Chapter 4

Luo Mingshan froze.

For a moment, he seemed unable even to keep up the fragile, frightened expression on his face. His voice turned dazed and confused. "...You're going to bully me yourself, like that man just did?"

...Personally "bully" Luo Mingshan like that damn gay guy?

Zhao Xing stiffened too.

Goosebumps rose all over him.

He leaned back a little and took his hand from beneath Luo Mingshan's chin.

"What the hell is going through that head of yours? Is sex the only thing you can think about? I'm not interested in men."

Luo Mingshan let out a breath of relief.

Luo Mingshan truly didn't understand why so many Earth men liked having sex with other men.

It couldn't create life, and it couldn't grant power. What was the point?

It was so strange.

He had just been wondering what he would do if Zhao Xing enjoyed that sort of thing too.

Thank goodness Zhao Xing wasn't like those people.

Watching the obvious relief on Luo Mingshan's face, Zhao Xing suddenly felt a little annoyed.

He narrowed his eyes and studied Luo Mingshan darkly. "Luoluo, aren't you relieved a little too soon?"

Luo Mingshan startled, looking at Zhao Xing uneasily. Fear slowly surfaced on his face again.

At the sight of that expression, every nasty impulse in Zhao Xing's body began to stir.

He pinched Luo Mingshan's little cheek and gave a derisive laugh, his voice low and suggestive. "I may not be interested in men, but there are plenty of people out there interested in Luoluo. How about this? If you make me unhappy again, I'll put you up for sale. Sound good?"

Luo Mingshan's whole body went rigid.

As though he hadn't noticed, Zhao Xing went on eagerly. "I only just heard that you can trade in Repentance Points here. Apparently, you can earn ten Repentance Points for a single session. Luoluo's this pretty—shouldn't he fetch at least twenty?"

Luo Mingshan stared at Zhao Xing in disbelief. His eyes reddened, his body trembling faintly, terror and unease nearly drowning him.

Like a startled little rabbit.

So cute.

If he had long ears, they would definitely be drooping with fright right now.

Zhao Xing rubbed and kneaded his pale, soft earlobe with just enough pressure, eyes narrowed. "So Luoluo needs to behave and not make me angry. Got it?"

Luo Mingshan lowered his head and bit his lip. Even his voice trembled. "G-got it."

Satisfied, Zhao Xing removed his fingers from the earlobe he had kneaded red and hot.

He was only trying to scare him, but scaring him once in a while was pretty nice.

Good for both body and mind.

Zhao Xing chuckled and stood. "Come on. Time to go back."

Zhao Xing pushed open the door and strode ahead.

Head bowed, Luo Mingshan followed carefully behind him.

As he walked, Zhao Xing wondered how exactly he ought to torment this little white rabbit.

He couldn't rely on threats alone.

Still, he had to admit—

Zhao Xing wasn't gay, but...

Luo Mingshan looked really good when he cried.

The thought of his reddened eyes just now made every pore in Zhao Xing's body open in pleasure.

Lost in fantasies of "tormenting" Luo Mingshan, Zhao Xing naturally failed to notice Luo Mingshan's light steps behind him—or the equally delighted smile spread across his face.

...Brother A-Xing had changed a little, all right, but not that much.

He talked tough, but his heart was still soft.

Just as cute as when they were little.

Ah, no.

He seemed even cuter than before.

...

Not long after, Zhang Sheng, who had been pretending to be unconscious, crawled out of the storage room.

Gritting his teeth, he cursed shakily, "Fuck... they're both fucking perverts!"

Back in the dorm, Zhao Xing was bored, so he idly flipped through the Repentance Behavior Handbook on the desk.

Luo Mingshan quietly cleaned nearby.

After a while, Zhao Xing lost interest and looked up at him. "How'd you get in here?"

Luo Mingshan paused, then answered softly, "Manslaughter."

Zhao Xing blinked. "Why manslaughter?"

"...Excessive self-defense."

Seeing Luo Mingshan's embarrassed expression, Zhao Xing immediately understood.

He tossed the book aside and sighed. "The world's gone to hell. Why are there so many damn gays?"

