Morning sunlight spilled onto the windowsill, and another chaotic day at Young Field was about to begin.
Xie Ji woke up in Lu Xunji's arms as usual, then scampered into the bathroom in his little shorts to squeeze in beside Lu Xunji and brush his teeth.
He lazily stared at the pink toothbrush in Lu Xunji's hand, repeated "Princess Jiji" twice in his head, then spat out his toothpaste foam, snatched the towel Lu Xunji had just wrung out, and wiped the corners of his mouth. Then he stretched and headed out, feeling refreshed.
All in one smooth sequence.
Throughout it all, Lu Xunji never even looked up, wiping the corners of his own mouth with the face towel Xie Ji had used as though he was thoroughly accustomed to it.
Just as Xie Ji came down from the second floor, he noticed the tense atmosphere.
Nobody was speaking. Mu Yao's brows were furrowed, and he looked somewhat annoyed.
Xie Ji sat down at the dining table and blinked. "Wait, what are you guys doing? Didn't we buy all the groceries yesterday? Aren't we cooking?"
Ji Shi snorted. "I bet someone already had plenty of fun doing it last night."
At that, Shang Yan pressed a fist to his lips and coughed awkwardly twice, reminding him, "We're still livestreaming. Watch what you say."
Mu Yao clicked his tongue impatiently. "Have dung beetles finally hollowed out your brain after all these years? I told you I didn't use them! I didn't! Look at everyone in this house. Who the fuck could I have done it with?!"
"You never know." Ji Shi crossed his legs. "Who else could it be? There are other staff on this island besides us. Who knows who you hooked up with this time? And you even brought them into the guesthouse. Disgusting!"
Xie Ji looked at the two locked in a furious argument in bewilderment, then leaned over toward Zhou Heyu and asked, "Have these two been possessed by something invisible again?"
Zhou Heyu glanced at him, but unlike usual, he wasn't guarded. He even lowered his head slightly, leaned close to Xie Ji's ear, and explained quietly, "No. When Ji Shi opened the door this morning, he found two used, you know, things dumped outside. He said they completely grossed him out."
Xie Ji was slow to catch on. "What things?"
Zhou Heyu gave it some serious thought. "Human offspring exterminators."
Xie Ji's gaze landed on the two latex sleeves containing goat's milk beside the cardboard box by the door. Understanding dawned, and he pointed at them. "You mean those?"
Zhou Heyu nodded. "Ji Shi said Mu Yao used them, but Mu Yao won't admit it."
Xie Ji nodded. "Well, he really didn't use them."
Mu Yao, who was in the middle of a childish squabble with Ji Shi, turned around, deeply moved. "Little Cake, you believe I didn't use them, right?"
Ji Shi jumped down from the table and tugged Xie Ji farther away from Zhou Heyu. "Little Ji, don't defend him. You didn't know him before. In the industry, he..."
"I know he didn't use them." Xie Ji propped his cheek in his hand as he sat on the stool, then walked over with an utterly innocent expression and bent down to pick up the two latex sleeves.
Ji Shi hurried over, knocked the things out of his hands, then grabbed his hands and shook them frantically. "Don't pick up just anything, idiot! Throw them away! So dirty, so dirty, so dirty! Quick! Wash your hands! Disinfect them!"
Shang Yan and the others looked equally shocked. Zhou Heyu swiftly brought in a basin of water from the outdoor tap and stared at Xie Ji's hands with grim determination. "Wash!"
Ji Shi shoved Xie Ji's hands into the water, then clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and kicked the two latex sleeves away. "This is all your fault! Mu, you fucking moron, if Xie Ji catches anything, you'll never hear the end of it!!!"
Mu Yao stood up and shouted, "Sooner or later, I'm going to rip that filthy mouth of yours apart!"
Squatting on the floor, Xie Ji looked at his hands, which Ji Shi was holding underwater and scrubbing frantically. "Bro, I used those."
Ji Shi: "???"
Zhou Heyu: "..."
Mu Yao: "!!!!"
Shang Yan: "...Fuck?"
The viewers passionately analyzing in the bullet comments who Mu Yao had used those two latex sleeves with: "...Huh?"
Xie Ji looked up at the petrified group, puzzled. "What's wrong? Is there a problem? I used them. Lu Xunji used them too. We used them together."
Then Xie Ji watched Ji Shi's widened eyes shift from shock to anger, then to pain and grief, before finally turning bloodshot as tears spilled out all at once.
