Pain Fetish

The moonlight was dim, and the sky above the villa was painted with a gloomy purple colour. Dark clouds rolled over the roof, and even the stars seemed dull.

During the ten minutes of waiting for Qi Han, Fu Ge suddenly remembered an old incident.

Not long after they got together, there was a robbery and murder case in the city. The gangster used the wife to threaten the husband to bring money, and finally killed both of them.

After Qi Han heard about it, he immediately applied for an annual card in the fighting hall. He took Fu Ge to practise self-defence for two months in person, and told him: “If I am threatened, I will try my best to signal you. You have to run quickly and find the police. Don’t look back and don’t cry. If you dare to come back, I will definitely deal with you.”

Fu Ge asked him at the time: “What if I am threatened? What can I do to signal you?”

Qi Han only smiled, “You don’t have to do anything. As long as you stand there, I will know if you are happy or scared.”

Perhaps since then, Qi Han had been well aware of his emotions and the tiniest micro-expressions, and he didn’t even need to see Fu Ge’s face clearly. He could perceive the little Beta’s panic and fear through a vague outline hidden in the shadows.

What would reawaken the consciousness of the man who was scarred, who had lost all hope, who had already stepped into the ghost gate?

Qi Han’s cloudy eyes suddenly regained their clarity the moment his lover was threatened.

Ten minutes after the two men had gone in, the black-clad man emerged from the building by himself.

He was bent over, with his back to the door, walking backwards, carrying a scroll that looked very heavy.

The box containing the scroll was as long as an adult man, and one side of it was dragging on the ground while the man pulled it with difficulty, looking very strained.

Lao Qin, who was controlling Fu Ge, tilted his head in annoyance and glanced at the man, “Haven’t you eaten, you’re dawdling like this! Hurry up and move it!”

Fu Ge raised his eyes in a panic, and at the same time, the man stood on tiptoe when he stepped back, showing him a very small bear sticker on his sole, as if accidentally stuck to it.

With just that one glance, Fu Ge’s eyes were wet.

“The painting is very heavy…” The man said in a muffled voice: “There is a whole iron inset in the scroll.”

Lao Qin tsk’ed and instructed another thug to go over, “Help him move it, hurry up!”

The thug hurriedly trotted over, cursing and bending over. Just as he was about to stretch out his hand, he saw that the side of the box dragged on the ground was stained with blood.

His heart thumped, and at this moment the man next to him suddenly turned his face and raised his eyes slowly.

“Fuck, Lao Lao Lao Qin!” The thug was so scared that he immediately drew his gun, but someone was faster than him. Qi Han grabbed his neck with one hand, held the man firmly in front of him and turned around.

“Get down!”

And Fu Ge had already desperately knocked Lao Qin away and threw himself to the ground holding the child.

One was shooting while the other dropped down to defend himself. The two cooperated seamlessly in the gap of a few tenths of a second. The mates who had been separated for five years didn’t even need eye contact to regain their tacit understanding.

They had long loved and hated each other, but at this moment they were united.

The sharp clanging sound suddenly bombarded every square inch of the front door. Bullets flew, hitting the bodies with a muffled sound, blood spraying out of the wounds with a splash, short bursts of smoke accompanying a hail of gunfire.

Four or five thugs fell down covering their wounds, and their blood spurting on the ground was connected into several frantic lines, pointing directly at Qi Han, who was wearing the thug’s clothes.

The man he used as a meat shield was already dead, his chest full of bullets, blood staining his shirt red.

Fu Ge used the moment and pulled off his tie to desperately strangle the driver with it. He threw the man out of the car but as soon as he was about to put the child into it and wanted to call Qi Han, he was punched in the face.

“Ugh!”

He grunted in pain, and his body slammed against the car. He squeezed his eyes shut in pain, but as soon as he turned his head, he saw the thug swing the oil barrel at him, “Go to hell, little bitch!”

“Xiao Ge!” Qi Han screamed and ran, stepping on the knee of the attacker to leap forward, gritting his teeth and roaring.

With a loud bang the thug holding the oil barrel was pressed against the car by the Alpha falling from the sky and Qi Han slammed his head into the windshield. His arms were strong like steel bars. With a crunch, the thug’s neck was broken neatly.

