RSDH CH16

The moment the question was revealed, the buzz in the [Lu Ye Shu Huai] livestream surged once again.

“Wooo~ Spicy~”

“Was Teacher Duan’s first kiss President Cheng?”

“Looking at President Cheng’s expression, it seems like there’s another story behind it.”

“Sigh, I want it to be President Cheng so badly, but they were separated for a few years; can’t guarantee someone didn’t drop out of the clear blue sky in between.”

“Teacher Duan is taking so long to answer—he’s definitely thinking about how to explain this to President Cheng in a bit.”

“The questions on Companionship Along the Way always have that mortifying feel of giving zero fucks about whether the guests live or die, but I’m basic trash and I love watching it, hehe.”

Ten-second countdown, yet Duan Xingye couldn’t bring himself to put pen to board, his mind entirely tangled up in how to align his answer with Cheng Duzhou’s.

Not long after getting their marriage certificate in his hometown of Yu City, Duan Xingye had returned to Shanghai, moving directly into Vanke Metropolis—the new apartment Cheng Duzhou had purchased.

Because the secondary bedroom hadn’t been tidied up on the night he moved in, the two shared the master bedroom. Having seen each other bare-assed from childhood to adulthood anyway, neither stood on ceremony.

Yet the sense of boundaries as adults was always far stronger than in their childhood.

In the past, whenever they played until late, when their parents weren’t home, or during summer camps, Duan Xingye could fall asleep quickly lying in the same bed with Cheng Duzhou. Now, however, he couldn’t ignore Cheng Duzhou’s presence. Added to the new home and unfamiliar environment, he tossed and turned with insomnia.

With one final roll, his nose ended up pressed against Cheng Duzhou’s, face-to-face.

Silence fell on both sides, their breaths intertwining.

Cheng Duzhou asked, “Can’t sleep?”

His low, magnetic voice held an unfamiliar rasp.

Duan Xingye’s ears were sensitive, his mind hot, bloated, and dizzy, managing only a faint, ambiguous hum.

Cheng Duzhou drew closer.

They parted after a brief taste.

Cheng Duzhou knitted his brows faintly, pressing his lips against the lingering sensation: “Have you never kissed before?”

Duan Xingye’s face flared hot, blurting out, “Who said that?”

Then he asked tentatively, “What about you?”

Cheng Duzhou countered, “What do you think?”

“Boring.”

Then they tried once more. The result of that “try” was that they ended up doing everything permissible within the marital contract that very night, and the secondary bedroom had sat vacant ever since.

So when it came to this first kiss matter, he had never made it clear to Cheng Duzhou. How would Cheng Duzhou know?

This question successfully plunged Duan Xingye into severe anxiety.

He could be unfussy about food while away, but he couldn’t lower his standards for accommodation. If he couldn’t secure the best room tonight, he was bound to suffer from insomnia.

To arrive at the destination first, he planned to pass every question on the first try without incurring any penalty time.

Old Xu warned, “Heads up: five, four, three…”

With no time left to deliberate, Duan Xingye hastily scribbled on the whiteboard.

He couldn’t guess Cheng Duzhou’s answer.

However, if Cheng Duzhou understood him in the slightest, he wouldn’t get this question wrong.

The countdown ended, and the couple revealed their answers.

Across the two boards, one read [Before marriage], and the other read [After marriage].

Audience: ?

Seeing the answer [Before marriage] provided by Cheng Duzhou, Duan Xingye’s anger flared with a roar.

Cheng Duzhou saw [After marriage] written on Duan Xingye’s board, blinked in dazed bewilderment for a moment, and looked at Duan Xingye: “Is this your second marriage?”

“…”

Raising the whiteboard with both hands, Duan Xingye slammed it down toward Cheng Duzhou.

“Hahaha, domestic violence scene live!”

“President Cheng, you absolute blockhead! Could it be you didn’t know you were Teacher Duan’s first kiss?!”

“Got it, both are each other’s first love!”

“What the actual fuck ‘second marriage,’ what on earth was President Cheng thinking!”

Five-minute silence penalty, stranded in place unable to go anywhere.

Duan Xingye walked up a nearby path and sat on a bench under a bus stop sign to rest.

When Cheng Duzhou sat down beside him, Duan Xingye deliberately turned his face the other way to sip water.

Neither had phones right now. Cheng Duzhou raised his wrist to check his watch.

It was 2:00 PM.

The entire island was filled with the sun-baked fragrance of foliage. The sunlight wasn’t scorching, feeling pleasantly warm against the skin.

Because of Duan Xingye’s turned head, the slender line of his neck was pulled taut. The sunlight illuminated his naturally flawless skin with brilliant clarity, imparting a delicate, soft touch. Every detail stood out under the light; Cheng Duzhou could even see the tiny, fine peach fuzz on his ear.

