You're Not Someone Else

Security at Rongsen Luxury Apartments was extremely strict. All delivery workers had to show identification before they could enter. Tong Zhao parked his bicycle outside the spacious, luxurious apartment building and pressed the intercom button for the customer's floor. After a beep, Tong Zhao said, "Hello, delivery. Would you like me to leave it downstairs or bring it up?"

Click. The door opened. The customer wanted it brought upstairs.

Each floor here had a single apartment, and the customer lived on the fifth floor.

After getting out of the elevator, Tong Zhao walked to the customer's door and rang the doorbell twice. Just as he was about to put the delivery in the cabinet beside the door, it suddenly opened.

The person who opened it gave Tong Zhao quite a shock.

Shu Sizhuo!

Shu Sizhuo, dressed in black loungewear!

So this was his apartment in the city!

Tong Zhao, covered from head to toe in his delivery uniform, changed course with the food he had been about to put in the cabinet and held it out to Shu Sizhuo instead.

Shu Sizhuo took it and thanked him.

Tong Zhao nodded, tugged his mask higher, and lowered his eyes as he prepared to leave. Suddenly, someone seized his arm.

Tong Zhao turned back in surprise and saw a flash of mischief in Shu Sizhuo's eyes, just as he expected. "Come in and sit for a while?"

He recognized me?

As if he could read minds, Shu Sizhuo chuckled. "Tong Zhao."

Then Shu Sizhuo pulled Tong Zhao inside with an irresistible force, and the door closed behind them.

Tong Zhao pulled off his mask. "You could recognize me even when I was covered up this well?"

Shu Sizhuo leaned against the wall and looked him over. "What are you doing? Experiencing life as an actor?"

Tong Zhao was about to answer when he suddenly felt something was off. He had only been a delivery worker for a day, yet he had coincidentally received Shu Sizhuo's order. With Shu Sizhuo giving him the green light all the way, he had delivered food he could easily have left at the customer's door right into the customer's hands. No matter how he looked at it, the whole thing made no sense.

Remembering what Shu Sizhuo had said before—that there weren't so many coincidences, only deliberate actions—Tong Zhao narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Did you have someone watch me? Getting your order was your doing too, wasn't it?"

Instead of answering, Shu Sizhuo asked, "Why don't you tell me what's going on with you? Weren't your resources returned to you? Did the production team fire you because a fight ruined your face?"

Tong Zhao adjusted his delivery helmet and said vaguely, "No, nothing like that. I'm just experiencing life."

Shu Sizhuo sneered.

He knew exactly what Tong Zhao had been doing these past two days. The fall he had taken in the drizzle yesterday and the forty-five flights of stairs he had climbed today both upset him immensely.

How could Tong Zhao do these things? How could he suffer such indignities?

"If you're short of money," Shu Sizhuo said, staring at him, "you can ask me."

"I'm not short of money." Tong Zhao glanced at him. "And stop having me watched. We don't need so many coincidences. Enjoy your meal. I'll be going."

Shu Sizhuo chuckled. "Why are you suddenly so cold? Weren't we getting along fine when I put medicine on you that day? Don't go. Sit for a while."

"No." Tong Zhao answered dully, then turned to twist the door handle, only to find it wouldn't budge. He glanced back at Shu Sizhuo, then looked down and fiddled with the handle for a while, to no avail.

"Did you lock it?" Tong Zhao turned and glared at him.

Shu Sizhuo didn't answer. Instead, he held up the delivery in his hand and said pitifully, "Have some porridge with me. My stomach hurts."

Only then did Tong Zhao remember that the delivery was millet porridge, and concern welled up in him. "Why does your stomach hurt again?"

Shu Sizhuo gestured toward the coffee table. "I just took some medicine."

Tong Zhao glanced at the pills scattered across the coffee table and said disapprovingly, "You took medicine on an empty stomach?"

Shu Sizhuo turned and sat down at the table. As he opened the brown paper delivery bag, he said, "The rider was too slow, and my stomach hurt too much. What else could I do?"

A certain rider: "..."

The delivery rider Tong Zhao was the ancient Greek god of softheartedness. Caring for Shu Sizhuo was like an instinct engraved in his bones; he couldn't bear to see Shu Sizhuo doing badly or suffering.

Although Wind House and the young man who looked like him still weighed on his mind, he did as he was asked and sat down at the dining table, firmly suppressing all his doubts and resentment as he ate porridge with Shu Sizhuo.

Shu Sizhuo opened the paper-thin-skinned shaomai and pushed them in front of Tong Zhao. "Some porridge is enough for me. You eat these."

Tong Zhao froze.

Paper-thin-skinned shaomai were indeed something he used to love, while Shu Sizhuo had never liked them.

Tong Zhao didn't know whether Shu Sizhuo had ordered this meal deliberately or without thinking.

He couldn't help wondering: his looks had made such a deep impression on Shu Sizhuo, so had his habits also left a deep impression on Shu Sizhuo's mind?

For example, when he saw those looks, did he associate them with what the person with those looks liked to eat?

Perhaps it was a conditioned reflex, one that didn't even require a conscious effort to remember.

"What are you thinking about?"

Shu Sizhuo's voice brought Tong Zhao's wandering thoughts back. He looked at the paper-thin-skinned shaomai. "Nothing. Thanks, but I don't have much of an appetite right now."

Shu Sizhuo looked at him and suddenly reached out, startling Tong Zhao into leaning back.

His fingers were long and dry, and they brushed lightly over Tong Zhao's cheek. Tong Zhao's heart instantly began pounding like a drum.

Shu Sizhuo said, "You had mud on your face."

It had rained yesterday, and Tong Zhao had been riding and running around all day, so it was only natural that he had mud on his face and clothes. He raised the back of his hand and rubbed his cheek again.

Shu Sizhuo watched Tong Zhao's fair skin turn a light red and thought of how Tong Zhao had been kissed breathless that day.

Disheveled, mad, out of control.

That image was like a tonic nourishing the monster in his heart, making his heart tremble.

Watching his prey circle the trap, the hunter felt both tormented and excited, his blood bubbling like water just coming to a boil.

He had to make absolutely sure nothing could go wrong before he could cage his prey forever.

Tong Zhao was not, in fact, a particularly patient person.

I saw a young man who looked a lot like me outside the old residence that day. Who was he?

The words circled on the tip of his tongue several times, but in the end, Tong Zhao forced them back down.

He pressed his lips together and lowered his brows, sitting with Shu Sizhuo over porridge with an almost solemn expression.

As soon as Shu Sizhuo finished, he stood up to leave. He was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he would ask that question.

Yet given his current identity and position, he shouldn't be asking about such things.

Even if he did ask, Shu Sizhuo might not answer.

"You've finished your porridge, so I'll be going."

Shu Sizhuo looked at him.

Tong Zhao frowned. "Open the door."

Shu Sizhuo took his time wiping his mouth, then stood up and took Tong Zhao by the arm. "What's the rush? Since you're already here, let me show you around my apartment."

And so Tong Zhao was forced to tour the thousand-square-meter, single-floor apartment.

Compared with the old residence, the apartment was more stylish and modern, with everything from a gym and a swimming pool to a movie theater. Shu Sizhuo's bedroom alone was so large that Tong Zhao felt he could run laps along its walls for exercise—the kind that left him out of breath.

And this entire single-floor apartment had only one bedroom.

"There's no need for more, because I don't like having other people stay the night here," Shu Sizhuo explained.

Tong Zhao turned to look at him, but Shu Sizhuo suddenly leaned close and said with a smile, "You're not someone else."