Tell me a lie to comfort me

Jingting, a dead-end alley with no one around.

Ni Haolang pulled his cotton H scarf off his neck, wrapped it around a bottle of chilled soda, and handed it to Jiang Songhe. Jiang Songhe took the bottle, wiped her eyes which were covered in blood, and then applied the ice pack.

"Um... they call me 'You're so flirtatious,' which I don't like, but I won't be angry if you want to call me that. From now on... we'll be friends, right?" Nine-year-old Ni Haolang was weak and timid, and he didn't dare to look Jiang Songhe in the eye when he spoke.

Jiang Songhe unscrewed the bottle cap, rinsed his mouth, then spat it out, and said nonchalantly, "Idiot, if you don't like hearing me, why do you keep calling me that?"

Ni Haolang wiped the sweat from his cheeks, took a few small steps forward in a monkey-like squat, his eyes darting around, and tentatively asked with a hint of ulterior motive, "How about... you don't call me 'SB' anymore? What kind of friend calls someone that?"

“His catchphrase,” Jiang Songhe continued, applying ice, “Hiss—there’s no other way.”

Seeing that Jiang Songhe didn't object to being called "friend," Ni Haolang chuckled foolishly and, emboldened, said, "Hehe, how about I call you 'SB' too?"

Jiang Songhe probably found his questions too numerous and trivial, and her face twitched with each answer, replying impatiently, "Tsk, go ahead and yell if you want..."

"Who isn't an idiot?"

-

During the daytime, evening, and nighttime, this utopia, the most prosperous in the global entertainment industry, sleeps peacefully.

Ni Haolang drove slowly down the deserted street, his hand out the window holding a cigarette but forgetting to smoke it. The white smoke he exhaled from the scarlet dot was like wisps of silk, disappearing in the winter night wind.

"Hiss!" Ni Haolang's hand was burned by the burnt cigarette butt. His fingertips loosened, and the scarlet spot flew backward and quickly disappeared.

When he arrived at the studio, he remembered that he needed to prepare some swear words for the upcoming argument. Ni Haolang parked the car near the main gate outside the wall and practiced for a while in the driver's seat. Feeling that his combat power was at its peak, he thought for a moment, then stepped on the gas and drove the car around to the back gate and into the parking space.

He pushed open the door aggressively, ready to get down to business, only to find the lights were off.

"Is this guy messing with me?" Ni Haolang drew a semi-circle with his feet like a compass, and after confirming that no one was in the room with this meaningless action, he turned around and touched the light switch on the wall.

As soon as the light came on, a large hand slapped Ni Haolang's hand hard, and with a snap, the room was plunged into darkness again.

Ni Haolang's palm was sore from being pressed, and he was about to rub it with a grimace when his hand was lifted up by the switch. A scalding force pried open his fingers, then suddenly locked them, sliding along the wall to a position far above his head.

With his right middle and ring fingers bound together, he couldn't exert any force, nor could he open or pull them out. Ni Haolang stood on tiptoe, trying to pull his wrist to break free, but unexpectedly, his left hand was also captured and the same thing happened.

Ni Haolang stared wide-eyed, tilting his head back. His hot breath hit his face, making his eyes dry. He reflexively closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side, using his chin as a fulcrum to rub against half of his cheek.

The combat strength he had estimated before entering the room had plummeted to near negative numbers. Ni Haolang's legs were trembling, but he still insisted on being defiant: "Who? Kun Ji'en? What the hell are you doing, locking my hands? Trying to ambush me?! Put me down! Let me tell you, a gentleman uses words, not fists!"

"Don't move." The heat descended from above, and a heavy weight pressed down on Ni Haolang's shoulder. "I'm dizzy too."

Ni Haolang felt as if a steel wool ball was scraping against his earlobe, giving him goosebumps. He shook his head, about to curse, when he smelled a strong and mellow aroma of liquor—the smell of that bottle of Hanwang Maoting liquor.

"Damn it? You drank the wine?" Ni Haolang roared, his voice filled with a blood-curdling intensity.

"Um."

Ni Haolang turned his head back, reached for his nose and sniffed hard, trying to figure out how much of the wine, which was more expensive than gold and which he hadn't been willing to drink much of, had been wasted by judging from the concentration of the aroma.

