Honey, Let’s Cuddle! - Chapter 1

As dawn approached, a sudden rainstorm broke out, accompanied by the deafening roar of thunder. It was the perfect cover for the shrill, agonizing screams piercing the air.

Inside an abandoned shack near the coast, Luo Yunqing expressionlessly wiped the blood splattered across his face. His voice was hoarse and grating, sounding like a rusty saw being dragged back and forth. “Can you talk now? Or would you like to test exactly how sharp this knife is again?”

He pressed the blood-stained tip of the blade heavily against a wound that slashed across the victim’s entire face.

Song Xuechen no longer held the arrogance he had when he was first captured. His lips were white and trembling as he stammered, “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! It was me. I pushed Pei Yanli off.”

Breaking into a sob, he scrambled to excuse himself. “Who told him to take those contracts and sue A-Heng? A-Heng is his own nephew! I was just desperate, I pushed him by accident! AAAHHH!”

Luo Yunqing dragged the knife in the opposite direction, carving another gash. The two wounds intersected to form a large, bloody ‘X’.

“By accident? You ‘accidentally’ pushed him off the 28th floor!” Luo Yunqing grabbed the man’s hair with savage force, jerking his head back and forth until it felt like his brains would rattle out.

The young master of the Song family had been pampered for over twenty years and had never endured such agony. He shrieked in pain, tears falling in thick droplets, but they earned him not a shred of pity.

Luo Yunqing continued to slice into that fair, doll-like face. One stroke after another, the cuts were deep enough to see bone. His hands were soaked in blood, yet he did not stop.

If this continues, he will die!

Driven by a fierce instinct to survive, Song Xuechen made a disastrously foolish move: he bit down hard on the gaunt wrist in front of him.

Luo Yunqing didn’t make a sound. He didn’t even blink. He simply used the hilt of the knife to coldly knock out two of the man’s teeth.

“Hahaha! Hahahaha!” Song Xuechen spat out blood and broken teeth, collapsing onto the floor in manic laughter. “Luo Yunqing, oh Luo Yunqing, what do you think you’re doing? Revenge for Pei Yanli?”

He propped up his bound torso and roared hysterically, “You were just a lover he kept! What right do you have to seek revenge for him!”

“You’re wrong.”

Luo Yunqing crouched down, the knife dangling in his hand. Around his neck was a striking silver chain. Strung upon it were two gold rings that clinked together with his every movement.

These were found in Pei Yanli’s palm after he fell. During the autopsy, the forensic doctor had to use significant force, nearly breaking every finger, to extract them. Two rings, two sets of initials, and a long-standing will that transferred every asset to his “beloved, Luo Yunqing.”

How could he have been just a lover?

Luo Yunqing repeated each word with forceful emphasis: “Not. A. Lover.”

“You loved him!” Song Xuechen screamed, his eyes wide. He shook his head, muttering that it was impossible, before snapping into a frenzy. “If you loved him, why didn’t you go through with the marriage back then! If you had married him then, none of this would have happened! It’s all your fault! All of it! You killed him! It was you!”

It’s Luo Yunqing’s fault. Yes, all his fault! If it weren’t for him…

The tip of the blade hovered directly over his eyeball. Song Xuechen’s pupils shrank into pinpoints, his voice dying in his throat like a strangled rooster.

Luo Yunqing’s ice-cold hand clamped around his neck, fingers grazing the steady pulse of the artery before his unkempt nails began to dig into the skin.

“You’re right.” Luo Yunqing regretted this outcome more than anyone else. “If I had known it was him… if I had only known. But it’s too late.”

Pei Yanli was dead. He had been dead for five years. And today happened to be the tenth anniversary of the day they first met.

It was time to end it.

Song Xuechen’s mangled face turned a bruised purple. He made a “he-he” sound, his legs kicking frantically. “If you kill me, A-Heng and Big Brother will never let you go!”

“I know,” Luo Yunqing replied.

