MFIMM Chapter 26

Octopus

Octopus

Lin Xi obediently placed his hand on the stuffed toy while hooking Pei Jiashu’s hand.

He loosely held Pei Jiashu’s hand, feeling the slightly abrasive ring on his ring finger, but it wasn’t the one he wore at the charity gala.

It was the plain band he usually wore.

Lin Xi looked at his own hand, which was bare and empty.

He guiltily averted his gaze, only to meet Pei Jiashu’s eyes. This man had a pair of amorous peach blossom eyes, and as long as he wasn’t deliberately being sarcastic, he could look at a dog and make it feel loved.

“I’m turning off the lights,” Lin Xi said, avoiding eye contact.

“Okay,” Pei Jiashu responded lazily, sounding genuinely sleepy.

The room plunged into complete darkness. Lin Xi lay back on the bed, forced to lie on his side because Pei Jiashu was holding his hand.

Using the faint light of his phone, he saw the other man close his eyes.

Lin Xi also closed his eyes, his leg unconsciously kicking the stuffed toy. Pei Jiashu felt the toy press against him and shifted slightly to the side.

But then he felt something poking him.

He scratched his lower back and pulled out a fluffy toy.

His lips twitched slightly as he struggled with one hand to place the toy on the bedside table before closing his eyes again.

Soon, he heard soft breathing beside him.

It was the rougher, heavier breathing of someone asleep, a rhythmic pulse in the silent night.

Pei Jiashu’s forehead was lined with black lines as he tried to ignore Lin Xi’s sounds, closing his eyes and counting sheep. He didn’t know how far he got past a thousand when Lin Xi’s leg suddenly went over the toy and landed on his thigh.

“Lin Xi…” Pei Jiashu called out in a suppressed voice, but Lin Xi was sleeping too soundly.

He pressed his throbbing forehead, throbbing from lack of sleep, and pulled Lin Xi’s leg back, but Lin Xi kicked it over again, repeating this several times.

Pei Jiashu glanced at his phone, seeing that it was already twelve-thirty in the morning, and he had to get up in six hours. So, he gave up resisting Lin Xi, letting Lin Xi’s foot rest on him.

The phone’s light was a little dazzling at night. Lin Xi seemed uncomfortable and suddenly retracted his foot.

Pei Jiashu breathed a sigh of relief, but then Lin Xi suddenly let go of his hand, hugged the stuffed toy, turned over, and went to sleep on the other side.

?

Pei Jiashu looked at Lin Xi’s back and his own empty hand, speechless and unsure where to even begin complaining.

If they weren’t going to hold hands while sleeping, then what was the point of him sleeping here?

He had been having insomnia for two hours, so whether he wanted to or not, he had to hold that hand. He shifted his body, moved behind Lin Xi, and tried to turn his body around to hold Lin Xi’s hand.

But Lin Xi’s hand was stubbornly clinging to the stuffed toy.

Pei Jiashu looked at Lin Xi sleeping so soundly and really wanted to slap him awake.

After failing to move Lin Xi several times, he lay flat on the bed, staring at the dark ceiling, contemplating his life.

Just then, the person beside him, whom he couldn’t budge no matter what, suddenly hummed a couple of times.

Then a pair of arms suddenly landed on Pei Jiashu’s chest, followed by Lin Xi’s leg.

Pei Jiashu froze on the bed, afraid to move.

He quietly raised his arm, which Lin Xi was hindering, and looked at the values on his watch, which were slowly increasing at a rate of 0.33 per minute.

Above this string of values, there was another value—”135 bpm.”

Pei Jiashu exhaled softly, his heart beating much faster than usual, almost on par with his heart rate during exercise.

Suddenly, a fluffy head rested heavily on his shoulder, hair lightly brushing against Pei Jiashu’s neck.

The sweet scent of honey seemed to envelop him, leaving him nowhere to hide.

His cheeks also quickly warmed up.

In the gradually cooling early autumn, with the room even having a thermostat, Pei Jiashu actually felt a little hot. His throat, due to being too dry, automatically secreted saliva, which rolled up and down a few times.

Pei Jiashu warned himself in his mind that this was all for the intimacy test.

He and Lin Xi should mutually…dislike each other.

His mother’s tragedy should never happen again.

His heartbeat gradually approached a stable value, and the heat on his face also gradually subsided. Pei Jiashu closed his eyes, his mind filled with images of his mother when she was alive.

The memories had faded, like an old-fashioned card machine, with both the images and sounds distorted.

Only the bright red color of blood remained as the sole vivid color.

—

The crisp sound of the alarm clock woke Chenxi. Lin Xi discontentedly hugged the thing in his hands tighter, only to find that it wasn’t that soft, that it was hard on the inside and quite smooth on the outside.

He felt it with his hand.

The texture was really strange, like one piece at a time.

He reluctantly opened his eyes, meeting Pei Jiashu’s gaze, and then his hand was pulled out of somewhere by Pei Jiashu.

“Have you groped enough?” Pei Jiashu asked him.

Lin Xi shook his head subconsciously, looking at the direction from which his hand had been pulled out, which was from under the hem of Pei Jiashu’s clothes.

He had actually put his hand directly into someone else’s clothes.

“I’ll be damned!” Lin Xi suddenly sat up from the bed, grabbing the hand that had just touched Pei Jiashu. “Wuwu, my hand is dirty.”

“My abs are the ones that are really dirty,” Pei Jiashu’s lips twitched. Lin Xi’s sleeping posture was bad enough, but he even reversed black and white.

Lin Xi looked at his own clothes, intact.

