BPDSB Chapter 19: The relationship between us is not what you think!

At first, Xu Xiliu thought he was just hearing things. But when the man actually handed the frisbee to him, he belatedly realized—it wasn’t an illusion. Qin Li really did want to watch him throw the frisbee.

Did that even make sense?

Could the frisbee possess some kind of magic?

Xu Xiliu carefully examined the item in his hand. He found that it was just an ordinary dog frisbee. In fact, because it was a promotional giveaway, it wasn’t even that big. It felt small and delicate in his hand. On the underside, he noticed a logo—[Heart Baby]—which was likely the brand of the dog frisbee.

In short, it was just a regular frisbee.

The man on the other side was still staring intently at the item in his hand, as if silently urging him. Xu Xiliu could feel that the longer he remained still, the more the man’s impatience and agitation grew. His dark eyes grew increasingly intense, as if he might lunge at any moment.

Under that piercing gaze, Xu Xiliu felt a chill crawl up his spine. He thought to himself that something seemed off with the protagonist gong right now. Even though the request sounded bizarre, he figured it was best to go along with it.

After all, he was just a doctor with no strength to fight back.

So, with that in mind, Xu Xiliu reluctantly tossed the frisbee again.

Sure enough, the man moved once more, his gaze tracking the wobbling frisbee through the air. After it hit the ground, he picked it up and handed it back to Xu Xiliu. Though he didn’t say a single word during the whole process, his aura had clearly calmed. Even the pain on his face had eased considerably. Compared to the restlessness he’d shown upon arrival, he now seemed almost docile.

If not for the faint traces of daze lingering in those dark eyes upon closer inspection, no one would suspect that anything was off about his current state.

“Continue.”

That cold and unfeeling command came out again, making Xu Xiliu twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Just hearing that voice, one would think the man was issuing some high-level, authoritative order. Who would have guessed it was just to make him throw a frisbee?

Despite his thoughts, he once again dutifully and obediently tossed the frisbee.

…What even was this situation?

Why did he feel like he was watching over a child?

Where was the butler? How could it take so long just to get some medicine? Leaving him here alone—did they trust him that much? Weren’t they afraid he might take the chance to do something bad to their master…?

Xu Xiliu let his thoughts wander as he felt his energy slowly draining. In the end, he plopped down onto the carpet.

“I can’t go on, I need a break!”

He was exhausted!

He didn’t know if the protagonist gong was tired or not, but he was definitely worn out.

Though the study was spacious, it wasn’t exactly the right place to be throwing a frisbee. Every time he tossed it, he had to control the force and direction carefully, afraid that if he wasn’t precise, it might crash through the glass, shatter a chandelier, knock over some vases—or hit the man himself.

After a few rounds, Xu Xiliu was completely spent.

He thought he caught a glimpse of familiar disdain in the still-dazed man’s eyes, which made his nose itch with frustration. But on the surface, he pretended not to notice. Still seated on the carpet, he casually reached for his phone behind his back, trying to shift his focus and avoid meeting that intense gaze.

While scrolling through his phone, he also fished out a piece of candy from his pocket and popped it into his mouth to soothe his mood.

Mmm, his favorite rose-lychee flavor.

Good thing he’d thought to bring some in advance.

Just as he opened his phone, several Weibo notifications popped up.

He looked closely—was it actually about Qin Li?

Xu Xiliu couldn’t help but glance up at the man, only to quickly lower his head the moment he met that intense, unblinking stare. As soon as he looked down, he saw Weibo, and despite his original intention to just casually scroll, he found himself drawn in by the content and tapped into it.

The trending topic was extremely popular, with a high level of discussion.

A quick scroll revealed countless new comments.

Xu Xiliu skimmed the content and found it was all about their appearance at the banquet earlier that day. Even he, a mere peripheral tool character, was mentioned simply because he had stood too close to the protagonist gong. Most of the content centered around the protagonist gong’s status and identity, and inevitably brought up his medical condition. Mixed in were numerous speculative and subjective remarks—worded so boldly and erratically that they bordered on malicious. It was as if the author of the post had some deep-seated grudge against Qin Li.

The more he read, the deeper Xu Xiliu’s brows furrowed. By the time he finished, he couldn’t help but curse under his breath.

What were these marketing accounts even doing nowadays, writing nonsense like this?

Where was their sense of ethics? Their bottom line?

