Self-deception and feigned seriousness
Jiang Songhe moved the half-cooked ceramic home-style dishes from the wok to an empty plate, switched to a frying pan, took out the cod that was originally meant to be steamed from the refrigerator's crisper drawer, leaned on the island counter to watch the ingredients for a while, washed his hands, and took out his phone to search for a recipe for Western-style pan-fried cod.
Twenty minutes later, he took off his gloves and apron, went to the dressing room to change into casual clothes, went back to the kitchen to bring out the plate of pan-fried cod, went out to the front of room A, and knocked lightly a few times with his knuckles. The door opened a crack under the force.
Oh, right, Jonathan said he'd deliver it directly to his room after he finished.
Jiang Songhe used the tip of his shoe to open the door, looked around the entrance hall, and, not seeing the creditor who had made the demands, clicked his tongue. He then strode towards the dining room connected to the kitchen, intending to drop off the cod and leave, since Western food could be eaten hot or cold anyway.
Just as he was about to pay off his debts and leave, a voice came from a room diagonally across the corridor: "Come in."
The two simple words sounded like a command, and Jiang Songhe suspected that Kun Ji'en had told Jonathan that he was staying as a "life assistant," otherwise why would Jonathan have thought of offering him compensation in a way that was no different from being a male nanny?
Although he was annoyed, Jiang Songhe still wanted to settle the matter of owing someone for dry cleaning fees as soon as possible, so he suppressed his anger and picked up the plate again.
Unexpectedly, Jonathan seemed to have a third eye. Just as Jiang Songhe picked up the fish, almost simultaneously, another voice came from the room: "Put the plate down. There are sheet music I wrote in the studio. It will get dirty with oil."
Jiang Songhe licked his molar crown and chuckled, then roughly did as he was told. He grabbed a napkin from the table and walked toward the source of the sound while wiping his hands.
The door to that room was wide open, and the curtains were drawn tightly, blocking out all sunlight. In the innermost part of the room, where it was out of sight, a flash of white light appeared and then went out completely, making the room even darker.
As Jiang Songhe stepped inside, she glanced at the spot where the white light was; it was a completely black screen.
Jonathan said it was a studio, and indeed, the interior furnishings were similar to those of the dubbing studios that Jiang Songhe remembered. He recalled that Jiang Songyun had mentioned that Jonathan was currently recording a new single, and that the unreleased MV 5 had just been released. As an outsider, he didn't think much of it.
"Eat if you want, or throw it away if you don't. The plates belong to the hotel, so you don't need to return them," Jiang Songhe said, standing at the door.
The only light source in the room was the Mac monitor on the table in front of Jonathan. He stood motionless in the dim blue light with his back to Jiang Songhe, ignoring Jiang Songhe's irritating words.
Surely he won't have another sleepwalking episode in broad daylight?
The person said they were coming back from a job interview, but it could be due to exhaustion.
Can a sleepwalker talk while sleepwalking?
The last time it happened in the Vito, it seemed like it was possible, and there was even some back and forth between the questions...
Jiang Songhe's breath hitched, and she unconsciously tiptoed to Jonathan's side. She raised her hand to wave it in front of Jonathan's eyes, but Jonathan grabbed Jiang Songhe's wrist unexpectedly and asked, "What are you doing?"
The strange behavior really startled Jiang Songhe, but since he wasn't sleepwalking, the man should have heard what he said earlier, so he pulled his hand back and said, "Nothing. I've done what I was supposed to do, so you'd better keep your word."
After saying that, he turned to leave, but was tripped by the hand that he hadn't pulled out.
"Songyun should have mentioned participating in the recording of my new single to you, right?" Jonathan didn't let go, and used his other hand to take off the headphones on his head, as if he was about to put them on Jiang Songhe's head.
Jiang Songhe leaned back defensively, raising two fingers to block, but Jonathan tightened his grip on his wrist, adjusting his headphones with a half-smile, and asked, "You don't want to hear your brother's first musical work?"
"..." Jiang Songhe then lowered her hands to stop resisting and let Jonathan release her face to face. She stood on tiptoe and covered her head with the earphones with both hands.
The warm breath mixed with the fragrance on his neck fluttered against Jiang Songhe's straight eyelashes. He only glanced at the silver light peeking out from the edge of the low collar before turning his head away, his fingertips prying open Jonathan's palm, and tightening the earmuffs himself.
Jonah's eyes flickered, and his long fingers expertly slid and tapped on the touchpad. The prelude to "Sacrifice at Dawn" flowed faintly from the gap between the headphones and Jiang Songhe's ear.
While Jiang Songhe was engrossed in trying to figure out which line in the melody came from Jiang Songyun, Jonathan quietly closed the door.
-
As the song ended, Jiang Songhe's eyebrows relaxed and he raised them. He seemed to have forgotten where he was and also forgotten to be on guard. He showed a rare smile in front of Jonathan, although his voice remained indifferent: "It was very nice. Would you mind telling me what the song is called?"
It sounds great.
Jonathan was momentarily lost in thought. This person's expression when facing him before was either disgust or anger, but he never expected that when he smiled, he would have a pair of shallow... porcelain dimples. What was that word again? Oh, dimples.
