In his past life, Qi Xu had lived alone and once imagined adopting a cat when he retired. Now, long before retirement, he already had one.
Lying on the couch, he watched as the ragdoll cat jumped up and curled by his feet, clearly fascinated by the chain swaying around his ankles.
When Xie Huai walked in, he saw Qi Xu lazily reclining on the sofa, smiling faintly as he used the ankle chain to tease the cat. The kitten darted and pounced around his legs.
Only Qi Xu could turn a shackle into a cat toy.
Of course, Qi Xu never treated this captivity as anything serious. He hadn’t resisted—he had willingly accepted the chain.
Sometimes, Xie Huai wondered if Qi Xu’s tolerance for him was too high—accepting everything about him without question. His strengths, his flaws… even the darkest parts of him.
Eventually tired of teasing the cat, Qi Xu turned his head and saw Xie Huai standing silently in the doorway.
He grinned. “You enjoying the view?”
Xie Huai slowly walked in. The cat caught his scent and instantly puffed up, letting out a wary yowl before darting to the side, glaring at the intruder.
Xie Huai didn’t spare the cat a glance. He moved straight to Qi Xu, pinning him down, pressing between his legs, and inhaling deeply at his neck and shoulder.
A cat and a dog under one roof—this was bliss, as far as Qi Xu was concerned.
Especially when the “dog” loved to bite—and only bit him.
“My grandfather called this morning. He wants me to stay here and rest for a while. Reporters have completely surrounded the Shen family home.”
Fortunately, he’d never appeared in public under the Yunrui name—otherwise, even Yunrui would be dragged into this.
Li Kaixing had sent dozens of messages to check on him, afraid he might disappear and take their investments down with him.
Xie Huai bit the side of Qi Xu’s neck. “I’ve already warned the media. And the reporters who went digging in M City found nothing. Don’t worry. No one will hurt you.”
He had leaned on every connection and pulled every string. In front of real power, even public opinion was easy to manipulate.
Qi Xu winced and shoved Xie Huai away, laughing. “With you locking me up, what do I even need to be afraid of?”
Xie Huai sat up and grabbed his ankle. “How did you unlock it this morning?”
Qi Xu shot upright and grabbed him by the neck. “You pervert. You installed cameras in the room?”
Xie Huai met his gaze and wrapped an arm around his waist. “I put the cuff on your left foot. Now it’s on the right.”
Qi Xu: “…”
“You’re the bigger pervert—for not installing cameras,” he said, straddling Xie Huai’s lap and pinching his cold earlobe. “It was chilly. I unfastened it, then put it back on after I woke up. How do you even remember which foot it was on?”
“I put it on myself. I don’t forget things like that.”
Qi Xu let out a snort, saying nothing. He didn’t ask how long Xie Huai planned to keep him here.
After all, the longest it could last… was just until the end of winter break.
“President Xie, you’ve been skipping out of work early a lot lately. Don’t care about the company anymore? Made enough money already?”
Xie Huai tugged lightly on the velvet strap around Qi Xu’s ankle, deliberately ignoring the question. “Tonight, hands tied. No clothes allowed.”
He spoke casually while trying to undo Qi Xu’s pajama buttons.
Qi Xu grabbed his hand and pulled open the curtains. “Really? Redefining what counts as ‘tonight’? It’s barely four o’clock. Don’t start something just to entertain yourself.”
Xie Huai wasn’t even trying to hide his mischief. “Pull the curtains, and it’s nighttime. That’s how it works.”
Qi Xu couldn’t help but admire how shameless Xie Huai’s logic was, but he didn’t want to argue over something so personal. Instead, he steered the conversation toward the situation with Song Ruoming—he still hoped for a more lenient outcome.
“I broke our promise again. I didn’t treat our pinky swear like a real commitment. I made you worry. I didn’t think things through and risked my own safety trying to take Song Ruoming down. Shen Zeyu wouldn’t have disappeared without a reason. The most likely scenario was that he made Song believe you kidnapped him to trigger an exchange.”
“I walked into it willingly. I overestimated my ability to protect myself and thought I could walk away unscathed. Of course, I failed to account for so many variables—like Qi Guohui, or the moment Song suddenly shoved me down the stairs.”
As he spoke, Qi Xu kept an eye on Xie Huai’s subtle reactions. Recently, “stairs” had become a trigger word for him—not because of himself, but because of how Xie Huai responded.
Whenever Xie was home, Qi Xu wasn’t allowed near the stairs—only the elevator. And when Xie wasn’t home, Qi Xu couldn’t leave the bedroom at all. He had to stay chained, just in case.
Xie Huai had been plagued with nightmares, often waking in the middle of the night, clinging to Qi Xu like he was afraid he’d vanish again.
That was trauma—classic PTSD. And it revealed something deeper: an almost pathological fear of losing him.
Qi Xu couldn’t help but wonder what Xie Huai saw in those dreams. Was it that moment he tumbled down the stairs?
Xie Huai’s hand trembled slightly as he tightened his grip on Qi Xu’s. It took him a long moment to gather himself before he finally spoke.
“That’s all behind us now. It’s over. Everyone has paid their price. All you have to do is stay by my side. If you want revenge, I’ll do it for you. If you hate someone, just tell me—I’ll take care of it all.”
He couldn’t bear to watch Qi Xu fall down those stairs again. That pain would be worse than death.