He glanced at Pei Jiashu’s, intact.

Great.

But he quickly discovered the blind spot. “Where’s my stuffed toy? Wasn’t it between us?”

Lin Xi looked around and found that his stuffed toy had actually been thrown under the bed.

And at this time, Pei Jiashu was sleeping in the center of the bed, while he barely occupied a corner.

To sum it up—Lin Xi pointed at Pei Jiashu: “Did you throw my bear down there?”

Pei Jiashu looked confused. “Huh? Why would I throw your bear?”

“Oh, right.” Lin Xi thought about it and suddenly revealed a look of horror. “You wouldn’t be…lusting after my body, would you! No way, I sell my skills, not my body.”

Pei Jiashu pulled back the covers and stood up from the bed, ignoring Lin Xi.

With Lin Xi’s excellent sleep quality, if he wanted to do something, he would have done it yesterday.

“Hey, what do you mean?” Seeing that Pei Jiashu was about to walk out the door, Lin Xi yelled at him.

Pei Jiashu suddenly stopped, scanning Lin Xi up and down with his usual arrogant gaze, and said scornfully, “I’m not interested in you.”

“Do you think I’m interested in you?” Lin Xi grabbed the blanket and tore it viciously a few times.

Pei Jiashu scoffed lightly, with faint dark circles under his eyes from not having rested well.

“Anyway, I wasn’t the one who confessed on graduation day.”

Lin Xi instantly exploded with anger, grabbing the pillow on the bed and throwing it over, but Pei Jiashu had already walked out, leaving Lin Xi to be angry by himself.

As he got angrier and angrier, Lin Xi became sleepy again. He glanced at the time.

Six fifteen…

Damn Pei Jiashu, not only disturbed his sleep, but also revealed his embarrassing past.

Lin Xi picked up the bear from the floor, patted it a few times, and continued to hug it to sleep.

When he woke up again, it was already eight thirty. He finished washing up and dressing in ten minutes, too lazy to even put on makeup, and went straight to work in his slippers. Anyway, the company had everything.

When he arrived at the company, he remembered to look at the values on his watch.

The values had jumped from zero point something to over one hundred and forty.

“Yay yay yay!” Lin Xi quickly forgot the unpleasantness he had with Pei Jiashu in the morning and shared the good news with Pei Jiashu.

Pei Jiashu didn’t reply to him.

“Who are you texting so happily? Found an alpha?” Jiang Yuan suddenly came up from behind and asked Lin Xi.

His head almost reached Lin Xi’s nape. Lin Xi quickly turned off his phone and placed it in his pocket guiltily. He turned his head and looked at Jiang Yuan. “How could I possibly have a boyfriend?”

“Okay.” Jiang Yuan walked to the coffee machine, took a disposable cup, and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Why did you come to the company so early? Is there a shoot?”

Lin Xi shook his head miserably. Not only did he not have a shoot, but he even had to find odd jobs himself.

Truly the boss’s old ox and horse.

“That’s good. Come and fix my makeup for me.” Jiang Yuan said to Lin Xi, “My fans praised the makeup you did for me last time, and a lot of people @ you to make a makeup tutorial video.”

Lin Xi nodded. He knew about these things.

“Why don’t you film it?” Jiang Yuan suddenly asked.

“Ah?” Lin Xi scratched his head, a little embarrassed. “Our fan base is too different. I’m afraid people will say I’mtrying to ride your fame.”

“What’s there to be afraid of? Those of us in this business are supposed toTake advantage of the popularity anyway.” Jiang Yuan said, “The imitation makeup thing is really popular lately. You should film it too. I think you’re better looking than them all.”

Lin Xi’s lips twitched. It wasn’t that he was afraid of what others would say; he was afraid of what Jiang Yuan would say to him. After all, the last shoot didn’t show that Jiang Yuan was in a good mood.

“Enough talk, hurry and come with me, or we’ll be running late in a while.”

Lin Xi was pulled into the studio by Jiang Yuan. For a moment, everyone in the studio looked at them. Jiang Yuan said to Lin Xi, “I had him come to help me fix my makeup.”

Then, Jiang Yuan sat in front of the makeup stool himself and pointed to Lin Xi, saying to a photographer next to him, “Get him in the shot too.”

The photographer gave an “okay” gesture. Lin Xi touched his face. “I’m not wearing makeup.”

Jiang Yuan pulled Lin Xi closer, looked at his face, and said, “You’re perfectly fine on camera.”

Just like that, Lin Xi was pushed onto the stage again and did Jiang Yuan’s makeup again. He even made a “friendly” appearance for a little bit.

Lin Xi found in the afternoon that their team had already released Jiang Yuan’s thing. He appeared in the opening seconds, even though he was bare-faced.

But many people on the comments werelicking the screen.

[OMG, this makeup artist is so awesome-looking. Even bare-faced, he’s unbelievably beautiful.]

[He’s the one who did Jiang Yuan’s makeup last time, too. Give me those hands!]

[May I ask where this anchor’s professional qualities of appearing without makeup are? Where is the quality? Where is the contact information? Where is the address? Can I mail my face to you?]

[Mailing face +1]

Lin Xi found that a batch of fans had flocked to his account again because Jiang Yuan mentioned him in the caption, even though he only appeared for less than ten seconds.

Lin Xi had just added Jiang Yuan on WeChat in the morning and couldn’t help but open the chat box and send “kisses” and “wuwuwu I love you”.

“Who do you love?” Pei Jiashu’s voice sounded faintly from behind.

Lin Xi almost jumped out of his chair. Why did these people always like to peek at his phone?