If Qin Zigui didn’t die, then Sheng Yan would die of embarrassment instead.
So theoretically speaking, yes but the law probably wouldn’t allow it.
Sheng Yan felt utterly hopeless, his gaze filled with despair.
The elevator doors opened. He reached out and pressed “close.”
The doors opened again. He pressed “close” once more.
The doors opened again. He pressed “close” again and again—
But this time, they didn’t shut.
Qin Zigui had reached out to block them, saying quietly, “It’s stuffy in the elevator. Come out first.”
Sheng Yan kept his eyes straight ahead. “Mind your own business.”
Qin Zigui spoke again, still calm: “I didn’t see anything just now.”
Sheng Yan slowly rolled his eyes toward him. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
Qin Zigui’s expression was neutral, he genuinely didn’t seem like he planned to mock him about it.
At least he had some sense.
Only then did Sheng Yan look away, straighten up reluctantly, and with a cold, composed expression befitting a mature and unshakable school tyrant walk out of the elevator, trying his best to act as if nothing had ever happened.
However, he had only taken two steps when he felt something was off. He turned back and asked, “Why are you here? Weren’t you supposed to be at the competition training class?”
Qin Zigui let go of the door and turned around. “I wasn’t feeling well today, so I didn’t go.”
The elevator doors slowly closed behind him.
Sheng Yan asked again, “Then what were you doing standing in front of the elevator?”
Qin Zigui replied calmly, “My aunt asked me to go down and buy some drinks.”
His tone and expression were both perfectly normal.
But Sheng Yan still felt that something wasn’t quite right.
For a moment, he even forgot why he’d stormed home in the first place, he just felt that something was strange. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Qin Zigui’s right hand and frowned. “What happened to your hand?”
“It’s nothing.” Qin Zigui withdrew his right hand and stuffed it back into his pocket. “Just bumped it a little.”
“Bumped, my ass. I saw it just now there are several scrapes at the base of your fingers. It’s fresh. No way that’s just an accident.” Sheng Yan’s tone was clearly anxious. He took a step forward and, without hesitation, reached toward Qin Zigui’s pocket to pull his injured hand out.
Startled by how close he was, Qin Zigui quickly stepped aside.
Sheng Yan’s hand grasped at empty air instead.
His long, pale fingers froze awkwardly in midair, looking both lonely and embarrassed.
Qin Zigui’s eyelashes trembled slightly. He seemed about to say something, but in the end only murmured, “It has nothing to do with you.”
After stewing in anger all night, Sheng Yan finally let out a sharp laugh. He drew his hand back and sneered, “You’re right, it really has nothing to do with me. I was being nosy.”
With that, he turned toward the left, heading straight for apartment 2601.
Qin Zigui instinctively reached out to stop him, but Sheng Yan slapped his hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me! I said it’s none of my business don’t you understand human language?”
Qin Zigui lowered his hand and stood still. “Sheng Yan, that’s not what I meant.”
“I don’t care what you meant!”
Just looking at Qin Zigui’s calm face made Sheng Yan angrier.
It was like nothing in this world could affect him, as if everyone else’s emotions were just a joke.
“Anyway, you said it yourself we’re not the same kind of people. So from now on, I won’t care about your business, and you’d better stay out of mine. Whether I skip class, get into fights, go online, date early, or bring my phone to school, it’s none of your damn business! From now on, we walk our own paths, don’t talk to each other, don’t interfere. And whoever goes back on their word is a fucking dog!”
All the anger that had been simmering in Sheng Yan’s chest rushed straight to his head. His mouth moved faster than his brain, but after that long tirade, he finally felt a bit of relief.
He turned around, punched in the password, and was ready to slam the door open make a loud, dramatic entrance just to show Qin Zigui that he was really mad this time.
But just before his hand hit the door, the door to apartment 2602 opened first.
Then came the crisp, straightforward voice of Mrs. Xu Qingrong from behind him:
“Sheng Yan, who are you calling a dog over there? Is that polite? Apologize to Zigui right now and come eat dinner.”
“Aunt Xu, it’s my fault, not Sheng Yan’s,” Qin Zigui quickly said.
Sheng Yan didn’t argue back, but he didn’t turn around either. “Mom, I’ll eat at home.”
“As if! I’m flying to London first thing tomorrow morning, so I won’t scold you for skipping evening classes today but you will come over and eat dinner right now, no excuses.”
