The Richest Man’s Boyfriend Lives in a History Textbook - Chapter 3

Noticing that Aisley’s pace had changed, Xingyuan froze for a moment, then hurried to keep up.

Although Aisley was walking faster, Xingyuan could sense that this way of walking carried more presence than before.

Xingyuan’s eyes lit up. Even though he was drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, he was still brimming with energy as he struggled to keep up.

Steady footsteps fell, followed by a pair of shoes scrambling to match them. The former had a natural rhythm; the latter alternated between light and heavy, easily falling into disarray.

A cluster of stars glittered in the night sky, casting a sheet of silver light over the pitch-black earth below.

In the stillness of the night, the boy’s panting grew heavier and heavier. He coughed a few times, and beads of sweat rolled from his eyelashes, nearly dropping into his clear pupils.

The boy wiped the sweat from the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand. His eye sockets had already been reddened from the exertion.

Xingyuan had always had a weak constitution since childhood and had rarely exercised like this. After all the walking today, his legs felt as though they had lost all their bones, reduced to lumps of cotton — aching and soft, barely able to hold him upright.

He coughed a few more times and, seeing that the man beside him was still walking just as fast, pressed his lips together and spoke up hesitantly.

“Could you walk a little slower? I can barely keep up.”

He knew this person couldn’t hear him, but he only wanted to find some comfort for himself. It was like making a wish — keep saying it enough, and maybe it would come true.

The boy’s clear, bright voice streamed into his ears. Aisley raised a hand as if to touch his ear, but instead, his palm curled slightly and came to rest over both eyes, his thumb pressing into his temple in slow circles.

He closed his eyes, ran his tongue along the tips of his teeth, and his brow gave a small, involuntary twitch.

The boy’s voice continued to echo through his mind, and Aisley felt a faint tingling across his scalp. He exhaled a long, slow breath, and only then did his eyelids lift gradually.

He couldn’t understand what the boy was saying, but he could guess.

He cast a sidelong glance at the boy’s teary-eyed appearance, and one corner of his lips curled up. His eyelids drooped, concealing the amusement in his eyes.

Fine. This kid had poor stamina to begin with — there was no need to run him into the ground like this.

Aisley came to a stop. At first, Xingyuan didn’t register it, and it wasn’t until he had walked a few steps further that he realized the man on his left had disappeared.

Huh?

He turned around, drenched in sweat, and found Aisley standing in front of a withered tree, looking at something.

Xingyuan let out a breath of pure relief and dropped straight to the ground with a whoosh.

Xingyuan curved his eyes into a smile, starlight seeming to live in them. If he weren’t worried about getting his hair dirty, he would have lain flat on his back right then and there.

After resting for quite a while, Xingyuan’s breathing finally evened out, and the burning heat left his face.

He rubbed his stiff face and slowly got to his feet. But his legs were still too weak, and he nearly went down on his knees.

Xingyuan braced himself against his thighs and shuffled his way over toward Aisley.

His whole body felt hollow, and he swayed as he walked. After about a dozen or so steps, he finally made it to the withered tree.

The dead tree was tall and imposing — roughly five or six meters high. Starlight filtered through the branches, scattering dappled shadows across the ground.

Xingyuan stood at 178 centimeters. Though he was already eighteen, his health report said he still had room to grow.

Xingyuan tilted his head to look at Aisley. This man was a full head taller than him — and then some. He honestly didn’t dare try to calculate exactly how tall that made him.

Xingyuan’s legs were too weak. He swayed on his feet and reached out to lean against the tree trunk.

He stretched out his hand to steady himself, but in the pitch darkness, combined with his unsteady footing, he lost his balance and pitched forward.

His forehead struck the thick trunk. The coarse grain of the bark sent a sharp, stinging pain across his skin. His body continued to tilt downward, and the raised ridges of the bark scraped along his forehead as he slid.

Hiss—

Xingyuan felt his forehead go prickling and cold, followed by a sharp, burning sting.

A muffled sound escaped from the back of his throat.

His reflexes were quick enough — he grabbed the trunk in an instant and steadied himself.

