My Weak Lover Became A Weird Boss - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: A Gambling Dad, a Deceased Mom Born to Rescue the Fallen…

Wen Zhu was a skilled cook, but the chef was clearly off his game today. Pei Qingshan took a couple of symbolic bites before stopping, asking casually, “Why so late getting back today?”

“Grocery shopping after work.” Professor Wen was a man of dignity; even his eating habits were refined. His unfamiliar jacket was hung open, and the faint red marks beneath his collar caught Pei Qingshan’s eye.

“What happened to your neck?”

What happened?

Wen Zhu didn’t bother to check. He assumed they were scratches from when that damn frog was struggling. He gave a perfunctory answer: “Accidentally fell.”

Pei Qingshan was momentarily silenced by this clumsy excuse. He stared for a moment before looking away, his tone remaining slow and steady: “Today is Friday. You have two classes in the afternoon. Calculating from the time you get off work, going from school to the market and then home shouldn’t take more than three hours.”

Pei Qingshan had been waiting at home since seven.

“Pei Qingshan, are you interrogating a criminal?”

Wen Zhu’s hand paused as he reached for food, his brow furrowing in displeasure.

Hearing this, Pei Qingshan let out a scoff. “I’m not this gentle when I interrogate criminals.”

Is that so? He sounded quite proud of it.

“Then what do you want?” Wen Zhu replied with a cold sneer. “Check the surveillance? Or throw me in jail?”

“That would be illegal. I’m just an ordinary civil servant!” Pei Qingshan emphasized instinctively, though the emphasis felt forced. “I don’t have that kind of power.”

And he had clearly emphasized the wrong point, receiving another expressionless, icy glare from Wen Zhu.

After dinner, Wen Zhu’s long-dormant germaphobia belatedly returned, and he rushed to take a shower.

The bathroom was filled with steam, white mist drifting through the gap at the bottom of the door. The sound of clattering water finally made the house feel less deathly silent.

Pei Qingshan glanced at the athletic jacket Wen Zhu had tossed over the back of a chair. The thing was an eyesore.

He stared at it for a long while.

Eventually, he stood up, hooked a corner of the jacket with his fingertip, took a light sniff, and then raised an indifferent eyebrow.

Ho!

The scent on this thing was complex.

Grease, soap, a brand of men’s cologne that Professor Wen would never wear, and tobacco… there was even a faint, nearly imperceptible hint of blood.

Pei Qingshan involuntarily thought back to the red marks on Wen Zhu’s collarbone.

Ding—ding—ding—

The wall clock struck midnight.

He put the jacket down. His features, carved like stone, appeared incredibly cold and hard. His shadow, cast under the lamp, stood like the backbone of the world—ancient and enduring.

The year Professor Wen met Pei Qingshan, he hadn’t spent enough time among people yet. Consequently, many things that seemed highly incongruous for an “ordinary civil servant” were things Wen Zhu couldn’t quite sense.

He was like a young wolf fresh from the den, quietly and warily accepting a foreign civilization.

To the point where Pei Qingshan truly believed his frail little wife was easy to fool.

Then, Pei Qingshan’s gaze darkened as he pulled out his phone.

For an officer who had held a high position for a very, very long time, he only needed to move his fingers. Countless people would scramble to report Wen Zhu’s movements over the past few days to him, word for word.

The cold white light of the screen reflected on his face, making his deep-set features even harder to read.

A few minutes later—

[Help! Married for seven years! My wife has never said he loves me, and we’ve been arguing a lot lately. Today he came home wearing an unknown man’s jacket, and I can even see unknown red marks! Is this a sign of a failing marriage?]

1L: Seven years is a long time. Maybe you’ve got a middle-aged beer gut?

OP: Impossible. Eight-pack abs. Older handsome guy, still got the charm.

2L: You’ve been together for so many years, just ask him where the marks came from.

