Hearing You Say Love chapter 75
Touching You, Makes It React This Way
When Zou Beiyuan left his aunt’s house, he was carrying a box of Pu’ehr tea that his aunt insisted he take.
Back at Tianhe Residence, as he went upstairs, he ran into Su Ming at the door, receiving a delivery: four large cardboard boxes.
Zou Beiyuan took off his coat and tossed it on the sofa in his apartment before coming out to help Su Ming move the boxes inside. He asked, “What’s in them?”
Su Ming wrote in his notebook: Stuff from the publisher.
Zou Beiyuan grabbed a utility knife to open the boxes, but Su Ming stopped him.
Of course, he couldn’t let him open them—inside were signed title pages for Rabbit Conspiracy, Wolf Trail, Volume 2. Along with the signed pages, the publisher had also sent 20 copies of the comic. If Zou Beiyuan saw them, it’d be hard to explain why a publisher would send him erotic comics.
Su Ming directed Zou Beiyuan to stack the boxes in a corner of the living room, planning to open them later when he was alone.
They went to the supermarket together to buy groceries, then cooked dinner side by side.
With their time together counting down, every moment became precious, even the mundane tasks of daily life felt meaningful.
Su Ming noticed that Zou Beiyuan had been in an unusually good mood since he brought the Pu’ehr tea back that afternoon. When asked why, Zou Beiyuan wouldn’t say—he just kept smiling foolishly.
Later, as they stood brushing their teeth together in the bathroom, Zou Beiyuan even started humming a tune, though wildly out of tune. Su Ming couldn’t figure out what he was so happy about and kept giving him puzzled looks.
Zou Beiyuan kept grinning, leaned over with his toothbrush still in his mouth, and kissed Su Ming, smearing toothpaste foam on his face. Annoyed, Su Ming got back at him by spraying him with cold water in the shower.
Zou Beiyuan, completely naked, pulled Su Ming into a warm embrace, his body still radiating heat despite the cold water. Holding him felt incredibly comforting.
After a while, Zou Beiyuan cupped Su Ming’s face, his eyes brimming with joy. Slowly and deliberately, he said, “Grandma agreed to us being together.”
Su Ming, not wearing his cochlear implant, stood under the running water, squinting against the spray from the shower. Reading Zou Beiyuan’s lips, he froze in shock and turned off the water. Signing, he asked: What? Say it again.
Zou Beiyuan repeated, both speaking and signing clumsily, “Grandma agreed to us being together.”
Su Ming’s eyes widened in disbelief: How did you tell her?
“I just told her,” Zou Beiyuan admitted. “I confessed to her and Aunt this afternoon. I thought they’d be mad, but they didn’t say anything. They even told me to bring you back for dinner next time.”
Su Ming was stunned.
He had imagined countless scenarios: What if Teacher Song opposed them? What if she demanded he leave Zou Beiyuan? What if she even hated him?
After all, he was the one who initiated their relationship, and he always felt guilty in front of Teacher Song.
The thought of confessing had always been so painful that he avoided it, choosing to bury his head in the sand and hope the issue would never come up.
But Zou Beiyuan had passed through it so easily?
Why did you suddenly decide to come out? Su Ming asked.
Zou Beiyuan confessed honestly, “This afternoon, when I kissed you in the yard, Aunt saw us.”
Su Ming understood. Most likely, Teacher Song and Zou Beiyuan’s aunt had already discussed it and come to a conclusion, and Zou Beiyuan’s confession was merely a formality to receive their pre-agreed approval.
As for what was discussed, only Teacher Song and Zou Beiyuan’s aunt knew.
Su Ming thought it must have been difficult for them. Zou Beiyuan, always happy-go-lucky, probably hadn’t considered that their agreement was a compromise made out of love for him.
Feeling a lump in his throat, Su Ming lowered his head to avoid looking at him.
“Crying again?” Zou Beiyuan bent down, pressing his forehead against Su Ming’s to make him look up. “We can finally be together openly, baby.”
Silly wolf, Su Ming sighed inwardly. Feeling both sorrow and gratitude, he closed his eyes and kissed Zou Beiyuan.
