Chapter 9 — Green Tea Today, Black Tea Tomorrow

I stepped downstairs and walked around the blooming garden, where the climbing roses were bursting with vibrant life. I stealthily plucked a single flower. On my way to the garage, I constantly felt a heavy, intense gaze following me. Could I have been caught stealing a flower? I quickened my pace, only to reach my car and realize—my keys were nowhere to be found. What on earth... I clearly remember holding them when I went upstairs. They must have been left behind in Yeh Si Wang's room.

I turned back. Far down the second-floor corridor, a figure was sprawled out motionless on the floor. Panic-stricken, I rushed forward. "Yeh Si Wang!" His lips were deathly pale. Even in a dead faint, he was still clutching a glass tumbler, his palm pressed directly over the jagged shards of broken glass. He was losing far too much blood. "What happened to you? Don't scare me! Yeh Si Wang!" Oh god, thank goodness I turned back. To maintain the strict security of his identity, nobody except the butler Zhang Qi was ever permitted onto the second floor. But recently, Zhang Qi had been away on a distant training camp for several days. If I had waited until midnight for him to return... Yeh Si Wang might have already bled to death.

Fortunately, his private medical team was stationed nearby and arrived instantly at my call. The doctor swiftly treated the wounds and administered nutritional IV drips. After a comprehensive examination, the doctor furrowed his brow and muttered, "His current condition is abysmal. How could he have deteriorated this severely within just a single month?" It was likely the compounding effect of an old wound coinciding with his rut cycle. Prolonged infection would spell disaster regardless of how exceptional one's physical constitution might be. Before leaving, the doctor cautioned me gravely, "If he sustains another heavy injury anytime soon, it could permanently impair his bodily functions. Keep a very close eye on him." I nodded solemnly. "I understand."

After seeing the doctor out, I sat by the edge of the bed to keep watch over him. It wasn't until late into the night that Yeh Si Wang finally regained consciousness. Zhang Qi still had not returned. "You should go home, or else he'll throw another tantrum," Yeh Si Wang murmured weakly. I pressed my hand against his arm to keep him still and said, "I'm just waiting for Zhang Qi to come back so I can hand over the watch." He struggled to drag himself out of bed, putting up a front that he was completely fine. Right at that moment, my phone rang—it was Chi Yun Song.

"I swear on my life, I've never seen Yeh Si Wang shed a single tear from childhood until now! He's just faking it to steal you away!" Chi Yun Song ranted. "He's an absolute green-tea fox, acting all obedient and pitiful right in front of you!" I stepped over to the window, absentmindedly brushing against the sunflower leaves to calm my frayed nerves. "He's genuinely gravely ill; his previous injury still hasn't healed because of me." "Absolute nonsense! He's got a monster constitution, haven't you ever seen his recovery speed?" It sounded as though Chi Yun Song was currently driving. I snapped into the phone, "Why on earth are you calling while driving? That's dangerously suicidal! I'm hanging up right now!"

"Mm—" A soft moan drifted from behind me. Before I could disconnect the call, I spun around to see Yeh Si Wang wearing an expression that was a mixture of absolute innocence and quiet remorse. He raised his heavily bandaged hand, whimpering softly, "It's too tight... it hurts so much—" Who on earth taught him how to whine and flirt like that?! Fine, he was a patient... I supposed I could forgive him just this once. I gritted my teeth and said, "Drive carefully, I'm hanging up first." I pressed the end-call button, cutting off Chi Yun Song's furious roaring on the other end of the line.

"I thought that doctor's handiwork was quite professional. Do you need to call him back up to re-bandage it?" Yeh Si Wang shook his head. "It seems... it doesn't hurt anymore." "That's good, then." While waiting for Butler Zhang to return, I went downstairs to feed the fish. Yeh Si Wang gazed up at the moon and drafted a social media post, setting the visibility to: Visible only to Chi Yun Song. Chi Yun Song was already on the verge of a total emotional breakdown. While driving, he suddenly received a notification that his older brother had uploaded a new story, restricted exclusively for me to see. He tapped on it to find a gentle caption: "Heartbreak is the harbinger of love, isn't it? Dedicated to my unextinguishable light." The attached image was a potted sunflower by the windowsill that had yet to bloom.

Chi Yun Song slammed on the brakes so hard he skidded to a sudden halt, screenshotted the post, and bombarded him with furious texts: "Love my foot! Yeh Si Wang, you know damn well what you're doing, yet you still muscle your way in. Have you no shame?!" Yeh Si Wang replied with utter serenity: "We... didn't do anything at all." But coming straight from his rival brother, the credibility of that statement was precisely zero. "Shameless! Yeh Si Wang, you thick-skinned monster! You're seducing my wife! You're a veteran green tea! A vintage 1982 Longjing tea, dyed completely toxic green!" Who knew, maybe he even sliced himself a few times a day just to fish for sympathy. "The twin law of attraction is real. Too bad it only applies to outsiders."

