A Feverish Embrace

Yuan Anqing stared at the stark white ceiling, his voice raspy. “Why won’t you let me get out of bed?”

“When did I ever stop you from getting up?!” Zhuo retorted, perched heavily on the edge of the mattress. “You’re just too weak to stand up by yourself!”

Yuan Anqing had quietly spiked a fever of 39.8 degrees Celsius. After his temperature was taken, he could barely stand, though his face betrayed no hint of his true condition. Anyone observing his expression would have assumed the situation was perfectly under his control.

Hearing Zhuo’s words, Yuan Anqing looked unconvinced. “I am not weak.”

“If you’re not weak, then get out of bed,” Zhuo challenged. He had just helped Yuan Anqing change out of his muddy clothes, and the Savior hadn’t been able to exert an ounce of effort. Zhuo simply didn’t believe Yuan Anqing possessed the strength to walk.

Sure enough, Yuan Anqing fell silent.

Zhuo assumed Yuan Anqing would now be more compliant, but it became clear that Yuan Anqing’s mind was not entirely sound.

“Why should I get out of bed?” Yuan Anqing mused thoughtfully. “There’s no point. I won’t fall for such childish provocation.”

“You’re the one who said you had strength!” Zhuo snapped, tapping the mattress impatiently with his tail. “Why would I provoke you? You getting out of bed does me no good at all!”

“I don’t know why you’re provoking me. You should reflect on yourself,” Yuan Anqing countered, smoothly turning Zhuo’s words back on him.

Zhuo took a deep breath. He felt that bickering with a delirious person was beneath him, yet even when ill, Yuan Anqing was infuriatingly hard to argue with.

“Can you move that large python at the foot of the bed? It’s staring at me,” Yuan Anqing said suddenly, his gaze fixed on a dark, scaly, serpentine object resting near his feet.

“That’s my tail! My tail!” Zhuo yelled.

Yuan Anqing, however, seemed to think Zhuo’s mind was the one that was addled. “You’re a sheep. Sheep don’t have snake tails.”

“First of all, I am not a sheep! Sheep horns don’t look like mine! Secondly… Ow!” Zhuo couldn’t finish his sentence, as Yuan Anqing’s hand had found its way to the base of his tail and pulled.

Zhuo dared not swat Yuan Anqing’s hand away, as an IV needle was taped to the back of Yuan Anqing’s hand. He could only gently pry Yuan Anqing’s fingers off, then shift his sitting position to move his tail further away. “What you’re doing is indecent.”

“Are you being indecent with me?” Yuan Anqing asked flatly. “You’ve been holding my hand this whole time.”

“You’re talking nonsense! I was just moving your hand! You were the one who grabbed my tail first!”

“I didn’t grab your tail. A large python bit your backside. I was helping you remove it.”

“THAT’S MY TAIL!” Zhuo finally snapped. “And that’s not my backside! It’s attached to where a human’s coccyx would be! It’s my lower back!”

Yuan Anqing blinked, looking perplexed. “So… there is a large python biting your coccyx? Then why are you so agitated with me?”

“I am going to eat you eventually, I swear!” Zhuo pulled out his phone, hit record, and angrily aimed the camera at Yuan Anqing’s face. “Repeat what you just said!”

He wanted to shame Yuan Anqing once the man was lucid, to make his toes curl with embarrassment.

But Yuan Anqing remained silent, merely staring calmly into the lens.

“Speak!” Zhuo roared.

“I don’t know why you’re being so fierce with me,” Yuan Anqing said, sounding like a weary parent tolerating a temperamental toddler. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Zhuo laughed incredulously. He lifted his tail directly in front of Yuan Anqing, swaying it from side to side. “What do you call this?!”

“That’s your tail,” Yuan Anqing replied smoothly.

Zhuo was speechless.

“I am going to eat you!” Zhuo couldn’t take it anymore. This guy was definitely doing it on purpose!