A-Heng, also known as Pei Hengzhi, was Pei Yanli’s nephew and the childhood friend Luo Yunqing grew up with. “Big Brother” was Song Moyan, the man Luo had lived with for years and who had supposedly protected him.

Both of them loved Song Xuechen. If they saw what Luo had done to him, skinning Luo alive wouldn’t be enough to satisfy their hatred. Therefore…

Luo Yunqing had worked hard since he was a child. Though he was as thin as a sheet of paper, his hands possessed a terrifying strength. He used that strength to force Song Xuechen’s head to turn toward the other side of the room.

At that moment, a crack of lightning illuminated the room, briefly revealing two other figures tied up nearby. One was hanging upside down with shattered knees; the other was tied to a chair, blood seeping from a wound in his abdomen.

They were Song Xuechen’s precious childhood friend and his “Big Brother.”

“They certainly won’t let me go, which is why I struck first.” Luo Yunqing leaned close to his ear, whispering like a demon. “You killed my younger siblings and the orphanage director. You killed Pei Yanli. What made you think I would only torture you?”

“You’re a lunatic! Luo Yunqing, you’re a madman!”

Yes, he was mad. There was no one left to hold him back.

“Don’t worry, you won’t die. Dying is too easy. I want you all to live well.” He wanted them to live forever with those ruined faces and broken bodies, suffering under the judgmental stares of the world.

Blood pooled in his palm. Luo Yunqing tossed the man aside in disgust. He carefully wiped his hands clean and lit up his phone screen. The dialer showed “911,” with the call having been active for seven minutes.

“That’s how it happened. You’ve tracked the location by now, so I’ll leave it at that.” Without waiting for the dispatcher to respond, Luo Yunqing hung up.

He turned and tenderly picked up a red sandalwood box from the table, walking into the torrential rain without a backward glance. Nearby was a sheer cliff.

As he approached the edge, Luo Yunqing hummed an off-key tune amidst the thunder. It was eerily soothing and peaceful, clean and pure. It was the lullaby the orphanage director used to sing to him when he was five, whenever he had nightmares about his parents dying in the fire. Later, whenever it rained and Pei Yanli’s legs ached too much to sleep, Luo would massage him and hum those same lines.

Just like now.

His thin fingertips tapped gently on the wooden box. “Pei Yanli… I’m coming to find you.”

“Wait for me.”

The wail of police sirens approached. Luo Yunqing turned around like a white butterfly with broken wings, clutching the box to his chest as he fell backward off the cliff.

Cold, biting seawater rushed into his lungs. Time seemed to hit a pause button. The progress bar of his life, which had reached its end, suddenly began to rewind at high speed.

The film-like images of his past were pulled back into the projector, and the play button was pressed once more.

The shrill buzzing of summer cicadas filled his ears. An old, large fan hung overhead, whirring loudly as it labored to move the air.

Luo Yunqing’s ears twitched. He slowly opened his eyes. How strange. He hadn’t met the Reaper, nor had he seen Pei Yanli. Instead, he saw Song Moyan—the man whose life he had ruined.

Why was he here? Did he fail to survive and die too?

That shouldn’t be possible. Luo had stopped the bleeding to ensure he stayed alive.

Soon, Luo Yunqing realized something was wrong. The Song Moyan before him was far too young, twenty-four or twenty-five at most, with no fine lines at the corners of his eyes. He wore a perfectly tailored custom suit, his hair slicked back, looking triumphant. On his wrist was a luxury watch worth millions, featuring a dark green dial encrusted with small, delicate diamonds.

He had worn it before.

When he was eighteen, after discovering his biological parents were wealthy, he had been thick-skinned enough to ask for it. He wore it exactly once before selling it. With that money, he installed air conditioning in every room of the orphanage, including the large kitchen. He remembered the second-hand shop owner telling him it was a limited edition—one of only a few in the world.

A world-limited watch, a calm and indifferent Song Moyan acting as if they were meeting for the first time. Was he dreaming? Can you still dream even after you’re dead?

“I know you’ve suffered a lot of grievances these past few years.”

