Lin Wangye was still dazed after returning to his room. His head felt like someone had stuffed a wasp’s nest into it—buzz buzz buzz—so noisy and messy that he couldn’t think straight.
The human brain really doesn’t play fair.
The more you try to stop yourself from thinking nonsense, the harder it becomes to control.
By the end, he wasn’t just imagining things—he was practically seeing them. He grabbed his face and shook his head like crazy, trying to shake the thoughts out by sheer physics, but all he got was dizziness. The images in his mind didn’t fade—in fact, they got clearer, more vivid, more…real.
Apart from those first few sounds that might’ve been arguing, Shi Yuan hadn’t heard anything else.
But Lin Wangye had never been good at hiding his feelings, and he never bothered trying.
With that flushed face like a ripe tomato and the red tips of his ears, it didn’t take a genius to guess what he was thinking. Shi Yuan couldn’t help feeling both amused and amazed.
Most people wouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion just because the bed shook twice.
Especially when the people inside were both guys.
It kind of shattered Shi Yuan’s perception of things. He suddenly found himself really wondering—what the hell goes on inside Lin Wangye’s head every day?
The happy little puppy had no idea that his innocent image had just completely collapsed. The moment he stopped moving, the whole world started spinning, like he’d just crawled out of a washing machine. He stumbled, completely off balance, and looked like he was about to fall over.
Shi Yuan quickly grabbed him and guided him to sit on the edge of the bed. He pressed the back of his hand to Lin Wangye’s cheek and said, “Stop shaking that tiny head of yours. You’ll make yourself sick.”
After sitting quietly for a bit, the world finally stopped spinning.
But the shock from earlier still hit Lin Wangye like a freight train.
You could even say it flipped his whole understanding of the world upside down.
After learning that Lin Shen liked men, he’d imagined a bunch of possible secret relationships involving his dad—heck, even Shi Yuan hadn’t been spared from his wild guesses at one point.
But this? He never saw this coming.
The safest place really was the most dangerous.
Lu Chengxuan, who’d been hanging around under his nose this whole time—he hadn’t suspected him once!
And once the seed of suspicion was planted, it sprouted fast.
Lin Wangye started remembering all the messy entanglements between those two in his previous life. Then he connected it with everything he’d learned since coming to this timeline, and suddenly, a lot of things that never made sense before… all added up.
No wonder!
No wonder Lu Chengxuan was so willing to help all the time.
No wonder no matter how much his dad tried to stir up trouble, Lu Chengxuan never got mad.
No wonder the two of them grew up together, only to end up turning on each other like that.
They probably dated once and broke up later—must’ve been some secret love-hate mess in between!
Makes sense. Totally makes sense!
Everything suddenly started making perfect sense!
“I think those two are dating,” Lin Wangye suddenly blurted out, sounding completely certain. “They have to be!”
Shi Yuan raised his eyebrows, a little surprised. “You mean Lin Shen and Lu Chengxuan?”
Lin Wangye nodded hard. “Yep!”
Shi Yuan thought for a second. “They don’t really seem like it to me. Why do you think so?”
There was way too much tangled-up info in his head.
Lin Wangye couldn’t find a way to explain it all properly, so he just grabbed the easiest excuse.
“Gut feeling!”
“All right,” Shi Yuan chuckled softly, then said in a gentle voice, “Stop overthinking. Didn’t you say you wanted to go out? Come on, let’s go.”
To match the scenery, the entire town was filled with old-style architecture, like something straight out of ancient times. Walking through it felt like being transported hundreds of years into the past. When they first got off the bus, Lin Wangye had really wanted to explore, but once they stepped into the warm, cozy hotel, the laziness kicked in.
He flopped onto the bed, stretching with a big lazy yawn.
“Let’s rest for a bit… I’m beat. Those tour bus seats are the worst. So stiff, and you can’t even lean back—my back’s sore as hell.”
He was wearing a hoodie, and when he lay down and stretched, the hem rode up with the movement, exposing his waist and stomach to the air.
But with the room so warm and comfy, he didn’t even notice. He just kept yawning with his eyes half closed.
His skin was pale, and his build was on the thinner side. His body fat was pretty low, and since he didn’t like working out, there weren’t any abs to speak of.
But the curve of his lower abdomen and hip bones was beautiful—clean, natural lines that disappeared into the waistband of his pants.
Shi Yuan’s eyes darkened slightly. He quickly looked away, trying to act like he hadn’t seen anything.
After stretching, Lin Wangye casually rolled over and lay on his stomach. He was just about to glance back and see what Shi Yuan was up to when he suddenly felt someone tug his hoodie down. A pair of hands pressed gently through the fabric against his waist, fingers applying a soft but noticeable pressure.
“Ah—!”
His scalp tingled, and he grabbed the blanket instinctively, panting lightly as he turned his head. “Where did you just press?!”
“The Yangguan point,” Shi Yuan replied calmly.
