Almost the instant the last syllable fell, He Yan felt the aura beside him change. A familiar chilling sensation emanated from the man in front of him.

He swept the fine threads of his spiritual power that he hadn't had time to retract across the ground and, sure enough, discovered that the shadows on the ground had started to fog and distort again, extending hideous tentacles.

Immediately after, he was embraced by the man's powerful arms around his waist and lifted directly off the ground.

The feeling of weightlessness made him unconsciously let go of the man's hair that he had been grasping, and instead reach down to grab the man's shoulders to maintain balance. However, the muscles on the man's shoulders were very tense and uncomfortable to hold onto. Moreover, this posture was truly a bit strange. His body from the waist down was suspended in the air without any support, feeling empty and very awkward.

The man held him very tightly, as if afraid that if he loosened his grip even slightly, He Yan would directly disappear. He Yan was forced into close contact with the man's chest and abdomen, feeling his ribcage compressed to the point that even breathing was a bit difficult.

Through the somewhat stiff suit jacket, he could clearly feel the coolness emanating from the man's body. Even the shoulders he was pressing down on with his hands had a temperature lower than that of an ordinary person's. Although it couldn't be described as bone-chillingly cold, it was enough to make one realize upon contact that this likely wasn't the body temperature a living person should have.

This temperature would be just right in the hot summer. In that case, there probably wouldn't even be a need to install air conditioning at home in the future. However, when winter arrived, it would likely pose some issues...

He Yan's thoughts wandered a bit as he considered the relationship between the man's body temperature and keeping warm in the winter. Just as he was about to open his mouth to tell the man to put him down, he found the scenery before his eyes rapidly distorting. This was followed by a brief sensation of dizziness. By the time he came back to his senses, what lay before his eyes was already the appearance of that familiar small rental apartment.

He Yan: "..."

"Put me down," He Yan pushed against the man's shoulders and complained, "I can't breathe."

The man paused for a moment, obediently loosened his grip, and bent down to place him... onto the soft bed.

After putting He Yan on the bed, the man didn't stand up. Instead, maintaining this posture, he pressed his knee against the edge of the bed, propped his hands on either side of He Yan, and leaned in close.

The man's face was very close to his, at a distance where he could kiss him with a tilt of his head.

The man's head of black hair, which He Yan had grabbed and messed up, was now completely shapeless, clinging messily to his brows and cheeks. As the distance between the two narrowed, a few strands even brushed against He Yan's face. He Yan couldn't help but lean his body back and reach out to slick those disobedient strands upward, making them neatly return to the back of the man's head, revealing his full forehead and sharp brows and eyes.

The man's brows were slightly furrowed as his dark eyes stared unwaveringly at He Yan.

Under He Yan's gaze, he stuck out the tip of his tongue to lick the corner of his lips, then leaned in for a kiss.

Perhaps because he had restrained himself for too long before, the man's kiss seemed very urgent. Moreover, due to his lack of experience, he only knew how to bite and lick without any technique from start to finish. He Yan was bitten painfully and couldn't help but turn his face away during a break to catch his breath, using his arms to prop himself up and retreat backward.

It was just that this bed was really too small, about the same size as a student dorm bed. The total width wasn't even a meter. He Yan had only shifted back a short distance when he felt his back press against the wall.

And in front, the man had already followed and closed in, his entire body almost climbing onto this narrow single bed, completely blocking He Yan's path forward.

Behind him was the cold, hard wall. There was no way to retreat.

......

The night was deep, and the clock had silently passed the "twelve" position, beginning another cycle.

The hour of the rat had passed, and countless tiny shadows were scurrying about like little snakes in the dark corners of this city, transforming into all sorts of bizarre shapes as they began their "nightlife" that ordinary people couldn't glimpse.

A faint sound came from outside the window. Xuan Qi shifted his gaze from the youth in his arms to the source of the noise, his eyes cold.

It was a little person folded out of yellow paper, sneakily feeling around the window, trying to find a gap to slip through.

