He said it jokingly, yet Zhou Zishu did not engage, but merely looked at him with an odd gaze. A while later, he finally asked, “Are you truly sincere about this?”

Wen Kexing laughed, his entire frame tilting towards Zhou Zishu. He spoke, nearly brushing Zhou Zishu’s lips, “Can’t you tell if I am truly sincere or not?”

Stunned, Zhou Zishu paused slightly, and said in a low voice, “I…truly cannot tell. I have not experienced many instances of sincerity over the course of my life, and cannot identify it. Are you?”

Wen Kexing's fingers climbed up his shoulder, and tugged his hair bun loose. Dark hair cascaded down, making the tough man before his eyes look a few degrees more fragile in an instant. He dropped his cheeky grin, and said in a voice very soft, but with momentous certainty, "I am."

Then he closed his eyes and pressed his lips to Zhou Zishu’s, casting his heart, affected beyond measure, to the bottommost depths of his decision beyond return, abandoning all further reservations.

Slowly, Zhou Zishu brought his hand up. A long, long while later, it finally came to rest on his shoulder, fingers grasping at the cloth over it.

Out of the blue, a yelp burst in the night. Zhou Zishu's somewhat dazed eyes cleared immediately; Wen Kexing paused in what he was doing, and in that instant when both were distracted, they crashed to the floor together in that suggestive position.

Expressionless, Wen Kexing dropped his gaze, pulled his and Zhou Zishu’s open robes back closed, and asked quietly, “At this time...say, should I boil the intruder alive, or braise them with sauce?”

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The author has something to say:

Apologies everyone, I said that I would update in the morning, but I felt too terrible this morning when I woke up and couldn’t remain sitting. I could only get up from bed to write a few words, then not be able to hold out any longer and lie back down, intermittently…

Pardon me if there are places where it seems discontinuous.

Chapter 66: Ambush By Night

Standing in the shadows where the moonlight could not reach, the Scorpion was shrouded in a large hooded cape; when the slight breeze made it billow, he looked like a wraith that had quietly coalesced into form in the corner.

He had a beautiful youth on a leash, one of the two who had retreated from his bed earlier. The youth was clothed in form-fitting night gear and had a chain around his neck. The other end of it was held in the Scorpion’s hand. He was like a fine-looking dog, rosy of lip and pearly white of teeth.