Chapter 25: 25

His hands were so cold, and were sweating from nervousness. In contrast, Huo Tinglan’s palm was as hot and dry as holding fire, making him fidget.

Relying on the low friction of the silk, Ye Ci slowly slid under the quilt to lay flat. Half of his face was submerged, and the bridge of his nose peeked over the quilt along with a pair of bright eyes.

He faintly guessed that those big hands contained evil intentions, but he didn’t want to believe it and was reluctant to draw away, flustered and self-deceiving.

Ye Ci was lying on his side, and in order not to make the position awkward, Huo Tinglan also reclined halfway at the head of the bed, holding the wet snow with both hands.

Ye Ci’s hands were very slender, the bones sharp and hard. It looked just like a boy’s hand.

But perhaps it had been affected by the Omega hormones in the past few months, because that skin was as tender as soft tofu, as smooth as satin, and the five slender finger bones were like bamboo supports under a paper umbrella, clearly distinct.

Huo Tinglan’s expression was honest, just wanting to warm him up. He didn’t bend the rules even a little bit, letting the pheromones blend gently.

After a while, the hand in his palm softened, the muscles losing tension as Ye Ci eased his guard.

Huo Tinglan then began to rub it in a calm and collected manner, slowly kneading. First the back of the hand, the edge of the palm, and then he rubbed Ye Ci’s ten cold, kitten-like finger pads in turn, helping to improve circulation.

That technique was not improper, as if the only purpose was to warm him and pass him pheromones.

But Ye Ci lowered his gaze, his eyelashes trembling, and didn’t dare to look at him.

“Xiao Ci.” As if to distract his attention, Huo Tinglan suddenly spoke, “I want to make a request of you. May I?”

“What?” Ye Ci raised his eyes. “Okay, you, you can say it.”

This student was so good.

Huo Tinglan pondered for a while, then said warmly: “I hope that when you encounter trouble in the future, when you experience difficulties, you can learn to take the initiative to tell me, to let me solve it for you and help you find a way to handle it.” He soothed Ye Ci’s fragile self-esteem, “Seeking help from the right person is smart. It doesn’t mean you’re incapable, and . . . .” He gazed at him, his eyes tender but without pity, as if he were looking at a young, wounded eagle. “You’re so young, and you’ve endured a lot more than your peers, but you’re not overwhelmed. You’re a strong, brave person, and that won’t change just because you need help sometimes……understand?”

It was very common sense. If someone else said it, Ye Ci would turn a deaf ear, but when it came out of Huo Tinglan’s mouth, he listened.

“I, I understand……Huo-shushu.” He nodded firmly.

At the same time, the graphite silk rippled delicately.

Five strong and steady fingers snuck between Ye Ci’s lightly sweating ones without delay.

The lines of their palms overlapped.

Their ten fingers met.

Pheromones blended into the sweat and efficiently soothed Ye Ci’s feverish glands.

These warm hands and the exchange of pheromones in such a way made Ye Ci blush and his heart beat faster, and he struggled weakly for a moment.

“This matter tonight, you don’t have to let your imagination run wild when you go back and feel embarrassed.” Huo Tinglan had considered this carefully and thoroughly, afraid that the more Ye Ci thought about it, the more ashamed he would become. “You’re my little gentleman who received a marriage certificate. Half of this house is yours, let alone a bed. There is no need to apologize to me. Besides . . . .” He smiled, with a candid but poised look, “This bed has been laid in by you, and I like it very much.”

He shamelessly spoke nonsense in a gentleman’s tone. Ye Ci was at a loss, and ignoring the fingers that were overlapping with his, he nodded carelessly with a scattered mind. “En, I won’t, won’t dwell on it . . . .”

He was flirted with again without knowing it.

The central air conditioner in the Huo residence had a smart temperature sensing system, which would automatically adjust the indoor temperature to the range with the highest level of human comfort. The current level was just right, but Huo Tinglan seemed to be cold, and had covered up with the quilt at some point.

It may have been that his movements were so elegant and natural, but by the time Ye Ci noticed, he was already lying under the quilt. The tips of their noses were close together, separated by only a few centimeters. At first glance, it seemed intimate and gentle, like a young couple leaning their heads together to sleep.

Ye Ci’s ears were hot and he blinked frequently, not knowing where to look, but he didn’t shrink back. Their warm breaths blended together in every square inch of those ten centimeters.

The tip of his nose, his lips, and his cheeks were warm.

His hands were warm.

His heart was also warm.

Ye Ci’s face was getting redder.

The words were not thoroughly expressed, and they weren’t together, but he was ignorant and shy, and let this person take advantage of him. He was lying in bed with another person, and his hands were still red from being “warmed up.”

Wasn’t this . . . .

Not, not quite right?

“You promise every time, and the next time you encounter something, you just continue to be brave and don’t tell me . . . . this habit needs to be changed.” Huo Tinglan’s black eyes were full of laughter, as if he was teasing a cat with a string, using words to draw up Ye Ci’s mood. He was being bad, but he had to find a secret outlet for the lust that was boiling like magma. Otherwise, it would be difficult for him to let Ye Ci go back in one piece. “So this time, I want to give you a task.”

“What, what task?” Before his shame value could reach a critical point, Ye Ci’s attention was poked away again.

“Within a week, practice by asking me for one request.” Huo Tinglan looked at him solemnly and said word by word: “Any request, anything within my power.”

Ye Ci hesitated in a rare moment of not immediately agreeing.

Proactively asking people.

This skill had long been neglected.

