He Yan's small rental room was not much more spacious than the narrow hallway. In the tiny room, a single bed took up a quarter of the space. With the addition of a desk and wardrobe, there was not much room left to set foot in.

The room was old and cramped, with a height estimated to be no more than 2.5 meters. When the man stood up, it always gave the terrifying illusion that he was about to hit the ceiling.

Fortunately, he spent most of his time hunched over.

The clothes, books and other items scattered on the floor were picked up one by one and put in their proper places. With his movements, the entire room gradually became tidier.

He Yan sat on the bed, casually tapping on Han Ziyu's original laptop that surprisingly hadn't completely died after being dropped. Lines of code flowed from the screen with each tap of his fingertips, but his attention was obviously not focused on them. His gaze kept glancing at the man's constantly busy figure from time to time.

The man probably had never done the work of tidying up a room for someone before, so his movements were a bit slow.

For the sake of convenience, the man's dignified black suit jacket had been taken off and casually draped over the back of the chair. Now all that remained on his body was a thin, white shirt that couldn't really cover any substantial content.

He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows, revealing pale but muscular forearms. In addition, the muscles of his upper body, such as his bulging pecs and tight back muscles, were vaguely outlined by the thin shirt as he moved.

"......" He Yan withdrew his gaze from the man's back, scanned the code from earlier, and found that he had even messed up the most basic structure.

How did things develop to this point?

Actually, it was quite simple.

After sorting out Xuan Qi's thoughts, the bit of anger in his heart had already mostly dissipated. Not to mention, as soon as Xuan Qi saw him, he looked at him pitifully - although he was probably the only person in the world who could see the words "pitifully" on the man's frosty, icy face.

Naturally, he didn't have the heart to drive him away with a black face, so he had to acquiesce when the man followed him in without being kicked out.

Xuan Qi concealing his identity was ultimately just due to a misunderstanding. He estimated that the man was still feeling uneasy about "forcing" him while unconscious. If he scolded him again, he would probably hide away and suffer silently by himself.

But it was also not very realistic for him to take the initiative to "forgive" the man first.

After all, objectively speaking, he was now a "victim". What reason would there be for him to take the initiative to forgive the perpetrator?

At the very least, he had to wait for the man to apologize to him first before he could forgive him along the steps.

Seeing the messy room, without waiting for He Yan to speak, the man consciously took off his coat and started working.

The room was too small. If two people were both squeezed in, they would bump into each other just by turning around and wouldn't be able to move freely at all. So He Yan directly climbed onto the bed, perfunctorily tapping code while watching the man work.

Although there weren't many things in total, in order to prolong the time spent with the youth, Xuan Qi's movements were very slow. Without using any powers, he dawdled for over an hour before finishing tidying up the scattered bits and pieces all over the floor.

Although he had never had the experience of tidying up a room for someone before, because during the time when that wisp of his spiritual sense was entangled with the youth, he had some impression of what the room originally looked like. So he was able to methodically put everything where it should be.

After putting everything away, he used a few cleaning spells. In the end, the entire room was refreshed, looking even cleaner than before.

In the process of tidying up the room, he naturally also felt the youth's occasional glances. Each time, when the youth's gaze swept over lightly, he wanted to directly stride to the youth's side, hold him in his arms, and do the things they had done countless times in those two days and two nights, using his spiritual sense to fiercely "bully" him and make him show even cuter expressions than before.

...... Just thinking about it, he couldn't help feeling his throat tighten. If he hadn't forcibly suppressed the agitation in his body with his cultivation, he probably would have already embarrassed himself in front of the youth.

Whether it was the intertwining of spiritual senses or the entanglement of bodies, doing it with his true form would definitely be a hundred times more pleasurable than before.

It was just that the youth letting him in today was already far beyond his expectations. If he revealed any other intentions, it was very likely that even this hard-earned treatment would be retracted.

Therefore, even though his heart was almost filled with longing for the youth, he still didn't dare to indulge himself at all. He could only painfully and sweetly do what he should do under the youth's gaze in silence.

After confirming that the entire room was flawless, the man glanced at the time, hesitated for a moment while standing in place, then slowly walked to the bedside. He lowered his eyes to look at the youth, who was curled up on the bed and looked very small, and asked in the gentlest voice he had ever used in his life, "Want to go eat?"

After all that bustle, it was already 6:30 and time for dinner. The bodies of mortals were very delicate, not to mention that the youth's physical condition was not even considered good among mortals. Missing one meal would easily make him uncomfortable.

He Yan slowly moved his gaze from the computer screen full of code, lifted his eyelids and swept a glance at him, his tone unreadable, "No."

They haven't made up yet, and he's already thinking about eating together?

He Yan felt a little amused.

The man was planning to keep playing ostrich and not mention what happened before?

He had already thought it through. As long as the man expressed his stance, he would forgive him, and then they would naturally make up. He didn't expect the man to be such a coward that he didn't even dare to give him a step to get off on, which made him feel quite helpless.

The man was silent for a long time before saying, "I'll go buy some."

With that, he turned and left the small rental room. In less than ten minutes, he pushed the door open again, carrying a bag of steaming hot food.

The dinner the man brought back was very sumptuous. A total of six meal boxes were packed, five of which were opened one by one and placed on the desk, almost crowding the already small desk and continuously emitting fragrance, tempting his taste buds.

It's unknown how the man chose the dishes, but the few he brought back were all his usual favorites. There's no reason not to eat dinner when it's delivered to your door, especially when the aroma of the food had indeed enticed him and made him a bit peckish.

