Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Shen Ling stared at the news alert on his phone, feeling as if every drop of blood had been drained from his body.

Huo Yanshen had told him yesterday that he would arrive around eight a.m.

But when he checked the time, it was already 9:20 a.m. Huo Yanshen was an hour and a half late, and he hadn't sent a single message. That wasn't like him.

Shen Ling's fingers started trembling uncontrollably again. He tried to type, but his vision wouldn't focus, and he couldn't form a complete sentence. He opened his contacts and dialed the number directly.

A mechanical female voice came through the receiver, "The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable..."

Shen Ling called again and again, but got the same result every time.

Shen Ling desperately told himself that chain-reaction accidents were a rare occurrence. There were so many cars on the highway—Huo Yanshen's car was just one of them. The odds of an accident were so low.

His rational mind tried to convince him that this was just his anxiety acting up, that he was projecting events from his past life onto today's small mishap. Maybe Huo Yanshen just had something urgent. Maybe he was in an emergency meeting...

But his body refused to listen to reason.

Something in his stomach felt like it was sinking, his stomach clenching slightly. The world outside gradually dissolved into blurry patches of color. He tried to get out of bed, but the moment his feet touched the floor, his knees buckled with a dull thud.

Shen Ling knelt on the ground, grabbing the bed frame with trembling hands, struggling to pull himself up. When he stood, he tripped on the hem of his pajamas and stumbled. Without even bothering to change his shoes, he ran barefoot out the door.

The hallway was long, the carpet muffling his footsteps. The elevator numbers counted down floor by floor. People in the lobby turned to look at him.

A young man in white pajamas sprinting through the lobby of a luxury hotel—impossible to miss. Someone stepped forward, seemingly wanting to help Shen Ling, but he shoved them all away, refusing every offer.

Shen Ling vaguely heard someone call him "crazy," but he didn't care at all.

Outside, it was thirty-five degrees Celsius.

The ground was burning hot against his soles, but Shen Ling felt nothing. He just ran toward the road outside the hotel that led to the highway.

The asphalt on the road had softened slightly under the heat, and heat waves shimmered, distorting the distant scenery. Shen Ling stood by the roadside, his pajamas plastered to his back with sweat, his eyes fixed desperately on every license plate that passed.

Not Huo Yanshen's car.

Not Huo Yanshen's car.

None of them were his car...

The sunlight was too intense, forcing Shen Ling to squint. His eyes were red from the glare, his lips cracked and peeling.

Shen Ling licked them and suddenly tasted the metallic taste of blood.

*

On the highway.

Huo Yanshen put down his phone. The twentieth failed attempt to send a message showed a red exclamation mark on the screen. The signal bars were empty.

A fuel tanker ahead had overturned and exploded, the air thick with the smell of smoke and burning fuel.

Fire truck lights flashed on and off through the smoke, and even the cell tower had been affected.

Huo Yanshen glanced at his watch. 9:30.

He cracked the window open, letting the smell of smoke seep in. He frowned and rolled it up. "How much longer?"

"They've just cleared the blockage up ahead. Should be soon, Mr. Huo," the driver said.

Huo Yanshen sat in the back, one hand on his knee, drumming his fingers—a rare display of impatience.

He hated being out of control, and having no phone signal was exactly the kind of thing he couldn't control. Shen Ling had said yesterday that he missed him, and today Huo Yanshen couldn't even manage to see him on time. He was trapped here with no way out.

Frustration burned in his chest like a fire. He pressed the lock button. His lock screen wallpaper was a photo of Shen Ling from last night, fast asleep.

His cheek pressed against Huo Yanshen's coat sleeve, lips slightly parted, the shadow of his lashes falling on his cheeks. He slept so obediently, like a little cat.

Huo Yanshen looked at it for a long time before turning the screen off.

Ten more minutes passed before the cars ahead finally began to move. The driver pressed the accelerator and merged into traffic.

As they passed the accident site, charred car frames still sat on the shoulder. One car's hood had been blown open by fire, and foam on the ground hadn't dried yet, mixing with black ash as it flowed into the drainage ditch.

