Shen Shuangjian was not someone who could be described as "efficient." Across his two lives, in those brief decades, he had spent the vast majority of his time alone with himself.
He had long since grown accustomed to taking things slowly.
He liked to chew slowly and carefully when he ate, and he was used to walking at a steady pace. Even when it came to getting along with others, he took longer to warm up than most people could imagine.
The water ran in the bathroom for a full hour. Only when Xie Jinghui emerged from his thoughts and began to worry about Shen Shuangjian's health did the sound gradually stop.
And so, half an hour before Shen Shuangjian came out, Xie Jinghui had already begun looking forward to it.
Shen Shuangjian's long hair was always difficult to blow-dry. Often, while his fingers were still weaving through those silken strands and could still feel their dampness, his hands would already begin to ache.
At that point, Shen Shuangjian would usually choose to give up.
When the bathroom door opened, the steam that had been trapped inside for so long came rushing out all at once, carrying a warm fragrance.
Xie Jinghui lowered his eyes, yet still could not resist letting his gaze linger. After just one glance, he hurriedly looked away as though he had been burned.
There was always an inexplicable sensuality about Shen Shuangjian. The more he concealed that elusive, indescribable allure, the more obvious it became.
He had clearly covered himself up completely, and there was not the slightest softness or hint of a smile in his expression. Yet through countless little details, someone had already seen right through him from head to toe.
Perhaps it was his porcelain-white skin, flushed by the steam, or perhaps his long hair, spilling lazily down.
His soft, pure-white pajamas were made of fabric that hardly creased, yet they hung loosely on him, his slender waist and its curves only faintly visible.
When he raised a hand to gather his hair, his sleeve naturally slipped down, revealing a length of slender, pale wrist still marked with bruises that had yet to fade. With their origins left unspoken, those bruises carried an even more suggestive sensuality.
"Mr. Xie, I'm done washing."
Such an easily misinterpreted sight, paired with those stirring words from Shen Shuangjian.
Even though Xie Jinghui knew perfectly well that Shen Shuangjian only meant to tell him the bathroom was now free for him to use, he still could not help letting his thoughts wander.
And so Xie Jinghui kept his eyes lowered the entire time, his expression natural, even calm, as he gathered his things and entered the bathroom. Perhaps only his faintly trembling fingertips betrayed the ripples stirred within him.
An hour later, Xie Jinghui gently opened the bathroom door. His gaze swept inch by inch over every corner of the room before he finally spotted a soft mound on the bed.
Shen Shuangjian had already fallen asleep.
Xie Jinghui immediately moved even more quietly. He slowly approached the bed and stood at its head in the dim light, his dark shadow almost enveloping Shen Shuangjian entirely.
Shen Shuangjian slept there quietly, taking up just a small space along the edge, curled on his side among the soft pillow and blankets, utterly unguarded.
When Xie Jinghui lifted the covers and got into bed, Shen Shuangjian, always a light sleeper, opened his eyes once. He gave Xie Jinghui a very brief glance, then sank back into deep sleep.
The way he looked reminded Xie Jinghui of a cat his mother had kept when he was young. That cat had slept like this too, curled up quietly in a little corner at the edge of the bed.
It slept lightly and would wake at any sound, look around in bewilderment and confusion, then bury its head again and go back to sleep.
The faint, cool fragrance drifting from Shen Shuangjian lingered with every breath, while the person asleep beside his pillow was someone who had appeared in his dreams on more than one night.
And so Xie Jinghui silently wished him good night and, pillowed on moonlight, hooked a strand of Shen Shuangjian's long hair around his finger.
At daybreak the next morning, the livestream reopened, and the fans who had waited all night began running wild.
[You little bargain-bin show, it's eight! Get to work, get to work!]
[I've already started my eight a.m. class. What gives you the right not to start streaming yet? Hurry up and ambush the sleeping guests. I want to see my wife!]
[You can skip everyone else's rooms. Just focus on Yu Sheng's and Shen Shuangjian's rooms.]
[Yu Sheng, domestic entertainment's male bodhisattva. Shen Shuangjian, a wife sent from heaven. Please ambush them. Please pry the doors open.]
On any recorded reality show, early-morning raids were always unavoidable. It was a convention, an unreasonable rule that went without saying.
So anyone who had taken part in a similar show would obediently put on pajamas, even if they were used to sleeping naked. At the very least, they would keep their pants on.
In response to the livestream fans' fervent demands, the production crew unsurprisingly began stirring up trouble, switching to the camera feeds inside the rooms.
But, equally unsurprisingly, not a single camera placed inside the rooms had been left on.
For the battle-hardened production crew, however, this was a piece of cake. There were always more solutions than difficulties.
With a soft sound, someone pushed open the bedroom door at the far end of the hallway. The room was small to begin with and had few hidden corners; with the camera pointed inside, everything was instantly laid bare.
On the softly colored bed, Xie Jinghui was practically the only one left on the pillows at the head, while beneath the covers by his chest, the slender outline of another figure seemed faintly visible.
His covers were not pulled up very snugly. Where Xie Jinghui had deliberately lowered them, Shen Shuangjian lay asleep, soft strands of hair hiding most of his profile. With his shallow breaths, the fluffy quilt rose and fell.
Xie Jinghui had not been sleeping particularly deeply. The instant he sensed someone enter, his eyes snapped open, and he swiftly pulled the covers up.
He clearly had not fully grasped the tricks of reality shows. There was none of the bewilderment of someone newly awake in the look he directed at them. Instead, it held a sharp chill, wary yet fearless.
[...?]
[Huh...?]
[I told you we shouldn't stay up late. Now I'm fucking hallucinating first thing in the morning.]
[What's that in his arms? I didn't get a good look. Surely it isn't my gorgeous, unapproachable wife?]
[Go check the bathroom. Maybe my wife's taking a shower.]
[I'm blind. I'm deaf. I know nothing.]
Yet the next moment, the thoroughly bundled quilt shifted twice, and a porcelain-white, jade-like hand emerged. He tugged down the covers and slowly pushed himself up out of Xie Jinghui's arms.
His long hair spilled over his shoulders as Shen Shuangjian frowned at the camera. He clearly had yet to understand why, upon opening his eyes, he had inexplicably found another person in the room, wheeling a camera.
"Sorry. Go back to sleep."
Xie Jinghui instinctively reached out to support Shen Shuangjian's forearm. The latter offered no resistance at all, relaxing and following his movement as he sank back into the crook of his arm.
His ink-black hair was now as pliant as its owner, tangling in a few loose coils around the forearm Xie Jinghui had pillowed beneath his head, at once lingering and tender.
[...]
[...]
[????]
[I can't with you two. Don't do it inside my phone.]
[There's no end to the shipping. No end at all.]
[Every fucking day, I open my eyes and start shipping.]
[I'll ship them to death and beyond. Once I'm dead, I'm shipping CPs in my next life too.]
[Xie Qingchi... do you know your little uncle is like this?]
[He probably doesn't, because I checked the schedule posted by the Xie Group's official account, and he should still be hard at work right now.]
[How can my wife be this soft? Aaaaaah, just kill me already. I fucking want to kiss him to death!]
[Enough talk. Could you two accidentally do it, and then accidentally let us find out, and then have the production crew accidentally livestream the whole thing?]
[How can anyone cause trouble this big?]
[Forget everything else. Shut the door and do it!!!]