Ch8 - I care about you

“You didn’t kill her, right?”

Yao Qi casually asked while opening the door. Actually, he already knew what the answer would be even without Liu Lin telling him, because things would have gotten much bigger by now if the girl had really died. He only asked this question to get a confirmation from the man himself.

It took two seconds for Liu Lin to realise who Yao Qi was referring to. He instantly frowned. He hadn’t forgotten that the reason Yao Qi ignored him these few days was ultimately because of that girl, so he cocked his eyebrows and asked back with a sneer, “You’re worried about her?”

When he came back that day with his body full of wounds, Yao Qi had unreasonably—okay, not unreasonable, according to Yao Qi who told him he did something wrong.

Although Liu Lin still had no idea what his mistake was, Yao Qi had actually slapped him upon seeing his injuries.

In the dramas he watched on the television, whenever the male lead was injured, the female lead would feel sorry for him and treat him really well afterwards. But why was it that when it came to him, not only did he get slapped, he was even given the cold treatment for so long?

That was unfair!

Liu Lin pouted his lips.

Also! Not long after Yao Qi finally stopped ignoring him, he moved on to worry about another person. And not just anyone at that, but the chief culprit who caused him to be ignored in the first place! This was simply too depressing for Liu Lin.

Sigh—enough of the mental gymnastics. Didn’t everything boil down to the fact that he was jealous? Why must he try to look for such a complicated reason? Liu Lin silently scorned himself.

Then, he became unhappy again.

He threw himself on Yao Qi’s back and leaned his weight onto the man, sneaking several kisses on his face.

This behaviour akin to a large dog’s stunned Yao Qi for a moment, then made him burst out a laugh. He lightly patted Liu Lin’s head, “I don’t even have any relation to her.”

This was his answer to Liu Lin’s question.

How could he worry about her when they weren’t related in any way?

His only worry was that Liu Lin would be dragged into the mess if something were to happen to that girl.

Liu Lin hummed a couple of times to indicate that he understood.

The two of them kept this posture and stood in the middle of the door for about three minutes.

Soon, Yao Qi felt his legs going numb, so he helplessly raised his hand and patted Liu Lin’s head again.

“How long are you planning to stand here?”

“I just wanna hug you.”

It wasn’t because he wanted to stand.

Yao Qi got the point.

“Haven’t you hugged me enough?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you tired of it?”

“No.”

“Ah-Lin, I think you’ve been getting more and more like a dog.”

“But that thing is so stupid. Am I stupid?” Liu Lin knew what Yao Qi said was indeed true, but he also still wanted some face, so he widened his eyes and played dumb.

“Yes,” Yao Qi curled the corners of his mouth, “and very clingy as well.”

“…” Liu Lin initially wanted to refute, but when he thought about how he was currently acting, he couldn’t find any words of rebuttal.

Although it was frustrating to be compared to a dog, the fact that he acted similar to one was irrefutable.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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“Tsk.” Hearing that, Liu Lin at last let him go.

Yao Qi closed the door, then sat on the sofa and patted the space next to him, signalling Liu Lin to come over.

Despite showing him an annoyed expression, Liu Lin still trudged over and sat down obediently.

Seeing his grumpy yet obedient attitude, Yao Qi laughed and pinched his face.

“It hurts, ouch, it really hurts—” grinning from ear to ear, Liu Lin called out in obvious pretence. “Baby, give me a kiss—” He grabbed the collar of Yao Qi’s shirt and pulled it down as he straightened up in seat and leaned in.

“Where did you learn to do this kind of improper stuff?” This time, Yao Qi didn’t let him do as he pleased. He raised his head and dodged backwards, using his hand to block Liu Lin’s approach.

“From the TV.” Failing to get his kiss, Liu Lin pouted at the television. And then, without minding that Yao Qi had used it to ruffle his hair before, Liu Lin pecked and gnawed on his hand. “Xiao Qi’s not reacting like the heroines I saw on TV, he won’t even let me kiss him. I’m gonna give those shows a bad review.”

