Before My Withering

I wanted to tell Zhou Chen that I am by no means an innocent person.

Even though Qi Shu is cold-blooded, I’d been with him for four years and I know what kind of expression and tone could touch him the most. 

I deliberately went on a hunger strike and stopped taking medicine, making myself miserable day by day. He couldn’t resist my tearful entreaty and begging, so I only showed it to him when I was ‘sober’.

I placed my notebook at the bedside and was blown open by the wind,revealing the character ‘周‘ written and crossed out on the first page.

I put on his big shirt so that when he wanted to hug me and looked down, he’d see the scar on my collarbone.

I took a final gamble with my life, and fortunately, it paid off. 

Who let his heart be moved, exposing his weakness.

He deserved to be deceived.

I even went so far as to deceive Zhou Chen.

I very much knew that the more miserable I was, the more he’d hate Qi Shu when he sees me, and the less likely he would let go of me again.

When in reality, Qi Shu never laid a finger on me. Instead, he watched over me day and night and tried his best to coax me to eat and sleep.

ーーZhou Chen wouldn’t know of these days. He would just think that Qi Shu tortured me like this again.

I was afraid that Zhou Chen would see through my little trick, yet I was also afraid that he wouldn’t see through it.

I hope that in his mind I would always be an innocent person, worthy of sympathy and love. I also hope that he would recognize my not-so-good nature and still be willing to treat me this way. 

I was torn for a long time, but decided to hide the lie for the time being.

I just didn’t have enough confidence that he’d accept all of me.

It’s just that I went too far this time, and I got retribution.

The effect of stopping my meds arbitrarily was that it destroyed Zhou Chen’s months of hard work, and I became even more broken than before. If Qi Shu had been cruel enough to detain me for a few more days, I might have really died.

The weather was warm. Zhou Chen installed a couple hanging chair in the courtyard. It’s very comfortable to nest on it and bask in the sun.

Today, I languidly fell asleep while sunbathing.Dazed, I felt someone had covered my body with something, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Zhou Chen.

The hanging chair was like a giant cocoon. I eased in and he sat down. 

“It’s time to take your medicine.” He said.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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——The chef jiejie did it yesterday. It was light, sweet and soft and when you bite it, it was like a cloud melting in your mouth. I know she didn’t do it today.

Zhou Chen narrowed his eyes, as if he had seen through my mind. At that moment, his expression seemed to say, “It’s only been a few days and you’re not behaving anymore?”

But he said, “There’s red velvet. Will you make do with it today?”

“Not good.” I shook my head. “I won’t.” 

He seemed to feel helpless but finally compromised, “I’ll let A’Liu do it now.”

I was too embarrassed to trouble the others again, so I sat up and pulled him back and said, “Just kidding. I’ll go back and take my medicine.”

Back at the house,I smelled a baking aroma floating from the kitchen. I was hooked and walked towards it, and saw chef jiejie baking cookies. 

“Sister Liu Liu,” I called her. “What delicious food are you cooking?”

She raised her eyes and flashed me a smile. “I made butter cookies, it’s almost done.”

“Sir Zhou doesn’t like sweet food, so I have nowhere to display my abilities. Good thing you came back.” She said as she tidied up the counter.

–The little desserts that kept changing every day were originally made for me? 

Zhou Chen followed me in and said, both helplessly and amused, “You’ve spoiled his mouth.”

The chef jiejie smiled more happily. “You’re the one who spoiled him, I dare not claim credit for it.”

As he spoke, the oven tinkled. She put on her insulated gloves, brought out a plate of full and lovely cookies and said, “this is for Xiao Yu, and the next one with less sugar is for Sir.”

Zhou Chen’s big hand covered the top of my head and rubbed it. “When you returned, I was placed second.” 

The chef jiejie smiled but didn’t say anything. She put the biscuits on the ceramic plate and brought them to me. “Be careful, it’s hot.”

I was about to take it when Zhou Chen’s hand crossed over me to snatch the plate away and said, “Take your medicine before you eat this.”

