After The Honest Person Was Discovered For Simultaneously Pursuing Three People - Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Pained and Kissed Again and Again

“N-No need.” Not to mention inviting Xu Jun back as a guest, Tao Ning’s hair already stands on end just by the simple meeting of Xu Jun and Zhao Jingqun.

Worried that Zhao Jingqun might discover some small details, Tao Ning doesn’t dare to look back. He buries his face in Zhao Jingqun’s broad chest, lifts his face, and pleads softly, “Cousin, let’s go. I… I’m hungry.”

The moment the person in his arms lifts his head, the coldness in Zhao Jingqun’s eyes retreats completely. He smiles harmlessly, gently strokes Tao Ning’s soft hair, and holds his hand. “Since Ningning is hungry, we won’t waste any more time here. Let’s go, home for dinner.”

This scene is too dazzling. The natural warmth between the two of them seems to have been replayed countless times in a place unknown to anyone. His hands, which are hanging at his sides, can’t help but clench again. His heart hurts suddenly. Xu Jun stands still, rarely losing control of his expression. He watches Tao Ning and Zhao Jingqun walk away with a lost look.

— The coldness I showed you these past few days was me playing hard to get. I thought if I was different from those people, would you look at me more? Pay a little more attention to me?

— Actually, I really want to talk to you. I want to be close to you every moment.

“…Don’t go.”

The silent words are scattered by the evening wind. In the end, the young man who has gotten into the car doesn’t hear them. As if he senses something, Tao Ning quietly looks back, but he can only see the gradually blurring school gate.

He is sitting in the passenger seat. The man is driving with a cigarette in his mouth, but it’s not lit. He controls the steering wheel silently. Tao Ning keenly notices that Zhao Jingqun’s smile is gone after he gets in the car. His sharp, chiseled eyebrows are pressed low, and he even takes out a cigarette and puts it in his mouth.

He clearly said he wouldn’t smoke. Although he hasn’t lit it, is he doing this because he’s angry?

Tao Ning asks hesitantly, “Zhao Jingqun… are you angry? I’m sorry.”

The steering wheel turns. The corner of Zhao Jingqun’s eyebrow shows a hint of a smile. He drops the cigarette with one hand. “No, sweetheart, don’t overthink it. I will never be angry with you.” After a pause, Zhao Jingqun honks the horn and continues, “I’ll only blame myself for not being with you during that time.”

That’s why other men had a chance to take advantage of the situation. But it doesn’t matter. He will stop it in time, and his monitoring of Tao Ning will be stronger than ever. But these are just thoughts in his head. Zhao Jingqun won’t say it out loud.

“But it was my idea at the time…”

“Be good.”

The air pressure in the car plummets. Zhao Jingqun looks straight ahead. His face seems calm, but a storm is brewing in his eyes. But it’s only for a moment. He quickly recovers his faint smile. “Don’t mention those two words. It will make me sad.”

Tao Ning nods blankly. Zhao Jingqun looks at Tao Ning through the corner of his eye. Tao Ning is sitting in his seat. Although there is a soft backrest, his posture is still upright and obedient. His two cowlicks are standing up, looking extremely cute.

Even though Zhao Jingqun knows that the young man is not obedient at all and is even stubborn and ruthless, he is still captivated by this beautiful and quiet appearance. During the red light, his rough palm suddenly grips the soft flesh on the young man’s chin and plants a heavy kiss on him.

Tao Ning is stunned and doesn’t react.

Zhao Jingqun drives the car to a high-end apartment not far from Occident. He bought a flat on one floor, with an area of more than three hundred square meters. Zhao Jingqun has forgotten the exact size because he asked Sun Er to buy it. His requirements were only three: close to the school, spacious, and quiet. There was no cap on the money for the apartment.

But he had already been here a week ago to choose the furniture inside.

There are only slippers in the entryway. Zhao Jingqun has a separate room for Tao Ning’s clothes and shoes. His own clothes only take up a tenth of the space. He is not interested in these things. He usually just puts on a T-shirt and leaves the house unless there is an important occasion to attend.

Of course, a more important reason is that dressing simply makes him look younger.

“Baby, I’ll go run a hot bath for you. After I give you a bath, I’ll go cook.”

“…I can wash myself.”

“No. What if you fall? You carried those two things all the way, so your shoulders and hands must hurt. I’ll massage you in the bathroom to relax your muscles.”

Sometimes Tao Ning can’t understand Zhao Jingqun’s desire to help him bathe, dress, and feed him. He is not a porcelain doll that will break if touched. He is a boy. How can he be so delicate?

When he gets to the bathroom, Zhao Jingqun helps him undress. There is a mirror that occupies the entire wall in front of the bathtub. When he sees the obvious bruises on his shoulder from the straps, Tao Ning is silent.

Is his illness getting worse? Tao Ning remembers that he was not so fragile before.

Zhao Jingqun has the same thought. He is so pained that he kisses the purple bruises again and again. His voice is dry. “Sweetheart, be good. It doesn’t hurt. Your husband will ask for leave for you tomorrow and take you to the hospital for a follow-up.”

Thinking that the exam is over, Tao Ning agrees.

Occident’s exams are quick, and the results are also out very fast. The full school ranking will be available tomorrow afternoon. Tao Ning is only nervous before the exam. He is very confident that he will be at the top during and after the exam. This is the confidence that his talent and hard work have given him for more than ten years.

When he sees the bruises, all of Zhao Jingqun’s random thoughts are gone, only heartache. He wishes he could get sick and suffer for Tao Ning. His sweetheart only needs to enjoy life.

