Hearing You Say Love chapter 8
 Is it him?
The cover bore the title “Rabbit Conspiracy, Wolf Trail,” with the author’s name “Shu Yu Ming Jin” below.
Zou Beiyuan casually flipped it open and saw the author’s handwritten signature on the title page. He paused for a moment; the handwriting looked quite familiar.
It couldn’t be that coincidental, could it?
Su Ming’s handwriting had a distinctive personal style, and Zou Beiyuan had remembered it after just one glance. However, these few characters were even more hasty than their usual chat handwriting; although familiar, he couldn’t be entirely certain.
Zou Beiyuan flipped further back and found the story’s beginning.
The herbivorous kingdom led by the Rabbit King was the most powerful nation on the continent, with surrounding carnivorous nations and tribes paying tribute to it.
That year, the wolf clan sent the wolf king’s son, Wolf Jue, to present tributes to the Rabbit King. The Rabbit King killed a palace maid to frame Wolf Jue, scheming to instigate a war against the wolf clan.
The following story unfolded around this conspiracy.
Zou Beiyuan thought it was an ordinary political intrigue story; the exquisite and detailed art compelled him to read a few more pages.
The rabbit king had a neglected third prince named Rabbit Zhen, who was drawn very beautifully but was still obviously a male rabbit.
Zou Beiyuan recognized him as one of the main characters on the cover.
Then Rabbit Zhen pretended to be foolish and caused chaos. Although his actions seemed illogical and comical, each step actually helped to clear Wolf Jue’s suspicions. The plot gradually became engaging, and Zou Beiyuan unknowingly got absorbed in it.
As he read, he noticed that the direction of the story seemed a bit different from the political intrigue he had imagined.
The rabbit consistently flirted with the little wolf, while the little wolf harbored doubts and resistance toward the rabbit. Yet every time he was flirted with, he would blush and his heart would race.
Although the two had yet to do anything outrageous, the ambiguous atmosphere between them was depicted so well that Zou Beiyuan, who never read romance stories, felt some strange feelings in his heart.
He closed the book before finishing it.
At that moment, a card fell out from inside the book. He bent down to pick it up, but his hand paused halfway; the image on the card shattered his worldview.
A strong man was kneeling on the ground with his hands tied, legs spread apart, completely naked, with red marks all over his body from being whipped. Below him, his erect member was being stepped on by a slender man.
The kneeling man had wolf ears and fangs, with a slightly darker skin tone and well-defined muscle lines. The man standing was in a suit, with snowy white rabbit ears hanging down on his shoulders, and a pair of upward-turned phoenix eyes arrogantly glancing towards the viewer.
Zou Beiyuan instantly understood, yet he was also bewildered, staring at the card for a while before finally picking it up.
The card also had a line of text printed on it—”I will restrain my instincts to love you.”
It was handwritten, beautifully in regular script, strikingly similar to the handwriting he had seen the first time he chatted with Su Ming on paper at the bar’s second floor.
Zou Beiyuan was almost certain that this was written by Su Ming, but how could Su Ming possibly draw something like this?
Of course, he had seen even more explicit images than this. But he never expected that such a scene would feature two men, nor that Zou Jingnan would buy something like this and treat it as a treasure.
But that bigger doubt, Zou Beiyuan didn’t dare to delve into—could it really be him?
This thought left him very confused.
Internally denying it, he felt that Su Ming could not possibly create something so shocking and unconventional. Yet that denial was not strong enough, giving rise to a small doubt that made him feel itchy and restless.
He quickly found the culprit. He called Zou Jingnan and scolded her directly, “What kind of nonsense are you reading all day? How could you buy this kind of book?”
Zou Jingnan was taken aback by this sudden accusation, exclaiming, “Ah!” After a while, she finally responded, “Oh, you mean that? Hehe, you saw it, right? Isn’t it good? I found this treasure of an author this year; the artwork is just amazing!”
“You have some nerve, don’t you?” Zou Beiyuan said seriously, lowering his voice. “How can a girl like you look at this kind of stuff?”
“What stuff? Why can’t I look at it? I’m an adult, okay?” Zou Jingnan was practically speechless. “Haven’t you ever watched adult films?”
“Is this about adult films? This is two men!”
Zou Jingnan laughed at him. “Ge, you’ve lived in the U.S. for so many years. In many places, same-sex marriage is legal now. Why are you still being discriminatory?”
Zou Beiyuan suddenly recalled that Su Ming had also asked him if he hated gay people. He remembered how that word was beautifully written stroke by stroke on paper.
“I’ll tell you something,” Zou Jingnan continued jokingly, “there’s a saying: homophobia is just being in the closet. It’s not that you’re not gay; you just haven’t met the right person to turn you.”
