HTI: Chapter 141

On the way back to Rongding, Xie Yang quickly flipped through the content of the fan work that Qiu Xing liked.

It was a cute pet story. In the story, Xie Yang suddenly turned into a small animal with big furry ears and was carried by Qiu Xing in his pocket to work. After a period of ‘pet’ life, Xie Yang turned back into a human but he had a hidden pair of ears and a fluffy tail that could be freely released.

At the end of the story, Qiu Xing and the human-shaped Xie Yang with ears and tail did it and it was a HE.

Xie Yang, “……”

A fan’s imagination was really a magical thing. It might be connected to the Internet. Objectively speaking, the fan who wrote this was very good. The interactions in the story were cute and warm. The smut in the back was more cryptic and brief but it was also very fascinating.

So… Qiu Xing actually liked this? Xie Yang suddenly felt that he didn’t understand Qiu Xing enough.

The elevator opened and Xie Yang stepped in. Then he clicked on the comments under the Weibo post. This novel originally only had a few hundred comments. After Qiu Xing liked it, the number of comments quickly soared to the thousands and was still increasing. The first hot comment was the excitement of the author.

Setting Sail: Ahhhhhhh! Am I dreaming? I’m not dreaming, am I? Sisters, shake me! It turns out that Mr Qiu also reads fan works. The dimensional wall…. ahhhhhhhhh! No, I’m not crazy! I can support for another 10,000 years!

The second, third and fourth hot comments were all dominated by new comments. The content of the comments were very unified. They were basically question marks, exclamation marks, screams and howls. From time to time, a fan also asked how Qiu Xing’s spirit was now.

Yang Xing: The point of this like means that Mr Qiu likes this style of Yang Yang? Mr Qiu always likes to put Yang Yang in his pocket to go to work and wants to rub his paws and ears? Ohhh, my nosebleed!

…In short, the style was indescribable.

Ding.

The elevator arrived. Xie Yang withdrew from the fans’ unscrupulous comments, put away his phone and strode toward the small bedroom behind the office. The door opened and the room was quiet. Qiu Xing was lying on the bed with closed eyes like he was asleep.

Xie Yang went to the bedside and quietly watched Qiu Xing pretending to sleep.

One minute… two minutes… three minutes…

Qiu Xing turned over and seemed to push the quilt away unintentionally.

Scheming mouse.

Xie Yang finally moved. He sat down on the edge of the bed, helped pull the quilt and touched Qiu Xing’s face. Then his fingers moved to pull Qiu Xing’s ear. Qiu Xing froze slightly and his eyelashes trembled, but he was still ‘asleep’.

Very good, very stable.

Xie Yang took out his phone, turned to the fan work and read slowly, “The sun shone warmly on Qiu Xing’s face through the curtains. He opened his eyes and habitually touched his hand to the side. However, he didn’t find the person he was familiar with. He only touched something furry—”

Qiu Xing had frowned when he heard the first sentence but didn’t quite understand it. Then he heard the second sentence and finally realized something was wrong. He opened his eyes and reached out to take the phone from Xie Yang’s hand.

Xie Yang avoided him and continued to read. “Qiu Xing frowned and picked up a small animal with big white ears from the bed. It lay obediently on Qiu Xing’s palm, round eyes wet. There was a trace of helplessness and suspicion—hmm.”

Qiu Xing couldn’t stand the shame. Due to the extreme embarrassment, he eventually sat up, trapped Xie Yang in his arms and pressed this person to the bed.

Xie Yang’s voice disappeared.

***

Qiu Xing retreated first. His face seemed to be dyed red as he stuttered, “You… how did you… know…”

Xie Yang watched Qiu Xing for a while and took the initiative in the conversation when Qiu Xing paused. “You didn’t sleep to read fan works?”

“……” Qiu Xing didn’t know how he was caught and touched Xie Yang’s hair in a slightly coaxing manner. “I fell asleep and woke up halfway—”

“Why did you close your eyes when you just woke up?”

“……”

“Pretending to sleep to deceive me?”

Qiu Xing’s expression changed.

“You tricked me into covering you with the quilt?”

Qiu Xing raised a hand to block Xie Yang’s eyes and didn’t dare look at him.