In those few seconds, Fu Ge looked at Qi Han’s profile blankly, almost dumbfounded.

He realised that the man in front of him was no longer the boy he had in his memory, who would be coquettish and pampered, and often needed protection.

Qi Han’s shoulders were as broad as a mountain, and there was a shocking power in the muscles rolling under his shirt. His 1.92-meter figure was like a pillar standing on the ground and his blood-stained face was full of determination.

Like a silent warrior, he was fighting a battle of nine deaths and one life in the midst of a mournful song where no one wished him victory.

Whether he won or lost, he would never get the result he wanted again.

“Go!”

The pain of his arm being clenched brought Fu Ge back to reality. Qi Han almost dragged him into the car and picked up the child on the ground, but the moment before the car started, Lao Qin suddenly rushed up and pulled the child down.

“Papa!” The child cried heartbreakingly: “Don’t leave me!”

“Ah Jue! Don’t be afraid!” Fu Ge screamed and rushed over, but Qi Han pressed his shoulders and pulled him back. 

“Let’s go first! Otherwise we’ll all die.”

He just tried his best to save Fu Ge, and no longer had strength for the slightest effort to rescue an unrelated child.

Call him cold-blooded or ruthless. If his body allowed him, he would never ignore a child, but now he himself was already at the end of the rope.

He could sacrifice anyone, including himself, but Fu Ge had to live.

Pressing Fu Ge down and locking the car, Qi Han grabbed the steering wheel and stepped on the gas at the same time. The silver Volvo rushed through the night like a meteor, disappearing in the darkness.

Fu Ge broke away and slapped the glass violently, desperately hitting the car door, tears flowed over his flushed cheeks, “Stop the car! Stop the car quickly! They got Ah Jue!”

Qi Han covered the wound on his chest and threw him a mobile phone: “Call, find Qi Chuan or call the police, we can’t go back.”

“No way! It’ll be too late… it’ll be too late, it’s too slow! They’ll kill Ah Jue! They’ll definitely kill Ah Jue…”

Fu Ge’s mind was filled with the tragic sight of the child in a pool of blood, dragging his little body forward, crying out for his papa as he crawled. He was so anxious that his entire arm was pinched blue, and he begged incoherently: “No… I can’t leave him… Please let me go down… let me go down…”

“Don’t even think about it! I can’t let you die for a stranger!”

“But that’s my child!”

With a screeching sound, the tires rubbed the ground fiercely, and a string of sparks burst into the air.

The two of them fell forward. Qi Han’s foot on the brakes was frozen, and the blood in his whole body seemed to have suddenly solidified.

“Your child…” He lowered his head and looked down. His head was buzzing as if a beehive was stuffed into it, and his voice was so hoarse that it seemed to be ripping out of his throat: “You already… have a child…”

But that child was already five or six years old, when did you have a child with someone else… the child of someone else…

Qi Han didn’t even dare to ask this question, he just squeezed out in a daze: “Is he your biological?”

“Yes…”

“He… what’s his name?”

“Fu Juehan.”

“Fu Juehan… Jue…” (Han is the same Han as Qi Han’s name and Jue can mean a lot of things: to decide / to determine / to execute somebody / to breach, etc.)

The three characters rolled through his heart. Qi Han opened his mouth dumbly, the corners of his lips pulled up bitterly in embarrassment: “You really… hate me so much…”

Even the naming of the child implied a parting with me.

“I…” Fu Ge didn’t know how to explain it to him. He was sobbing, the tip of his nose was wet and red from crying, his eyes were full of tears, and his trembling body looked very pitiful, so fragile that it seemed to break at the touch.

“You go, run far away, I must, I must go and save Ah Jue, he’s just five years old, I can’t let him stay there by himself… They will torture him to death… He is my only family…”

Qi Han no longer said anything, only dumbly raised his eyes to look at his scared to death lover in front of him. After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly smiled, “I’ll go.”

Fu Ge was stunned, “…what?”

“I will bring your child back.” Qi Han repeated in a low voice, his calm eyes full of sadness.

He gently wiped the corners of Fu Ge’s eyes with his blood-stained fingers, “What are you afraid of? I’m here.”

