Ficorpio
Chapter 1
July 2002.
“Ah!” Adrian Bennett woke with a whimper, arms and legs flailing.
His body felt weak. He shifted his leg, numb from sleeping on it, and stared at his perfectly intact limbs. “Why are my arms and legs still attached? Shouldn’t they be…”
In pieces?
The thought frightened him before he could finish saying it. He’d had a nightmare. Somehow, he’d been lying in a cramped kitchen sink, his limbs scattered like chopped vegetables, some soaking in the water and others strewn across the cutting board.
Beside him, a pressure cooker hissed and rattled. Through its glass lid, he could make out pale chunks of meat. Their smell drifted through the kitchen. A clump of black hair was caught between the pot and its lid, and from the gap seeped…
Blood.
Adrian’s eyes flew wide. A chill ran down his back as he looked toward the kitchen’s rust-stained sink.
Empty. There was nothing in it.
He let out a breath. Thank God. Though he thought there really was a pressure cooker in the cabinet beneath it.
A sudden sting at the top of his thigh distracted him. He tugged at the edge of his underwear and saw the red, chafed skin. “That hurts.”
His hips and thighs were fuller than his narrow waist, so underwear that fit properly was hard to find. The edges always rubbed him raw.
It was July, and the apartment had no air conditioner. The old electric fan a few feet in front of him had stopped turning. All he could do was sit in the heat while sweat poured off him. It trickled down from his hip and into the sore place at the top of his thigh, making it sting even worse.
“This is miserable.” Pouting, Adrian picked up a tissue and carefully dabbed at his leg.
The front door opened with a bang.
He jumped. The tissue pressed too hard against the raw skin, and he gave a small, sharp cry.
Cole Sterling walked in to find crumpled tissues scattered across the couch and floor. Adrian lay sprawled on his back, legs spread and pulled toward him, like a little turtle flipped onto its shell. His pale thighs were bare, the chafed skin damp with sweat, and his hand was still hovering there.
His tiny, pale-pink T-shirt had ridden up until it barely covered his chest. The red protection cord he wore around his waist had slipped upward too, pulling its solid-gold longevity pendant tight against him. The faint red marks on his skin might have come from the cord or from sleeping on it. From where Cole stood, they looked like the marks of a rough grip.
Cole’s dark gaze traveled over him. His eyes hardened. Filthy little slut.
“Why didn’t you knock?” Adrian demanded. His face was flushed from the heat. He pulled down his shirt and drew his legs together. “What if I’d been changing? You’d have seen everything!”
“This is my apartment. Why would I knock?” Cole looked at him. “You’re my husband. What is there I can’t see?”
“Or have you forgotten the way you writhed all over me that night like a disgusting pale worm?”
He set the bag he was carrying on the coffee table. “Food.”
Adrian had no answer to that. He huffed instead. Since when did Cole have so much to say?
He sat up and eyed the clear bag. Inside were a white foam takeout box and milk in a plastic bag. Cheap construction-site food, obviously.
“Cole, do you ever make any money? You brought me leftovers from the work site? I told you I wanted soy-braised ribs today.”
“I didn’t have time.” Cole took in Adrian’s sweat-soaked, heat-flushed skin, then looked at the fan that usually ran for him around the clock. It was still.
“You must be hot too,” Adrian said quickly. “Go on, turn the fan on.”
He opened the meal. It was still warm: one box of rice, one of food. Only one serving. Whether Cole had eaten didn’t concern him. He was Cole’s husband now; Cole was supposed to provide for him.
But Adrian was distracted. Without looking, he picked up a meatball and put it in his mouth, keeping his eyes fixed on Cole as he reached for the fan.
Click.
The switch went down. The blades didn’t move.
“Mmph!” Adrian cried, too agitated to swallow. “Cole, did you break it? You did, didn’t you? Fans are expensive! Can you even afford to replace it?”
