Chapter 59.1
Editor: Jodi
When Shen Ci woke up the next day, the sun was already high in the sky. He was so sleepy that he couldn’t open his eyes and made little whining noises, refusing to get out of bed.
“Awake?”
A familiar gentle voice sounded above him. Shen Ci tried hard to open his eyes and vaguely saw Lu Xiao, who was already dressed neatly.
Lu Xiao had a white bandage wrapped around his neck and a few pieces of gauze stuck to his chin. It seemed like he had been sitting by the bed, waiting for Shen Ci to wake up.
“Mmm…” Shen Ci scrunched up his little face, decisively pulling the blanket over his head to avoid getting up.
A helpless chuckle came from outside the darkness of the blanket, then immediately afterwards, his blanket was pulled away.
Lu Xiao lowered his head and kissed him on the space between his brows. Then, he moved to his ear, planting a series of light kisses before biting it gently. “If you’re tired, sleep a little longer. Baby, what do you want for breakfast?”
Little Uncle really likes biting his ear… Shen Ci’s face grew a little hot, and he whispered, “Whatever you eat, I’ll eat too…”
Lu Xiao didn’t reply. Instead, he kept kissing around Shen Ci’s ear, as if he’d gotten addicted to it.
Shen Ci reached out to push him away, but the moment he exerted force, he pulled a muscle in his lower back. A wave of soreness and pain hit him, and he let out a hiss, clutching his waist.
Not only was his waist terribly sore, the tender skin on the inside of his thighs also began to itch and sting. Shen Ci vaguely recalled last night’s ridiculous events, and his face turned red completely.
Although the two of them didn’t go all the way, it was still more than enough to exhaust the rookie Shen Ci.
“What’s wrong?” Lu Xiao’s large hand slipped into Shen Ci’s pajamas, gently rubbing the curve of his lower back. “Does your waist hurt a lot?”
Shen Ci lowered his head in embarrassment, the fair skin of his nape stretching into a beautiful line. “It’s… just a little sore.”
Lu Xiao kissed his earlobe again. “Baby, your body is too weak. This won’t do—you need to exercise more.”
He deliberately emphasized the word “exercise”, causing Shen Ci’s mind to immediately start wandering in the wrong direction. However he hit the brakes quickly and pulled himself back.
“Mm-hmm, got it…” Shen Ci mumbled in response.
Lu Xiao held onto him and kissed him for a while before finally getting up and leaving, instructing someone to prepare breakfast for Shen Ci.
Although Lu Xiao said “sleep a little longer”, he and Lu Xiao had spent half the morning kissing and snuggling, so he was already wide awake. Resigned, he sat up, holding his sore waist.
Shen Ci sat motionless on the bed for a long time before taking his pajama pants off hesitantly. He looked down at the itchy, sore skin on the inside of his thighs—sure enough, it was red and swollen, with some broken skin and plenty of bruised kiss marks all around. It looked utterly miserable.
Lu Xiao was way too scary. This was just from using his legs—if they actually went all the way one day, then inside… Just the thought of it made Shen Ci’s already red face turn a little pale.
Thankfully, Lu Xiao had cared for him and had helped him clean up last night. Otherwise he probably wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed today from the pain in his legs.
Last night, after he had fallen into an exhausted sleep, he’d vaguely felt a sharp pain at his injury and had opened his eyes in a daze.
Then lowering his gaze slightly, he saw Lu Xiao, shirtless and muscular, looking completely focused as he leaned over to apply a warm compress to his overworked thighs, followed by carefully spreading a cooling ointment.
Later, when Lu Xiao lifted him up to wipe him down all over, he remembered leaning in to give him a sweet, sticky kiss. Which almost led to something more.
“Knock, knock.” The sound of someone at the door made Shen Ci pull the blanket over himself hurriedly, with him sneaking his hands under it to tug his pants back up.
The door opened to reveal Wei Shuo carrying a tray of food, followed by the old traditional Chinese doctor from yesterday, here for a follow-up checkup.
Luckily, he was already doing much better.
As soon as the doctor left, Wei Shuo came over with a sly smile, placing the tray in front of Shen Ci—it was, of course, the standard sick-day plain porridge combo. “Uncle Lu just ate this too, so don’t fuss. Eat up!”
Shen Ci: “…” He had been tricked again.