When that didn't work, he asked in exasperation, "How much did you drink?"

The "steel wool" rolled around the back of Ni Haolang's neck to the other side, then brought its mouth to his nose and exhaled triumphantly: "All of it."

"Holy crap!" Ni Haolang's composure crumbled. "A whole apartment!! You just drank it all away like that?!"

"That's the wine you gave me! It's mine!! Why can't I drink it?! You even know it's worth a house? We agreed to drink it to celebrate a big occasion, you!" Kun Ji'en suddenly became furious, grabbing Ni Haolang's hands and slamming them against the wall. "You even let that guy surnamed Jiang drink it!"

"?" Ni Haolang's palms were numb and aching from the impact, and his anger flared even higher. He retorted, nitpicking each word, "Didn't you bring that yourself? Did I say you couldn't drink it? I told you to take it easy!!!"

When he got to the part about "a house, blah blah blah, and we agreed to only drink when there's a big celebration," his heart suddenly sank, and his tone involuntarily took on a slightly consoling tone: "To be honest, even though I wouldn't be in this circle without you, and without you I probably wouldn't even be able to afford a bottle of liquor, I mean, you can't just give it to me like water..."

As he spoke, his face flushed with embarrassment, and his momentum vanished. Ni Haolang imagined himself looking pathetic and pathetic, and when he realized what was going on, he was shocked and finally remembered that he had come back to have a fight.

"Hey? Didn't you want to terminate your contract? Stop with the nonsense, just do it already!" Ni Haolang struggled like a big carp.

"I don't understand!" Kun Ji'en pressed forward like a trapdoor in a secret room. "Don't even think about it."

Ni Haolang almost choked on his own breath, and shouted hoarsely, "I just don't understand! Are you sick? I haven't seen Song He in ages, and I kindly invited you over for a get-together. You agreed to come, but then you went crazy. Now that she's gone, what's the point of calling me back to pull this stunt?"

"You still dare to call him 'Song He'?!" Kun Ji'en roared and released his grip. Ni Haolang suddenly lost his strength and slid down. Kun Ji'en grabbed his shoulders, flipped him over, and pinned him back against the wall. He then gently cupped his neck along his collarbone. "How do you usually call me, hmm?"

"When you need my help, you're all over me, calling me 'Kun Kun' and 'my Kun.' But... when someone surnamed Jiang comes along, you forget everything?" Kun Ji'en pressed Ni Haolang's Adam's apple with his two thumbs.

Ni Haolang swallowed hard, his heart already pounding with fear. Suppressing the last vestiges of his dignity as a man of Jingting, he said defiantly, "I'm willing! If you don't like it, then forget it! Don't worry, you won't hear a sound from me anymore! I'll count to three now, and you'd better let me go right now! One! Two! Ugh..."

The number "three" was stuck in his throat.

His legs were already weak from standing on tiptoe for too long, and his mouth and nose were sealed by the heat of Kun Ji'en's alcohol, making it impossible for him to catch his breath. Ni Haolang felt dizzy and lightheaded, and was about to slide down the wall again when Kun Ji'en caught him with his knee.

After a fierce struggle, Ni Haolang was defeated. Just when he was on the verge of suffocating, fresh air reawakened his respiratory system.

"Haa..." Ni Haolang gasped for breath. He wanted to punch the culprit, but his hand was too weak to lift. He could only deliver a headbutt to the hard chest. "Kun Ji'en, you, you fucking went blind after drinking some cat pee?!"

"Look carefully at who I am!" He said, trying to look up, but his neck was still in someone else's hand, and his skull was embedded under Kun Ji'en's chin.

Ni Haolang had never experienced the side effects of drinking almost a whole bottle of Hanwang Maoting before. It might even cause temporary blindness, who knows? On a whim, he wanted to prove his gender and, incidentally, disgust Kun Ji'en to the point of sobering him up—

He hung his head, groped in the dark, climbed up Kun Ji'en's forearm, and pulled down hard.

"Did you feel it?! Ha, I'm a fucking man!!!"

The breath above his head paused for a moment, and soon, Ni Haolang's head and neck were freed.

