TBS Chapter 39

Xu Miao found Xie Ge’s words and actions truly strange. Even if they were at different points in time—whether years ago or years later—Xie Ge was still Xie Ge. What difference could there be?

For a moment, Xu Miao couldn’t figure out how to explain this to him, so he stayed silent, lost in thought.

But Xie Ge misunderstood his silence again.

He slowly turned his eyes to glance at Xu Miao beside him, then quickly shifted them away, as though afraid of being caught.

His mind was in chaos, and vaguely, he heard himself muttering complaints:

“Why don’t you just say it’s fine? I just raised my voice a little, I didn’t mean to. And I already apologized—you promised me, as long as I said sorry, you’d forgive me.”

After saying this, Xie Ge suddenly stood up, turned around, and was about to leave. Xu Miao hurriedly grabbed him.

There was no time for Xu Miao to carefully choose his words—he just said whatever came to mind:

“I don’t think you did anything wrong. I didn’t say it was fine because I didn’t get the chance. I was just wondering why you think of yourself now and yourself a few years later as two different people. You only forgot some things. How could you split yourself in two like that?”

Xu Miao’s words seemed to give Xie Ge a foothold. His voice was soft, but his words were harsh:

“Because I didn’t just forget part of it—I forgot everything from the past few years. I didn’t live through any of that time.

He isn’t me, and I’m not him. So don’t treat me like him. I can’t accept that.”

Xu Miao didn’t argue. He nodded and said, “Alright.”

To keep the conversation going, he simplified Xie Ge’s words and repeated them:

“So you mean I should keep my distance from you until you remember everything and become him again. Is that it?”

Xie Ge felt Xu Miao really had a talent in one area—misunderstanding him. Back when he was Xu Miao’s ex-wife Xu Miao (许淼), it was like this, and now as Xu Miao again, it was still like this. Honestly, he could win an award for it.

He never meant for Xu Miao to keep his distance. He only wanted Xu Miao to treat him as himself.

Like in the car earlier—he had talked to Xu Miao because he wanted Xu Miao to respond. He didn’t want Xu Miao to ignore him just because of a promise made to the him from years later.

That promise wasn’t for him, so it shouldn’t be enforced on him.

“No,” Xie Ge took Xu Miao’s misinterpretation as an opportunity to refute him confidently. He said, “What I mean is, don’t bring up the things you did with him or the promises you made to him in front of me. You need to go by my timeline, treat me according to my stage of… relationship with you.”

Relationship progress? Relationship?

Who was in a relationship with who?

Him and Xie Ge?

How did the topic turn into this?

Xu Miao didn’t understand: “I’m a man.”

Xie Ge: “No need to remind me. I can see that.”

Xu Miao asked again: “Aren’t you straight?”

Xie Ge pouted: “If he could stop being straight, that means I’ll stop being straight sooner or later too. I’ll get used to it.”

Get used to it? As if that was something one could just “get used to.”

Xu Miao truly couldn’t figure out what Xie Ge was thinking. Just a few days ago in the hospital, he had been shouting about wanting a divorce, yet now his attitude had suddenly flipped.

Xu Miao licked his lips, pressed them flat, and asked, “How will you get used to it?”

Xie Ge mumbled vaguely: “I have my own way. You don’t need to care.”

Xu Miao asked seriously: “Are you planning to kiss me while I’m asleep again?”

The moment he said it, Xie Ge’s ears visibly flushed red. He twisted his body, trying to run back to his room, but once again Xu Miao caught him with ease.

Xu Miao hadn’t used much strength—just enough to hold him, but not enough that Xie Ge couldn’t break free if he really wanted to.

But Xie Ge didn’t shake him off. That gave Xu Miao the excuse to close the distance. Instinctively, Xie Ge stepped back.

But every time he stepped back, Xu Miao stepped forward, until finally, Xie Ge was backed into a corner with nowhere left to go.

Now, not only his ears but also his cheeks had turned red. Without asking permission, Xu Miao reached out and touched them. The warmth was even more than he expected.

Xu Miao raised his gaze, locking eyes with Xie Ge, and said:

“Tonight I’ll go to bed earlier, and I’ll really fall asleep. By then, if you want to try something, go ahead. Even if you want to try something beyond just kissing, it’s fine. Whatever you do, I won’t know—only you will.”

What kind of nonsense was that? He was making it sound like Xie Ge really would do something outrageous to him while he slept.

No, the only reason Xu Miao would even think this way must be because over those missing years, Xie Ge had a long record of such things—so much that Xu Miao’s boundaries had been dragged all the way down.

Thinking of this, Xie Ge frowned. Believing he had hidden it well, he muttered defensively:

“I’m not that despicable. Whatever I do, I do it openly. I don’t take advantage of people.”

Xu Miao feigned shock: “Then if it wasn’t you leaning over my bed last night about to kiss me, who was it? Don’t tell me I saw a ghost.”

