Professional Death Faker [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 7

A wooden box? Pei Shu lowered his eyes, gently toying with Mu Chuan’s ear, his fingertip tracing slow circles. “To hold those little bits of trash of yours? No ambition at all.”

He bit those words out intentionally softly, warming them between his lips before letting them reach Mu Chuan’s ear, lest a harsh tone wound the boy.

The person leaning against his chest was submissive, a faint flush coloring his ear-tips as his eyelashes flickered weakly.

“I wasn’t scolding you,” Pei Shu corrected himself. “I’ll buy it for you.”

“We’ll get one made of camphor wood, mhm?” Pei Shu tightened his arms, circling the pale, thin figure entirely in his embrace, his voice growing lower and more tender. “It keeps the insects away. I’ll have them send over design drafts; you can pick the style yourself.”

It was just a box.

Pei Shu had long known that Mu Chuan had a hoard of “treasures” he couldn’t bear to part with, small blankets from the orphanage with ID numbers and names, childish letters with crooked handwriting, cheap broken toys, dried leaves of unknown purpose, dusty stones, and insect husks. What were they called? Pei Shu couldn’t quite remember; he thought Mu Chuan had called them cicada sloughs.

Filthy things.

The scent of damp earth seemed to crawl up his throat.

As an Omega, Pei Shu’s sense of smell was sensitive; he actually loathed them to death. Yet, by some strange twist of fate, he had allowed Mu Chuan to hide that “trash” under their bed.

That was, until a new cleaner took it upon herself to throw some of it away. That afternoon, Pei Shu had flown into the greatest rage he’d had in years, calling the company headquarters directly to fire her.

That day had been absolute hell.

Pei Shu remembered coming home to a room that was terrifyingly clean and terrifyingly silent.

He couldn’t find Mu Chuan anywhere. He searched the bedroom frantically until, in the shadows under the bed, he spotted a pale ankle.

He knelt down and peered into the darkness.

The Alpha youth was curled in the deepest shadows, motionless, clutching a few things as if they were fused to his body: a faded, thin, tattered little blanket, a wooden top with peeling paint, and a cracked bamboo dragonfly.

The cleaner, sent by the team’s management company, had burst in with her head held high, pointing to her bitten wrist to complain: “Mr. Pei! That convict lunatic of yours…”

Pei Shu remembered that he hadn’t let her finish that sentence.

He had received a warning and a suspension for physical assault because of it, but he didn’t care. He drove the trembling, bloodied fool away and knelt by the bed all night, trying every way he knew to softly coax Mu Chuan out.

He offered Mu Chuan a saucer of his favorite warm milk.

He promised to get a hundred professional insect specimens.

He gripped that ankle—it was bony, like holding a grey-white withered vine that would snap if pulled too hard.

The juvenile Alpha convict, just out of prison, curled in the deepest corner, seemingly unable to hear anything. He was motionless like an empty shell, like a doll.

A beautiful, withered doll.

That day, Pei Shu had been a disheveled, pathetic mess. He suppressed his revulsion and spent half the day scouring trash stations and muddy green belts. Before he could be taken in for questioning as a suspicious person, he had scavenged a large pile of new leaves and stones.

He had no other choice.

The batch that had been thrown away was already in the incinerator with the rest of the refuse.

Back then, Mu Chuan was very obedient. He let Pei Shu take hold of his leg and pull him bit by bit from under the bed to be carried to the bathroom and scrubbed clean, despite Pei Shu holding his nose.

It took a long time to coax Mu Chuan “awake.” When his fingers touched those dirty leaves and stones, those light-colored eyes slowly came back to life. He looked up at Pei Shu as a warm towel was pressed to his face, a faint spark of life returning to him.

His eyelashes flickered in the steam, a sight that made one’s heart soften.

Mu Chuan let Pei Shu stroke his hair, curling up and leaning against his hand. Coaxed by tender words, he lowered his head to the small saucer and took tiny, careful sips of the warmed milk.

Pei Shu gave him all the new leaves and stones.

Mu Chuan slept the whole night clutching them.

The next day, Mu Chuan carefully pressed those leaves into his diary and washed the stones clean, giving them new names and lining them up one by one in a small glass jar.

****

Pei Shu asked, “Do you still have them?”

His question was vague, but Mu Chuan seemed to understand. He lifted his face slightly, looking at him, and nodded gently.

The corner of Pei Shu’s mouth twitched upward in a flash of a smile.

He wasn’t used to smiling; the movement was stiff and eerie, but his touch was gentle. Today’s Mu Chuan was even more obedient than the one in his memory. He allowed Pei Shu to wipe his hands and face and to use his fingers to comb through the soft hair dampened by cold sweat.

