Scorching Heat
The butler stood frozen in place, utterly stunned.
The moment he came to his senses, he immediately crouched down, head lowered, picking up the scattered documents, pretending to be busy—like a piece of air no one would notice.
Standing still was safer anyway—no risk of getting tripped up by that chain.
Su Zesui raised a hand, just about to wave and say “hi” to the butler, when he suddenly felt a sharp tug on his wrist. The pull was firm and commanding, leaving no room for protest, and yanked him straight into the room.
He stumbled forward, and with a slackened grip, the voice recorder slipped from his hand and hit the ground with a loud clack.
Then—bam—the door slammed shut behind him.
Silence fell over the hallway.
The butler stayed frozen mid-movement for a long moment before finally daring to lift his head, neck stiff with tension.
What he saw was like the aftermath of a battle—no survivors, only chaos. The sounds of chaos just moments ago—bangs, clicks, crashes—had all gone quiet. All that remained was the poor voice recorder, lying innocently on the floor.
His brain felt like mush.
He was on the verge of a breakdown.
——Little Master Su… is he… is he actually an M?!
——What?!
. . . . .
Inside the room.
Su Zesui had barely taken a few steps before tripping multiple times on the chain, but the hand gripping his wrist was strong and steady—it kept him from falling.
Eventually, when the force dragging him forward was suddenly released, he tumbled straight onto the bed with a soft thump.
Stars danced in front of his eyes. Before he could even recover, a large coat was draped over him, enveloping his body in familiar warmth and the distinct scent of soapberries.
Su Zesui sat up, trying to stabilize himself. His small hands gently pulled the oversized coat closer around him. He glanced around the room.
Gu Yilan’s bedroom had the same decor style as his study: minimalist and cold. The bedsheets were a muted grey, and the heavy curtains were tightly drawn. The only source of light came from the still-powered-on computer on the desk.
Just like the man himself—cold and heavy, like a shura demon crawling out of hell with half-lidded eyes. Not a trace of warmth or humanity.
Su Zesui’s first thought was—There really is only one bed in Gu Yilan’s room. Which meant, after marriage, they really would be sleeping in the same bed.
Even though the room was spacious, and the bed was large…
“Su Zesui.” Gu Yilan clenched his back teeth, his tone cold as he stared at the boy who was clearly spacing out. “What game are you playing now?”
Called by name, Su Zesui snapped back to reality. He looked blankly at Gu Yilan and answered honestly, “Roleplay.”
He lifted his slender white leg, and the silver chain running from his neck to his ankle was drawn upward, winding and gleaming. A few small ornaments hung along the links—strangely captivating.
Gu Yilan averted his gaze, his Adam’s apple shifting slightly. “Take it off,” he said.
Su Zesui shook his head. “No.”
Gu Yilan: …
He stared at the showerhead in the bathroom across the room. After a long silence, he finally asked, “Why are you doing this?”
Su Zesui thought for a moment, then said, “Because you like it.”
Gu Yilan immediately turned back to look at him: What?
Su Zesui couldn’t read the complicated emotions in the man’s eyes. He lowered his head and began nervously swinging his legs back and forth out of boredom, making the chains clink softly.
In the midst of those delicate metallic sounds, Gu Yilan glanced toward the door, his gaze turning frosty.
…There must be a traitor in this house.
The boy didn’t talk much, but somehow he could entertain himself with a chain all day long.
In the end, it was Gu Yilan who broke the silence. “Whether I like it or not—you shouldn’t be doing this.”
Su Zesui looked genuinely confused, as if he truly didn’t understand.
Faced with such clear, unguarded eyes, Gu Yilan swallowed the words he was about to say. Instead, he asked, “Why do you want to marry me?”
Though he had answered this question countless times, Su Zesui still replied without hesitation, “Because you’re a good person.”
Gu Yilan said, “There are many good people in the world. I’m the worst of them all.”
Hearing that, Su Zesui shook his head vigorously, like a little rattle drum.
——No. That’s not true.
He nervously fidgeted with his fingers, then leaned in as if sharing a secret. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “There are… a lot of bad people.”
“Why?” Gu Yilan asked, now genuinely curious what kind of people could be worse than him.
Su Zesui reached a hand out from under the coat, counting on his fingers as he spoke in a soft, mosquito-like voice: “People who say mean things… liars… people who steal things… and… the ones who hit me…”
His words made little logical sense, and his voice grew smaller and smaller—by the end, his last few words were barely audible.
Gu Yilan fell silent.
The boy rarely spoke on his own—usually only answering when spoken to. So when he also went quiet, the entire room sank into a deathly stillness.
After a long pause, Gu Yilan finally spoke. “Take off the things you’re wearing. Change your clothes when you go back.”
Seeing the man’s no-nonsense expression, Su Zesui reluctantly nodded.
The collar around his neck was making it hard to breathe, so that was the first thing he tried to remove.
But after all the earlier movement, the chain had become tangled and knotted. The more he tugged, the tighter it got, and the harder it became to breathe.