What Jonathan had been pondering and searching for all along, no matter how he adjusted "The Night of Sacrifice and the Dawn," was that tender, sincere, and passionate emotion that he had always lacked. This feeling rose up in Jonathan's heart, and he had a premonition that he was very close to the answer.
He licked the tip of his canine tooth.
Seeing that Jonathan hadn't answered for a while, Jiang Songhe seemed to realize that she had asked a stupid question that crossed the line. She let go of her shallow dimples and changed her words seriously and apologetically: "I understand, it's inconvenient, never mind."
Jonah had already glimpsed the tip of the iceberg of the answer, and now all he wanted to do was speed up the game and unlock and harvest all the multifaceted aspects of his prey: "Convenient, how could it not be convenient? What kind of logic is it to involve the artist but keep it a secret from the manager?"
"Why don't you guess? I'll give you a chance." Jonathan pointed to the layers of audio tracks on the computer screen, mischievously enticing, "You choose, and I'll play a single sentence for you to hear to reveal whether you're right or wrong."
To provoke this brother-obsessed man's competitive spirit, he added purposefully, "It's time to test your hearing, your own brother's."
Jiang Songhe fell for the trap as expected. He snorted coldly, then leaned over the table without saying a word, frowning and squinting as he listened intently, while his fingertips moved across the strips of lyrics on the screen.
"Play this line, no, this line, let's hear it." Jiang Songhe seemed to be caught up in the competitive spirit, getting closer and closer to the screen.
"This line? Are you sure? You only have one chance, I'm going to broadcast it..." Jonathan Xi took advantage of the half-broadcasting gesture to get closer and closer, and before anyone knew it, he had half-encircled Jiang Songhe in his arms.
Jonathan knew without wearing headphones that Jiang Songhe was definitely wrong, because Jiang Songyun didn't sing a single line, only participating in the drum part.
“You guessed wrong,” Jonathan revealed the result.
"Wrong?! Don't try to fool me." Jiang Songhe turned around, refusing to believe it, and ended up rubbing noses against Jonah's face.
After freezing for five or six seconds, Jiang Songhe pulled away from Jonathan's blunt and naked gaze, and hurriedly straightened up and took a half step back.
"Songyun said you're tone-deaf. Would you like to learn the correct way to pronounce words?" Jonathan quickly followed, pulling Jiang Songhe's hand to the delicate protrusion on his neck, his thin lips parting to emit a seductive tremor—
"I, 1, 2, 4, U." (A British accent, pronounce it.)
Jiang Songhe's pupils trembled instantly, clearly indicating that he understood.
Jonathan's gaze lingered on Jiang Songhe's tightly closed lips and teeth, down to her slightly bobbing Adam's apple, and then down to her heaving chest. Suddenly, he grinned smugly and was about to press his advantage when Jiang Songhe intercepted his gaze with her other hand.
"Even after all this, you still want to stick to your ridiculous 'choices and standards'?" Jonathan's smile was tinged with sarcasm and provocation, and his confrontational movements became more forceful. "Self-deception, hypocrite."
The two had a falling out last time because of this topic of "choice and limits." Jiang Songhe couldn't stand being provoked like this again. He pulled his hand away fiercely, turned around and walked out of the house. When he got there, he flung open the door.
"Hey! My bad, my bad, I was just kidding, don't be angry... Ouch!!!"
Jonathan's left hand was caught in the door that Jiang Songhe slammed shut with great force.
"Damn! That hurts so much!!!" Jonathan's face contorted in pain as he knelt on the ground, blowing on his injured hand. "I'm a respectable celebrity, for goodness' sake! Your way of retaliating is way too violent!!!"
Jiang Songhe gripped the doorknob, bending and straightening his back repeatedly. He hesitated for a while before finally returning inside, still stubbornly insisting, "How could anyone be so stupid as to stick their hand inside the door?"
Jonah's face flushed red with pain, but cold sweat beaded on his forehead: "You violent maniac! You hurt someone and can't even say a kind word?!"
Jiang Songhe pursed her lips, her words still harsh, but her tone softened considerably: "No, I haven't learned. Just by talking... you think you can stop feeling pain?"
Jonah, clutching her fingers, abruptly looked up, her eyes blazing with barely suppressed rage, completely disregarding her approachable idol persona, and yelled at Jiang Songhe: "You can't talk the talk, but you can walk the walk, right?!?"
Jiang Songhe fell silent for a moment, then, as if thinking of something, her gaze shifted to the necklace around Jonathan's neck, and she rubbed her thumb against her knuckles, which were bent into a fist.
"What are you thinking? Is that what I meant?!" Jonathan was reminded of the past by that gaze, and the blush that had just faded from his face returned.
Jiang Songhe's brow twitched, she sighed, and asked, "Then what do you mean?"
Jonathan was taken aback by the question. His eyes darted around a few times before he said in a drawn-out tone, "I want you—"
"No." Jiang Songhe interrupted the spellcasting in a stern voice.
"Do something practical to comfort this wounded soldier." Jonathan used his good hand to prop himself up, and with a huff, he stretched out the five fingers of his no-longer-white left hand in front of Jiang Songhe's eyes, his tone childish yet with an unyielding willfulness.
