31

Chapter 31: Where am I?

Translator: DragonRider

“Am I making a loud noise?” Chen Keyao spoke with surprise.

Not really.

He could tell Chen Keyao’s wariness just by the sound. He tore off the yogurt lid for at least half a minute so as not to make any noise.

It was Rong Yi himself being uneasy.

He lay on Chen Keyao’s bed and slept under Chen Keyao’s quilt. And Chen Keyao was within two meters of him. Then the slightest sound would be amplified in his excessive consciousness.

Rong Yi simply sat up.

When he turned his head toward Chen Keyao in the dark room, he was soon taken aback.

“So you are nearsighted?”

“Plano lens,” said Chen Keyao, who wore glasses and looked a little embarrassed. “My eyes get blurred after long time before computer screen.”

Rong Yi stared at him for a moment then turned away.

From the moment he lay down, Chen had turned off the overhead light in the room, and now all that was left was his computer monitor and the desk lamp adjusted to the lowest brightness beside him.

So in the hazy and dim light, Chen Keyao looked somewhat strange with a pair of glasses.

‘It feels weird.’

“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Chen Keyao asked.

“I…” Rong Yi quickly glanced at the yogurt in his hand, “I heard you eating, and I’m hungry too.”

Chen Keyao stood up upon hearing that: “Oh, wait a minute.”

He took a cup of yogurt for Rong Yi.

Besides yoghurt, he also took Rong Yi’s toothbrush and cup, and put them into the bathroom of his room, so that Rong Yi could brush his teeth after finishing the yoghurt.

This man was always extra considerate in strange places.

Rong Yi sat on the bed, holding the fresh yogurt from the refrigerator, and took a sip, but felt it a little cold. So he decided to let it sit for a while.

“Did you find it hard to sleep in my room?” Chen Keyao asked suddenly.

Rong Yi took a glance at him: “Are you working now?”

“No, I’m watching a movie,” Chen Keyao said, seemingly pressing the pause button. “If you can’t fall asleep, how about watching it together?”

Rong Yi shook his head.

He had to go to work tomorrow. He had to go back to sleep after finishing his yogurt.

The two fell silent for a while before Rong Yi asked: “You usually stay up at night and watch movies?”

“Not necessarily,” Chen Keyao said. “I’m afraid playing games will disturb you.”

“…In fact, you are one of the silver-spoon kids, right? Your family has a mine, so you don’t need to work at all.”

“You’re looking down on me,” Chen Keyao said. “I bought the house you’re living in with self-owned money.”

Rong Yi doubted it.

Chen Keyao was obviously the same age as him, but he was so poor that he almost ended up on the street. That was too upsetting a comparison.

But speaking of age, another thing came to his mind.

“Sister Lan looks so young,” he said. “I thought she was your sister, she’s so well-maintained.”

Chen Keyao smiled: “She is really young.”

“…Look how old you yourself are.”

“It’s true,” Chen Keyao said. “She was only seventeen when she gave birth to me.”

“What?” Rong Yi was surprised. Seventeen was not even the legal marriage age. Obviously, that was a pregnancy before marriage.

“She and my dad had to get married because of me,” Chen Keyao said.

Rong Yi suddenly recalled that Chen Keyao seemed to have mentioned before, his mother remarried. This was clearly not a pleasant subject, and Rong Yi, though curious, thought he should ask no more.

But Chen Keyao, who deliberately avoided talking about it before, somehow took the initiative to continue: “My father and my mother were classmates in high school. Different grades and classes, my father was my mother’s junior. They barely knew each other until my mother got pregnant with me.”

“Then why…?”

“Because the inhibitor suddenly failed,” Chen Keyao said.

That explained everything.

Stable, long-acting inhibitors had only become popular in the last decade or so, and before that, people often struggled with estrus. Though it was before Rong Yi’s differentiation, he had heard something about it.

It was not uncommon to see couples wed in those years because of a sudden heat wave.

Even now, some idol dramas were still keen on such scenes.

Two strangers because of the unexpected heat wave got marked, and then through a variety of twists and turns as well as a period of from dislike to loving each other, finally ushered in a happy ending.

Chen Keyao’s parents were a great match from appearances.

A tall and handsome Alpha, a gentle and beautiful Omega, as if a match made in heaven. But the end did not seem happy.

It had been less than a decade since the removal of Omega’s marker was legalized, and there was still no way to prevent sequelae. Eventually someone would have to pay a heavy price for the wrong combination.

“I’m sorry,” Rong Yi said awkwardly. “Did I…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Chen Keyao said with a smile. “They’re all fine now. I’m fine, too. So it’s okay to talk about it.”

“…Oh,” Rong Yi nodded before he lifted his head to drink up the yogurt, then he shivered with cold.

Chen Keyao leaned over and held out his hand.

