Chapter 128: Young Lovers
After saying this, An Wujiu belatedly felt a bit embarrassed.
Was he being too straightforward…?
Shen Ti didn’t move closer; he maintained his position with his hand supporting his chin, and reached out to hook his finger around An Wujiu’s collar. “You said it.”
An Wujiu grabbed his finger and admitted, “That’s right.” He smirked, “And I know you want it too.”
His subtle expressions were like the shining details of a perfect work of art, flawless whether in those cruel games or in reality, always appearing to be in control. But Shen Ti could see the brokenness inside An Wujiu, a brokenness that might never heal in a lifetime. In the past, he had been involved behind him, lacking senses and human awareness, but he didn’t think he had ever truly helped or comforted An Wujiu.
Sometimes Shen Ti would think pessimistically, perhaps anyone or anything appearing at that time would have been met with gratitude from the helpless An Wujiu.
“What are you thinking about?”
Hearing An Wujiu’s question, Shen Ti snapped back to reality and smiled, gripping his hand and joking, “Wondering if we should use it.”
An Wujiu picked up his glass and took a sip of the wine, sounding indifferent, “If you feel inadequate, you can use it. I don’t mind.”
Inadequate??
Shen Ti was taken aback, no longer propping his chin with his hand. He turned to look at An Wujiu’s face and said, “You’ve changed again.”
“No, I haven’t,” An Wujiu’s smile remained, “I’ve always been like this. The good and the bad, it’s all me.”
An Wujiu raised his hand and called for the waiter. Coincidentally, it was the same young man who had accidentally witnessed their earlier mishap.
The waiter forced a professional smile as he approached them.
“Check, please,” An Wujiu said politely.
Shen Ti, either oblivious or still not fully grasping the complexity of human social interactions, asked, “Oh, I almost forgot, who did you say was inadequate?”
The waiter’s smile remained frozen, but his eyebrows shot up in surprise as he handed over the bill.
An Wujiu, initially unaware, took the electronic bill without turning his head and casually said, “You.”
Shen Ti immediately feigned innocence and pitifully said, “You used to say I was great, and now you’re bored and blaming me. We’ve only done it once, it’s too soon to be tired of me.”
An Wujiu, hearing this, glared at him, while Shen Ti’s innocent, pitiful look made him want to cover his mouth.
After a few seconds, An Wujiu suddenly realized they still had a waiter standing by. He quickly turned back and, slightly embarrassed, smiled at the waiter, paid the bill, and returned the receipt. “Thank you.”
The waiter’s face was stiff from maintaining his expression, his awkward gaze unhidden as he lowered his head and retrieved the receipt, “You’re welcome, sir. If you need anything else, please let me know, and I will serve you.”
“No more trouble, thank you.” Shen Ti wrapped his arm around An Wujiu’s neck and smiled at the waiter, “We’re going to the hotel upstairs now.”
“Ah…” The waiter laughed awkwardly, his expression becoming even more uncomfortable, “Well, have a pleasant evening.”
An Wujiu sensed the waiter’s embarrassment might have another reason. It wasn’t until they left the restaurant, followed the signs to the third floor, and saw the pink neon sign at the hotel entrance, similar to the decor of the shop selling adult toys, that he suddenly understood.
They had stumbled into another love hotel.
A tricky hotel.
Two young girls at the front desk saw them and warmly greeted them, “Welcome! Please come in!”
No way out now.
“Are you staying the night? We have many types of rooms and services for you to choose from.” One of the girls tapped the counter, and various themed rooms appeared on the display, including spacecraft, hospital rooms, and even a prison…
“No, thank you,” An Wujiu looked up, “We’ll take the most ordinary room.”
The girl keenly picked up on the key detail, her eyes sparkling, “One room? Just one?”
Shen Ti immediately wrapped his arm around An Wujiu’s waist, “Yes.”
“Alright, I’ll get you checked in right away!” The girl efficiently handled the check-in, “Done. Please step forward and scan your citizen chips.”
An Wujiu suddenly remembered Shen Ti didn’t have one, “Can we scan just one?”
The girl blinked, quickly trying to figure out which one of them lacked a chip. Generally, everyone should have one, unless…
“Really can’t?” Shen Ti began his act, looking innocent and pitiful, leaning against An Wujiu, “But this gentleman already paid. I can’t not do business. I have five younger siblings to support, and it’s raining heavily outside. Can’t we just scan this gentleman’s chip as if it’s a single booking?”
