Xie Quan had no idea he was being watched.
After a while, maybe tired from writing, he set his pen down, rolled his shoulders, rubbed his temples, and then habitually reached toward the corner of his desk.
He didn’t even look. With practiced ease, he unscrewed the cap with one hand, shook out a small handful, and without counting them, tossed them all into his mouth like candy, swallowing them down with a sip of water.
Lu Nanyang was shaking all over, barely able to support himself against the wall — from sheer fury.
He’d thought Xie Quan had changed. He thought that after they’d exchanged so many secrets, Xie Quan had started to trust him.
Turns out, he’d been naive all along. Played like a fool from beginning to end.
Suddenly, the bedroom door banged open. Xie Quan jumped, realizing too late that he’d forgotten to lock it.
Lu Nanyang stormed in with a dark face, and before Xie Quan could react, he was already at the desk, snatching up the pill bottle.
“How many more of these do you have?” he demanded.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Xie Quan raised his voice. “Who gave you permission to barge into my room?”
“I asked you, how many more!” Lu Nanyang roared, slamming the pill bottle on the table. “This is what you call cutting back? This is you being ‘obedient’? How many more bottles do you have hidden?”
As he spoke, he began pulling open desk drawers one by one, then moved on to the wardrobe, rifling through everything without mercy.
Xie Quan finally snapped out of his shock, furious. “Lu Nanyang, were you spying on me?!”
Lu Nanyang grabbed a shirt from the closet and flung it to the floor, glaring at him. “If I hadn’t seen it tonight, how long were you planning to keep lying to me? Do you really think I’m that easy to fool?!”
He twisted open the pill bottle — just as expected, there wasn’t much left inside.
“Do you even know what’ll happen if you keep taking these like that?” Lu Nanyang’s voice trembled. “Next time you land yourself in the hospital, you might not get out so easily!”
“And what the hell does that have to do with you? It’s my body — I’ll decide what to do with it!” Xie Quan yelled, reaching for the bottle. “Give it back! Now!”
Lu Nanyang was shaking with rage.
He’d thought Xie Quan might at least show a little remorse — or even just a flicker of guilt.
But no. Not only did he not apologize, he acted like he was completely in the right, arrogant and overbearing.
Lu Nanyang felt his heart go cold, little by little.
Even if he’d been naive, even if he’d been stupid — at this point, he could finally see the truth: Xie Quan had been using his kindness and guilt, like a parasite sucking him dry.
If he hadn’t witnessed this moment just now, what would have happened?
He probably would’ve gone on blaming himself for rejecting Xie Quan, feeling sorry for him during withdrawal, and eventually, he might’ve even gone to apologize — and agreed to let Xie Quan top him.
Just imagining the possibility made him feel nauseous.
Wen Fei was right—Xie Quan was a snake that couldn’t be tamed.
No matter how much they had opened up to each other, how many secrets they had shared, or how much they seemed like friends, Xie Quan would always be calculating how to deceive and use him.
And the thing he hated most in his life was being lied to.
Lu Nanyang opened the bedroom window and hurled the bottle of medicine out with force.
His apartment was on the fourth floor, and with his excellent throwing arm, the bottle vanished instantly into the darkness.
Xie Quan’s face instantly turned pale, then shifted to a dark shade of anger. He grabbed Lu Nanyang’s collar and punched him in the nose.
Blood slowly trickled from Lu Nanyang’s tall, straight nose. He wiped it with his hand—his knuckles came away covered in red.
The next second, the desk and chairs in the bedroom were overturned with a loud crash as the two six-foot men started fighting.
Under normal circumstances, Lu Nanyang would never lose to Xie Quan in a fight. He was in far better physical shape than the sickly Xie Quan and had even trained in the military for two years.
But there are always exceptions. For example, even the fiercest person can be afraid of someone who has nothing to lose.
Lu Nanyang had never imagined that someone as frail and sickly as Xie Quan could explode with such strength.
Unlike him—who was still holding back—Xie Quan was throwing punches with all the strength he had.
Somewhere in the scuffle, his glasses had been knocked off, and his grey eyes were now rimmed red, bloodshot veins crawling through the whites of his eyes.
“You don’t understand anything at all!” Xie Quan grabbed him by the collar. “You’re just a spoiled little prince, living the high life, eating well, dressing lavishly. Don’t pretend to be some selfless savior!”
What eyes did he use to see him eating well and dressed lavishly?!
Veins bulged on Lu Nanyang’s forehead as he struggled a few times but couldn’t break free.
He didn’t dare to use too much strength. In such a tense standoff, if he fought back with full force too, at least one of them would end up seriously hurt.
Lu Nanyang hated solving problems with violence—whether cold or hot.
But ever since he met Xie Quan, not a single day had gone by without some kind of violence surrounding him.
He gave up trying to forcibly break free from Xie Quan’s grip and instead looked up at him. “Xie Quan, let go.”
Xie Quan didn’t let go. Instead, he moved closer to Lu Nanyang, a malicious smile appearing on his face. “Lu Nanyang, tell me—why were you spying just now? What did you originally want to see?”