“I’ll book a desensitization training session,” Pei Shu said. “Once I stop finding it ‘dirty,’ I’ll go with you to pick them up.”

He didn’t know what was so great about picking up leaves and stones, but since Mu Chuan liked it, he would find the time.

After eight years of being diametrically opposed, of getting everything wrong, he finally remembered the right example to follow.

Pei Shu realized how he ought to treat Mu Chuan.

The effect was immediate. The person in his arms was as submissive as melting snow, clutching his hem. Those tea-colored eyes moved slightly, gazing at him through that thin layer of mist. After a long time, Mu Chuan slowly rested his forehead against Pei Shu’s chest.

This rare reliance made Pei Shu afraid to even breathe loudly.

His heart felt as if it were soaking in strangely warm water, aching and burning. Instead of moving, he didn’t dare stir; he hardly knew how to apply any strength. He must not do anything terrible again to break this hard-won closeness.

“Do you really want to go to the countryside?”

Pei Shu heard his own excessively raspy voice: “I’ll take you the day after tomorrow?”

It was just one more breach of contract—he knew this thought was wrong. It was likely the heat cycle interfering with his reason, causing him to lose control and make a choice that completely disregarded his own interests.

When he had gone against everyone’s wishes to do the thing that brought shame to his family nearly resulting in a death—it had essentially cut off all family support.

Pei Shu needed to maintain his current standing; he shouldn’t act so willfully. He couldn’t afford to push the team and the company to their limits.

But if going meant Mu Chuan would stay like this…

The thin Alpha curled in his shadow shook his head.

Pei Shu froze.

He asked, “You don’t want to go anymore?”

Mu Chuan’s eyes curved slightly toward him—they held an emotion he didn’t understand at all. It was as if, beneath that thin, dissipating mist, there was a pool of cold, bitter water accumulated over many years.

Mu Chuan just looked at him quietly.

Pei Shu frowned slightly. This look wasn’t unfamiliar. At home, Mu Chuan would often look at him just like this, motionless, with an unresolvable guilt and self-blame hidden in his eyes.

Pei Shu knew.

He had always known.

He knew Mu Chuan was tortured by guilt. Not only did he know, but Pei Shu despicably indulged this gaze, silently prolonging this warm torture.

Because he knew something else—this foolish country Alpha was naive, a bleeding heart, with a soul as soft as a pathetic cotton candy. And he was incredibly easy to lie to.

Pei Shu was absolutely certain that as long as Mu Chuan felt he owed him, Mu Chuan would never leave him.

But this time, Mu Chuan’s expression was even harder to decipher.

It was as if there were something more complex, more obscure, and more incomprehensible some deep, forever unpardonable sinful secret, some more desperate self-loathing and a farewell.

A silent, finally relieved farewell.

Pei Shu’s brow furrowed tight. He wasn’t very good at discerning the emotions flowing from these eyes and this face, and he couldn’t be sure if he was getting something wrong.

Then.

A touch of coolness.

A soft, cautious coolness, like snow finally taking pity on him, touched his cheekbone.

Mu Chuan was gently touching his face.

The realization made Pei Shu shudder violently.

An uncontrollable heat flared up in his throat. The flames he had forced himself to swallow burned through his chest, tearing open a pitch-black hole.

Pei Shu pulled Mu Chuan up onto himself.

He lay on his back on the floor, the gland at the back of his neck burning. He bared his neck—in the past, he wouldn’t have made such a humiliating gesture for the life of him. But it turned out that all it took was… one touch from Mu Chuan.

As long as Mu Chuan touched him.

Everything broke.

Pei Shu’s breathing was exceptionally heavy, his eyes burning red. He stared at the man as if possessed—he gripped Mu Chuan’s waist, pulling him into his embrace, taking Mu Chuan’s hand to touch his own scorching gland.

His arms tightened around that paper-thin spine through the fabric of the shirt, stuffing Mu Chuan into his chest.

“Ah Chuan,” he murmured raspy, grinding the name between his teeth with an eerie tenderness. His throat tasted like rusted blood. “Ah Chuan, Ah Chuan.”

Until a certain moment.

He caught a glimpse of Mu Chuan’s face by chance.

It was like a bucket of ice-cold water being poured over his head.

Pei Shu slowly stopped moving. His chest was still heaving. Mu Chuan was soft and quiet against him, like a sacrificial offering, following a ship that had lost control and was hurtling into a whirlpool.

The soul within this pale, beautiful vessel seemed to have vanished.

For a long time, Mu Chuan had blamed himself for being unable to cooperate with him. He was ashamed beyond words because he couldn’t satisfy Pei Shu and had driven him to this state.

Now, because Pei Shu had mentioned those godforsaken leaves and stones, Mu Chuan finally remembered the method he had learned in the past—the one he had almost forgotten. Mu Chuan actually knew how to do this.

