TCOR CH22

Chapter 22：Little Pity

When I woke up, Shen Wunian wasn’t at home and the sun was high in the sky, it was already noon. I hurt all over, but my mood was much calmer than yesterday.

On the table in the living room was a note and a bowl of blackened fried rice.

It was supposed to be egg fried rice, and I recognised the yellow egg and green celery foam in the rice, and as for the small black particles …… wrapped around the grains of rice, it looked very much like pan ash had fallen into the rice.

I picked up the fried rice and smelled it, there was a particular odour that I’d never smelt before, but it wasn’t unpleasant, so I guess it wasn’t pan ash.

I put down the plate, picked up the note and looked at it again, the handwriting on it is a mixture of Chinese and English, one stroke is strong and powerful, wanton and unrestrained, quite a few words like the tone of the person.

Shen Wunian said he was going out and might have to come back in the afternoon, and on the table was the Black What What Rice he had left.

I brought the note closer and tried to make out the handwriting, finally confirming that it must mean Black Truffle Vegetable Egg Scramble.

As always, I wanted to go into the guest bathroom to wash up, but the door was locked, and a note similar to the one on the table was taped to the door, saying that I’d accidentally spilled the disinfectant in the morning, and that the whole bathroom was filled with a pungent odour, and that Shen Wunian thought it was not good for my respiratory tract, and told me to use the master bedroom bathroom if I wanted to use it.

Isn’t that all the more reason to open the door to air it out ……’ I muttered in a low voice, looking helplessly at the locked bathroom as I turned to go back to the master bedroom.

Although the whole set of the house is considered Shen Wunian’s private space, but the other areas I have been, only this master bathroom, is the first time last night to unlock.

At night, I also went to the toilet in a daze, and forced myself to sleep, and surveyed the two eyes, eyes to see, but the brain did not remember a bit. Now that I’m back, I feel new everywhere.

Mirrors for storage, white porcelain sinks, green mosaic walls and old bathtubs, this is Shen Wunian’s domain.

It was the first time I had ever seen a bathtub with long legs, so much so that I squatted down curiously and tapped on its silver metal feet to find out what it was made of.

It feels …… like Shen Wunian will be drinking whisky while taking a bath in it.

I laughed at my own thoughts, only for my joy to grow in the next moment as I drew a breath of cold air from the pain of the wound on my face.

After the night’s fermentation, my right eye was swollen like a doughy bun, covering almost my entire field of vision, and combined with the bruising that had spread to my cheeks, my whole face could be described as ‘miserable’.

If I went back to my sister-in-law’s house with this face, I think she would not recognise me at a glance.

Sighing softly, I picked up my toothbrush and carefully inserted it into my broken mouth, pausing mid-brush to look at the water-filled toothbrush cup on the sink.

There was a time when Shen Wunian’s thoughtfulness surprised me, but it’s only been a few days and I’ve gotten used to it. Is it that easy to go from frugality to luxury?

Shen Wunian’s black truffle fried rice looked strange, but it tasted delicious. I didn’t think I could eat such a large portion, but in the end I not only finished it, but also felt a little unfulfilled.

After eating and drinking, I started looking for something to do for myself. First I washed the dishes, wiped down the stove and cleaned the cupboards. I’ve done this sort of thing a lot at my sister-in-law’s house, so I’m pretty good at it.

When I was scrubbing the floor, I stood up too quickly, my eyes went black, I almost fell to the floor and held on to the wall for a long time before I recovered.

Cleaned the house, would have liked to buy some food, but I can not go out in this condition, looking for a circle mobile phone can not be found, can only regret to give up.

…… When is Shen Wunian coming back?

Sitting by the window for a while, I have nothing to do and do not want to mess up the bed I just made, then go to the side of the sofa to take a nap. I thought, squinting for half an hour at the most, not wanting to open my eyes again when the sky was dark.

The lights were on in River City, making the city centre as bright as day at night, so the house didn’t feel dim even though there were no lights.

I blinked slowly, still a little sleepy, and wanted to go back to sleep, but just then the sound of unlocking came from outside the door.

I sat up in an instant and rushed to the door, but because I got up too quickly, my eyes went black again and I lost my bearings, falling after only a few steps.

