A mere morning was hardly enough for two people who had just gotten together to get their fill of being lovey-dovey.
It wasn’t until a sudden knock sounded on Ji Xun’s door and Ai Yin called out from the hallway, “Teacher, are you awake?”
The two on the bed were startled awake.
Huo Ranyin: “What time is it?”
Ji Xun: “Let me see… It’s eleven in the morning.”
They had unknowingly been wrapped up in each other for two or three hours. Aside from getting up to drink some tea when they were thirsty, they had completely forgotten about breakfast.
What was this called? Being full on love alone?
Ji Xun pressed his head and called out to Ai Yin, “I’m awake, wait a moment.”
Ai Yin: “Alright!”
Huo Ranyin, still lazy, hooked his arm around Ji Xun, not moving.
Having soaked up the morning sun, he felt like a satisfied sloth clinging to its branch, too lazy to even move.
“Tell your editor to wait downstairs,” he said.
“Mm.” Ji Xun complied, raising his voice to tell Ai Yin, “Ai Yin, go wait for me in the hotel’s first-floor lounge. I’ll be down shortly.”
Ai Yin: “It’s fine, I’m okay by the door.”
Huh?
Ji Xun tried again: “I just woke up, I still need some time to wash up. You don’t need to wait at the door.”
“It’s no problem, no problem,” Ai Yin said. “I’m always sitting down, I’m tired of sitting. I’ll just stand at the door and play on my phone. Teacher, you don’t need to mind me, just take your time getting ready.”
“…” Ji Xun.
“…” Huo Ranyin.
“Your editor…” Huo Ranyin whispered in Ji Xun’s ear, “is a bit strange.”
Ji Xun thought so too.
“Afraid you’ll run off?” Huo Ranyin added. “So he’s acting as a door god?”
“…” Considering Ai Yin’s tight surveillance that had started yesterday, Ji Xun thought it was quite possible.
“It’s all your fault for not submitting your manuscripts on time in the past,” Huo Ranyin teased quietly.
Ji Xun coughed and raised his voice, “You can go downstairs with an easy mind, I won’t run away.”
“Really, you don’t have to!” However, Ji Xun’s assurance only made Ai Yin’s voice sound completely tense. “I’ll stand here. Teacher Ji, just pretend I’m insignificant air!”
Ji Xun inhaled, exhaled, and for a moment, was at a loss for words…
Since the door god couldn’t be shooed away, they couldn’t laze in bed any longer. Huo Ranyin secretly focused his mind, dispelling the magic of the sunlight and Ji Xun… After a moment, he managed to regain his usual composure. With a stretch of his back, he sat up directly from the bed.
The heating in the room was on full blast, and they weren’t wearing anything under the covers. As he sat up, a body full of colorful marks was on full display, clearly showing how intense the previous night had been.
Huo Ranyin picked up a bathrobe, put it on, and tied it.
But the bathrobe’s collar was wide, and it only reached his calves. After putting it on, the effect was more suggestive than concealing, with rosy specks scattered here and there, sparking the imagination even more.
Ji Xun coughed and stopped Huo Ranyin: “This one won’t do. You should wear…”
However, he had come over in a hurry yesterday. Other than the bathrobe, there were none of Huo Ranyin’s clothes in the room, only the blanket brought from next door… In broad daylight, he certainly couldn’t wrap himself in a blanket, what would that look like.
Ji Xun said: “Wear my clothes. We have similar builds, so it won’t be obvious if we mix our clothes.”
Huo Ranyin accepted the suggestion and started rummaging through Ji Xun’s suitcase for clothes.
Ji Xun watched for a while and suddenly felt that their current situation was like being caught cheating…
No.
Ji Xun had a second thought.
He and Huo Ranyin were two fine, single young men in their prime. What was wrong with them being together? What was there to be “caught” for? Them being together could even give a slight boost to the country’s booming housing market, and in turn, contribute their salaries as beasts of burden for the next few decades to the motherland’s modernization.
