BPDSB Chapter 21: Damn, why is my crotch a bit tight?

As soon as Qin Li opened his eyes, they were covered again. Darkness immediately flooded his vision, and the haze in his mind lifted significantly.

He raised his hand and pulled down the one covering his eyes. His dark gaze, laced with suspicion, locked onto the young man in front of him. “I asked you a question—why did you cover my eyes?”

“And what bird?”

Would there even be such a thing in this villa?

For a moment, Qin Li wondered if he was still hallucinating.

Xu Xiliu, startled by the man suddenly opening his eyes, broke into a cold sweat and nearly jumped in fright. The nonsense about the bird and the instinctive move to cover the man’s eyes had all been reflex. Only after hearing Qin Li speak did he start to settle down. He carefully observed the man’s expression and confirmed that he did indeed seem to have just woken up, with no awareness of what had happened moments earlier. Relieved, Xu Xiliu tried to brush it off.

“Hehe, no bird, no bird… I must have been seeing things. How are you feeling now, Mr. Qin?” he said, quickly steering the conversation away.

Qin Li exhaled a breath of stale air and sat up on the bed.

He looked around the study. It wasn’t in disarray, which meant this episode hadn’t been too severe. His gloomy, dark eyes scanned the room before finally returning to rest on his personal doctor standing nearby.

He parted his thin lips and coldly replied, “Fine.”

Qin Li felt a heaviness in his chest—likely a lingering aftereffect of the emotional turmoil earlier, though it wasn’t exactly painful. As fragments of recent events surfaced in his mind, he recalled his uncle’s filthy tactics and the toxic remarks he’d seen on his phone. A flash of viciousness crossed his eyes.

Heh.

Exactly the kind of thing his uncle would do.

All that effort to stir public opinion—just to paint him as an unstable lunatic, use the weight of rumor to cement that narrative, and force him to step down without a single drop of blood. A neat, bloodless takeover of the Qin Corporation.

And if seeing those posts pushed him into another full-blown episode, leaving him delirious and unconscious? Even better. A perfect two-for-one.

The more Qin Li thought about it, the more violent his aura became. Bloodshot eyes, the fury still smoldering in them, made his whole presence feel even more dark and terrifying.

But in the end, he managed to calm down. Though his emotions were still stirred, he was no longer at the brink of madness.

There was a bitter taste in his mouth—familiar, the bitterness of medication.

His personal doctor must have arrived in time to give him the medicine.

Qin Li’s gaze landed on the young man, emotions flickering beneath the surface.

During his episodes, he still retained some awareness of the outside world.

At the height of it, he had been filled with rage and disbelief that Qin Zhangyuan would stoop so low—twisting and amplifying his childhood trauma, spreading it online. In his fury, hallucinations had struck. His head felt like it would split open. He kept seeing himself trapped in that cold, lifeless ancestral hall again, being chased by a madwoman screaming, hands tightening around his neck—telling him to die.

But then, somehow, the scene shifted.

The ancestral hall vanished. The woman vanished. Instead, he found himself lying in a lush, green meadow. There was peace. Calm. And he saw himself playing frisbee—with the dog he’d had as a child, the one that had died long ago.

Later still, even the dog disappeared. The images and sounds faded away entirely—but a certain scent remained. Faint yet persistent, familiar and distinct. He couldn’t stop chasing after it in the darkness, driven by instinct alone.

It was rich, almost like roses. Sweet, like lychee…

It seemed to be—the scent he’d smelled on his private doctor.

But how could he have hallucinated something like that?

Could it be…?

Qin Li couldn’t make sense of it no matter how he tried. Suspicion and curiosity lit up in his eyes, and his gaze remained fixed—sharply and unblinking—on Xu Xiliu.

Xu Xiliu felt a chill crawl down his back under the man’s intense stare, wondering guiltily if Qin Li had somehow noticed his pants had been stretched out of shape. But after a closer look, he realized—maybe not. That stare didn’t seem entirely focused on him.

Part of it… seemed to be focused on something behind him?

Xu Xiliu turned his head to look.

Oh. The shattered remains of a phone.

…Wait a minute—he wants to look at the phone again??

A chill ran down Xu Xiliu’s spine. Without thinking, he lunged forward and planted himself squarely in front of Qin Li, forcing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s late, Mr. Qin. You should rest. No need to waste your energy on things that only wear you down.”

What a joke. Just reading some online comments had been enough to push this man into a meltdown.

If he let Qin Li see that stuff again now, all their effort in calming him down would be for nothing. The man would be right back to spiraling.

He might not want to sleep, but Xu Xiliu certainly did. Did he even realize what time it was?

So Xu Xiliu smiled even more gently, with the air of someone entirely acting in the patient’s best interest.

Qin Li, still in the middle of wondering about this enigmatic private doctor of his, was at peak wariness when the man suddenly stepped forward. The abrupt move startled him enough that he instinctively scooted back slightly. Realizing this a beat later, he frowned deeply, his irritation spilling into his voice as he snapped, “Don’t come any closer! …Why so jumpy?”

Xu Xiliu, unaware of the thoughts running through the man’s head, continued in his usual calm, soothing tone. “You just took your medicine. Now is the best time to lie down and rest. Let’s not look at the phone anymore.”

Qin Li stared at the smile on the young man’s face for a moment, finally sensing that there was no hidden agenda behind it. It was just him being overly sensitive.

Feeling awkward, he shifted uncomfortably.

For once, those perpetually gloomy black eyes revealed a flicker of rare awkwardness, half-lowering in discomfort.

But the moment Qin Li grasped the implication behind Xu Xiliu’s words, that awkwardness vanished entirely. His gaze snapped up, sharp and cutting. “So you saw it too?”

“…What?”

The man’s shift in tone was so sudden that Xu Xiliu didn’t immediately follow.

He blinked, peach blossom eyes wide in confusion.

Qin Li’s patience wore thin. “Weibo.”

“You saw what was posted on Weibo too?”

Realization dawned on Xu Xiliu, and he nodded. “Yeah, I saw it.”

He glanced at the man in front of him, catching the simmering darkness in his expression. Not sure what kind of brooding schemes might be brewing in this occasionally unhinged big-shot’s head, Xu Xiliu paused and then offered, “There’s a lot of misinformation online. Mr. Qin really doesn’t need to take it too seriously.”

If people let the internet get to them, they’d be drowning in anxiety every day.

Though… if it came to outright slander, well, that was a different matter.

Qin Li gave a cold scoff, his tone laced with disdain. “Not taking it seriously doesn’t mean I won’t see it.”

“If something like that can be published, there are all kinds of ways it’ll eventually reach me, the so-called ‘subject’ of it all.”

His voice was cold, detached.

Even if he happened to miss it by chance, his subordinates and the people around him would still inform him—because it involved him.

Of course he couldn’t not know.

Qin Zhangyuan’s entire goal was to make sure he knew.

Qin Li clenched his teeth and let out a cold laugh, thinking, Fine. He really couldn’t wait, huh?

He hadn’t originally planned to move this quickly.

But since Qin Zhangyuan had already taken it this far, he might as well return the favor—in full.

A lovely little “gift”… for his dear uncle.

The more Qin Li thought about it, the darker and more deranged his smile became. Under the warm lighting, his face looked unnaturally pale, making the cold glint in his eyes all the more chilling.

He rose from the bed, ready to set plans into motion—but the moment he took his first step, he abruptly froze in place. His body locked into a slightly twisted pose.

The manic, shadowy look on his face paused too.

And turned into startled confusion.

…Damn it, why is my crotch a bit tight?