A life of hardship had caused him to grow up prematurely, and during young Ye Ci’s childhood, he knew that requests could not be made indiscriminately. His mother was often in financial constraints and needed to plan their life carefully, so his practice had always been to suppress his desires and try not to make things difficult for his mother by asking for toys and snacks. This was even more so as he grew up. He was a man, and he should stand tall like a big tree and be his mother’s support. He should be the one to solve the requests.

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“I don’t, don’t seem to have anything . . . . to ask for.” Ye Ci tried to take advantage of a loophole: “Then I’ll request that, that you go over the lecture topic with me . . . .”

“That doesn’t count.” Huo Tinglan snorted when he saw the child’s dissatisfaction. “I have the final say.”

In the end, Ye Ci still couldn’t out-talk Huo Tinglan, so he responded in a daze. The temporary fever gradually subsided under the comfort of pheromones, but when he climbed off Huo Tinglan’s bed, his legs were still very weak. With his pajamas and hair also in disarray, he was like a small balloon that had been inadvertently deflated by someone.

It was easy for ordinary people to ask for things.

He really couldn’t think of any special request. Considering the financial resources of the Huo family, at least one expensive gift could be asked for.

But as it happened, Ye Ci was stumped. Apart from getting into a good university, he really didn’t want anything. As for the biggest difficulty he was facing right now . . . .

That was Ye Hongjun’s illness.

Birth, old age, sickness, and death were sometimes beyond human reach.

He didn’t even dare to think about it. Most of the time, he deliberately kept this part of his brain in a state of numbness and sluggishness, without thinking about what would happen if the only person in the world who loved him left him. Otherwise, he would be trapped in panic and anxiety all day long, making it difficult to go about daily life.

Saturday afternoon, the summer heat was white-hot. Ye Ci sat on a bench under the shade of an acacia tree, smoking heavily.

Originally, he was tired of working on questions, so he went downstairs and strolled through the garden for a while, stretching his muscles and bones. But as he walked, he remembered what Huo-shushu asked him to request, and thought about his mother’s illness along the way.

At this thought, his stomach was heavy, as if a block of lead had dropped into it. He lit a cigarette, and the more he smoked, the more upset he became, and the more upset he became, the more he wanted to smoke.

On the bench were the neatly arranged butts of his finished cigarettes, inexplicably pleasing.

He intended to finish off this pack of cigarettes and throw them all away together.

Ye Ci sat on the bench with his legs crossed, his elbows resting on his knees, fiddling with his cell phone while holding a cigarette in one hand. 

The patient group he added for Ye Hongjun was very lively at the moment, and was full of news for a long time. Someone posted the registration information for going to X country to participate in a clinical trial. Several family members of the patient were discussing visa applications and round-trip fares. Ye Ci frowned and looked at the information.

When Ye Hongjun first fell ill, he was very sensitive to this sort of news. In the past two years, he had seen much of it, and had been disappointed many times. He knew that the majority of them had no choice and would try clinical trials with various unstable factors. If someone went and couldn’t be cured, then never mind, but he feared that the patient’s constitution was weak and couldn’t bear the constant ups and downs, or that an adverse reaction would have the opposite effect. And the most terrible thing was not knowing their authenticity or reliability. Some people in the patient group relied on this to make money, claiming that they had channels to send patients to participate in any kind of experiment. They would hype them up and then charge large registration fees to do nothing, and the patient would wait until death for that Schrodinger’s place . . . .

Ye Ci thought of that “request” again.

Perhaps Huo-shushu would have a way? He could have channels Ye Ci didn’t know about, or at least help him find out where new treatments would be more promising . . . .

His heart gave a sudden and violent leap.

Ye Ci was in a daze. He brought the half-finished cigarette between his fingers to his lips, but halfway there, his fingers were suddenly empty.

“ ! “ Startled, Ye Ci raised his eyes and saw that Huo Tinglan had come to stand beside him at some point, holding the half cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and looking at him with raised eyebrows.

“Huo, Huo-shushu!” Ye Ci jumped up from the bench and frantically tugged at the hem of his clothes. “You, when did you come back?”

He remembered that Huo Tinglan was not at home when he went downstairs for a walk.

Huo Tinglan didn’t answer, lowered his eyes to look at the seven well-behaved cigarette butts sitting in a row, and glanced at Ye Ci cooly: “Your smoking addiction is not small.”

“I’m not addicted, just –” Ye Ci’s voice gradually lowered. “I just smoke for fun.”

“Is smoking fun?” Huo Tinglan asked leisurely. As if to verify Ye Ci’s statement, he bowed his head modestly and took a puff from the half cigarette.

The filter was still slightly damp.

“I smoked, smoked it already . . . . y-you won’t like it . . . .” 

Ye Ci seemed to have been scorched by fire, and looked helplessly at Huo-shushu smoking the cigarette he had already smoked, red from his forehead to his neck.

– – It was indeed fun.

The tobacco was cheap. Huo Tinglan was choked, coughed lightly, and almost couldn’t keep the corners of his lips from curving.

“I don’t mind.” Huo Tinglan calmly shook the cigarette in his hand. “The next time I catch you……”

“There won’t, won’t be a next time!” Ye Ci shook his head and waved his hand, wishing he could grow a tail and wag it too.

Huo Tinglan opened his palm towards Ye Ci: “Anything else?”

Ye Ci’s face was red, and he very politely handed over the remaining half pack of cigarettes and the lighter.

The cigarette carton had been kept in Ye Ci’s pocket for two days, and was wrinkled from being squeezed and fiddled with.

Huo Tinglan nodded slightly and turned to leave.

Ye Ci was frozen in place.

He didn’t see it clearly.

But after Huo-shushu turned around just now, didn’t he . . . .

Bow his head and sniff at that cigarette carton a little bit?

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