No wonder Zhao Xing was prejudiced against gay people; he had already encountered far too many freaks.

The first gay person Zhao Xing had ever met was that male criminal who had tried to make a move on Luo Mingshan when they were children.

The second was one of his "friends."

One day, that "friend" asked him, "Brother Zhao, do you discriminate against gay people?"

Zhao Xing had answered quite objectively, "I don't discriminate against gay people. I think every group deserves respect. I only discriminate against freaks."

Like the male criminal who had intended to molest a child.

That night, the "friend," who was staying over at his house, climbed into his bed wearing lace stockings and a suspender skirt.

In the middle of the night, Zhao Xing thought it was a ghost and scared the hell out of himself.

Zhao Xing kicked him out with a dark face, but the man looked resentful. "Brother Zhao, everyone else dates girls, but you don't. Admit it, you're gay."

Zhao Xing: "..."

Zhao Xing was speechless. Were those people dating girls? One today, another tomorrow—they were just screwing around! Weren't they afraid of catching something? Was it wrong for him to keep himself clean?

Besides, he liked motorcycles more than women.

Later, that "friend" disappeared for a while. The next time Zhao Xing heard from him, he sent Zhao Xing a video.

The video had three people in it, and the content was too obscene to look at. Zhao Xing backed out after three seconds.

But three seconds had already been too late.

Because in the first second of the video, the "friend" had been shouting "Brother Zhao, Brother Zhao" while on top of some strange man.

Brother Zhao: "..."

Brother Zhao was so disgusted his scalp crawled.

After Zhao Xing finished throwing up into the toilet, his "friend" sent him a message: "Brother Zhao, what'd you think? Get hard? Wanna fuck me?"

Zhao Xing replied truthfully: "I threw up."

Then blocked and deleted him in one smooth sequence.

The third time he met a gay person was scum like Zhang Sheng in prison.

After all that, it was hard for Zhao Xing not to have a bias against gay people.

"Oh, right. Where are the others in this dorm?"

Luo Mingshan said, "Two people moved out. The rest went to work the night shift."

There were night shifts available here. Every three hours earned half a Repentance Point. Since the pay was so poor, normally not many people went. But today, all the remaining dorm residents had gone to the night shift because of Zhao Xing.

Zhao Xing had beaten Luo Mingshan as soon as he arrived, and his bad reputation had traveled fast. Then Zhou Ming went around spreading what he had seen with his own eyes, leaving the other dorm residents in a panic. They wanted nothing more than to stay outside and never come back.

Two of them had already spent Repentance Points to move out.

Not long afterward, the remaining three roommates returned from work.

Surprisingly, two of them were father and son. The father was a skinny middle-aged man in his forties, while the child looked only six or seven. They occupied beds five and six, respectively.

The kid wasn't shy at all. Once he learned Zhao Xing was his new roommate, he cheerfully introduced himself at once. His name was Lu Xiaofeng, and his dad was Lu Zhiqiang.

Zhao Xing thought he was cute and tossed him a piece of candy.

The occupant of bed one was a man named Zhang Yue, about thirty-five or thirty-six. He had an ordinary face, a large build, and looked like a man of few words.

After coming in, he didn't speak. He simply changed clothes and put his things away.

It wasn't until Luo Mingshan emerged from the bathroom that he spoke for the first time, seeing the gauze around Luo Mingshan's forehead stained blood-red. "...I heard you were hurt. Th-this is medicine I bought."

He opened his hand. A brand-new tube of ointment rested in his rough, broad palm.

Luo Mingshan didn't take it right away. He looked at Zhao Xing instead.

Zhao Xing narrowed his eyes but said nothing.

Gathering his courage, Luo Mingshan asked, "Brother Zhao, c-can I have it?"

Zhao Xing was actually pretty satisfied.

Luo Mingshan really did listen.

No half-measures about it.

Like a little slave.

But his face showed none of that satisfaction. Instead, he said overbearingly, "What do you need ointment for? Trying to get rid of the welcome gift I gave you sooner?"