“Zhou Chen…” I looked at him eagerly, but he wasn’t swayed.

I had to change to a more respectful title. “Sir.” 

He had a complicated look, then he lowered the plate at last.

I see. Call him Sir when you need something.

I had a hard time recovering. I spent most of the day lying in bed. Zhou Chen had a lot of books I couldn’t understand, its effect was a first-class sleeping aid. I asked him if he wouldn’t be sleepy when reading, he said, ‘of course not, thinking could keep me awake’. 

I guess it differs from person to person.

During the fight with Qi Shu that day, Zhou Chen’s glasses in his pocket broke. I quietly asked the butler for his vision examination report, quietly memorized the logo on the leg of his glasses, then went to the website of that brand and chose a new pair of glasses.

When it was delivered, Zhou Shen happened to be working in his study, so I opened the door to pick up the delivery. After dinner, I put the glasses case on the table and pushed it toward him, pretending nothing had happened. 

“For you.”

“For me?” Zhou Chen took it and opened the case.

“I saw that day… Your glasses broke….”

As I spoke, I observed his reaction, which, in addition to the little surprise I had expected, there was unexpectedly nervousness and prudence. 

“Thank you.” He got up, walked up to me and said in earnest, “I love it.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Glad you liked it…”

In the evening, I passed by the study and peeped in through the half-ajar door. By chance, I saw Zhou Chen holding the glasses and studying them with a silly smile on his face.

A moment after, he put his glasses on the bridge of his nose, made a serious expression, pushed it, took it off and continued to look at it with a smile. 

Over and over again…

For some reason, my mood suddenly hyped up.

He wore them for the next few days, and I couldn’t stop staring.

When one of my occasional peeps was discovered, he casually asked, does it look good? 

“Looks good,” I blurted out.

Then I saw that the mature and steady alpha, who was over 30 years old, seemed to blush.

He’s good looking. I don’t believe no one has ever complimented him with such a face.

The next day, when I had gone upstairs after sunbathing, I found the butler calling upon two servants to remove a cabinet out of Zhou Chen’s walk-in-closet. I asked casually, and he said that sir had asked him to have it move to the storage room and lock up. 

The cabinet is covered with a dark red velvet cloth. I lifted it out of curiosity. Underneath was actually a three-tier display cabinet, with nearly a hundred pairs of similar gold wire glasses from the first tier alone.

“These…. He doesn’t want any of it?”

“Sir said no,” said the butler meaningfully. “Probably has a favorite.”

My heart ached, I couldn’t explain the feeling. 

It’s like being soaked in bubbly grapefruit flavored sparkling water fresh out of the fridge in the summer.

Zhou Chen would read books in my room every night, waiting until I fell asleep before he’d go to bed. The latest bedtime book was a philosopher’s work I couldn’t understand. He’d read it to me occasionally.

When the drowsiness slowly crept over, I felt the back of his hand gently touch my face, then I heard a sigh.

I asked him dazedly what was wrong. 

It seemed like an eternity passed before he asked, “Will you also give him gifts you carefully chose?”

Who is ‘he’… Qi Shu?

Half asleep, I instinctively shook my head. “Sent him a few times before. He didn’t like it, so I stopped…”

It was so long ago that I couldn’t even remember what I had given to Qi Shu. Most of them were things like neckties and cufflinks, etc. But I clearly remember him saying, “What’s the point of buying me a gift if it’s with my money?” 

I wanted to retort that I didn’t use his money, but then he added, “It looks ugly.”

So I swallowed it back and said, “Oh.”

It’s clearly not ugly at all…

Asshole. 

It’s easy for others to let their guard down and be vulnerable in their sleep. Stung by a vague scene in the depths of my memory, I unconsciously rolled over and hugged Zhou Chen. Burying my face in his waist, I said in a muffled voice, ” He doesn’t know anything…”

Zhou Chen seemed to stiffen for a moment, and then put his arms around me and said, “Yes, he doesn’t know anything. He’s a blind idiot.”