“Phew—”, Xingyuan let out a breath of relief. He raised a hand to gingerly wipe at his forehead, and his fingertips came away slightly damp.

Xingyuan: ……

Surely he hadn’t split open a big gash on his forehead, had he?

He paused for a moment. After confirming there were no signs of dizziness, he let himself relax.

Should be fine. Not going to die from this.

He breathed out heavily, his deer-like eyes curving into narrow slits with an expression that was rather self-satisfied.

He really was different from others. Even with blood on his forehead, he remained inwardly calm. Yes — as long as it wasn’t fatal, what was there to be afraid of?

Xingyuan bit his lip, eyes bright.

He always knew he had the makings for the Imperial Military Academy.

Aisley stood to one side with his arms folded. At the sight of all this, his eyelid twitched, and he pressed his fingers to his temple with a complicated expression, the breath caught in his chest refusing to come out.

Someone just barely grazed their forehead on a tree — how does a person manage to actually draw blood from something like that?

He supposed he hadn’t seen enough of the world.

He looked at the bloodstain on the boy’s forehead — no, the blood bead — and his eyelid kept twitching without stop.

The bark of this particular tree was relatively smooth. Even if he dragged his own hand back and forth across it, nothing would happen — if anything, the friction would only polish the bark smoother.

Although the cut on the boy’s forehead was only a very shallow scratch, one that would be healed well before dawn—

The faint red mark against that pale skin still made Aisley glance away and reach out his hand.

His palm, roughened with calluses, hovered close to the crown of Xingyuan’s soft hair — then stopped, suspended in mid-air.

His arm shifted direction. His hand reached past and grabbed the section of the tree trunk that Xingyuan had hit.

The trunk was about ten centimeters in diameter. The moment that wide hand closed around it, the solid muscle along his forearm tensed and surged with force. There was a sharp crack — and the branch snapped clean off.

At the sound, Xingyuan looked up. When he saw the jagged break and the sheer width of the severed branch, his eyes went wide.

This man…

Xingyuan swallowed. This man was terrifying. He could probably kill five of him with a single punch.

Xingyuan hunched his shoulders and took a step back.

Of course, as the temperature dropped lower and lower, and his school uniform could no longer be pulled up over his face, Hua·True Fragrance·Xingyuan crept right back over.

(TL: “真香” (zhēn xiāng) True Fragrance is slang meaning:

“I said I wouldn’t, but I ended up loving it anyway.”)

At the time, Xingyuan had been wondering why Aisley had snapped off the branch — but when the flames rose up, he understood at once.

So it was to make a fire for warmth.

The black-and-white figure shifted closer to the fire. Aisley, as if by coincidence, threw on another handful of fuel.

The fire crackled and popped. Xingyuan let out a yawn, his head beginning to nod.

For the average person in the interstellar age, when drowsiness came, they would naturally leave the perception simulator first. Every second cost money — best to conserve where one could.

Xingyuan didn’t concern himself with any of that. The price of a full night’s session wasn’t even worth one of his ultra-rare limited-edition figures.

Yes — Xingyuan sold figures. He owned the largest figure factory in the entire interstellar network, closing tens of thousands of orders every single second.

Xingyuan was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open. He swayed left and right, and at some point without realizing it, he had already lain down on the ground, his shallow breathing drifting through the air.

The fire was still burning strong, yet Xingyuan was so cold he had curled into a ball — hugging his knees, with nowhere to tuck his head.

A thick outer coat was gently laid over Xingyuan’s body. Because it had been unfastened, it spread wide enough to wrap around Xingyuan’s curled-up frame.

As Aisley let go of the coat’s hem, two images appeared simultaneously within his pupils.

There was only one outer coat — yet when it was laid over the boy, it became two.

One passed straight through the boy’s body and fell to the ground. The other rested over the boy.

The deep crimson firelight reflected in Aisley’s dark pupils. He stood motionless where he was.

After an indeterminate amount of time, he moved closer and reached out to touch the coat draped over the boy — but his hand found nothing.

Yet in Aisley’s field of vision, the hem of the coat swayed gently at his touch.