OP: I did. He said he “accidentally fell.” Because of my job, I can tell at a glance that those are an adult man’s bite marks.

3L: …Feeling for you for 3 seconds, OP. That’s pretty much set in stone.

OP: It’s not impossible that he actually fell. It’s just that there happened to be an adult man nearby with his mouth open, you know what I mean?

4L: What are you arguing about?

OP: Too much. Mostly centered around the fact that I have too much stamina at night.

5L: ? This is the true psycho post of the forum. Even that “Married for seven years and husband won’t come home” post was more believable than this.

OP: What’s wrong with having good stamina? Even if there’s no credit, there’s hard work!

The bathroom door opened. Pei Qingshan instinctively locked his phone and flipped it face down on the table. His suspicious behavior earned him a sweeping glance from Wen Zhu.

Steam surged out of the open door, and at the end of the white mist stood a slender figure.

Professor Wen was a stubborn man. Despite his thin and seemingly frail frame, he loved morning jogs. Years of persistence had yielded a body of lean, corded muscle.

His hair was dripping wet, and his pale face was finally flushed red from the steam, his blood circulating until his lips were a deep crimson.

“Pei Qingshan, get me a pair of pajamas.”

Despite his youth, Wen Zhu was an extremely traditional prude. When teaching, his buttons were always done up to a point where even Pei Qingshan feared he might suffocate; only his face was ever exposed.

However, perhaps because they had been an “old couple” for so long, the Professor didn’t mind walking out with just a towel wrapped around his waist.

His waist was lean, and when he moved, it flexed with a perfect curve of strength and resilience.

Looking at him, Pei Qingshan forgot his desire to interrogate him instantly. The fire that had been suppressed for a month roared back to life, leaving his throat dry.

Wen Zhu had just finished brushing his teeth. Instead of his pajamas, he felt a pair of hands find his waist.

Pei Qingshan wasn’t particularly dark-skinned, but when his rough palms pressed against Wen Zhu’s porcelain-white abdomen, the contrast in texture was stark. His palms, calloused from years of handling weapons, left visible marks on Wen Zhu’s skin with every bit of pressure. Even when he didn’t use much force, the result was a lingering sense of being “ravaged.”

“I told you to get me pajamas, did you hear me?” Wen Zhu turned his head to avoid a kiss.

Pei Qingshan’s voice was hoarse, resonating against his ear and vibrating into his skull: “You won’t need those for a while.”

Having just dealt with something that shouldn’t have been in this world, his “death seal” was acting up. Other things he could handle, but Wen Zhu knew Pei Qingshan’s stamina too well. He refused flatly: “No, I’m tired today.”

Pei Qingshan wrapped one arm around Wen Zhu’s waist and kissed the corner of his mouth, letting out a low “Mm.” “You don’t have to move.”

Wen Zhu was 1.8 meters tall, which was tall for a normal person. He didn’t know what Pei Qingshan had been fed growing up, but the man was a full 1.9 meters. Generally speaking, all organs on a person’s body grow proportionally to their height.

Even after years of marriage, the thought of Pei Qingshan’s “equipment” made the veins in Wen Zhu’s forehead throb. He refused again: “I said no, and I mean no.”

But as the words left his mouth, a large, calloused hand had already slipped inside the loose towel at his waist.

Pei Qingshan’s fingers grazed him lightly as he chuckled in Wen Zhu’s ear, “Really ‘no’?”

A stifled, honeyed gasp escaped Wen Zhu’s lips. He then gave Pei Qingshan a sharp elbow to the ribs, hissing through grit teeth, “I have an early class tomorrow!”

“Just once.” Pei Qingshan moved his hand to the inner thigh, urging hoarsely again and again, “You don’t have to move, it won’t tire you out.”

He pulled Wen Zhu closer, pleading in a low voice, “Help me get it out, okay?”