They had been together for several lifetimes, so He Yan had no notion of "being reserved when eating in front of your partner". He took the chopsticks the man handed him and dug in with gusto, until he was 80% full. To avoid eating too much and having an upset stomach at night, he finally put down his chopsticks.

Because the amount of food was really too much, even though He Yan felt he had eaten a lot, in the end more than half was still left.

Seeing that he was no longer eating, the man silently took out a small bowl of shrimp and egg drop soup from the only unopened box, and gently pushed it in front of him.

"......" He Yan had no choice but to force himself to drink a bowl of soup, going from 80% full to a bit stuffed.

When he finally finished this meal and returned from the bathroom after rinsing his mouth, he saw the man's tall figure squeezed into his small chair, his long legs awkwardly splayed out because they couldn't fit under the low desk. He was expressionlessly using the chopsticks He Yan had used to shovel the unfinished food into his own mouth.

Seeing He Yan come out of the bathroom, the man's hand holding the chopsticks paused for a moment. His eyes shifted slightly, and he met He Yan's gaze in an almost obedient manner, until He Yan looked away before continuing his actions. Perhaps the stomachs of non-humans are all bottomless pits. The man used less than half the time it took He Yan to eat to finish off all the remaining food without changing his expression.

He Yan: "......"

When this meal was completely finished and all the remnants on the table had been cleaned up by the man and thrown into the trash can, the sky outside had begun to darken. Under the gray-blue sky, the colorful lights unique to the night in this city had also started to light up here and there.

Because he had eaten too much for dinner, He Yan decided to go out for a walk to aid his digestion, and incidentally use the leftover money from buying the array materials to purchase some other things.

Grabbing his cell phone and wallet, He Yan put on his old backpack and went out the door.

The man followed silently behind him the whole time like a shadow.

Perhaps the combination of a poor student in full street stall attire and a man in a suit and leather shoes, exuding an aura of a successful gentleman, was too strange. Along the way, the two attracted quite a few appraising glances from passersby.

He Yan didn't mind. He had experienced even more extreme scrutiny, so this kind of gaze that couldn't even be called malicious had no effect on him at all.

On the other hand, the cold-faced man seemed to mind these glances. He moved his fingertips and set up a small barrier around the two of them. Although passersby could still see their existence, it was as if they couldn't feel the strangeness about them, and no one cast any more odd looks their way.

He Yan planned to go to the nearest mall to buy a new cell phone and computer. Han Ziyu's cell phone and laptop were both second-hand purchases of already outdated old models. After getting them, they had been used for nearly a year, and the lag was already very noticeable, especially that computer that had been dropped once and was now barely hanging on. Even slightly larger software couldn't run on it at all.

The area where his rental house was located was considered to be on the outskirts of the city. After the entire downtown area had been renovated a few years ago, starting from last year, the higher-ups had finally decided to carry out a large-scale renovation of this last remaining area.

The first step of the renovation was demolition. There were many old houses and illegal structures in this area, including the kind of rental housing He Yan was living in. By next summer at the latest, they would all be demolished.

However, He Yan had no intention of staying long-term in that small rental house, so he wasn't very worried about it.

On the way to the mall, there were quite a few half-demolished houses. Coincidentally, the street lights on one stretch of road were broken, the lighting was very dim, and even the shadows of people cast on the ground were blurry. Coupled with the ruins on the roadside that looked hideous in the night, it seemed quite eerie and horrifying, almost the perfect setting for a ghost story to begin.

If someone with a slightly more timid disposition were to walk here, they would probably be too scared to move.

But He Yan was not afraid of ghosts to begin with, let alone with an underworld big shot following behind him. There was even less to worry about.

However, He Yan soon discovered that he had let his guard down too early.

In the dead of night, besides ghosts and monsters, there might be some other hidden presences.

As he approached the entrance of a pitch-black alley, thanks to his five senses that had become more acute as his spiritual power increased, He Yan heard a faint moan.

At first, he thought someone had met with some mishap in the alley, but soon after, the sound came out again intermittently. This time it was a bit louder, so one could clearly hear a hint of ambiguous tone in the voice. There was even a short scream at the end.

He Yan: "......"

He was not inexperienced. After hearing the last few sounds, he naturally understood right away.

Someone was "doing it" in the dark alley for the thrill of it.

If he had encountered this kind of thing alone, it wouldn't have been a big deal. After an awkward moment, he could have just pretended not to know and quickly left. But now there was a man with designs on him following behind. Encountering this situation, the atmosphere inevitably became a bit awkward.

Enduring the increasingly scorching gaze behind him, He Yan kept walking, gritted his teeth and quickly strode past the alley entrance. But for some reason, this road was not only long, but all the street lights seemed to be broken.

He walked for a full five minutes without encountering a single normally lit street light. Instead, the originally half-hidden full moon fully emerged from the clouds. The cold moonlight poured down like flowing water between heaven and earth, adding a hint of inexplicable coolness to this early summer night.

As he walked, He Yan looked at the blurry reflections on the ground illuminated by the moonlight and finally felt that something was amiss. Turning his head, he met the man's gaze staring straight at him from behind. In the dim night, his eyes were as bright and startling as a beast finally revealing its claws and fangs.

Author's Note:

Big shot: When can I finally hold my wife's little hand (aggrieved.jpg)

Recently, some darlings have been complaining that my chapters are short. I really want to make them longer too, wahhh QAQ But recently it's finals crunch time and my brain is exploding every day, so I really have no way, sob sob sob. Let me try to update more after I get through this week's hellish schedule _(:з」∠)_