He was taught in prison.

He had been out for too long, so he had forgotten.

Now he remembered. Mu Chuan remembered what to do—how to close himself off and surrender his body to him.

To let him toy with it.

To let him vent.

Pei Shu suddenly flipped over, staggering to a half-kneel, his arms death-gripping the person in his embrace. He called Mu Chuan’s name incessantly. He didn’t know what tone he was using or how loud his voice was. When he came to his senses, his mouth was full of the taste of blood. The team manager had broken down the door, looking at his face as if he were a madman.

The manager asked, “Did you kill someone?”

Pei Shu looked absolutely ridiculous.

Saying the Alpha who came to deliver pheromones was in trouble? The person was just asleep his breath was a bit weak and his complexion was poor, but he still had a steady heartbeat and respiration.

Saying there was excessive sexual behavior? Both were fully clothed.

Was all this necessary?

Pei Shu’s arms felt like they were filled with lead.

His fingertips turned cold, losing sensation inch by inch.

He hugged Mu Chuan tightly, refusing to let go. He touched Mu Chuan’s forehead, his cheeks, his soft, limp neck, gently rubbing with his thumb, prying open those cold, thin eyelids just a bit.

Pei Shu held his breath, unable to bend his waist. It was as if a sharp iron spike had pierced through his body and reached his throat. He didn’t dare bend over. Stiffly and tremblingly, he looked at Mu Chuan’s pupils.

No.

No, no.

“Get out,” Pei Shu roared. “Get out! Everyone get out!”

With so many people here, how could Mu Chuan stand it?

He threatened everyone to leave immediately, or he would smash his own right hand. The team manager complained bitterly but could do nothing. He went out in a foul mood to explain that it was nothing serious only that Pei Shu had gone mad and dragged all the curious teammates back to training.

“Ah Chuan.”

In the empty room, Pei Shu knelt on the floor, holding the quiet, submissive person who followed his every whim. He trembled as he apologized: “I was wrong, Ah Chuan. Ah Chuan.”

his shuddering palm pressed against the cold cheek.

The eyelashes were silent. They lifted slightly with great effort—revealing only completely scattered, vacant, still water.

He saw the quiet doll under the bed from eight years ago.

“I didn’t. I didn’t want this. Listen to me.”

“It’s not your fault, Ah Chuan. It’s not your fault. Wake up, and once you’re awake, I’ll tell you.”

“Ah Chuan is the most obedient, isn’t he?”

“Wake up.”

“Never again. You can do whatever you want. No more biting. I won’t bite you ever again, okay?”

“No more biting. Never again…”

Pei Shu leaned against his neck, his forehead pressed against the weakly pulsing vein, begging for mercy. His own veins throbbed desperately against that lifeless skin. “Don’t be like this…”

Shen Buqi played two rounds of cards with the System.

The System was uneasy, occasionally using a periscope to observe the delusional Pei Shu, fearing Mu Chuan would actually be carried out the door by the maddened man to some hospital for a full body check and emergency rescue.

Ah. Shen Buqi had also bought himself a rocking chair, lying in it and swinging back and forth. Let him go.

If they went to the hospital, Pei Shu would learn exactly how much Mu Chuan’s body had deteriorated.

The commission for a “suicide for love” was very high.

System: 

Shen Buqi was joking. He patted the System, and a breeze he carried blew the data of a few small pebbles and dry maple leaves into powder.

After all, they were things that had been through the incinerator.

Shen Buqi was very patient. He took out a pair of pointed tweezers and began to piece them together bit by bit, taking the time to comfort the System: “Don’t worry, don’t worry.”

Shen Buqi was certain: “Pei Shu won’t dare take me to the hospital.”

The System froze: “Why?”

The withered, shattered, and incinerated maple leaf was restored bit by bit under his fingertips. He applied a protective film, making it into a beautiful bookmark.

Shen Buqi admired his work: “Is it pretty?”

System: AAAAAAH!

If Shen Buqi keeps talking in half-sentences like this… The System paused, looking at the maple leaf bookmark Shen Buqi had tucked into its small data pocket. The data turned red: “…Ah.”

Shen Buqi’s eyes curved as his fingertips gently rubbed the now-fluffy System.

He wasn’t in a hurry. He waited for Pei Shu to run like a headless fly through the garden, the woods, and the ornamental ponds, coming back disheveled and clutching a mess of leaves and stones. He would then hold Mu Chuan’s hand as before, taking him to touch the fresh earth.

Wasn’t this an easy way to desensitize him?

Why book any classes?

Shen Buqi threw down his cards and cooperated by leaving the consciousness space.