Luo Mingshan immediately understood. He gave a bitter smile, shook his head at Zhang Yue, and passed by him without a word.

Zhang Yue clenched the ointment in his palm and shot Zhao Xing a look, his face flushing red.

Zhao Xing paid no attention at all to the man's anger. He beckoned Luo Mingshan over, then petted his head like a dog's. "Good Luoluo. You did something wrong. Your wound has to hurt for a while longer so you'll remember the lesson."

Luo Mingshan shuddered. "Brother Zhao, I understand."

At eleven, the dormitory's main lights went out together, leaving only a dim night-light.

—Since everyone lived underground, many people had developed a fear of the dark. So even when they slept, the lights here were never completely switched off.

The moment the night-light came on, the dorm door was pushed open furtively, and a figure crept in with care.

"Stop." Zhao Xing spoke.

The man froze like a statue.

"...Brother Zhao," Zhang Sheng said tremblingly.

Zhao Xing said, "Move out tomorrow."

He really didn't want one gay after another with designs on Luo Mingshan wandering around in front of him. It hurt his eyes.

Zhang Sheng immediately let out a breath of relief.

He had already planned to move out tomorrow. If a person hadn't been limited to changing dorms once a day, he would have left just now.

He truly didn't dare live with these two perverts anymore.

If Zhao Xing was an ordinary pervert who worshipped violence, then Luo Mingshan was an unknown weapon that made him want to drop to his knees and beg for mercy.

Even now, his neck still felt taut, as though someone were choking him, as though death were only a hairbreadth away.

Zhang Sheng touched his neck and immediately said, "Tomorrow—tomorrow morning, I'll switch Zhou Ming back in."

"Zhou Ming?" Zhao Xing frowned. "He's noisy, and there's something wrong with his brain. He can't understand plain speech."

Zhang Sheng hurriedly said, "Then I'll just move out tomorrow. I won't switch Zhou Ming in."

That would leave only five people in this eight-person dorm.

Good.

The fewer people, the better. Too many people were annoying.

Zhao Xing yawned, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

At seven the next morning, Luo Mingshan woke Zhao Xing cautiously.

Only the two of them were left in the dorm. Clearly, Luo Mingshan had delayed waking Zhao Xing as long as he could.

After washing up, Zhao Xing opened his bleary eyes and bit into the bread Luo Mingshan had bought in advance from Xitulanya Restaurant.

Maybe Zhao Xing was hungry, but he found the perfectly ordinary bread especially delicious. Once he finished it, the sleepiness and fatigue in his body faded away.

But Zhao Xing still didn't show his satisfaction. He only strode ahead, presenting Luo Mingshan with a rather indifferent back.

Luo Mingshan lowered his head and followed.

Since they had missed the rush hour, Zhao Xing didn't take the stairs this time. He rode the elevator to the subsurface and headed toward the academy.

There were academies here, and factories as well.

You couldn't earn Repentance Points by attending the academy, but points would be deducted if you weren't in class on time.

Factory work earned Repentance Points, but skipping it didn't cost any.

So the "criminals" here generally attended school in the morning and worked in the afternoon.

Zhao Xing planned to do that for now too.

He had no choice. He had spent thirty-five Repentance Points on Luo Mingshan alone, so he needed to save a little now.

Zhao Xing and Luo Mingshan had both been assigned to Academy No. 7. It wasn't far from their dormitory: a twenty-minute walk across Sun Square on the subsurface.

It was after seven in the morning, and Sun Square had already turned on its "sun." A red lamp hung high overhead, lighting the surrounding area brightly.

Zhao Xing hadn't seen such a crude Sun Square in a long time.

C City's Sun Square was a hundred times bigger than this one. Its "sun" floated in the air and changed color with the time of day—red in the morning, gold at noon, orange-yellow in the evening.

C City's Sun Square brochure said its sun lamp had been made in complete imitation of the real sun. It even gave off heat and ultraviolet rays that could tan people, placing it among the top ten "simulated suns."

But not many people cared whether the fake sun truly resembled the real one.

After all, humanity had left Earth more than three hundred years ago.