HOYSE CHAPTER 100

Chapter 100 – Forever + One Day

Sunlight blazed outside the windows. Inside, the curtains were drawn, and the room sat in a cocoon of dusk.

Three full days and nights had slipped by like this. Shut away together, it was easy to forget time even existed.

Gu Xi refused to leave the room, not even for meals. Rong Jing could only hold him close and coax a few bites into him between kisses and murmured lies.

Under the shower, water scattered into silver drops. Rong Jing cupped Gu Xi’s face with a tenderness that almost ached. “Enough for now, all right? You are exhausted.”

Gu Xi’s fair hands draped over his shoulders. He pinched Rong Jing’s earlobe, his eyes already drooping with sleep. “I am not tired.”

Rong Jing stared at him. “Right. That is what not tired looks like.”

Three days of reckless joy had left Gu Xi buzzing. Perhaps it was finally grasping what he had long, long yearned for. Every cell in his body still fizzed with heat, and he could not feel fatigue at all. But the stimulation had been too much. Heat was blooming at the nape of his neck, a warning sign he knew too well.

His heat had been pulled forward by the surge of emotion.

The room spun around Rong Jing as the scent began to seep into the rising steam, slowly saturating the bathroom. Lately, whenever Gu Xi’s heat came, the two of them managed it together. Quietly and carefully. In the week after Rong Jing’s return, he’d marked Gu Xi for the fourth time. They stopped just short of the fifth.

Neither spoke of it, but both understood. The line was there, silent and absolute, as if crossing it would open a door that couldn’t be closed.

The fifth mark was a threshold. Once crossed, all four prior imprints would flare to life at once. Even if the mark faded later, it would leave them both spent and the bond between them would tighten. A bond like that could drown out reason.

Some called it the mark that stands one step away from forever. It was almost indistinguishable from a permanent claim.

Gu Xi’s soft hair brushed against the Alpha, gentle as a tame, sultry lamb. His eyes were hazy as he leaned in. “If you don’t want to, I won’t force it.”

Rong Jing pressed a careful kiss to the curve of his cheek.

“Numbers mean nothing to me. When I mark you, it’s because I want to, nothing else.”

Gu Xi’s nose stung. Drowsiness scattered at those words, leaving him a little helpless. How did Rong Jing always find the softest part of his heart and touch it so cleanly? Did he really deserve someone this good?

“Do you want it?” Rong Jing asked.

Gu Xi didn’t reply. He simply turned over and offered his neck.

Rong Jing felt the faint tremble running through him. In the mist, Gu Xi looked like a drenched kitten, not frightened, just stretched too thin.

He wasn’t scared. He was strung so tight it hurt to look at him.

Rong Jing gave more patience than he’d ever known he had, pouring it into the one person who had dropped every last defense for him.

What followed came as naturally as breathing. Two more days slipped by.

Their compatibility was cruelly high. Their bodies wound up wrung out, but their spirits were hungry for more.

Halfway through, when he could not reach his little brother, Xie Ling came by in person. He heard the sounds through the door and flushed. There was relief in his eyes, and a little awkwardness as his old-fashioned views took a hit. He turned on his heel immediately.

He sent a message telling his brother to take it easy. Do not end up in the hospital. Omegas were delicate.

He added one last line: contact me when you are done.

Back in the car, Xie Ling remembered the tonics he had delivered. Apparently they worked. He had no idea how many days those two had been… carrying on. He called Zhou Xiang and ordered several more cases, to be shipped in batches.

The two men’s popularity had spiked into the stratosphere that endorsements and scripts piled up like snowdrifts.

Worried some idiot might barge in again, Gu Xi took advantage of the storm already raging to do something else. He turned off both their phones.

Rong Jing noticed and pretended he had not. Sometimes this Omega was so cute he could feel it in his bones.

On the fifth night, no matter how Gu Xi clung, Rong Jing drew the line. “That is enough. Next time. We are about to draw blood.”

Pouting did not work anymore. So Gu Xi huffed and rolled to face away from his Alpha.

“Huff all you want,” Rong Jing said, entirely unfooled. “We will wait until you are used to it. Walking comes before running.” A moment ago Gu Xi could barely stand. Even getting out of bed was a struggle. What was he trying to prove?

After these days, Rong Jing finally understood what Gu Xi actually wanted. His worldview had been blown to pieces and glued back together more than once.

Worldviews were funny things. Smash them enough times and you learned to live with the cracks.

Once he got over the first shock, he did not hold himself back again. He also realized the Gu Xi that belonged to him and the Gu Xi who faced the world were almost two different people.

In those rare hours when they let go, Rong Jing sometimes did not know how he made it through. He felt like a little boat unmoored on a restless sea, and the creature called Gu Xi was a siren who sang him past reason.

Gu Xi dozed as soon as he turned over. He was dead tired but kept feeling it was not enough. He wanted to be carved into Rong Jing’s memory as Rong Jing lived every day as if it might be the last. How could Gu Xi do any less? Only when Rong Jing kept touching him, without a break, did he fully feel the man’s presence.

They had showered. Skin clean and cool, Gu Xi was seconds from sleep when a familiar warmth slid close from behind. He made a contented sound and shuffled back into that heat, drifting away.

Propped on an elbow, Rong Jing watched the peaceful lines of his face. Sensing him, Gu Xi burrowed a little deeper into the crook of his arm. The fierce urgency from earlier held a thread of unease.

There was something Gu Xi feared. There was something he was trying to anchor.