Rong Yi looked at him blankly: “What?”

“Give me the box,” Chen Keyao said. “Are you going to throw it on my bed?”

Rong Yi did not remember when he finally fell asleep.

He lay down again, still tossing and turning for a long time.

Then he heard Chen Keyao call his name in a low voice.

Hardly conscious, he gave no response. And after that, nothing happened.

When the phone rang the next day, Rong Yi had a splitting headache.

He groped his way through the confusion, managed to turn off the alarm, and then opened his eyes in a trance.

‘Where am I?’

He looked blankly around him and was surprised to find Chen Keyao resting his head on the desk.

They agreed to take turns sleeping, but the guy didn’t make it to dawn. He slept like a log that even the alarm didn’t wake him up.

Rong Yi was caught in repeated hesitation during the process of washing about whether to wake Chen Keyao and let him sleep on the bed.

Fortunately, by the time he came out of the bathroom, the guy who had been sleeping soundly on his desk was already on bed and still seemed to be sleeping soundly.

Rong Yi tucked in the quilt for him before hurrying out to work.

Sleep deprivation was definitely the enemy of the human race.

Rong Yi, who had always kept a good record, dozed off in public at a regular meeting on Monday, even unconscious when he was supposed to speak.

Afterwards Xiao Zhang exaggerated that he even had saliva mark at the corner of his mouth.

Rong Yi, still dizzy, didn’t even have the desire to argue with her.

He felt that something was wrong with him. If it was really just a lack of sleep, he shouldn’t be so groggy. He managed to the noon and only when he still had no appetite after staring at the takeaway for quite a while did he realize that he might be ill.

Since there was not much work to do, he simply gave himself a half-day off, planning to go back to get some good sleep.

Rong Yi suddenly remembered that he forget to buy food when he was already at the door.

The day before, he had planned to go to the supermarket after work to buy some fresh vegetables.

Chen Keyao this guy was particularly picky about food, only willing to eat a few vegetables that happen to be inconvenient to preserve, so they needed to be replenished regularly.

But then on a second thought, he felt himself being such a dedicated cooker who had skipped work yet still worried about what food to prepare for Chen Keyao. What for?

An occasional takeaway wouldn’t kill that guy. He could just pay for the bill.

Thinking so, he opened the door and suddenly heard a strange voice.

“Teacher, that’s not what you said last time!”

Rong Yi was in a daze for a moment, then looked down at the porch. As expected there was a pair of strange shoes.

Chen Keyao’s voice followed, “”Ah…Is it so urgent…?” His voice sounded lazy, clearly not full of sleep. “I haven’t been myself lately, and I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s been more than half a year!” The strange voice sounded extremely frantic.”It’s been a full year and a half since book three!”

“… It’s been a year and a half already and a few more days…” Chen Keyao whispered.

Rong Yi walked into the living room as the two talked.

The one talking with Chen Keyao was a seemingly gentle young man, who immediately showed a surprised expression when Rong Yi came in.

“Why are you back so early today?” Chen Keyao asked out of surprise. “…you feel sick?”

“I …”

Before Rong Yi got the chance to finish his words, the young man shouted: “Now I see it!

No wonder you’re so busy!! I’ve been wondering what the hell a homebody like you is busy with!”

“What?” Rong Yi was confused.

“The emperor then begins to neglect the morning meetings!” the young man shouted. “Teacher, do you remember what you said to me last month? You say that love makes you think, that your ideas gush out like spring water!”

“I…” Chen Keyao looked very embarrassed, who stood up to pull the young man’s arm. “Don’t talk nonsense!”

“God knows what ideas you’ve worked out for more than a month!”

Rong Yi stood there, confused: “What are you talking about? Does it have anything to do with me?”

“It doesn’t,” Chen Keyao winked at him. “You got a large delivery. I put it in the room. You go and have a look.”

Rong Yi nodded and was about to go to his room when Chen Keyao’s voice came from behind.

“Not there, in my room.”

Ah right, Chen Keyao’s mother came yesterday, his room was forcibly commandeered.

Rong Yi came into Chen Keyao’s room in a daze. Before closing the door, the young man’s sad cry still echoed in the living room.

“Teacher! You can’t do this! We have agreed with our partners to release it through their platform next month. Now you’re telling me that you have only written a beginning! You’ve been writing this beginning for a year and a half!”

Driven by curiosity, Rong Yi pressed his ear against the door to eavesdrop. But Chen Keyao spoke in a lower voice than usual that he couldn’t get a word clear. So he decided to interrogate Chen Keyao alone when the young man left. As he thought, he turned his head and glanced around the room, startled to see a huge package that had been wrapped up like a huge axe. What the hell was that?

Rong Yi was in a trance for a long time, completely failing to recall any lethal weapon he had recently bought.

Next to the axe thing was a box of familiar, opened strawberry condoms.