I was lying on the ground, still confused, when Shen Wunian dropped the bag he was holding and came to my side.

You’re happy to see me, but you don’t have to salute me so much, do you? Did you fall and hurt yourself? With a smile on his face, he picked me up from the floor and gently set me down on the sofa.

Being a grown man, being hugged by him like that, I really blushed a bit, my ears started to burn: ‘No, I just got sleepy ……’.

“Did you just take a nap? Shen Wunian went to the wall and turned on the light, suddenly the room was bright.

‘Well, I slept a little. My eyes followed him everywhere, and when I saw him walk around the sofa back to the door, I also peeked over the back of the sofa.

Some fruit and vegetables rolled out of the white bag, and Shen Wunian bent down to put them back into the bag, then closed the door and went into the kitchen.

No longer able to see him, I plopped down on the sofa, my eyes still looking in the direction he had disappeared, and listened to the small sounds in the kitchen.

‘Have you done the dishes? He came out of the kitchen, taking off his coat as he spoke and laying it casually on the sofa.

‘I should have washed them. I straightened up and looked at him, ‘I’ll do the dishes tonight too.

He watched me for a moment, then reached over and touched my head, ‘You didn’t do anything else, did you? Do I pick up an idyllic girl and go home?

I lifted the corners of my lips a little painfully and let them fall back, ‘It’s nothing.

Compared to what he’d done for me, just cleaning was really nothing.

Even though it’s very touching, your current body still needs to recover, so don’t work too hard. Having said that, he let go of his hand, scratched the tip of my nose quite naturally, turned around and walked back to the kitchen.

After the age of fifteen, it was Bai Qi Xuan who didn’t quite do that to me. I froze, staring at his back, and couldn’t help but have some doubts in my heart: ‘Is this really possible between friends?

But he is strictly speaking a foreigner, he can’t even write Chinese well, some of the speech and mannerisms are not like the cognitive compatriots, also seems …… reasonable? I rubbed my nose and thought.

At dinner, I hesitated for a long time, but still took the initiative to ask Wang Xiangyang’s side of the situation.

Things always have to be resolved, escape today, but not tomorrow.

There’s no news from the school yet, but I’ve asked for leave for you, you can stay at my house for this week,’ Shen Wunian said. Shen Wunian said.

It is still the weekend, it only happened yesterday, I guess the school’s reaction is not so fast, it should take a few days before we can discuss the results of Wang Xiangyang’s and my treatment.

The money for yesterday’s doctor’s visit and the lawyer’s fee, you tell me the total, and I’ll see if I have enough money to pay you back. If it’s not enough, maybe I’ll have to owe you first and pay you back later when I ……’

Would you like to come and be my assistant?’ He suddenly interrupted me.

I froze, my mind somehow not picking up the jump in the conversation, ‘Huh?

‘Exhibitions are something that started in Europe, and there’s still a lot of room for development in the country, and my adoptive father sent me back to China to expand my domestic business. Miharu is in charge of contacting various art museums and exhibition halls, and there’s already a lot going on, so I need a specialised assistant to share some of the workload for me, so I can focus all my attention on curating the exhibitions instead of chicken scratching around.

If something calls you, you just go and do it, otherwise you’re on your own. Room and board are included, the salary is paid monthly, and the money you owe me can be deducted slowly from your salary. He offered me a monthly salary that was hard to refuse, and then said, ‘But you will have to give up your part-time job at the nightclub at night, because it might interfere with your work the next day.

Quietly listening to him, I thought for a long time and couldn’t help but ask: ‘Are you …… helping the poor?

Package room and board, high wages, less work, I’m not a fool, Shen Wunian wants to find an assistant who can’t be found, why would you want to find me, a student who knows nothing? I’m not even an art student.

Besides helping the poor to do good deeds, I can think of no better reason.

Shen Wunian picked up a piece of mushroom and sent it to my bowl, sniffed it and asked instead of answering, ‘Do you feel your self-esteem has been hurt?

I shook my head, ‘No, I just think you don’t have to be like this. I …… have already accepted a lot of help from you, you don’t owe me anything.

If I go on like this, I’m afraid that the more favours I accumulate, the more I won’t be able to pay them back.