The weather had cooled, and Zou Beiyuan worried about Su Ming catching a cold. Wrapping him in a towel, he dried his hair and tucked him into bed.
The bedside drawer was stuffed with various flavors of lube, though the XXL condoms hadn’t even been opened.
Ever since their first time, when Zou Beiyuan “forgot” to use protection, he’d been deliberately skipping it, enjoying teasing Su Ming during cleanup.
At first, Su Ming protested, but over time, he let him have his way. After all, it wasn’t like he could get pregnant.
Though it was always a bit uncomfortable afterward, Su Ming indulged him willingly.
It was still early when Zou Beiyuan left the room to take an international call with his new agency, while Su Ming sat in bed sketching storyboards on his tablet.
This chapter focused more on plot, so the characters weren’t drawn too clearly. Even if Zou Beiyuan saw it, it didn’t matter—he already knew the story as the wolf and the rabbit’s friendship.
Around 10 p.m., Zou Beiyuan returned to the room and handed Su Ming a glass of water. Without looking up, Su Ming took a small sip directly from his hand.
“Are you sketching drafts?” Zou Beiyuan climbed onto the bed and leaned his head on Su Ming’s shoulder, watching him work on the tablet.
Su Ming’s hand paused for a moment as he pulled the draft paper and wrote in a blank space: This is called storyboarding.
“Storyboarding?”
Su Ming patiently explained: It’s like a rough draft. It designs how a comic is divided into panels, what content goes into each panel, character positioning, background details, the placement of speech bubbles, and so on.
On the screen, though the characters and backgrounds were sketched with just a few simple strokes, the content felt smooth and visually pleasing. Even someone like Zou Beiyuan, who didn’t understand comics much, could tell that Su Ming’s storyboarding skills were excellent.
He lifted Su Ming onto his lap, making him sit against his chest, while something obvious pressed against Su Ming’s lower back.
Su Ming noticed his intent, put down his pen, and reached to set the tablet aside.
“Keep drawing,” Zou Beiyuan said in a deep voice. “I like watching you work. Let me watch you a bit longer.”
Su Ming rubbed against him lightly, raising an eyebrow that seemed to say: Your body seems to disagree with that statement.
Zou Beiyuan grinned handsomely. “Just touching you makes it react this way. I can’t help it. Don’t mind it.”
Completely nestled in Zou Beiyuan’s embrace, Su Ming felt comfortable against his warm, relaxed body.
Looking down briefly, the contrast of their dark and pale skin tones intertwined was visually striking. Zou Beiyuan’s wrist, adorned with a black hair tie, rested on Su Ming’s abdomen. Treating this as part of their playful intimacy, Su Ming continued sketching.
The current chapter told the story of the young wolf exposing his elder brother’s plot to assassinate the wolf king and seize the throne, with the rabbit’s help. The eldest prince was imprisoned, and the young wolf Jue became the wolf king’s most trusted son.
However, this victory revealed the rabbit wasn’t a simpleton as everyone believed but a cunning strategist. Rumors even spread throughout the court: Whoever captures the rabbit will rule the world.
The rabbit and the young wolf, despite their apparent success, were now under greater threat from the remaining two princes.
Zou Beiyuan, still obsessed with the time the rabbit tried to sacrifice his life for the wolf, pointed at the screen. “Will the other two princes team up to assassinate them?”
Su Ming turned to glance at him, thinking this wolf was hopelessly dense, utterly clueless about political intrigue. On the screen, he wrote: Of course, they won’t team up. They both want the rabbit to help themselves while using the young wolf to eliminate each other.
Zou Beiyuan leaned closer, captivated by Su Ming’s refreshing citrus scent. Holding him tighter around the waist, he murmured into his neck, “But the rabbit wouldn’t help the other two princes, right? Because the rabbit likes Wolf Jue the most, isn’t that so?”
Su Ming wrote: That’s right.
As he finished writing, his pen hovered in mid-air, and a sudden realization struck him.
Wolf Jue?
Su Ming had never told Zou Beiyuan the name of the young wolf character in his story!
Author’s Note:
Unveiling another layer always unlocks new possibilities.