“When the landlord asks for the money, don’t try to make it my problem. Sell your blood, sell a kidney, sell yourself if you have to, but leave me out of it.”
At last, the worry that had been sitting in his chest all afternoon was out. He swung his feet and finally looked at the food: fried meatballs, cold mushrooms, sausage and greens, and a chicken leg. The box was packed full.
Cole glanced at him. One moment Adrian had been shrinking into himself; the next, he was watching Cole with furtive little eyes. Cole went around to the back of the fan to inspect it. He pushed his damp hair away from his face, leaving a few strands loose at his temples. Sweat had soaked through his charcoal sleeveless shirt, plastering it to his chest. More ran down the back of his neck and over his exposed skin.
“It isn’t broken. The plug’s loose.”
Adrian said nothing. Cole might be trying to trick him, and if Adrian joined the conversation, somehow he’d end up paying for the fan.
It had stopped at two or three that afternoon, just as he’d stretched out on the couch for a satisfying nap. He’d panicked, wondering whether he’d worn it out by needing so much cool air. He hadn’t dared touch anything except the switch. Then he’d waited for Cole to come home so he could pin the blame on him.
Cole pushed the plug firmly into the outlet. The fan whirred to life.
So it really wasn’t broken.
Chapter 2
Adrian stuffed a huge mouthful of rice into his mouth and chewed furiously. Stupid plug. Stupid fan. He’d spent hours sweating for nothing, and now the skin on his thighs and backside stung.
Stupid apartment. Stupid Cole.
“It’s your fault you don’t have any money,” he complained. “You rented a place where the fan won’t even stay plugged in. You can’t afford air conditioning, either.”
Cole raised his eyes. “Would an air conditioner make you the Bennett family’s real son? A counterfeit belongs with other junk.”
A counterfeit? Junk?
Adrian glared at him. Cole’s face was infuriatingly handsome, all sharp brows and strong features, but his dark eyes gave nothing away. There was something oppressive about him, something that warned people not to cross him.
Before he’d lost his fortune, Cole had been a man people made room for. He’d never had to worry about what anyone else thought.
Adrian wasn’t afraid of him. The system had told him Cole was stupid, that Adrian could play him like a dog.
There had always been a voice in Adrian’s head, a system that taught him how to be bad. It said people liked him that way. The worse he behaved, the more they would love him.
The system had disappeared after the Bennett family threw him out. Adrian didn’t know what else to do, so he kept following what it had taught him. That way, people would still like him.
There was something he had never told the system: he had died once before.
In his last life, his family had been poor. He’d gone hungry and cold; forget air conditioning, they hadn’t even owned a fan. When his younger brother needed money for school, their parents had sold Adrian to an old blind man in the village, a man in his sixties or seventies.
On their wedding night, the old man had shoved him around. Adrian remembered a terrible pain in his head, as if it had sprung a leak and something inside would not stop spilling out.
Then he’d died.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in the Bennett household.
He never wanted to go back to the life he’d had before. So every day of this life, Adrian had worked hard at being bad. By now, he’d become very good at it.
Cole was right that he was a false heir. False in his place in the family, false all the way through.
Yet he’d only been out of the Bennett house for half a month, and already the details of his comfortable life there were fading. The memories of his first life were growing clearer instead.
It felt as though he were turning back into who he’d always been.
“Hmph!” Adrian slapped his utensils against the table, but only after making sure he wouldn’t spill his food. “You’re the junk! It’s just a stupid fan. You act like I’ve never seen one. I’ve seen lots of them. Round ones, square ones, even triangular ones—”
Cole turned the fan to its highest setting.
“Have you… ever seen… Cole… cough!” The blast struck Adrian full in the face. He gulped air, blinked rapidly, and hiccuped. Whatever else he’d been about to say was lost.
Cole watched him struggle to keep his mouth shut and gave a quiet scoff.
Idiot.