Before he could make sense of the situation, Song Moyan’s lips continued to move. “We investigated what happened back then. It really was just an accident, and it had nothing to do with Xiaoxue. He feels very guilty now, constantly feeling like he’s stolen your place. He’s been unable to eat or sleep at home.”

The voice sounded as if it were coming from a great distance, muffled by low-quality soundproof glass. He had heard these words somewhere before.

To verify his absurd suspicion, Luo Yunqing reached for his gauze-wrapped right arm and pinched it hard. Physiological tears instantly welled up in the corners of his eyes from the sharp pain.

There was no mistake. He had been reborn! Back to the summer of his 18th year, right after the college entrance exams.

This was the year he had performed a heroic deed while delivering food, risking his life to save Mother Song from a knife-wielding thug. He had been slashed three times in the process. Because of that incident, it was discovered that he bore a striking resemblance to a younger Mother Song—once known as the “Number One Beauty of Yanjing”—leading to a DNA test at the hospital.

The result was exactly what one would expect. He was the true child of the powerful elite, while the pampered little master, who had collapsed in tears from fright, was a fake who had been switched at birth.

But no matter how “fake” he was, they had raised him for eighteen years. The bond they shared was not something Luo Yunqing could easily match. Luo Yunqing had seen it clearly from the moment the results came out; everyone had crowded around the fake young master to comfort him.

Later, he had accidentally overheard a conversation outside the hospital room. The Song family was set to arrange a marriage with another powerful family, but the groom was a “cripple” whose legs were broken in a car accident. Song Moyan, the eldest son, was the undisputed heir and clearly unsuitable. The marriage naturally fell to the second son.

Originally, Song Xuechen was unwilling. Now that the truth was out, the same Mrs. Song who had wept and told Luo Yunqing how much he had suffered didn’t hesitate to say: “Master Pei originally matched the marriage based on Yunqing’s birth chart anyway.”

…Perhaps he wasn’t used to the VIP ward, or perhaps the air conditioning was too cold; he had left within half a day back then. He wasn’t that pathetic, nor was he stupid. Knowing he was merely being used, he wasn’t about to step aside for the sake of so-called “family ties.”

In the end, he had demanded a massive sum—five million—to sever ties completely. Song Xuechen remained the noble young master of the Song family until the day he died. As for the marriage, they wanted the “Second Master Song.” What did that have to do with Luo Yunqing?

But if he had known the marriage partner was Pei Yanli…

“Xiao Qing.”

The magnetic voice pulled him from his memories, sending a shiver of disgust through him. Xiao Qing? He makes me sound like a character from a folk tale.

“It’s natural for you to feel resentment toward us.” At this point, Song Moyan was far less calculating than he would be in ten years. His emotions were plain on his face as he unconsciously fidgeted with his watch, his patience wearing thin. “But you should at least give us a chance to make it up to you, shouldn’t you?”

Make it up to him?

Recalling his past life—how he had intentionally blocked a kidney transplant source just to spite Song Xuechen over the marriage, causing a young girl named Xiaoyu to die from congenital kidney disease—Luo Yunqing silently pinched his wound even harder.

His eyes turned red instantly as he stammered, “Is it… is it just you, Big Brother? Why didn’t Mom and Dad come?”

Crystal tears hung from his lashes, his expression full of innocence mixed with a touch of resentment and disappointment. The two people who should have appeared most were nowhere to be found.

It had been the same in his past life. They wanted him back to take Song Xuechen’s place in the marriage, but they didn’t want a scandal. After all, if the truth went public, the reputation of the Song family and Song Xuechen would suffer. His “loving” big brother couldn’t bear to let his precious “Little Snow” be caught in a storm of public opinion.

The best way was to bring him back quietly and then send him off to the Pei family just as silently.

How could he let that happen? If he was going back, he was going to make it loud, public, and sensational!

The thumb resting on the watch suddenly stopped. Song Moyan scanned his younger brother. The boy’s thin eyelids were lowered, occasionally peeking at him like a stray kitten that had been accidentally abandoned and finally found.