“Even dogs don’t bite as much as you do.” Yao Qi lifted his eyebrows, but he didn’t feel pain because Liu Lin wasn’t using any strength. “Don’t watch too much of those soap operas on TV. If you turn stupid, I won’t like you anymore.”

Yao Qi’s mother was a practical person. The day she gave birth to Yao Qi happened to be on the seventh of July, so she simply named him Yao Qi. But his grandmother thought that it was too impetuous, so in the end, Yao Qi’s name was changed to Yao Qi.

Although Liu Lin previously hated the nickname, he also started calling him Xiao Qi after Yao Qi told him the story behind it.

“It proves that I’m not a dog.” After thinking for a moment, he added another reply, “Once the goods have been received, they cannot be returned. Otherwise, the consequences will be at the buyer’s own risk.”

Done with his speech, Liu Lin threw himself on top of Yao Qi and bit his neck. As he continued to bite and nibble, the atmosphere began to change. He raised his head, stared into Yao Qi’s eyes, and said very seriously, “Let’s do it. I want to do it.”

Yao Qi curled his finger and flicked Liu Lin’s forehead. Then he tilted his head and looked at him with a smile, “Wait first. For now, we’re going to talk about why I got so angry with you.”

As he spoke, Yao Qi picked up the fruit knife on the table and gave it a slight shake, revealing the gleaming blade.

“We?” Liu Lin raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, we,” repeated Yao Qi with a smile.

“Okay fine, let’s talk if you wanna talk.” Although what he wanted to say was ‘didn’t you say you’d tell me the answer after we got back? Why did it suddenly turn into a discussion?’, he didn’t mind cooperating with what Yao Qi wanted.

“Then I’m going to ask you a few questions now. Is that alright?”

“Oh.”

“Is ‘oh’ a yes or a no?”

“…Yes.”

Why did this feel so strange?

Liu Lin thought this was way too strange.

It was kind of like—like something that would happen when a teacher was asking questions to a class of elementary school students.

In Yao Qi’s eyes, was there not much difference between him and a group of young children?

If true, then that was pretty bad.

Liu Lin forgot that this kind of situation was normally used to lead people into a trap. But even if you knew it was a trap, you would still jump in, because what lied inside the trap was the thing you desired.

“Did your wounds hurt?”

“Ah? Oh, not really, I didn’t really notice it.” It should have hurt, he thought, but when he entered a fighting state, he wouldn’t care whether it hurt or not. Sometimes, he would even get more excited because of the pain in his body. In the past, he would feel pain from all the injuries he got from the fight after he had calmed down. Later, he simply developed the habit of ignoring it. After all, pain was something normal to him, so if you were to ask him whether or not it hurt, he really didn’t pay any mind to it.

“Really?”

“…It hurt quite a lot when I took a shower.” His emotions had already calmed down by then.

“Then you still continued to shower?” Blue veins were already bulging out on Yao Qi’s clenched fists.

“I was really dirty. You won’t be happy to see it.” Liu Lin didn’t intend to say the second sentence, but by the time he realised, it had already slipped out of his mouth. He immediately frowned at his own slip of the tongue.

Yao Qi was stumped by his words, a mix of emotions gushing out of his chest. He didn’t know what he was currently feeling—whether he was more angry or distressed, or moved, or something else entirely

He couldn’t speak for a moment.

Yao Qi adjusted his emotions, and then, in front of Liu Lin, made a cut on the back of his own hand with the fruit knife.

Liu Lin watched Yao Qi nimbly commit this series of actions, his eyes dazed with confusion.

A line of red appeared on the skin grazed by the knife, thin as a thread.

Liu Lin instantly paled, his eyes flying open.

There was blood trickling out of Yao Qi’s cut.

“What are you doing!!!”

As his hand was snatched away, the scream blasting in his ears almost made Yao Qi laugh. He reckoned that by tomorrow, the manager would receive a report of complaint about his unit being too noisy.

“Still laughing? You’re still laughing?!! Have you lost your fucking mind??” With his hand in Liu Lin’s grasp, Yao Qi could feel the man’s own hands beginning to tremble, his hold unsteady.

Then Liu Lin let go of his hand and ran into the bedroom to grab something.