Ever since he’d learned who Adrian was, Cole had suspected something was wrong with the boy’s head. His husband was beautiful, vicious, shameless—and astonishingly stupid.
As the wind picked up, Cole Sterling’s aggressively masculine presence spread through the cramped rental apartment, mingling with the heat of his body and invading Adrian Bennett’s nose.
There wasn’t really any smell. He was simply hot and sweaty.
But Adrian hadn’t performed at his best just now. How could he possibly pass up another chance to humiliate Cole?
So he pinched his nose and said in an exaggeratedly disgusted voice, “Cole Sterling, you’re covered in sweat. You’re filthy. You stink…”
What a nuisance. They had barely enjoyed a moment of peace before he started buzzing again like an annoying fly.
Cole lowered his eyes. His right hand, still tucked in his pocket, closed around the lighter inside. His left arm rested against the fan’s protective grille, his fingertips tapping against it in an unhurried rhythm. His dark gaze fixed on the blades spinning rapidly behind the metal bars.
He had once read a factory testing report on fans like this. If the blades were spinning fast enough, a fan without a guard could slice through a person’s neck.
Adrian’s head… If it happened to fall off by accident, he would finally shut up and stay quiet.
Completely unaware of the danger, Adrian continued racking his brain for increasingly vicious insults.
“You’re sticky and filthy every day, just like those stray dogs outside that dig through garbage and eat whatever they find…”
“And it’s obvious—obvious—you’re an old bachelor who’ll never find a wife!”
Like that despised old blind man.
When he finished, Adrian swallowed against his dry throat and silently gave himself a score. He thought he had done an excellent job this time.
Besides, saying all that had made his own skin itch. It felt as if something were crawling over him.
He scratched at the spot, but the crawling sensation only grew stronger.
Adrian hurriedly lifted his shirt.
A long, thin centipede, its body as thick as a finger and bright red from end to end, was sprawled across his chest.
“Ahhh! A bug! There’s a bug!”
Startled, the centipede suddenly bared its sharp mouthparts and bit down on a soft fold of flesh beside its jaws so it wouldn’t be thrown off.
“Ah—!”
Cole looked down at the panicking Adrian. The boy had only been bitten by a bug, yet he was screaming like a sow giving birth.
“C-Cole Sterling…!”
Adrian, who had been so smug only moments earlier, now had tears gathering in the corners of his reddened eyes. He held his shirt up, exposing a broad expanse of dazzlingly pale skin that swayed with every movement as he pushed himself toward Cole.
“Get… get it off me!”
Amusement flickered through Cole.
Chapter 3
Other than the night Adrian had drugged him, Adrian had treated those few exposed parts of his body like priceless treasures, keeping them covered at all times. And now, in his panic, he was practically trying to feed himself into Cole’s mouth.
Half a month earlier, Cole had not yet gone bankrupt, and the Bennett family had only just discovered that Adrian—their supposed young master—was not their biological son, but a child who had been switched at birth.
That very night, the false young master himself had climbed into Cole’s bed and drugged him with a livestock breeding stimulant.
A mating drug for animals.
Veterinary medicine tended to come in generous doses—enough to last.
Unfortunately, Adrian had no idea how such a thing was supposed to work. After all that effort, nothing had happened. In the end, the excessive dosage had left Cole’s sexual function permanently damaged.
“Cole Sterling…” Adrian’s voice trembled on the edge of tears. When Cole still didn’t move, he reached out and grabbed for Cole’s arm.
Cole subtly pulled back, and Adrian’s hand caught nothing.
Adrian froze for a moment, then steadied himself.
Hmph. Cole was hard as a board and drenched in sweat. Adrian didn’t want to touch him anyway.
But the centipede’s legs and body were red. Who knew whether it was poisonous? Adrian didn’t dare try to remove it himself.
And it was still biting him there. What if it bit him badly? Cole was thick-skinned and built like a wall…
Watching for his chance, Adrian leaned forward and chased after Cole’s arm, grabbing it again.
