His rare inability to explain makes me feel a little distressed. I pull him to sit on the sofa, bring him the hot dinner, and pour him a glass of warm orange juice.

Mingcheng likes juice very much.

I put his dinner on the coffee table, but he is not in a hurry to eat. Rather, he remains sitting on the sofa with his hands gently holding my waist. He raises his head and looks at me with a smile, as if enjoying it when I lean over to wipe his dirty suit jacket.

“What trouble did you encounter tonight?” My mind is still fixated on this sentence.

Since my family member came home so late, I restrain myself from asking questions. But my worry is unavoidable, and he has a responsibility to give me an explanation.

He smiles wryly and shrugs, taking one hand back to place it on the back of my hand. “The car in front of me hit someone, resulting in a hit-and-run. It took me some time to cooperate with the police investigation, otherwise I would have still been back with you after five o’clock today.”

A hit-and-run?!

I frown. These people who hit people and run away in broad daylight are truly disgusting. Although the car accident did not happen to Mingcheng, him being there is enough to make me scared. I digest the information, but feel that something isn’t right: “Then why did Secretary Li say you were having a board meeting around seven o’clock?”

According to Mingcheng’s statement, his off-duty hours should be the same as usual, and he would have been cooperating with the police investigating the traffic accident after seven o’clock.

Mingcheng’s movements as he kneads my fingers are almost imperceptible. I’m a little confused, but the helpless expression on his face remains unchanged: “I was afraid you would be worried about me.”

It was because of this?

“Are you stupid?” I pull my hand away angrily. “You didn’t tell me because I would be worried, but I would find out sooner or later. If there was something wrong with you and I didn’t know about it, how painful would it be when I found out?”

A night full of worries and concealed emotions break out all at once, making me furious. I angrily push away the hand on my waist, step out from between his knees, and walk toward the room with a sullen face.

Seeing that I am truly angry, he quickly stands up and takes my arm.

I look back at him then, surprised to find that he is actually smiling.

Before I can get even angrier, he hugs me tightly from behind.

I’m so angry that I want to break away and throw him over my shoulder, then let him lie on the couch tonight.

But unexpectedly, I discover that his strength is unshakable.

Although I am not in very good health and don’t have the habit of exercising like Mingcheng, I am also a young man, after all. When we were roughhousing in the past, if I struggled with all of my strength, it would not be easy for him to completely subdue me without hurting me.

But now he is holding me with a smile and a relaxed expression, but his body and arms are like iron. Even when I try my utmost, I can’t break away at all.

Oh my god, is this the strength normal people have?

Was he always holding back before?

I suddenly feel that he would have a better chance at becoming a world boxing champion than Mingyi.

When he sees that I have given up struggling, he lowers his head from behind and nuzzles my face. “A-Zhen, I’m so happy.”

I am not happy. “Happy my ass!”

“Haha.” He laughs and turns me around, hugging me from the front.

I’m forced to lean against him like a pancake. From this angle, I can see his smooth jawline and the sleek lines of his profile, so delicate and perfect that they almost seem unreal.

His eyes are ink-dark to the very tips. I raise my hand and push his head away.

And he follows the trend to kiss my palm.

“So this is how it feels when you worry about me. It’s so wonderful.” He looks sideways at me. The tails of his eyes are curved up, and his eyes are sweet and soft, but very bright. “I’m really addicted to it.”

His eyes are bottomless, like dark holes that could swallow a person. My scalp feels inexplicably numb as we stare at each other.

“It’s like you’re finding out for the first time that I worry about you.” I think this is the reason he’s making me nauseous with his sweet talk in the middle of the night. It is nothing to be angry about. “Hurry up and eat some food to shut your mouth.”

He blinks and glances back at the dinner on the table.

Unsurprisingly, I watch as he takes a sip of his favorite orange juice first.

Then he suddenly turns to look at me, and before I can react, he pulls me to his side, grabs my chin, and lowers his head to kiss my lips.

“You let me go—mmph!”

He is strong. When he forces me to accept the sip of orange juice, I punch him in the chest.

During the struggle, the two of us fall on the sofa together. Because we are so close, the scent of fringed flowers also begins to wrap around me…..laying on top of him, I keenly sense the change in the atmosphere. I try to get up, but my wrists, which are propping me up on the sofa, are held by him.

Mingcheng relies on his size advantage to easily turn over. He gives a long exhale, “A-Zhen…..”

. . . . . . .

“I thought it would be easy just being your personal doctor, but I didn’t expect that I would be your part-time driver as well.” Dr. Zhao parks the car in front of my house and turns to speak with me through the car window.

All year round, he only wears gray. It’s fortunate that he is still good-looking. This kind of outfit makes people think that a doctor has rich qualifications and a stable personality.

I put the lacquered wooden box containing my painting tools into the car first, then get into the passenger seat with a smile. “It just so happens that I need to see you for a follow-up consultation today, so why not take me to work on the way? There’s a new student I need to meet today.”

This year, I am busy with art exhibitions and haven’t gone to school, only getting up mid-morning. Mingcheng is not at home, and since I don’t go out very often and don’t know how to drive, I just freeload when I go out. 

Dr. Zhao glances at me sideways.

I blink innocently at him.

He grunts and starts the vehicle, no longer looking at me.

I went to bed very late the night before. Wen Mingcheng made me mentally anxious and physically exhausted all night long, and the more I thought about it, the more irritated I felt. After washing up, he actually tried to go back to the bedroom with me, but I reached behind me and locked him out in the living room. 