Left with no choice, he could only pick the bowl up reluctantly, vowing silently to take better care of himself in the future. If he ever let plain porridge rule his life again, he’d be a puppy!
Wei Shuo sat cross-legged, scrolling on his phone, casually chatting with Shen Ci. He mentioned that since Shen Ci was leaving the show, he might as well check out and leave with him.
“Oh, right.” Wei Shuo glanced at him. “Have you checked the news?”
Shen Ci shook his head. “I just got up. Is there some big gossip?”
Wei Shuo scrolled through his phone, explaining as he went, “Last night’s incident—if this isn’t big gossip, then what is?”
Shen Ci froze mid-scoop, swallowing quickly. “How…… how did it get out?”
Wei Shuo shrugged. “It was such a big commotion last night, and there were so many people around. Keeping it a secret was impossible. Someone spilled it online before dawn.”
He handed his phone to Shen Ci. “The production team went ahead and released a video this morning. See for yourself.”
Shen Ci put his bowl down, skimmed through the gossip text, and clicked on the video quickly.
Last night, when he went to the bathroom, someone suddenly covered his face with a rag and dragged him away. After that, things got blurry. He only remembered someone trying to pull his pants down, so he kicked them with all his strength and crawled away.
And then—
He saw Lu Xiao’s neck get slashed, blood spraying everywhere, covering the ground… Thinking about it now, he still felt a pang in his heart and lingering fear.
Lu Xiao was okay—thank goodness. But to lose so much blood and still survive, he was seriously tough.
The video footage was shaky, likely because the cameraman had been running while filming. It hadn’t been carefully edited or color-corrected yet. Starting from when everyone left the dining table, it had almost the entire incident recorded.
“Hmm?” Shen Ci paused the video in surprise, leaning in to take a closer look.
It was the scene of Lu Xiao’s neck being slashed, but no matter how much he zoomed in, he couldn’t see the blood spray he remembered.
Shen Ci: ?
He replayed the video suspiciously. However at most, all he could see was blood trickling down due to gravity, dripping onto his face.
Wei Shuo laughed when he saw him analyzing the footage repeatedly. “Stop watching! You’ll scare yourself unconscious again!”
“But there really was a lot of blood spraying out at the time…” Shen Ci muttered with a frown. Could it be that he had hallucinated? But how could he have imagined something so vividly realistic?
The two of them discussed it for a long time, but in the end, they could only attribute it to the hallucinatory effects of ***.
Even though the scene felt excessively real, Shen Ci couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard he thought, so he had to let it go for now.
After watching the latter part of the video carefully, Shen Ci wasn’t too surprised to learn that Jiang Shu was the mastermind. He just felt profoundly sad—things didn’t have to end up this bad.
“I heard from the team doctor that Jiang Shu got slashed by that guy last night and was disfigured.” Wei Shuo tsk’d. “No need to scheme her way up anymore.”
The police were still investigating the details of the case, however the video showed the facts clearly, so Jiang Shu had no chance of making a comeback.
After Wei Shuo showed him the video on Weibo, Shen Ci scrolled down to read the comments subconsciously.
“I’ve felt Jiang Shu’s public persona has been crumbling in recent years—so much drama, and now she turns out to be this vicious!”
“Whoa, that look in Lu Xiao’s eyes at the end was terrifying! Even though he was holding our cub, I almost cried from fear…”
“I’m officially locking in Lu Xiao and our cub, this CP, as a ship! In the face of life-threatening danger, people act on instinct. However his first reaction was to protect our cub, even if it meant getting hurt himself!”
“You can see how much Lu Xiao doesn’t care about his own life for Xiao Ci… It was his neck that got hurt, but all he cared about was Xiao Ci. That’s gotta be love…”
“….”
The final frame of the video showed Lu Xiao, his suit splattered with blood, wearing a cold expression as he carried an unconscious Shen Ci away.
Even Shen Ci, who was incredibly close to Lu Xiao, felt a chill at this hellish-asura-like version of him. No wonder the gossiping crowd was losing their minds in the comments.
Shen Ci switched back to his phone and was about to dig for more details when Min Shoubei called, saying the tickets were booked and that they had to return to G City today.
Shen Ci had no choice but to start packing. Min Shoubei would be there to pick him up soon.