And right after Mrs. Xu’s command came the gentle voice of Qin Zigui’s aunt, Qin Ru:
“Xiao Yan, come on. Your mom said we’re celebrating your birthday early tonight. Your Uncle Jiang made a whole table of your favorite dishes.”
With two “royal decrees” coming down at once, Sheng Yan had no way out.
He might act rebellious outside, but at home, he was always obedient never dared to go against these two queens of the household. Faced with their authority, he had no choice but to turn around and, pretending not to see Qin Zigui beside him, walk stiffly toward the opposite door.
The apartment was a 280-square-meter duplex, with sunlight on two sides, panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows, located in Nanwu’s best school district, directly connected to the CBD—flashy layout, sky-high property fees, the kind of place only families with real money could afford.
Naturally, that also meant Mrs. Xu Qingrong, a single mother, was busy flying around the world all year. It had become normal for her to miss Sheng Yan’s actual birthday every year.
For example, his birthday was actually tomorrow July 7 but since she’d be on a business trip, they had to celebrate it today.
Sheng Yan didn’t really mind. But when he saw Qin Zigui sitting across from him in his usual seat, he suddenly felt like this birthday might as well be a funeral.
Utterly unlucky.
Still, he didn’t want to throw a tantrum in front of the adults or hurt their feelings. Looking at the table full of delicious dishes and the clearly expensive, beautifully decorated cake, he behaved politely and said, “Thank you, Aunt Qin, Uncle Jiang.”
“What are you thanking us for? Don’t be so polite! Same rule as always make a wish before we eat. Jiang Ping, where are the candles and the lighter?” Qin Ru called out.
A voice came immediately from the kitchen: “Coming, coming!”
Jiang Ping was Qin Ru’s husband and Qin Zigui’s uncle—a CEO of a listed tech company.
He looked strict and had the aura of a domineering executive, but at home, he was completely henpecked. Hearing Qin Ru call him, he came running out in an apron, holding candles and a lighter.
When he stuck the candles into the cake, he sighed. “Time really flies. In the blink of an eye, Xiao Yan’s turning eighteen. I still remember the first birthday we celebrated for him, he was only three then. He insisted on saying his wish out loud, so I scared him and said it wouldn’t come true if he did. But he didn’t believe me he said it out loud every single year, and somehow, every year, it still came true. Isn’t that amazing?”
Thinking about it, Sheng Yan found it pretty amazing too.
When he was three, he still lived with his grandparents in their old house. That was the year Qin Ru and Jiang Ping brought Qin Zigui back to Nanwu for the first time and the first time both families celebrated a birthday together.
When he was little and didn’t understand much, he made a wish hoping that “Brother Zigui” would always play with him and never leave and in the end, Qin Zigui really didn’t leave.
When he turned four, he wished to win first place in his kindergarten drawing contest, and he actually did.
When he turned five, he really hated a fat kid named Panghu, who was two years older and a bully, so he wished Panghu would have bad luck and the very next day, Panghu was crying and calling him “big brother.”
And so it went, year after year, until his sixteenth birthday. Every wish he made came true. It wasn’t anything earth-shattering, but it was definitely a little uncanny.
“But not all of them came true,” Sheng Yan said casually as he lit the candles. “Last year’s didn’t.”
Xu Qingrong, sitting beside him, asked, “What did you wish for last year?”
Sheng Yan thought for a moment. “I think it was something like ‘may all my wishes come true.’”
“Well, that’s your problem,” Xu Qingrong said knowingly. “That kind of wish is too vague and greedy even the Goddess of Mercy can’t help you with that. You have to make something specific and reasonable. So this year, maybe wish that your final grades put you out of the bottom ten in the class.”
“Mom, it’s my birthday. Can we not talk about depressing stuff?” Sheng Yan muttered.
Xu Qingrong couldn’t help laughing. “Oh, so you do know that being in the bottom ten is depressing. Then how about you at least aim for eleventh from the bottom, hmm?”
Seeing her son’s thin-skinned face about to collapse, Qin Ru quickly stepped in, “Alright, Xu Qingrong, enough teasing. Come on, Xiao Yan, make your wish so we can eat.”
The lights in the living room went out.
Only the soft, warm glow of the candles flickered in the darkness.
