Outside the door, Niu Xinyan didn’t speak for quite some time. After half a minute, the ID card seemed to have fallen to the ground with a crisp sound. Li Sinian took Fang Daichuan’s hand and forced him to turn the doorknob. The door closed silently, isolating them from the sound outside.
“Don’t think too much about it,” Li Sinian locked the door and pulled Fang Daichuan to the bed. He raised one corner of his lips and forced a smile. “Did it hurt? Sorry, I was too hasty.”
Fang Daichuan shook his head. He fell on his back on the mattress, silent and lifeless.
Li Sinian nodded. “Fang Daichuan, tell me, did you give up? You’re mentally prepared to die, aren’t you?”
Fang Daichuan still didn’t speak. He pulled the quilt over his head and made it clear; I don’t want to hear, you don’t need to talk.
Li Sinian became furious.
He lifted away the quilt from Fang Daichuan’s body and felt up his trouser pockets. Fang Daichuan kicked his legs a few times and shouted, “What the fuck are you doing?!”
Li Sinian ignored him. He swiftly tore open his shirt, his cool hands sliding along his waist.
Fang Daichuan’s head exploded. He clenched his fist and punched Li Sinian.
With a thud, Li Sinian fell back. He had a high IQ and good marksmanship. He had also learned to drive helicopters and the like, but he couldn’t compare with Fang Daichuan in terms of raw strength. Fang Daichuan had hit the corner of his mouth with that punch, and Li Sinian had fallen on the back of his head. He stabilized himself using the bed, got up from the floor, and gently rubbed the corner of his lips with his thumb.
Fang Daichuan was frozen, his punch was entirely a conditioned reflex, he hadn’t really really wanted to hurt him. He instantly went limp, his mouth opened and closed several times but he didn’t know what to say.
“Is this payback?” Li Sinian pointed at the corner of his lips and smiled bitterly.
Fang Daichuan quickly got up to check on Li Sinian’s condition. He knew his own strength; most people wouldn’t get away unscathed. However, after moving two steps, he felt he shouldn’t give in so easily. He bit the inside of his cheek: “Why were you touching me? I’ll warn you that I am homophobic, don’t you dare think you can take advantage of me.”
Li Sinian shook his head and said coldly. “Who’s taking advantage of you? I’m looking for your potions. Aren’t you tired of living? Before your enemy gets their hands on them, I’ll take care of them for you.”
PR/N: haha end of teaser scenes and we know who the dom will be now. Ah our little Chuan’er’s playing so hard to get~
How could Fang Daichuan bear his sarcastic tone? He turned his head, slipped out two vials from his pocket, and slapped them on the bed. “Then fucking take it! You’re going to be the death of me!”
Li Sinian reacted quickly and managed to grab them before Fang Daichuan broke the glass tubes. Fortunately, the mattress was soft enough, otherwise, with Fang Daichuan’s strength, they definitely would have been smashed.
Fang Daichuan stared at him in defensive posture, the raging fire of anger in his eyes. Although it wasn’t an appropriate time to say, Li Sinian thought the flames were really beautiful.
Li Sinian’s voice softened and he sighed. “Earlier, why couldn’t you wait and say those words to me? If you’re upset, just vent when we’re alone. To those people out there, how could you admit you assisted in killing Zhao Chu?”
“I know what you want to say.” Fang Daichuan turned away and walked barefoot to the windows. He raised his foot, stepped on the window sill, and opened the shutters to smoke. He clutched the cigarette butt, inhaling and exhaling deeply, blowing puffs of smoke out the window, and rubbing the hair on the back of his head vigorously with his free left hand. “I know the game has already started. I know I’m just looking for trouble. If I were sane, I would protect myself. Turn a blind eye to everything else to survive. But Li Sinian, I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
He said this confidently.
The back of Fang Daichuan’s head was a mess, a lingering evidence of his strong self-blame and irritation. Li Sinian placed his right hand against the back of Fang Daichuan’s head, his joints gently pressed against his scalp. He clamped the man’s hair in the gap between his index and middle finger and started smoothing the locks out, bit by bit. A faint smile hung on his mouth. He nodded and followed Fang Daichuan’s gaze towards the distant sea.
“Let it all out, I’m listening.”
Fang Daichuan’s heart was like a pile of dry firewood in summer, just a tiny spark could ignite it. But when Li Sinian held his neck this way, combined with the sight of waves from the distant sea receding and hitting the coast again and again, he felt strangely at peace.
He closed his eyes, took another puff, and confessed to Li Sinian through the smoke, “I don’t know with what purpose and motivations you all came to this island for. Maybe it’s just as you said, no one here is innocent and everyone has their own reasons. But Li Sinian, every vote we cast was a bullet. My vote to kill the werewolf in the name of self-protection, is the same as the wolves personally killing the villagers. This is not murder and self-defense, both acts are murder. Except one is hiding in darkness and the other is out in the open. I can’t accept that.”
Li Sinian gazed at his profile through the smoke and did not speak.
“I’m finished, you can reprimand me now.” Fang Daichuan stared at the distant sea, the beige curtains half-covering the window billowing around him. It covered the rest of the windows so only Fang Daichuan’s side face and upper body were strikingly illuminated by the sun. When he turned his head, in Li Sinian’s eyes, it looked as if there was a halo surrounding him, beckoning Li Sinian to come closer.
Li Sinian smiled and stroked the man’s hair, his eyes wistful. He said, “I won’t scold you, you said it well.”
In fact, just as Fang Daichuan said, there was no good nor evil. The camps were randomly divided, and there was no difference between the werewolf killing the villagers and the villagers voting for a wolf. It was only that voting looked more upright and dignified. Li Sinian walked to the refrigerator in the corner of the room. There was a box of ice cubes in the fridge. He poured a glass of water, dropped a few ice cubes in it and handed the glass to Fang Daichuan. “But if you say that, then our crime had already started much earlier.”
“What do you mean?” Fang Daichuan was stunned. He squashed the cigarette butt out in a brass ashtray on the table and accepted the glass.
Li Sinian still smiled, but it was tinged with weariness. “Ol’ Chen’s death. Even if you say it was luck, is it still not basically the same thing? Thirteen people survived, and the unlucky person died. We can say it was fair because the ghost card was what decided it and his death was just fated to be. But in actuality, thirteen people wanted to survive so they pushed one person off to certain death. The truth is that simple.”
The flames in Fang Daichuan’s eyes were instantly extinguished. The ice cubes in the glass he held clinked around as his hand trembled.