled open the door and said to Lu Xingzhe, “Come down.”

The voice echoed in the empty parking lot.

Lu Xingzhe should probably say thank you at this point, but he paused and said nothing, lowering the brim of his hat to block his face tightly, moving his injured leg with difficulty to get out of the car, closing the door with the opposite hand, feeling out his wallet, he shoved the only cash left in it to Xi Nian, saying vaguely, “The fare.”

Counting the banknotes scattered in the passenger seat, the estimation of the money he gave was more than two thousand. Xi Nian glanced at it before slowly folding them to deposit them in his jacket pocket. “How generous.” His voice low, admiring with a smile but not a smile pasted on his lips.

How come he didn’t find Lu Xingzhe so interesting before?

The man didn’t show his face, but those eyes with a hidden smile were enough to make Lu Xingzhe’s face flushed and his heart beat wildly.

Lu Xingzhe, a paparazzi who made the most of the word “snooping”, didn’t dare to look at him for no reason at this moment, inexplicably afraid. He just wanted to leave quickly, but before taking two steps, he felt a tightness in his waist, and then his body moved. A familiar sense of weightlessness hit, and his pupils suddenly shrank.

Xi Nian avoided his wound and picked up Lu Xingzhe horizontally: “I help people to the end.”

With the black mask, his expression was hard to grasp. Lu Xingzhe gaze moved up and could only see Xi Nian’s sexy slightly convex Adam’s apple. Added with only a thin layer of clothing, it was not difficult to feel the man’s strong body.

Lu Xingzhe has never been hugged before, he only felt that wherever he touched Xi Nian, he could feel a little bit hot that it made him feel panicked. With this in mind, his tone unconsciously contained a bit of sarcasm: “You don’t even know whether I am a good or bad person, yet you still dare help me?”

He closed his fingertips as he said this, subconsciously trying to hold Xi Nian’s lapel because of the weightlessness, but he caught a glimpse of the mottled scratches and gray marks on his hands, so quickly retracted them.

Xi Nian walked towards the elevator with him still in his arms, but he didn’t speak any more. In the middle of the night, the hospital corridor was empty and silent with only a few doctors on duty. Xi Nian called the emergency room for Lu Xingzhe, went through the formalities and filmed, and then he watched from the sidelines, letting the doctor treat Lu Xingzhe’s wounds.

The doctor on duty was a bit old, he picked up Lu Xingzhe’s trouser leg, and when he saw the muddy wound, he held his glasses looking like there’s a threatening headache.  When the elder spoke: “I’ll wash your wound later, bear with the pain first.”

Lu Xingzhe sat down on the bed with his eyes down and didn’t say a word. He looked like a fair and half-grown teen appeared to be a little sullen. When the doctor applied the medicine, he didn’t utter a word. He just stared at the cotton on the doctor’s tweezers and occasionally, raising his eyes a few times. His gaze often fell on Xi Nian who was waiting outside the door.

The man had his back turned, his head lowered and was focused on his phone. Lu Xingzhe didn’t know what the content was when he had swiped but after that, the man pressed the screen to turn it off.

Xi Nian turned around and he caught Lu Xingzhe staring at himself. He raised his eyebrows slightly and pocketed his phone. Walking over: “What are you looking at?”

The doctor had finished disinfecting and was cleaning up the appliances not far away.

Lu Xingzhe’s wounds were treated, and the embarrassment on his body was finally a little lighter than a few minutes before. He met Xi Nian’s gaze blankly, without the intention of hiding. After a while, he smiled frivolously: “Looking at you. You are in good shape……”

Still as rogue as the person in his previous life.

Xi Nian used to be a stunned young man, and he would evert away his eyes uncomfortably after being teased a few times, but now he obviously got used to it.

“You’re not bad either.”

Xi Nian commented. He peered down from Lu Xingzhe’s collarbone, remembering that the other party was once desperately entangled with him on the bed, and when he was gasping for breath, his beautiful eyebrows were also somewhat seductive.

Lu Xingzhe paused because of his words. He didn’t seem to expect Xi Nian to answer like this. Then he smiled slowly, raised his eyebrows slightly, and asked in an ambiguous and low voice: “How do you know?”

Xi Nian folded his arms and looked at him in a leisurely manner, and said the wildest words in the most serious tone: “You forgot, I hugged you just now……”

The final words of the last few words gradually disappeared from the lips, as if they were talking about a scandalous affair, and the atmosphere has unreasonably been cast with a layer of charm.

Lu Xingzhe: “……”

Damn.

Seeing that Xi Nian was reticent along the way, he thought the man was a big iceberg. After a long time, it turned out to be just for a show. Lu Xingzhe was about to say something, but when the doctor coming, he had to close his mouth.

Xi Nian brushed off the floating dust that did not exist on his body, and then found a place to sit aside. The mobile phone in his pocket kept vibrating with the sound of messages popping up and phone calls from his agent, which seemed very abrupt in the slightly quiet treatment room.

Lu Xingzhe glanced at him: “Someone’s calling you?”

Xi Nian took out his phone and pressed the mute button: “Guess.”

Lu Xingzhe’s mobile phone is out of power, but if he logs on to Weibo now, he will find that several black posts3 about Xi Nian have been quietly posted by someone, and as the number of readers increases, the posts are gradually becoming the hottest topic.

I am not sure what it is called to you guys, but the original text says “Gěi yīyuàn lā kèhù de” which is to pull clients to the hospital, so I put this term, healthcare marketer.

Zhǒng shàngle zéi chuán hái xià bù qù de cāodàn gǎn ━ Described as seemingly joining a bad organization, being deceived, or generally just being roped to do something wrong.

hēi tiě ━ Anonymous posts usually slanderous and untrue.