The man named Pei had been arrogant his whole life, yet in this regard, he was naturally gifted at using submissive language to soften Wen Zhu’s heart. The moment Wen Zhu hesitated and relented, Pei Qingshan immediately shed his “pitiful” disguise and transformed into a blind and deaf tilling machine.

The lights in the Jiayuan Apartments went out building by building. It was a silent, cool night.

It wasn’t cold, nor as sweltering as the previous days. Opening the window a crack to let in the crisp breeze usually guaranteed a good night’s sleep—except, of course, for Wen Zhu.

He should never have believed Pei Qingshan’s “pile-driver” bullshit!

He had suffered at this man’s hands for so many years, yet he still managed to step right back into the trap.

By the latter half of the night, Wen Zhu’s throat was sore from crying out. He could barely speak, his mouth dry as he clenched his teeth. His fingers dug deep into Pei Qingshan’s back, leaving bloody furrows that the bastard didn’t even care about; his rhythm never slowed for a second.

“Are you even human?” Wen Zhu rasped, cursing him.

For a monster to be calling him “not human” Pei Qingshan really needed to self-reflect.

“I’ll be whatever you say I am.”

Pei Qingshan coaxed him while working hard. This man was a master of saying one thing and doing another. He applied the “guerrilla warfare” tactics of his job—pursue when the enemy retreats, advance when the enemy tires—to his private life with perfection.

Drenched in sweat, Wen Zhu gritted his teeth and tried to crawl away. He’d only moved a few steps before a pair of rough, damp hands grabbed his ankles and dragged him back.

“A little longer.” Pei Qingshan laughed as he pinned the man beneath him. He leaned in to kiss Professor Wen’s crimson ear and whispered, “Baby, your stamina is really poor today.”

Wen Zhu’s porcelain face was flushed with a physiological glow, his brow furrowed, casting a layer of intense color over his usually cold eyes.

Eyes like these always reminded Pei Qingshan of the first time he met Wen Zhu.

In his line of work, they went through wind and rain. They looked glamorous and powerful, but in reality, they lived in a marginal, vacuum-like space.

If they weren’t careful, if a single thought went astray for even a moment, and they stepped one foot out of line, they could never come back.

In other professions, if you take the wrong path, you might get a chance to fix it they didn’t.

Society needed these “powered individuals” for protection, yet simultaneously feared and scrutinized the power within them.

In such a high-pressure environment, many people snapped.

In response to a government initiative, the higher-ups had launched a series of stress-relief programs, including mixers with professionals from other sectors.

It was at one of those unskippable mixers that Pei Qingshan met Wen Zhu, who had just started teaching at Lincheng University.

Actually, no one dared to speak to Commander Pei at that mixer. He carried a natural “vacuum zone” around him; those who didn’t know the truth were afraid to enter, and those who did knew better than to provoke him.

When the mixer ended, Wen Zhu left alone. Back then, Professor Wen was even colder than he was now. Just as he reached the door, Pei Qingshan saw a drunk, middle-aged man grabbing Wen Zhu’s hand and refusing to let go.

Pei Qingshan was usually too busy to breathe; he had only attended because the Chief had personally escorted him there.

A minor farce shouldn’t have been worth his time, but perhaps the young Professor Wen was exactly his type, so he spared a few extra glances.

Oh, so the drunkard is his dad.

How did a high-level intellectual end up with such a persistent, blood-sucking leech?

Whoops, he just got slapped…

Why is he just standing there?

And his eyes are welling up.

From a distance, Wen Zhu looked incredibly thin and stubborn. His expressionless face, in the eyes of an observer, made him look like a strong “little white flower” drifting through the storms of a broken home.

Wen Zhu’s eyes back then were exactly the same as they were now.

A gambling dad, a deceased mom, a sister in school, a broken home.

If I don’t help him, who will?

Years later, Commander Pei would recall that as a somewhat dazed night.

He could only say that for someone like him—born with a hero complex and a terminal case of “alpha male” syndrome—he was destined to rescue “fallen” young men.