As soon as the DNA results came out, Song Moyan had sent people to check his past. Right after he turned five, his foster parents died in a fire. The shock turned him into a stutterer. He was cheated out of his inheritance by greedy relatives and tossed around until he ended up at the Blue Sky Orphanage.

One could tell from the peeling, unrepaired walls that the orphanage was in poor condition, housing mostly abandoned children with serious illnesses. Outside of school, Luo Yunqing worked various part-time jobs. He spent most of his time at hospitals, and his biggest expenses were for medicine and surgeries. Sometimes he worked nearly twenty hours straight.

Song Moyan couldn’t imagine what life would be like if his “Xiaoxue” lived in such an environment. While it was unfair to Luo Yunqing, he felt relieved they had been swapped. Xiaoxue was far too delicate for that.

“Father had to go to a very important meeting at the company. Mother… she was supposed to come today and even prepared many gifts for you, but just as she was leaving, Xiaoxue fell ill.” Realizing it sounded like an excuse, Song Moyan added, “His constitution has always been weak.”

Weak constitution? Ha!

When he was busy dating Pei Hengzhi while simultaneously stringing Luo Yunqing along, Song Xuechen’s constitution didn’t seem weak at all.

“So Mother is a doctor then,” Luo Yunqing muttered, his head dipping lower as his voice dripped with bitterness. “Since Xiaoxue is sick, she should take care of him first. I… I’m fine.”

As he spoke, he rested his injured right arm on the table.

Song Moyan saw right through his little act. He figured the boy was just jealous that their mother hadn’t come. Such a childish temperament. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Tell you what,” Song Moyan said after a moment of thought. “Recover well for a few days. In two days, I’ll have Mom come pick you up personally. How does that sound?”

Luo Yunqing looked up, his eyes bright. “Really!”

“Of course.”

As they spoke, Song Moyan’s phone buzzed. He glanced at a message, a subtle smile tugging at his lips, and hurriedly announced he had urgent business at the company.

Luo Yunqing nodded obediently. “Go ahead, Brother. Earning money is… is important!”

His words actually made Song Moyan chuckle. Before leaving, he set down a credit card with a 200,000-yuan limit. He likely felt that 200,000 was a fortune to someone like Luo.

Luo Yunqing stood by the second-floor window and watched the Phantom drive away from the orphanage gate. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a second-hand phone. The touchscreen was sluggish; it took several swipes just to open the contacts.

There were 118 contacts. Nearly 100 were bosses he had worked for over the years. He scrolled down to “Y.” The first name was Yang Kang, a reporter for Celestial Entertainment Weekly.

He dialed the number and waited.

“Hello?” A lazy, yawning voice came through the receiver. “Yang Kang from Celestial Entertainment. Who is this?”

“Brother Yang, it’s me, Xiao Luo.”

Yang Kang squinted his eyes for a moment. Hearing that clear, youthful voice, he snapped awake and checked the caller ID. “Oh! Xiao Luo! Aren’t you out delivering food? How do you have time to call me? What, did you miss me?”

“I did,” Luo Yunqing gave a mischievous smile and got straight to the point. “Do you want… want a major exclusive, Brother Yang?”

“An exclusive?” Yang Kang drawled, lighting a cigarette. He took a slow drag. “That depends on the scoop.”

“The Song family of North City.”

“The Songs? Oh, the ones who made it big in microchips?” Yang Kang held the cigarette in his hand and sat down at his computer, scrolling with his mouse. “Aren’t they about to marry into the Pei family? Xiao Luo, that’s not exactly ‘major’ news.”

“What if their young master is a fake?”

“A fake!” Yang Kang paused. Remembering that Luo had recently saved Mrs. Song, his interest piqued. “We can’t just throw accusations around without evidence. If you say he’s fake… where is the real one?”

“Me.”

“What?”

“I said me, Luo Yunqing. I am the true young master of the Song family.”

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