DTTM 13

Chapter 13: Movie Night

Warm water flowed down from above, washing away all the dust, sweat, and fatigue.

Although I didn’t know what Zong Yanlei would ask for, it was always good to be prepared. Washing my hair, taking a shower, brushing my teeth… I had to avoid anything that might displease Zong Yanlei in advance. I even did some warm-up exercises, thinking that if his request was to beat me up, it wouldn’t be too serious.

It was five minutes to ten o’clock. I walked to the door but then went back. I felt that Zong Yanlei might not be happy to see my right eye, so I specially found an eye patch and put it on.

After doing all this, I arrived at Zong Yanlei’s dormitory and gently knocked on the door.

I could faintly hear music and voices coming from inside the room. I thought Zong Yanlei was watching a movie, but when the door opened and a somewhat familiar-looking staff member appeared behind it, I realized that it wasn’t Zong Yanlei watching a movie, but a group of people watching a movie.

For a moment, I was rooted at the doorway, unable to move forward or backward.

“Mr. Jiang, you’ve come too! Come in quickly and join our movie night!” The staff member was very enthusiastic, making way for me without any surprise on his face.

Movie night?

I walked into the house in a daze. The huge living room was completely dark. An old movie with an unknown title was being projected onto the pure white walls. About a dozen or twenty people were sitting on the sofa and carpet facing the white wall. The coffee table was full of snacks and drinks…

This really was a movie night?

“Jiang Man, come here.” The narrow sofa was divided in two by a small table. Zong Yanlei sat on the side of the table, the absolute center position of the sofa. He held up a glass of whiskey in his left hand, turned around, and smiled as he beckoned me over.

I squeezed through the crowd and sat down in the empty seat next to him, and the girl next to me stuffed a big bucket of popcorn into my arms.

“Oh, thank you…” The popcorn was caramel chocolate flavored, very sweet, but it went perfectly with the thrilling racing chase on the projector.

For about ten minutes, Zong Yanlei and I simply sat there watching the movie. He would occasionally take a small sip of his strong liquor, and each time he raised his hand, the ice cube would clink against the glass, making a crisp sound. This sound distracted me, causing me to frequently drift off and constantly wanting to turn my head away.

I could only stuff popcorn into my mouth one kernel at a time, forcing myself to focus on the movie in front of me.

Tense and exciting plots always need some comedic elements to balance things out. When the movie reached the point where two clowns were making fun of each other, a burst of laughter erupted around me, and I started to drift off again because Zong Yanlei was laughing too.

His laughter was low and light, as if he was genuinely amused by the idiotic plot of the movie. Not only did the sofa beneath us vibrate, but even the parts of my body pressed against him could feel his tremors of joy.

I put a kernel of popcorn in my mouth, and I couldn’t help but look back at him.

The popcorn melted in my mouth, and even though the light was dim, there was no doubt that Zong Yanlei was smiling, as if he were completely immersed in this movie night.

“What?” he asked when he noticed me looking at him.

He was pretending to be ignorant, so it was up to me to break the ice.

I leaned closer and whispered in his ear, in a voice only the two of us could hear, “Did you call me here just so I could watch a movie with everyone else?”

Upon hearing this, Zong Yanlei turned his head to the side with an innocent expression, as if to say, “Otherwise what?”

The whiskey was finished, leaving only a large ice cube in the glass. He rested his elbow on the sofa back, his hand hanging down, his five long, strong fingers gripped the rim of the glass, slowly swirling it. The ice swayed in the glass, making a sound as it hit the sides of the glass. I felt like it was hitting my ears directly.

My eyelid twitched, and I continued, “I thought you would at least make one request.”

He dipped his index finger into the glass, stirring, poking, and scraping. Zong Yanlei leaned close to my ear and asked, “Are you looking forward to it?”

Time might have changed some things, but that sensitive, difficult, willful, extreme, wicked, and arrogant young master was still the same.

“Hmm, it’s been too long since I played this game, I miss it a bit.” I glanced at the piece of ice he was playing with and suddenly felt a pang of empathy.

What kind of trick was this? Why is the intro so long?

“Alright.” Zong Yanlei acted as if he was considerately granting my request. “First request: stay still for ten minutes, do not move, and do not make a sound. Begin.”

Was he complaining that I was too noisy? I could tolerate him making me bark like a dog in front of everyone, but he wouldn’t even allow me to mo…

I froze abruptly.

A dry, unscrupulous hand parted the hem of my clothes and slipped in from behind my waist. At first, he simply wrapped his arm around my waist, kneading my side flesh, as if it were some kind of plaything to pass the time. But gradually, perhaps finding my reactions uninteresting, he covered my entire back with his hand, his fingertips glided down my skin and finally stopped at my tailbone.

I had many old scars on my back, most of which had faded over time. Only the area around my tailbone, where I had a bone marrow extraction six years ago, still had a very noticeable raised white scar.

Zong Yanlei touched the scar, paused briefly, and then, as if trying to erase it from my body, began to rub it vigorously, until the area became hot and the heat quickly spread throughout my body.