After this flurry of actions, An Wujiu nearly burst into laughter.
The young lady looked back at her equally astonished colleague and then stretched her neck to look around, “Alright then, I’ll make an exception for you. But don’t tell our manager, okay?”
“Don’t worry.” Shen Ti flashed a charming smile, “I know how to handle these things. Thank you, beautiful.”
She shook her head, “Good night!”
The two turned around and walked towards the hotel. The girl who had been silently observing suddenly spoke up, “Hey, handsome! How much do you cost for a night?”
As Shen Ti continued walking, he waved to the two girls behind him, “Sorry, I’m completely taken by him.”
The room was much better than the previous one. The facilities were new, though it couldn’t be called “ordinary”—the lighting alone had five different modes, with a large sunken double bed, a mirrored ceiling, and artificial rose petals scattered on the floor. As soon as they entered, the room’s electronic management system began playing romantic music and asked for a mode.
“Please choose: 1. Ordinary mode; 2. Tender mode; 3. Passion mode…”
Before Shen Ti could speak, An Wujiu immediately answered, “Ordinary mode.”
“Alright, setting the room to ordinary mode.”
An Wujiu closed the door and turned around, only to be pinned against the wall by Shen Ti and kissed. Shen Ti’s kiss was completely opposite to the mode An Wujiu had chosen—full of straightforward dominance, desire, and demand.
Fortunately, An Wujiu was someone who yielded to Shen Ti’s every need, and their passionate encounter was ignited in an instant.
They kissed and embraced, moving to the sunken bed without any reservations, falling into it together.
An Wujiu temporarily cast aside the painful memories he carried and fully immersed himself in Shen Ti’s deep love. For someone who had danced on the edge of life and death, his perpetually tense nerves finally relaxed, thoroughly and completely, like the torrential rain outside.
Between their kissing, amidst their intertwined breaths, Shen Ti kept whispering his love.
“I love you, so much.”
He wished he could present his sincere heart to An Wujiu, offering it to him, if he had one.
“I love you,” he paused this time, looking into An Wujiu’s eyes seriously, “Can you feel it?”
Shen Ti didn’t think he was inferior to any human, but he had once worried about his ability to truly understand and love like a human.
He never saw An Wujiu as a vulnerable believer forced to rely on him. On the contrary, Shen Ti knew that he had learned empathy and love because of An Wujiu. Whether it was his past self or his current form, An Wujiu had always been special to him.
He hoped to express all of this in a human way.
An Wujiu smiled gently, gazing into Shen Ti’s charming eyes, and reached out to cup his face, “Of course, I know. And I know you understand my heart too, right?”
For some reason, Shen Ti felt struck by his words. He nodded slowly and leaned down, burying his head in An Wujiu’s shoulder.
An Wujiu kissed the top of his head, caressing him. The rekindled fire between them burned again, enveloping them. The unceasing cold rain turned into hot sweat clinging to their skin, becoming sticky, the heat surrounding everything.
The mirror showed An Wujiu how easily he could let go, perhaps because extreme sensory experiences could suppress everything and shatter those fears that intimidated him. He feared not finding his sister, or discovering a terrible truth, and he feared the departure of any companion, especially Shen Ti disappearing from the world.
Only in Shen Ti’s arms could he fearlessly choose joy and pleasure. This was a remedy only Shen Ti could provide.
The rain only stopped in the latter half of the night.
And they realized it belatedly.
An Wujiu felt like a sponge soaked and swollen with seawater, ready to drip at the slightest squeeze. Shen Ti hugged him from behind, giving him a great sense of security.
“Are you asleep?” An Wujiu asked softly.
“I can’t sleep.” Shen Ti lowered his head, gently kissing the nape of his neck with a lingering touch, “Why? Do you think I’m inadequate?”
“You’re really holding a grudge.” An Wujiu murmured.
“Yes.” Shen Ti hugged him tighter, “Not only do I hold grudges, but I’m also petty.”
An Wujiu chuckled, suddenly recalling Shen Ti’s distracted look at the restaurant. He knew Shen Ti had covered it up with a joke at that time.
