Chapter 8

“No. It’s for you, darling,” Bai Wei said, his face tense.

Lu Sen reached out and picked up a tight-fitting garment, tugging at it. “This doesn’t seem to be my size. It should be yours, right?”

“No! It’s just a gift! Don’t touch it!”

After receiving the key, Bai Wei had zero patience for Lu Sen. He yanked the tight-fitting garment out of Lu Sen’s hand with force. However, the material of the garment caused it to snap back, eventually covering Bai Wei’s face. When he pulled the garment off his face, he discovered a lace choker with a bell had tangled in his hair. As he struggled with the items, Lu Sen stood by indifferently.

Bai Wei grew angry seeing him like that.

“Are you just going to stand there and not help at all?” he said. It was only after speaking that he realized how much his words sounded like a pout.

Oh my… Bai Wei had never asked for someone to help with such a simple task… Seeing Lu Sen step forward, Bai Wei immediately added, “Stay right there, don’t move!”

Lu Sen: “…You told me not to come over.”

Ignoring him, Bai Wei continued to untangle the lace. Finally, he put everything back into the bag, tossed it into the corner of the wardrobe, and turned around to see Lu Sen standing there in the new clothes he had bought for him. At over 1.9 meters tall, Lu Sen truly looked like a clothes hanger. The silk maroon shirt stretched over his chest muscles, paired with a cream-colored jacket and floral tie, making him appear strong, lazy, and casual.

But those eyes were fixed on Bai Wei… Following his gaze, Bai Wei realized that as he knelt down to stuff the gift bag, his clothes had ridden up, revealing a strip of his white waist.

—This person didn’t come over to help earlier but is now staring at his waist. This was Bai Wei’s first reaction, and he wanted to yell.

Bai Wei’s second reaction was: His waist?

He’s staring at my waist?

Bai Wei suddenly realized that his previous actions were due to feeling threatened. After a year of marriage, he suddenly recognized that Lu Sen was a stronger man, perhaps even one with intentions toward him.

—-

In the past, Lu Sen had appeared gentle, clumsy, and even lifeless to him. Lu Sen had once looked at him with focus, but that gaze was like that of an antique dealer admiring a beloved piece, not believing anyone would take proper care of it, so he would inevitably take it away and store it with patience. This was the first time Bai Wei saw desire in Lu Sen’s eyes—desire aimed at him, aggressive in nature.

“Can I touch you now?” Bai Wei heard Lu Sen say.

Before he could react, Lu Sen had grabbed him by the waist and carried him to the sofa.

By the time he thought to resist, it was already too late.

“I really like the clothes you bought for me, darling,” Lu Sen said, holding his waist and kissing him reverently, kissing his pale face, trembling eyelashes, and pink ears. “In the past, I thought just keeping you at home was enough… but you’ve brought me so much joy. No one has ever bought me clothes, cooked dinner, treated me so well…”

He lifted Bai Wei’s hand and began kissing his rounded nails, his beautiful knuckles, and the snow-white wrist with veins visible under the skin, like a proposal, kissing him tenderly. “Is there anything you want? Or would you like to travel somewhere? Whatever you want, I can steal it for you.”

His words were passionate and sincere, like discovering a loyal dog. Bai Wei stared at him blankly, forgetting to resist. The feeling was like drowning, every pore of his body soaked with warm humidity, sinking deeper into the winter hot spring…

However, for the loyal dog, the master can also be prey.

Lu Sen continued kissing him. Bai Wei called out in a hoarse voice, reaching out to push Lu Sen’s head away.

Lu Sen grabbed the hand he used to push him and looked at him with eyes burning with dark flames. “Don’t refuse me, please?”

At that moment, Bai Wei felt as if he had been awoken from drowning. “No…” he replied.

The atmosphere instantly became cold.

After a long pause, Lu Sen let go of his hand. “Why not?”

Bai Wei anxiously searched for an excuse. “I think… it’s too soon.”

“But we’ve been married for a year,” Lu Sen said, confused.

A year! Indeed, they had been married for a year! Bai Wei finally found another excuse. “We haven’t had dinner yet.”

“Oh…” Lu Sen agreed with the suggestion. “Right, this will use up a lot of energy.”

“I’ll go put the dirty clothes in the washing machine. You go change out of your new clothes, put them in the washing machine, then make dinner.” Although still pinned beneath Lu Sen, Bai Wei immediately began giving orders. “Do you understand me?”

Finally, Lu Sen got off him. “Okay, I bought groceries and left them in the car. I’ll go get them later.”

Bai Wei sighed in relief, but then he heard Lu Sen say, “Wait, look at this.”

—-

“What… what are you doing!”

“I just thought it was a rare opportunity. Do you like this position?” Lu Sen asked sincerely with a straightforward smile.

