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Panting, Jiang Chijing collapsed weakly on the sofa, massaging his aching arms, saying to Zheng Mingyi, “Ask first, then.”

A bet was a bet. The two of them competed to see who could do more push-ups and Jiang Chijing lost to Zheng Mingyi. As agreed beforehand, Zheng Mingyi could get the ball rolling.

Zheng Mingyi gave a hard push to the ground and effortlessly stood up straight. Then, he sat down cross-legged facing Jiang Chijing on the sofa, saying, “Tell me your first impression of me.”

Asking questions while seated face to face would give people considerable pressure. Of course, Jiang Chijing was reluctant to lose out on manner right when they just started, so he followed Zheng Mingyi, facing him and sitting cross-legged as well.

“Boring office worker,” Jiang Chijing answered with alacrity. “Same to you, tell me your first impression of me.”

“Offbeat private detective,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Why did you want to spy on a boring office worker?”

This question sounded like it was made in rebuttal to his answer, obviously because Zheng Mingyi wasn’t satisfied with his first answer. He likely felt that the logic didn’t conform to reason and there should be more to it.

It was true that Jiang Chijing didn’t answer honestly. But after knowing Zheng Mingyi for this long, he’d no longer act the way he used to, leaving holes for Zheng Mingyi to easily seize hold of and use against him.

“Because you’re the only one living across the street from me.”

In other words, no matter how boring he was, Jiang Chijing didn’t have any alternative.

Jiang Chijing continued to ask, “Why would you be interested in someone monitoring you?”

“Out of curiosity,” Zheng Mingyi gave a nonsense answer. He immediately followed up to ask, “If the person living opposite you wasn’t me, would you still choose to spy on them?”

“That’s right,” Jiang Chijing lied without turning a hair in retribution for Zheng Mingyi’s nonsense. “Still the question from before; elaborate on why you’d be curious.”

“Because you fit my aesthetic tastes,” Zheng Mingyi said. “I’ll ask again. If the person living opposite you wasn’t me, would you still want to spy on them?”

Before, Jiang Chijing had lost in push-ups to Zheng Mingyi and had been feeling all stuffy inside, refusing to give Zheng Mingyi the answers he wanted to hear.

But now, Zheng Mingyi said that Jiang Chijing fit his aesthetic tastes, which was clearly a sign of goodwill. It was like taking a step back for Jiang Chijing to stop competing with him.

Since Zheng Mingyi was showing his sincerity first, then Jiang Chijing could only respond in kind, giving him a serious answer to his question.

Recalling it, boring office worker was Jiang Chijing’s second impression of Zheng Mingyi. His first impression was naturally that this man was very handsome, causing him to really want to secretly watch his life.

Afterwards, Jiang Chijing found that Zheng Mingyi’s life revolved around clocking in and out of work, which made him completely lose interest—until, one weekend, the sounds of boxing rang out from the house across the street.

“No.” Jiang Chijing collected his thoughts and slowed the pace of the question and answer. Then, he finally spoke the truth. “At that time, I wanted to get rid of my bad habit. But it surprised me how much you attracted me; you attract me more than anyone I’ve ever come across in the community.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted it slightly. Because his answer was too real. If Zheng Mingyi had ceded a step to him, then this was like filling in all the subsequent steps for him.

As expected, Zheng Mingyi’s gaze visibly softened, and the faint smile that Jiang Chijing was familiar with hung off the corners of his lips.

“No lying for the questions after this,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Whoever lies will lose his right to use the handcuffs.”

“No problem.” The right to use the handcuffs represented who called the shots in bed. Jiang Chijing was immediately invigorated, raising the war flag high and pounding the drums, asking with renewed zeal, “When did you start liking me?”

“Obviously after I’ve fucked you,” Zheng Mingyi said. “What is your favourite part of my body?”

The question that was asked (...) 喜欢上我 can be interpreted differently based on how the words are split.喜欢上 | 我 = like | me喜欢 | 上 | 我 = like | to fuck | meSo, ZMY deliberately misinterpreted JCJ's "when did you start liking me?" as "when did you start to like fucking me?" [extra footnote]

Jiang Chijing was, for a time, unable to keep up with Zheng Mingyi’s tempo. He froze for a beat before realising that the amount of filth in this guy’s mind was simply breathtaking.

“Like me,” Jiang Chijing frowned, correcting, “not like to fuck me.”

“You clearly asked when did I start to like fucking you,” Zheng Mingyi innocuously shrugged. “I liked fucking you every day after I first fucked you.”

Jiang Chijing knew that he had been tricked by Zheng Mingyi and hatefully glared at Zheng Mingyi, replying, “Your—lower—arm.”

Zheng Mingyi held up his right arm and looked at it with a ‘so that’s how it is’ expression on his face.

“Why do you like me?” Jiang Chijing used a different way to ask the question that he had just wasted, so that with this, at least he wouldn’t appear too stupid.

“Because you’re very cute,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Which is your favourite position when being fucked by me?”

Stopstopstop.

Jiang Chijing abruptly realised that something was amiss. Zheng Mingyi’s questions were all very specific, with one—and only one—most precise way of answering it. On the other hand, his questions were all very general, with countless irrelevant ways that they could be answered. So, Zheng Mingyi’s answers were very perfunctory, giving nonsense such as that ‘you’re very cute’.

In the past, Zheng Mingyi had also said that Jiang Chijing was stupidly cute. Now, Jiang Chijing deeply suspected that Zheng Mingyi’s answer that he was cute also doubled as a hidden taunt at him for asking such stupid questions.