"." Jiang Songhe stared at the five radish-like fingers that had been clamped together, his attention completely drawn. He guessed that the guilt-inducing maneuver had taken effect. He frowned and pressed, "How practical is it? You think paying money is too vulgar."
Jonathan forced a smile, and I, looking pitiful, hesitated and tentatively probed, afraid that Jiang Songhe would reject me outright upon hearing Ciwen's words, so I tried my luck in English: "A French kiss would be nice?"
Unexpectedly, even the widowed king Jiang Songhe could understand this. He immediately crossed his arms and went into defensive mode: "This won't work either."
Jonathan lowered his eyebrows and eyes to let the saline solution in his eyes overflow. Then, he pouted with a wronged look and subtly used his forearm to exert force on his left wrist. His injured hand reacted to the pain and began to shake uncontrollably.
"Tsk, I'll just blow on it for you at most," Jiang Songhe conceded.
Jonathan: "Don't I have a mouth? Why do you need to blow on me? How about we each take a step back and have a deep kiss?"
Jiang Songhe: "No. At most, I'll hug you, as you mentioned before."
Jonathan: "A hug doesn't require a kiss! If you're not sincere, forget it."
Jiang Songhe: "A light kiss, that's enough..."
Jonathan: "Deal!"
Jiang Songhe: "...!"
Jiang Songhe's flustered expression was quite a sight, as if it were saying, "What a worthless competitive spirit, what a worthless brain, what a worthless mouth."
"Hurry up, you're about to break my finger, it hurts so much!" Jonathan pressed on while urging him on, learning from his previous failure and not taking the initiative this time. He just looked at Jiang Songhe with a resentful gaze, waiting for him to come over on his own.
"If it's broken, go see a doctor. Why are you doing all this... um!" Jiang Songhe muttered as he reluctantly approached. Before he could finish the sentence, Jonathan swallowed it back. Unable to catch his breath and unable to push him away, he helplessly reached out and pinched Jonathan's fingers.
"F*ck!" Jonathan cursed in pain, yelling, "Jiang Songhe, you bastard!!"
"Did I try hard enough?!" Jiang Songhe subconsciously leaned forward to reach out, looking at herself with self-reproach, but still couldn't speak properly.
Jonathan was really angry now. He walked past Jiang Songhe and stormed towards the gate.
Seeing this, Jiang Songhe didn't hesitate and strode to the door.
Upon exiting the door, Jonathan spotted the bouquet of orange roses and, in a fit of rage, kicked over the flower and the trash can together before heading straight for the elevator.
"Where are we going?" Jiang Songhe followed.
“I told the company my hands were ruined and I couldn’t write songs anymore, and then I asked to be blacklisted! Let myself fend for myself!” Jonathan pressed the elevator button several times in frustration.
But no card was swiped.
"It's not like my voice is ruined, my hand is broken. It was just a pinch in the door, how could it be... Hey you!" Jiang Songhe reached out and covered the elevator button that had almost sparked. "Do you have any medicine at home?"
Jonathan scoffed and retorted, "Do I look like I have any chance of getting hurt?"
Jiang Songhe sighed resignedly, "Tsk, just stay put."
-
Jiang Songhe quickly returned with medicine and bandages.
Jonathan leaned back on the living room sofa and stretched out his hand, watching Jiang Songhe silently kneel on one knee to apply medicine to his hand, holding it with the base of his thumb and forefinger, and carefully blowing on it gently.
The pose looked exactly like a marriage proposal. He momentarily forgot the pain and only felt that the scene was incredibly sexy.
He stared thoughtfully at the ring on Jiang Songhe's left middle finger, then suddenly asked, "This is actually an engagement ring, isn't it? 'Abstinence' is just an excuse you use to get rid of me, isn't it?"
Jiang Songhe kept his head down the whole time and did not respond immediately. He patiently finished bandaging the last injured finger, and when he tied the knot, he deliberately or unintentionally tugged at it.
Jonathan was actually in a bit of pain from the pinch, but he was only focused on waiting for Jiang Songhe to raise his head, look directly into his eyes, and give him an answer.
"You're really ridiculous." Jiang Songhe maintained the "proposal" pose, took off the ring from his left hand with his right hand, held it with the first three fingers and hooked it with his little finger, adjusting it to be vertical.
Clearly, he wanted to give the person on the sofa a close look, but instead of offering the ring up, he hooked his long arm around the back of the neck and pulled the person's upper body down.
Jiang Songhe reiterated, "This is outrageous."
Jonah looked closely and saw a line of small English words engraved on the inside of the ring—
“ABSTINENCE”.
A surge of heat coursed through his veins, invigorating Jonathan's quirky thoughts and making him come alive.
Jonah's inner monologue: "The first trapping was a huge loss. Since he has revealed his hand and walked right into the trap, then don't blame me for sitting back and reaping the benefits. I'll devour him clean."
"Because of you, I've become a disabled person who can't take care of myself. How do you plan to compensate me for that?"
"At worst, I'll take care of you...until you're fully recovered."
"You said it yourself."
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