Chi Yun Song yelled through text: "Don't even think about swaying my heart! I'm nothing like you, cold-blooded and insane! Even our father—that absolute creep—is terrified of you!" Yeh Si Wang offered a faint, detached smile and typed back: "Tonight, your wife doesn't need you." "Ahhh you lunatic! You're shameless! Your wife doesn't want you! No, wait! You don't even have a wife! You'll be single forever! You'll spend your entire life utterly lonely!" Ah... He really was quite adorable. A younger brother who didn't even know how to properly swear, yet exploded like a string of firecrackers every single time he got angry.

Butler Zhang still hadn't returned, nor could he be reached. Chi Yun Song sent another message: "Are you coming back tonight?" I replied, "Yeah, yeah." Suddenly, Yeh Si Wang appeared at the top of the stairs, standing in the unlit corridor, scaring the living daylights out of me. He slowly descended, the warm amber lights of the living room reflecting against his flushed cheeks. I asked anxiously, "Are you running a fever?" He shook his head. "I don't know, I just feel a bit dizzy." "Don't mind me."

I suddenly remembered someone else. "Oh, by the way, where is your fiancee?" "I mean... it's not like I'm trying to shirk responsibility. I just thought... having her by your side would be much more fitting, and it would make fostering mutual affection a lot more convenient..." He chuckled softly. "Fostering what affection? I have no interest in same-sex romance." "What?" I understood every single word individually... but put together, my brain utterly failed to process it.

Yeh Si Wang continued down the steps. "That person's true form is a fox. Back when he was younger, he took on a male avatar and confessed to his crush, only to get rejected with the excuse: 'I'm entirely straight.' Kan Lan couldn't accept it, so he altered his appearance to continue the pursuit. As for the engagement, it was merely an arrangement forced by our two families to bind our alliances tighter. Who cared about true sexual orientations or the personal desires of the people involved?"

I shamelessly soaked in the drama. "So, did he manage to win him over?" He took his medicine, tilted his head back to swallow it, and his face grew even redder. "He's still drifting aimlessly in the vast sea of bitter romance." Then he added a deeply meaningful remark: "After all... Zhang Fei could never call Guan Yu his precious darling." Meaning... Kan Lan's first love outwardly addressed each other as mere "sworn brothers," but secretly called each other precious in the depths of their hearts. Yet neither of them ever realized the other's true feelings. The result was... a tangled mess that dragged on until this very day.

I cast a stealthy glance at Yeh Si Wang. He leaned against the wall, head bowed, a palpable wave of loneliness lingering between his brows. So... that engagement had all been a sham. "Actually... I came to look for you once before, wanting to check on your injuries. Kan Lan was there that day too, and his expression was terrible. He told me to leave quickly and stay away from you. I thought he was just marking his territory..." Yeh Si Wang curved his lips into a faint smile. "That day, I was going through my rut cycle. He came to me to discuss a business partnership, insisted on dragging me out of my den, and even ripped the ear off my little plush bear... So I beat him up and rejected the partnership."

"Later on, he regretted it, secretly took the little plush bear carrying your scent outside, painstakingly sewed it back together by hand for half a day, and brought it back to me as a peace offering to continue our collaboration. But by then, I caught your scent on him, and my head was so muddled I mistook him for a romantic rival... so I beat him up all over again." — No wonder Kan Lan was so terrified of getting my scent on him. It turned out... he was just scared of getting beaten up again.

My phone vibrated with a text from Chi Yun Song: "Still not back yet? Dumpling Dumpling Dumpling..." I glanced at the clock and forced myself to speak: "Can I come over a bit earlier tomorrow? He's quite hard to soothe..." Yeh Si Wang smiled faintly, a smile laced with a numbing, desolate solitude. "Stop worrying about me."

My heart felt utterly tangled in a chaotic mess. There had been so many misunderstandings. Up until this very moment, now that everything had finally come to light, I suddenly realized: In choosing one person, I had cruelly inflicted deep wounds upon the other. My mind was as tangled as stray threads. "I'm sorry, Yeh Si Wang, I..." He shook his head, his breathing slightly ragged: "I've always been inherently dangerous... I'm a venomous snake. You were bitten by a snake once before, so it's completely natural for you to fear me."

"Seeking to avoid harm and preserve oneself is merely human instinct. I don't blame you." I didn't know how to respond. I would have preferred it if he had scolded me, blamed me, mocked me, or made things difficult for me... But he didn't do any of that. It was precisely this excessive, unconditional tolerance that made my heart ache with profound pity for him.

A heavy wave of sorrow washed over me. "Yeh Si Wang... You're a good person. In the future... you will definitely meet someone much better." Back when I was at my absolute loneliest, it was he who had actively stepped into my world. Even though he always acted aloof, easily agitated, prone to sulking, or pretended to "detest" me... his actions had never once left me short-changed. This is too much... Really... this is driving me crazy.

He smiled softly. "Stop tormenting yourself over this. It's just that I'm not lovable enough. I wanted to make you happy, truly I did... I just never knew how, and I was never any good at it." That wasn't true. I desperately wanted to tell him that he was incredibly precious. But before the words could escape my lips—in the very next second—Yeh Si Wang suddenly clutched his chest and staggered, sliding downward along the wall.

"What's wrong?!" I panicked and rushed forward to catch him, only to find his body temperature burning with terrifying intensity. "It seems... my rut cycle came early. Could you help me up to the third floor, and then leave?" "Okay."