He really wanted to rub it.

Curling his fingers, Cheng Duzhou called out, “Hey.”

Duan Xingye made no sound.

“Hey.”

“…”

“Hey?”

“Hey your head, hey!” Duan Xingye finally looked at him.

Unsurprisingly, those bright dark eyes were brimming with indignant rage.

He couldn’t even be bothered to hide it despite the camera right beside them.

Cheng Duzhou lightly pressed his lips together, looking like he was struggling to suppress a laugh: “I asked you back then, and you denied it.”

Bullet comments:

“Back then?”

“Asked what?”

“Tell us more! Elaborate!”

“Did I deny it?”

Duan Xingye straightened his spine, rattling off a string of interrogations without skipping a beat.

“Knowing each other for so long, don’t you understand me?”

“Do I look like someone who would date around?”

“Besides you, who else could it be?”

Cheng Duzhou looked at him, a sudden layer of deeper meaning surfacing in his eyes.

Duan Xingye immediately caught the ambiguity in his words. His haughty breath faltered instantly, scrambling to explain: “No, what I mean is…”

Viewers in the livestream were rolling all over the place from the sweetness, utterly done in by Duan Xingye’s “Besides you, who else could it be?”

Yet Duan Xingye found himself unable to clear it up.

He had meant there was simply no other possibility for his first kiss other than Cheng Duzhou.

Because he had never had the impulse to date, and Cheng Duzhou was the spouse assigned by his grandfather; with the added layer of cohabitation, Cheng Duzhou became the only person who could get close to him and share physical intimacy.

Remembering the cameras, Duan Xingye stopped talking—it wasn’t suitable to spell everything out on stream anyway. Looking forward, he leaned back against the bench: “Wasted five minutes. If another team overtakes us, just you wait, Cheng Duzhou…”

—”My first kiss was you.”

“…”

Duan Xingye’s heart fluttered into chaos. Hesitating for a moment, he looked over.

With lowered eyes, Cheng Duzhou smoothed the fabric across his trousers and said, “It’s nothing grand, but I felt you ought to be certain of it.”

Duan Xingye knitted his brows slightly: “Then why did you deny it back then?”

Cheng Duzhou glanced at him and retorted coolly, “Did I deny it?”

“…”

Even the audience pieced together the backstory.

“You two must have been so awkward right after getting married!”

“Both were just too embarrassed to admit it, that’s all.”

“My god, these two are unbelievably pure.”

“Wuuuu, thank goodness the misunderstanding is cleared up! Shouldn’t you kiss at a time like this?”

Having his own words thrown right back in his face by Cheng Duzhou, Duan Xingye couldn’t be bothered to argue further, sitting in silence as time ticked away.

Thinking of something, Cheng Duzhou suddenly broke into a silent smile, though he reined in his expression within the span of lowering his eyes.

He straightened up, resting his elbows on his knees, focusing intently on the wildflowers across the road. Yet barely two seconds later, he burst out with a “pfft.”

“…” Duan Xingye looked away.

Cheng Duzhou buried his face in both hands, his shoulders quivering.

“What are you laughing at?” he asked, his tone slightly cold.

Cheng Duzhou shook his head, refusing to let go of his face.

The audience screamed at the top of their lungs: Babe!!! He’s thrilled because he’s your first man!!!

Duan Xingye, however, was infuriated by Cheng Duzhou’s unrestrained laughter.

He and Cheng Duzhou competed over everything—experience, technique, charisma. That was why he hadn’t admitted it was his first kiss back then. Cheng Duzhou had to be laughing at his stubborn bravado.

But wasn’t Cheng Duzhou just as much of a rookie himself?

Duan Xingye warned, “Don’t you dare laugh.”

Cheng Duzhou literally laughed out loud.

“…” Pushed past his limit, Duan Xingye frantically jabbed the mineral water bottle into his waist.

Duan Xingye had assumed that after slipping up on one question, their subsequent progress would look bleak. To his surprise, everything went remarkably smoothly afterward.

Even for questions he worried Cheng Duzhou wouldn’t know, Cheng Duzhou miraculously produced the exact same answers as him.

The map guided them all the way, drawing closer and closer to South Port, and their surroundings were no longer desolate.

A street stall sat by the road selling hot dogs.

From afar, Duan Xingye spotted the massive, bright red price sign.

20 yuan/portion

“Is this daylight robbery?”

Duan Xingye muttered a complaint.

The audience burst into another round of carefree laughter:

“Teacher Duan curses when he can’t afford it.”

“After all, they only have thirty yuan on them; twenty accounts for two-thirds of their net worth.”

“Teacher Duan: The taste of poverty makes one irritable.”

