Chu Tingyun was indeed a germaphobe.
Because of this, even though he had never lacked for suitors growing up and had even dated two people he felt quite fond of, the act of exchanging saliva always felt unacceptable to him.
So on that night four years ago, Chu Tingyun never imagined he would actually force a kiss on a drunk male student who had just thrown up.
And even sink into it, entirely unable to extricate himself.
A cultured, subtle way to put it might be “love at first sight,” but a more straightforward and accurate description would be “lust at first sight.”
In short, when this male student—with his cold, handsome brows, flushed face, and breath reeking of milk—pressed down on him, panting and feigning fierceness, the blood in Chu Tingyun’s entire body caught fire.
Before his brain could even process it, his lips had already captured his.
Yan Xun had drunk a lot of water on the way back and had just been force-fed half a bottle of milk. His mouth didn’t have a bad odor; instead, it was very…
Chu Tingyun couldn’t describe the feeling. In short, the instant their lips touched, an indescribable thrill shot up from the depths of his marrow, rushing through him like an electric current, making every cell in his body tingle.
It almost bordered on a minor climax.
Yan Xun was completely kissed stupid.
Being forcibly kissed by a man was a concept that simply didn’t exist in his worldview. After all, he had always considered himself straight, and the romantic overtures he had received in the past had almost entirely come from girls.
It wasn’t until his tongue felt the tingling sensation of being sucked and licked, and he clearly heard the ambiguous, wet sounds of the kiss, that Yan Xun finally snapped to his senses.
Shock, fury, and an intense mixture of shame and violation instantly detonated.
Yan Xun sobered up immediately.
And so, the President Chu who had forcibly kissed a male student received instant retribution. He was first punched, and then ruthlessly kicked off the bed.
Bang—
A human body slammed onto the carpet, letting out a heavy, muffled thud.
Before he passed away, Yan Xun’s adoptive father had run a martial arts gym. So, although Yan Xun had always been an obedient, good student growing up, whenever he actually got into a physical fight, he had never lost. It was to the point that when Zhou Ze was a kid, he shamelessly clung to him, begging to be his lackey, and simply couldn’t be chased away.
That was how the introverted Yan Xun ended up with such a long-standing best friend.
Naturally, President Chu, who spent every day living a pampered life in an office, was absolutely no match for him. The sudden, intense pain left him lying on the floor for quite a while, unable to recover. Yet in the very next second, he was hoisted up single-handedly by the young man.
With rough movements, the other party yanked off his tie, pressed him face-down onto the bed, and forcefully twisted his hands behind his back to tie them up.
By this time, Chu Tingyun was fully awake. He quickly realized that the situation was spiraling completely out of control.
Furious and humiliated, the man began to struggle violently. “Let me go!”
The strength of a grown man was not to be underestimated, and it took Yan Xun a considerable amount of effort to finally pin him down.
Yan Xun hadn’t actually gotten a good look at Chu Tingyun’s face. From the blurry glance just now, he only felt the other party was likely a well-dressed beast, a refined piece of scum.
And right now, his extreme sense of shame made it impossible for him to even look straight at the man.
Either way, they didn’t know each other. Perhaps after today they would never cross paths again, so it was best not to remember the other person’s face anyway, saving himself the trouble of brooding over it.
Knowing that the person who forcibly kissed him was a man with foul intentions was enough.
So, completely ignoring whatever the man was saying, Yan Xun ripped off his leather shoes.
Being stripped of his clothes and forcibly kissed by a strange man was a monumental humiliation. Just recalling it made Yan Xun feel as though his entire body was on fire.
Although he desperately wanted to exact an eye for an eye, he obviously couldn’t kiss him back. And if he actually beat the man to a pulp, it would be a disaster if the guy went to the police.
The school might also penalize him, or even expel him.
Even the mere possibility of such consequences was something Yan Xun absolutely could not afford.