Before the little Beta could react, he took out the key, opened the door and got out of the car.

With a click, the car was locked, and Fu Ge met his eyes through the layer of glass. His pupils shrank and enlarged in an instant, and his heart stopped suddenly.

“What are you going to do… come back! Qi Han, come back!”

He lunged at the door like a madman, slapped the glass desperately, smashed with it his fists, hit with his forearms, using everything he could get his hands on to frantically try to break it, but he couldn’t open the door.

Qi Han discovered early on that the windows of this car were all bulletproof, and as long as he held off the gang, Fu Ge would be able to hold on until Qi Chuan came back.

“Don’t go! Don’t go, don’t go! Qi Han! Get back to me!” Fu Ge went completely crazy, his throat hoarse from his screams. He lay on the seat and kicked the door with his feet, making the car shake with his kicks.

Qi Han walked to the window and pressed his hand to the glass. Fu Ge immediately leaned over and pressed his hand against the glass to, “You can’t go, you can’t go alone! They’re waiting for you! They will kill you!”

Lao Qin grabbed the child because he was sure that they would go back obediently. The gland hunters were a group of extremely vicious outlaws who took both money and life and were extremely loyal to each other. Qi Han hurt so many of them. It was impossible for them to let him go.

What was waiting for him in that villa was not a fight but pure slaughter. They would even dig out his precious glands before torturing him to death, and then use a motorcycle to crush his body into pieces.

Qi Han, who had been involved in both black and white markets for many years, knew about such an end better than Fu Ge, but he still did not react.

He just repeatedly traced Fu Ge’s face with his eyes, like a cat that predicted its own death and was taking one last look at its master before leaving to die alone.

“Little Song…”

He murmured quietly. His body hurt so much, he had lost a lot of blood, he was both cold and hot, and his eyes gradually became hazy.

The man who was as tall as a tree was so fragile at this time that he seemed to fall down as soon as the wind blew. All the warmth in his body was converged in the palm of his hand pressed against the glass.

Qi Han said softly: “I really want to hug you again… but I dare not…”

With only this sentence, Fu Ge’s tears rushed out of his eyes, his heart twisted into a ball, and he shook his head in despair: “Don’t go! Don’t go… it’s none of your business… You are free, I will let you go… I won’t lock you up anymore…”

Qi Han smiled gently, and his fingertips slowly slid across Fu Ge’s nose. The bulletproof glass was like a wall separating life and death at this moment. Fu Ge wailed inside the wall, and Qi Han whispered outside the wall.

“Baby… do you still trust me?”

“Yes… yes! I trust you, I trust!”

Fu Ge nodded desperately, his tears running like water, dripping from his chin.

Both of his hands were smashed, his blood coating the car window, and he wiped it away haphazardly.

He could hardly see Qi Han’s face clearly.

“Ah Han, Ah Han, listen to me! Our grievances are cleared… I will let you live, your life has been completely ruined by me, don’t lose your life for my son… I will go by myself! Let me go by myself!”

But Qi Han curled his fingers, as if nudging the tip of his nose indulgently, “Have you forgotten, you will get married on March 11.”

He still remembered the drawings of the wedding venue painted by Fu Ge in the sketch book, the rings he designed, and the sweetly written March 11, all so different from the nightmare he had given him.

The little Beta was only really happy when he drew these, wasn’t he?

“You will have a decent wedding. There is a very cute and brave child. His name is Ah Jue, right?”

Qi Han laughed very slowly, a trickle of tears running down his dimpled cheek, “Little Ah Jue and your future… husband will love you very much. They will accompany you and guard you. They will never deceive you. They will not be like me… such a bastard who bullied you… Your family of three will be very happy…”

“The snowy mountain really fulfilled my wish, and our Xiao Ge’s life is finally about to start anew.”

There was fog coming from the hills, and the night wind would not blow the way he was going.

Qi Han looked up at the dim stars above his head and kissed his lover’s lips through the window of the car. He said, “Don’t cry. Mr. Bear Cub will protect you one last time. You will live even if I die.”

Even if no one wished him victory, the desperate warrior would still fight to the last moment.

Like the leader of the wolf pack on the snowy plains who would always stand in front of his wife and son, Qi Han would use his own blood to pave the way for Fu Ge one last time.