He pressed down with the pads of his thumbs, alternating hands in slow, circular motions.
“Mmm… that actually feels kinda nice.” After getting used to it, Lin Wangye relaxed a bit and lay back down, resting his cheek on his arm. “Why do you know how to do everything?”
Shi Yuan let out a quiet laugh. “Learned a bit. I give massages to my grandparents sometimes.”
“Then you gotta teach me later—I wanna learn too… ow ow ow!” Lin Wangye had just closed his eyes, completely content, when his body suddenly twisted from the sharp jolt of pain, yelping like a kicked puppy.
“Where does it hurt?” Shi Yuan stopped and traced back along the bone structure, pressing gently downward. “Here?”
Lin Wangye nodded quickly. “Yeah yeah yeah! Right there!”
“That’s the Shenshu point,” Shi Yuan said.
Lin Wangye didn’t really know anything about massages, but from stuff he’d seen on TV, he had a general idea. He turned his head and asked, “Is that bad? It hurts when you press it—does that mean something’s wrong?”
“It’s not ideal. Normally it shouldn’t hurt with just this much pressure.”
As he said that, Shi Yuan suddenly dropped his eyes and smiled, for some reason.
Lin Wangye instantly sensed something was off about that smile and got nervous. “What? Don’t tell me I’ve got some kind of illness?”
Shi Yuan quickly shook his head and explained slowly, “There are two main reasons that point might hurt. One is bad posture—like leaning over a desk for too long. Just be more mindful of that in the future.”
That actually made sense. Lin Wangye nodded in agreement.
He really did have that habit—always lying across the desk, twisting around to talk to the people in front and behind him. He’d been doing it in his past life too. Definitely something he should fix.
But then another thought popped up. “What’s the other reason?”
“It doesn’t really apply to you,” Shi Yuan said, still dodging the question.
Which only made Lin Wangye more curious. He pushed himself up on the bed and leaned over, pressing for answers. “Come on, what is it?”
“Kidney deficiency,” Shi Yuan said with a straight face, looking right at him. “But that shouldn’t be your problem… unless you’ve been, you know, doing it yourself too often…”
Lin Wangye’s face turned bright red in an instant. He waved his hands like crazy, desperate to clear his name.
“I don’t! I swear! Pure little puppy like me would never do something like that!”
Shi Yuan had been messing with him on purpose. And now that his plan had worked, the smug smile tugging at his lips was harder to hold back than AK’s recoil. He tilted his head slightly and pretended to speak seriously, “There’s no need to treat it like some dirty topic. The fact that schools skip over this in health class is what’s really wrong. Once boys hit puberty, it’s totally normal for them to, you know, take care of themselves. It’s nothing bad, just… don’t go overboard.”
The more he talked, the hotter Lin Wangye’s face got—he was practically steaming.
Back in his past life, Uncle Shi had said pretty much the same thing to him over a long-distance phone call.
Even with a whole ocean between them, Lin Wangye had nearly died of embarrassment. The phone was pressed to his cheek, and even ‘that’ felt hot, like it could explode any second. He’d freaked out, slapped it on mute, and rushed to the fridge for a bag of yogurt to cool himself down—literally.
But this? Face-to-face sex ed? This was at least ten thousand times worse.
Especially since they were talking about his… ‘situation’.
And since Lin Wangye never lied to Shi Yuan, he couldn’t exactly deny it with a straight face.
“Why’s your face so red?” Shi Yuan pushed his glasses up and leaned in a little, narrowing his eyes to study him. He pinched Lin Wangye’s cheek lightly, lips curled into a teasing smile. “Wait… don’t tell me it’s not the posture thing?”
Their noses were barely ten centimeters apart.
Lin Wangye leaned back on instinct, his Adam’s apple bobbing audibly. He stammered, face flushed all the way to his ears, “I—I don’t! I mean, not that often! It’s definitely… definitely just bad posture!”
Shi Yuan chuckled under his breath, then pulled his hand back and sat properly on the edge of the bed again.
“I know. I was just messing with you.”
Lin Wangye froze, wide-eyed and stunned. Then his face scrunched up in a mix of embarrassment, frustration, and reluctant laughter. He turned away and wrapped himself up in the blanket again like a burrito. “You’re the worst! You’ve been hanging around Lin Shen too much and picked up all his bad habits!”
Shi Yuan watched him wriggle around under the blanket, refusing to show even a bit of his face. After a moment, the amusement on his face faded, replaced by a thoughtful look—like he was trying to solve a tricky problem that had been bothering him for a while.
Today, he’d actually managed to gather some key information. It helped clarify a few of the mental blanks he hadn’t dared fill in until now.
With that thought, Shi Yuan quickly slipped back into his usual calm and collected state. He adjusted the blanket a little.
The happy puppy finally peeked his head out, blinking at him a few times.
“By the way,” Shi Yuan said casually, “there’s actually something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
Lin Wangye had more or less recovered now. Lying on the bed, he tilted his head to get a better view—upside down from where he was. “What is it?”