He came out not long after, but because he was in too much of a hurry, Yao Qi saw that he almost fell after tripping on the decorative ladder in front of the room.

The mishap looked quite comical, but Yao Qi couldn’t laugh. The moment it happened, he was so nervous it felt as though his heart had jumped out of his throat

What Liu Lin took was the medical kit.

“It’s quite painful.” Actually, it wasn’t too painful, but he thought that by saying this, he would be able to get his point across more effectively.

Liu Lin, who was bandaging Yao Qi, was obviously dumbfounded. Then he raised his head to glare at Yao Qi and scolded him through gritted teeth, “You know it hurts yet you still did it, have you also gone crazy?”

“It’s only a small cut, why are you panicking?”

“Huh? What did you say—”

“And it’s not you who got cut, so why are you even more worried than me?”

“It’s precisely because it’s you—”

Before Liu Lin could finish speaking, Yao Qi interrupted his sentence.

“The cut is on my hand, and it’s me who feels the pain, what are you upset for? Could it be that you’re also feeling hurt?”

“…” Liu Lin frowned at him with an expression that looked like he wanted to bite the man to vent his anger. Although he didn’t know why such an impulse appeared, he couldn’t bear to do it, so he could only continue glaring at Yao Qi.

“Answer the question, Ah-Lin.”

The answer was already dangling right in front of him.

It was because he cared about Yao Qi.

He should be happy, because this was the outcome he had been looking forward to, but he dared not admit it.

He was afraid.

Afraid that Yao Qi had been setting up a trap for him, and that after he lured him inside, the man would then tell him he also cared about him as much as he did.

That would have completely cut down his claws.

But he was even more afraid that Yao Qi would not give him the same answer.

So he chose to play dumb.

“I don’t know!”

“You’re not allowed to say you don’t know.”

“Don’t know means I don’t know! This question is too difficult, I don’t know the answer.” Liu Lin buried his head in his neck, pretending to be a fool.

“You know it. Be good and answer the question.” Yao Qi put his hand on top of Liu Lin’s head to rub it.

“…”

“If you don’t answer, I’ll make another cut and let you continue thinking about it.” Yao Qi bent over and looked at the man with a smile, softly talking to him.

“You dare!?”

Liu Lin raised his face and straightened his neck to glare at him.

Yao Qi only gazed back at him smilingly, not saying a word.

Liu Lin looked at his beaming face and finally lowered his head.

Yao Qi would do it for real.

Yao Qi was very stubborn.

Wasn’t Yao Qi making use of the fact that Liu Lin liked him?

Liu Lin’s heart was filled with depression, but it immediately surged up with anger. Yes, he liked Yao Qi. Yes, he fell for his trick. Anything wrong with that?

Who dared to have an objection?

“I fucking care about you!” He gritted his teeth and spat out these words, staring at Yao Qi as if he was going to eat him.

At last, a real look of joy appeared in Yao Qi’s smiling eyes. He hummed and moved close to this fierce dog who was puffing in anger, appeasing him with a kiss.

Small Theatre

There was a Tibetan Mastiff living in Fox Xiao Qi’s house, a very powerful and big mad dog.

One day, Cat Xiao Yue, who was once fed by Fox Xiao Qi, came to harass Fox Xiao Qi and even planned to kidnap him as her reserve food.

Tibetan Mastiff Lin was extremely furious. He fought with Cat Xiao Yue behind Fox Xiao Qi’s back, suffered a lot of injuries, and even got his wounds wet. In the end, Fox Xiao Qi found out about everything.

So Fox Xiao Qi got angry, and Tibetan Mastiff Lin was deprived of the right to sleep with him.

Tibetan Mastiff Lin: Why won’t you let me sleep with you! What did I do wrong?!

Fox Xiao Qi: You guess.

Tibetan Mastiff Lin: QAQ

But because Tibetan Mastiff Lin was too stupid and couldn’t figure out the answer, Fox Xiao Qi decided to bite himself, and then—

Tibetan Mastiff Lin: Aaaaaaah I got it, I got it! Xiao Qi, is it painful? QAQ