So, ultimately, the safest method of revenge he could think of—one that would inflict an equal amount of humiliation—was…
He grabbed the incredibly expensive genuine leather shoe and viciously smacked Chu Tingyun’s ass with it several times.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
The pristine suit pants were instantly covered in messy, filthy shoe prints.
The very instant his own leather shoe was used to spank his ass, Chu Tingyun was so utterly shocked that his brain completely shut down.
Because of this, he didn’t put up the slightest struggle or resistance. He merely kneeled and crawled by the edge of the bed, burying his face dead into the milk-soaked bedding, not making a single sound.
But his neck was visibly engorged with blood and his veins were popping. It was clearly the pinnacle of humiliation; he couldn’t even lift his head.
Yan Xun had thought it through carefully: the buttocks had plenty of fat. Even if he hit hard, it would only be superficial trauma. Moreover, he figured a superficially glamorous, well-dressed beast like this definitely wouldn’t pull his pants down and run crying to the police to file a complaint.
After delivering a few satisfying strikes, Yan Xun threw the leather shoe away and wiped his mouth forcefully.
“This is just a warning! Stay away from me from now on!”
“…”
The man sprawled on the bed didn’t speak. He merely turned his face sideways to cast a glance at him.
Chu Tingyun’s hair was completely soaked by the milk on the bed, plastered messily against his forehead. Those beautiful blue eyes stared deeply at Yan Xun. The intense pain and humiliation had left the skin around his eyes wet and red.
There was an extreme, shattered vulnerability to him, as if he had just been brutally ravaged.
Laughing out of extreme rage, the man enunciated every word as he told him:
“I will remember you.”
“…”
Yan Xun froze in place for two seconds. Then, grabbing his backpack, he fled from the hotel as if running for his life.
Back then, Yan Xun had thought they would never see each other again in this lifetime. He never expected that the man who had forcibly kissed him would become his husband in the future.
Nor did he ever anticipate that one day, four years later, history would repeat itself—yet his amnesiac self would react in a completely different way.
Because the person who had forcibly kissed him in the past was a stranger with foul intentions, and the setting was a hotel bed.
But the person kissing him now was his contracted lover, and the setting was their home.
So Yan Xun gradually stopped resisting. He subconsciously supported Chu Tingyun’s lower back, and under the other’s deliberate guidance, he began to offer a clumsy, inexperienced response.
When it came to kissing, Yan Xun’s understanding was strictly limited to touching lips. But Chu Tingyun was clearly not satisfied with just that. Pinching the young man’s sensitive, burning earlobes, he slowly stroked down to his Adam’s apple, coaxing the other to open just a bit wider.
“Mmph…”
Yan Xun had never experienced such… such a deep kiss that could only be described as passionately intimate.
His ears were filled with the wet sounds of the kiss and hot, damp panting. The stimulation of the alcohol and the intimate act caused his breathing to grow heavy, so much so that the blood in his entire body felt as though it was rushing madly. Consequently, the kiss didn’t last very long, because after only a few moments, the hot-blooded young man had a reaction.
Scientifically speaking, it was a perfectly normal biological response, but Yan Xun didn’t know that. All he knew was that Chu Tingyun had just kissed him a little, and he had shamefully gotten hard for this man. As an amnesiac whose sexual experience had essentially reset to zero—a virgin in mind—such an event was enough to deal him a massive psychological blow.
For example, he might actually like men.
For example, he genuinely liked Chu Tingyun.
At this moment, even though Yan Xun tried desperately to hide his physical changes, Chu Tingyun, being a man himself, noticed it instantly.
He discovered that the amnesiac Yan Xun seemed to have regressed physically as well. Just a few casual kisses, and he had such a massive reaction.
Yan Xun quickly adjusted his breathing, unnaturally looking away. “Did I… really kiss you like this before?”
“Yeah,” Chu Tingyun licked his lips, leaning lazily against him just like that. “You also tied me up, pinned me to the bed, and spanked my ass with a leather shoe.”
Yan Xun: “…???”
He suddenly understood why the man had said back at the cafe that their past encounters couldn’t be discussed in public.
