The two applaud to celebrate episode ten being over successfully.
Bright is fiercer than ever, frying the aristocrat top and bottom. He seems to have been affected by the aftereffects of the fight to death. His movement is both fierce and kind, forcing Hopkin to beg for mercy again and again. In the end, even his bones seem to have mellowed out.
âAh⌠Enough⌠NoâŚâ
âPlease⌠BriâŚght⌠UuuâŚâ
Bright puts Hopkinâs head face-to-face with him, and then lowers his head to secure his lips. A long and entangled deep kiss follows.
âI always feel unsatisfied.â He soothes him with a quiet voice, asking Hopkin to endure a bit longer, before displaying more facial expressions. His voice is both dangerous and affectionate. He details his need of the aristocrat, transmits his deepest desires. Through their tight physical conjoinment and passionate movement, he acquires psychological satisfaction.
Strange. Even if he has already got what he wanted most, Bright still feels a bit nervous all the time. He feels unsteady, as if he might lose it at any moment.
Bright thinks this might be him not feeling secure in this relationship. While Hopkinâs social position is one thing, his appearance and personality is another. The beautiful aristocrat is oftentimes cold, is a clean-freak and control-freak. He can be described as a lone flower blossoming atop the cliffs. Only in physical exercise does he show the expression that is expressive and passionate, as if saying âI want.â
This might have been the reason he chose to elope with him in the first place. Bright laughs bitterly. He has been illogical and without principle in this. He wants to be together with Hopkin no matter the method. For every day he is alive, he wants to spend it with the aristocrat with black eyes and black hair. He is enchanted, as if he has been infected with a virus of love, or head-tamed . He canât act like himself. Even if he has to ignore his will, he still wants to take him away to be his romantic partner.
âThis is too much⌠Stop uuu aah!â
Hopkinâs cheeks are red. Tears are welling up from his obsidian-like eyes. Small droplets of water dangle on his fluttering eyebrows, like dews on a conifer needle, or butterfly with its wings wet, appearing extra pitiful.
Brightâs breathing is growing uneven. His brown eyes look as if darkened. Even though he doesnât say it out loud, he actually loves the aristocrat when he is like this so much. He canât tire of this no matter how many times he looks. As if a daily routine, he will only agree to slow down and listen to him when he makes Hopkin appear ghastly like that.
Bright is thinking how he has never been like this himself in his entire life. Maybe itâs fuqixiang ?
Hopkin would be speechless if he knows what Brightâs thinking.
Brightâs perversion is traceable. From his discomfort, alert and defensive self when he first arrived, to becoming used to the rules in the City and becoming able to use them to his advantage, to being able to deal with all sorts of people in the City, to maintain a tentative relationship with them and let each other be. While his goal has been to use others, but a premise of using someone is that you implicitly trust them. He believes the people he is using can bring him benefits. He believes in their value and ability. He believes they can maintain a temporary cooperation between them.
Since his transmigration, Brightâs psychological state has become unhealthy. Despite the game world letting him vent his emotions out and adjust himself, becoming a buffer zone between his past peaceful world and the current dark twisted world, he has still always been suppressed and unhappy.
After falling in love with Hopkin, miraculously, he discovers that his mental state has become better, a bit more optimistic. It is a subtle and fascinating change.
The most telling evidence is that he no longer feels that fear as if his neck is held in a stranglehold. It feels like he has finally escaped his fate of tragedy. That devil that always seemed to be enticing him and making him question his morals, that always cause him anxiety seems to have gone too.
Like he himself said before, he has to control his desires and align with the heavenly principles. To be in polyamorous relationships is scummy. It is a desire that requires tempering. He will only seek one romantic partner, yes. But has he actually looked for one? The answer is no. Even when it came to his normal desires, he still suppressed, restrained and rejected himself. This attempted absolute elimination of sexual desire is highly problematic.
Like Ginger who has been so open with his affection for Bright who Bright has never considered to accept. Thereâs so many handsome boys and girls in the City that he ignores completely. Why? Because heâs afraid!
Because heâs afraid that heâll be forcibly transformed from a herbivore to a carnivore; from a cute little house cat into a ferocious wild tiger.
While it might be a rebirth, there is a risk of laying out hidden pitfalls for himself.
And it is exactly after meeting the aristocrat that he has a method of dredging his emotions. A perfect unison of love and desire. A climax for both the body and the mind. Itâs Hopkin. Hopkin lets him relax, to seek happiness, to enjoy happiness.
Bright is a dam filled to capacity, close to bursting. While a calamity is imminent, the clueless villagers just downstream go about their business normally. Hopkin is a greedy thief who knocks a hole in the dam, trying to steal its waters to irrigate his parched fields, and in the end he ends up coincidentally saving the entire village.
Bright kisses the aristocrat who has fallen asleep, holding him in his embrace. He looks at the calm, harmless face, and falls deep into thought.
He has questioned his unreasonable amount of love for the aristocrat. Besides his beauty and wisdom, their values are absolutely mismatched. How ever did he fall in love with him?
Love is surely a problem that is complex and difficult to analyse.
You can say itâs simple. Itâs the single moment of the heart skipping a beat followed by a lifelong commitment; you can also say itâs complex and ever-changing, its ups and downs unpredictable; you can say itâs down-to-earth, just like a daily routine, or the three meals of a day; you can say itâs fantastical and poetic, on high, we'd be two birds flying wing to wing; on earth, two trees with branches twined from spring to spring .
He and Hopkin are like the two opposite poles on a magnet. Besides their gender, everything else is differentââare they attracted to each other because of that?