This rental apartment was already quite old, so naturally the windows were also very dilapidated. The little paper person quickly found a crack that wasn't tightly closed. It bent down, about to squeeze through, but had only made it halfway in when it was ensnared by wisps of black qi that came from who knows where, wrapping around its hands, feet, and body. In a mere few seconds, it turned into a pinch of black ash, falling onto the grayish-white wall outside.

A passing breeze blew it away, and it completely dissipated into the air.

It seemed there were still people who didn't know their place.

Although the matter with Yan Xixi had returned to the right track, because his thoughts had been entirely focused on the youth since coming to the mortal realm, he hadn't had a chance to settle accounts with that human Taoist priest who had tried to capture a wisp of his spiritual consciousness. As a result, the other party had come knocking first.

Unwilling to leave the youth's side at a time like this, not even wanting to separate a thread of his spiritual consciousness, Xuan Qi decided to let the person behind the little paper figure have one more peaceful night. He would wait until the youth went to school during the day to free up his hands and thoroughly resolve this matter.

He retracted his gaze and let it fall once more upon the youth curled up in his embrace.

Because the bed was really too narrow and his frame was too large, he had to lie on his side to avoid taking up the entire bed. Even so, the youth also had to curl up on his side in his arms in order for this undersized bed to barely fit two grown men.

The youth had only fallen asleep a few minutes ago, his face carrying a hint of obvious weariness, the corners of his eyes still faintly showing remnants of moisture.

Although his personality was very domineering, the youth actually had a very refined and harmless appearance. His black hair was fine and soft, his frame slender and slight.

He was a scrawny little thing. When kneading him, one could even feel the bones digging into the hands. When asleep, he was like a little hamster, obediently nestled in his arms, appearing completely non-threatening, not at all resembling the arrogant manner in which he had grabbed his head and "provoked" him not long ago.

In fact, the youth's spiritual consciousness was also very soft and cute, white and tender. It was just that its actions were fierce like its owner. If there was the slightest dissatisfaction, it would petulantly twist its body to hit people.

... Although its hits didn't really hurt much.

Xuan Qi silently gazed at the youth for a long time before lowering his head to lightly place a kiss on the tip of his nose, then sticking out his tongue to give it a lick.

The night was still long. He had a whole night to carefully observe the person in his arms.

Although he didn't know why the young man so easily forgave his previous wrongdoings and even took the initiative to say such things to... seduce him, for Xuan Qi who was determined to entangle with the young man, this was undoubtedly a huge surprise.

Regardless of whether the young man had other schemes in his heart, since he had already caught the person, he would not let go easily again.

He Yan slept until nine o'clock in the morning. As soon as he opened his eyes, he met the man's gaze.

Although he was very tired in the first half of the night, tossing and turning from nine o'clock until after midnight before falling asleep, he slept very soundly afterwards.

Although it was only early summer now, not yet the hottest time of the year, this small room had poor ventilation and was as stuffy as a furnace in the summer. But now with a human air conditioner of moderate coolness beside him, all these troubles disappeared.

Speaking of which, it's really true that you can't judge a book by its cover. Don't look at how Xuan Qi is so timid during the day that he doesn't even dare to stretch out his paws, only knowing to wag his tail at him pitifully all day long. But when it comes to the real thing, this guy is simply like a rabid dog, tossing him around until his bones are almost falling apart.

The man didn't know how long he had been staring at him like this. Seeing that he was awake, his eyes immediately lit up. He lowered his head to find his lips and started sucking on them.

After a night of practice, this person's kissing skills had progressed at a godly speed, and now there was no longer any sense of awkwardness.

He Yan hadn't washed up yet. After being caught and nibbled a few times, he hurriedly pushed the man away, then under the man's burning gaze, he crawled out of bed and took his towel and clothes to the bathroom to wash up and take a bath.

Under the flushing of the water, He Yan reached his hand behind him.

...Sure enough, apart from a slight wetness, there was nothing else there.

Although when he woke up this morning, the lack of any sticky or uncomfortable feeling there had already given him a vague sense of foreboding, but after personally confirming that the things left by the man had been absorbed by his body again, his mood was still extremely complicated.

