Winter in Shanghai came late, but left early. Only a little bit of light snow fell in a month, and a thin layer accumulated on the ground. When looking over the whole city from a high place, the buildings and streets were enveloped in a layer of misty white.

It was a snowy morning and the sky was overcast, perfect for sleeping in. Mu Nanqiao closed his eyes and reached out to grab the person next to him, but found nothing. The lingering warmth on the bed was still there, but the person who should be sleeping under the quilt was not.

His sleepiness dissipated in an instant, and he sat up abruptly. When he looked up, he saw Lu Qi lying by the window.

Perhaps in order to keep the sun from shining in, he only opened a small gap in the curtains. As he looked out the window, his head was stuck through the gap while his body was still outside the curtain.

Mu Nanqiao breathed a sigh of relief. He lifted the quilt and got out of bed. Walking over the carpet on bare feet, he hugged Lu Qi’s waist from behind and lay his head on his shoulder, getting behind the curtains with him to look outside.

“It’s snowing.” Lu Qi rubbed his ear against the side of his face. “And it’s time for postgraduate examinations again!”

Mu Nanqiao kissed his ear, amused: “Baby, you’ve been lying here for so long and you just want to say this? Where is that art student romance?”

“Yes, yes…..” Lu Qi lay on the window and exhaled loudly. He grabbed a thin metal tassel on the edge of the curtain and swiftly drew a little stick figure with antlers on the condensation. The character, pew pew, fired love bullets at a fox-tailed character’s head.

Finally, he said earnestly and a bit stiffly: “Ялюблютебя.”^[1]

Mu Nanqiao was struck by the romance of an art student. He pressed him against the floor-to-ceiling window and kissed him over and over, rubbing against the two stick figures on the glass.

From this day on, Lu Qi began to prepare for the exam. He liked to sleep in, but once he decided to take action, he would never procrastinate. Sometimes he went on a morning jog with Mu Nanqiao, and sometimes he didn’t. Whether he went or not depended on how much exercise he did the night before. In any case, when eight o’clock arrived, while Mu Nanqiao was getting ready to work, Lu Qi sat in the study room and prepared to study.

It was worth mentioning that he occupied Boss Mu’s large mahogany desk, while Mu Nanqiao retreated to the small sofa in the corner.

Sometimes when Boss Mu got off work, Wife Xiao Lu was still practicing copying paintings.

On Friday, Boss Mu left early and returned home at noon. He also brought Lu Qi’s favorite seafood, but after walking around the room, his baby only looked at him three times.

Mu Nanqiao went to the cloakroom and looked in the mirror to confirm that there were no flaws on his naturally handsome face, and his figure was still as vigorous and strong as ever. After a moment of silence in front of the mirror, he went to the master bedroom and took a shower.

In fact, faced with the temptations of beauty and delicious food, Lu Qi had to concentrate a lot to keep himself sitting in the chair. He wanted to finish his afternoon practicing quickly, so he just randomly found some material. Just as he was about to start painting, there were two polite knocks on the door.

It was probably not Xiao Sanhua. Lu Qi found it a little strange that Mu Nanqiao would knock on the door, and raised his voice to call him in. 

The door opened, and Mu Nanqiao came in with a plate of fruit. The fruit plate looked like it had been carefully arranged, with different fruits stacked on top of each other in particularly beautiful colors.

However, compared to the “dressed up” fruits, Mu Nanqiao’s packaging was a bit “simple.” With his hair still dripping water, he was wrapped very casually in a black silk nightgown, the overlapping collars loose. The scenery of his chest was unobstructed, without any masculine virtue at all.

Lu Qi raised his hand to touch his nose and said in a quiet voice: “What are you doing?”

“Sending you fruit.” The vixen swaggered over and set the fruit plate to the side, coming around to see the material Lu Qi had selected.

It was a sculpture of an adult male. The sculpture was in a relaxed, leaning posture, with smooth and beautiful muscle lines. Although it was stone and lacked temperature, it burst with vitality from the hands of its creator.

It was a very good piece of work.

“You’re drawing this?” Mu Nanqiao raised his eyebrows.

“En, en.” Lu Qi nodded and introduced to Mu Nanqiao: “This is the work of one of my seniors, and it has won many awards. Isn’t it particularly impressive?”

From an artistic point of view, it was indeed impressive. Mu Nanqiao was not small-minded, so he nodded and praised sincerely, “It’s really amazing.”

He leaned closer, and the scent of shower gel on his body was warmed by his body temperature, lingering at the tip of Lu Qi’s nose. Lu Qi was hooked and wanted to get closer to smell it. He looked up at this person. Because he was leaning over, the loose collar could not cover anything, including the teeth marks on his collarbone that hadn’t faded away.

Lu Qi swallowed silently, then turned his head and sat up straight with his pen, saying with a very upright expression: “I’m going to start. You go out first……”

Mu Nanqiao sighed, feeling deeply that the scholars in Chinese stories who were easily seduced by foxes were all sanctimonious hypocrites. Look at this little painter in his family and how at ease he was.

When all of his twisting and turning was useless, Mu Nanqiao decided to hit a straight ball.

He directly hooked Lu Qi’s chin, tilted his head, and kissed him.

The fragrance of shower gel that was on his mind finally wrapped around Lu Qi. He blinked his eyes and sniffed greedily again, not understanding how the same shower gel could smell different when used by two different people. He had no idea that the big fox was also hiding a bottle of cologne in the bathroom. 

Mu Nanqiao was dissatisfied with Lu Qi’s distraction and lightly bit his lower lip. Lu Qi felt the pain, and then the teeth loosened. The big fox took advantage without any ceremony.