He even suspected that his own mention in the post probably painted him in a not-so-positive light.

Xu Xiliu didn’t feel like looking anymore and raised his hand to swipe away, but Weibo pushed another related post at him—this time claiming to be an exposé on Qin Li’s family background. He couldn’t deny that this one really piqued his curiosity. His fingertip hesitated for a moment before he found himself clicking in, as if compelled by some invisible force.

The exposé was long. Frowning, Xu Xiliu patiently read through it, only to discover that the core message was this: Qin Li had suffered from severe mental illness since childhood, was a jinx who not only caused his father’s death but also his mother’s, and was far too dangerous to inherit the massive Qin Corporation.

He was speechless.

At first, he had been half-skeptical reading the exposé, but by the end, he dismissed it entirely.

The dagger behind the smile, huh?

All those words, and yet the whole point was clearly crammed into that final line.

It reeked of personal bias—obviously written by someone with a grudge against Qin Li, deliberately fabricating lies to ruin his reputation.

This inevitably reminded Xu Xiliu of the plot in the book.

The truthfulness of the exposé was questionable. While the outcome it described roughly matched what was in the story—namely, the public being stirred up and pointing fingers at Qin Li—the malice behind it was too heavy-handed. From Xu Xiliu’s own perspective, the protagonist gong might be a bit of a mad dog, but his character wasn’t bad. So he guessed that while Qin Li’s parents did pass away, the real reasons behind their deaths were likely far from the disgraceful claims in the post.

As for the exposé itself, he suspected it was most likely the handiwork of the antagonist. After all, in the current timeline, the protagonist gong was still being suppressed by the villain…

Lost in his thoughts, Xu Xiliu didn’t notice what was happening around him.

When he finally snapped out of it, he realized that the man who had previously calmed down was now breathing heavily again—rough, rapid, as if teetering on the edge of emotional collapse. Xu Xiliu looked up and found that Qin Li, who had been some distance away, was now right beside him. His bloodshot black eyes were locked on the phone in Xu Xiliu’s hand, fixed on the text on the screen, fury and hostility rolling off him in waves.

Xu Xiliu froze for a moment, then instantly recalled the shattered phone he had seen earlier in the corner of the room.

And just like that, everything clicked into place.

If even he could see this trending topic—how could Qin Li not have seen it too?

Even as a bystander, Xu Xiliu found the content of that exposé deeply unsettling—how enraged must the actual subject of it be?

One emotional trigger, and then…

Xu Xiliu’s thoughts snapped into focus.

Looking at the man who seemed like he was about to completely lose control and go berserk at any moment, Xu Xiliu made a split-second decision. He quickly turned off the phone screen and tossed the device aside.

Seeing the man’s gaze follow the phone, Xu Xiliu grabbed him by the collar and forcibly redirected his line of sight.

Meeting those dazed yet seething black eyes again, Xu Xiliu felt a tremor in his chest, but still refused to let him look back at the screen.

Part of it was to prevent further provocation. The other part—well, he was alone here. If the man really snapped and launched into an indiscriminate attack, he’d be helpless. He’d already almost been accidentally injured on the night he first transmigrated into this book.

Determined, Xu Xiliu clung tightly to the man’s collar, keeping him from turning his head and catching sight of the phone he’d flung aside. He didn’t want Qin Li to even think about going after it.

The two of them, after that little tussle, ended up sitting awkwardly on the floor—neither spared from the mess.

But with the interruption, the man in his daze seemed to have forgotten all about the phone. Now distanced from the source of agitation, his labored breathing and volatile emotions slowly began to settle.

Seeing this was working, Xu Xiliu’s eyes lit up. He held his position, not daring to let go, and inwardly prayed for the long-absent butler to hurry back and rescue him from this tense situation.

With the tension easing a bit, Xu Xiliu suddenly remembered he still had a piece of candy in his mouth. He quickly chewed it up—worried that if something unexpected happened again, it might end up choking him at the worst possible moment.

The rich flavor of rose and lychee spread through his mouth, and Xu Xiliu narrowed his peach blossom eyes in contentment.

So good. Too bad now wasn’t the time to slowly savor candy.

He felt a bit regretful, and when he came back to his senses, he noticed that Qin Li, across from him, was somehow staring at him again. And this time, he seemed to be fixated on… his mouth?

Xu Xiliu blinked in surprise.

