Resources (2/2)
At the same time, another unfortunate soul named Gong Chuang was also tossing and turning, unable to sleep all night.
Every ten minutes, he checked his phone to see if Su Zesui had replied.
——It was just past eleven, surely a young and energetic guy like Su Zesui wouldn’t be asleep yet, right? Then why wasn’t he replying? Damn it!!!
It wasn’t until the cold wind at 2 AM hit Gong Chuang’s face that it finally cooled the restlessness burning inside him and brought him back to his senses.
He’d clearly been completely overwhelmed by the bombshell Su Zesui had dropped. Something so private between the newlywed couple—how could an outsider like him possibly be allowed to know?
The fact that Su Zesui wasn’t replying basically confirmed it… He’d hit the nail on the head! Gu Yilan really did just lie back and let the boy do whatever he wanted!
——Tsk tsk. Who would’ve thought you were that kind of person, Gu Yilan? Always looking so prim and proper on the outside…
With that thought, Gong Chuang found it even harder to fall asleep. He tossed and turned in bed, occasionally clicking his tongue in disbelief. The next morning, he got up with two huge dark circles under his eyes.
There was an academic meeting scheduled that morning, so he just did a quick wash-up and rushed straight to University A without even eating breakfast.
In the corridor of the lab building, he ran into Gu Yilan—who, unsurprisingly, had brought his “precious little brother” along again. He was even carrying the guy’s silly, bright blue backpack for him. The pampering was off the charts.
At this point, Gong Chuang could barely even look the two of them in the eye.
Seeing the pure, innocent look on Su Zesui’s face made him want to clasp his hands in a respectful salute—
——My deepest apologies. I was blind. Truly, one cannot judge a book by its cover. Who knew you were such a ruthless character…
While Gong Chuang’s thoughts were racing, Su Zesui noticed him from the other end of the hallway.
Su Zesui was the type who could chat a lot online, but the moment he had to interact in person, he turned into an extreme social anxiety case. He hid behind Gu Yilan, gave Gong Chuang a tiny wave, and didn’t say a word.
Even though Gong Chuang had spent the whole night convincing himself that Gu Yilan’s private affairs were none of his business and that he should just be grateful for what he knew… the moment he saw Su Zesui, the one who clearly knew all of Gu Yilan’s secrets, he couldn’t hold back. His curiosity was killing him. He wanted to grab Su Zesui and interrogate him on the spot.
But then, seeing how nervous the boy looked, he started to worry again.
——Could it be… their chat logs had been discovered by Gu Yilan? And Gu Yilan had given Su Zesui a harsh scolding, warning him never to spill any more secrets—or else he’d…
Wait a second—did that mean their relationship was… 0s1m1??
The thought alone sent chills down Gong Chuang’s spine. But then he remembered the chains hanging in Gu Yilan’s office… and it actually seemed pretty plausible.
Gu Yilan couldn’t care less what Gong Chuang—with his dark eye circles and rainbow of facial expressions—was thinking.
It had been a few days since he started exposing the boy to new people. It was time to push things a bit further.
“Didn’t you two have a good chat last night?” Gu Yilan looked down at the boy hiding behind him. “Go say a few words to him.”
The strong undertone of jealousy in that seemingly casual line made Gong Chuang break into a cold sweat as he glanced nervously at the man before him.
Unfortunately, Gu Yilan was a master at hiding his emotions. His face was perfectly calm and unreadable, giving nothing away.
Gong Chuang’s mouth twitched as he forced out a polite, distant, and very much “I’m-not-involved” kind of greeting: “Hello, Su Zesui.”
Seeing the boy tugging at his sleeve, reluctant to step forward, Gu Yilan could only sigh and take a step back.
But the moment he moved, Su Zesui retreated as well—taking a much bigger step backward.
Even the smallest physical contact with a stranger—something as simple as a handshake—was still too much for Su Zesui to handle.
“Be good,” Gu Yilan said helplessly. “Go on.”
After several long, awkward minutes of deadlock, Su Zesui finally gathered the courage to move—like someone playing a video at 0.5x speed—slowly inching out from behind Gu Yilan.
Gong Chuang was already feeling guilty to begin with, and now he stood there awkwardly with his hand stretched out in the air for several long minutes. When he finally saw the boy start to move, he let out a breath of relief and forced a polite smile back onto his face.
Standing behind them, Gu Yilan kept a close eye on Su Zesui the entire time, ready to intervene if anything unexpected happened.
When he saw the boy wiping the sweat from his palm on his clothes, clearly preparing to make physical contact with another man, Gu Yilan’s gaze sharpened. His Adam’s apple bobbed slightly as he exhaled a slow breath.
This would be the boy’s first time stepping forward on his own to shake hands with a stranger. Things could change in an instant. Even someone as calm and collected as Gu Yilan felt a rare tightness in his chest.
Su Zesui lifted his hand—very, very slowly. But just as his fingers were about to touch Gong Chuang’s, he suddenly flinched, spun around, and darted straight into Gu Yilan’s arms, trembling as he said in a frightened voice, “No… I don’t want to. Brother…”
Gong Chuang: …?
The hand he’d been holding up for what felt like forever finally gave out and dropped limply.
He looked up in surprise to see Gu Yilan gently patting the boy’s back. His expression had softened—at least he wasn’t radiating that same cold pressure anymore. He actually looked… pleased with the boy’s reaction.
In that moment, Gong Chuang knew he’d been played like a fool—again.
All that “I-can’t-live-without-you-you-can’t-live-without-me” stuff was just their couple drama, and he was the pitiful clown who had taken it seriously.
“I’m taking him to the office first. You handle the meeting arrangements,” Gu Yilan said without even glancing up, already leading the clearly overstimulated boy away.