In Sheng Yan’s eyes, there was only the small cake in front of him and across the table, Qin Zigui’s calm, lowered gaze, focused on fiddling with something, clearly uninterested.
In the past, Qin Zigui would’ve already handed him a carefully prepared gift by now and listened seriously as he made his wish. But this year, he just sat there, completely indifferent.
The sight made Sheng Yan’s temper flare up again. He closed his eyes, barely a few seconds passed before he opened them, took a deep breath, and blew out the candles. “Done.”
Xu Qingrong turned on the light. “That fast?”
“Mm.”
“What did you wish for?”
Sheng Yan instinctively glanced at Qin Zigui, then said coldly, “I wished for all the pretentious idiots in the world to stay as far away from me as possible.”
Qin Zigui’s fingers paused mid-motion but soon returned to normal.
No one else at the table noticed. Xu Qingrong just scolded lightly, “You little brat! You were supposed to wish for better grades.”
“Grades are up to fate,” Sheng Yan said carelessly, picking up his chopsticks.
Xu Qingrong rolled her eyes. “Can’t you be more like Zigui? Speaking of which how’s your prep for the informatics competition going?”
Before Qin Zigui could answer, Jiang Ping, full of pride, said, “He’s doing great, of course! The kid’s a natural. He can already handle complex programming projects. Last time he came to my company’s tech department, even the app development team called him a genius. I’m just waiting for him to graduate and come work for us.”
His pride was obvious.
Mrs. Xu sighed enviously. “That’s wonderful. How come our Sheng Yan, who grew up right alongside him, still acts like he’s never going to grow up all he knows is playing around.”
Then her gaze shifted, just as Qin Zigui quietly slid a small plate of peeled shrimp toward Sheng Yan. She immediately came to a conclusion. “It’s all Zigui’s fault.”
Qin Zigui, who had done nothing but peel shrimp: “?”
Xu Qingrong ignored his confusion and turned to Qin Ru. “Remember when they were around seven or eight? One summer, both of us were on business trips, no one was watching them. The night before school started, I came home and couldn’t find them in their room. I was terrified then I found them in the study. The older one was sitting there with a serious face, scribbling away, and the younger one was next to him, crying his eyes out. I thought something awful happened but no, it was just that Sheng Yan hadn’t done his summer homework, and Zigui was helping him catch up! So if Sheng Yan’s grades are what they are today, Zigui deserves at least half the credit.”
Jiang Ping laughed. “That’s true. Zigui’s been spoiling him since they were little. What’s this, he’s been peeling shrimp for him for, what, ten years now?”
At that, Sheng Yan froze mid-bite.
He hadn’t even noticed the shrimp were peeled by Qin Zigui. He just saw a plate of ready shrimp appear in front of him and, out of habit formed over years, had automatically picked one up.
Now that Jiang Ping pointed it out, eating it suddenly felt awkward.
If he didn’t eat it, he’d look petty.
If he did eat it, given how things were between them, he’d look pathetic.
After a short hesitation, Sheng Yan cleverly put the shrimp into his mother’s bowl instead. “It’s my birthday, but it’s Mom’s day of labor—here, you eat.”
When did this brat get so thoughtful?
Mrs. Xu shot a glance at Qin Zigui, who was quietly staring down at his plate, then smiled faintly. She picked up an unpeeled shrimp herself and said dryly, “Alright, spill it. What did you and Zigui fight about this time?”
Sheng Yan kept his head down, serving himself some spicy fish head. “We didn’t fight. I’m not a kid.”
He sounded exactly like a sulking kid.
Mrs. Xu didn’t bother arguing. “Fine, as long as you’re not fighting. You’ll be staying at Zigui’s place for the next few months anyway you’ll be seeing each other every day. It’d be awkward if you really did have a falling out.”
The chopsticks that Sheng Yan had just lifted froze midair.
Mrs. Xu calmly went on peeling shrimp. “I actually bought a lot of ingredients today and was planning to cook for you myself.”
“And then?” Sheng Yan asked cautiously.
“Then the pressure cooker exploded. The kitchen’s wrecked,” she said matter-of-factly, popping a shrimp into her mouth and licking her fingers like it was nothing.
Sheng Yan: “???”
Mrs. Xu comforted him, “It’s fine. I’m going to London for a few months anyway. It’s a good chance to have the house renovated. In the meantime, you’ll stay at your Aunt Qin’s place. Look, we already moved your things over.”