Just as he was about to ask—half-jokingly—whether the man wanted a piece too, he suddenly heard the second sentence Qin Li had spoken since arriving, following his earlier commanding “Continue.” This time, he said, with a rare note of softness, “You smell good.”

Xu Xiliu: “???”

What?

His peach blossom eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses widened, losing their usual gentle elegance for the first time.

What the hell?

Did he hear that right?

But before he could even process the shock from that one sentence, he felt the force with which he’d been gripping Qin Li’s collar rapidly weaken. Not because he was losing strength, but because the man was steadily leaning forward, following the pull of his hand.

And then, under Xu Xiliu’s increasingly alarmed gaze, Qin Li suddenly lunged—slamming Xu Xiliu hard onto the floor.

The dazed Qin Li lay on top of Xu Xiliu, his head buried in the crook of Xu Xiliu’s neck, as if searching for something. He nuzzled there for a moment, then slowly moved upward—his chin, his lips—until he stopped just a hair’s breadth above Xu Xiliu’s own lips.

And then he spoke again: “You smell so good.”

A vein throbbed wildly on Xu Xiliu’s forehead.

But at this moment, he didn’t even dare to breathe.

When he’d been suddenly tackled so aggressively, his mind had gone completely blank. The only thing that popped into his head was the term “hospital assault”, and he’d frantically started calculating the odds of a background character like himself managing to reverse roles and take down the protagonist.

It wasn’t until his back hit the soft carpet, and the protagonist gong’s full weight pinned him down—yet the man did nothing but sniff him up and down—that Xu Xiliu realized what this was really about: the scent that had wafted out when he was eating the candy had attracted him.

Holy crap, that was close.

He broke out in a cold sweat.

Xu Xiliu let out a long breath, but still didn’t dare relax completely. He gave the man a push—he didn’t budge. Heavy as a sack of bricks, like a 200-pound burlap sack weighing him down. Gritting his teeth and trying to stay calm, he said patiently, “Mr. Qin, do you want some candy? If you get off me first, I’ll give you one, alright?”

“……”

No response.

“…Mr. Qin?”

Still nothing.

The man continued sniffing him, completely absorbed in it.

The sensation of that breath brushing against the side of his neck sent goosebumps exploding across Xu Xiliu’s skin, his scalp tingling.

And as if the sniffing weren’t bad enough, the man would occasionally murmur in a dazed, eerie, and utterly entranced tone—“So fragrant.”

…This was intolerable!

Utterly outrageous!

In a rare burst of anger, Xu Xiliu really did get mad for a moment.

At such close range, he could easily feel the man’s breath against his face. Combined with these inexplicably suggestive gestures, Xu Xiliu inwardly screamed pervert, but his ears betrayed him—flushing from light pink to deep crimson, as red as if they might bleed.

Xu Xiliu could swear he had never experienced anything so absurd in his life.

He turned his head, trying to avoid the man’s unnerving gaze. Just as he was about to seize another chance to break free in one go, he suddenly heard hurried footsteps outside the study—approaching fast. Then came the familiar voice of a middle-aged man: “Dr. Xu, sorry to keep you waiting. I brought some hot water for sir, I’m a little—”

The voice cut off abruptly with the footsteps.

Xu Xiliu looked up and met the butler’s utterly speechless, stunned expression at the doorway.

From where the butler stood, he had a full view of the scene inside the room.

The young man in pale clothes was pinned to the carpet, panting, his usually refined and pleasant face now completely flustered. His neat gold-rimmed glasses had vanished—askew and lying on the carpet nearby. His collar was a mess, and his hair slightly tousled.

Not to mention, the man pressing down on the young man was unmistakably that man. And he was currently hovering by the youth’s lips, looking up sharply at the sound—like a beast disturbed in its territory, eyes filled with menace.

Six eyes met.

The atmosphere was unspeakably strange.

Lying on the floor, Xu Xiliu turned his head and saw the butler standing in the doorway. He watched the butler’s expression shift in real time—from delighted, to frozen, then to stunned disbelief, and finally to a look of sudden understanding. Before Xu Xiliu could even register what that realization might mean, the butler’s face turned serious and he said, “Apologies for interrupting. I’ll come back later.”

And with that, he promptly turned and left—very considerately closing the door behind him.

Xu Xiliu was stunned speechless, his brain stalling as he stretched out a desperate hand in the direction of the door.

No—don’t leave!!

It’s not what you think!!!