Ch.85 – The Star Around The Sun

Xia Xingcheng lay on his stomach, his face buried in the blanket. He could smell the alcohol between his breaths. His thoughts seemed to have slowed down, and he lay there motionless, not wanting to get up. 

He was drunk—not so drunk that he lost consciousness, but it was as if his brain had a peculiar excitement, an excitement that vigorously wanted to dominate his body and heighten his emotions. 

He heard the sound of the door closing and footsteps coming all the way to the bedside. The bed then sagged, and there was a slight movement. 

Yang Youming was actually a lot drunker than Xia Xingcheng. He said he wasn’t drunk, but Xia Xingcheng felt that he was—he was drunk out of his mind. 

Xia Xingcheng lifted his face from the blanket and turned to look at Yang Youming.

The room was still unlit, and the lights outside the window illuminated the outline of Yang Youming’s figure. He sat on one side of the big bed, his hands propping himself up as his head was tilted up alongside his body, his eyes tightly shut. Seemingly noticing Xia Xingcheng’s eyes on him, he abruptly opened his eyes and turned to face Xia Xingcheng.  

Xia Xingcheng began to feel a pressing pain on his stomach, so he turned over to lay on his side. 

Yang Youming sat up slowly and extended a hand towards Xia Xingcheng. “Come here.” 

It was a tone that bore a command. 

Xia Xingcheng didn’t move. He gazed at Yang Youming for a while, then merely extended a leg towards the big bed. 

The two beds weren’t joined close together; there was a one person wide gap between them. Xia Xingcheng put his foot on the big bed, but he wasn’t able to touch Yang Youming. 

Yang Youming stretched out his hand, wanting to grab Xia Xingcheng’s foot, but Xia Xingcheng retracted it in an instant. 

A drunk Xia Xingcheng was like a naughty child; he stayed out of Yang Youming’s reach and laughed as he reclined on the bed, his body shaking. Then, he stretched his foot over again, teasing Yang Youming to capture him. 

Yang Youming propped himself up on his elbows and bent down towards Xia Xingcheng. He reached out to seize Xia Xingcheng’s foot, but Xia Xingcheng dodged him once again. 

The third time, Xia Xingcheng took the initiative to put his foot in front of Yang Youming, wanting Yang Youming to capture him. 

Yang Youming grabbed his foot in a firm grip. His warm fingers suddenly tightened fiercely, and all of a sudden, he pulled Xia Xingcheng towards the big bed. 

Xia Xingcheng was not prepared in the least, and the lower part of his body almost fell from the bed. The small bed beneath him creaked as it shifted towards the big bed. He was frightened, his heart thumping violently—he had narrowly cried out in alarm just now. 

Yang Youming still hadn’t let go, grabbing his foot and dragging Xia Xingcheng towards him and spurring the small bed Xia Xingcheng was on to rub against the ground as it moved. The friction made a screeching sound until the edges of the two beds met. 

Then, Yang Youming grabbed Xia Xingcheng’s clothes with his other hand and pulled Xia Xingcheng onto his bed.

Xia Xingcheng felt a little panicked. Fearing that the noise would attract his family’s attention, he subconsciously struggled to get up.

Yet Yang Youming pulled him onto his lap and made him sit facing him with his legs apart. He held Xia Xingcheng in his arms and massaged his waist and hips through his clothes, then muttered in his ear, “Don’t move, baby.”

His voice was low and sticky, and it grinded against Xia Xingcheng’s ears, somewhat hazy and unclear. He wasn’t completely sure what the man had just called him.

Xia Xingcheng’s face was already feverish from the alcohol and, for a split second, he thought that his whole body was burning up. He said, “You’ll wake up my parents.”

Yang Youming froze, then stared at him with moist eyes and said, word for word: “I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.” 

All at once, Xia Xingcheng’s mind exploded. His vision blurred up in an instant, and the image before his very eyes overlapped with the memories in the depths of his mind. He was almost at a loss, and he raised his hand to stroke Yang Youming’s eyes and brows, trying to clear up the man’s thoughts. He said, “Ming ge, you’re drunk.”

“No,” Yang Youming quickly denied, “I’m not drunk.” He kissed Xia Xingcheng’s lips, his sharp chin, his neck, impatiently tugging at the collar of Xia Xingcheng’s sweater. 

Xia Xingcheng cooperated with his movements and grabbed the hem of his sweater, pulling it up and off. The wool rubbed against his soft cheeks and the sweater pushed back the hair on his forehead. Yang Youming snatched his sweater and cast it aside, then took off the round-necked tee underneath.  

Darkness. Warmth. Erratic gasps. Drunken adult men. The difference lay in the dry air; that humid, sweat-soaked summer night was no more, and Xia Xingcheng was not the young and inexperienced youth who didn’t know how to kiss. 

Yang Youming pressed Xia Xingcheng’s slender body into the bed, his movements rough as he kissed his neck and ears. He murmured something into Xia Xingcheng’s ear that he didn’t catch quite clearly at first, but when he tried to recall what it was afterwards, he felt that the two words were Xiao Yuan.

For a moment, Xia Xingcheng felt that he was sober, but his thoughts were already at a standstill. His head was empty, and nothing came to mind. Grabbing Yang Youming’s hair, he forced him to lift his head and asked him doubtfully, “What did you call me?”

It was like there was a layer of mist over Yang Youming’s eyes, and he couldn’t see his emotions. Staring at Xia Xingcheng for a moment, he said, “Xingcheng.”

Xia Xingcheng didn’t respond.

Yang Youming buried himself into Xia Xingcheng’s body. 