Having figured this out, Ji Xun looked at Huo Ranyin again.
He had just offered his clothes, and Huo Ranyin hadn’t been polite, pulling out a full set of undergarments and outerwear from his suitcase and dressing properly. Besides covering himself up completely, he even took a moment to wet his hands and smooth his slightly messy hair. He was now a thoroughly respectable man again.
He discussed with Huo Ranyin: “Let’s just open the door. If you don’t mind going public, I’ll introduce you as my boyfriend. If you do mind, then I won’t say anything. We’re two men, it’s no big deal if he sees us. I’ll just say you’re my friend who came over for tea this morning.”
Because he was at ease, his voice wasn’t too low. Ai Yin outside the door seemed to have vaguely heard something and spoke up again, “Teacher, were you talking to me?”
Ji Xun: “No!”
Ai Yin: “Oh—!”
Huo Ranyin glanced at Ji Xun.
Ji Xun’s idea covered all the bases; he really had nothing to add.
However…
Huo Ranyin fastened his coat and walked towards the balcony.
Ji Xun was stunned: “What are you doing? The balcony is cold.”
Huo Ranyin’s hand was already on the balcony railing.
“Wait!” Ji Xun finally realized what Huo Ranyin was about to do. He quickly reached out to stop him, but this time Huo Ranyin’s movements were extremely swift. With a push and a leap, right in front of Ji Xun, he jumped from Ji Xun’s balcony forward.
The black down jacket he wore, in the still-frosty noon air, was like a pair of black wings, suddenly unfurling from his shoulders.
“Huo—!”
The sound burst from Ji Xun’s throat, but Huo Ranyin, like an excellent dancer, lightly and swiftly stepped on the beat of his shout, landing safely on the adjacent balcony.
The heart that had leaped into Ji Xun’s throat had just settled when he saw Huo Ranyin’s knees bend deeper than usual upon landing, his body seeming to sway slightly.
Ji Xun’s heart leaped up again. Annoyed, he said, “What are you doing? After what we just did, you pull a stunt that’s so unnecessary and dangerous?”
“Naggy,” said Huo Ranyin.
“If you slipped and fell, and the police had to do an autopsy—” Ji Xun threatened.
“We just slept together, it’s not like I had a limb amputated…” Huo Ranyin scoffed. “Stop treating me like an invalid for no reason.”
After saying that, he still felt a bit embarrassed. Huo Ranyin left Ji Xun, turned, and ducked into his bedroom.
“…” Ji Xun.
He walked back from the balcony, opened the door, and let Ai Yin in. Although he knew he probably shouldn’t blame Ai Yin, but rather Huo Ranyin, that man who was so obsessed with saving face… when he looked at Ai Yin, he couldn’t help but glare at him out of misplaced anger.
Ai Yin froze.
He wasn’t frozen because Ji Xun glared at him, but because Ji Xun was wearing a bathrobe… On Ji Xun’s shoulder, he saw three scratch marks. His chest… his chest was covered, but the fact that it was covered so tightly was suspicious in itself. On his wrist… there it was, a deep bite mark, seemingly still oozing a few threads of blood.
His tone became a bit dreamy: “…Has Teacher eaten this morning? If not, I can wash an apple for you to tide you over.”
Ji Xun didn’t need Ai Yin to wash it. He grabbed an apple from the hotel fruit platter himself and began munching on it loudly. “Give me five minutes. I’ll wash my face after eating this and then we’ll go down for lunch.”
“Oh…” Ai Yin, in a daze, followed him into the room. Suddenly, he noticed the coffee table.
There were two cups on the coffee table, with leftover tea inside.
From the tea stains in the cups, it didn’t look like yesterday’s old tea.
Which means…! Could it be…! Oh no…!
The mystery editor wiped his forehead, feeling like it had turned into a giant lightbulb, flashing wildly.
He glanced alertly at certain places in the room, like the drawn curtains, under the bed, the closed closet, and the shut bathroom door…
He very carefully avoided these places, advancing awkwardly into the room, as carefully as if walking through a minefield.
