Chapter 41

Translator: Abo Dammen

Chen Lu fell into a rare silence, completely unprepared for Qin Guchuan’s answer. His mind raced, and after a long moment, he let out a meaningless “Ah.” 

Actually, it didn’t seem entirely impossible. Thinking about the plot in his head, a significant amount of time had passed, and the emotional connection between the two protagonists had begun to surface. At this point, a bit of stimulation leading to something happening seemed quite reasonable.

The atmosphere felt inexplicably awkward. Chen Lu felt he should lighten the mood.

Actually, intimate scenes weren’t a big deal since it was all just acting anyway. It was just a bit different from playing the innocent, pitiful white flower.

“A broken rag doll… I’ve never really acted like that before…” Chen Lu said thoughtfully. “That does present a bit of a challenge.” 

Qin Guchuan: “?”

“What broken rag doll?” Qin Guchuan, who hadn’t understood at all, felt he couldn’t follow Chen Lu’s train of thought. He didn’t know how Chen Lu had jumped from ‘intimate plot’ to ‘broken rag doll’.

“…..” Chen Lu looked at Qin Guchuan’s expression and realized the other man genuinely seemed to have no idea. His face immediately showed surprise. “The plot for this part doesn’t actually use the ‘broken rag doll’ description?”

He had thought all those tropes he’d seen mocked in early-2000s novel compilations would appear in this plot. 

“Mm?” Qin Guchuan felt he was beginning to grasp something, but not entirely.

Chen Lu had no intention of explaining. He looked at Qin Guchuan curiously. “How is this part written in the plot? Can you read it out for me?”

Qin Guchuan looked at Chen Lu, who was still gazing at him with clear, guileless eyes, and felt a wave of indescribable emotion.

He can just keep asking about this kind of thing??? Does this guy not have a single shred of embarrassment in him? 

Faced with Chen Lu’s probing gaze, Qin Guchuan didn’t make a sound, only giving Chen Lu an unreadable, profound look. He lowered his head, pulled a disinfectant wipe from a drawer, and, under Chen Lu’s puzzled gaze, began meticulously wiping his fingers.

Chen Lu didn’t understand the meaning of this action. He did have the intention of watching Qin Guchuan squirm by pressing the issue, but what did carefully wiping his fingers without saying a word mean?

“Don’t be shy, read it out. Don’t worry, I definitely won’t blush,” Chen Lu said, seeing Qin Guchuan start to adopt his domineering CEO posturing. He immediately opened his mouth and began chattering at Qin Guchuan.

Although he didn’t know what Qin Guchuan was planning, since Qin Guchuan didn’t dare to speak, he dared to be provocative. As long as Qin Guchuan was embarrassed, Chen Lu didn’t think he’d be the one blushing. 

Qin Guchuan glanced at the still-confident Chen Lu, extended his freshly cleaned finger, and pressed it with some force against Chen Lu’s incessantly moving lips.

Startled by the action, the slight pain made Chen Lu fall silent for two seconds. He didn’t dodge, just looked at Qin Guchuan with bewildered eyes, his mouth opening slightly. “Wha… Mmm!”

The finger resting against his lips met no resistance as it entered his mouth when he opened it, stirring against his lips and tongue, forcing uncontrolled, muffled sounds from him.

By the time Chen Lu came to his senses, feeling a surge of shame and anger, and tried to bite down, Qin Guchuan had already withdrawn his finger with lightning speed, looking completely composed as if nothing had happened. He took out another disinfectant wipe and began gently cleaning his finger again. 

Chen Lu’s lips and tongue felt numb and tingling from the intrusion. He licked the inside of his mouth, the strong taste of alcohol filling it. He quickly spat a few times, then glared angrily at Qin Guchuan. “What are you doing?!”

“You wanted to know the plot. I couldn’t read it out, so I demonstrated it for you,” Qin Guchuan said flatly, tossing both used wipes into the trash.

No matter how pure Chen Lu’s eyes looked earlier, the real intention behind them, to see him make a fool of himself, had been almost tangible. Qin Guchuan felt he needed to make Chen Lu understand that while he could play around with other things, this wasn’t something he could joke about.

Chen Lu’s mouth twitched. The feeling of being probed by a foreign object felt very strange. Glaring at Qin Guchuan, he slammed the table and accused, “How can you just rehearse something like this without any warning!” 

Qin Guchuan knew his action would undoubtedly anger Chen Lu, but the specific content of Chen Lu’s accusation was something he truly hadn’t anticipated.

It made Qin Guchuan hesitate briefly between ‘So, would giving a warning make it okay?’ and ‘This was just a demonstration.’ Looking at the genuine anger in Chen Lu’s eyes, Qin Guchuan, who possessed a sliver of survival instinct, chose the latter, “It wasn’t a rehearsal, just a demonstration.”

Having said that, Qin Guchuan explained the difference between a demonstration and a rehearsal to Chen Lu.

Qin Guchuan’s finger lightly touched the tip of his own tongue. “Since it’s an intimate scene, of course, it’s here.” 

Chen Lu watched Qin Guchuan, whose expression remained as cool and domineering as ever even while making such a gesture, and felt an inexplicable, seductive aura.

It felt like he had somehow led this utterly clueless, proper CEO into doing something very improper. Chen Lu’s gaze fell on Qin Guchuan’s distinct, slender fingers, and suddenly, his anger from moments ago evaporated.

“Even though you disinfected it carefully, you just put this finger in my mouth, right?” Chen Lu, now calmer, looked at Qin Guchuan with a complicated expression, a hint of disgust in his eyes.

