Chapter 24

After this great torture session had ended, if I really did have insider information, I'd definitely have betrayed the organisation and confessed everything already. My mind felt like it was filled with paste. I couldn't help but doubt that I was genuinely this dirty beast's biological younger brother. It would be great if I wasn't.

Halfway through the night, I woke up feeling extremely thirsty. I called my Ge to help me pour a glass of water, but my throat couldn't make any sound at all and when I lifted a hand to push him, my arms ached and couldn't create any force.

I groggily shuffled up to his side and hoarsely asked him to take some water for me.

My Ge was a light sleeper. He immediately jolted awake and pulled me into the crook of his arm. In a seasoned manner, he helped me to tuck my feet back into the blanket, then silently rubbed my back, words of comfort repeatedly leaving his mouth as he brought the water bottle at the head of the bed over right to my mouth.

I rarely heard him use such a gentle tone to speak, as though he was comforting a little girl. In reality, I was neither weak nor little, but his tone seemed to come naturally like he did this often. His previous lovers were probably just too unreasonable[1], idiotically clinging to him as they acted coquettishly, begging him to hug them. He was accustomed to it already. Perhaps it was Shi Chen, that delicate and fair little prostitute who looked like a weeping beauty when he cried, causing people to want to take care of him tenderly. When I thought of this, I felt just a little bit of emptiness.

When my Ge's hand made contact with my skin, he distinctly trembled a bit and mumbled the word 'hot'. He turned on a dim wall light and fished out a thermometer from the drawer, shaking the thermometer a few times before putting it in my armpit.

I didn't know what had happened either, my whole body feeling inexpressibly unwell. I instinctively pressed my scalding hot body against my Ge. I didn't have the strength to clasp the thermometer in place, I just wanted to hug Duan Rui.

He asked me what was wrong and where I felt unwell. I incoherently mumbled, My butt hurts, it's swollen, a burning hot kind of pain, my waist and legs hurt, my throat hurts too.

"The anti-inflammatory medicine is upstairs, I'll go get it. Give me a minute, don't fall asleep." He patted me and got up to leave. I seized him, my upper body pinning his chest down.

"Duan Rui, you said you wouldn't let me get injured, but now it hurts like hell," I tiredly grabbed the front of his shirt and confronted him, my right hand feeling around for the broom to hit him, "Are you really my biological elder brother, fucking so ferociously…"

He held my fingers and pressed them to his lips, "Mn…I'll help you massage your waist tomorrow."

"Ge, I think you're sick too, you have violent tendencies. You should go to the hospital before it's too late to see if you have any dark psychological issues. You've inherited it from Duan Jinjiang."

My mind wasn't very clear, and when people were in a fit of anger they never chose their words carefully, easily hurting others with their words. I shouldn't have said that, I hadn't actually meant it.

My Ge sat next to me. He stayed silent for a long time, relaxing his hold on me and taking his hand away like he was afraid of hurting me again.

With great difficulty, I supported my body and got up. I saw that he was reaching a hand out to take the box of cigarettes at the head of the bed. I went to snatch it away, but I unexpectedly didn’t have enough strength so I stumbled and crashed onto my Ge’s chest, tumbling down the bed with him and hitting the floor with a loud thud.

In the short span of half a second, I reacted faster than my brain did and cushioned the back of his head with my forearm to prevent him from hitting it and turning dumb. At the same time, he also tightened his arms around me, letting all my weight fall on his body.

The thermometer was brought down along with us, shattering into pieces with a bright sound. Glass and mercury splattered, leaving two blood-like streaks across my Ge’s arm.

“Shit, holy shit, you’re okay right?” My head was swimming as I resisted the pain throughout my body to hurriedly stagger to my feet. In any case, I was at least sixty or so kilograms. My first thought was to not cause my Ge to break any bones, and my second thought was that my teacher had said that mercury was toxic, would my Ge die?

My Ge staggered to his feet. He rubbed his back, which had hit the floor, and spat out a mouthful of blood.

“Holy fuck, quick, call 120[2]...” I instantly had a last spurt of energy and pulled my Ge onto my back, allowing no protest from him. A heavy man weighing down on me made my two legs shake. Fucking hell, I was just too brilliant, considering how I had just been fucked until I had a fever. Bloody hell, being a strong, muscled type bottom was indeed not easy. My Ge was currently like a delicate flower, sprawled out half-dead on my back. His brows were furrowed, making people want to take care of him tenderly.

“Xiao Yan...dislikes Ge now?”