Bastard dog. Pulling one trick after another, doing him dirty every time.

“Riding.” Jiang Chijing also started to play tricks in his answers.

Strictly speaking, he was the one fucking himself on Zheng Mingyi in this position. But this was considered within the ambiguous range; he believed that Zheng Mingyi wouldn’t be able to find any loopholes.

“What do you like me to call you in bed the most?” Jiang Chijing asked.

He already knew the answer in his heart; he only wanted to hear it from Zheng Mingyi’s mouth.

Zheng Mingyi arched his brows very slightly. He could obviously tell that Jiang Chijing had also started to dig pits for him.

“Husband,” Zheng Mingyi said.

“Attaboy.” The corner of Jiang Chijing’s lips cocked upwards.

Because they had agreed not to lie, even if Zheng Mingyi could tell that Jiang Chijing was digging a pit for him, he could only obediently call Jiang Chijing ‘Husband’.

“My turn.” Interest surfaced in Zheng Mingyi’s eyes. He suddenly changed the question style. “In the days that you spied on me, how frequently did you masturbate? (A) Everyday, (B) often, (C) occasionally.”

This question was immediately familiar to Jiang Chijing. It was a question in the section concerning sexual preferences in the psychology assessment that Zheng Mingyi took when he had just entered prison.

“A.” Jiang Chijing abided by the rules of the game and didn’t lie, because playing elaborate tricks whilst staying within the rules was the true test of skill. “I’ll ask this question to you again now. You previously answered C; your real answer is…?”

Zheng Mingyi smiled and said, “A.”

As expected.

Jiang Chijing knew that Zheng Mingyi wasn’t that upright of a man. How could he be even more restrained than him?

Then, he heard Zheng Mingyi ask again, “Comparatively, which scene do you like most? (A) The bedroom, (B) the car, (C) the yard.”

Without Zheng Mingyi having to say it, Jiang Chijing understood the nature of these scenes. It was similar to the question about turning on or off the lights in the psychological assessment, only that Zheng Mingyi had changed the options to in private, in secret, and in public.

“B,” Jiang Chijing said. “You prefer C, right?”

“Yeah,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Wanna try it tonight?”

“Sure,” Jiang Chijing said. “What if a neighbour sees us?”

“We’ll move elsewhere, then.”

Jiang Chijing was involuntarily amused hearing this answer. It turned out that Zheng Mingyi was also aware that doing something like this had a probability of social suicide.

They had been sitting facing each other all this while without anything to support their backs. Jiang Chijing didn’t know how Zheng Mingyi was feeling, but in any case, his waist was a little sore. So, he changed to lean into the sofa instead, hugging his legs in front of his chest.

Without this confrontational atmosphere, it was pointless for Zheng Mingyi to sit facing Jiang Chijing alone. He turned to lean his back against the sofa, only that his knees were still spread obnoxiously apart as he continued to sit cross-legged.

“Ask something different,” Jiang Chijing leaned against Zheng Mingyi, lazily resting his head on the other’s shoulder.

“All right,” Zheng Mingyi agreed and slowed his words. “If you meet someone else who meets your aesthetic tastes, would you still spy on him?”

“No. You’re enough for me,” Jiang Chijing said. “If you meet someone else who looks good in uniform, would you still be interested in him?”

“No, I don’t have a uniform kink,” Zheng Mingyi turned his head and said, looking at Jiang Chijing.

“You don’t?” Jiang Chijing, feeling that his words were strange, raised his chin to look at Zheng Mingyi.

“Mm, I don’t,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Did you really think that I liked you because of your uniform?”

The first time that the word ‘uniform’ appeared between them was also in that psychology assessment. When Jiang Chijing gave four options and asked Zheng Mingyi which excited him, Zheng Mingyi chose male uniform.

Now that he thought about it, that question really didn’t give Zheng Mingyi much freedom of choice. It could only be used to check his sexual preferences, but couldn’t be used to determine his kinks.

“So, it’s because…” Jiang Chijing asked in uncertainty, “…because you like me, that’s why you like uniforms?”

“Otherwise?” Zheng Mingyi reached over to pinch Jiang Chijing’s face. “I also don’t have a voyeurism fetish. If it weren’t for you, would I have any need to buy such complicated binoculars?”

“From what you’re saying,” Jiang Chijing paused, sorting out the logic in Zheng Mingyi’s words. “I was the one who led you astray?”

“As long as you know that,” Zheng Mingyi said. “So you must take responsibility for me.”

“Am I not already?” Jiang Chijing asked, amused, “I’ve even all ripe for the picking.”

Practically, bit by bit, eaten clean by Zheng Mingyi.

But he must say, he was also completely willing.

“Jiang Jiang,” Zheng Mingyi quieted down for a moment. He said out of the blue, “You asked me just now when did I start liking you.”

“Yeah,” Jiang Chijing said. “You didn’t want to answer.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to answer,” Zheng Mingyi said. “It’s that I don’t know the answer.”

“You don’t know?” Jiang Chijing rarely heard these three words from Zheng Mingyi’s mouth.

“I really don’t,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Before I knew it, I was already hopelessly in love with you.”

Jiang Chijing’s heart thumped, hard. He had to admit, he really enjoyed his time with Zheng Mingyi.

Just like today’s question game. When they wanted excitement, the two would go back and forth flirting with each other. And when they wanted quiet, Zheng Mingyi would sit with him and speak plainly of his love for him.

Both of them talked very slowly, as though time had slowed down with them. Jiang Chijing gazed at Zheng Mingyi, and suddenly realised that life could actually be so beautiful when with the right person.