“Cole Sterling…”
Cole frowned as he stared at the slender white fingers wrapped around his forearm.
“Dirty. Don’t touch me.”
Adrian assumed Cole was still thinking about the insults he had just thrown at him. To make Cole help remove the centipede, he immediately began soothing him with a false sweetness, his voice still hitching with little sobs.
“No, you’re not dirty. I was lying before…”
Cole gave Adrian a long, unreadable look and cut off his rambling.
“You’re the dirty one.”
Adrian thought he must have misheard. His eyes widened.
“What…?”
Cole slowly pulled his arm free from Adrian’s fingers.
“Your hands were just down there.”
What did he mean, down where?
Adrian’s expression instantly twisted with shame and outrage. He forgot all about the centipede and hurriedly protested, “What are you talking about? I didn’t… I was just wiping away sweat!”
Smack.
The sharp crack silenced him.
Cole’s broad hand had swept down decisively, knocking both the biting red centipede and Adrian’s hand away at the same time. The centipede hit the floor.
“Ugh…”
Adrian’s body jerked, and he went completely blank.
A film of tears instantly clouded his eyes. His entire eye area flushed red, and the tears nearly spilled over.
He glared fiercely at Cole through the moisture, anger burning in his gaze.
Cole’s hand had not only knocked the centipede away. It had hit him, too.
Adrian looked at the hand that had struck him. Cole’s fingers were thick and long, while fresh cracks and thin calluses covered his palms and fingertips from the hard work of the past few days.
Adrian pulled a miserable face and silently cursed Cole over and over.
What a bastard. How could he hit him?
That huge hand had hurt like hell. The spot on Adrian’s chest where the centipede had bitten him was bright red from the slap.
Adrian hurriedly examined the bite, muttering under his breath, “It could’ve bitten me anywhere. Why did it have to be there…?”
Cole Sterling lifted his foot and crushed the red centipede beneath his shoe. His gaze lingered on the patch of flesh Adrian was fussing over, and he remembered the wild cherries growing on the mountain trees they had passed on the drive here. They had been just as red.
They had also been terribly sour.
Cole ignored Adrian’s renewed complaints, grabbed a change of clothes, and turned toward the bathroom.
“I need to wash my clothes too.”
The moment Adrian saw Cole enter the bathroom, he hurriedly stripped off his dirty clothes and underwear. He had barely pulled on a clean shirt before following Cole inside. Without a trace of shame, he shoved all his dirty laundry into Cole’s pile and waited to reap the benefits of someone else’s work.
There was no washing machine in the rental house Cole was staying in. One of the neighbors had mentioned that places without one were about a hundred yuan cheaper, so every time Cole did laundry, Adrian kept a close eye on him and waited for the right moment to take advantage.
His gaze accidentally fell on the oversized black underwear beside him.
Hmph. Cole didn’t just have big hands and big feet. His butt was huge too.
Disgusted by the dirt, Adrian quickly looked away and returned to the living room. He was planning to finish his takeout meal, but the instant he sat down on the sofa, Cole’s cold voice came from the bathroom.
“Wash your own clothes.”
Before Adrian could even get up, Cole had already picked his clothes out of the pile and thrown them onto the bathroom floor. The smallest garment on top was, unmistakably, Adrian’s underwear.
“Cole Sterling!” Adrian shouted.
It was one of his favorite pairs—a delicate mint-green pair embroidered with little cream-colored butterflies and trimmed with white lace.
“You… How could you throw it on the floor?”
Adrian immediately spotted the black footprint along the edge.
Cole had actually stepped on it!
The footprint was enormous. That bastard! Cole Sterling was nothing but a rotten, turtle-hearted bastard!
Cole looked at Adrian’s expression. He appeared ready to build the underwear a tomb and burn offerings for it every year at the proper memorial festival. Cole couldn’t be bothered to argue.
“If you don’t wash it, go without.”
Go without?