[A novel with two male leads. If that's not your thing, you can click away now! Includes mind-reading. Top: Hua Jian! Bottom: Bo Lin! No switching partners or roles. The top is five years younger.]
1
When Hua Jian woke, his whole body was burning hot. His chest felt as though a heavy stone were crushing it, leaving him struggling for breath.
Irritated, he raised his hand again and tore open his shirt collar.
Wait, what?
His eyes snapped open, his black gaze brimming with viciousness, but that viciousness was quickly replaced by a confusion eroded by desire.
Damn it. He'd forgotten-he'd transmigrated into a novel.
"Hua Jian? Are you done yet? If you don't hurry up and deliver your gift, the birthday party's going to be over!"
The man outside the restroom stall sounded decidedly impatient.
"I'll be right there."
His rough, hoarse voice, together with the strange sensation somewhere else on his body, told Hua Jian he'd been drugged.
Fuck.
He'd transmigrated into a novel called "The Beautiful Love Story of the Wealthy Family's True Heir."
What an honor: he'd become the lackey of one of the impostor heir's disreputable admirers.
An utterly devoted lackey.
The man was startled by Hua Jian's voice.
Hua Jian had always been a bookworm, wearing black-framed glasses with his hair hanging over his eyes. Whenever he met anyone, he kept his head bowed and shoulders hunched, speaking in a muffled voice.
That voice just now hadn't sounded like him at all.
The man rubbed his ear, his tone somehow softening a little. "All right, hurry up. Young Master Feng's going to get impatient."
As the footsteps receded, Hua Jian bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.
The pain preserved a sliver of clarity.
Haiping Hotel stood beside the river in the Imperial Capital, one of the city's landmark buildings.
Suppressing his body's agitation, Hua Jian headed toward room 1101 on the top floor.
Feng Qian, whom the original owner of this body had been pursuing, was holding a party in 1101 today.
To please the impostor heir, that bastard would use the party to frame the true heir for sleeping around-and his alleged partner would be "Hua Jian."
After being drugged, "Hua Jian" would encounter the true heir, who had been shoved into a restroom stall. Then the impostor heir would bring people to catch them in the act...
For fuck's sake. What a waste not having this bunch of gays star in a palace intrigue drama.
After that, "Hua Jian" would offend the true heir and incur the displeasure of several of his admirers.
With all those male confidants offering suggestions, Feng Qian would fear they might trace things back to him and pin everything on the dull-witted "Hua Jian."
"Hua Jian" would ultimately be arrested for breaking the law...
But Hua Jian was straight!
Like hell he was going to get it on with a guy!
While he was thinking, he reached 1101!
This body had over three diopters of nearsightedness. Hua Jian hadn't found his glasses since transmigrating, and his unfocused eyes missed anything unusual about the room as he walked straight inside.
Thud! The door shut.
The room was quiet and dark, lit only by the light from the building opposite streaming through the enormous window.
Hua Jian stumbled forward in a daze and somehow tripped onto the bed.
A muffled grunt came from beneath him. He asked, "Where's the birthday party? Is it over?"
Bo Lin's head throbbed and buzzed. His business trip had taken him to the other side of the world, where it was freezing, and unsurprisingly, he'd caught a cold.
Before he'd even had time to take medicine, his attention-seeking childhood friend had plied him with alcohol after his flight landed. His brain could now be described as mush.
The man on top of him had him firmly pinned. Bo Lin snapped, "Who are you? Get off!"
Unfortunately, being ill, he sounded less like he was scolding someone and more like he was being coy.
The man's body wasn't soft, but it was unexpectedly comfortable. In a haze, Hua Jian shifted his hips against him.
The part of him being driven mad by the drug immediately shuddered, finding relief as dangerous as drinking poison to quench thirst.
"Ah... mm..."
At that husky, unmistakably masculine sound, Bo Lin stiffened, the hairs on his back standing on end.
He was gay, though very few people knew. His childhood friend Lu Zexi was one of them.