I have helped you, of course, because you have what I want in you. Shen Wunian spoke slowly, ‘You needn’t think that I get nothing.

I have what Shen Wunian wants in me? I am destitute, I have no money, I have no talent, what else do I have that Shen Wunian doesn’t have?

At a loss for words, I could only ask the other man, ‘What do you want?

He stopped the chopsticks, looked deep into my eyes, for a moment I felt as if I had become a beautiful gift in the window, he measured me, judged me, his eyes unconsciously revealed an imperative. But in the blink of an eye, before I could develop any shyness, this ambition was replaced by a gentle smile.

Hard to say, maybe it’s the naive innocence I never had?

‘……’

I struggled to answer for a moment and just looked at him blankly.

He laughed, full of mischievous triumph and cunning, the tips of his chopsticks hitting the bowl with a crisp clatter.

I was a little speechless, but seeing him like that, I also laughed a little, shook my head helplessly and said, ‘Don’t keep talking nonsense, be careful, no matter what you say in the future, I won’t believe you.

He stopped laughing, his expression was surprisingly quite hurt, ‘How can you say I’m talking nonsense, I obviously say every word from my heart.

I was too lazy to argue with him any further, so I hurriedly gave him a piece of fish and said, ‘I know, I know, I’m wrong ……’.

After the meal, I got up to clear the dishes, but Shen Wunian didn’t stop and said he wanted to take a bath, so he went back to his own bedroom.

Speaking of bathing …… I looked at the clothes on my body. It feels like I need to go back to school before I can do that, and wearing Shen Wunian’s clothes all the time is not the answer.

While the others go to class in the bedroom, you sneak back to get some clothes, right?

Shen Wunian came out after taking a shower, I spoke to him directly about my intention to go back to school to get some clothes, and his action of wiping his hair was a start: ‘Tomorrow? I’ll send you back.

‘Don’t you have to work?

‘Tomorrow’s fine.

I said, ‘Oh,’ and didn’t deny his good intentions.

I wanted Shen Wunian to unlock the guest bathroom so I could take a bath in it, but he said the smell hadn’t dissipated and wouldn’t let me open it.

How can it smell if you won’t even open the door?’ I cried a little.

I’ll open it when you’re asleep and we’ll open the windows together to let the air out.

That’s what he said, I can’t force myself, I can only go into his bathroom to take a shower.

The bathroom had just been used, the steam was thick, the air was filled with the smell of shampoo, the smell of Shen Wunian’s body.

As there are no more panties, I directly did not wear, thinking of tomorrow back to school to change is, now the weather is still very cold, everyone is wearing thick, a glance can not see anything.

Refreshed out of the bedroom, I saw Shen Wunian standing next to the living room sofa, holding a stick of ointment in his hand, raising his chin at me.

‘Wash up and come over to apply the medicine.

‘Put on the medicine?’

Shen Wunian looked at the instructions and said, ‘Have you forgotten? The doctor said yesterday that you must apply the medicine after twenty-four hours to get well quickly.

The doctor seemed to have said that, but ……

“I’ll just rub it myself, no need to bother you. Saying that, I reached for the ointment in Shen Wunian’s hand, which he easily avoided.

I’ll just rub it on your back, you can do the rest yourself. He squeezed my shoulders and told me to sit down.

‘No ……’

‘All men, what’s the point of squirming?’ he said quietly, perhaps sensing my struggle.

The effect of this statement must have been similar to ‘can’t you do it’, he said, and I did not move. The next second, the hem of my shirt lifted and I deliberately fell onto the couch, resting on my crossed arms, closing my eyes and waiting nervously.

Out of the darkness, accompanied by a soft laugh, a large, hot, ointment-smeared hand landed on my back.

I shuddered uncontrollably and then I heard the person behind me ask, ‘Does it hurt?

It hadn’t hurt too much during the day, but I don’t know what happened, but now that he’s rubbed it, it hurts again.

It hurts ah ……’. I hadn’t even finished a word before I felt Shen Wunian on my back suddenly increase his strength to press and rub over that painful piece of flesh, and his tail tone rose uncontrollably.

I quickly bit my lower lip to stop my shameful voice.