While in thought, Bright misses midnight and doesnât return to the game world. He looks down at the aristocrat for a while. The more he looks, the more awake he becomes. So he instead gives up on sleep and starts surreptitiously touching and kissing him. Heâs acting gently afraid to wake him up. Luckily, the aristocrat is too tired and is in a very deep sleep, so he doesnât find him out.
Today is another vlog day. Bright is sent back to his apartment after having lunch with Hopkin.
While heâs alone, Hopkin opens up a video he took in secret yesterday. Bright doesnât know about it so all his actions are his most natural and real.
His black pair of eyes widen. He is surprised to see what the man did to him at night. It is exactly moments like that that his actions are reflective of himself. The way the man looked at him is almost oozing so much affection that it feels as if itâll overflow out of the screen.
âHow⌠stupidâŚâ
His lips canât help but curl into a smile. He feels as if the flowers have become more colourful, the grass more verdant, the sky clearer, even the air tastes fresher.
He works with his smart chip and edits out most of their passionate parts, only leaving behind the manâs kissings and huggins that are full of love, without desire when he was asleep.
To eliminate Bright from the suspects list of the arson case, Hopkin presents the video as evidence, to prove that Bright is completely under the influence of the chip, completely controlled by him.
Then he uninstalls the camera. It is only for this occasion. He refuses to share Bright with anyone else in any form under any circumstances.
The video is presented as evidence, so it is basically public. Gentleman is also seen to be accepting the supervision of everyone with this. The video is sent in the group formed by the people whose suspicions have been lifted. The name of the group is simple and directâââI did not make number 199.â Itâs completely Detectiveâs style, that is, for things outside of mysteries, he would not give it any extra thought.
Detective checks the video, double-checking that number 199 is definitely unaware of him being filmed. He smacks his lips when he sees the man who has absolutely fallen in love.
âNumber 199âs suspicions are cleared for now. His origins are still unclear and the monitoring will continue. The person who artificially manufactured him must be closely following his situation. We might be able to find something out given this information.â
This is an inefficient method, but also an effective method. Though for some reason, Detective feels that they wonât be getting anywhere doing so. He focuses on the staff members of the show themselves, and manages to dig up quite a bit of unrelated troubles. For example, factions in the Outer City has managed to infiltrate the show to a higher extent than estimated; many staff members sell clips of the contestants privately for profit. Though none of this information is useful for the problem itself.
Detective furrows his brows, suspecting his direction of investigation may have been wrong.
Unlike Detective, most of the people in the group are not doing productive work. Or rather, someone is already doing all the work for them.
âWaking up to someone publicly flouting affections.â Careful you donât break up overnight.
âWant to see the part before sleeping.â Why is it just tucking into bed and sleeping?
âWould you want to see the Gentleman or number 199?â
âBoth.â That person gets a DM after answering so earnestly. He and the sender has a chat in a group outside of Gentlemanâs view.
After talking for a while, someone suddenly says, âgo look at the main group.â That person glances at it, seeing that the group is getting active because someone asked a question.
â@Scientist @Gentleman, can the chip in number 199 be used repeatedly?â
Scientist: What do you mean?
âYouâve changed the thing he wants the most into Gentleman. Can you change it to something else?â
This question is so direct it is like Sima Zhao's ambition - everyone can tell that heâs asking if it can be changed to âme.â
Hopkin almost wants to smash his smart chip. His expression darkens so much as if ink would be dripping out any second now.
âOf course. Take the chip out, rewrite it and install it back in. Just like how the chip of the Outer City military can be repaired if it broke. Though there is a certain risk here. Human logic is not that easily bypassed, and if it discovers a logical inconsistency it will readjust automatically, and reason it out as a self-protection mechanism so that no conflict occurs that might result in mental collapse. Itâs fine if itâs done once or twice, but the more the chip is changed, the weaker the efficiency of self-adjustment. It will not only alert number 199, the influence of the chip will also weaken to the point that medicine and external stimulation must be employed in tandem.â
âUnderstood. Thanks.â
The group falls inactive. In stark contrast to that, Hopkin receives a great amount of DMs, all asking directly or indirectly whether they can become the next âloverâ of number 199.
Hopkin is so livid he canât even eat. He chooses to block them all and ignore them.
As if even the heavens are trying to mess about with him, the vlogâs guest for the day is Ginger, that white lotus who is openly in love with Bright.
For this vlog, the show has recorded a teaser and uploaded it when theyâre at Gingerâs to pick him up. There is a dialogue between Ginger and number 56 in it.
Since heâs going to Brightâs, Ginger prepares a bag of fruit, kind of like visiting an old friend.
Piers appears to feel nothing but contempt, âit would have been better to prepare a box of extra-large condoms to show how faithful you are.â
Perhaps itâs because there are staff members present, and Ginger, for once, retorts him directly in a confident tone, âI donât need others to tell me how to like people. I might hope that he would like me back, but things like this are free. I am free to fall in love with him, then he is free to ignore my pursuit. This isnât that big a deal.â
Hopkin mocks him inside. Ginger understands Bright well, precisely pinpointing the manâs vitals. He might not actually think so, but he knows what to say and to do to win Brightâs affection.
He can almost foresee how Bright would react after watching the teaser.
Will he feel touched? Will he be moved?
Hopkin almost wants to rush to the place immediately and stop the show, to chop that white lotus up into a meal. Though he only maturely, nobly, smashes a set of teapots into pieces.
Authorâs notes: Our Top is a heartthrob, and now Bottom is jealous!