Chapter 39: I Like You

The grand undertaking of soaking in the bath was regretfully brought to an end, forcibly stopped by Yu Wangxiao after he noticed something was not quite right.

He carried the dazed Lin Jiangye out of the water, placed him on the bed, and wrapped him completely in a large bath towel.

Lin Jiangye struggled to stretch one hand out from the bath towel and grabbed his wrist. His round, wide eyes stared fixedly at him, as if entranced.

Yu Wangxiao knew struggling would be useless. Helplessly, he sat by the bed, pulled one corner of the bath towel over Lin Jiangye’s wet hair, and rubbed it dry.

Lin Jiangye took the chance to press his face against him, continuing to stare at him expressionlessly.

Yu Wangxiao smiled. There was nothing he could do, so he could only coax him gently. “Young Master, loosen your hand a little and let me put on some clothes first?”

“Mm.”

Lin Jiangye agreed, but his hand did not loosen in the slightest. His body’s instinctive stress reaction had completely betrayed his brain and thoughts. It insisted on clinging tightly to Yu Wangxiao, unwilling to let him leave his sight.

Perhaps he himself had not noticed anything wrong, but Yu Wangxiao felt it very clearly.

Lin Jiangye had not blinked for five minutes. The sticky silver radiance was still slowly surging in his eyes, like eerie and mysterious living things, almost about to flow out from the corners of his eyes.

After hesitating for a moment, Yu Wangxiao picked up his phone, opened the front camera, and aimed it at him. “Look at yourself. Is this situation normal?”

“…Not normal. I can’t contain my power anymore,” Lin Jiangye muttered quietly. “If this continues, I really am going to flow out.”

Yu Wangxiao’s movement paused. “…Mm?”

“It’s fine. If I flow out, I can put it back again. Containers can be changed at any time.” Lin Jiangye spoke softly. “Yu Wangxiao, kiss me once. Help me wake up.”

“No kiss.”

“Ah…”

He was rejected. This was the first time he had wanted a kiss, only to be cruelly refused.

Lin Jiangye accused him faintly, “Bad human.”

“Kissing won’t wake you up. I have eyes. I can see clearly.” Yu Wangxiao calmly accepted this accusation and unhurriedly said, “You’ll only become dizzy and want to eat me even more.”

Lin Jiangye froze, then immediately argued with reason. “That’s not my problem. I studied it seriously. Humans get dizzy when they kiss too, and they can’t help closing their eyes… Only you always insist on looking at me every time, and you always force me to look at you too. Tyrant.”

“Mm. In this matter, I am indeed a little willful. But I won’t change.” Yu Wangxiao remained calm.

“Do you really not think this is antisocial? Really, it’s a little strange.”

“Tuantuan, you haven’t closed your eyes for eight minutes.” Yu Wangxiao shook the wrist he was gripping tightly and said leisurely, “You’re stranger than me, and more antisocial than me.”

“…”

Lin Jiangye discovered he had no way to refute this, so he could only continue staring at him with wide eyes and fall into thought.

Yu Wangxiao pinched his face. Taking advantage of the good timing, he quickly continued coaxing him. “I won’t leave your sight. I’ll stay in this room and absolutely won’t leave. So can you let me go put on clothes now?”

“…Mm. I’ll try.”

Lin Jiangye took a deep breath and also stretched out the hand curled inside the bath towel.

It took tremendous effort before he finally pried open the fingers wrapped around Yu Wangxiao’s wrist and gave him freedom.

Even so, Lin Jiangye’s gaze was still reluctant, completely fixed on Yu Wangxiao. He followed him with his eyes as he walked from the foot of the bed to the other side of the master bedroom, watching him open the wardrobe, take out two sets of clothes, and put on his own clothes as quickly as possible.

At last, he was no longer barely covered. Yu Wangxiao let out an imperceptible breath of relief, but feeling the ghostlike gaze behind him, it was simply like having needles prickling his back.

Fortune turned in cycles. He had now personally experienced the strange feeling of being watched for a long time.

Actually, it was fine if Lin Jiangye wanted to look at him. On a normal day, Yu Wangxiao might even have let him look to his heart’s content. But the problem was… he had also only just come out of the bathtub. Both of them had been naked, and he really could not face it calmly.

As a fully socialized ordinary human, Yu Wangxiao still instinctively harbored a trace of caution toward complete “honest exposure.”

Too strange. It really was strange.

Lin Jiangye, on the other hand, was completely outside the situation. He watched eagerly as Yu Wangxiao returned to the bedside, immediately burrowed out of the bath towel, and clingily stuck himself onto him.