I closed my eyes and gripped the popcorn bucket tightly in my arms. At that moment, I was truly grateful to the girl who had given it to me.

Even though it was a room with a comfortable temperature, I quickly started sweating.

Ten minutes passed quickly. I tried to reassure myself, and then I felt Zong Yanlei stop moving. I slowly exhaled, just as I was about to relax, the source of evil suddenly rose upwards, circled around to the front, and came to my chest.

His index finger traced circles on the surface of the ice cube.

My breathing became erratic, and I bit my lower lip, starting to count from one to one hundred.

I didn’t know which finger pressed down, all the way down, and then released, repeating this several times, like he was testing the sensitivity of some spring.

Even though I knew that everyone was engrossed in the movie, no one was turning around or looking at me, and the girl next to me was leaning on her boyfriend, with some distance between us, I still felt nervous because of the public setting.

Perhaps trying to force a sound out of me, he suddenly tugged it.

My Adam’s apple bobbed, and I almost lost control, but I managed to hold back the sound. However, I almost tore the popcorn bucket in my arms to shreds.

Staring at the remaining popcorn in the bucket, I felt that I had become part of it. Being kneaded haphazardly, as if he were trying to squeeze out something that shouldn’t exist; being gripped tightly, as if my body was about to be crushed.

…One hundred.

When I finally counted to one hundred, I didn’t hesitate for even half a second and grabbed Zong Yanlei’s hand through my clothes.

I slowly exhaled a trembling breath and turned to signal to him that ten minutes had passed.

Because of the position, Zong Yanlei had his arms around me, and I leaned into his embrace. For a brief moment, it felt like we were hugging. But as Zong Yanlei withdrew his hands, this empty embrace came to an end.

Zong Yanlei glanced at the popcorn bucket on my body, picked out a kernel of popcorn from the bucket, admired it for a moment, and then put it in his mouth: “Second request: go to the toilet to deal with your current troubles.”

I really needed to deal with this urgently. I pursed my lips, held the popcorn bucket in front of me, got up without a word, walked through the group of people sitting on the ground, and hurried toward the restroom.

Zong Yanlei’s dormitory room was laid out opposite to mine, so I quickly found the bathroom.

I locked the door, tossed the popcorn bucket onto the sink, lifted my shirt to take a look, and as expected, it was red.

Leaning against the wall with the back of my head against the tiles, I began to deal with the “trouble” that Zong Yanlei had stirred up.

It wasn’t that difficult to solve. Just like the movie outside the door, after a series of brilliant build-ups, the climax of the whole movie was inevitable and only natural.

A few minutes later, I pulled out some toilet paper to wipe my hands, then threw it into the toilet. The automatic sensor immediately activated, removing all the filth.

I just recovered from my illness this morning, so I wasn’t really suited to do this. I felt like all the energy I had just built up has been drained from my body, like that pack of toilet paper I threw down the toilet.

“Knock—knock—knock!”

I was resting against the wall when there was an unexpected knock on the bathroom door. After a while, hearing no response from inside, the person knocked again, three times in total, each knock longer than the last.

I sighed, already guessing who the visitor was and what he wanted to do.

I opened the door wide enough for someone to enter, and Zong Yanlei stood outside, his face still bearing that elegant smile that said, “Even if I do something terrible, it has nothing to do with me.”

I stared at him without saying a word.

He looked me up and down, staring at the spot where I had calmed down for an unusually long time.

“You’re still the same as before…” he paused, then commented, “quickshot.”

I could barely maintain my fake smile. I opened the door a little wider, grabbed his arm, and pulled him into the bathroom. Then I pinned him against the door, put my hands behind his back, and locked the door again.

“Is the young master here to tell me the third request?” I asked in a hoarse voice.

He frowned, raised his arm to pull my hand away, perhaps displeased by my uninhibited touching, and the smile vanished from his face in an instant.

“Kneel down.”

My knees have always been very weak, and when he ordered me to kneel, I immediately knelt down.

The difference in our line of sight widened, and I looked up at him, knowing this wasn’t the end.

Cool fingertips parted my lips and pressed on my tongue, like when he was playing with the ice.

In the past, when we were teenagers and entering puberty, he suddenly became very curious about relationships between the sexes. At that time, I needed his help because of my grandmother’s illness, and he would often ask me to take off my clothes and show my body to him.

He would explore me with an attitude of inquiry, as if I were a novel toy, and conduct all the experiments he could think of on me.

Just like now.

No, perhaps not quite. He wouldn’t have tormented people like this in the past.

My mouth was unable to close, and saliva overflowed from the corners of my lips. Zong Yanlei lifted my chin and wiped my lower lip with his thumb, his actions full of intimacy.

“You clearly like women, yet you endure being treated like this by a man for a piece of land. If the person who is very important to you knew this, they would be very moved.” His tone was gentle, but his half-lidded eyes were cold.

His fingers left my chin, and the next instant, I felt a slight pain on my scalp. Zong Yanlei’s five fingers dug into my hair, pulling me toward him.

“Suck it. Suck it well, and I’ll give you what you want.”