Yuan Anqing corrected him gently. “Little sheep eat grass. You can’t eat me.”

Sheep again! Zhuo’s chest heaved violently.

“I can’t play with you anymore, little sheep,” Yuan Anqing sighed with resignation. “I need to sleep. I’m so tired.”

“Was I playing with you?!” Zhuo found Yuan Anqing utterly unreasonable. If attacking Yuan Anqing didn’t cause self-inflicted damage via the contract ring, Zhuo would have punched Yuan Anqing in the head and sent him into a sweet slumber himself.

Yuan Anqing patted the empty mattress space beside him.

“What do you want?” Zhuo asked suspiciously.

Yuan Anqing patted again. “You should sleep too. Your eyes are all red from staying up late.”

Zhuo, whose eyes were naturally blood-red, was speechless.

At this moment, Zhuo finally understood just how annoying it was to babysit an irrational, uncompromising child. To quiet Yuan Anqing down, Zhuo could only comply, awkwardly lying down beside him on the edge of the bed.

“Little sheep,” Yuan Anqing called to him.

Zhuo refused to respond.

“Little sheep?” Yuan Anqing called again.

Zhuo remained silent, glaring at the wall.

“Little sheep, are you asleep?” Yuan Anqing asked with genuine confusion. “Why are you sleeping with your eyes open?”

“Didn’t you say you were tired?” Zhuo reached out a massive hand and completely covered Yuan Anqing’s eyes. “If you’re tired, just sleep, okay? You won’t be tired after a good rest.”

“I am indeed very tired.” Yuan Anqing didn’t push Zhuo’s hand away.

“Are you tired in your heart?” Zhuo lowered his voice, offering dark reassurance. “Don’t worry. You won’t stay tired forever. I’ll eat you soon.”

Yuan Anqing pressed his lips together beneath Zhuo’s palm. “Can you eat my boss first?”

“Huh?”

“My boss is a terrible person.” Yuan Anqing’s delirium finally opened the floodgates of his repressed trauma, and he began to ramble. “I was only 25 when I met him, and he said he had high hopes for me. He said the company was a family…”

Yuan Anqing recounted a lengthy story that was incredibly boring, filled with disjointed corporate jargon and unapproved overtime requests. Nevertheless, Zhuo understood the core of it: Yuan Anqing felt his life’s work was unfinished, so he wanted Zhuo to solve the problem for him by devouring his manager.

Zhuo, however, didn’t know Yuan Anqing’s boss; he was simply being lulled into a trance by Yuan Anqing’s monotonous, incessant chatter.

By the time Yuan Anqing finished speaking, Zhuo’s eyelids were drooping heavily.

Yuan Anqing looked at the drowsy Zhuo, then glanced at his own IV drip. He chose not to wake Zhuo to call a nurse, opting to awkwardly adjust the flow rate himself.

“Hmm?” Zhuo looked up groggily as Yuan Anqing shifted.

Yuan Anqing reached out and gently stroked Zhuo’s hair. “Sleep well, little sheep.”

Then Yuan Anqing lay back down, nestling close to Zhuo’s side and wrapping an arm over the monster’s broad chest.

Zhuo closed his eyes. After about half a minute, he snapped them open again.

Wait! What just happened?!

He had been taken advantage of! Yuan Anqing had called him ‘little sheep,’ and Zhuo, in his dazed state, hadn’t refuted it. Yuan Anqing had even pet him!

Once Yuan Anqing was lucid, Zhuo absolutely had to condemn him.

Zhuo resolved to stay awake and angry, vowing never to be influenced by the Savior again. He absolutely could not fall asleep.

However, Zhuo couldn’t get out of bed, because Yuan Anqing’s arm was draped heavily over him.

Zhuo had no experience sleeping with others. The last time he tried, his poor sleeping habits had ended with him accidentally hitting Yuan Anqing and forcing the man to sleep on the floor. Moreover, Zhuo had never embraced someone normally; his embraces usually ended in a feeding frenzy.