He pressed his face against Yu Wangxiao’s shoulder and breathed deeply. “Fragrant laundry detergent, and the smell of mite corpses…”

“Lin Jiangye, put on clothes.” Yu Wangxiao closed his eyes and stuffed the neatly folded brand-new pajamas over.

These were his clothes. The pajamas Lin Jiangye had brought with him were still in the bathroom. Earlier, Yu Wangxiao had only cared about carrying him out and had not taken anything.

But this suited Lin Jiangye perfectly. Right now, he needed to cover his entire body in Yu Wangxiao’s scent, even if it was only new pajamas taken from the wardrobe.

“I’ll change right away!”

Lin Jiangye had an excellent attitude. He seriously began putting them on from the underwear. Then, after hesitating for a moment, he suddenly asked, “When can we go to bed?”

Yu Wangxiao froze for a moment. “…Do you know what you’re saying?”

“I know.” Lin Jiangye was righteous and had no concept of blushing. “You must want to too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so anxious to urge me to put on clothes.”

“Lin Jiangye.”

He had been called by his full name again.

Lin Jiangye worked hard to button his shirt and answered solemnly, “Present!”

Yu Wangxiao gently adjusted his breathing, raised his hand, and pinched Lin Jiangye’s face with a little force.

“Your state tonight isn’t right, and I temporarily don’t want to be killed by you.” Their eyes met, black and white intertwined in the depths of each other’s pupils. Yu Wangxiao curved his lips and said faintly, “So endure it a little, alright?”

“…I kind of don’t understand. I can lie still. You should know better than me, right?” Lin Jiangye tilted his head.

“I don’t know.” Yu Wangxiao’s tone was still faint.

“Then if neither of us knows, what will we do in the future?”

“We’ll talk about future matters in the future… Not today.” Yu Wangxiao took away the damp bath towel, lifted the blanket, and wrapped Lin Jiangye up again. “Lie down and talk to me about your past.”

After he said this, he turned and took a new quilt from the wardrobe, placing it beside Lin Jiangye.

“Why can’t we share the same quilt?” Lin Jiangye was very confused.

Yu Wangxiao sat at the head of the bed and pressed the button beside the light switch. The master bedroom curtains slowly closed, covering the faint dawn light outside. Then he smiled without quite smiling. “If you fall asleep and steal the quilt, can I win against you?”

“That makes so much sense! My brain really isn’t right today.”

“Then tell me about it… your mother. Did you see her just now?” Yu Wangxiao asked in a low voice, his palm covering the top of Lin Jiangye’s head, spreading a reassuring warmth.

Lin Jiangye froze, then gently shook his head. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

“So what happened in the bathroom that made you react so strongly?”

“There really was a flower growing on your head. Mm, a flower bud. Actually, I can still see it now. It’s strange. I don’t know why, but this little flower bud made me think of her…”

This time, Lin Jiangye did not hide it, because the progress bar had already disappeared. Perhaps there was still the final one percent of progress left, but he did not care at all. Even if Yu Wangxiao’s favorability toward him was not one hundred percent, it would not affect their relationship at all.

He simply described the scene he saw in detail. Those long, thin scale-like leaves, that gray-white sphere faintly glowing within the green… It was clearly not gorgeous, but Lin Jiangye felt close to it, familiar with it, and also far away from it.

An unfamiliar attachment and sorrow surged in his heart, and even a panic of fearing the loss of something. He was not used to this kind of emotion, and he also knew clearly that Yu Wangxiao was perfectly alive in front of him and physically very healthy.

But Lin Jiangye still could not control his stress reaction. It was as if the moment he closed his eyes, Yu Wangxiao would instantly vanish just as he feared, never to be found again.

“Honestly, I’m worried that thing has a problem, like neurotoxins or something…” Lin Jiangye said with distress. “Because I’ve never been this anxious before. So strange! I didn’t feel much even when I died myself. Dead is dead, anyway.”

He could only guess randomly. After all, this was a plant only found in the human world. Lin Jiangye had accidentally seen it before when he was working, but whether he checked his own memories or searched the original owner’s memories, there was no knowledge about this at all.

On the contrary, Yu Wangxiao was better at personally cultivating plants. He had done related research before, so he had some knowledge.

“What you’re talking about should be cypress. Judging from the color, that flower is female. After the flowering period, it will produce gray-white cones. Cypress products are quite common. Some wellness clubs that provide essential oil massage services use it.”

“Oh… so there are no toxins?”

Yu Wangxiao became slightly more serious. After taking out his phone to search and confirm, he continued, “The essential oil probably isn’t the main point. If we want to find the answer, we need to look at mythology. When I used to search everywhere in this world for traces of you, this was what I did.”