The Volvo behind him shook more and more violently, and there were continuous gunshots. Fu Ge was trying to break the bulletproof glass with a gun, but obviously he failed.

The little Beta’s desperate crying cut through the night, every cry slicing through Qi Han’s heart as his lover was about to break down.

Fu Ge screamed, shouted desperately and hurled the most outrageous curses at him, doing everything he could begging Qi Han not to leave, but the Alpha didn’t stop from beginning to end.

Just as Qi Han was about to turn at the intersection, he suddenly heard a violent bang behind him, followed by a loud sound of broken glass.

Qi Han was stunned for a moment, then turned around stiffly, and saw Fu Ge’s upper body crawling through the gap in the glass window little by little.

His head and face were covered with blood, his pale face was cut by glass several times, and a bright red slash on his right arm ran from his wrist to his elbow. When he turned his head and looked over, his cold eyes were filled with the most determined anger.

As if a desperate evil spirit crawling out of hell, he stared straight at the Alpha in front of him.

Qi Han froze in place at that moment and stopped breathing.

He was thinking, it turns out that my life or death is so important to him…

The little Beta landed on the ground top half first, gripping the grass on the ground with his spasming fingers to pull himself out.

His eyes remained fixed on Qi Han, and the first thing he did after staggering up was to raise the gun to his own head and say, “You take another step and I’ll die in front of you.”

“Xiao Ge—”

“Shut up!”

The little Beta scolded him sharply. His body swayed as he took a step forward. His voice was fierce, but his face was wet with tears.

His voice trembled as he said hurriedly and messily: “Ah Jue is not a child born to me and another woman. When I went abroad, I participated in a voluntary sperm donation, and it was picked by a white girl who gave birth to Ah Jue. Unfortunately, the girl suffered from cancer a few years later and found me before she died. So I knew that I still had a child in this world.” (The story sounds a bit strange. If Ah Jue is five, this sperm donation must have happened about six years ago. But remember it was mentioned that Fu Ge once did something and lied to Qi Han about it? It was probably going abroad that time, so it makes sense.)

He paused as he said that, his chapped lips trembling, “He is a gift from God… to our family.”

Qi Han’s heart stopped abruptly. He turned his head stiffly: “What are you talking about?”

“Our… family?”

Fu Ge closed his eyes and laughed suddenly, his thin shoulders trembling embarrassedly in the night.

“You think Ah Jue means parting, do you think I want to say farewell to you? Yes, I wanted to be like this, I wanted to never see you until we die of old age! I dreamed of sending you to hell! I wanted you to die so much that I was crazy! But I just couldn’t do it! I can’t fucking do it!”

Pop! The gun was thrown to the ground, and Fu Ge rushed over and punched Qi Han in the face. He grabbed Qi Han’s collar fiercely, but his sobbing was very pitiful.

“You ruined me when I loved you the most, but I couldn’t even forget you… When I lost my mind, I relied on you to wake me up. When I collapsed in estrus, I relied on you to support me, and when the anaesthetic failed, I relied on you to climb out of the ghost gate! Do you think March 11 is my wedding to someone else? Do you think I, I’m, going to get married, get married to someone else?”

He slapped Qi Han on the face, “Fuck you! That was the funeral I prepared for us! Since we can’t live together, let’s go to hell together!”

Like a patient who briefly returns to life, Fu Ge suddenly lost his strength after yelling the last sentence. He let go of Qi Han’s collar and slid to the ground, panting for breath.

And for the first time the Alpha, who was covered in blood, didn’t catch his lover. He opened his empty eyes and stared into the void for a full minute, his tears dripping on the ground. He couldn’t integrate the most important information, only desperately grasping the thought that crossed his mind.

“You said… you wanted to die with me?”

“Right.”

Fu Ge picked up the gun, grabbed Qi Han’s leg and stood up, and said in a hoarse voice: “There are still three bullets in the gun. Let’s go together. Whether it’s life or death, I accept it, as long as our family is together.”

With a click, the trigger was cocked, and Fu Ge hugged Qi Han’s neck and kissed him fiercely. The last sentence contained the blood and tears of the two of them—

“I forgive you, I forgive everything.”