It was already two o’clock in the morning when I dragged my weak body back to the room. I threw down my phone and collapsed on the big, soft bed, ready to sleep like this. But I didn’t expect that there were people not sleeping in the middle of the night, and someone actually sent me a message at two o’clock.

You Can Do It Pi Gao: Teacher, I passed the exam!! I’ve been admitted to the Beihua Academy of Fine Arts as a graduate student. I can finally be your student!

You Can Do It Pi Gao: Even though you’re probably dreaming right now, Teacher, I’m so happy…..

He sent a lot of texts, but I stared at this Pi Gao and couldn’t remember who he was for a while.

Mingcheng and I had worked as graduate tutors at the Beihua Academy of Fine Arts when we returned from studying in the UK, and I had also been invited to attend special classes at many universities. There were many students who called me teacher, but I actually remembered very few of them.

After my graduate students graduated the year before, I was busy organizing art exhibitions and didn’t have any more students. So I wanted to congratulate him out of politeness, but didn’t know who he was. 

But I soon discovered that this was not a problem.

You Can Do It Pi Gao: Oh, by the way, Teacher, you may have forgotten me. I’m Pi Gao, ah. I used to be a music major at Beihua University. Back then, you advised me to be careful not to jump into a profession I wasn’t prepared for, and specifically allowed me to take a semester of your graduate course at the university. I am very grateful to you. I was the one in the middle of the first row!

Oh, I remember…..

A few years ago, a graduate student from the music department contacted me via email and asked me to please allow him to attend my class for one semester. This was an interdisciplinary student, but his eyes were very bright during class, and he always sat in the center of my sight. After one semester, I never saw him again. I thought he had given up, but didn’t expect that he had actually passed the exam. 

So I sincerely congratulated him: “Congratulations, Classmate Pi…..”

I always see new students in person before they take my class. Before going to the university, I complete a basic checkup with Dr. Zhao, and after that, he gives me medicine as usual.

I look at the medicine he gives me, and after some thought, I describe to him my experience with suspected auditory hallucinations.

He frowns upon hearing this: “You heard Mr. Wen calling you?”

I nod: “I heard it as if it really happened, but there was definitely no one at home.”

Dr. Zhao gives me a deep look when he hears this, and then leaves for a moment. About two minutes later, he pushes the door open and puts a document and a pen on the table in front of me: “Please fill this in.”

I look at the title of the document, ‘MMSE Brief Mental Status Scale.’

He also suspects that my symptoms are getting worse.

About an hour later, he picks up the scale I filled out and browses through the items. Looking at me behind his glasses, he asks casually: “How is your sleep lately?”

I know that he is checking on my condition, so I consider it seriously and tell him: “It’s okay.”

He uses the tip of his pen to go over the items on my scale, assessing my mind through words. “Besides hearing him call you, have you heard anything else? Was it just this once, or does it happen from time to time?”

“I didn’t hear anything else, and it was just once,” I answer him.

After checking the scale, there aren’t any problems. Dr. Zhao ponders for a moment before saying: “Actually, ordinary people sometimes have auditory hallucinations, but your situation doesn’t let me completely rest assured. You should return to your normal life first. If this happens repeatedly, I suggest another systematic brain exam and a CT scan.”

His words make sense. That is all that can be done for now.

It is now noon, and he picks up his car keys and sends me to the Beihua University of Fine Arts. I haven’t been to school in a long time, and today I need to meet my student and deal with work matters.

The car stops in front of the Hui-style flower pavilion as we had arranged. It is a summer afternoon, and the car smells bad when the sun is shining on it. I lower the car window next to me and talk with Dr. Zhao.

“I thought you weren’t going to take students this year.”

I look at the lotus buds that are about to bloom out by the lake and raise my eyebrows: “I didn’t plan to, but this student has been working very hard across majors for many years, and I can’t bear not to.”

Dr. Zhao leans back in his chair and says in a very calm tone: “You can’t do this kind of thing only through hard work. It seems to me that he is very lucky.”

I am a hard-working person and don’t believe in luck.

He doesn’t speak, but takes a cigarette out of the cigarette case. He prepares to smoke, but remembers that I’m at his side and sighs with a frown, tossing the cigarette onto the dash.

Adhering to the principle of not littering, I pick up the cigarette and play with it between my fingers.

Perhaps it is because the school’s staff is quite mixed after the recent graduation season, or maybe the action of holding a cigarette between my fingers causes a misunderstanding, but as I lean against the car window and look out, a well-dressed man lights a cigarette and bends down to hand it to me.

“Sir, you are gorgeous.”

Dr. Zhao frowns deeply and closes the window before I can say any words of refusal.

And I am momentarily stunned by this conversation. It’s not that I was offended, but this sentence reminds me of Mingcheng many years ago.

He had not quit smoking at that time, and I caught him smoking behind my back in the yard. His face was gorgeous in the haze of smoke, and used I this sentence to tease him. 

I recall that his face instantly turned red, and when I still wanted to tease him, he quickly kissed the side of my face, his lowered eyelashes trembling…..

Mingcheng was really gentle and pure at that time.

There is a dull pain in my waist as I lean back in the chair, and I change my posture unnoticeably. Mingcheng’s bottomless eyes when he pressed me down come to mind, and I belatedly realize that his personality seems to have changed a lot after getting married.

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T/N: I won’t always be able to update daily, but I’ve been working on this for a while and have a considerable amount of chapters stocked up!

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Chapter 5 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 7