translator: baumkuchen editors: glitterypanda, serefina
Chi Xiaochi was carried to bed.
Being sick, he didn’t make a fuss or speak any nonsense for once. He simply found the quilt and wiggled inside, tucking himself in nice and snugly. When Gan Yu brought over hot water, he obediently drank from the cup Gan Yu held to his lips, casually warming his icy hands on the back of Gan Yu’s hands while he was doing so.
Gan Tang was in charge of borrowing rubbing alcohol from the NPCs, preparing to wipe Chi Xiaochi down.
Yuan Benshan, “……” Why are you two so practised at this.
The siblings’ actions made the actual boyfriend, Yuan Benshan, seem redundant.
So when Gan Tang dipped the towel in the rubbing alcohol, he offered to help, saying that he was a professional.
Gan Tang politely refused, “I’m a nursing school graduate.”
The meaning behind her words was, ‘I’m more professional than you are, so please get lost farther away from here.’
Yuan Benshan, “……”
Xi Lou, “……” Nursing schools offered martial arts majors now?
Gan Tang gave them a relatively reasonable explanation, “There have been a lot more incidents of violence against doctors in recent years.”
Xi Lou thought, nowadays hospitals must be as merciless as the autumn wind was to fallen leaves towards violence against doctors.
Helpless, Yuan Benshan had no choice but to give up.
Gan Tang excavated Chi Xiaochi out from the quilt, then swept up his slightly-long curly hair and pinned it back behind his ear, worried that the ends of his hair would tickle him.
At first, Chi Xiaochi was extremely cold, and hence was rather resistant towards coming out of his quilt, but after a bit of coaxing from Gan Tang, he quieted down, stretching out his neck to let her daub at it.
When the alcohol was dabbed onto and rubbed into the top of his thighs, he couldn’t quite take it anymore, but all he did was “hmph” a few times, and bury his face into the pleasant-smelling and soft crook of Gan Tang’s arm, nudging at it non-stop.
……Very easy to take care of, very obedient.
After they’d physically cooled him down, Yuan Benshan took advantage of this opportunity to suggest that the four of them stay together.
He wasn’t blind. Gan Yu’s longing for Song Chunyang was extremely blatant. There was no way that he could comfortably leave Song Chunyang to him.
Other than that, Yuan Beshan had a secret hint of worry.
Song Chunyang was very pure. He couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t tell the Gan siblings about how to swap Yin-Yang eyes with someone. What if they tried to stop Chunyang after finding out, what would he do then?
From that, it was clear that the main reason for those who tried by every possible means to keep their partner from getting in touch with the outside world, from making new friends, wanting their partner to stick close to them, was mostly fear that their partner would find out that they were a stupid fuck by comparison.
But Yuan Benshan also felt a secret hint of pride in his heart.
So what if Gan Yu did his absolute best to woo Chunyang. Chunyang still would leave his eyes to Benshan.
Gan Yu had been thinking about Chi Xiaochi’s illness this entire time, pondering if it had been the result of him setting the air conditioner too low the night before, putting him in a rather bad mood. But in response to the stupid fuck’s stupid as fuck question, his tone was still just cultured and refined as ever. “Alright. You and I can sleep on the ground, while the sick person and the lady sleep on the bed, would that be fine with you?”
Yuan Benshan wasn’t suspicious of him, cheerfully agreeing.
What he would never have expected was that in the dead of night, a certain person who had promised to sleep on the floor with him would openly feel his way onto Chi Xiaochi’s bed.
Stroking his forehead and finding that his fever had gone down a little, Gan Yu grabbed a cotton swab and started moistening his rather dry lips.
The spot of coldness made Chi Xiaochi crack open his eyes slightly. One amber eye and one dark blue eye, both rippling with fog, moved one’s heart with a glance.
Gan Yu, or rather 061, copied him, cocking his head to the side and staring at him with smiling eyes, his heart soft.
After staring at each other for a while, Chi Xiaochi actually spread his arms open, unconcernedly lunging over and pulling him into a hug.
061 was a little stunned from the hug. He “hmm”-ed, confused. “Chunyang?”
……He still couldn’t call out Chi Xiaochi’s name.
The fresh scent of rubbing alcohol and the feeling of hot skin against his was transmitted to his senses, making 061 not quite know whether to laugh or cry.