He heard a faint sigh from in front of him—then, a pair of large hands reached toward his neck.
Caught off guard, he froze. There was the faintest brush of contact, and the heat from the man’s skin seeped through, making his whole body flush.
Su Zesui abruptly dropped his hands and stared at the man in confusion.
Gu Yilan kept his eyes down, expressionless as he worked on loosening the knots in the chain, giving nothing away.
Su Zesui’s compliment the night before about Gu Yilan’s long lashes hadn’t been just empty flattery to curry favor.
Gu Yilan had monolid eyes and long lashes. But his features were sharp and defined, and his usual cold demeanor gave off an unapproachable air—sometimes even a slightly menacing one.
Then, the phone on the desk rang three times—beep beep beep—echoing in the still bedroom. It was only then Su Zesui realized his cheeks were burning, his heart was racing, and he was struggling even more to breathe.
“Lift your leg,” Gu Yilan said.
Su Zesui obediently did as he was told.
Gu Yilan crouched down and began removing the straps from his legs and ankles.
His expression remained stern, but his movements were surprisingly gentle, barely grazing the boy’s skin.
A few minutes later, Gu Yilan stood up and tossed the removed restraints onto the nightstand. “Take off the rest yourself.”
Hearing that, Su Zesui looked down and parted his legs slightly.
Most of the straps were off—only two remained, fastened around the tops of his thighs.
The skin there was pale and delicate, unexposed to the sun, almost pampered. It looked like untouched snow on a mountaintop—pure, soft, and unstained.
When Su Zesui reached down and started tugging at them again, Gu Yilan averted his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he said with restraint, “I’ll say this again: I don’t have friends, and I don’t need any.”
Su Zesui perked up his ears to listen.
He suspected the butler had told Gu Yilan something again.
“Likewise, I don’t need a fiancee or a partner.”
Su Zesui froze.
He didn’t like hearing things like that. Not even if it was Gu Yilan who said them.
Puffing out his pale cheeks, he yanked at the remaining strap in frustration, tugging so hard it left a red mark on his inner thigh.
The movement was so exaggerated that Gu Yilan caught it in his peripheral vision.
He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, the words he meant to say spinning around before he changed the subject. “Your brother asked me earlier why you haven’t replied to his message.”
Su Zesui paused.
He suddenly remembered the message from his brother during his attempted escape yesterday: “When are you coming home?” He’d opened it in a panic, and then forgot to respond.
“I don’t want to,” he muttered angrily.
After a moment, Gu Yilan replied calmly, “I’m free today. If you have any questions, come find me in the study.”
Just then, Su Zesui finally got the last strap off. He gave a muffled “Mm” in reply, threw on Gu Yilan’s jacket, and bolted for the door.
Gu Yilan shifted slightly to the side to let him pass.
Even with anger written all over his back, Su Zesui slowed at the door, then turned and gently closed it behind him—quieter and more well-behaved than anyone Gu Yilan had ever seen.
Staring at the closed door, Gu Yilan’s gaze darkened. He unconsciously ran his tongue across his sharp teeth.
. . . . .
Su Zesui was in such a bad mood that he lost all motivation to work on his competition problems.
Absentmindedly, he scribbled on the page, and when he finally came to and looked down—
PV = n hm R wuwuwu bad guy T.T
Su Zesui froze. He quickly grabbed a black pen and scribbled over the chaotic formula until it became a big black blotch.
He hadn’t meant to—he’d accidentally written out his true feelings.
Unable to focus, he gave up entirely. He circled all the problems that looked difficult or came with terrifyingly long solutions—then jumped out of his chair and ran off to the study.
Sure enough, Gu Yilan was inside. When he saw Su Zesui, he waved him over.
The man looked calm, unchanged, as if nothing that happened earlier in the day had ever taken place.
Su Zesui closed the door behind him and trotted over to the large desk.
The chair he’d pulled over the night before was still there, right next to Gu Yilan’s. He sat down, and once Gu Yilan moved his laptop aside, Su Zesui lifted his thick competition prep book and thudded it between them.
This time, he hadn’t prepared seriously.
Some problems he knew he could figure out with a bit more thought; others he hadn’t even read—he’d judged them by their sheer length. In a fit of childish frustration, he brought all the good and bad ones together and dumped them on Gu Yilan.
To a layperson, the problems probably just looked “hard.” But to someone who truly understood physics competitions, it was clear the difficulty varied wildly.
Watching Gu Yilan frown as he flipped through the pages, Su Zesui started feeling guilty.
He remembered how his prep coach in his past life used to yell—slapping books against students’ heads, loudly questioning their efforts, and ending with: “Do you want to quit and just go back to taking the regular college entrance exam?”
He’d always been obedient and diligent—never the target of those scoldings. Now, he couldn’t help but shiver.
After skimming through the pages, Gu Yilan flipped back to the front and asked calmly, “You’re stuck on this part?”
Su Zesui nodded timidly and pointed to a particularly complex-looking step, trying to seem earnest.
