Li Wei had never imagined, let alone himself, being able to be with the esteemed Lu Heng before 8 AM. And who dared to answer his phone call? This person was definitely not from Earth—a realization he shared, surprisingly, with Lu Heng.

What was astonishing was that the caller only gave Li Wei two pieces of information: first, Lu Heng had a fever, and second, Lu Heng needed to take leave. There was no mention of who the caller was. Finally, the person simply told Li Wei to call back in an hour and hung up. Damn, that was cool. Li Wei, filled with immense worry and overwhelming curiosity, decided to personally visit Lu Heng. If he truly had a fever, as the office director, he had to offer proper condolences.

Li Wei's home was half a city away from Lu Heng's. On good days, it took about half an hour to drive there. But on this cursed, miserable day, half an hour probably wouldn't be enough. Thinking this, he didn't even have time for breakfast. He grabbed two steamed buns and shouted towards a bedroom, "Sis, I'm commandeering your red horse today! In a real hurry, thanks!"

"You brat, always freeloading off my car, and never filling the tank…!" A woman with a large headband and a pale face mask shot out of the bedroom, standing by the door and scolding Li Wei. This fierce woman, dressed in Winnie the Pooh pajamas, was Li Qing, Li Wei's biological older sister, born three minutes before him.

Li Wei's parents lived in an old house in the suburbs, making it inconvenient for him to go back. He had been renting apartments since graduating from university. Li Qing, on the other hand, became an excellent flight attendant after graduation and also ventured early into micro-businesses. Her income far surpassed Li Wei, the small civil servant, by several miles. A few years ago, while city housing prices were still low, she mortgaged a small apartment. This greatly benefited her younger brother, who shamelessly moved in with his luggage, claiming it was to save money for Li Qing to marry off her brother. Li Qing was both amused and exasperated. Although she was only born three minutes earlier than Li Wei, she had been called "Sis" by this brat for 24 years, so she still spoiled him.

"Dearest sis, I’ll bring you 'Old Macau' Portuguese egg tarts this afternoon. Gotta go!" With that, he grabbed the car keys from the shoe cabinet without looking back and vanished from Li Qing's sight.

Li Wei drove his sister's big red Mazda, half a steamed bun still in his mouth, speeding towards Lu Heng's place.

Lu Heng, in a haze between sleep and wakefulness, heard the soft click of a closing door. He tried to wake up, but his eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. He frowned, turned over, and fell back asleep, until a rapid knocking sounded outside the door.

Lu Heng painstakingly propped up his aching body, shaking his head, trying to clear the double vision. "Stop knocking, damn it, who is it?" The sound that emerged startled him; his entire throat was hoarse, and the words he forced out were so low only he could hear them. He wrapped the thin quilt around himself and staggered into the living room to open the door.

"Holy hell, you're really sick? You look awful." Li Wei didn't wait for Lu Heng to speak, darting past him into the apartment.

"Why the hell are you here?" Lu Heng’s voice was so faint that even his swear words lacked conviction. He closed the door, ignored Li Wei, and stumbled back to his original sprawling position in the bedroom.

As soon as Li Wei entered, his eyes began darting around, like a shifty-eyed thief looking for a mistress. Seeing no one else in the room, he even checked the bathroom. Luckily, this two-bedroom apartment wasn't large, otherwise Lu Heng would have fallen asleep again by the time Li Wei finished his search.

"Lu Heng, you… alone?" Li Wei rubbed the back of his head and walked to the bedside, asking Lu Heng’s bare back.

After a while, Lu Heng finally rolled over, squinting in Li Wei’s direction. "Aren’t you a person? My throat is like this, stop asking me questions, damn it!" He gestured to his throat, then gave Li Wei the middle finger to show his displeasure.

Li Wei grew even more curious. Could the morning call have been supernatural?

"Hey, how did you get a fever? You were fine yesterday." He then noticed the person before him, slumped like a pile of mud. Seeing Lu Heng cast a cold glare, he hastily added, "Alright, alright, don't talk. I'll talk, you just listen."

