Nie Huaisang asks Jiang Cheng to plug him up after sex so he can be filled with Jiang Cheng's cum while presiding over a discussion conference. Halfway through the day, Jiang Cheng thinks he should check if Huaisang needs a refill.
He feels Sui Zhou's smile unlace over his pulse, languid and nude in its amusement. "You've had the morning," he answers, unmoved. "The day won't keep for you."
Tang Fan returns early, only to arrive late.
"You would not hurt me," is what he says, careful, caged in. "You could never hurt me."
This, they have argued to a stalemate of irreconcilable disagreement; could so continue to press in unwinnability until the Heavens broke open overhead and the mountains crashed down astride them. But Sui Zhou serves to live as much as a man as he does a blade, and in that he is long intimated with the lay of blame for a tool in the wield of a hand.
Sui Zhou's WeChat starts firing off around midday, which does at least immediately pare down the pool of potential suspects.
"Tang Fan," she starts carefully.
Tang Fan has no such concern. "Sui Zhou," is her counter. She dumps their bag at her feet, where its gaped mouth is swiftly fed her belt and chopsticks. "Your poor delicate Qing'er," she complains. "I will find a man and his wife to show me the pity here that you won't."
With their house's liveliness lapsed to quiet, and the looming summer rain hanging heavy in the air, Tang Fan seizes upon a temptingly rare proposition of opportunity.
Tang Fan is not a simple man, by any means.
It feels too honest, somehow. Too desperate. Kuan-hung's too thinned out by the hour, exposed in the liminal space between his dream and now that's still folding closed, scarring over. He rubs his cheek against his pillow, ducking his head down lower, as if he can creep closer to Fu Meng-po's voice. As if there's a body nearby to press himself into, if he just reaches far enough for it.
It makes little sense for Tang Fan to continue to take his suppressants, after everything, so of course he stops doing that.