Even though the one being hugged is me, your having no sense of caution like this is really bad.
In order to cool down, Chi Xiaochi was only wearing a pair of thin white briefs. Seeing those legs about to wrap themselves around him like the rest of his body, 061 raised a hand and pressed down on his knee. Just as he was seriously considering tying this disobedient person into his quilt with rope, the other puffed out a hot breath next to his ear. “……Liu-laoshi?”
Chi Xiaochi was currently in a half-asleep, half-awake state. His senses were muddled, with one foot in reality, and the other in dreamland. Only when his limbs wrapped around an actual person, did he gradually regain consciousness.
However, he still couldn’t tell what was real and what was fake, so he chose to believe that he was dreaming.
Because he was dreaming, there was no need to for him to control his emotions, he could do whatever he wanted.
With sleepy eyes, he asked quietly, “Liu-laoshi, Liu-laoshi, are you Lou-ge?”
“I’m not.”
……That damned security mechanism.
“Then that’s good.” Chi Xiaochi actually let out a sigh of relief. He said in a muffled voice, “You absolutely can’t be, okay?”
061 paused for a moment. Then, he placed his hands against his face, his long, slender, and slightly calloused fingers stroking his eyebrows in movements that were neither too light nor too hard, his movements and tone both guiding him along in a gentle yet restrained manner.
“Why?”
“I……” Chi Xiaochi was confused by that voice. With half-lidded eyes, he whispered, “I’ve changed too much.”
061 was stunned stiff, his fingers pausing in their stroking as well.
……What he should have done, what he shouldn’t have done, Chi Xiaochi had done it all.
Smoking, drinking, acting like a rogue, behaving shamelessly.
After Chi Xiaochi had started doubting 061’s identity, he’d actually felt really regretful.
If he’d known that he was Lou-ge earlier, he would have at least acted a little more obedient and reserved in front of him.
He tried his best to explain himself, “Lou-ge, I didn’t used to be like this before, really.”
He too didn’t know when he had started to not be like that Chi Xiaochi of the past any longer. He only felt that slowly, everything had changed, and he was no longer the him of before that Lou Ying had held in the palm of his hands.
Chi Xiaochi still wanted to continue explaining, but was stopped by the slow approach of a pair of lips.
061 didn’t actually kiss him, only hovering over his lips, keeping his distance, as if he was teasing him, placing a sweet candy next to a starving person’s lips and tempting him to take a bite, to have that little taste of sweetness.
He just needed to move forward.
Chi Xiaochi closed his eyes, thinking, this dream is really too realistic.
Over the past few years, he’d had countless dreams, in the most daring of which, Chi Xiaochi finally didn’t need to chase after Lou Ying’s illusory back, but when he reached out his hand, he could only grasp a piece of his dissipating clothes.
He was in his arms, Lou-ge was responding to his expectations, even more than he’d imagined.
What a good dream.
As he thought this, Chi Xiaochi closed his eyes, and fell deep asleep.
He wanted to seriously continue this dream, but who knew that he’d black out as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Sensing that he’d fallen back asleep, 061 was a little disappointed.
……Just a little more, and he’d be able to kiss his spiritual body.
At some unknown time, what 061 had been holding in his arms had become Chi Xiaochi’s spiritual body, a head of messy mid-length hair falling into the crook of 061’s elbow. His eyes were closed, showing off his thick eyelashes, making it so that one couldn’t help but want to touch them.
There was still a fast-asleep Yuan Benshan in the room, who had once had an intimate relationship with this temporary body.
Holding someone else’s wife-in-name in his arms, absorbed in a clandestine affair, how exciting.
But 061 was very clear on who it was he was holding.
It was Chi Xiaochi, the host who he’d accompanied for five worlds, a very charming, yet very childish……
As he looked down at this sleeping face, he only felt a rush of warmth rise up from the bottom of his heart.
Under the limitations of the system, there was no way for him to call out his name. And the more he couldn’t, the more he wanted to.
He wanted to call out his name.
He wanted to hear him call out his own name.
This kind of love, this kind of longing, seemed to be seeping out of his bones, as if it was written into his programming, an unalterable string of code.
This string of code said, 061 was born to love Chi Xiaochi.
panda: Ahhh my heart is meltinggggg
sere: omgomg flufffyyyyy they r so cute