“In the restaurant, when I asked you what you were spacing out about, you didn’t give me a proper answer.” An Wujiu turned around in Shen Ti’s arms, gazing at him in the night with eyes that were misty and bright.
“Well…” Shen Ti thought for a while, not recalling but contemplating whether to say it.
But then he remembered something someone once said: honesty is the most important principle in love. So he decided to adhere to it.
He asked An Wujiu, “When did you start liking me? Was it when I appeared before you in this form…” He lifted his hand and placed it under his face, “…or before?”
He knew, of course, that when they met in the game, they were both missing parts of their memories and that they fell in love before regaining those memories.
No, the past experiences couldn’t even be called memories. He wasn’t someone who met and interacted with An Wujiu on equal terms, just an unpleasant, even frightening, apparition during An Wujiu’s long period of suffering.
“After.” An Wujiu didn’t think long, as this wasn’t a question that required consideration for him. “Probably in the second instance we encountered. Although I thought you were very much my type when I first saw you, it was in the second game that I felt differently about you.”
He spoke with precision, his mind even able to reproduce the scene: Shen Ti, who was usually playful, got angry when he saw An Wujiu crossing the molten lava cliff to save everyone.
Hearing this, Shen Ti was happy.
An Wujiu, perceptive as ever, saw through him at once, “Are you wondering if I might have transferred my gratitude and reliance on your past self to you now?”
He hooked his hands around Shen Ti’s neck and assured him, “Shen Ti, it’s not like that. When you appeared before me, you were a smart, quirky young man. I was attracted to you, and my feelings for you were pure love.”
“When I recalled the past, this love seemed to gain a sense of destiny.” He pressed his forehead against Shen Ti’s. “It feels like we were destined to love each other, don’t you think?”
A bittersweet feeling spread through Shen Ti’s body.
“Yeah.” Shen Ti hugged him tightly, his mind drifting to some scenes, “Should we buy a house, so we have a place to settle down? If we can successfully leave the Altar completely, we’ll have a home to return to.”
He struck the softest and most self-aware chord in An Wujiu’s heart.
An Wujiu buried his face in Shen Ti’s shoulder and said, “Alright.”
Shen Ti suddenly felt his shoulder getting wet and realized something.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you cry earlier?”
An Wujiu cleared his throat, trying to normalize his voice, “Why ruin such a tender moment?”
Shen Ti was still in doubt, “You almost cried just now; your voice had a sob in it…”
An Wujiu tried to cover his mouth but failed, so he used his lips to silence him instead.
That quieted things down, but it seemed to take a different turn.
In a panic, An Wujiu pressed Shen Ti’s shoulder, prompting him to pull back slightly, still in his playful mood, “I won’t charge you extra.”
An Wujiu grabbed his neck, seriously, “My waist is sore. I need to rest.”
Despite sometimes being quite inconsiderate, and not even human, Shen Ti was obedient when it mattered, so he lay down quietly.
He covered An Wujiu with the blanket, staring at the ceiling in silence for a while.
“I realize I am actually… not bad-looking,” Shen Ti suddenly remarked.
He found it fascinating, wondering if his body, face, hands, and appearance were all molded to An Wujiu’s standards, as if he were a little clay figure in An Wujiu’s hands, molded bit by bit into a form he found pleasing.
An Wujiu thought to himself, had Shen Ti’s eyes just been fixed?
But on second thought, perhaps his aesthetics were indeed gradually aligning with human standards.
So he didn’t respond, pretending to sleep.
In Shen Ti’s daydreams, the little clay figure in An Wujiu’s hands suddenly fell to the ground and shattered, with a small antennaed bug crawling out of the broken pieces.
“If I didn’t look like this,” Shen Ti suddenly asked, “and turned back into that scary and ugly monster, would you still like me?”
An Wujiu wasn’t angry; instead, he realized that Shen Ti’s sense of security was very limited, fearing that he wasn’t truly loved and that in a normal, real world, beyond that confined room, his other side would be deemed repulsive.
But reality was probably far different from Shen Ti’s imagination.
An Wujiu turned his face, honestly unfolding his folded fears and cherished feelings.
“As long as you don’t disappear, I’ll be satisfied, no matter what you look like.”
“So… don’t leave me.”
i was reminded of “if i was turned into a worm?” that couples ask each other