Xie Yang snorted coldly, pulled Qiu Xing’s hand away and got up from the bed to settle the accounts. “Let’s calculate your phrase ‘woke up halfway through’. The fan work you read has three chapters. It is 30,000 words and the average human reading speed is 300 to 500 words per minute. If your reading speed is twice as fast as most people, you will still need to use nearly half an hour to read these 30,000 words. You liked the fan work at 1:48. Minus 30 minutes from that—”

Qiu Xing’s expression changed again. “What like?”

Xie Yang stopped. Qiu Xing realized what happened and hurriedly took out his phone.

After seeing the like on his Weibo homepage, Qiu Xing froze. He canceled it quickly and hesitated before looking up at Xie Yang.

Xie Yang’s face was expressionless. “Congratulations, you have successfully sent us to the hot search.  #Qiu Xing’s like#, #Qiu Xing cancels like#, #Qiu Xing’s favorite hobby# and #Qiu Xing Xie Yang fan work# are all good hot search topics.”

“……”

Xie Yang straightened and looked down condescendingly. “Tell me honestly. How long did you take a nap?”

“……” Qiu Xing pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry.”

It seemed he hadn’t slept for even a minute.

“Apologizing is useless. You must be punished.”

Qiu Xing nodded. “Okay.”

“You will be punished by not going to work this afternoon. I will handle all of it.”

Qiu Xing rose sharply and frowned. “No—”

“I am too distressed to punish you so I am punishing myself. Remember, if you treat yourself better then you are treating me better, understood?”

Qiu Xing had no words. He watched Xie Yang and reached for him. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry, I won’t do it again in the future.”

It was pretty much the same.

Xie Yang pulled Qiu Xing’s ear again and his tone gentled. “I know that you can’t adjust your work and rest right away but you have to do it step by step. I forgot it today. I will accompany you to take a nap tomorrow.”

Qiu Xing’s arms tightened.

“Also, if you want to read more fan works in the future then remember to open another account to read it. You actually used your main account and even liked it.”

Qiu Xing couldn’t control his expression and explained, “I was watching the news and accidentally clicked…”

“A slip of your hand, I understand.”

“……” Qiu Xing let go to look at Xie Yang. Then he simply stood up, held Xie Yang’s face in his hands and lowered his head for a kiss.

Xie Yang smiled and closed his eyes.

***

Xie Yang didn’t go back on his words. He didn’t let Qiu Xing touch any of the afternoon work and resolved it all himself. He wasn’t very familiar with Rongding’s affairs at the moment so some documents could only be approved after understanding the cause. This was time consuming. Qiu Xing only needed two hours to complete the work but he was busy until almost 8 o’clock.

Yet even if he was busy, he took the time to accompany Qiu Xing for afternoon tea and dinner.

Once Rongding’s affairs were finished, Xie Yang returned to Yang Xing to take the work accumulated there and went home with Qiu Xing. The moment they arrived home, Xie Yang urged Qiu Xing to wash up while taking his work to the study to keep busy.

After around 30 minutes, Xie Yang noticed that the door was pushed open by a gap of around two centimeters. A mouse was hiding to peek at him. He thought of the mouse’s frown and tight brows this afternoon and the corners of his mouth twitched. Then he continued to be busy.

It was almost 10 o’clock in the evening when Xie Yang finally closed the computer, collected the documents and went back to his room to wash.

Qiu Xing had finished washing and was leaning against the bed while reading emails on a tablet. He saw Xie Yang return to the room and immediately got up. He picked up a thermos and cup by the bedside table and handed it to Xie Yang. “It is milk. Drink it before sleeping.”

Xie Yang took the thermos and drank it obediently.

“Go take a shower.” Qiu Xing picked up the cup. “I helped place your pyjamas in the bathroom.”

It was really considerate. Xie Yang smiled, kissed Qiu Xing and headed to the bathroom. The shower finished and Xie Yang lay down on the bed. Qiu Xing immediately hugged Xie Yang and touched his back. “You’ve become thinner.”

“Thus, I want to gain weight with you.” Xie Yang hugged Qiu Xing back. It was a busy day and he couldn’t help closing his eyes the moment he got in bed. His voice was sleepy. “By the way, I have to attend an event on the weekend. Can you stay home alone? Do you want to call Feng Qinglin to accompany you?”