Lin Jiangye froze, suddenly feeling his face heat up. He immediately shifted closer and stuck against him. “As expected, you’re still the amazing one. What did you find?”

“Cypress is famous for its nearly eternal long life and is called the tree of the underworld. In many myths, it carries sacred metaphors. It usually represents death and immortality, or the purification of the spirit… For its flower bud to appear on you, it definitely has something to do with you.” Yu Wangxiao looked at his phone, thoughtful.

Although an abnormal situation had appeared, Yu Wangxiao was not panicked. Instead, he seemed very interested in this matter and continued before Lin Jiangye could speak. “Besides that, cypress is also Artemis’s sacred tree. You might not know her. She is the goddess of wilderness, hunting, and the moon in ancient Greek mythology. How about it, any thoughts?”

“Moon goddess…” Lin Jiangye repeated softly, carefully staring at Yu Wangxiao’s hair again. Once more, he looked a little entranced. “No wonder it looks so familiar. The gray little sphere really does look like the moon. It isn’t beautiful and can’t emit overly dazzling light. It’s just the most inconspicuous existence born from nothingness.”

“I suspected your relationship with the moon before.” Yu Wangxiao looked at him and slowly said word by word, “But I think the moon I know and the moon you know shouldn’t be the same moon.”

“It can be the same, or it can be completely different. It all depends on how you think of it.” Lin Jiangye shook his head, his breathing becoming slightly hurried. He desperately searched his memories, recalling those innate understandings that should have been deeply rooted.

His hollow silver pupils suddenly glistened with moisture, and the corners of his eyes were tinted faint red. Overwhelming sourness and fatigue erupted in this instant.

Lin Jiangye could not help blinking, and a nearly pure white tear slid down his cheek, falling into Yu Wangxiao’s palm.

He himself did not notice. In a daze, he spoke in a trembling voice, as if filling in most of his missing understanding in one breath. “She is the bridge of longing, the vessel of souls, eternal vitality, the source of nurturing, the medium of illusion and dreams… She is everything you can imagine, everything I can recall, the conceptual life formed from the gathering of spiritual energy.

“I was born in her embrace. I received her blessing and nourishment. But I forgot her greatness and obediently became a trainee god of death, training so hard. This kind of training made it harder and harder for me to remember her, made me become colder… Am I sick?”

“Stop.” Yu Wangxiao suddenly interrupted him, his somewhat damp palm gently holding his face. Then he pinched it with force. “If you want to find your mom, I’ll find a way to accompany you. But you’re not allowed to say bad things about yourself.”

“Hiss… Thank you, but she has already completely disappeared. She became nourishment. Nourishment for my growth, and nourishment to maintain the operation of the world. The current moon is no longer her.”

Lin Jiangye lifted his own blanket. While speaking softly in dejection, he smoothly burrowed into Yu Wangxiao’s blanket as if nothing had happened, his movements flowing like water and especially silky.

Yu Wangxiao was silent for a moment. Seeing how pitiful he looked now, he really did not have the heart to refuse. He simply reached out and pulled him into his arms.

“Maybe there’s still a chance.” Yu Wangxiao lightly stroked his back, his lips pressed beside his ear, his voice low and gentle. “Think about it. How did the flower on my head come about?”

“…I don’t know either. I’m afraid we have to raise it until the day it blooms and bears fruit before we can know the true answer.” Lin Jiangye was actually very lost. The unpleasant stone in his stomach was still slowly digesting, and the thoughts in his mind were like a chaotic sea.

Yu Wangxiao held him a little tighter, his tone still very calm, carrying a reassuring power. “Since that’s the case, let’s find a way together to raise it properly. That is the best way to handle this. Since no one can change the past anymore, then actively live in the present, try not to miss the future, and do everything within our power.”

“I like you.”

“…Mm?” The calm voice suddenly paused.

“Yu Wangxiao, how are you this amazing? No wonder you could have the chance to do it all over again. I’ve basically lived for so long in vain. You should have been the old monster instead. You would definitely have done better than me.”

“I don’t need to hear that. Now, repeat your previous sentence.”

Under the night light, the two of them were extremely close. Their noses lightly touched, and their eyes met. The dim light outlined their clear side profiles. The breaths they had subconsciously ignored were suddenly hot and distinct as they intertwined.

Yu Wangxiao’s eyes were dark and deep, surging with a clear and unmistakable demand, a simple and direct demand. He stared at the stunned Lin Jiangye and spoke again. “You said before that you hoped I would be more honest in front of you and directly express my desires. Lin Jiangye, I want to hear it again.”

“I like you.”

Lin Jiangye blurted it out, without the slightest hesitation.