Huo Yanshen didn't look.

Once past the accident point, the speed picked up. The white canopy of the Xuncheng toll booth was already in sight.

The phone finally got a signal. Huo Yanshen reopened his chat with Shen Ling. Three messages popped up, timestamped over thirty minutes ago.

"Are you here yet?"

"Did anything happen on the road?"

"Please, just text me back..."

Huo Yanshen's brows furrowed. His fingers were already on the input box, but his gaze lifted first, out of habit, scanning outside the window.

On the sidewalk beside the toll booth stood a figure in white pajamas.

Shen Ling stood there, eyes wide, pupils unfocused, staring toward the toll exit. But he seemed to see nothing—his eyes were hollow, devoid of focus.

Huo Yanshen's pupils constricted. He said to the driver, "Stop."

Before the car had fully come to a halt, Huo Yanshen pushed open the door and strode out quickly, the hem of his suit jacket flapping in the wind.

But Shen Ling didn't see him.

Shen Ling's vision was filled with gray spots, like TV static. He was using the last of his ability to focus to track every black car exiting the toll booth. The cars had blurred into moving patches of color in his eyes—he couldn't tell which one was Huo Yanshen's, couldn't even tell if they were cars.

He just stood there, the soles of his feet burned raw with blisters, capillaries beneath the skin gradually rupturing and seeping blood, which he then ground into faint red smears.

He felt a familiar hand cup the back of his neck, fingers threading into his sweat-damp hair at the nape of his neck.

Shen Ling was carried into the back seat. Huo Yanshen settled him on his lap.

"Baby."

Huo Yanshen lowered his head, his lips pressing against Shen Ling's forehead. "Baby, I'm here."

Shen Ling's lashes trembled, as if he were just coming back to himself.

Slowly, he raised his ice-cold, trembling fingertips. They hovered in the air for a moment before touching Huo Yanshen's face.

His fingertips traced down from Huo Yanshen's brow bone, sliding along the bridge of his nose all the way to his chin, then circled back to his ears, his jawline.

Like checking items off one by one, confirming that this face was real, not a hallucination he'd seen in the hotel room.

He felt the pulse beating at the side of Huo Yanshen's neck.

Real and powerful, thudding against his fingertips through the skin, beat after beat.

Shen Ling's pupils finally focused for a moment, the corners of his lips starting to curl into a faint smile—

Then he started coughing violently.

The coughing fit came out of nowhere, one cough after another. He doubled over in Huo Yanshen's arms, his thin spine convulsing with every cough. The collar of his bathrobe slipped off his shoulder, and the sharp edges of his shoulder blades strained against his thin skin, like a pair of paper wings drenched in rain.

Huo Yanshen tightened his arms, pulling him all the way into his chest, one hand smoothing down his back.

Shen Ling's coughing abruptly stopped. He lowered his head, and something warm spilled from his lips, dripping onto the back of Huo Yanshen's hand.

It was *blood*.

A few drops of dark red blood landed on the webbing between his thumb and index finger, slowly trailing down the lines of his palm.

Shen Ling stared at the drops of blood, his pupils shrinking.

He looked up at Huo Yanshen, tears still clinging to his lashes from the coughing. He saw Huo Yanshen watching him, and in those usually calm dark eyes, something seemed to be slowly breaking apart.

Shen Ling's lips parted.

*I'm sorry.*

He wanted to say sorry—sorry for getting his clothes dirty again, sorry for making him see this again. Just a few days ago, he'd been thinking that from now on, everything had to be okay, that he wouldn't be some fragile thing that made him worry.

He'd messed things up again.

Shen Ling tried desperately to force those three words out, but his breathing was too rapid, his vocal cords straining but no sound coming out.

Huo Yanshen saw Shen Ling in his arms, blood smeared on his lips, his face so pale it was almost translucent, mouthing the words "I'm sorry" to him, one syllable at a time.

When he was done, those eyes still stared straight at him, as if waiting for an answer.