Chapter 31: Where am I?

Translator: DragonRider

“Am I making a loud noise?” Chen Keyao spoke with surprise.

Not really.

He could tell Chen Keyao’s wariness just by the sound. He tore off the yogurt lid for at least half a minute so as not to make any noise.

It was Rong Yi himself being uneasy.

He lay on Chen Keyao’s bed and slept under Chen Keyao’s quilt. And Chen Keyao was within two meters of him. Then the slightest sound would be amplified in his excessive consciousness.

Rong Yi simply sat up.

When he turned his head toward Chen Keyao in the dark room, he was soon taken aback.

“So you are nearsighted?”

“Plano lens,” said Chen Keyao, who wore glasses and looked a little embarrassed. “My eyes get blurred after long time before computer screen.”

Rong Yi stared at him for a moment then turned away.

From the moment he lay down, Chen had turned off the overhead light in the room, and now all that was left was his computer monitor and the desk lamp adjusted to the lowest brightness beside him.

So in the hazy and dim light, Chen Keyao looked somewhat strange with a pair of glasses.

‘It feels weird.’

“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Chen Keyao asked.

“I…” Rong Yi quickly glanced at the yogurt in his hand, “I heard you eating, and I’m hungry too.”

Chen Keyao stood up upon hearing that: “Oh, wait a minute.”

He took a cup of yogurt for Rong Yi.

Besides yoghurt, he also took Rong Yi’s toothbrush and cup, and put them into the bathroom of his room, so that Rong Yi could brush his teeth after finishing the yoghurt.

This man was always extra considerate in strange places.

Rong Yi sat on the bed, holding the fresh yogurt from the refrigerator, and took a sip, but felt it a little cold. So he decided to let it sit for a while.

“Did you find it hard to sleep in my room?” Chen Keyao asked suddenly.

Rong Yi took a glance at him: “Are you working now?”

“No, I’m watching a movie,” Chen Keyao said, seemingly pressing the pause button. “If you can’t fall asleep, how about watching it together?”

Rong Yi shook his head.

He had to go to work tomorrow. He had to go back to sleep after finishing his yogurt.

The two fell silent for a while before Rong Yi asked: “You usually stay up at night and watch movies?”

“Not necessarily,” Chen Keyao said. “I’m afraid playing games will disturb you.”

“…In fact, you are one of the silver-spoon kids, right? Your family has a mine, so you don’t need to work at all.”

“You’re looking down on me,” Chen Keyao said. “I bought the house you’re living in with self-owned money.”

Rong Yi doubted it.

Chen Keyao was obviously the same age as him, but he was so poor that he almost ended up on the street. That was too upsetting a comparison.

But speaking of age, another thing came to his mind.

“Sister Lan looks so young,” he said. “I thought she was your sister, she’s so well-maintained.”

Chen Keyao smiled: “She is really young.”

“…Look how old you yourself are.”

“It’s true,” Chen Keyao said. “She was only seventeen when she gave birth to me.”

“What?” Rong Yi was surprised. Seventeen was not even the legal marriage age. Obviously, that was a pregnancy before marriage.

“She and my dad had to get married because of me,” Chen Keyao said.

Rong Yi suddenly recalled that Chen Keyao seemed to have mentioned before, his mother remarried. This was clearly not a pleasant subject, and Rong Yi, though curious, thought he should ask no more.

But Chen Keyao, who deliberately avoided talking about it before, somehow took the initiative to continue: “My father and my mother were classmates in high school. Different grades and classes, my father was my mother’s junior. They barely knew each other until my mother got pregnant with me.”

“Then why…?”

“Because the inhibitor suddenly failed,” Chen Keyao said.

That explained everything.

Stable, long-acting inhibitors had only become popular in the last decade or so, and before that, people often struggled with estrus. Though it was before Rong Yi’s differentiation, he had heard something about it.

It was not uncommon to see couples wed in those years because of a sudden heat wave.

Even now, some idol dramas were still keen on such scenes.

Two strangers because of the unexpected heat wave got marked, and then through a variety of twists and turns as well as a period of from dislike to loving each other, finally ushered in a happy ending.

Chen Keyao’s parents were a great match from appearances.

A tall and handsome Alpha, a gentle and beautiful Omega, as if a match made in heaven. But the end did not seem happy.

It had been less than a decade since the removal of Omega’s marker was legalized, and there was still no way to prevent sequelae. Eventually someone would have to pay a heavy price for the wrong combination.

“I’m sorry,” Rong Yi said awkwardly. “Did I…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Chen Keyao said with a smile. “They’re all fine now. I’m fine, too. So it’s okay to talk about it.”

“…Oh,” Rong Yi nodded before he lifted his head to drink up the yogurt, then he shivered with cold.

Chen Keyao leaned over and held out his hand.

Rong Yi looked at him blankly: “What?”