If he didn’t like it, could it be another position… As Lu Sen held his hand, unsure of where to touch, Bai Wei finally covered his eyes with the other hand and said, “It’s… it’s fine.”

“Is it fine, or do you like it?” Lu Sen pressed, not like the typical worker, taking client feedback very seriously.

At this point, Bai Wei was so embarrassed that his fingertips turned pink. “I… I like it.”

After Lu Sen released him, Bai Wei, like a frightened cat, smoothly slid out from between him and the sofa, picked up the dirty clothes Lu Sen had dropped on the floor, and dashed down the stairs.

Lu Sen was still on the second floor, savoring the scent left on Bai Wei’s body. Bai Wei had stopped in front of the washing machine. He looked left and right, his gaze resting on a leaking pipe.

It’s normal for the washing machine to leak water. It’s normal to squat down and check the plug when the washing machine isn’t working. The socket shorts out, and one of the wires touches the puddle, electrocuting the person who came to do laundry… Isn’t all of this perfectly normal?

After doing all of this, Bai Wei didn’t feel calm. He sat on the sofa, continuously drawing crosses on his chest with his hand. He felt that Lu Sen wasn’t human, and that size certainly wasn’t something a human could endure.

Until Lu Sen came downstairs. He was holding clothes but still thought of kissing Bai Wei on the sofa. In that moment, Bai Wei finally showed his calm acting skills. He smiled sweetly, “Hubby, finish the laundry first, then we can kiss.”

“Oh, okay.”

Lu Sen went into the laundry room with the clothes. Bai Wei secretly listened from outside the door. He heard Lu Sen loudly say, “Darling, there’s a large puddle of water on the floor.”

“I saw it just now.” Bai Wei pretended his voice was coming from the living room, “It might be a pipe leak. Hubby, could you squat down and have a look? If the pipe is broken, you can replace a section of it.”

“Okay.”

Bai Wei half-closed his eyes. At that moment, the first sound he heard was the buzzing of electricity, followed by the sound of the circuit breaker tripping.

It grew dark, just like something else had fallen.

At that moment, Bai Wei knew at least that he no longer needed to sleep with Lu Sen tonight.

“Hubby? Hubby? Are you still there? What’s wrong?”

Bai Wei groped in the dark but didn’t go into the laundry room. He felt around for a flashlight in the hallway and a wooden stick in the backyard. The flashlight illuminated the shaky path ahead, and he poked at the empty hallway with the stick. “Hubby? Hubby?”

“Hubby, why aren’t you answering? I’m so scared—” He pushed open the laundry room door, and before he finished speaking, he saw Lu Sen squatting on the floor.

Something had been thrown aside—it was a wire.

Bai Wei swallowed.

—-

Lu Sen looked back at him. His handsome face, illuminated by the flashlight, looked ominous, “Did you see this thing when you came to do the laundry?”

Bai Wei chose to play dumb in defense and denial, “Huh? What thing, hubby?”

“This wire,” Lu Sen said.

Bai Wei shook his head in confusion. He saw Lu Sen’s expression become serious.

“I saw a puddle here and walked around it. Hubby, is this wire above the socket?” Bai Wei asked, “Did you get electrocuted, hubby?”

He reached out to embrace Lu Sen but was pushed away.

The moment he saw Lu Sen’s movements, Bai Wei’s mind flashed the words “caught” in his head. But when Lu Sen pushed his body away through the clothes, Bai Wei felt a bit numb—as if Lu Sen was still carrying electricity. He leaned back against the wall and suddenly came up with a plan, sobbing loudly.

“Good thing you walked around that puddle just now, or you could have been electrocuted to death,” Lu Sen said, even stepping on the wire in his anger, “This broken washing machine, this broken wire, why are things so careless!”

“But hubby, you weren’t electrocuted.” Bai Wei cried harder when he heard Lu Sen getting angry, “And you even pushed me, as if I was the one who electrocuted you.”

Lu Sen didn’t expect Bai Wei to cry. He panicked, looking at Bai Wei’s tear-streaked face under the dim flashlight. He desperately wanted to hug him but remembered he still had electricity on him, so he could only rush to say, “Wait for me,” before running into the garden.

He found a shovel to discharge the electricity.

Once Lu Sen left, Bai Wei immediately cooled his expression. He shone the flashlight on the socket, which was scorched black.

Was it Lu Sen’s luck that was too good, or had Lu Sen, who had climbed out of the grave, become a monster

After hearing Lu Sen’s footsteps returning, Bai Wei began crying again. Lu Sen saw his wife standing in the corner of the laundry room, crying like a delicate flower, and hurriedly picked him up.

Bai Wei couldn’t avoid it, and the wooden stick he had been holding fell on his foot, causing him pain and distorting his face.

Lu Sen princess-carried him back to the living room. Under the flashlight, Bai Wei’s face was full of tears, his lips pale, like a suffering princess. While Lu Sen held his face and comforted him, he awkwardly realized—he seemed to have a reaction.

