You're So Rich, Go Get Your Head Checked

Who would have thought Wan Fuqi would not respond to him at all? He merely stared at him with those sparkling blue eyes until Li Mao started to feel a little unsure of himself.

He had been an Alpha for a full twenty-five years before this, damn it!

When he was little, he had always been the one who pissed the farthest. Why the hell would anyone not believe him?

Li Mao turned around and stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray, intending to have a serious discussion with Wan Fuqi about the dignity of male markers.

But when he turned back around in a huff, Wan Fuqi smiled brightly and asked, "What were you doing just now?"

Li Mao was briefly thrown by the question. He froze, thought about it for a moment, and answered uncertainly, "Putting out my cigarette?"

"Before that," Wan Fuqi corrected him.

Before that?

Li Mao thought back carefully.

"No! Open those Husky-like e-eyes of yours and take a look! I really have—"

Halfway through speaking, Li Mao sensed that something was off.

Why was he now practically begging to show his dick to the universe's number one pervert, the man who had fucked him once, twice, three times?

Getting used to something was truly the most terrifying thing in the world.

Silently, he tugged the corner of the blanket over to cover his important parts.

Then he cleared his throat and continued, "A-anyway, believe it or not. Facts don't n-necessarily have to be seen with your own eyes."

For once, Wan Fuqi was not entirely focused on Li Mao's lower half. He stared fixedly into Li Mao's eyes and reminded him, "Before that."

Before that...

Li Mao patiently thought for a while longer. In the end, his patience ran completely dry, and he let out an irritated "Ugh."

"Y-you're a grown man. Can't you just s-say what you mean? Why do you keep making people g-guess? Guess what, for fuck's sake? It's annoying! Say it or don't. I-I'm going to take a shower and go home anyway."

Seeing that Li Mao was about to get out of bed, Wan Fuqi swiftly grabbed his wrist and said directly, "When I sat beside you, you moved your cigarette farther away. You even waved away the secondhand smoke between us."

Li Mao blinked and asked blankly, "A-and then...?"

Wasn't that just common sense? A habit every longtime smoker had?

Especially since he was a smoker who had raised a child.

Back then, He Che had stood beside him like a tiny bean bun. No matter what, Li Mao could not bear to let a child grow up breathing secondhand smoke every day and die early of lung cancer.

So he had always avoided smoking around He Che.

Sometimes, the smoke in the hallway was thick, or he was in a bar talking business with someone through clouds of smoke. But the moment he saw He Che arrive, his first step would be to stub out his cigarette, and his second would be to wildly fan away the smell.

During the first two years when He Che was still in middle school, Li Mao would stand outside the door for half an hour every day after coming home from the bar, letting the smoke smell dissipate.

Sometimes he got so bored waiting that he could not resist lighting another cigarette.

The result was that he would have to wait in a twenty-four-hour convenience store, nodding off from exhaustion, until He Che left home for school before he dared go back. Then he would open the windows and catch some sleep.

Some things became habits before one even realized it. The instant Wan Fuqi moved closer just now, it was as though some program inside him had been triggered, and his movements had flowed seamlessly as he protected Wan Fuqi's tender little lungs.

Even though he had been thinking about how to use Wan Fuqi's organs to make sliced lung in chili sauce, his actions had been remarkably honest.

But... it was nothing, was it?

Even with strangers, he would occasionally have a pang of conscience and wave his hand around like that a couple of times.

"You're satisfied with me as your husband too, aren't you?"

As though he had discovered some astonishing truth, Wan Fuqi began laying it all out.

"You remembered that I said smoking harms the lungs and body. You thought I disliked the smell of smoke and did not want to breathe secondhand smoke, so whenever I came over, you moved your cigarette far away."

"Li Mao, you actually don't hate me as much as you think you do. After all, we're still very compatible in bed, aren't we? Sometimes you make that really comfortable expression too. Maybe you don't remember it clearly, but I remember all of it. You look beautiful every time you make that expression."

"You care about me, just as I care about you..."

As Wan Fuqi said this, the hand gripping Li Mao's wrist slid down. He forcefully threaded his fingers through Li Mao's and interlocked their fingers.

His expression was moved, his tone gentle. "So don't do things like washing off the mark again, okay?"

Li Mao drew in a breath, wanting to say something, yet having no idea where to begin. Among the countless arguments available to him, he did not know which one to choose to thoroughly make this delusional patient give up.

He looked down at the hand that had unilaterally interlocked fingers with his, suddenly found it absurdly funny, and could not help laughing.

He raised his head again to look at Wan Fuqi and mocked, "W-wan Fuqi, you're so rich. W-why don't you go get your head checked? You're looking for love in the w-wrong place. I'm not an animal lover. Whether I c-care about you or not, do you really not know?"

"As far as I'm concerned, the matter of you m-marking me was turned over long ago. I don't e-even care that you marked me. Would I c-care about you?"

"You think because you saved me o-once, I'd be endlessly grateful and o-offer myself to you? Then nobody would need to pursue anyone anymore. They could just squat b-by the roadside every day and wait to play the hero saving a damsel, r-right? That kind of thing isn't popular anymore."

"In my eyes, you're just as vile as that b-black-hearted doctor. How you f-found me, how you s-saw the message that person sent out—I d-don't want to investigate any of it. I already have my own conclusions."

"Even if you hadn't come, even if I r-really had been forced by someone, I'd accept it. The path I chose, Li Mao chose it himself. Whatever consequences there were, I'd b-bear them myself. How to deal with it would be m-my own decision. I didn't need you interfering and then acting like you were s-so heroic."

"You know you're just m-meddling, right?"

Li Mao's mouth was getting a little dry, and his throat, which had been overused yesterday, hurt a little too.

He yanked his hand free from Wan Fuqi's grip, picked up the full glass of water on the bedside table, and took a few sips.

Then he continued, "Last night, I kept thinking I'd h-hired a compatible escort. Your service really w-was pretty good. It felt good, so showing a little r-reaction as encouragement and praise w-was normal, wasn't it?"

"Weren't you h-having a great time too? You screamed even more wantonly than I did."

"T-there's nothing else, right? Then I-I'm going home."