Rong Jing was about to get up to fetch water when hands closed around his waist and tugged him back. He gave up and kissed Gu Xi’s forehead.

All right. They would talk when Gu Xi woke.

They fell asleep together.

Gu Xi slept as if he had left the calendar, two whole days flying past. When he finally woke for real, his hand slid to the other side of the bed and found only cool sheets.

He opened his eyes at once. The spot where Rong Jing slept had already gone cold. He must have been up for a while.

He looked around the room. On the bedside table waited a small spread: congee, a few simple dishes, and milk, all resting on an electric warming pad. A note sat beside them. I am in the study. Wash up first, drink a glass of warm water on an empty stomach, then eat.

Gu Xi felt almost fully restored. A few days ago even clenching had felt foreign, and every step tugged. He had not expected to recover so fast.

It didn’t really hurt. Mostly it felt like overuse. Applying medicine each time was mortifying, but Rong Jing was always gentle. Bit by bit, he was getting used to it.

He ate spoonfuls of heat and comfort. When Rong Jing had been away, he had used too many inhibitors. He had no appetite, and everything tasted like cardboard.

He did not know when Rong Jing had caught on, but the dishes lately were light and bright, with a hint of herbal warmth.

Rong Jing even refused to call the housekeeper and cooked everything himself.

Gu Xi wiped the corner of his eye.

If heaven is listening, please give me one more day with him. Let “forever” be forever plus one day.

When Gu Xi came out, he saw Rong Jing handing a stack of documents to Mo Dian. Mo Dian slipped them into a backpack. He turned and caught sight of Gu Xi looking luminous and paused for a beat, then blurted a greeting and scurried off.

Gu Xi came up behind Rong Jing and hugged him, chin on his shoulder. “What are you two hiding from me? What shady deal is this?”

“You will know when it is time,” Rong Jing said.

Mo Dian rushed back in for the phone he had forgotten, waved at Gu Xi, and vanished again.

“Is he still my assistant or not? He defected,” Gu Xi muttered.

“Should I drag him back?” Rong Jing asked, earnest as ever. He was useless with sweet talk. Anyone else would have tossed out a line or two to make an Omega smile. Rong Jing stayed by the book.

“Drag him back for what? My entire person belongs to you. My assistant is naturally at your command.” Gu Xi said it offhand.

The words landed straight on Rong Jing’s heart. So what if he could not spin sugar. There was a candy factory living at home. One throwaway line, and he was airborne.

“Oh, right. I forgot to turn my phone on.” Gu Xi, notorious workaholic, remembered late that he had a job. Beauty was a terrible distraction.

“Your calls may have exploded,” Rong Jing said. Gu Xi opened his phone and, sure enough, the screen went mad.

The box office for Sovereignty was soaring. The heat was truly dazzling. The way the two leads had played the romance had gripped people by the throat. Variety shows, scripts, and endorsements rained down.

Every outlet tried to reach them. But at the peak of the frenzy, the two leads vanished like smoke.

It took them several days to clear the backlog from those five off-grid days. When someone finally asked where they had been, one said he had gone on an expedition to Antarctica. The other claimed a vacation at the equator.

No matter how much the outside world longed to see them together, even a simple side-by-side to heal the wounds the movie had left, the main pair refused to yield. What once was the “Arctic Circle CP,” a chilly, distant corner, had melted away. The more unreachable they appeared, the deeper the longing grew. Their fanbase expanded relentlessly, eventually topping the CP charts and breaking into the mainstream.

Even Gu Xi had not expected that. He did not need to “feed” the fandom at all. He had too much work lately to make content anyway. The hungry fans could not wait, so they started creating it themselves. It came in every flavor and shape, wave after wave. Sometimes Gu Xi read it until he was lost, marveling at how talented they were.

He only heard about Xu Juelian’s death while shooting a magazine cover. He blinked, trying to remember who that even was. Perhaps happiness really did erase names he had no use for.

That evening he dragged Rong Jing to the supermarket and insisted on cooking a big dinner. He made up a flimsy excuse about celebrating.

“You really do not want help?” Rong Jing asked.

“If you help any more, even Mo Dian will think you have spoiled me rotten. If you meddle tonight, I will honestly get mad,” said Gu Xi, Professional Freeloader, in a tone of stern warning.

“Oh, I am terrified.”

“Rong Jing, if I get mad, I will cling to you every night.”

“…”

Other households kicked the Alpha to the study. His Omega was gloriously contrary.

Gu Xi burst out laughing at Rong Jing’s frozen face. It was rare to tease him successfully and it was incredibly fun.

Rong Jing thought back to their five days and nights. Even in an ABO world, that was pushing it. Gu Xi had not been scared off in the slightest. If anything, he looked eager for more.

Was it my problem or his? Did he actually want me to lose control completely? Could Gu Xi take it?

Wait. Rong Jing, you are careening off the road. Five days were not enough?

His pulse quickened. He glanced at Gu Xi, who had no idea where his mind had gone. He wrestled his thoughts back into order.

They came home laughing with their grocery bags, only to find Zhou Xiang’s car parked in front of the house. He looked like he had been waiting, and he looked worried.

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Little Note(s):
I have a feeling this might be the last time Xu Juelian’s name shows up. So I’m spilling the beans. Early on, he was Xu Juelian, but somewhere along the way, it kept switching to Fang Juelian. I kept tweaking it to stay consistent. By the time I realized I shoulda double-checked the original, I was already too deep to turn back. Lol 😿