Qin Cheng had helped Xie Yang to suspend the work of an artist but there were still some things from his previous works that needed Xie Yang to deal with. For example, the attendance and performance at a major music festival, the advertisement shooting of D Brand’s new autumn and winter clothing, some official parties that must be attended… in short, some things couldn’t be pushed off. Fortunately, these jobs weren’t too much. On average, it was one a week and didn’t take up much time.

Qiu Xing heard the sleepiness in Xie Yang’s voice and kissed his brow. “No, I can stay at home by myself. Go to sleep.”

Xie Yang responded positively and rubbed Qiu Xing’s shoulders. He remained silent but didn’t fall asleep straight away. He insisted on using his ability to help Qiu Xing nourish his body and ‘remove’ the tumor like he did every night.

Once his ability was emptied, it was past midnight. Xie Yang opened his eyes to see how Qiu Xing was sleeping and then really fell asleep.

***

Qiu Xing’s act of liking the fan work brought an extremely complicated and far-reaching impact on their lives.

The hot search. This was inevitable and one of the reasons for the subsequent complex and far-reaching impact.

The number of fan works suddenly exploded. This was inevitable since the encouragement of a person involved was like injecting energy into the fans. Among the fan works that exploded, there were many cute pet novels. Xie Yang’s fans had their imaginations connected to the Internet and transformed Xie Yang into various animals. Occasionally, Qiu Xing was the one who was transformed into an animal. In any case, the fact the Qiu Xing liked Xie Yang becoming a small animal couldn’t be washed away.

All types of strange gazes watched them. This was predictable. Xie Yang’s prestige in Rongding slightly collapsed. The shareholders and senior executives didn’t mention it but at the very least, the secretaries’ gazes were full of strange thoughts when they saw Xie Yang and Qiu Xing.

Some bad gossip occured as well. The sunspots were the most unreasonable existence in the world. It was obviously just a fun and everyday thing but the sunspots could emit a lot of malicious speculation. Xie Yang consciously didn’t let Qiu Xing know about this part. Qiu Xing’s hand slipped once and he already felt very guilty for being the cause of all the strange gazes directed at Xie Yang. He had been very silent and depressed in the past two days. Xie Yang didn’t want the dirty things on the Internet to influence Qiu Xing’s mood.

In short, the impact was a lot. One of the most surprising things was that after Qiu Xing’s like incident, the Internet’s guesses about Qiu Xing dying quickly disappeared. It seemed the general public felt that a person who was leisurely enough to see fan works shouldn’t be in a state of near-death.

In the blink of an eye, the weekend approached and Xie Yang was going to participate in the activity. Perhaps it was just due to guilt or distress but Qiu Xing actively and persistently expressed his desire to send Xie Yang to the event.

Xie Yang felt that taking Qiu Xing out for a round trip would improve his mood. After changing clothes at home, he took Qiu Xing to Yang Xing. He finished his styling at Yang Xing and headed for the event venue.

This time, he was going to participate in a music festival organized by the government and major music platforms. This festival had a history of 10 years and would be broadcasted on TV. It was very lively and well-known singers in the music industry would be there.

Ji Zehui and Tong Jian were also participating in the event and the three people agreed to meet at the venue.

Qiu Xing frowned when he heard Ji Zehui’s name but Xie Yang didn’t forget to read the Rongding documents even on the way to the event venue. Qiu Xing’s distress took over and swallowed his jealousy.

They soon arrived at the meeting place. The moment their car stopped, Tong Jian came over. He quickly opened the rear door, bent over to look into the car and spoke quickly. “Yang Yang, what’s wrong with the like topic on the hot search a few days ago? Was your boyfriend really hacked? Why do I see some people talking so badly? You—”

Tong Jian shut up while Qiu Xing’s eyes narrowed.

Qiu Xing’s expression was ugly as he quietly asked, “Talking badly? Who said this? What did they say?”

Tong Jian, “……”

Xie Yang, “……”

He put down the papers and looked at Tong Jian. “I’m going to withhold your resources.”

Tong Jian, “……?”

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Proofreader: Paranoid Kitten