‘Then I’ll be lighter. The force on my back eased with that, but it made it harder and harder.

It wasn’t pure pain, and it wasn’t absolutely itchy, and again it was all a bit mixed up. My forehead rested against my arm and I clenched my fists tightly, trying to fight off the sound that was about to bubble up in my throat.

My body was like a dry piece of wood under Shen Wunian’s rubbing, gradually heating up and then burning.

When I realised how much I had changed, I came to in a flash, my cheeks tingling, my mind swelling and a fine layer of sweat trickling down my back in a matter of seconds.

I actually ……

shame and fear wrapped around me in a flash, calling me to swim in the warm spring and then fall into the cold abyss of ten thousand feet.

Fortunately, Shen Wunian didn’t notice my abnormality.

You sweat a lot, does it hurt that much? The palm root pressing and rubbing my shoulder blades stops, Shen Wunian leans down slightly, comes to my ear and asks, ‘Do you want to stop and drink some water?

No, no, no! If I sit up now, I will definitely be discovered!

No need! I replied sharply and quickly, afraid that a second later Shen Wunian would help me up.

If he found out that I could …… get a good dose of medicine, he would definitely treat me as a pervert. Just the thought of that possibility scared me to death, and I felt like I was going to choke out a sob as soon as I relaxed.

Then I’ll continue. With that, Shen Wunian’s fingertips slid down my spine to the area between my waist and the edge of my trousers.

This area did not want to be as serious as the shoulder blades there, because the pain was even less, it was all crunchy itchiness and heat, sending my body and mind, which had just relaxed, back into the abyss of despair.

Shameless ……

There had never been a moment when I had been so deeply disgusted by the fact that I was a man.

I tried to think of something else, but the presence of the hand on my waist was too strong, and every time my thoughts wandered, they were violently pushed back by the hand, sending a rush of unstoppable trembling through me.

In the end, feeling that I really can’t, I support the upper half of my body and hold Shen Wunian’s arm with my back, not allowing him to continue.

I …… will do the rest myself. I tried to smooth out my vocal line, but my long-suppressed voice still couldn’t help but be tinged with a wet rasp.

He glanced at my waist, his eyes more likely to wander down my lower back.

I squeezed his hand like a thief and said eagerly, “Can you get me a glass of water?

Shen Wunian withdrew his gaze, ‘Of course.

Seeing the other party in the kitchen, I jumped up in a flash and lowered my loose t-shirt to cover my less indiscreet parts. Feeling it wasn’t enough, I hugged another pillow on my lap.

Soon Shen Wunian returned with a glass of warm water.

You can watch some TV before you go to bed, I still have some work to do, so I won’t be joining you.

I took the glass of water, moistened my throat and asked softly, ‘Is there anything I can help you with?

He raised an eyebrow, ‘You want to fulfil your assistant duties so soon?

My face heated and I didn’t look at him, ‘Don’t forget.

Anyone who saw you working for me in this condition would say I mistreat my employees. You will get well these days, if you get well ……,’ his fingertips gently ran through the ends of my hair, ‘there will be many places where I can use you.

The reaction in my lower body was without a source of stimulation and it subsided in a few minutes. For fear of disturbing Shen Wunian, who was working behind me, I didn’t watch television and just read for a while on the sofa.

Shen Wunian’s books are either magazines or some foreign original novels and poems, I purely as practice their level of four or six, picked up an English novel hard to gnaw for an hour, see the eyes sore, temples swollen and painful, close your eyes are phantasmagorical vision of those English words in front of my eyes round and round.

Fearing that the only remaining eye would also be blind, I greeted Shen Wunian and went back to sleep in the second bedroom where I had lived before.

When I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, Shen Wunian had gone to bed and the door to the outside bathroom was finally open.

As soon as I stepped inside, I could smell a strong smell of disinfectant. It was almost as if the whole room had been soaked in disinfectant water, and as soon as I stepped inside, the bacteria on my body had to die by 30%.

How much disinfectant water has been sprayed here? I muttered to myself in a daze.

As I’d gone to bed early, I woke up at seven the next morning, Shen Wunian’s room was quiet, he was still asleep.

