WC ⋆ Chapter 52

Jiang Yishen had made a point of showing Qi Lin off in front of his dad, wanting to leave a good impression and lay the groundwork for coming out.

He circled around Qi Lin like a peacock fanning its tail, a full 360-degree display, spinning until Qi Lin felt dizzy and disoriented.

Father Jiang was talked into a daze by the two of them going back and forth, and at checkout he casually paid for the whole cartload of daily necessities Qi Lin had picked out. When he charged up to the register, his momentum was unstoppable, leaving Qi Lin genuinely unable to bring himself to fight him for it.

At parting, Father Jiang suggested taking both of them home for dinner. Qi Lin politely declined and pushed Jiang Yishen off to go home and face his father alone.

Jiang Yishen followed his dad home in a daze, and the two of them experienced their first separation since the retrospective loop had brought them back together.

Father Jiang specifically drove Qi Lin to the entrance of his building. Qi Lin was walking toward the unit door with a bag of things in his arms when he turned his head and saw Jiang Yishen hanging off the car window, staring at him with a pitiful look.

Qi Lin found it funny. He freed one hand and waved at him.

The car drove off into the distance, carrying the heartbroken Jiang Yishen away. Qi Lin went inside and put away the things they had bought, then glanced at the time. It was barely afternoon.

He thought over his evening plans. If he had known Jiang Yishen wouldn't be around today, he should have just arranged to meet Yin Yu for a chat, or had Fan Zi call some friends over to meet everyone together.

Qi Lin thought about it for a while and sent Yin Yu a message, but unfortunately the reply came back saying he was busy tonight. His schedule had filled up just ten minutes ago.

Jiang Yishen, on the other hand, was firing off messages without a pause.

— My dad asked me when I finished my exams and why I didn't come straight home.

— I can't even remember when I finished my exams myself. Time has been a complete mess.

— My dad asked why the two of us were shopping at the supermarket together.

— Baby baby baby baby baby why aren't you replying to me.

Qi Lin had just finished doing laundry and crawled out of the kitchen. He saw the messages and couldn't hold back a small laugh. He had barely typed back two lines when a phone call came crashing through.

They chatted on and off for a long time. Meeting up that evening was out of the question, and neither of them was quite used to it. Even as Qi Lin lay down to sleep, he was still marveling at how on earth they had endured being apart for so long.

His eyes closed. Sleep crept in. His consciousness drifted in the void, hovering somewhere between dreaming and waking, when he suddenly felt something heavy pressing down on top of him.

Qi Lin's eyes flew open. The shock of snapping awake so fast nearly sent his heart leaping out of his chest. He thought it was sleep paralysis, but when he focused his eyes, he was frightened out of his wits all over again.

Somehow he had appeared on the sofa out of nowhere, and Jiang Yishen was draped over him in a tangled heap, pressing down on him so hard he could barely breathe.

The scene was so familiar.

Qi Lin looked down. There was a tent in his trousers.

He shut his eyes in despair.

A drunk Jiang Yishen alone wouldn't do this to him. It was the repeated loops of waking up in front of a drunk Jiang Yishen that had conditioned him into this.

"Jiang Yishen." Qi Lin propped up his knee and shook Jiang Yishen awake.

No response.

Qi Lin raised a hand and covered his eyes, letting out a long breath.

The loop still hadn't ended. It was just that they had been kissing every day before, and neither of them had noticed.

When would this ever be over?

Qi Lin pushed Jiang Yishen off him, walked over to the balcony, and checked on the cactus.

The cactus's flower bud looked a bit more mature than it had a couple of days ago. Their earlier hypothesis had been correct. The cactus was not affected by the loop.

The figure on the sofa stirred. Jiang Yishen finally let out a muffled grunt and dragged himself out of sleep.

Qi Lin watched helplessly as Jiang Yishen rolled over with bleary eyes and promptly fell off the sofa.

"Hey!" Even with his quick reflexes, he couldn't catch Jiang Yishen in time. Jiang Yishen landed with a thud in the gap between the sofa and the coffee table.

Jiang Yishen sat on the floor, stunned from the impact. He climbed up and looked around in confusion, and when he finally made out Qi Lin standing beside him, he stared wide-eyed and couldn't find words.

"Are you sober or drunk right now?" Qi Lin asked cautiously.

Jiang Yishen grabbed at his hair, which looked like a bird's nest. "…Sober."

It was not an overstatement to say Qi Lin felt like he had been saved. He held his phone out for Jiang Yishen to see. "It's midnight on January 10th. We've looped."

Only then did Jiang Yishen register what was happening. He stood up and brushed himself off, and only then confirmed that this scene was the midnight after a reset. Nothing had happened yet. The supermarket trip hadn't taken place, the chance encounter with his dad hadn't occurred, and he hadn't been dragged home.

"What the hell, when is this going to end?" Jiang Yishen did exactly what Qi Lin had done and ran over to check the cactus.

He held it up and peered at it from every angle, then pulled back the curtain and studied it against the darkness outside, as curious as if he were experiencing the loop for the first time.

It wasn't until three minutes later that Jiang Yishen, having burned through a burst of energy, finally calmed down and turned to look at the figure in the darkness.

Qi Lin looked back at him calmly.