For the rest of that night, Aisley never picked the coat up off the ground. He left it there, spread beneath the young man’s body.

As the fire burned down to nothing, he leaned back against a large boulder nearby.

He couldn’t sleep. His gaze remained fixed on the boy.

Well. Not bad — one coat and it becomes two.

When Xingyuan woke, it was already broad daylight. He stretched out his body, and found that a coat had been draped over him.

Xingyuan: ?

He had just started to look around when he saw Aisley, less than half a meter away, in the middle of tying up his hair.

Xingyuan: ……

He watched Aisley, studying him. The man’s movements were practiced and deft, though tying his hair was a little inconvenient — he had to bind it in place.

Xingyuan blinked. He made a mental note that someday, when he finally met Aisley in person, he would give him a bundle of small hair ties.

The moment Aisley stood up, before Xingyuan even had a chance to react, the man pulled the coat out from under him.

Xingyuan startled and sat up quickly. Once the realization sank in, he felt a little embarrassed.

He figured Aisley must have just set the coat down nearby for a moment — and he’d gone and sat right on top of it without knowing.

Xingyuan lowered his head. “I’m truly sorry.”

Aisley’s hand paused for a moment, then he calmly swung the coat over his shoulders.

Xingyuan’s gaze instinctively followed the motion of Aisley’s hands. As the coat swept through the air, he caught a glimpse of Aisley’s upper body.

Aisley’s upper half was clad in nothing but a thin, sleeveless undershirt — barely there.

The muscles exposed to the open air looked extraordinarily hard and compact. The lines of each muscle group flowed cleanly and smoothly, with veins rising prominently to the surface, clearly visible.

Xingyuan stared at those thick, solid muscles until his eyes went round. He swallowed and shrank back a step.

He had underestimated. This man could probably kill ten of him.

Aisley seemed to be avoiding something — his movements in getting dressed were very quick, and in a mere ten seconds he had the outer coat arranged and settled.

Taking the opportunity, Xingyuan also produced the water purification sphere and washed his face and hair in turn. He popped a freshening ball into his mouth as well, and his whole mouth instantly felt much more comfortable.

He picked up the duplicate outer coat and stood there, not quite sure what to do with it.

Before he had long to think about it, the outer coat suddenly dissolved into scattered specks of light and dissipated from his hands.

Huh?

Xingyuan pressed his fist to his chin and sank into thought.

Looking back on it afterward, Xingyuan felt a pang of unease — he had slept in such an exposed spot last night, and somehow hadn’t been accidentally stepped on?

That was really lucky.

Today’s Aisley seemed quite unhurried, walking considerably more slowly than usual.

Xingyuan quietly patted his chest in relief. Good, good.

His legs were still weak. If the pace had been fast, he genuinely would have had to lie down.

Aisley finally arrived at the tavern.

The aroma of wine was rich and heavy, and many customers had bought several bottles each.

Aisley breathed in the scent of liquor and felt his throat move. He leaned against the doorframe, reached into his pocket to feel the last two Kaen coins remaining there, then turned his head and said to the proprietor with an easy smile:

“Give me… a dish of milk cake.”

Compared to sweet food, Xingyuan preferred sour and spicy — but he hadn’t eaten anything for an entire night, and on top of that he was genuinely curious about the food here, so he couldn’t help licking the corner of his mouth.

Of course, on the surface he sat perfectly upright and proper on the stool beside Aisley.

At first, Xingyuan had only intended to smell the food — but the more he smelled it, the hungrier he became. After a brief moment of hesitation, he leaned forward and murmured softly to Aisley:

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve taken the liberty of copying your food. If we ever get to meet in person someday, I’ll treat you to my favorite spicy crayfish, and I’ll send you a ton of storable Miaozai milk as compensation.”

With that, Xingyuan’s hands quietly crept forward and each one took hold of a side of the dish.

Thinking himself entirely undetected, he gave it a swift pull back — and drew out an identical dish of milk cake.

He licked the corner of his mouth, entirely unaware that just above his head, a pair of eyes were watching him with a smile that was not quite a smile.