“Chu Tingyun, you’re not lying to me, are you?”
Hearing this, the man smiled and said, “If I’m lying to you about this, may I become impotent from now on and never get hard again.”
“…” What a venomous oath.
Yan Xun stared at him deeply for a few seconds, and believed him. Thus, in this moment, he experienced an unprecedented, profound crisis of faith regarding his own moral character.
“Then why… why did you still marry me?”
“Because you slept with me.” Chu Tingyun’s tone was entirely shameless. “You have to take responsibility for me.”
Yan Xun: “…”
That actually made some sense.
He didn’t ask why they were getting a divorce now, because Chu Tingyun would most likely just repeat the line “at such a young age, you can’t perform anymore.”
So, in his current state, he really couldn’t stay glued to Chu Tingyun any longer.
Even though Yan Xun felt the reason for divorce Chu Tingyun had given was a deliberate lie, what if it was true? If the situation continued to develop like this, wouldn’t he just be bringing humiliation upon himself?
“The wine… the bottle broke.” Yan Xun found a lame excuse and gently pushed the man away a little. “I’ll clean it up, so you don’t step on it later.”
“Mn.” President Chu didn’t expose him, smoothly leaning to the side to clear the floor of broken glass.
Yan Xun found a broom and meticulously swept up the shards from the floor. He put them in a cardboard box, sealed it tight, and wrote “Broken Glass, Careful” on it with a marker.
While he was doing all this, Chu Tingyun watched him the entire time. The young man, who was a lightweight, was clearly a little drunk. Aside from the tipsy flush on his cheeks, it was evident in his handwriting—each stroke was overly deliberate, like an elementary school student’s.
Chu Tingyun suddenly said, “You also broke my glasses.”
Yan Xun: “…I’ll compensate you.”
An expected answer.
People like Yan Xun were actually very easy to read. He was simply a good boy disciplined by mainstream societal values. Filial and sensible, kind and honest, gentle and brimming with empathy and a sense of justice—he possessed all the traits that seemed beautiful and excellent, yet were fundamentally earnest and uninteresting.
Chu Tingyun used to have zero interest in people like that. Yet now, he was shamelessly using fragments of the truth to weave a massive lie, forcibly locking the man by his side.
The man picked up Yan Xun’s glass and casually took a sip of the remaining red wine.
After finishing the cleanup, Yan Xun went to the bathroom to wash his hands. Chu Tingyun followed him unhurriedly all the way, wine glass in hand.
He said, “I have plenty of glasses. Let’s change the compensation.”
Splash—
Yan Xun washed his burning face with cold water, cooling down a fraction.
“Sure.”
When he turned his head, fine droplets of water slid from the tips of his hair, trailing down his neck and disappearing into his collarbone.
“Compensate with what?”
And Chu Tingyun, leaning lazily in the doorway, asked in a seemingly offhand manner:
“Is anything okay?”
“Mn.” Yan Xun thought about it, then slowly added, “If I have it.”
Chu Tingyun gave him a deep look and tested the waters with a smile:
“How about… at the wedding the day after tomorrow, you go catch the bride’s bouquet and give it to me as compensation.”
“…A bouquet?”
Yan Xun had been drinking, so his reactions were a bit slow.
Bouquets were usually caught by unmarried girls. Rumor had it that whoever caught the bouquet would soon enter into marriage with their beloved. Later, after the same-sex marriage act was passed, a minority of men would also go try to catch it.
Yan Xun didn’t understand. “But aren’t we both already married?”
“That’s right.”
Chu Tingyun set down his wine glass and walked in, using his finger to gently wipe a droplet of water from the corner of the young man’s eye.
“We are already married, but you never caught a bouquet for me before.”
“…”
Yan Xun stared blankly. Looking into those blue eyes gazing so intently at him, for some reason, his heart softened.
“Alright then, Chu Tingyun.”
He lowered his head, a little helpless.
“I’ll go catch it for you.”