Bai Wei noticed it too. In an instant, his expression went from pretending to be pitiful to thinking, “How can this monster get aroused anytime and anywhere?”

Lu Sen followed a repair video to fix the pipes and socket in the laundry room. Bai Wei, wrapped in a blanket, sat alone in the living room, looking out the window. So far today, Lu Sen had shown three signs of wanting to be intimate with him, and by now, this was an undeniable warning sign.

How did things end up like this?

Before their engagement, they had treated each other with respect. During their one-month honeymoon, they were like travel companions. After Lu Sen died and ran away from Naples, he couldn’t find Bai Wei for three months. After being found and coming to Snow Mountain Town, Lu Sen had never shown any desire for intimacy. Bai Wei once thought that he and Lu Sen were the same type of person.

But now Lu Sen seemed to have discovered a whole new world, suddenly realizing that “Bai Wei can be had.”

How did this happen? The only difference between now and before was that Lu Sen wanted to kill his husband. Just because Lu Sen wanted to kill his husband, he began calling him “darling” intimately, just because he wanted to kill his husband, Lu Sen started wanting to have sex with him. Was this reasonable?

Bai Wei felt he couldn’t ignore this risk anymore. He had to find an excuse to solve this once and for all. To achieve his goal, Bai Wei didn’t mind having sex with Lu Sen a few times. But what if Lu Sen planned to do it multiple times a day? What should he do then?

If Lu Sen plans to have sex with him multiple times a day, how would Bai Wei get out of bed, how would he walk to set up traps?

Finally, Lu Sen came out of the laundry room, and the lights came on. He was holding tools and said to Bai Wei, “I wasn’t able to fix the washing machine completely… there are a few parts I need to buy from the nearby Black Harbor City. It’s the closest big city to Snow Mountain Town.”

Black Harbor City…

Bai Wei couldn’t hide the flicker of distortion that flashed across his face. He turned his head and found an excuse to cover it up: “I heard the public safety there is very chaotic. Honey, you have to be careful when you’re out.”

It is chaotic, so it would be perfect if you could die there, honey.

“It’s just Black Harbor City. It’s not like I haven’t been to more dangerous places than that.”

Lu Sen, on the contrary, looked nonchalant.

“More dangerous places?” Bai Wei quickly turned his head back.

Lu Sen immediately realized he had slipped up. Bai Wei’s “fiancé” was a graceful overseas elite, and the most dangerous place he had ever been was probably a big silver plate with participants carrying viruses.

Fortunately, his mind worked quickly. Lu Sen cupped Bai Wei’s face and kissed him, smiling: “Do you know how I deal with streets where bad teenagers lurk?”

Bai Wei: …

Why talk like that and then kiss him? He glared at Lu Sen, and the other continued: “I just drive through, get out only in front of the store, buy something, and leave, staying in the car the whole time… Darling, are you angry?”

Staying in the car the whole time… Bai Wei suddenly had a brilliant idea.

He looked at Lu Sen with a softer gaze: “Darling, I am angry. Your tone just now sounded like you didn’t take my warning seriously. Black Harbor City is dangerous. If something happens to you there, what should I do? Safety should always come first, and you can never be too careful in anything.”

“So, you’re angry because you’re worried about my safety…”

“But your method does work. In that case, you must stay in the car the whole time tomorrow, okay?” Bai Wei added.

—-

Lu Sen was very moved. For the first time, someone was worried about his safety, for the first time, someone was waiting for him to come home. Unconsciously, he felt a sense of responsibility. Before going to sleep, he tossed and turned, looking at the townhouse in front of him. Suddenly, he felt that, from the perspective of “always coming back no matter where I go,” this place seemed so unfamiliar and empty.

Since he bought the house from the previous owner, the decoration hadn’t been changed much. This made Lu Sen feel that it was more like someone else’s home than his own. It was time to buy some things from Black Harbor City to make the house feel more “his own.”

The whole night, Lu Sen thought about what to buy for the house.

Bai Wei, by coincidence, avoided the “physical suffering.” He had been cautious all night, realizing that Lu Sen wasn’t thinking of doing anything to him. After confirming that Lu Sen was asleep, he quietly climbed out of bed and silently made his way to the garage.

The incomplete combustion of car fuel produces carbon monoxide. A simple air vent is enough to expel the carbon monoxide from the car. If this vent is blocked, high concentrations of carbon monoxide could kill a person in just six minutes.

Bai Wei wouldn’t tamper with the brakes. That would be too obvious and too low-level. There were several gravel roads in Snow Mountain Town. It was reasonable for some gravel to block the exhaust pipe.

After doing all this, he quietly climbed back into bed. He closed his eyes, feeling satisfied, thinking that tomorrow there would be good news.

But he didn’t expect that when he returned home, it wouldn’t be the car in front of him.