“You weren’t asleep then.” Saying this, Xie Ge glanced at him uneasily, then quickly looked away and coughed a few times to cover his embarrassment and buy time to make an excuse. “Besides, I didn’t actually kiss you.”

It wasn’t a solid reason. It wasn’t even a decent excuse. But luckily, Xu Miao didn’t push further.

Relieved, Xie Ge let out a quiet breath. Once he felt Xu Miao’s grip on his wrist loosen, he gently brushed his hand away, trying to calm his racing heartbeat and appear composed.

“I—”

Just as he was about to polish his excuse further, Xu Miao suddenly leaned in, closing the distance between them. The words stuck in his throat.

“I didn’t say I’d kiss you now,” Xie Ge blurted out.

Xu Miao leaned in even closer.

“I’m not ready yet.”

“What do you need to prepare for?” Xu Miao said, pressing his forehead lightly against Xie Ge’s to check his temperature. After a brief moment, he pulled away with an innocent look. “Just checking if you have a fever. It’s not as accurate as a thermometer, but it’s quick. I mainly forgot where I put the thermometer, and it’d take forever to find it.”

Why did Xu Miao always do things that made people misunderstand?

Always!

There was no way this was just coincidence. Once, maybe. Twice, maybe. But three, four times? Definitely intentional.

Otherwise, why on earth would he be checking his temperature like that? He wasn’t a child.

Xie Ge’s emotions were a tangled mess, hard to put into words. In his interactions with Xu Miao, he was always on the defensive, always at a disadvantage.

Clearly, it wasn’t only he who had changed drastically over the years. Xu Miao had changed too.

He had become much more fond of teasing him.

“You did that on purpose,” Xie Ge said firmly.

Xu Miao kept up his innocent face: “On purpose? What did I do on purpose?”

Xie Ge was still sure: “On purpose, to make me think you were going to kiss me.”

Xu Miao remained innocent: “You just coughed a lot suddenly. I thought you might’ve caught something from the rain, so I was worried you had a fever.”

Xie Ge lowered his eyes, stared at him for a few seconds, then turned his gaze aside. After a long pause, he whispered almost pleadingly:

“I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

But how heavy could the rain have really been? There was no way someone could catch a fever less than an hour after getting wet.

Still, to be safe, Xu Miao brewed ginger tea for him. But the moment Xie Ge took a sip, the fiery spiciness made him spit it all back out.

Torn between not wanting to waste Xu Miao’s effort and not being able to stomach the overpowering taste, he eventually forced the rest down.

He agonized over it so long that the tea almost went cold, until Xu Miao came over and simply poured it all out.

“If you can’t drink it, don’t. Why torture yourself?”

Xie Ge protested at once: “But you spent so much time making it.”

Xu Miao paused, then said: “There’s medicine in the drawer of the coffee table. I spent a lot of time buying that too. If you really get sick, just take that—it’ll work the same.”

As fate would have it, soon after dinner, Xie Ge really did start feeling unwell—shortness of breath, chest tightness, body aches, and a pounding headache.

He endured for a while, but things only got worse.

Xu Miao was still in the shower and couldn’t help him. Luckily, Xie Ge remembered what he said about the medicine drawer. He wasn’t so sick that he couldn’t walk to the living room.

But when he opened the drawer, alongside some basic meds, he also found a huge stash of miscellaneous items.

“Smooth heating gel.”
“Moisturizing lube.”
“Ultra-thin. 0.01. Large.”

There were so many that even using both hands, he couldn’t hold them all.

In an instant, Xie Ge felt dizzy and lightheaded.

When he looked up, he saw Xu Miao coming out of the shower, looking for him.

Xie Ge grabbed one of the square foil packets, held it up, and asked:

“What is this?”

“Isn’t it written on the package?” Xu Miao said casually. He walked over, plucked it from Xie Ge’s hand, and sat down on the sofa. “Having these at home is perfectly normal.”

Maybe it was because of his illness, but Xie Ge felt stifled, his tone turning sharp and accusatory:

“How is this normal? I haven’t even kissed you.”

Xu Miao thought for a moment, then offered a solution: “Then should I kiss you now?”

“Don’t use the kisses you gave him—” Xie Ge stopped himself halfway, afraid Xu Miao might actually take his angry words seriously. But after a moment, he couldn’t hold back and went on, “These past few years, have you two been… been…”

“What?” Xu Miao looked at him in confusion.

The instant their eyes met, Xie Ge felt as though he had taken a massive blow. His heart ached like it had been soaked in concentrated vinegar.

He stammered, unable to find a word. He wanted to accuse Xu Miao of being “debauched,” and he thought the word fit—but when it reached his lips, he couldn’t say it. He felt it would hurt Xu Miao.

So he thought again.

But after all that thinking, he didn’t come up with a better word. Instead, he thought of something even more painful.

He already knew the answer, yet he still asked:

“You’ve… done it with him, haven’t you?”