"Was no one else at your place this morning? Why did a stranger answer my call?" Li Wei asked, as if questioning himself.

"Boom!" Lu Heng’s mind instantly cleared with his words.

"What did you say? Morning? Stranger?" His hoarse voice didn't hide his surprise.

"Oh my God, you really don't know someone was at your house? You had a thief?" A shiver ran down Li Wei's spine. The more he thought about it, the more he was frightened. "Just over an hour ago, I called you to pick you up for work. A man answered, said you had a fever, and asked me to get you a leave of absence. Are you delirious from the fever? You don’t even know there’s an outsider in your house?" He reached out to touch Lu Heng’s head.

Lu Heng frantically recoiled, all the memories from last night flashed through his mind.

His clear memory stopped at Jian Ming standing by his bed with a towel. What happened after that? Lu Heng's head suddenly throbbed with a sharp pain. Vaguely, he seemed to remember Jian Ming saying he would leave after Lu Heng fell asleep. Did he not leave? Then… that voice throughout the night telling him not to be afraid wasn't a dream? Lu Heng slapped his head hard, disjointedly recalling his chaotic nightmares of the night. When those heart-wrenching scenes came flooding back, he hadn't woken up as usual, all because that voice kept talking to him, and there was an unusually warm and safe embrace. Lu Heng had been curious how Jian Ming had entered his dreams and given him so much strength. He had naively thought it was just a figment of his imagination. Could it... not be?

"No, impossible, how could he…" Lu Heng shook his head, still unable to believe it.

"What’s wrong with you? Lu Heng? Don't scare me. Do you need to go to the hospital?" Li Wei saw Lu Heng’s panicked, unfocused gaze and, worried his illness was flaring up again, pushed his shoulder.

Lu Heng slowly raised his eyes to look at Li Wei, then suddenly jumped out of bed and rushed into the living room.

He spun around in the center of the living room, unsure what he was looking for, when he suddenly spotted a pot and a large kettle on the kitchen counter. He ran over; the pot still contained steaming white porridge, and tucked under the kettle was a business card. On the back, it read: "Get up and have some porridge. Remember to heat it if it gets cold. Drink the boiled water from the kettle, don’t drink raw water." The neatly penned, flowing script was Jian Ming's, Lu Heng recognized.

Li Wei followed behind him and now also saw the business card. "My God, are thieves so kind these days?"

"Get lost, have you ever seen a thief who cooks porridge?" Lu Heng rolled his eyes, walked past him, and rushed back to his room to get his phone.

Suddenly, he noticed an unfamiliar message notification on his phone. Was this… WeChat? He opened it and saw a new friend request in his empty WeChat. "Jian Ming"—just two simple characters in the request field. Lu Heng’s hand slipped, and the phone fell to the floor.

At this moment, his mind was a complete blur, as if a bucket of paste had been poured over it. His already muddled thoughts were stimulated by one unexpected surprise after another this early morning, turning into a tangled mess. He fell back onto the bed, covering his eyes with his palm, trying to calm himself down.

Li Wei deeply understood the meaning of curiosity killing the cat. He had followed Lu Heng in and out like an idiot, still completely bewildered. Seeing Lu Heng lying on the bed looking utterly hopeless, he decided to ask seriously.

He picked up Lu Heng's phone and saw the screen was still on the friend request. "Lu Heng, what's wrong with you? Are you still feverish? Let me feel." He was genuinely worried about Lu Heng, but the guy wouldn't say anything, not a peep for ages. He had no choice but to try.

"You saw it? The phone." Lu Heng glanced at him.

"Yeah, saw it. What about it?"

"He's my frie… uh… my psychological counselor, taking over from Old Jiang. He took care of me last night. He answered the phone this morning." Lu Heng wanted to say "friend," but thought it better to clarify their relationship first, which Li Wei's below-average IQ would probably understand more easily.