Ni Haolang smiled triumphantly at the glint in Shang Kunji'en's eyes, and, forgetting his past wounds, taunted, "How about it, my size..."

The "big bar" was shaken into a breathy sound by the jolt of his feet leaving the ground. Kun Ji'en carried Ni Haolang upstairs like he was carrying a chamber pot, neglecting the situation upstairs. Ni Haolang's body fell backward, his heart sank to the bottom, and in his panic, he hooked his arms around Kun Ji'en's neck and hugged him tightly.

"What the hell are you doing?! Put me down!! Wake up, you son of a bitch!!!" Ni Haolang shouted, kicking his legs, his Nepalese slippers flying off one after another.

"Yes, no, I don't need it." Kun Ji'en, as if equipped with night vision radar, entered Ni Haolang's bedroom without hindrance, kicked open the door, and threw him into the bed. "I'm perfectly sober."

Ni Haolang bounced a few times on the mattress, then rolled over, reached for the bedside table, and panted as he pressed the lamp switch.

A warm yellow light suddenly shone on. Ni Haolang climbed under the lamp, turned his head and cursed, "What the hell are you thinking?!"

Kun Ji'en squinted and surveyed the spotless space, then sneered, "You cleaned it all up so thoroughly to impress your good brother? So eager for me to get out, what, you want him to move in and live with you?"

Ni Haolang was stunned for a moment, his face flushed red, and it took him a while to retort: ​​"Nonsense, nonsense, what nonsense are you talking about?"

Kun Ji'en's smile vanished, a twisted madness flickering in his eyes. He knelt on one knee by the bed, grabbed a section of Ni Haolang's ankle with one hand and pulled it sharply, while leaning closer to Ni Haolang's ear with the other, asking, "Are you really that shameless, being used and still clinging to someone?"

"You've been hiding your thoughts for so many years, does the man surnamed Jiang know? Oh right, I forgot you're such a coward, you only dare to hide in your room at night..." Kun Ji'en leaned closer to Ni Haolang's ear and whispered two words.

Two words that instantly stunned Ni Haolang.

Kun Ji'en then wrapped his arms around Ni Haolang, locking him close to his wide, empty pupils. He swung his hips across the air, his face contorted with eroticism as he uttered, "Song He... Song He..."

Ni Haolang was shrouded in shadow, motionless like a corpse, letting tears stream down his face, soaking his pillow.

"Guess, if he knew, would he be willing to be with you..." A few hot tears fell onto Kun Ji'en's broad hand. He stopped and looked down.

Ni Haolang's face was flushed, his tightly clenched lips trembled as he tried to suppress a sound, and only after the creaking of the spring subsided could one hear soft, low sobs...

Kun Ji'en covered Ni Haolang's right ear with the thenar eminence of his right hand, using his four fingers to support the back of Ni's head and catch the tears on that side. He grabbed a corner of the blanket with his left hand and covered Ni's back with it, then rolled over with Ni Haolang, wrapping them both in the soft blanket.

“Haolang, Haolang, it’s alright, it’s alright…” Kun Ji’en’s expression turned to devout comfort as he repeatedly said to the superior in Siamese, “Don’t be sad, don’t be sad, let me bring you happiness.”

Ni Haolang's tears fell straight into another pair of unfathomable eyes, which took them in without blinking. Familiar yet unfamiliar words were like incantations in human form, and though he didn't know their meaning, he was inexplicably drawn to lower his head and get closer.

The moonlight was bright, and intermittent whispers could be heard from the misty window.

Would brothers do such a thing?

"Won't."

Do friends do that?

"No……"

Who am I to you?

“.

"Never mind, I can wait."

"Hmm~"

"Want to? You can at least tell me a lie to appease me, right?"

"What...should I say...?"

You said, "You are mine."

"You are mine."

"Okay... I'll give it to you now."

At midnight, a spectacular fireworks display lit up the sky above Manel, and the New Year's bells of the Goddess Lighthouse resounded throughout the city, the sound waves reverberating into the eclectic garden villa.

Outside the window, the shadows of coconut trees sway gently, and someone whispers amidst the rustling sound—

"Haolang, Happy New Year."