The first time this happened, it could have been an accident, but this was the second time, there was no way to explain it as an accident...

He knew that spirit beasts could refine and absorb these things, but the original body was just an ordinary mortal. Although due to the time of his birth, his yin energy was a bit heavy and his fate was a bit light, it shouldn't be to the extent of having such an inhuman "function", right?

"..." He couldn't possibly ask Xuan Qi why it was like this, could he?

He Yan calmly rinsed his whole body and decided to find some time to look up relevant information.

The man had already bought breakfast during the time he was washing up, and had neatly arranged them on the desk. Breakfast was still very abundant, with several small lunch boxes crowding the not-so-large desk.

He Yan was going to sit at the desk to eat. There was no space in the room to put a second stool, so the man could only sit on the edge of the bed. The gap between the bed and the desk was very small. The man probably wanted to be closer to him, so he tucked his long legs, leaned his upper body forward, propped his arms on the edge of the table, and tilted his head to watch him eat.

He Yan: "..."

If he didn't know that this man didn't need to eat at all, he almost thought the man wanted to ask him for food.

He didn't know what it felt like for him to sit with his legs tucked like this, but He Yan felt stifled just looking at him.

Although after the man had tidied up the room inside and out last night, it looked more spacious and neat, but after all, it was only that big. No matter how much it was tidied up, it was impossible to double the space. The whole room was still crammed with all kinds of things from the original body.

It was still okay for his small frame to stay here, and he could barely move around, but for a tall guy like Xuan Qi with broad shoulders and long legs to be cramped here, he couldn't stretch his legs at all.

He Yan swallowed the last mouthful of porridge and let out a small burp of fullness. In his heart, he was thinking about finding a more spacious house as soon as possible, at least one that could accommodate both him and Xuan Qi, instead of like now, where there was no place to even put their feet down.

He didn't have much savings left, and he still had to set aside some to buy a new cell phone and computer. It was impossible for the time being to buy a house in this city where every inch of land was worth an inch of gold with this little money. He could temporarily rent one first.

After getting a new computer, he would go to the hacker forum to take on a job. When it came to places that were fast and safe to make money, the first thing He Yan thought of was there. Other things like investing were not unprofitable, it was just that the payback period was too long, and he didn't want to wait that long.

He Yan made a crisp sound in his heart as he planned out his current stage goals - save money to buy a house and stuff his partner who took up too much space into it.

By the time Xuan Qi had packed up all the leftovers from the young man's meal like last night and cleaned up the aftermath, it was almost ten o'clock, leaving only half an hour before class. With the distance from He Yan's current rental house to the school, the possibility of being late was infinitely high.

But He Yan wasn't very worried about that.

Xuan Qi picked up his suit jacket from the back of the chair and put it on slowly, saying softly to him, "I'll take you to school and we'll have dinner together after school."

He Yan was about to nod when he suddenly seemed to think of something and asked suspiciously, "Do you have something to take care of?"

The man's reaction was a bit off. Based on his current desire to stick to him all the time, he actually didn't pester him to go to class together?

Xuan Qi nodded in admission, "Yes, it will be done quickly."

But He Yan suddenly became a little interested and looked up at him and asked, "Is it official business?"

Xuan Qi didn't hide it: "Yes."

Even without mentioning the human Taoist priest's offense of attacking his spiritual consciousness, just the act of trying to deceive the Underworld Warrant and interfere with the Court of Ghost Prison's work was enough to sentence him.

"Then, Director," He Yan thought for a moment, then grinned at him and said, "Going out for official business today, can you bring your family member along?"

In any case, with his current situation, there wasn't really anything good to learn in the freshman courses. In comparison, the daily work routine of a hell civil servant was more interesting to him.

Xuan Qi: "..."

Hearing the words "family member", the man was silent for a while in a strange way, his throat moving slightly, his voice steady: "Mm."

It was just that his bright red earlobes betrayed that his heart was not as calm as he appeared at this moment.