Gu Yilan hummed in acknowledgment and placed his pen on the desk. Nodding toward the scrap paper, he asked, “Remember the Stefan-Boltzmann law?”
Su Zesui nodded again and picked up the little white bunny pen—still warm from Gu Yilan’s hand—and wrote down the basic equation on the page.
“And what if you consider the radiation absorption and reflection between layers?” Gu Yilan continued.
Su Zesui paused, biting the bunny pen cap and frowning at the problem he hadn’t paid much attention to before.
After a few minutes, he began writing again, this time producing a much longer variant of the original formula—about four or five times the size—then looked to Gu Yilan for confirmation.
Gu Yilan took the pen and silently corrected the minor mistakes without scolding him. Instead, he continued, “The temperature gradient in the gas layers affects the heat flow…”
His low, smooth voice hit Su Zesui’s chest like a steady drumbeat—it had a strange calming power.
Under Gu Yilan’s guidance, the competition questions he couldn’t even bring himself to look at earlier started to feel interesting again.
When particularly absorbed, Su Zesui would hop off his chair and point wildly at the book. “This one—I don’t get it. This either.”
But Gu Yilan never seemed annoyed. He didn’t make Su Zesui stand at the door with the book for thirty minutes like the old coach used to.
Except for meals, they spent nearly the whole day behind the study desk.
Gu Yilan even generously skipped Su Zesui’s usual evening news-watching session.
By nighttime, just before bed, Su Zesui finally hugged his book and jumped off the chair reluctantly. He looked up at Gu Yilan and softly said, “Thank you.”
Gu Yilan’s expression remained unreadable as he handed the pen back. “Go on, then.”
Su Zesui walked out of the study with mixed emotions.
On one hand, he was grateful for Gu Yilan’s patient and selfless teaching. On the other, he couldn’t help but feel sad—after today, there would be no more kind, handsome, and free personal tutor.
Wuwu!
As soon as he closed the study door, he saw the butler standing nearby.
Su Zesui turned and waved politely at him.
The butler froze the moment he saw that familiar waving gesture. It instantly brought back the unseeable, terrifying image from that morning—so shocking he feared for his life. He shivered instinctively and found it hard to even meet the boy’s eyes.
Awkwardly scratching the tip of his nose, he cleared his throat and said, “Little Master, good luck tomorrow.”
The mention of tomorrow only made Su Zesui more miserable. “I don’t want… to go out.”
The words utterly dejected might as well have been written across his face.
The butler, being deeply enmeshed in the stormy affairs of the Gu family, knew far more than Su Zesui. Resting his chin on one hand, he comforted him: “Don’t give up, Little Master. If you make it through tomorrow, you’ll be able to marry Young Master Gu.”
Su Zesui looked up, confused—but his eyes sparkled.
The butler knew how difficult it was for Gu Yilan to maintain his position amid the chaos, and he also understood how much power Su Zesui held to change the outcome.
Patting the boy gently on the shoulder, he nodded seriously. “Hang in there. You’ve got this.”
With those wise words from the great butler uncle, Su Zesui soon figured it all out.
Previously, Su Zesui had thought that “going out” and “not being able to marry Mr. Gu” were two equally painful misfortunes that had struck him at once.
But then, looking at it from another angle—if Gu Yilan didn’t want to marry him, he could’ve just rejected him outright. Why go to such lengths to make him go out?
——This was a test!
And if he passed the test, he’d be rewarded—with marriage.
Su Zesui understood. The realization hit him like a lightbulb moment. It all made sense now.
His bad mood vanished in an instant.
Now, his mind was completely occupied with just one thought: “I must overcome this challenge.”
All the sadness, fear, and frustration? Gone without a trace.
He even had the energy to send his brother a cheeky message: [Not going home.] —which triggered an explosion of question marks from Su Mingyu in response.
. . . . .
In the study, the butler carried out a huge stack of documents from the bookshelf. They were so heavy that even the short walk left him panting.
With a soft thump, he set them down on the desk.
Seeing his boss still staring at the computer with an emotionless face, the butler couldn’t help but ask, “Young Master Gu, this is urgent. The company needs results as soon as possible. Why not wait until tomorrow night to help the little master with his problems?”
Gu Yilan flipped to the first page of the documents without even lifting his eyes. He said calmly, “There is no tomorrow night.”
The butler was stunned, not immediately grasping what that meant.
Gu Yilan gave him a glance. “Get me a glass of water.”
“Oh—yes! Right away.” The butler snapped out of it and quickly headed to the second-floor pantry.
His mind was in turmoil. He knew everything hinged on tomorrow. Before he realized it, his fists were clenched tightly.
——Little master, please… don’t let us down tomorrow.
A moment later, he loosened his grip.
——No, it’ll be fine.
——Little Master Su is like Young Master Gu’s natural nemesis—every ruthless tactic Young Master Gu uses somehow ends up backfiring on him when it comes to that boy.
——If even he can’t marry Young Master Gu, then Young Master Gu might as well spend the rest of his life single and alone.