He pushed open the dorm room door. Warm yellow light spilled down from the corridor ceiling, its flowing glow seeming about to be drawn into Pei Song'an's deep eyes. The plastic pharmacy bag in his hand was stuffed full.
The bitterness that had clogged his chest was gradually fading.
The dorm room door opened and closed again. Since the power automatically cut off at this time of night, Li Shu switched on the desk lamp he had charged in advance, illuminating the area in white light.
Two beds in the four-person room were empty. Pei Song'an took off his coat and draped it over the bedboard of one of them.
Li Shu's nose twitched as he gently sniffed the scent of cold air the man had brought in. Pei Song'an's unexpected arrival made him briefly forget his aches, and he marveled:
"You're seriously like one of those domineering CEOs in novels!"
Pei Song'an dug out a thermometer and had Li Shu tuck it under his arm. "That sounds like high praise."
Li Shu pulled open his pajama collar, shivering at the icy thermometer. "Everything's a piece of cake to you. Do you know how low the odds are of waking up the old dorm attendant in the middle of the night without getting yelled at?"
"If you get someone difficult, they'll even deliberately ignore you and drag their feet forever before opening the door."
Pei Song'an glanced at the expanse of smooth, fair skin at Li Shu's neck, then looked away. "How do you know I didn't get yelled at?"
Li Shu huffed. "You're the crown prince!"
Pei Song'an didn't take the flattery. "Crown prince is only a title, backed by the Pei family. If I can't consistently stay ahead of these competitors, I'll be replaced sooner or later. Who would show me that kind of respect then?"
Li Shu's eyelids felt a little hot. "So you do have a pretty clear grasp of things."
Pei Song'an watched the time and told Li Shu to take out the thermometer. "You have to understand yourself before you can see through other people."
37.4 degrees. A low-grade fever.
"Take the anti-inflammatory medicine and fever reducers first. I didn't know your temperature, so I bought some medicine for both low and high fevers."
After watching Li Shu obediently take the medicine, Pei Song'an urged him to get into bed and under the covers. Seeing that he wanted to pull the blanket over his head, Pei Song'an guessed what he was up to in less than a second.
"If I catch you sneaking onto your phone, you're done for, Li Shu."
Li Shu furtively withdrew the hand he had just slipped under his pillow, still insisting, "It's not like I want to play on my phone that badly!"
He tossed around a couple of times in a little fit of temper, but in the end, the aches and chills from his low fever were too much. Grumbling, Li Shu wrapped himself snugly in his blanket, closed his eyes, and fell silent.
Pei Song'an sat in Li Shu's chair, his thoughts unknown.
For a while, the dorm room was utterly silent.
Once that initial rush of delight passed, Li Shu suddenly felt that the scene was rather bizarre: having the man who would one day wield absolute power deliver fever reducers to him in the middle of the night, then sit in the chair below his bed like a door god...
He couldn't quite describe the feeling.
Li Shu tried picturing Guan Yu and Zhang Fei in his place.
That only made him more alert.
He wriggled around in bed for ages. Perhaps the medicine worked quickly, and Li Shu's immune system and constitution were good to begin with; after warming up and sweating, he felt considerably better than before.
So he sneaked a glance at the top of the man's head below his bed. "Pei Song'an, I can't sleep anymore."
The man's voice was a little low. "Then what do you want to do?"
"I want to play on my phone."
"No."
"Aww, come on."
"Stop whining. Sleep."
"I told you I can't sleep. Why don't we chat?"
Pei Song'an pushed with his long legs, rolling the wheeled chair back a little. He raised his eyes to meet Li Shu's exposed face, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat.
Perhaps because he had just sweated, the cool air stimulated his skin, leaving his soft cheeks tinged a faint pink. The quiet intimacy created by the little desk lamp deepened in that moment. Pei Song'an actually thought even the fine hairs on Li Shu's face were glowing.
"What do you want to talk about?" His voice was tight.
Li Shu found the feeling novel. At first, the system's introduction had given him a very one-sided understanding of Pei Song'an, but after spending time with him, he had found that he was a decent person.
So he said whatever came to mind, without so many reservations.
"Back at the pool tonight, when you held the back of my neck and pulled me toward you, what were you going to do?"
Pei Song'an had never imagined Li Shu would ask him so directly. An instinctive, irrational action was foolish, but once there was a reason behind it, it became a case of great wisdom appearing foolish.
"What do you think?"
Li Shu looked at him in the lamplight. "Just to be clear, we're purely chatting. Nothing else."
Pei Song'an was very patient. "Go ahead."
"I think you wanted to kiss me."
Silence fell again.
Only then did Li Shu realize how taboo and presumptuous the topic was. More sweat broke out on his back, leaving him sticky all over as he racked his brains for a reasonable way to salvage things.
But Pei Song'an admitted it quite openly. "You're right."
Now it was Li Shu's turn to have his brain overheat. "Huh?"
"In that situation, I urgently needed a solution that would keep anyone from discovering my weakness. If people knew I couldn't swim, I might very well end up dead in the water the next day."
"You saved my life despite our disagreement. It was only natural that I wanted to kiss you."
Li Shu: "..."
No, wait. Something's not right.
"Bro, in novels, if I save your life, aren't you supposed to cough up some gold?"
Pei Song'an tried to work with his cultural frame of reference. "I've told you, I have to maintain a sufficient sense of control over the people and things within my territory. What you did at the pool was, to me, the same as a puppy voluntarily pushing its head into my palm."
"I was happy, but it wasn't entirely happiness. That mixture of complicated emotions was what gave me the urge to kiss you."
"..."
How terrifying...
Li Shu was simply used to being straightforward and had said it as a joke.
He hadn't expected this guy to actually dare admit it!!!
"Stop, stop, stop!" Li Shu was a little incredulous. "Don't people normally think you're being a creep when you act like this?"
Pei Song'an said, "Desires and actions are separate. The thoughts in your mind can be restrained. The three main parts of the psyche: the id, the ego, and the superego. Can you understand it if I put it that way?"
Li Shu froze awkwardly. "..."
Pei Song'an expressed his understanding. "Read more books when you have time."
The moment studying came up, Li Shu's eyelids grew heavy. He mumbled a few more things, but his voice grew quieter and quieter until he finally fell completely silent.
Pei Song'an sat in the chair, staring at the edge of the bed for a long while, then suddenly stood and approached it, his burning gaze falling on Li Shu's rosy lips.
The next second, his finger moved over.
Because of his low fever, the inside of his mouth was very hot.
Pei Song'an's expression remained unchanged, his Adam's apple bobbing gently. The moist heat made the pad of his finger lose its bearings, but it soon found something softer.
Reason returned.
Pei Song'an stared at Li Shu's flushed face, his expression returning to normal.
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