Not everyone gets a second chance. And what if… what if that dream had already come true? Maybe it had happened before—in another life. The way Qi Xu responded to him in his dreams—that wasn’t something logic or science could explain.
Qi Xu curled up against Xie Huai’s chest and quietly listened to every word.
He smiled faintly. “What if I want to kill someone? Would you hand me the knife?”
Xie Huai said softly, “I won’t let you do anything so dangerous. We’re going to live a long life, together. Grow old side by side.”
Qi Xu exhaled a soft sigh. “There was a time when I hated everything—the unfairness of this world, the way everything was taken from me. But like you said, it’s all in the past. I don’t care about things that have nothing to do with me anymore. And I don’t want you carrying the burden for me.”
He didn’t know what Xie Huai had done after his death in their past life—but whatever it was, it shouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t necessary.
Xie Huai had already given him a second chance at life. If he hadn’t been there every day, whispering those words of comfort, Qi Xu might’ve completely given up on this world.
He turned to Xie Huai. “Huai-ge, we’re only eighteen. Well, in a week, you’ll be nineteen. I promise you—we’ll celebrate so many more birthdays together. So don’t lose faith in me. I’ll lean on you, and whenever I do something risky, I’ll start by thinking about you. I’ll never let myself disappear from your life again.”
Xie Huai’s heart clenched. His gaze slowly drifted across Qi Xu’s face.
“And what if you break that promise again?”
Qi Xu met his eyes without flinching, voice low and steady. “Then I’ll let you f*ck me to death.”
Xie Huai had always been the one who bent time to his will. Curtains drawn, the sky darkened early, and the ragdoll cat was tossed from the room. Night fell by his command.
He couldn’t stop the storm raging inside him, and Qi Xu? He ran straight into it. Unafraid of thunderclouds, unbothered by the downpour—he welcomed it, wild and free.
Pajamas hit the floor. A single button rolled under the bed.
The last one left on the garment—just like the last shred of someone’s patience—was finally gone.
Xie Huai unlocked the chain from Qi Xu’s ankle and re-fastened it gently around his wrist.
Qi Xu’s skin was flushed, and he squinted at Xie Huai, who, despite everything, looked like a perfect gentleman—white shirt tucked neatly at the waist, as if he were signing off on a billion-dollar deal.
Xie Huai caught his gaze, scooped him into his arms, and softly bit his shoulder, voice low and coaxing. “Help me take it off.”
It was just a shirt, but Qi Xu was already breathing heavily as he undid the buttons on Xie Huai’s collar.
When the chain brushed against Xie Huai’s belt buckle, the sharp metallic click echoed in Qi Xu’s ears like a gunshot.
He clutched at Xie Huai’s now-open shirt, closing his eyes for a moment. “Want me to help you put it on?”
Xie Huai’s reply was impeccably polite. “It would be an honor.”
But his gentle words betrayed the intensity of his actions—feral, overwhelming. It was too much.
Qi Xu’s toes curled tight, body strung taut. It was a long time before he finally loosened again, barely able to catch his breath.
His chained wrist fell limp at his side. The other wrist hung bare.
Suddenly, Xie Huai’s mood turned fierce again—he’d thought of the bracelet from his dream, the one he never got the chance to give.
“Baby… where’s your bracelet?”
Qi Xu nearly passed out, barely managing to lift his hand and point. “On the table.”
One second, he was lying on the bed; the next, he was in Xie Huai’s arms again. Head tilted back, neck long and exposed, his breath came out in a broken cry. Sweat dripped from his forehead, trailing down his cheek, falling onto Xie Huai’s skin.
The bracelet was slipped back onto his wrist—intact, whole, irreplaceable.
“Don’t ever take it off again,” Xie Huai whispered.
For life.
Qi Xu couldn’t answer. He had no words left.
From the bed to the couch to the bathroom, their flushed skin found brief relief in the warmth of the water.
Qi Xu leaned into Xie Huai’s chest, held his hand to his cheek, and kissed his palm. There was no desire in that moment—just quiet devotion, pure and simple, like the way Xie Huai had once kept vigil by his hospital bed in another life.
That kiss came a lifetime late for Xie Huai—but for Qi Xu, it was only the beginning.
Yet something in Xie Huai snapped again. He pressed Qi Xu down against the tub, and once again the peace was swept away in a tide of sweat and soap and feverish heat.
Water splashed out of the tub, refilled, spilled again—over and over, as if time itself had no meaning.
On this night where the sun had long since set—long before its time—Qi Xu passed out and came to again, only to realize they’d changed rooms, changed positions. Over and over, Xie Huai whispered “baby” into his ear, unlocking the chain, locking it again, metal clinking all through the night.
Qi Xu finally lashed out with one last weak kick that landed squarely on Xie Huai’s side. “Can you f*cking let me sleep already?”
He had no strength left. The kick was barely a tap.
Xie Huai buried his face in the crook of Qi Xu’s neck, holding him close as Qi Xu whispered one last promise: “I won’t leave you alone again.”
And for the first time that night, Xie Huai was gentle. The fear, the dread—all of it melted away in the warmth of that vow.
Qi Xu didn’t know if the promise truly eased his heart, but maybe it did. That night, Xie Huai didn’t wake from a nightmare.
Then again, Qi Xu couldn’t be sure—he himself had passed out cold, body burning from the inside out, drifting into unconsciousness long before it was over.
The last thing he remembered, right before losing consciousness, was the thought:
He nearly fcked me to death.*