Lu Zexi ran several entertainment companies and was always saying he'd send over a few tender young men for him to play with.
Bo Lin had lived like an ascetic for over twenty years, but whenever he actually saw those young men, he felt no interest-only intense irritation.
Yet now, to his alarm, he discovered that a couple of rubs and a moan from this man had actually aroused him.
"Did Lu Zexi send you?" Bo Lin's Adam's apple bobbed.
Hua Jian's mind was a muddle. The name Lu Zexi sounded vaguely familiar, but he was soon submerged beneath the surging tide of desire.
He caught a crisp, distinctive scent mingled with alcohol.
Hua Jian lowered his head and took an exaggeratedly deep breath, murmuring, "You smell so good."
Bo Lin's temple gave a sharp throb. Were the artists at Lu Zexi's company this shameless?
His company must be going bankrupt soon!
This little entertainer was outrageously bold, kissing and licking his neck and the skin behind his ears.
The scrap of awareness Bo Lin had managed to muster quickly dissipated. "Hiss!"
Finding a man who smelled clean and pleasant and could arouse him was difficult, but Bo Lin thought men like these were dirty.
"Get out!"
But the man seemed deaf, hot breaths washing over the backs of his ears and his neck, one after another.
A flame leaped up inside Bo Lin. His Adam's apple bobbed twice in the dark bedroom before he parted his dry lips, his voice low, hoarse, and cold. "I don't bottom. Get off..."
Hua Jian, a straight man, didn't get off. Instead, he sealed those burning lips with his own.
One had been drugged; the other was drunk and feverish. Both surrendered to the sea of desire in a haze, moving together with remarkable harmony.
After a night entwined together, Bo Lin's unfailingly punctual body clock woke him at six.
He immediately felt as though several trucks had run him over, and he couldn't breathe properly.
Frowning, he tried to sit up, only to realize someone was lying on his arm.
Bo Lin turned his head in shock, and the events of the previous night immediately came flooding back.
"Mm!"
Hua Jian suddenly made a sound, and for some reason, Bo Lin immediately closed his eyes.
"Holy shit!"
As though he'd touched something filthy, last night's man sprang off the bed with a thump.
"Holy shit! Why am I in bed with a guy?"
Just then, a commotion sounded outside. With a bang, someone opened the door from the outside.
"Oh my God, it really is Shu Yao! That watch is a worldwide limited edition President Shu gave him!"
Lying on his side, Bo Lin furrowed his brow but didn't move.
Few people knew he liked men. Had last night's man set him up for a sex scam?
A cold smile tugged at his lips. He wanted to see just how outrageous the man Lu Zexi had found for him could be!
The exaggerated voice at the door spoke again. "Hua Jian, when did you get together with Shu Yao? You..."
Bo Lin soon heard a somewhat familiar voice. "Fuck off. I'm straight."
So last night's man was named Hua Jian.
"Hua Jian, are you out of your mind? You've already slept with Shu Yao, and you're still claiming you're straight?"
"Exactly. When you were chasing me, you said you'd already come out to your mom. Now that you're with Shu Yao, you're suddenly straight?"
Hua Jian was close to losing his mind too. He'd clearly avoided the restroom stall incident last night, so how had he still ended up sleeping with Shu Yao?
No wonder he hadn't been able to find the right place in his haze last night. There'd been a man in the bed all along.
Damn it!
Now wasn't the time to let his thoughts wander.
Shu Yao, lying on that bed, was the novel's main bottom and the wealthy family's true heir.
A background extra sleeping with the main bottom was an absolute bombshell in the world of fiction.
Hua Jian ranted bitterly in his head: [Hua Jian likes men, but I'm straight!]
[Now that I've slept with the main bottom, can I even get a decent ending? This shitty plot is going to get me killed!]
Bo Lin paused. Hua Jian was strange, saying one moment that he liked men and the next that he was straight.
Stranger still, he kept muttering something, yet the people who'd barged in acted as though they couldn't hear him. They were still talking about Shu Yao sleeping around and asking the young masters not to blame him...