“Are you crazy? Let go!” A bad premonition rose in Lu Nanyang’s heart.
Sure enough, Xie Quan pressed him onto the bed, using his knee to pin his lower leg while his hands moved with a clear purpose.
A few seconds later, Lu Nanyang’s thigh felt cold.
He struggled a couple of times, but his wrist was quickly seized by Xie Quan and forced down onto the bed.
“Acting all righteous on the surface, but you’re actually a pervert who peeps into other people’s rooms.” Xie Quan sneered. “Drop the act, Lu Nanyang. You’re just a slut who deserves to be fucked.”
Lu Nanyang closed his eyes. In that moment, all the anger that had been building up in his chest, all the disappointment from being deceived—vanished like smoke. All that remained was a sense of absurdity, and an endless coldness.
“Xie Quan,” Lu Nanyang said, “if you keep going, we’re done.”
Xie Quan’s movements clearly paused for a moment, but he quickly applied force again—even more than before—leaving deep red marks on Lu Nanyang’s skin.
“I thought the moment you barged in, we were already done,” Xie Quan sneered.
The snake’s venomous fangs pierced the wolf’s body, its scales cold and slick, emitting a nauseating smell. No longer a sweet, affectionate flirtation, but a suffocating, merciless entanglement, winding tighter and tighter, until the prey is strangled and swallowed whole.
…
Afterward, Lu Nanyang’s body was covered in red swelling and bruises, the most severe being on his chin, mixed with the blood spilling from his split lip.
It was already past 1 a.m., and even the summer insects had stopped chirping. The apartment was eerily silent.
Lu Nanyang fumbled through the torn, mangled pocket of his shirt but couldn’t find his cigarettes. Then he remembered that he had thrown the pack on the table in his room.
He threw his shirt on the floor without looking at Xie Quan. “Leave.”
Xie Quan stood by the bed, not moving or speaking.
Lu Nanyang’s reaction wasn’t what he had imagined.
He thought Lu Nanyang would explode in anger, show a disgusted expression, hit him, or even return his insults, maybe even worse.
But he didn’t. When Xie Quan vented his frustration on him, leaving marks all over his body, Lu Nanyang hadn’t really resisted—he was like a fish on a chopping board, allowing him to do as he pleased.
And now, when Lu Nanyang spoke, his tone was like he was talking about the weather—no emotion, no fluctuation. It made Xie Quan feel completely at a loss.
If Lu Nanyang had yelled at him, hit him, he would have felt a kind of vengeful satisfaction.
He wanted to peel off Lu Nanyang’s righteous facade, tear away his hypocritical outer skin, and see what was really inside.
Aren’t you fond of playing the good guy?
Aren’t you fond of saving the world?
How many more times can your kindness be used? After being treated like this, can you still hold onto your saintly ideals?
But he didn’t find the reaction he was looking for from Lu Nanyang.
Lu Nanyang… didn’t react at all.
It was as if the bruises and swelling on his body were nothing more than a minor dog bite while out for a walk, something that wasn’t worth worrying about.
This, far more than anything else, made Xie Quan feel anxious.
“If it’s too late, you can move tomorrow,” Lu Nanyang added. “You don’t have to pay rent this month. Consider it compensation for me butting into your business.”
After saying this, Lu Nanyang didn’t give Xie Quan any time to respond. He simply stood up and walked out.
His throat felt dry and painful, like it was burning.
He grabbed a bottle of ice water from the living room, returned to his room, closed the door, and tilted his head back, drinking the entire bottle in one go.
His throat felt much better, but there were still many places on his body that hurt, leaving him numb.
After a while, he heard a sound outside the door—it was the wheels of a suitcase rolling across the floor.
The sound stopped at his bedroom door, and after a few seconds, Xie Quan’s low, cold voice came through, “…Lu Nanyang.”
He didn’t say anything else, just called his name.
Lu Nanyang leaned his head back against the chair, staring at the ceiling, a strange urge to laugh rising within him.
It was absurd.
He had only just allowed Xie Quan to move back in, and now he was telling him to leave.
He had truly thought that from now on, they could get along well, that whatever conflicts arose, they could talk through them.
He actually considered himself to be quite tolerant, able to be friends with almost anyone, regardless of their personality. And Xie Quan was right; he was a bit hypocritical and had a people-pleasing personality, always lowering his own standards for others.
He really did feel sorry for Xie Quan when he learned about his past, and genuinely wanted to help him, to pull him out of the darkness.
But now, he was finally tired.
It’s easy to pull a living person from the edge of a cliff, but it’s much harder to pull a rock with the same weight.
Because a person will actively hold your hand and try to climb, but a rock won’t. Sometimes it will even push back due to inertia.
What he wanted to pull was a person, not a rock.
That was just too exhausting.
He didn’t know how long Xie Quan had been standing outside the door, maybe a few minutes, maybe over ten. The sound of the suitcase wheels rolled again, then gradually faded away. The door opened and closed, and the night fell silent once more.
