Poor Relationship - Chapter 10

Xu Yizhou found the whole thing utterly absurd. What could two men possibly see in each other? Didn’t everyone have the same equipment? But Wen Shi was so young and already driving such a nice car—that was something Xu Yizhou definitely didn’t have.

“I’m not into guys anyway.”

Xu Yizhou pursed his lips. So even if Wen Shi had set his sights on him, there was no way he’d ever like Wen Shi back. He didn’t notice, however, the fleeting shadow that passed through Wen Jiang’s eyes after he said those words.

“Hmm.”

Another monosyllabic reply. Wen Jiang withdrew his gaze, opened his laptop, and immersed himself in work. Xu Yizhou felt the atmosphere suddenly grow much colder. Unbothered, and seeing that Wen Jiang was busy, Xu Yizhou remembered he had work to do too.

But the thought of those eighty pages of explicit content made his head throb. Feeling a bit downcast, he released Wen Jiang’s arm and went upstairs to his room. Glancing at the time—only 3 p.m.—he figured he could probably record another episode of dry voice work. The livestream wasn’t urgent anyway. After preparing his materials and adjusting his sitting posture, Xu Yizhou flipped to the spot he’d marked yesterday. Just before starting to record, he couldn’t help but mutter a curse under his breath:

“Fuck, what kind of pervert is this, even playing with S&M?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Yu Xin sent over an edited audio clip. Xu Yizhou listened to it and realized it was basically a template. He just needed to match his breathy sounds to the whip cracks in the audio. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Yu Xin had installed surveillance in his house.

Clearing his throat, Xu Yizhou did some vocal warm-ups, found the submissive tone he’d used in yesterday’s recording, and held onto it. Then he officially began.

“Master… this slave was wrong…”

Crack (sound of a whip landing)

“Wrong everywhere… Master, please don’t hit me anymore… it hurts!” (faint sobbing sounds)

(Adding breathy sounds with each whip crack)

“One” “Two”

Xu Yizhou’s face twisted in discomfort as he recorded. Who the hell hits someone that many times? Could this really be stimulating for anyone? What kind of masochist would even be into this?! Finally finishing the whipping part, what followed was the explicit content. Xu Yizhou took a deep breath and began panting along with the rhythm. Usually, this kind of thing required running up a few flights of stairs to achieve the right breathless effect.

But after doing so many recordings, Xu Yizhou had plenty of experience and could manage it easily. Thinking he might as well record a bit more now to suffer less later, he went ahead and recorded the following parts too. But it was exhausting, having to pause every so often to catch his breath. After running out of breath a few times, Xu Yizhou simply left the door open. The bedroom had good soundproofing anyway, so he wasn’t worried about Wen Jiang hearing him from downstairs.

“Brother~ give it to me~ I want it…”

“Brother~ I love you so much, *come inside, okay…”

Wearing headphones in the recording booth, Xu Yizhou could only hear his own voice through the monitor feed, completely unaware that the bedroom door had opened. It wasn’t until someone walked up to the recording booth and tapped a single finger against the glass door that Xu Yizhou snapped back to reality. His words cut off abruptly.

“Brother”

His voice hadn’t shifted back yet. The moment his eyes met Wen Jiang’s, Xu Yizhou’s pupils visibly constricted.

“Bro… brother, what are you doing here?”

“I… I’m record… recording, it’s not what you think…”

Xu Yizhou could hear his own incoherent rambling through his earpiece, his words barely making sense. His headphones were shaped like cat ears, perched atop his head, with messy strands of hair covering his forehead and revealing his nervous eyes. The temperature of his entire face rose sharply, turning even the back of his ears red.

It was actually kind of cute.

“Damn, why didn’t I close the door just now? Why did Wen Jiang suddenly show up here? Could he have heard what I was just recording? No way, it can’t be that coincidental, right?”

Xu Yizhou couldn’t help but think to himself.

If being caught hearing Wen Jiang watch a communication video last time was social suicide, then having Wen Jiang overhear him recording explicit content this time was even worse—hands down. Life is really short; sometimes, before you know it, it’s already over.

Xu Yizhou swallowed hard and cautiously glanced at Wen Jiang.

“Bro, I was just recording,” he finally managed to say after a long pause, pointing at the script.

But Wen Jiang didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. He merely glanced at the script and said calmly,

“Mm, I came to call you down for dinner.”

Xu Yizhou glanced at the time on his computer and realized it was already past six in the evening. It was dark outside. He hadn’t even noticed. But wasn’t the real issue here that he was socially dead?

Wow, he had actually said those kinds of words out loud and been heard. Wen Jiang probably thought he was a pervert! This Wouldn’t it be super awkward to go down and eat with Wen Jiang now?

Xu Yizhou forced an awkward smile.

“No no need. I’m not hungry, and I have a livestream later.”

“Bro, you go ahead and eat. Don’t worry about me.”

Wen Jiang frowned slightly.

“You’re not hungry?”

Even if he was hungry, he couldn’t go down now. That would be way too embarrassing. Just thinking about the filthy words that had come out of his mouth earlier made him want to dig a hole and hide, let alone eat.

“I’m not hungry. I ate enough at lunch, and… I usually skip dinner anyway…”

Even so, he had to put on a smile for his brother, hoping he could brush it off.

“Mm, your recording just now was pretty good, just not realistic enough.”

Wen Jiang didn’t press further, just glanced at the script and said.

“Me… not realistic enough?”

Although it wasn’t his first time, few people questioned his skills these days, especially in voice acting.

And Wen Jiang’s tone right now sounded exactly like that love-hate client everyone deals with. But thinking back to what happened with Wen Jiang that day, it wasn’t so hard to understand why he would say that.

“Mm.”

With just a simple monosyllable, Wen Jiang said nothing more. He just shoved his hands into his pockets and walked out, his tall, straight figure gradually fading from view. Xu Yizhou numbly raised a hand to rub his face—it was so hot he could warm his hands with it.

“Wait, why was he so calm when evaluating my voice acting?”

Xu Yizhou realized belatedly.

“Shouldn’t he have found it strange?”

After all, he had only told them that his voice acting work involved dubbing for TV shows, not that it included this kind of content. He scratched his head in confusion. Meanwhile, from the room at the end of the hallway, the sound of running water could be heard. The man stood under the showerhead, not even bothering to take off his clothes before turning on the water. The cold water soaked through his clothes and onto his skin, trickling down and drenching his entire body. The man’s gaze darkened slightly as he lowered his head and noticed the reaction stirring below.

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