“No, don’t talk so much, I’ll carry you to the living room first, then wait for me to put on a pair of pants before sending you to the hospital…”

My upper body was bare and I only had underwear on, carrying him while I rushed towards the bedroom door in a flurry. If my Ge died, I would hold him in my hands and put him into the small drawer in the crematorium, then donate all of his money to the China Wildlife Conservation Association. I wouldn’t leave a single cent to my parents, not a single cent, even if they were animals too.

Pft.

My Ge suddenly laughed out loud. From the reflection in the black decorative marble wall, I saw two white, misbehaved canine teeth.

Sprawled on my back, he kissed my ear and unhurriedly said, If you had paid attention in class, then you would know that mercury has to be consumed in excess to be toxic.

I was stupefied for a full ten seconds, then flipped this old bastard over in one go and pressed him into the sofa. I pinched his jaw and opened his mouth, discovering that the skin at the corner of his lips had broken and was bleeding -- I had just been puzzling over what my brow bone had knocked into when I tumbled down.

“Duan Rui, go and fucking die! I’m seriously done with you, stupid cunt! Is it fun?”

My head was buzzing in pain. My Ge really needed to be fucked. If I were eight years older than him, I would have pressed him down and thoroughly fucked him to death. I was unlucky because this crazy fucker was my Ge.

I furiously kicked him a few times, conveniently pulling out a few project management booklets from the bookshelf on the wall and hitting him with them until he cried out in pain. Then I turned and left.

I limped towards the door, planning to go pee and have a smoke to calm myself down when a pair of hands suddenly wrapped around my waist. My Ge hugged me from behind and pulled me into his chest. His clean shaven chin rested on my shoulder, feeling slightly coarse.

His hot breaths closely fanned the back of my neck. Duan Rui’s lips were soft and moist, reminding me of the cool lotus leaves I would pick up out of the pond and press against the back of my neck when I was younger, as well as the dragonflies on my head that my Ge would pinch away.

My Ge quietly pressed against me from behind. From the reflection in the wall, I saw his curved up lashes and the outline of his side profile.

“Duan Rui…” I was just about to scold him when he softly whispered in my ear from behind me, “Duan Yan.”

He said, You felt really anxious, didn’t you? If you’re ever in danger, Ge will also be this anxious.

My heart suddenly trembled a little. Perhaps I had arrhythmia.

At this moment, I didn’t want to commit suicide anymore, even if living was just a slow suicide. I wanted to keep hearing his voice.

My Ge kissed my lower jaw. I couldn’t help but turn to face him. After looking into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, we couldn’t help but kiss.

I covered his hand on my abdomen with my own and turned my head to welcome the tender attack of his lips and tongue. The tip of his tongue carefully slid over my lips, yet did not enter. I opened my mouth slightly, slipping my tongue into his mouth, imitating the thrusting motion of a sexual organ.

In a low voice, he said I was being lewd. His smoker’s voice was slightly husky, the ends of his words dragged out languidly.

I wasn’t actually trying to be lewd, I just couldn’t help it. I had never been able to reject the kisses he gave me.

My Ge flipped us around and pressed me against the marble wall, murmuring ‘I’m sorry’ in a low voice. His two hands rested on my waist as he kissed me. As our lips parted, a sticky string of saliva was drawn out. When it broke, it remained on my lips and was greedily hooked back into my Ge’s mouth by his tongue.

“Fucking hell, you still dare to get hard, old beast.” I forcefully made a grab at the big tent in his underwear. My Ge let out a pained shout and covered his cock, lowering his head and burying his face into my shoulder.

“It hurts.”

“You fucking deserve it.”

His head was lowered, his fair neck exposed before me. I bit it and clamped my teeth down hard, leaving a bite mark with traces of blood.

My Ge was so pained that he inhaled sharply. He held his neck and inspected it in the wall, “I still have work tomorrow, don’t bite there…” He pressed my head against his sternum, “Bite here instead.”

“Idiot, this is flat, how can it be bitten?”

“Plant a few strawberries[3] for me.” He touched a spot at the back of his neck and chuckled under his breath, “Like the kind you secretly left on me when I was asleep; red, sweet strawberries.”

“No.”

“...Baby.”

My God, ‘baby’, bleurgh.

I planted three strawberries for him.

Footnotes:

[1] - Unreasonable: In Chinese it’s ‘矫情’ (jiao qing), it sort of means to purposely kick up a fuss to get attention. It can be seen as a type of flirting because some guys find it cute (to be relied on, I guess). If anyone can provide a better explanation, that would be great.

[2] - 120: Emergency telephone number in China for the ambulance service

[3] - strawberries: Euphemism for hickeys. In previous chapters I called them hickeys instead of strawberries but I couldn’t do that here since Duan Rui called them sweet and I didn’t want to lose that double meaning