Watching the two of them half-hugging, half-dragging each other off, Gong Chuang stood there in stunned silence—then quietly flipped Gu Yilan the middle finger behind his back.
——Goddammit. Once again, Gu Yilan was using him like unpaid labor.
But when he thought about what Gu Yilan had probably gone through last night, Gong Chuang suddenly didn’t feel quite so mad anymore.
Forget it. The guy got dominated by a high schooler. Who knows if his back still aches, if his voice is hoarse, or if any of those swollen places still hurt. Let him off the hook this time.
That’s how Gong Chuang consoled himself—until he actually started to feel a little sorry for Gu Yilan. He even thoughtfully brought him a seat cushion.
This meeting was supposed to be simple—just a casual update on everyone’s research progress and some knowledge sharing. Their advisor was off making money somewhere and couldn’t be bothered with his bunch of rookie PhD students, so he had dumped the task on his favorite student, Gu Yilan.
But Gu Yilan was always busy. Every day, foreign scholars came to visit the lab, so these trivial matters often fell into Gong Chuang’s lap by default.
He booked a meeting room on his phone, sent a WeChat reminder to the juniors, and headed to the room himself. He placed the soft cushion on the center seat at the end of the long table.
While waiting for the group to show up, he even went to pour a cup of hot water—for Gu Yilan’s throat, so he wouldn’t be too hoarse from last night to speak properly at the meeting today.
So when Gu Yilan returned after settling Su Zesui, the first thing he saw was that overly colorful, ridiculously flashy butt cushion on his seat.
He frowned. “Whose thing is this?”
Even though none of them had ever seen Gu Yilan lose his temper, everyone instinctively feared their famously talented senior. Gu Yilan could be casual most of the time, but when it came to business, he was deadly serious. And the cold, low pitch of his voice always made people shiver.
Now that he was clearly asking a question, no one dared to speak.
Except Gong Chuang, who was still trying to fan the flames. He pushed the cup of water toward him and said, “Relax. Have a drink first.”
“Senior, you’re unusually thoughtful today,” teased Ji Yuxing, who was sitting next to him.
Ji Yuxing had returned from overseas to pursue his PhD at University A. He’d joined the lab late and didn’t really overlap much with Gu Yilan in terms of research, so he wasn’t as intimidated as the others.
“Hey, what do you mean? I’m always a nice guy,” Gong Chuang said with a grin, shamelessly singing his own praises.
Gu Yilan ignored him, picked up the seat cushion, and casually tossed it onto a chair nearby. Scanning the room, he frowned again. “Someone’s missing?”
“Some of the juniors called in sick,” Gong Chuang answered.
He didn’t have the heart to say it: the juniors who had accidentally witnessed that horrifying scene in Gu Yilan’s office last time had all taken sick leave. Probably afraid Gu Yilan might use his power for personal revenge and torment them on the spot.
Gu Yilan glanced at the wall clock.
There were still five minutes until the meeting started. He hadn’t had time to prepare, so he needed to quickly skim through the materials.
The agenda for this meeting was simple and didn’t involve anything confidential—just routine formality.
“He was curious about quantum entanglement yesterday, wasn’t he? Go get him.”
At the sound of that, Gong Chuang looked up—just in time to see Gu Yilan’s long fingers dangling a small key right in front of his face.
He didn’t need to guess who “he” was.
Their lab and offices all used campus ID cards to access—there was no need for a physical key.
If he wasn’t mistaken, that key… was the one Gu Yilan used yesterday to unlock the handcuffs on the boy.
Gong Chuang couldn’t bring himself to take it. He swallowed hard and mumbled, “Uh… I don’t think he’ll really understand the discussion, honestly.”
“If he doesn’t, let him sit in and watch some online lectures.” Gu Yilan dropped the key onto the table with finality. “Knock before you go in. Only enter if he says it’s okay.”
Gong Chuang picked up the key, cursing Gu Yilan a thousand times in his head—but on the surface, he kept a forced smile and said through gritted teeth, “Sure, I’ll go…”
. . . . .
Su Zesui was already sitting properly in the office. He had hung his backpack beside the desk and neatly laid out his competition prep books, a bag of chips, and his tablet.
Overnight, the study materials from yesterday had finished downloading. Knowing that Brother Gong Chuang also had a background in physics competitions, he guessed the 20GB file was likely a collection of high-quality physics competition lectures from over the years.
Just as Su Zesui opened the cloud storage app on his phone, located the downloaded resource pack, and was about to start the video, someone knocked on the door.
A voice called from outside, “Are you in there? It’s Brother Gong Chuang. May I come in?”
Su Zesui flinched slightly, but still answered, “Y-Yes.”
The moment the door opened, Gong Chuang once again saw those icy chains glinting in the sunlight, firmly binding the boy to the railing—a forbidden kind of beauty. He silently cursed in his mind, over and over again.
“Your brother asked you to sit in on the meeting,” Gong Chuang said as calmly as he could while placing the key on the desk beside the boy, then quickly took several steps back to keep a safe distance.
Su Zesui’s soft lips opened and closed silently as he stared at the study materials on his phone. After a moment, he managed to whisper, “C-Class…”
“It’s fine. It’s not a formal meeting—just everyone casually sharing their progress. Gu Yilan said you can watch your lectures during it.”
Su Zesui hesitated for a while, trying to think of another excuse. But when nothing came to mind, he finally gave a reluctant nod.
He used the key to unlock the cuffs around his wrist, glanced at the wireless earbuds he’d forgotten to charge the night before, and hesitated for a moment—then decided not to bring them.
He figured he could just lower the volume and watch the lectures Gong Chuang had sent him while sitting beside Mr. Gu.
- Sadistic uke and masochist gong. ↩︎
AHHHHHHH im dying of second hand embarrassment rn please don’t please don’t
Oh no