Yuan Anqing’s head was tucked into Zhuo’s neck, and Zhuo could feel the man’s hot, feverish breath.

Yuan Anqing slept soundly, leaving Zhuo alone to awkwardly hold his breath.

Yuan Anqing’s steady breathing fell rhythmically on his skin.

When he wakes up, I absolutely must condemn him… Zhuo thought groggily.

Yuan Anqing’s body heat seemed to transfer to Zhuo, creating a cocoon of warmth.

When he wakes up…

Yuan Anqing’s heartbeat was steady, like a quiet lullaby.

When…

“They’ve snuggled up and fallen asleep together!” whispered a guard in the facility’s monitoring room.

Zhuo’s suite had surveillance, given his extreme danger level. And now, the monitor showed the massive chimera curled into a protective ball, with Yuan Anqing entirely encircled within his embrace.

Zhuo lay on his side, his massive scaled tail wrapped securely around Yuan Anqing, pulling him close. The tip of Zhuo’s tail was almost touching his own face, forming a perfect, protective circle.

Meanwhile, Yuan Anqing had one leg draped over Zhuo’s side and an arm tucked against Zhuo’s chest. The two were pressed together so tightly there was virtually no gap between them.

“Zhuo truly seems to like this Savior,” the shift supervisor remarked, staring at the screen. “Do they sleep like this every night?”

“I’ll go get the others to come see!” the guard said, a hint of excitement in his voice. Zhuo had always been a terrifying problem for them, but now, this problem might very well be domesticated!

Those who knew Zhuo, or knew of Zhuo, rushed to the monitoring room. The feared monster had been gawked at by a dozen staff members before he even woke up.

Zhuo and Yuan Anqing awoke simultaneously hours later when a nurse entered to check the IV, the opening of the door rousing them.

Yuan Anqing was feeling much better. The fever had broken. He frowned, pulling himself from a pleasant dream, slightly disoriented about his whereabouts.

“Mmm…” Zhuo didn’t want to wake up; he wanted to sleep a little longer in the warmth.

However, as Zhuo lowered his head, he found himself face-to-face, eye-to-eye, with Yuan Anqing.

Yuan Anqing’s eyes had turned dazzling, molten gold—purely from fright.

Zhuo was also startled, instinctively pulling his neck back. However, once he processed the situation, he found no issue, even remarking, “Sleeping with you is really comfortable!”

While he was initially unaccustomed to being held, Zhuo had always been a creature driven by sensory desires. Snuggling with Yuan Anqing pleased him; he liked holding a living, breathing entity in his arms without immediately wanting to destroy it.

“Let’s sleep together every night from now on!” Zhuo invited cheerfully.

“Huh?” Yuan Anqing still didn’t quite grasp what had happened. He knew he had been quite ill, but he wasn’t sure how things had progressed to this point.

“You invited me to sleep with you, do you remember?” Zhuo was quite displeased with Yuan Anqing’s bewildered attitude.

“I only remember seeing a sheep, I think,” Yuan Anqing said, trying hard to recall his fever dreams. “And a large python. That sheep was really noisy.”

Zhuo was speechless.

“But I can’t blame it, because it was bitten on the backside by the large python,” Yuan Anqing continued, his deadpan delivery making his own words sound absurd. “Very strange dream, right?”

Zhuo smiled dangerously. “Mr. Savior~”

“Hmm?”

“I hate you,” Zhuo said earnestly.

Yuan Anqing was accustomed to his bodyguard’s perpetually volatile emotions.

“I hate your damned attitude. And you’d better forget about that idiotic sheep!”

Yuan Anqing didn’t understand why Zhuo held such animosity toward a figment of his imagination. “The sheep wasn’t idiotic; it was actually quite cute. Though a bit boisterous, talkativeness is always better than deathly silence.”

Zhuo raised an eyebrow. “I like you again.”

“You change your mind so quickly,” Yuan Anqing noted, surprised.

“Mind your own business.”