Jiang Yishen's gaze drifted downward, and the memory of the previous day played back in his mind at the same moment. The image of Qi Lin being worked up and then left hanging was still very clear in his memory.

His heart gave a small lurch. He walked into the darkness and pressed the living room ceiling light on, then called out to him. "Baby."

Qi Lin reached over and switched the light off.

Vision plunged into a brief disorientation. Jiang Yishen only felt someone take hold of his wrist and lead him in the direction of the bedroom.

He closed his hand around Qi Lin's in return. The room was pitch dark, with only a sliver of moonlight filtering through the gap in the curtains, casting a small bright patch on the headboard and falling across the side of Qi Lin's face.

Jiang Yishen suddenly wasn't sure whether he was actually sober. The image before his eyes seemed to take on a faint warmth, like looking through the lens of an old projector with a filter laid over it.

Qi Lin's eyes caught the moonlight and glowed amber. Without thinking, Jiang Yishen reached out to touch him, his fingertips landing on that small bright patch, brushing lightly over it, and Qi Lin blinked, his lashes sweeping across Jiang Yishen's fingertips.

His heartbeat quickened. He pushed Qi Lin back onto the bed and leaned down to kiss his eyelashes.

Breathing grew uneven. He pushed Qi Lin's hem up, the soft wool of the sweater brushing against his wrists, and gripped Qi Lin's waist, lifting him slightly and settling him in the center of the bed.

"I missed you," Jiang Yishen said.

Qi Lin said to him, "We only didn't see each other for one afternoon."

Jiang Yishen pressed down on his waist and stomach, tugging his trousers down with one hand while leaning in to kiss him again.

The trousers bunched around his legs and kept them from spreading properly. Qi Lin felt the awkwardness and propped himself up to pull them off, but Jiang Yishen pressed him firmly back down. One large hand settled on his throat with considerable force, making it a little hard to breathe.

Jiang Yishen said again, "I missed you."

Qi Lin looked at him, not quite understanding what he meant.

Jiang Yishen furrowed his brow slightly. The hand on his throat shifted upward and gripped his jaw.

Qi Lin couldn't close his mouth properly and was almost unable to hold back the saliva pooling there before Jiang Yishen repeated, "I missed you."

Qi Lin realized this seemed to be some kind of punishment, a way of venting dissatisfaction. He swallowed with difficulty and said, "I missed you too."

Jiang Yishen got the answer he wanted and finally let him go, burying his face in Qi Lin's shoulder and rubbing against it hard.

They fooled around the entire night. The next day they couldn't get up on time, and when they woke it was ten in the morning.

At ten o'clock in the previous loop, they had already been playing cat and mouse with Father Jiang in the supermarket.

Qi Lin glanced at the time and flopped back down, showing no intention of getting up. He was exhausted all over. Whoever went to the supermarket today was an idiot.

"Baby." Jiang Yishen wrapped his arms around him from behind, pulling him into his embrace, and kissed him relentlessly until all of Qi Lin's drowsiness had been kissed away.

"I'm not buying you egg roll crisps today," Qi Lin said.

"Buy them tomorrow." Jiang Yishen had also developed a psychological aversion to the supermarket. Just hearing the sound of a shopping cart now was enough to give him nightmares.

Having faced his dad head-on once during the loop, and with decent results, he still wanted to do better. After all, his meeting with Xing Yun had been thoroughly awkward, and at least one of the two families ought to go smoothly.

He was planning out which parts to improve the next time he introduced Qi Lin to his dad when Qi Lin had already changed clothes and gotten out of bed.

"Where are you going?"

Qi Lin was speechless. "I'm going to the bathroom."

"Oh." Jiang Yishen asked again, "What are your plans for the daytime?"

"What do you want to do?" Qi Lin stood in the doorway, studied him for a moment, and ventured a startling guess. "You're not thinking of going to come out to your dad today, are you?"

Jiang Yishen had been seen right through. He was impulsive by nature. Once he started something, he saw it through. He had already tried it once yesterday, so he might as well strike while the iron was hot.

"We can always loop again anyway," Jiang Yishen said, rubbing his nose. "If it doesn't go well, we loop and try a different approach."

Qi Lin had nothing to say to him. "What if the loop suddenly ends during one of those tries?"

Jiang Yishen raised an eyebrow and considered the possibility.

Qi Lin shook his phone. "I'm meeting Yin Yu today. I've done the math. The number of days we've actually lived through inside the loop has already hit one month. What if the loop only lasts one month?"

Jiang Yishen's rational mind told him this was the best choice available right now. Nothing was more important than solving the loop. This unknown anomaly had turned their lives into a complete tangle, and every day it went unresolved was another day of no peace.

"All right."

Jiang Yishen listened to Qi Lin washing up in the bathroom, thought about it for a long time, and then went back to stand at the door. Qi Lin hadn't closed it all the way, just left it slightly ajar. Jiang Yishen politely knocked once and asked, "You're already close enough with Yin Yu that you can just invite him out and he'll show up? Since when? How come I didn't know about this?"

The sound of running water inside stopped abruptly. After quite a long pause, Qi Lin's voice came through, completely at a loss. "Jiang Yishen, being in a relationship with you has had a serious impact on my physical health."

—

#