Twenty yuan was truly nothing to Duan Xingye. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t spare a hot dog a second glance, but at this precise moment, that price tag stirred a deep sense of injustice in his heart.

Cheng Duzhou asked, “Hungry?”

In truth, the question was entirely redundant.

When arriving at noon, Duan Xingye had suffered from seasickness, which was effectively having eaten nothing. After hiking this far all afternoon, that he could hold out until now without complaining proved he wasn’t as delicate and fragile as Cheng Duzhou had assumed—he took his work quite seriously.

Unscrewing the bottle cap, Duan Xingye gulped down some water, averting his gaze from the street stall: “I’m fine.”

Cheng Duzhou sighed, “I’m hungry.”

Duan Xingye paused, remembering.

Cheng Duzhou hadn’t eaten more than a couple of bites at lunch either, having stayed on the deck accompanying him the entire time.

Glancing at the nearly assembled map, Duan Xingye knitted his brows: “Bear with it a little longer. We’re almost there.”

The closer they drew to South Port, the more certain he was that the thirty yuan in “travel funds” distributed by the crew was meant for ferry tickets.

Cheng Duzhou said, however, “Wait for me a sec.”

Without waiting for Duan Xingye’s response, he strode with long legs toward the roadside stall.

Seeing through his intention, Duan Xingye shouted after him: “Cheng Duzhou!”

Cheng Duzhou merely waved a hand without looking back.

Duan Xingye fumed: “What’s wrong with enduring it for a bit? You never listen to me! When we don’t have enough money to buy tickets, don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Still unsatisfied, he yelled, “In a bit, I’m taking the boat by myself and leaving you behind! You can stay here tonight!”

Cheng Duzhou ordered a hot dog from the vendor.

Duan Xingye didn’t stop as he walked past, but after taking a few steps forward, he halted after all, freezing his face into an icy pout as he stood by the roadside waiting for him.

Before long, Cheng Duzhou walked over.

A box holding a hot dog was proffered before Duan Xingye.

Lowering his eyelashes, Duan Xingye glanced at it, then lifted his eyes.

“Hurry up and eat,” Cheng Duzhou licked a smudge of salad dressing off his fingertip, his tone calm. “I can stay behind tonight, but you have to leave with a full stomach.”

Bullet comments: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! President Cheng, dare you spoil him any harder?!

For the rest of the walk, Duan Xingye split the hot dog in half, giving the other half to Cheng Duzhou.

He took the first bite.

Thick noodle tears wept silently in his heart.

He had never tasted a hot dog this delicious in his entire life.

The final piece of the map was collected.

To both of their surprises, the destination wasn’t the ferry terminal, but rather the island’s eastern coast.

With no need to cross the sea, their remaining money was more than sufficient. They hailed a cab directly, heading straight for tonight’s lodging.

By the time the car drove onto the coastal highway, it was already evening.

Magnificent, gorgeously tinted clouds surfaced along the distant horizon, blurring the line of the shore. The waves gently unfurled in the twilight, releasing the goodwill and tenderness of nature.

As they drew closer to their destination, clusters of orange bonfires lit up the passing sandy beach.

Checking the map once more and spotting the RVs parked in the distance, Duan Xingye understood the production crew’s arrangement.

He worried, “Will camping out be cold?”

Duan Xingye was sensitive to the cold. Now, as twilight deepened, temperatures dropped and the sea breeze turned chilly; his hands were already beginning to feel cold.

Cheng Duzhou had been resting his chin on one hand, looking forward. Noticing Duan Xingye’s unconscious gesture of rubbing his hands against his trousers, his other hand reached over, sliding his fingers between Duan Xingye’s. His voice dropped low: “It’s fine. We can always drill wood to make fire.”

Duan Xingye’s fingers visibly stiffened. He pursed his lips lightly, then pursed them again. Looking as if he wanted to say something yet couldn’t bring himself to spit it out, annoyance gradually bloomed across his face.

Cheng Duzhou stopped pressing his hand deeper, asking after a moment, “What’s wrong?”

Duan Xingye finally snapped, “Cheng Duzhou, can you not talk without dropping dirty lines? Do you have to be so filthy?”

Whatever he said before was one thing—Cheng Duzhou wasn’t used to the cameras yet, so it hadn’t been intentional.

But right now, the camera was pointed straight at them, and tens of millions of viewers were watching.

Drill wood to make fire. How could he say that out loud?!

“…”

Cheng Duzhou fell silent.

He let go of Duan Xingye.

At the same time, lowering the hand propping up his cheek, he tapped lightly against the car window: “Literal meaning. Drilling wood to make fire.”

Duan Xingye looked outside the car window.

Clusters of bonfires danced merrily in the evening breeze.

“…”