“Teacher, you go brush your teeth, I’ll…”
He wanted to say, I’ll just leave now.
But leaving was easy; leaving without making it obvious was not.
He racked his brain and babbled nonsense: “The lecture starts at 2:30 this afternoon and ends at 5. After it’s over, does Teacher want to stay in Qin City for a couple more days to have some fun? Anyway, there’s still money left in the book tour fund, the publisher can reimburse the hotel fee… Oh, right, I have a tourist map here!”
Ai Yin immediately pulled a crumpled tourist map of Qin City from his pocket and handed it to Ji Xun.
“…Where did you get this?” Ji Xun asked.
“They have them in the hotel. I was looking to see what attractions Qin City has. When my kid has summer vacation, I’ll bring him and my wife here to play,” Ai Yin said to Ji Xun with a simple, honest smile.
Every time this editor talked about his wife and child, his expression became particularly sincere. Perhaps happiness was this simple.
He rambled on about trivial matters concerning his child and wife, like how his kid was graduating from kindergarten and about to start elementary school, but they hadn’t bought a house in a good school district. He and his wife would volunteer whenever they had free time to earn points so their child could get into a better school…
Ji Xun listened quietly. As he listened, the little bit of anger he felt was extinguished.
He had actually known Ai Yin for a long time, probably three years. After leaving the police force, he started writing novels. The first publisher he submitted to was Mingxing Publishing, and Ai Yin was his editor back then.
It’s just that before, he never cared about or knew anything about Ai Yin’s life.
His own life was a mess.
He had long since lost the energy and spirit to pay attention to other people’s affairs.
He had bitten a full circle around the plump apple in his hand, almost finishing all the flesh, leaving only a bare core. Embedded in it were two or three brown seeds that looked like the mole under Huo Ranyin’s eye. They stared at him innocently from within the remaining white flesh.
Ji Xun stood leaning against the glass sliding door of the balcony.
Behind him, Ai Yin seemed to feel embarrassed for talking too much about his family, and the topic shifted back to Ji Xun and Qin City. He reminded him, “It rained a little in Qin City yesterday, and the temperature dropped suddenly. Teacher should still wear a thick coat when going out. My wife nagged me about it several times before I left… Oh dear, I’m rambling again.”
Ji Xun didn’t have the habit of taking his clothes out of his suitcase and putting them in the closet when staying at a hotel.
The clothes in the suitcase stayed in the suitcase, and the suitcase was on the luggage rack, still open, so one could see at a glance what was and wasn’t inside.
Ai Yin saw that there was no thick coat in the suitcase.
?
Another flash of inspiration went off in Ai Yin’s mind. His gaze quickly moved away from the curtains, the space under the bed, the wardrobe, and the bathroom.
Could it be that that person, wearing Teacher’s coat, was hiding in…
He was instantly annoyed at himself for bringing up a sore subject. His eyes were fixed on the inch of floor in front of him as he tried to shuffle back the way he came…
Actually, the soundproofing in this hotel was quite good.
But obviously, someone’s hearing was even better.
Leaning against the glass door, Ji Xun saw the curtain of the adjacent balcony suddenly unfurl as if blown by the wind. The warm sunlight passed through the white sheer curtain, outlining a tall and dashing figure.
Then, the black shadow of clothing flashed between the balconies.
Ji Xun took a step out and extended his arm, neatly catching his down jacket. The lining of the jacket was still warm—the warmth of Huo Ranyin’s body, the warmth of the sun outside the window.
He suddenly spoke:
“Ai Yin.”
“Huh? Huh!” Ai Yin, who had just shuffled to the doorway, stopped dead in his tracks, his heart pounding nervously.
“You’re not rambling, it’s nice. I also recently found someone who can nag me. But he’s shy. Next time there’s a chance…”
Ji Xun, bathed in the sunlight, turned and smiled:
“I’ll introduce you.”
Volume Five: The Merciful Blue Tears