When Xia Xingcheng felt the bed rocking beneath them, he panicked and ruthlessly grabbed Yang Youming’s arm, saying, “Gentler, gentler!”

Yang Youming stopped, then said in his ear, “Hush—we won’t wake your mother.”

Afterwards, he suppressed his movements but always maintained an all-out ferociousness. He later bit down onto Xia Xingcheng’s collarbone, the place that he had tenderly marked up, even biting it until he bled. 

Xia Xingcheng had a dream once he fell asleep. 

In the dream, he and Yang Youming were in an old house. They were walking up the stairs, and Yang Youming was right in front of him. He could touch him with a single reach. 

Xia Xingcheng called out to him, “Ming ge.”

Yang Youming came to a halt and turned back, but his facial features were vague. “Who’s Ming ge? I’m Yu Haiyang.”

Xia Xingcheng abruptly awoken from fright, and only then did he realise that he was naked under the covers and his whole body was drenched with sweat. The space next to him was already vacant. 

It was already early morning, and the entire room was illuminated by the sunlight streaming in through the window.

Xia Xingcheng’s pulse was still racing. He caught sight of Yang Youming standing in front of the window, looking out into the distance. 

Yang Youming was already dressed. Today, he wore a black sweater paired with black trousers, and the same colors on his upper and lower body made his figure look exceptionally tall and long.

From Xia Xingcheng’s perspective, only the side of the man’s face could be seen. His eyelashes were lowered, and he looked a little lonely. 

Xia Xingcheng didn’t understand why he was showing such an expression.

Then, Yang Youming noticed that Xia Xingcheng was awake. He turned around to face him then walked towards the bed, saying, “Xingcheng, you’re awake.”

Xia Xingcheng sat up in bed and felt an ache in his lower body. The quilt slid down his shoulder, and he felt a sting of pain as it rubbed against his collarbone. 

He looked down and saw tooth marks. There were even dried up bloodstains.  

Yang Youming sat on the edge of the bed and kneaded his temples, saying, “Sorry, I haven’t drunk that much in a long time.”

Xia Xingcheng asked, “Do you still remember what you did last night?”

Yang Youming stared at him. “I don’t quite remember, but I remember that I seemed to hurt you. Does it hurt?”

Xia Xingcheng said, “It doesn’t.”

Yang Youming held his hand. “Why don’t you take a shower?”

Nodding, Xia Xingcheng lifted the blanket and got out of bed, directly walking to the en suite bathroom with nothing on his body. 

Out of the four bedrooms on the second floor, his room was actually the best one. It was the only one that had its own bathroom, and the other rooms had to share the separate bathroom on the second floor. 

He had previously mentioned the matter of switching rooms with his big brother and sister-in-law, but they both said that it didn’t matter and insisted on leaving the room to Xia Xingcheng. 

The moment Xia Xingcheng turned on the hot water and stood underneath it, he thought back to last night, when Yang Youming called him Xiao Yuan.  He wasn’t angry nor sad—he was just dazed and a little at a loss, not understanding what had happened.

After he got out of the shower, Yang Youming had already tidied up the bed, the two blankets folded separately and placed back on their proper places. 

The tissues that had been carelessly thrown to the floor were flushed down the toilet, but on the bed, there were still some ambiguous stains that had dried up.

Seeing that Xia Xingcheng was staring at them, Yang Youming said, “Use a wet towel to wipe it off tonight, it’s no good to get it wet right now.”

Xia Xingcheng said, “They won’t just casually enter my room.”

Yang Youming walked to the door and gazed at the big bed in a daze. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

They came down the stairs one after another. It was quiet on the first floor, the living room had been neatly tidied up and there was no one in sight, but there were two plates of small dishes on the dining table. 

Hearing the sound of running water and people talking in the kitchen, Xia Xingcheng took a couple of steps in that direction. He was about to call out to the people there when he heard his sister-in-law say to his brother, “Why are you treating your family’s guest like this?”

Xia Ye spoke in a lazy manner, “I think it’s weird that Xingcheng brought him back.”

Xia Xingcheng didn’t utter a word and stopped outside the kitchen. Yang Youming was standing behind him, and the two glanced at each other. 

Fang Ying said, “What’s weird?”

Xia Ye said, “He said he was bringing a friend over, so I thought it was going to be a young guy around his age. Don’t you know that Yang Youming is older than us? He’s over ten years older than Xingcheng, so how could he go home with someone for the new year?”

Fang Ying seemed to be washing the dishes, and there was a constant sharp sound of plates colliding against each other. She said,  “What’s wrong with being ten years older? Can’t they be friends?”

Xia Ye said, “Don’t they say that the entertainment industry is messy? I was just thinking, wouldn’t he be Xingcheng’s sugar daddy or something—”

“For god’s sake!” Fang Ying interrupted him. “That’s your little brother, what rubbish are you babbling about?”

Xia Ye sighed. “I just think that the way Xingcheng treats him is a bit weird, I can’t explain it.”

Fang Ying was silent for a while, then said, “Do you know the movie they acted in?”

“What?” Xia Ye appeared somewhat confused. 

Fang Ying said, “You don’t know, huh? Nevermind then, just forget it.” 

Xia Ye pestered her, “Don’t say things by halves.”

At that moment, Yang Youming suddenly left Xia Xingcheng and headed towards the living room.

Xia Xingcheng glanced back, just as he heard Fang Ying say, “Beat it, stop bothering me!”

He took two steps back, took a deep breath, then yelled, “Ge? Sis-in-law? Are you there?”

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t/n – trouble in paradise?

⟵ Chapter 84 | TOC | Chapter 86 ⟶