After a while, Mu Nanqiao let go of Lu Qi, who was breathing unsteadily. He stared at those red lips for a moment and then kissed them, reluctant to part. 

Lu Qi was dizzy. When he returned to his senses, he realized that his hands were on Mu Nanqiao’s chest. He pretended not to notice, and pressed it silently, taking advantage of his boyfriend. Unashamed, he asked in a low voice: “What are you doing tonight?”

“Детка, I want to talk to you…..” Mu Nanqiao turned Lu Qi’s chair, picked him up, and held him face-to-face on his lap. “I know you need to concentrate on your studies, so I’ve tried my best not to disturb you. But when I come back nowadays, you don’t even look at me. Isn’t that rude? Hm?”

As he spoke, he lightly weighed the person on his lap, and his fox-like eyes narrowed. He moved closer to the tip of Lu Qi’s nose and said in a low, lazy voice: “Or is it that……after you got me, Baby, you’ve played with my body enough and it’s no longer fresh?”

Dirty words! These were really dirty words!!

“What is all this, ah…..” The roots of Lu Qi’s ears turned red, and the heat spread to his cheeks. He defended himself in a low voice: “We did it the night before yesterday…..hey, if I thought you were stale, I wouldn’t have messed around with you.”

The already arrogant vixen remembered something, and lifted Lu Qi’s shorts to glance at his knees. The red marks from kneeling were already very faint. He rubbed them a couple more times and was so distressed that he forgot which drama he was performing and asked softly: “Does it still hurt?”

“It didn’t hurt in the first place.” Lu Qi thought for a moment, then whispered: “I ignored you when you first came back because one look at you makes me want to look at you again. Then how could I finish my exercises, ah? Isn’t this called beauty leading a person astray? So I had no choice but to stop looking.”

He muttered aggrievedly: “It took me a lot of perseverance to ignore you.”

Mu Nanqiao: ……

He wasn’t upset to begin with. This was just an excuse to tease his Xiao Lu. But who would have thought that after being teased, the little deer would jump into his arms? His mind was swept away, and he couldn’t help but hug him and kiss him again and again.

“You’re so clingy, ah…..” Lu Qi rested his chin on his broad shoulder, complaining half-truthfully. After saying that, he couldn’t help but laugh again, “Forget it, forget it. Who made me like you?”

“You like me so much?” Mu Nanqiao said: “Then should I be proud of your favor?”

Lu Qi wore a straight expression: “Don’t even think about taking out that box of 001’s. We agreed on only two per day!”

Mu Nanqiao: “……Baby, that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Lu Qi looked at him warily. “Then tell me, I’ll listen.”

Mu Nanqiao just said directly: “Stop drawing your senior’s little stone man. Draw me.”

Lu Qi: ……

Oh-ho! That was indeed a combination of beauty and practicing. He could have his cake and eat it too.

Recalling the dramatic first encounter between the two when he regarded Mu Nanqiao as a little duck out for sale, he had also said that he would let the other person act as a model for him. Little did he know at that time that his casual nonsense would come true.

Boss Mu was natural and poised. He casually pulled off his belt and sat himself on the small sofa opposite Lu Qi in a pose similar to that of the sculpture, with long legs stretched out and a leisurely attitude. But the icy, brash vitality in his body could not be compared to lifeless, faceless plaster.

“By the way, Boss.” The perfect model Mu Nanqiao smiled, raising his eyes as he asked, “How far should I take off my clothes? Can I leave my underwear on? Or….total nudity?”^[2]

These words were very familiar, reminding Lu Qi of the past when his toes curled into the floor. He glared fiercely at Mu Nanqiao and gave a harmless warning: “Don’t be a scoundrel!”

Mu Nanqiao lowered his face and smiled. In coordination, he touched his lips and then raised his wrist toward Lu Qi in an unrestrained manner, blowing an elegant and romantic kiss.

This was truly a vixen, ah…..

Lu Qi touched his nose again, fearing that he would suffer an embarrassing nose bleed.

. . . . . . . 

The evening seemed to pass much faster than usual, and the drawing was completed quickly. Lu Qi happily stretched and ran over to crouch beside Mu Nanqiao and squeeze his shoulders. Eager, round deer eyes looked at Mu Nanqiao, and Lu Qi said sincerely: “Thank you for your hard work, la~”

Mu Nanqiao moved his arms and gathered up his undone bathrobe again. He raised a hand to pinch his ear, saying with apparent selflessness: “It wasn’t hard work. Dedicating myself to art is what I should do.”

Lu Qi was very satisfied with his conscientious attitude. He happily ran downstairs to eat snacks, not noticing the man’s fox-like eyes that were smiling but not smiling, or the big fox tail behind him that could not be hidden.

Sure enough, the profiteer Mu Nanqiao came to collect the reward for being a model that evening.

In the cloakroom, as Lu Qi was weeping pitifully in front of the mirror, he had to listen to the big-tailed fox whisper nonsense in his ear.

“Good baby, open your eyes. This can be considered as dedicating yourself to art…..” When he finished speaking, he couldn’t help but give a low, breathy laugh, which was simply a lack of virtue.

Lu Qi could only let out a tremulous “Wu…..”

But an emoticon popped up in his mind.

[Kitten holding a knife.jpg]

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[1] Ялюблютебя = I love you. ⮐

[2] “Total nudity” is actually in English, which is hilarious when reading the raws. ⮐

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Chapter Fifty-Two << Table of Contents >> Chapter Fifty-Four