After gently and meticulously bathing Tao Ning, Zhao Jingqun holds him in his arms, not caring that he is all wet. He wraps the young man, who is radiating pink all over, in a thick towel and helps him put on his pajamas. He coaxes him in a gentle voice, “Good boy, lift your hand.”

The transitional room outside the bathroom doesn’t have the air conditioner on. Zhao Jingqun puts Tao Ning on the sofa, which is covered with several blankets. The soft white fluff sags under his round buttocks. Tao Ning is sitting on the sofa with a dazed expression. His thick, long eyelashes are like raven feathers. His eyes, which are like brown gems under the light, blink.

Before Zhao Jingqun turns to go into the bathroom, a slender, lonely hand grabs his sleeve. The man bends down, and just as he is about to ask if he’s okay, a soft kiss lands on his lips. A sweet lemon scent surrounds him.

Tao Ning smiles faintly. “Thank you.”

He touches his lips with his finger. Zhao Jingqun is still immersed in the young man’s kiss and smile and can’t recover. Only his heart is pounding madly for him, just like the first time they met.

After the warmth dissipates, this pure kiss is no different from being hit by a nuclear bomb for Zhao Jingqun. He rushes to rinse himself off with a fire of desire burning inside him and comes out with a towel half-hanging off him. But the person who ignited the fire on the sofa is gone. He instantly turns into a male wolf sniffing for his mate and starts looking and shouting anxiously.

During the search, his desire turns into anger. Why did Sun Er buy such a big house as if it were food to eat?! He’s not using it to hide rockets. Hiding a beautiful woman is more like it. It takes him half a day just to get his wife by his side at any time.

He pushes open the bedroom door. Tao Ning doesn’t seem to be doing anything. He is sitting quietly in front of the desk. Only a cute hair swirl can be seen. He looks very serious from behind. He doesn’t respond to the sound at the door. Zhao Jingqun calls him with a sense of grievance, “Sweetheart, what are you doing?” He walks closer.

Only when a shadow falls over him does Tao Ning realize someone is behind him. He hurriedly stuffs the half-glued love letter into the practice book.

He didn’t hear the sound behind him because he couldn’t hear anything, so he didn’t react.

Just now, the mechanical voice in his mind said, half-mockingly and half-happily, “You failed your mission with Xu Jun. He didn’t feel your sincerity.” The mechanical voice then mused for a moment, teasing him like a pet cat or dog. “Tao Ning—what do you think I should do to punish you?”

Since this different voice appeared, Tao Ning has never heard the original system call him “dummy” again. He only has a sudden, deep-seated disgust for this mechanical voice. This is a very unusual emotion, because no matter what Tao Ning treats, whether it’s a person or an animal, even a stone, his initial emotions are the same.

It can be said that in his eyes, a stranger is no different from a stone.

But the first time he heard this mechanical voice, especially after it started to have emotions, Tao Ning began to feel disgust. He even didn’t care about its punishment. “What happened to the original system?”

It seems that Tao Ning’s disregard for his “punishment” is unexpected. The mechanical voice laughs with an obvious start, then laughs softly and happily says, “You are as cute as ever. As for it, it’s just a smart machine that only executes instructions. Do you care that much?”

What does “as ever” mean? Tao Ning doesn’t ask. He just says, “I do. He’s my friend… You’re not.”

“Friend?” The mechanical voice pauses, and then a burst of wild laughter comes from his mind. “Ha ha ha ha.”

But in an instant, the laughter is gone. The mechanical voice says slowly, “I know you’re afraid of the dark, you poor thing. This time, I’ll take away your hearing as a punishment.”

“…Who are you? And who am I?”

The last words echoing in his mind are just a laugh with an unclear meaning: “I will satisfy all your curiosity on the day you complete the mission.”

After that, Tao Ning’s mind and ears fall into a deadly silence. It is as unbearable as being deprived of sight and falling into darkness, because at the same time, all the surrounding things seem to have been put on mute. Not a single sound can be heard.

But Tao Ning is still more afraid of falling into darkness. He quickly calms down and begins to methodically glue the shredded love letters back together.

No matter how Xu Jun sees him, Tao Ning cherishes his sincerity and affection very much.

But unfortunately, he has only half-glued the love letter when Zhao Jingqun comes in. Tao Ning hastily puts away the love letter, not expecting the man’s bathing speed to become so fast again.

“Wh-What’s wrong?”

“Sweetheart, what did you hide? Hm?”

Tao Ning quietly observes Zhao Jingqun’s lips, hoping he can understand what he is saying.

Because he doesn’t want Zhao Jingqun to worry. He knows that Zhao Jingqun is very busy. The fact that he is taking time out to be with him now must mean he has compressed his work time to the extreme without his knowledge. Tao Ning thinks that the punishment of being deprived of hearing and sight should be temporary. Before his hearing returns, he doesn’t want to make the already tired Zhao Jingqun worry even more about him.

But in the end, he can’t read lips for the time being. Tao Ning can only guess and say hesitantly, “I… I was doing practice problems just now.”

The smile on the corner of Zhao Jingqun’s mouth freezes for a moment. But he sees Tao Ning’s calm appearance and doesn’t react too much. He continues to ask with a smile, “Was what you had just now given to you by Xu Jun?”

“I’ll eat in a bit. Is the food ready?”

The next moment, his soft cheeks are held up by a rough palm. Tao Ning looks up and meets a pair of eyes that have sunk to the bottom of a valley. But he can only see Zhao Jingqun’s face full of anxiety, seemingly roaring. His lips open and close, but he doesn’t know what he said.

Facing Zhao Jingqun’s anxious and fierce gaze, as if he is about to eat someone, Tao Ning is not afraid. Instead, his slender hands wrap around his waist, and he says quietly, “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

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