Chapter 144: The Alter Ego Says He Loves Me (33)
Xiao Yinnian looked at Xiao Ji’s familiar yet strange face, and in a daze, he felt as if they had been together for a very long time.
In this moment, he even forgot his long years of living alone in the past, as if those days and nights he spent walking by himself never existed, and he had always been with Xiao Ji.
Every evening when he came back from work, he could see Xiao Ji’s busy figure in the kitchen.
There were flowers at the door and food on the table, just like every ordinary and loving couple.
His heart, which had been empty for many years, was filled to the brim by this single sentence: “Prepare to eat.”
Seeing Xiao Yinnian standing at the door in a daze, Xiao Ji urged him again:
“What are you spacing out for? Haven’t you seen this before?”
Only then did Xiao Yinnian wake up from his dream. He bent over to change his shoes, washed his hands beside Xiao Ji, and then reached out from behind to hug Xiao Ji’s waist, asking him:
“When did you come back?”
Xiao Ji tilted his head and kissed his cheek. “It should have been this morning. I was delayed by some matters. It took some time to come over from the neighboring province.”
Xiao Yinnian closed his eyes and rested his chin on Xiao Ji’s shoulder, breathing in the familiar and pleasant scent on him. Perhaps because he hadn’t felt such warmth for a long time, Xiao Yinnian felt his nose go a bit sour.
He sniffed and complained in a low voice:
“Why didn’t you think to call first? I’ve been worried all day.”
Xiao Ji said bluntly, “I was afraid that if I called, you would worry even more.”
As soon as Xiao Yinnian heard this, he knew that Lin Chuan’s resurrection must be inseparable from Xiao Ji.
He lifted Xiao Ji’s apron and slid his hands—which were a bit cold from his previous excessive nervousness—under Xiao Ji’s shirt, placing them on his well-defined abdominal muscles.
“Was it just to resurrect Lin Chuan?”
“No,” Xiao Ji told the truth. “Resurrecting Lin Chuan was incidental. I destroyed the entire Wish Redemption System.”
Xiao Yinnian was stunned.
He had personally been to the mission worlds.
Xiao Ji’s casual sentence contained hidden dangers that Xiao Yinnian could understand but found difficult to imagine.
But this man, Xiao Ji, seemed to be born without fear; he didn’t know what it meant to be afraid. The scene of him tearing through NPCs with his bare hands was still fresh in his memory, and now he was standing right in front of him, perfectly fine.
Xiao Yinnian could understand that even if it was dangerous, Xiao Ji must have resolved it.
It took him a long while to regain his composure, and he said somewhat awkwardly:
“True. If I had known, I definitely wouldn’t have felt at ease and would have wanted to go with you, and then I would have held you back.”
Xiao Ji didn’t particularly like the phrase “hold back.”
He could have taken Xiao Yinnian with him. He didn’t care if it would delay some time or require more energy to look after Xiao Yinnian.
But Xiao Yinnian would be afraid, and Xiao Ji felt it was unnecessary.
Everyone is good at different things. It was true that Xiao Yinnian was the divine bird Phoenix from the Heavenly Realm.
But he had reincarnated and grown up in the ordinary human world. In such a society, reaching his current position clearly made him a top performer.
If their roles were swapped—with no memories and divine powers sealed—and the person became Xiao Ji, what the Phoenix did wouldn’t necessarily be inferior to him, and Xiao Ji’s performance wouldn’t necessarily be better than the current Xiao Yinnian’s.
This was, by nature, unequal.
But Xiao Ji was destined to never be able to tell the current Xiao Yinnian these things.
He only pretended not to understand and asked Xiao Yinnian:
“Are you hungry?”
A person’s stomach is an emotional organ.
After such great emotional ups and downs, Xiao Yinnian was destined to have a poor appetite.
He shook his head and said truthfully:
“I’m not very hungry yet, but I want to taste your craftsmanship.”
Xiao Ji directly bent over and hoisted Xiao Yinnian onto his shoulder:
“Then taste my other ‘craftsmanship’ first.”
People naturally admire the strong.
Xiao Yinnian was no exception.
Xiao Ji’s assertiveness and strength had long ago made Xiao Yinnian psychologically prepared for this day, and he had silently accepted his position.
It was just that, in the end, they were both men. Before meeting Xiao Ji, Xiao Yinnian hadn’t “awakened” in this area, so at first, he still felt awkward.
And as soon as he felt awkward, he wanted to curse.
The sky had darkened, and the room was shrouded in dim light.
Under Xiao Ji’s ministrations, Xiao Yinnian covered his eyes with one hand while cursing:
“Can you f*cking hurry up? What is there to look at? Haven’t you seen this before?”
The two of them had, after all, coexisted in the same shell for a period of time.
Xiao Ji clearly knew Xiao Yinnian intimately, yet now he exhibited this slow and lingering behavior. It was obviously intentional, wanting to see Xiao Yinnian’s embarrassment.
Xiao Ji was indeed doing it on purpose.
Not only intentional, but malicious.
He freed one hand, moved Xiao Yinnian’s arm away from his eyes, pressed it beside his ear, and then commanded him:
“Look at me.”
Xiao Yinnian felt his face was so red he was about to explode. He raised a leg and kicked Xiao Ji’s chest:
“Can you fcking do it or not? If you can’t, swap with me. I’ll fcking kill you, you bastard.”
Xiao Ji could see that Xiao Yinnian was angry from shame. He laughed aloud, grabbed his ankle to rest it on his own shoulder, and leaned down to kiss him.
Xiao Yinnian’s thought was not wrong.
Xiao Ji indeed knew this shell very well.
The consequence of long-awaited anticipation, fear of loss, and finally a natural outcome was that Xiao Yinnian cursed Xiao Ji for the entire night.
Although Xiao Ji didn’t talk back, the more Xiao Yinnian cursed, the more energetic he became.
In the end, he forced Xiao Yinnian to not only scratch his back but also leave several neat, round teeth marks on his shoulder.
Afterward, Xiao Yinnian regretted it himself. Fearing that Xiao Ji would get an infection from water, he plastered him with a bunch of waterproof band-aids.
Originally, Xiao Yinnian thought that given Xiao Ji’s assertive methods and personality, plus his own long-term habits of living alone, the two would definitely have to adjust for a long time and would frequently clash.
But in reality, he found that Xiao Ji wasn’t assertive at all in daily life.
He was clean and efficient, never making demands of him. Even if Xiao Yinnian came home from work and left his clothes and pants all over the floor, making the room a mess, Xiao Ji would just silently tidy everything up without a single word of complaint.
Watching Xiao Ji’s “domesticated husband” appearance since coming out of the mission system, 037 said in confusion:
[Are you just going to start living off him like this?]
Xiao Ji replied: [He always thinks he’ll hold me back.]
Although Xiao Yinnian didn’t say it, Xiao Ji could see that Xiao Yinnian currently enjoyed this kind of life where he was the breadwinner while Xiao Ji handled the grocery shopping and cooking.
Every day, he worked with immense drive, occasionally bringing Xiao Ji small gifts, and even handed his salary card over to Xiao Ji for safekeeping.
Xiao Yinnian was assertive in his bones.
If Xiao Ji were too perfect and acted as if he didn’t need him at all, Xiao Yinnian wouldn’t be happy.
Only like this, with Xiao Ji seemingly depending on Xiao Yinnian and “holding him back,” could a balance of a special kind be reached between the two.
For the Xiao Ji and Xiao Yinnian of this lifetime, one person being omnipotent isn’t “life.” Two people relying on each other and complementing one another is.
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