When he opened his eyes, Pei Shu was kneeling on the floor, his hands warmed in hot water. Following a “desperate times call for desperate measures” approach, he was massaging the soles of Mu Chuan’s feet.

The warm old ring pressed against the Yongquan point.

It had been many years since Mu Chuan had walked more than five hundred meters from home.

The acupoint was painful; the ache and weakness seeped into his marrow. The pale, soft sole of his foot moved slightly. Pei Shu looked up abruptly, his blood-red eyes still filled with an unresolved terror and helplessness.

Pei Shu stared at him, motionless. It was as if he had run outside and seen a hundred ghosts. His hair was matted messily to his forehead as he struggled to open his mouth.

Ah Chuan?

Mu Chuan was sunken into the soft, white down quilt, leaning back softly. There was no color in his face, and his lips were translucent.

Realizing what Pei Shu was doing, his breathing faltered. His toes curled in shame, and he tried to pull back but immediately after, he fell into a deeper trance.

He looked at his legs held in Pei Shu’s arms.

He tried his best to move his toes again, but the pant leg only gave a mocking, weak flicker. He tried again; it was like a stone dropped into the ocean it seemed even that bit of mockery had vanished.

” I’m fine.” He spoke haltingly, trying to soothe the red-eyed Pei Shu and stop those hands that were frantically kneading his calves.

It was too late. His legs were forced into the open thin, pale, and twisted as limply as dead fish, covered entirely in scars both old and new.

Pei Shu was staring at a greyish old scar one made by a guard’s boot in prison. Not Pei Linya, but an Omega who hated Alpha violent offenders more than anything.

“Filthy Alpha beast.”

His lame leg convulsed weakly. Mu Chuan blurted the words out uncontrollably. He had to repent quickly—no hesitating, no wavering so he wouldn’t get a second kick.

Pei Shu’s pupils snapped into pinpricks. He lunged forward, gripping Mu Chuan’s curled wrist.

Mu Chuan gave a violent jolt.

He woke from his sleep-talking, his scattered gaze refocusing.

“No… no, I didn’t say it.”

He shook his head frantically: “I remember… I can’t say it…”

“Don’t… don’t do it. It’s ugly.”

Mu Chuan struggled to comfort him: “Maybe I walked too much today. I’m useless. my legs have no strength.”

Pei Shu’s hand was also covered by an icy, thin palm.

Pei Shu looked at him for a while, his gaze dark and unreadable. After a long time, he turned his palm to hold that hand and lowered his head to carefully stroke the scars.

In the past, Mu Chuan wouldn’t let him touch them at all; he would never expose his body in front of others.

Pei Shu lowered his head and pressed his lips against a scar.

A startled flush appeared on Mu Chuan’s face. He tried to use his hands to move his legs back, but his hand was held and pinned.

Pei Shu kissed his scars, his voice raspy, hiding a distortion like an approaching storm and a dark, spreading hatred—it was impossible to tell who it was directed at.

He pressed his cheek against the weak, soft calf.

“I deserve to die,” Pei Shu said softly. “Ah Chuan is clean.”

He told Mu Chuan, “My Ah Chuan is the cleanest.”

Mu Chuan shook his head weakly.

“Clean and useful—Ah Chuan is the best Alpha.” Pei Shu seemed to recover a sort of calm. He knelt by the bed and slowly massaged the legs, his voice light and slow. “You’re just tired. It’s all my fault. You worked too hard today. Don’t be afraid, Ah Chuan. I’ll hold you.”

“Sleep for a while. Tomorrow I’ll have the team doctor come.”

Pei Shu told Mu Chuan: “Our training intensity is too high. Our hands also get so tired they can’t move, losing all sensation. A little electro-acupuncture treatment and it’ll be fixed in the blink of an eye.”

“Once your legs are better, I’ll take you home.”

Pei Shu said: “You can play as much as you want. You can have anything you want, any request you want to make.”

The naive, weak Alpha widened his light-colored eyes, looking at him with trust. The weak light in those eyes made Pei Shu’s throat ache, as if he had swallowed a thousand needles.

Mu Chuan submissively let himself be picked up through the quilt. His two legs dangled limply. His breath was like cold snow. The submissive snow leaned against his neck, his voice so soft it made one’s heart ache: “A  question.”

“Of course.” Pei Shu gently touched his hair. “You can ask a question too. What do you want to ask?”

Mu Chuan lowered his eyelashes as if he had made a great decision.

The Alpha who had finally escaped prison looked at his fingers and bit out his words stutteringly and cautiously: “You said, said. It wasn’t, wasn’t my fault.”

“Wait until I wake up, and tell me.”

Mu Chuan asked him.

Pei Shu felt like he had fallen into an ice cellar at the sight of those moist eyes.

“What. Wasn’t your fault?”