I fumbled with the coffee maker, rummaged through the fridge for the ingredients I needed, and stumbled through the process of making a Western-style breakfast like Shen Wunian.

When spreading the omelette, because the first one was a little soggy on the bottom, I paid extra attention to the heat on the second one, so to speak, without any distractions.

So when Shen Wunian grabbed my hand from behind, I was really scared.

It is ready to be turned over. If he hadn’t controlled the power that made me flip the pan, I could have flipped the omelette onto him.

‘Can you make a sound when you lean over later?’ I asked, pressing my heart.

He wrapped his arm around my waist and answered lazily, not sure if he heard me or not.

After breakfast, Shen Wunian sent me back to school, originally he wanted to accompany me back to the dormitory, but I did not let him – after all, I am not a child, I can not do or do things on my own.

Things happened too suddenly, I did not have the key to the hostel with me, so I could only get the hostel aunt to open the door for me.

Don’t worry, they are not in the dormitory, you want to take what you just take. The aunt looked for the key to open the door, looked at me and sighed, ‘Sinful ah, how can I beat you like this’.

When I was a freshman at college, I once helped Auntie fix her mobile phone.

It wasn’t that the phone was broken, it was just that she had accidentally turned off the network by herself, and she didn’t know how to do it, so she could only ask the student, who seemed all-powerful to her, for help.

I quickly reset it for her, and after that she was always polite to me.

You’re a good boy, much better behaved than those boys, Auntie knows all about it. She unlocked the door and let me in, ‘Whatever happens, Auntie trusts you!

The mood that had been heavy since I entered the dormitory building suddenly became much lighter, like seeing the sun in the clouds.

Even though there are despicable and evil people like Wang Xiangyang in this world, there are also many people like Shen Wunian and Auntie who will trust me unconditionally, so thinking like that, it doesn’t seem so hard anymore.

Auntie, you shouldn’t trust people so easily in the future, not everyone who fixes your mobile phone is a good person. I don’t even dare to blink for fear of losing my face and shedding tears again, my tone is also as relaxed as possible, ”I’m all minor injuries, Wang Xiangyang, that bastard is much more seriously injured than me, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t beat him half to death.

Yo, you’re capable of dying. Auntie didn’t have the good sense to say, ‘Harmony brings prosperity, young people aren’t always so violent.

I took out my own rucksack and suitcase, loaded everything I could into it and smiled back, ‘Got it, Auntie.

With a suitcase in my hand and a rucksack on my back, I knocked on Shen Wunian’s car window and signalled for him to open the boot.

This is all your stuff? He got out of the car and helped me stuff the suitcase into the boot.

Inside the car, I fastened the seatbelt and said, ‘Clothing can protect the body from the cold on the line, my Ma …… Ma what Luo needs?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. Shen Wunian returned within seconds.

That’s right, my Maslow needs are still stuck at the low level, I run around all day to meet my physiological needs, and I can’t accumulate any household goods.

Maslow’s needs are divided into five levels, the lowest level is such as eating and sleeping to maintain the physiological needs of individual survival, when the physiological needs are met, and then to the next level, is the need for safety, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on.

According to Maslow, human motivation is driven by needs, and at each stage there is one need that dominates.

For me at the bottom, my main goal at this stage is to survive.

Poor little thing. Shen Wunian gave a succinct assessment of my current situation.

I realised that he really likes to give me all sorts of nicknames, such as ‘little crybaby’, ‘little liar’, ‘little friend’ and now ‘little pitiful’.

I always thought he didn’t put the word ‘little’ in front of it because I was young, but there was no proof.

Not pathetic. I looked out at the landscape outside the car and felt in my heart that I wasn’t pathetic: ‘There are a lot of people in this world who are more pathetic than I am. I was lucky enough to be born in a peaceful country and to go to university in Jiang City, just these two things are already better than many, many people who don’t have an education and are still in the middle of a war.

The people next to me fell silent and didn’t speak for a long time.

Half an hour later I began to feel that something was wrong, the scenery around me was becoming unfamiliar, and this was not the road we took back to the apartment.

I looked at Shen Wunian in disbelief and asked him where he was going.

Shen Wunian didn’t tell me, just gave me an ambiguous answer: ‘To satisfy your physical needs.’