She pointed casually toward the end of the hallway.
From Sheng Yan’s angle, through the open doorway, he could vaguely see the corner of his gaming chair — that cool, flashy one.
If even his gaming chair had been moved, then this was basically decided.
And if he remembered correctly, the room opposite that one belonged to Qin Zigui.
And if he remembered again, unless he wanted to disturb Mr. and Mrs. Qin in the master bedroom upstairs, he’d have to share a bathroom with Qin Zigui.
“……”
Thinking about the “we’ll go our separate ways from now on” flag he’d just sworn ten minutes ago, Sheng Yan felt utterly defeated.
His throat bobbed involuntarily and the next second, an intense burning spread through his throat and mouth.
The bits of minced chili pepper he hadn’t swallowed yet slid down the wrong way in his despair and went straight into his windpipe.
Still in shock and misery, Sheng Yan immediately doubled over coughing violently. “Mom— cough cough cough—water—!”
Before Mrs. Xu or Mrs. Qin could react, Qin Zigui was already up in an instant, quickly heading for the water dispenser, filling a cup, and yanking open the fridge, searching for something with a frown.
But Sheng Yan couldn’t stand the burning anymore. Between coughs, he spotted the glass of water untouched beside Mrs. Xu’s hand and grabbed it.
Mrs. Xu’s eyes widened. “Sweetie! That’s—”
Sheng Yan tilted his head back and gulped it down.
“—liquor!”
The moment she finished the word “liquor,” Sheng Yan, who had never touched a drop of alcohol or even a puff of smoke in his life immediately felt tears spring to his eyes. The sharp pain and burning spread from his tongue and throat all the way to his gut.
He’d always been afraid of pain; now he was in so much agony he slumped over the table, fists clenched tight, nails digging into his palms, coughing like he’d cough up blood any second.
Seeing his red ears, flushed cheeks, and watery eyes, Mrs. Xu’s heart nearly broke. Thankfully, she turned and saw Qin Zigui hurrying back with both a glass of water and a chilled pear drink. She called anxiously, “Zigui, quick, come here! Xiaoyan looks like he’s really hurting, see what you can do!”
He really was hurting.
The boy leaned over the table, face buried in his arm, thin shoulders trembling violently. His palms were marked red from how hard he’d been gripping them, clearly trying to suppress his discomfort so the adults wouldn’t worry but failing miserably.
With furrowed brows, Qin Zigui strode over, slipped an arm around Sheng Yan’s shoulders to help him sit upright, and held the glass of water to his lips. “Drink slowly.”
But Sheng Yan frowned, turning his head away. “Go away, I don’t— cough cough cough—want— cough cough cough—”
He was coughing his lungs out, eyes wet with tears.
Seeing him so miserable yet refusing water, Mrs. Xu panicked, thinking he might be having a serious bronchial attack. “What’s wrong, baby? Does it hurt somewhere else? Should Mommy call 120? Don’t scare me like this!”
Sheng Yan just shook his head weakly, then lifted his gaze toward Qin Zigui, raising one trembling finger and pointing at him. “You. Don’t.”
The adults were alarmed. “What’s going on, Xiaoyan?”
Sheng Yan’s eyes widened, red and watery, expression fierce and tragic like a martyr about to sacrifice himself for honor.
All three adults froze, afraid to even breathe.
Then they heard Sheng Yan, through gritted teeth and the burning pain in his throat, force out ten hoarse, deliberate words:
“Whoever meddles first… is the dog.”
“……”
At that moment, in the 280-square-meter duplex, the only sound besides the iron-willed, heart-wrenching coughs of the defiant young man Sheng Yan was the heavy silence of three speechless adults.
None of them knew whether to call him childish or commend him for his spirit.
Only Qin Zigui remained calm and composed, handing the glass of water to him again. “Mm.”
“Mm?” Sheng Yan blinked, confused and teary.
Qin Zigui casually wiped the tears from the corner of his eye. “Woof.”
Author’s Note:
For love, one willingly becomes a dog another member joins the “Gong Morality Class.”
And another “exclusive husband-shaped wishing machine” added for Sheng Yan.
[mfn] If you enjoy my translations, you can show your support by leaving a comment or donating to my Ko-fi. It will be much appreciated. Thank you! [/mfn]