“Give me the box,” Chen Keyao said. “Are you going to throw it on my bed?”

Rong Yi did not remember when he finally fell asleep.

He lay down again, still tossing and turning for a long time.

Then he heard Chen Keyao call his name in a low voice.

Hardly conscious, he gave no response. And after that, nothing happened.

When the phone rang the next day, Rong Yi had a splitting headache.

He groped his way through the confusion, managed to turn off the alarm, and then opened his eyes in a trance.

‘Where am I?’

He looked blankly around him and was surprised to find Chen Keyao resting his head on the desk.

They agreed to take turns sleeping, but the guy didn’t make it to dawn. He slept like a log that even the alarm didn’t wake him up.

Rong Yi was caught in repeated hesitation during the process of washing about whether to wake Chen Keyao and let him sleep on the bed.

Fortunately, by the time he came out of the bathroom, the guy who had been sleeping soundly on his desk was already on bed and still seemed to be sleeping soundly.

Rong Yi tucked in the quilt for him before hurrying out to work.

Sleep deprivation was definitely the enemy of the human race.

Rong Yi, who had always kept a good record, dozed off in public at a regular meeting on Monday, even unconscious when he was supposed to speak.

Afterwards Xiao Zhang exaggerated that he even had saliva mark at the corner of his mouth.

Rong Yi, still dizzy, didn’t even have the desire to argue with her.

He felt that something was wrong with him. If it was really just a lack of sleep, he shouldn’t be so groggy. He managed to the noon and only when he still had no appetite after staring at the takeaway for quite a while did he realize that he might be ill.

Since there was not much work to do, he simply gave himself a half-day off, planning to go back to get some good sleep.

Rong Yi suddenly remembered that he forget to buy food when he was already at the door.

The day before, he had planned to go to the supermarket after work to buy some fresh vegetables.

Chen Keyao this guy was particularly picky about food, only willing to eat a few vegetables that happen to be inconvenient to preserve, so they needed to be replenished regularly.

But then on a second thought, he felt himself being such a dedicated cooker who had skipped work yet still worried about what food to prepare for Chen Keyao. What for?

An occasional takeaway wouldn’t kill that guy. He could just pay for the bill.

Thinking so, he opened the door and suddenly heard a strange voice.

“Teacher, that’s not what you said last time!”

Rong Yi was in a daze for a moment, then looked down at the porch. As expected there was a pair of strange shoes.

Chen Keyao’s voice followed, “”Ah…Is it so urgent…?” His voice sounded lazy, clearly not full of sleep. “I haven’t been myself lately, and I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s been more than half a year!” The strange voice sounded extremely frantic.”It’s been a full year and a half since book three!”

“… It’s been a year and a half already and a few more days…” Chen Keyao whispered.

Rong Yi walked into the living room as the two talked.

The one talking with Chen Keyao was a seemingly gentle young man, who immediately showed a surprised expression when Rong Yi came in.

“Why are you back so early today?” Chen Keyao asked out of surprise. “…you feel sick?”

“I …”

Before Rong Yi got the chance to finish his words, the young man shouted: “Now I see it!

No wonder you’re so busy!! I’ve been wondering what the hell a homebody like you is busy with!”

“What?” Rong Yi was confused.

“The emperor then begins to neglect the morning meetings!” the young man shouted. “Teacher, do you remember what you said to me last month? You say that love makes you think, that your ideas gush out like spring water!”

“I…” Chen Keyao looked very embarrassed, who stood up to pull the young man’s arm. “Don’t talk nonsense!”

“God knows what ideas you’ve worked out for more than a month!”

Rong Yi stood there, confused: “What are you talking about? Does it have anything to do with me?”

“It doesn’t,” Chen Keyao winked at him. “You got a large delivery. I put it in the room. You go and have a look.”

Rong Yi nodded and was about to go to his room when Chen Keyao’s voice came from behind.

“Not there, in my room.”

Ah right, Chen Keyao’s mother came yesterday, his room was forcibly commandeered.

Rong Yi came into Chen Keyao’s room in a daze. Before closing the door, the young man’s sad cry still echoed in the living room.

“Teacher! You can’t do this! We have agreed with our partners to release it through their platform next month. Now you’re telling me that you have only written a beginning! You’ve been writing this beginning for a year and a half!”

Driven by curiosity, Rong Yi pressed his ear against the door to eavesdrop. But Chen Keyao spoke in a lower voice than usual that he couldn’t get a word clear. So he decided to interrogate Chen Keyao alone when the young man left. As he thought, he turned his head and glanced around the room, startled to see a huge package that had been wrapped up like a huge axe. What the hell was that?

Rong Yi was in a trance for a long time, completely failing to recall any lethal weapon he had recently bought.

Next to the axe thing was a box of familiar, opened strawberry condoms.