“Get lost,” Zou Beiyuan said, feeling as if his tail had been stepped on. “As a girl, don’t you find this stuff disgusting?”
“I don’t find it disgusting at all; I actually really enjoy it,” Zou Jingnan said casually. “What’s disgusting about it? Lots of people read it. Just go to the website where it’s serialized; there are hundreds of thousands of readers following it.”
Zou Beiyuan didn’t expect there was a website. He asked cautiously, “What website? Is it just for gay people?”
Zou Jingnan laughed heartily. “You’re going to make me die laughing. It’s called Danmei; gay, straight, guys, girls—anyone can read it, okay?”
“Well,” Zou Beiyuan paused, “is the person who draws this kind of comic… gay?”
“Not necessarily. Some are, and some aren’t. Ang Lee made Brokeback Mountain, and he’s a straight guy too.”
“Oh,” Zou Beiyuan was still a bit skeptical. “Really not gay?”
“Please, there are many Danmei authors who are women. We just like to see men with men, got it?”
Zou Beiyuan was once again quite shaken: “Why?”
“What’s there to question? It’s just good to look at,” Zou Jingnan replied patiently. “If you have to dig into how this culture emerged and developed, I’d have to give you a lecture on sociology, communication studies, and psychology. I could go on for three days and three nights about it. You just need to know that this is completely normal; there’s no need to make a big deal out of it. Lots of people are reading it, you got that? My dear brother?”
Zou Beiyuan: “I can’t understand.”
“Your inability to understand is your problem, but you can’t criticize my interests,” Zou Jingnan said. “Alright, I won’t talk to you anymore. We’re still out having fun. By the way, the website is called Guojang Manhua, and there’s an app you can download from the app store.”
After hanging up, Zou Beiyuan stared at the card for half a minute before opening the app store.
….
At 9:35 PM, Su Ming finally finished the sixteenth chapter, checking it thoroughly from start to finish to ensure there were no issues before uploading it to the website’s backend for editorial review. Once approved, it would be published at midnight, marking the end of this week’s work.
So tired! He had stayed up all night working on the manuscript, and today he had only managed a little over two hours of napping at noon. Now he was really exhausted. Probably due to overexertion, his old shoulder issue flared up again; his left shoulder felt as if it had been struck by a hammer, making it hard to move.
He stood up to gently stretch his arms, thinking he might need to see a doctor tomorrow.
Tomorrow was Thursday, the day he had planned to go out to dinner with Zou Beiyuan.
Yesterday, Zou Beiyuan mentioned he would be going to Ninggang. He didn’t know if he had returned yet. If he hadn’t, would tomorrow’s appointment need to be rescheduled?
Su Ming carried his cup to pour some water and then slowly returned to his desk, picking up his phone to check the door monitoring through the electronic peephole app.
This monitoring captured everyone passing by the front door. Since his door faced Zou Beiyuan’s, every time Zou Beiyuan came in or out, he would be recorded by the electronic peephole.
He saw that Zou Beiyuan had returned just an hour ago.
Su Ming also noticed something unexpected: Zou Beiyuan was wearing formal attire.
His broad, strong shoulders filled out the white shirt, and his long legs made the suit pants look straight and sharp, with a narrow waist and rounded hips. The jacket draped over his arm, and except for the delivery box he held, which slightly affected the overall aesthetic, the entire scene perfectly matched Su Ming’s preferences.
Su Ming pressed pause and took a screenshot, planning that once little wolf returned from the herbivore country to the wolf tribe, he would definitely arrange an occasion for the little wolf to wear a suit. He looked too handsome…
He hesitated for a moment about whether to message Zou Beiyuan, but since Zou Beiyuan hadn’t informed him upon returning, Su Ming thought it over and put his phone down again.
At this moment, Zou Beiyuan, who was supposed to come looking for Su Ming, had already registered an account on “Guojang Manhua.”
After logging in, he immediately entered “Shu Yu Ming Jin” into the search bar and found the comic artist who had been publishing works here for five years.
The column had four completed comics, each looking quite enticing. Moreover, their popularity seemed very high, with three of them boasting the “Annual Sales Champion” badge.
Zou Beiyuan clicked into the ongoing series Rabbit Conspiracy, Wolf Trail, seeing that it had 360,000 followers. He was astonished; it turned out that Zou Jingnan’s claim of hundreds of thousands of people following it was indeed true.
The comic had reached the fifteenth chapter, and there was a line of gray text below the title saying, “Updated every Thursday at midnight.”
Zou Beiyuan immediately recalled what Su Ming had said earlier—he mentioned he was very busy these past couple of days and wouldn’t have time until Thursday.
So, could it really be him?