Hearing Chen Lu’s words, Qin Guchuan’s movements stiffened for a moment. Ultimately, he looked back at Chen Lu with an equally complicated gaze. “In a few days, it’ll be direct contact. And you’re worried about this?” And to be accurate, it wouldn’t just be ‘contact’ either. 

Now it was Chen Lu’s turn to be speechless.

When Qin Guchuan adopted a frank attitude, Chen Lu was the one who felt somewhat embarrassed. Thinking about the possible descriptions made him feel awkward. He gritted his teeth in frustration, couldn’t hold back, and cursed under his breath. “I’d forgotten about the ‘devouring’ part. What a pain.”

In Chen Lu’s understanding, ‘devouring’ was even more troublesome than the ‘broken rag doll’ scenario.

After all, Chen Lu lived in an era where ‘fade to black’ was prevalent. In his mind, ‘broken rag doll’ was just a line like, ‘Amidst screams and gasps, the night passed. ‘Chen Lu’ lay on the bed like a broken rag doll.’ As someone who only consumed compilations mocking early-2000s novels, Chen Lu didn’t have a very concrete concept of such scenes. 

Based on the information about ‘broken rag dolls’ from those compilations, Chen Lu felt there was still quite a bit of room for maneuver.

But ‘devouring’ was a bit trickier.

Chen Lu had heard that descriptions in this type of novel mostly had to stay ‘above the neck’. If this world was similar, then the descriptions related to ‘devouring’ would likely be extremely detailed.

Just like a certain text image arguing about whether a scene description exceeded standards that had once accidentally floated onto Chen Lu’s homepage. He had glanced at it briefly. It had spent over a hundred words meticulously and clearly describing and depicting even the act of swallowing. 

Judging by Qin Guchuan’s complete inability to read it aloud, the relevant descriptions in this intimate plot definitely wouldn’t be glossed over with just a few simple sentences.

The previous plot had been so artistically pure and dog-blooded that Chen Lu had completely forgotten this type of early-2000s novel plot also included scenes like this.

Qin Guchuan clearly heard Chen Lu’s frustrated, gritted-teeth remark and instantly understood what exactly the ‘devouring’ referred to.

After all… those exact words he used, ‘devouring’, really did appear in that passage. 

At this moment, Qin Guchuan recalled the ‘broken rag doll’ Chen Lu had mentioned when he first heard about the intimate plot.

Thinking carefully about where such a term might appear, Qin Guchuan searched through a few specific plot sections in his mind and, sure enough, found the words ‘broken rag doll’.

Qin Guchuan fell silent.

Because the content was so explicit, describing every action in minute detail, Qin Guchuan found it too bizarre to read carefully, knowing the protagonist was himself. So, he had mostly just skimmed over those parts and skipped them directly. 

After all, skipping them didn’t affect the actual plot development at all.

So when Chen Lu first mentioned the ‘broken rag doll’ description, Qin Guchuan, who had skipped those parts, hadn’t realized what it meant.

Now, fully comprehending, Qin Guchuan suddenly didn’t know what expression to use when looking at Chen Lu.

How did this guy jump directly from ‘intimate plot’ to ‘broken rag doll’?! 

The leap is just too huge!!!

Qin Guchuan felt his own earlier behavior had been exaggerated enough, practically bordering on harassment right in Chen Lu’s face. But he never imagined that even before he made his move, Chen Lu had already mentally hit him with a high-speed naughty train.

His mind involuntarily recalled the fleeting descriptions he’d glimpsed while searching for the ‘broken rag doll’ phrase. Qin Guchuan took a deep breath.

He really wanted to grab Chen Lu and give him a beating right now. 

Fully aware that Chen Lu probably hadn’t been thinking anything specific when he mentioned ‘broken rag doll’, Qin Guchuan looked deeply at the completely oblivious Chen Lu.

“What are you planning to do?” Qin Guchuan asked in a low voice, addressing the deeply thoughtful Chen Lu.

Chen Lu hadn’t actually come up with any good ideas.

He’d had many strategies for dealing with the plot characters and bending the wayward plot back on track, but he really had no experience in how to reasonably skip over plot. 

“How many words is this scene described in?” Chen Lu finally asked Qin Guchuan.

If it was only a hundred or two, well, characters skipping plot hadn’t happened before. For less important plot, skipping a hundred-some words might not have much impact. They could simplify it a bit, maybe use camera angles to get past it.

Chen Lu clung to a sliver of hope.

Qin Guchuan quickly scanned the plot section and calmly delivered his answer. 

“Roughly two thousand words.”

Chen Lu: “….”

Chen Lu: “……….”

“It’s hopeless,” Chen Lu declared, his voice sounding ready to give up and lie flat. 

Seeing the despair on Chen Lu’s face, Qin Guchuan pressed his lips together slightly. Finally, he asked Chen Lu in a low voice, “Then, did you find what I did to you just now… disgusting?”

Hearing this question, Chen Lu blinked. He turned to look at Qin Guchuan, meeting his sincere eyes. He understood the underlying meaning of the question and felt he somewhat understood why Qin Guchuan had suddenly acted that way earlier.

Chen Lu quieted down. The tip of his tongue lightly brushed against his teeth, as if recalling and re-experiencing the tingling sensation from over ten minutes ago.

Watching Chen Lu seriously savoring the memory, Qin Guchuan’s fingers twitched. He felt an impulse to pry open that place again and observe it carefully. 

Oblivious to this danger, Chen Lu focused on feeling the brief, few seconds of contact. Finally, he raised his eyes, meeting Qin Guchuan’s probing gaze fixed on his lips and teeth. Without hesitation or delay, he gave a frank answer.

“I don’t dislike it.”