EOD Chapter44

The moment Yi Yang stepped through the door, he spotted a strange man standing at the entrance of Lu Zhao’s study.

He sized Zhou Zefeng up for a moment. Then, with practiced familiarity, he changed into a pair of slippers, patted Xuebing, who was crouching by the entryway playing with a toy, and set the bag of oranges on the coffee table. Making himself completely at home, he sat down, glanced at Zhou Zefeng’s wary, highly alert expression, and asked, “Are you the sub my brother hooked up with?”

The moment Zhou Zefeng heard those words, his brow furrowed fiercely. “And who are you?” He snapped, his tone laced with irritation.

In reality, Zhou Zefeng had been fully prepared to beat a burglar to a pulp just a second ago. But seeing that this guy could open Lu Zhao’s door and seemed well-acquainted with Xuebing, he had decided to stay put and observe.

It was just that the guy’s tone of voice was incredibly grating.

“Hi there, I’m Yi Yang. Lu Zhao is my elder brother.” Yi Yang pulled open the plastic shopping bag, took out two oranges, and waved for Zhou Zefeng to come over and sit. “Don’t be shy, make yourself at home. No need to be tense. Do you want an orange?”

So, it was the brother-in-law. Zhou Zefeng let out a breath of relief. He was just about to take the medical records back into the study to put them away when Yi Yang noticed what was in his hands. Striding over forcefully, Yi Yang snatched the folder away and barked angrily, “What the hell are you doing snooping through my brother’s things?!”

Zhou Zefeng felt helpless. Not wanting to show disrespect to his brother-in-law, he explained, “He knows about it.”

Yi Yang flared up instantly, his delicate eyebrows twisting downward in rage like a cat that had its tail stepped on. “Bullshit! No one touches my brother’s things!” He paced in a small circle, and then, as if suddenly recalling something, a look of realization slowly dawned on him. “Are you the guy from that open-air restaurant the other time?”

No matter how good Zhou Zefeng’s temper was, he was also rapidly being pushed to his limit by this overbearing brother-in-law. Hearing those words, it suddenly hit him; the person he had seen having that candlelight dinner with Lu Zhao before was indeed this guy.

How could someone like Lu Zhao have such an ill-mannered younger brother? Zhou Zefeng frowned, his expression turning solemn. “I am Lu Zhao’s boyfriend. He gave me the key himself. Besides, whether I can touch his things or not isn’t up to you.”

To his surprise, instead of backing down, Yi Yang’s eyes widened as he let out a scoffing laugh. “Boyfriend? How did you two even meet?”

“……”

Tracing back to the very beginning of their current sweet relationship, it had started with a rather unpleasant misunderstanding. Zhou Zefeng was just about to tell Yi Yang that it was none of his business and to stop poking his nose in, but Yi Yang leisurely continued to stoke the fire.

“You guys met through edging, didn’t you?” Yi Yang seemed to relax as if letting out a sigh of relief before strolling back to sit on the sofa. “My brother is just playing around. Did you actually take it seriously?”

Zhou Zefeng wanted nothing more than to grab the guy and beat him to a pulp. He forced his anger down over and over again before finally stating, “I won’t waste my breath on you. Wait until your brother gets back, he’ll tell you himself.”

Zhou Zefeng snatched the medical records back from his hand, turned around, and walked away. A wave of unprompted panic washed over Yi Yang. He quickly ran through his brother’s previous five edging partners in his head; none of them seemed to have reached Zhou Zefeng’s level such as getting left alone at home by Lu Zhao, and even being given the key to step inside the small study, a place where not even Yi Yang, his own flesh-and-blood younger brother, had ever entered.

But no matter how special this guy was, how far could it really go? It wasn’t as if other subs hadn’t caught feelings for Lu Zhao before or tried to crawl into his bed, yet hadn’t they all ended up as mere passing strangers in the end? As if reviewing a slideshow in his mind, Yi Yang recalled how he had driven away the people around Lu Zhao in the past. Impulse gave him a sudden burst of courage, and obsession stripped him of his reason.

“Don’t leave just yet. Don’t you think my voice sounds familiar?” Yi Yang cleared his throat, lowering his pitch slightly as he repeated, “Are you happy now?”

Those words made Zhou Zefeng halt dead in his tracks halfway across the room.

How could he possibly forget that phrase? It was the final line in Lu Zhao’s very first edging video. Zhou Zefeng had watched those videos countless times, driven by either desire or jealousy, and he had long suspected that the person in the first video held a special place to him, he just never had the courage to ask Lu Zhao about it.

And now, someone was telling him that this person was Lu Zhao’s younger brother, his own brother-in-law???