Xie Ji: "?"
Bro, how did you start crying that smoothly? Did you put in eye drops behind my back?
A soft chuckle came from the second floor.
Lu Xunji leaned against the stairway entrance on the second floor, watching Xie Ji with interest.
It seemed his little money bag's clueless brain and mouth that could never keep up with the conversation weren't entirely useless.
Eyes red, Ji Shi charged toward Lu Xunji through gritted teeth. "Lu Xunji! How fucking dare you bully him! I'll kill you!!!"
Shang Yan grabbed Ji Shi's wrist and held him back, barking in a low voice, "Ji Shi!"
[Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, what kind of battlefield is this?!]
[Wait, dude? Even if it was with Lu Xunji...you can't just toss them outside the guesthouse afterward. How gross is that?]
[What, are we outsiders to you? Why do it in secret?]
[I told you there was definitely something going on between them!]
[If I remember correctly, I was watching a farming variety show, right? What's going on now? Why does this suddenly feel like a prime-time soap opera? He loves him, he doesn't love him, he runs, he chases, he can't escape even with wings, he regrets, he returns, he sheds tears...]
[Actually, they already gave you a heads-up. This model of condom should be the box Xie Ji paid for when Lu Xunji redeemed things at the shop last time, right? Lu Xunji himself said Xie Ji was the one who wanted to use them! So tell me, wasn't Xie Ji the one who used them?!]
[I thought they were kidding us? So they were actually serious?]
[Lu Xunji, a real man who keeps his word!]
[Doing this stuff on a farming variety show is really hard to comment on.]
[How can such lewd debauchery exist in this world?!]
[Young Field, you really went there.]
Xie Ji was stunned. He tugged at Zhou Heyu and asked, "Seriously, why is Ji Shi so angry? Just because I didn't throw them in the trash after using them?"
Zhou Heyu: "...That's not the point, is it? The point is, you..."
He paused, finding it somewhat difficult to say. "Are you and Lu Xunji really in that kind of relationship? Did he force you? Are you having a hard time at the Xie Household? Will he hurt you if you don't do this?"
Utterly lost, Xie Ji asked, "Why would Lu Xunji force me to feed puppies?"
Ji Shi was crying his heart out, his fist almost swinging into Lu Xunji's face. The moment Xie Ji said that, everyone turned to look at him.
Zhou Heyu froze. "What...feeding?"
"Yeah, the goat's milk you went to the goat shed with me to get yesterday." Xie Ji gestured a couple of times. "We didn't have a suitable teat, and Lu Xunji said these were made of the same material as teats, so we used two of them to feed the puppies yesterday... It was just too late last night, so we went back after feeding them and forgot to throw them away."
After saying that, Xie Ji grabbed the broom by the wall and swept the two latex sleeves into the trash, looking cautiously at Ji Shi.
"Sorry. I didn't know you were this sensitive. All I did was forget to throw away some trash, but you got so upset I thought I'd broken some heavenly law... Don't worry. Next time, next time I'll definitely clean up properly. Don't cry anymore... Can I buy you some candy?"
Ji Shi looked at the two latex sleeves, then at the smiling Lu Xunji, then at Xie Ji's apologetic face.
In the end, he closed his eyes.
Standing to one side, Mu Yao froze for a moment, then couldn't hold back a snort of laughter.
Tears still clung to Ji Shi's lashes as he bristled. "What the hell are you laughing at?! Didn't you think they were...used too?!"
Mu Yao wagged a finger. "Well, I didn't shed any horse piss. Little Ji Shi, crying and screaming like that-haven't you been weaned yet? Come on, call me Daddy, and Daddy will give you some candy."
Ji Shi's ears turned red all the way to the roots. "Fuck off, you asshole!"
Then he turned to Lu Xunji, humiliated and furious. "Xie Ji didn't know what I meant, but did you not know either?"
Lu Xunji nodded. "I knew."
"Then why did you stand there all that time without explaining?!"
"Why should I explain?" Leaning against the railing, Lu Xunji drawled, "I just like watching people lose it."
Ji Shi: "Lu Xunji!!! I'll fight you!"
Standing beside Xie Ji, Zhou Heyu let out a relieved breath and muttered, "Good thing it wasn't that."
Xie Ji: "Huh? Everything's fine now, right? Then...what are we doing about breakfast? Don't any of you think about that first when you get up in the morning?"