"Young masters, you don't need to worry about Shu Yao anymore. Hua Jian's been taking very good care of him. Look, he enjoyed himself so much he can't even get up."
Bo Lin's breath caught, followed by a surge of humiliation and anger.
There was no denying that, although he hadn't been fully lucid last night, he remembered enjoying himself immensely. But these bastards were treating him as gossip fodder. Did they think he was dead?
"Who are you? What are you doing in my room?" Bo Lin sat up and spoke coldly.
The others stared at the man on the bed in disbelief, exclaiming in unison, "Who are you?"
Feng Qian and Shu Yan were instantly dumbfounded. Why wasn't the man on the bed Shu Yao?
Panicking, they looked at the grim-faced men behind them. "Young Master Tan, Young Master Wang, listen to me. It really was Shu Yao. There's been a mistake!"
Young Master Tan pointed viciously at one of the men. "Feng Qian, you're fucking sick! Shu Yan, stop hanging around people like him. It's fucking beneath you!"
Amid the chaos, no one noticed Hua Jian's strange behavior.
The moment Bo Lin spoke, Hua Jian froze. He quickly pieced together the mix-up.
Last night, he'd been drugged, entered this man's room, and slept with him.
Fuck!
Goddamn it!
This damned gay world!
Every random guy was gay!
Give me back my virginity! Give me back my innocence!
Pale-faced and trembling-lipped, he bent over, snatched up his shirt, and fled blindly while the others descended into chaos.
After leaving the hotel, Hua Jian followed the delivery address on his phone to the apartment he rented.
Thankfully, the original owner's phone supported payment by facial recognition. Otherwise, he would have had to walk back shirtless.
"Damn it!"
He crouched beside the door, his expression dark. As he wallowed in self-pity, his gaze caught the scratches on his abs.
He vaguely remembered that moment.
He'd apparently been a little impatient. The man had turned his face away angrily and reached back to push him, but hadn't been able to move him.
Eager to keep going, Hua Jian had twisted his arm aside, getting scratched in the process...
How had he failed to realize then that the person beneath him wasn't a sweet-smelling, soft girl, but a cold, hard-bodied grown man?
Realizing what he was thinking about, Hua Jian felt a surge of revulsion. He shuddered, immediately got up, and rushed into the bathroom.
The original Hua Jian was still a university student. Thankfully, it was the weekend, so he didn't have to rush to an eight a.m. class.
But the original owner's three-diopter nearsightedness really did make it hard to see.
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Hua Jian searched the map, preparing to get a pair of glasses.
But as soon as he left the apartment building, two men in black stopped him.
The hairs on his back stood on end, and several possibilities flashed through his mind.
He still hadn't sorted out this body's family and social connections. Did he owe an enormous debt? Or had he offended someone powerful?
Or had last night's man come to his senses and sent people to drag him back to vent his anger?
No, wait. He remembered that guy had enjoyed himself too. He'd resisted at first, but later he'd been very cooperative...
"Third Young Master, Madam has returned from France. She sent us to bring you home."
Hua Jian: ???
Who? Madam? Whose madam?
Hua Jian only knew the events described in the novel. A practically nonexistent background extra like "Hua Jian" had received only two lines, never mind his family.
He followed the man in black to the car, but when he opened the door, he saw a young man already sitting in the back seat.
The man's clothes were a mess. Literally.
He wore an oversized gray T-shirt with holes in it, at least five or six necklaces of varying lengths, and loose army-green trousers with more pockets than Hua Jian had money in his account.
Seeing Hua Jian's blank look, the young man snapped, "What are you staring at? I'm allergic to being looked at by men like you."
Hua Jian's expression faltered. Those words sounded awfully familiar.
A flash of insight struck him. "Xie Zhiyan?"
Right. Xie Zhiyan-the unluckiest of the main bottom's devoted admirers.
He was also "Hua Jian's" older stepbrother. Talk about stacking the buffs. Tsk, tsk.
Before you continue