"Oh…" Li Wei listened without interrupting, sensing he wasn't finished.

"I’m fine. I got wet in the rain yesterday. Maybe it’s been too long since I’ve been sick; having a fever is good." Lu Heng said lightly.

"Bah, bah, bah. Who curses themselves to get sick? Did your brain get fried by the fever?" Li Wei saw the thermometer on the bedside table and quickly handed it to him. "Take your temperature again. If you're really sick, I'll take you to the hospital. If you're not, I need to go back to the office to get your leave approved."

Watching Lu Heng obediently put the thermometer in his mouth, Li Wei finally breathed a sigh of relief. "This Assistant Jian is quite professional. Aren't you going to add him?" In truth, Li Wei had a million other questions, but he felt that Lu Heng, in his current state, providing even these explanations was a miracle. He was always tactful, so he didn't press further, merely tossing the phone back to Lu Heng, thinking that his WeChat, which had only him as a friend, finally had a new member—a huge step forward.

Lu Heng propped himself up, his finger hovering for a moment, then forcefully tapped "Accept" on the screen.

"37.8, still a low fever. You rest, old man. I'll show my face at the office, get your leave approved, then come back. What do you want for lunch?" Seeing Lu Heng was doing alright, Li Wei stopped nagging him about going to the hospital.

"I’m fine, you don’t need to run around. Don’t bring anything, I have porridge." Lu Heng replied curtly, his voice hoarse. Then he looked towards the kitchen and lifted his chin, a strange sense of contentment spreading across his face.

After Li Wei left, he leaned against the headboard, unable to sleep. His mind was consumed by the newly added friend on WeChat. He pieced together all his memories since meeting Jian Ming, which was less than half a month ago. His entire emotional state had been continuously swayed and influenced by Jian Ming. The sense of security and dependence Jian Ming provided even threatened to surpass that of his eternal idol, Uncle Gu Tao. He began to realize a strange change had occurred within him, but Lu Heng couldn't for the life of him figure out what that change was.

Meanwhile, Jian Ming, after speeding all the way home, immediately locked himself in the bathroom. The tumultuous night had truly taken its toll on him. He could feign composure in front of others, but deep down, he knew that as Lu Heng’s psychological counselor, he had long overstepped his bounds. He simply couldn't resist a certain allure Lu Heng held. He was a psychological expert, yet a doctor couldn’t heal himself. Jian Ming was tightly bound by these damned instincts and uncontrollable desires, unable to extricate himself.

Standing in the small shower stall, separated by a steaming white mist, water continuously cascaded over his tall, upright body, gliding along the perfect curve of his lower back, swirling into eddies at his feet. Jian Ming closed his eyes, letting the mist envelop him. Before his eyes appeared Lu Heng’s dazed, languid gaze from last night. He unconsciously traced the contours of Lu Heng’s strong, taut body in his mind. His whole body was stimulated and aroused by the heat, his breathing growing heavy, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His hand slowly slid down to his dense pubic area. It felt like an eternity since he had experienced such intense desire. He rapidly moved his arm, suppressing the gasps that threatened to escape, so much so that his other hand, propped against the wall, trembled. At this moment, every nerve in his body was taut, focused on one spot. With a hoarse groan, intense pleasure erupted. He froze in place, then slumped against the wall behind him, his ragged breathing slowly calming after a long while.

Back in the bedroom, lying on the bed, Jian Ming stared at the ceiling, forcing himself to regain rationality. When did his relationship with Lu Heng begin to change? He could also feel Lu Heng’s current dependence on him, but this dependence was something he himself had orchestrated; it didn't mean anything. Yet, why had he gotten lost faster than Lu Heng? Jian Ming felt uneasy, a feeling much like the panic he experienced when he first realized he liked men in college.

He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to clear his head, attempting to redefine his relationship with Lu Heng, when a WeChat message brought him back to reality.

That porridge you made… I really liked it.