“Well,” Shi Yuan said, “both of them are guys. So how did you get all that from just a tiny bit of information?”
Under normal circumstances, two guys sharing a room wouldn’t immediately trigger that kind of reaction. So the way Lin Wangye jumped to that conclusion—that was something deeper. Something about how he saw the world.
But Lin Wangye couldn’t really catch Shi Yuan’s subtle expression from that angle. He didn’t overthink it at all. He just answered honestly and without hesitation, “Because Lin Shen already likes guys. His sister told me he had a falling out with his family because of it.”
Objectively speaking, that explanation made perfect sense.
But for some reason, hearing such a matter-of-fact answer left Shi Yuan feeling just a little… disappointed.
So it wasn’t some instinctive realization—it was just something he already knew.
He lowered his eyes slightly and replied in an airy, indifferent tone, “Oh, I see.”
“What’s wrong?” Lin Wangye blinked and asked without thinking.
Shi Yuan noticed that he hadn’t reacted with the slightest bit of confusion to the question earlier. So he decided to test him again.
“If a guy likes another guy… do you think that’s weird?”
The moment the words left his mouth, Lin Wangye suddenly realized what this was about. The leg he’d been swinging in the air froze mid-motion.
Shi Yuan caught the shift immediately and thought—‘damn it.’
He’d been so careful all this time, but it looked like he might’ve poked the wrong nerve.
The question was way too direct, too specific. Lin Wangye’s mind began racing, analyzing Shi Yuan’s tone and expression the moment he asked.
Asking something like that…
‘Does that mean he can’t accept it?’
The thought hit him like a punch to the gut. His chest tightened, breath catching as anxiety quickly took over. Even his breathing slowed, like he was afraid the wrong inhale might give too much away.
He spent a long time trying to figure out how to answer.
But in the end, he realized—it wasn’t that he ‘couldn’t’ answer.
He just didn’t ‘dare’ to.
Because any answer would give Shi Yuan clues. And if he was found out again… would Shi Yuan start pulling away, just like he did in his last life?
For as long as he could remember, Uncle Shi had never had anyone else by his side.
With no reference point, Lin Wangye had no way of knowing where he stood.
After a long silence, he finally decided to use a trick Shi Yuan himself had once taught him: When you can’t answer a question… just throw it back.
“So what about you?” Lin Wangye asked in return. “Do you think it’s weird?”
“Not at all,” Shi Yuan answered without missing a beat, eyes locked on Lin Wangye. “Love is the attraction between souls. It has nothing to do with gender. And if I wanted to… then even…”
Lin Wangye finished the sentence for him:
“Then it could even be a flower, a tree… or a gust of wind.”
Their eyes locked, and Lin Wangye might as well have written his answer across his face.
That calm honesty made Shi Yuan feel—‘this is what it means to be close to something so beautiful it makes you feel small.’
Their thoughts lined up so perfectly that it felt like even his soul was trembling.
“Xu Suinian, the one I liked… was a breeze,” Lin Wangye said softly. “That breeze was always around me. But I could never make it stay.”
The meaning behind his words was painfully clear.
Shi Yuan, who had been caught up in all that warmth just a second ago, suddenly felt ice rush through his veins. It was like being plunged straight into freezing water. He mentally traced back the conversation, piecing things together, and asked as evenly as he could, “Are you talking about… Lin Shen?”
Lin Wangye shook his head firmly.
“No. It’s not anyone you know.”
The second those words landed, Shi Yuan let out a long breath, relief crashing through him.
He never doubted the truth of what Lin Wangye said. So he figured that whole poetic talk earlier must’ve just been some kind of abstract metaphor.
He paused for a few seconds, then said thoughtfully, “That sounds like a paradox.”
“Why?” Lin Wangye asked.
Shi Yuan looked at him and explained, “Once you walk out of this hotel, the wind you feel—any gust that brushes past you—there’s a good chance it’ll never come again. So if you couldn’t hold onto it… why would it have stayed by your side in the first place?”
Lin Wangye stared at him, silent.
That was the question Uncle Shi never answered in his past life. But this time, he wanted to hear how ‘Xu Suinian’ would respond.
The air was already dry, and with all the twisting around he’d done under the blanket, static made his hair stick out in all directions.
Shi Yuan reached out and gently smoothed it down, his voice soft and slow:
“You’ll never lose a breeze that ‘wants’ to stay with you.”
*
Author’s Note:
End of the chapter where the Puppy Pair resolve things in one go.
Meanwhile, the Parents-Love-Drama Pair still has chapters one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…
(clutches chest) (collapses) (coughs blood) (twitches) (gets carried away by emergency services)
Hello, everyone ヾ(＾∇＾). I hope you enjoyed the story! If you’re feeling generous, please buy me a coffee, share/comment on my translated works! Check out the link below for early chapters. (๑>ᴗ<๑)