Zhou Zefeng turned back around, the look in his eyes completely altered.

“You recognized it, didn’t you? That’s right, I was Lu Zhao’s first sub, and I was the one who got him into it in the first place.” Yi Yang lifted his chin, feigning a proud arrogance to mask his own guilt and assert his own special status, looking exactly like a child showing off a handful of candy. “Not only that, but you’ve seen Lu Zhao’s medical records, haven’t you? He suffered a hand injury six months ago. Do you want to know why?”

Hearing about the hand injury, Zhou Zefeng threw all his suspicion and jealousy out the window. His palms broke into a cold sweat as he demanded, “Why?”

“Because of me. He did it to protect me.” Yi Yang looked at Zhou Zefeng with a mocking smile, his expression screaming, ‘See? I know so much about Lu Zhao that you could never match.’ Zhou Zefeng, however, didn’t bother decoding any of that subtext. In Yi Yang’s eyes, Zhou Zefeng practically lunged forward in a single stride. Before Yi Yang could even attempt a defensive move, Zhou Zefeng’s fist crashed right into his face.

His immediate reaction to the impact was to recoil backward. Only after that did a sharp, stinging pain come rushing in all at once, accompanied by a sudden hot stream trickling from deep inside his nose. Having been pampered since childhood, Yi Yang had never been struck by anyone in his life; Zhou Zefeng was the first. The pain forced physiological tears from his eyes. Cupping his nose, he lifted his head to strike back, only for Zhou Zefeng to seize him by the collar, hoisting him up entirely.

“Regardless of how much of your story is actually believable, I think you’re pretty damn pathetic,” Zhou Zefeng sneered, sending a shiver straight down Yi Yang’s spine. “Your brother got injured because of you, and you’re using that as a badge of honor to brag about?”

Refusing to learn his lesson, Yi Yang continued to yell recklessly, “Who the hell do you think you are? There’s a ton of stuff you don’t know!”

“Xuebing was originally my pet. I wanted to dump it because I was going abroad, but my brother took it in. Do you want to know why?”

“Do you know why my brother got injured? It was because a medical rioter almost hurt me, and my brother took a knife for me. Is it really necessary to go that far for a younger brother?”

“And how did he get into edging? You can go check whose phone number is tied to that account, or you can just guess whose it is right now.”

“Let me tell you something else: I’m a sports major too, and my brother happens to like this exact type. Who do you think he modeled his search after when he found you? I won’t say.”

“What kind of hot shot do you think you are? You actually dare call yourself my brother’s boyfriend? Go find a corner and cool off!”

Zhou Zefeng tightened his grip on his collar again, interrupting him through ground teeth, “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t? Then let me ask you, doesn’t Lu Zhao absolutely love it and react intensely when someone calls him ‘Gege’? I’m asking you, does he or doesn’t he?”

Zhou Zefeng merely remained silent. His confidence and self-esteem were beginning to crack, yet he stubbornly shook his head, “I only believe what Lu Zhao tells me.”

“Fine, you’ve got guts.” Zhou Zefeng let go of Yi Yang. Yi Yang freed his hands to wipe away his nosebleed, leaving behind one last remark before walking out:

“You can go ask him yourself. But my mom doesn’t approve of the two of us being together, so take good care of him for my sake. Consider it a favor I owe you.”

After Yi Yang left, Zhou Zefeng sat alone in the living room for a very long time, looking like a dried plaster statue. Then, as if torturing himself, he flipped through the medical records in his hands over and over again. He pulled out his phone several times, his fingers tapping across the screen, but in the end, nothing ever reached Lu Zhao.

Zhou Zefeng left around noon, and Lu Zhao’s home once again fell back into its lifeless stillness.

Lu Zhao switched off the security feed and dialed Yi Yang’s number.

Yi Yang picked up, his voice sounding muffled as if his nose was stuffed with something, and his tone carried a hint of guilt, “Hello? Ge, why are you suddenly…”

Lu Zhao’s eyes were freezing, and his voice was even colder. “Don’t call me brother from now on. We don’t share the same father anyway, let alone the same last name. I’ll finish the oranges, but I’m deleting your fingerprint. From now on, we have absolutely nothing to do with each other.”

“Lu Zhao, you’re freaking treating me like this over a sub? Do you believe I’ll go right now and…”

“If you’re sick, go get treated. I don’t treat depression.” Lu Zhao finally uttered the words he had wanted to say for all these years. Letting out a long, heavy sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose in exhaustion. “If you want to run and tattle to Mom, go ahead. I’ve had more than enough of this over the years, and I don’t want to look out for either of you ever again.”

“Having Zhou Zefeng is enough for me.”

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