Huo Yanshen clenched his jaw. "*It's fine.*"

His voice was shaking, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't steady it.

"It's fine, it's fine, baby."

Huo Yanshen pressed him closer into his arms. "We're going to the hospital, okay? Be good, we're going to the hospital."

Shen Ling heard Huo Yanshen's voice and suddenly felt safe.

Huo Yanshen wasn't mad at him. This man saw him coughing up blood, saw him getting his shirt dirty, saw him unable to even talk, and his first instinct was still to pull him into his arms, still calling him baby, still telling him it was okay.

So that meant he was forgiven, right?

The corner of Shen Ling's mouth curved up. He couldn't hold back the smile, and blood spilled from the corner of his mouth again.

His vision blurred, his head lolling to the side against Huo Yanshen's chest, and he passed out completely.

Huo Yanshen called out frantically, "Shen Ling. Shen Ling!"

He patted Shen Ling's cheek. His face was pressed against Huo Yanshen's collarbone, a small, ice-cold bundle that wouldn't wake up no matter how much he patted it.

Huo Yanshen shifted him up a little in his arms. Shen Ling's head fell back, his neck too limp to hold it up, exposing a stretch of pale throat. The blood on his lips was half-dried, crusting into dark red flakes at the corners of his mouth.

Huo Yanshen nearly shouted at the driver,

"The nearest hospital! Now!"

==========Author's Note:==========

Recommendation: *My Husband Keeps Sending Me Money Out of Nowhere* by Si Li

——Blurb——

After Lin Jianxing got married, he never saw Duan Shu again.

But the bank transfers kept coming.

Five million for his birthday, three million for shopping, and a cold got him a seven-figure transfer, no questions asked.

Every single one came from his husband of convenience.

Until one day, he received a text asking when they could meet.

Lin Jianxing, who was just about to file for divorce, tilted his head. Who's this? Why does he have the same name as my husband?

*

And

After years of marriage, Duan Shu knew he'd taken advantage of the situation and never dared to go home to face him.

Even so, he still messed everything up—his wife still wanted a divorce.

He threw caution to the wind and took Lin Jianxing's hand at a party.

Unexpectedly, his always-cold wife didn't push him away. Instead, he actively hugged him, clinging even tighter.

It seemed his wife didn't hate him after all?

*

Lin Jianxing suffered from skin hunger, needing intimate contact with others, craving someone to touch him deeply.

The good news was, he had a husband.

The bad news was, his husband didn't like him, didn't even want to see him.

He wanted a divorce, and then his husband suddenly "came back to life."

Not only that, he stuck to him every single day.

Holding hands, hugging, kissing, and even pressing his wrist against his abs for him to feel.

Skin against skin, Lin Jianxing trembled involuntarily, red-eyed as he looked at Duan Shu, who refused to let it go and pressed further: "Feel good? Xingxing, still want that divorce?"

With such beauty before him, Lin Jianxing's heart raced, his body went weak, and he could only close his eyes and shake his head.

Divorce?

Where else would he find a rich husband with eight-pack abs who was also this clingy.

*

One day, Lin Jianxing accidentally opened the cabinet in Duan Shu's study that was always locked.

Inside weren't documents, but several thick photo albums, filled with pictures of him from childhood to now—some he didn't even remember himself.

And beneath all the albums was an agreement, already signed with Duan Shu's name, transferring nearly all his personal assets.

The beneficiary was his name.

A Short Scene:

Lin Jianxing curled up on the sofa, complaining to his close friend: "You don't even know how annoying he is! He doesn't care about me at all—he just throws money at me!"

"I want love! Love! Not money!"

"This marriage is not what I wanted at all!"

His friend's mouth twitched, pretty sure this guy was low-key bragging about his relationship, and casually said, "Then why don't you get a divorce?"

Lin Jianxing thought that sounded quite reasonable.

Not long after, the friend received a message: "My husband said I shouldn't hang out with you."

Friend: ...

"I shouldn't have stuck my nose in you two's business!"