Chapter 78.1 – Brand (1)

78th -【Brand】

Translator: Xena
Editor: Sammy
Proofreader: Bubbles

Chu Yu had observed the tattooing process before.

The needle must be punctured into the skin to inject ink and leave marks.

Chu Yu was afraid of pain, and just trying to imagine the process terrified him.

But remembering what he’d just seen — his name engraved on Lu Shi’s cold white skin — Chu Yu’s heart trembled, aroused with uncontrollable excitement and trembling.

His male desire for monopoly and conquest was greatly satisfied at that moment.

He liked it.

He liked Lu Shi’s scent, his body temperature, and his name.

However, this wasn’t enough.

“I love this gift.”

Chu Yu met Lu Shi’s black eyes. His voice was tense, even trembling as he tightly clasped his quivering fingertips and said the following words, “I have a birthday wish, can you help me fulfill it?”

Lu Shi’s posture was relaxed. He carefully observed Chu Yu’s subtle expressions and already surmised a rough guess of what Chu Yu wanted him to do.

Raising the corners of his lips, Lu Shi answered without hesitation, “Of course.”

It wasn’t until evening self-study when the school was quiet that together, Lu Shi and Chu Yu, stealthily climbed a wall and left the school in a taxi back to Qingchuan Road.

As March closely approached April, the weather was already starting to warm up. Compared to the freezing temperatures during winter, it was a bit of a spring night now, hence the streets were bustling with liveliness.

Chu Yu followed behind Lu Shi. They passed a brawl without nary a glance, made a few turns down a narrow alley, and finally stopped in front of a sliding iron gate.

The dark green paint of the iron gate had peeled off a lot, revealing a rusted interior. There were two pots of camellia with lush petals in the doorway, a common dark red color. A small wooden sign hung on the door tied with hemp rope swaying in the wind, a few letters written on it: TATTOO[1].

Lu Shi stretched out his hand, opened the door, and let Chu Yu enter first.

Outmoded bicycles were parked in the yard, and a dim light was shining by the door.

A voice prompt was triggered and a mechanical and electronic “Welcome” sounded abruptly, startling Chu Yu.

A middle-aged man with a shaggy beard opened the door and viewed the faces of the people who’d arrived. “Lu Shi? I was about to lock the door. Come in, what’s the matter?”

Lu Shi habitually put his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to borrow your studio.”

The middle-aged man didn’t ask more and just threw the key over. “Use whatever you want. Remember to lock the door for me when you leave.”

With that said, he turned around, grabbed a coat, and really left.

Lu Shi held the key and brought Chu Yu to open a side door. Turning on the lights, the furnishings in the room could be seen at a glance.

Chu Yu curiously observed the tattoo-like pattern on the wall and asked, “The store owner is comfortable with giving you the key?”

“Well, he grew up with my mother and had a crush on her but didn’t dare confess. He hasn’t married up until now. When I returned to Qingchuan Road, he heard that I was Jiang Yueman’s son and came especially to see me several times. He didn’t speak the first few times but at the fourth meeting, he finally opened his mouth and said that I look a bit like my mother.”

Lu Shi’s tone didn’t fluctuate, as if he was just casually reciting a few old matters regarding his elders.

After he finished explaining, he pointed to the ink and tattoo needles on the work desk and asked Chu Yu, “It hurts, but you really won’t cry?”

Chu Yu’s birthday wish was to have Lu Shi’s name tattooed on himself.

Lu Shi promised to help him realize it.

Being jabbed by the word ‘cry’, Chu Yu recalled how Lu Shi used to call him little crying bag and glared at the other. Looking at the black ink, his fear of pain was quickly diluted by a hidden excitement and anticipation. Chu Yu shook his head. “Whoever cries is stupid, I’m really not scared, come!”

Lu Shi took out a pair of thin black gloves from the drawer and carefully put them on, the material accentuating his slender fingers. His fine bangs hung naturally, and their shadow fell into his black eyes, making it hard to distinguish his emotions.

“Where do you want my name tattooed?”

Chu Yu had already thought about this question on the way here.

He turned around and lifted the hem of his top, revealing a slender, white lower back.

“Tattoo it here.”

Lu Shi’s eyes fell on the other’s waist, his eyes deep.

“Okay.”

Chu Yu lay on the black single bed.

Alcohol was wiped on his skin, which was quite cold, and then the sound of the tattoo machine sounded ‘zzz’.

Lu Shi’s thin-gloved fingertips rested on the skin of Chu Yu’s back waist and gently stroked. “Here?”

In fact, apart from feeling a little itchy, Chu Yu couldn’t feel what Lu Shi’s fingers were referring to.

But this didn’t prevent a shiver from running up along his spine. Chu Yu’s body slightly trembled sensitively, and with a strained voice he muttered, “Mm, it’s okay.”

After a few breaths, the tattoo needle pierced into his skin, causing a bit of pain.

Chu Yu couldn’t see it, but he could visualize the words “Lu Shi” gradually being inscribed into his skin and flesh, stroke by stroke, never to be wiped away.

Closing his eyes, Chu Yu listened to the sounds of ‘zzz’, his heart thumping loudly.

Engraving a name on a hidden part of another’s body was declaring absolute sovereignty.

If one day he suddenly died, then in the days prior to his death, he’d already have completely possessed and obtained Lu Shi.

Thinking of this, the tiny bit of masculine desire in Chu Yu’s heart rose steeply like a wildly growing vine.

The ‘zzz’ hum of the tattoo machine stopped. Lu Shi removed his gloves, and his line of sight fell on the two words newly tattooed on Chu Yu’s waist, extremely focused.

His black eyes were as if shrouded in fragments of starlight.

Chu Yu felt a little uncomfortable lying on his stomach so he moved, tilted his head, and asked Lu Shi, “Is the tattoo done?”

“Yeah.”

Lu Shi held a phone and took a photo to show Chu Yu.

In the photo, Chu Yu’s lower back was no longer bare. On his skin were black strokes forming the name “Lu Shi” imprinted sharply— akin to a brand.

Chu Yu recovered very quickly and was almost healed in less than a week. He didn’t feel anything when he showered with water now.

After taking a shower, Chu Yu stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, wiped off the water vapor on it, turned around, and tried hard to see the tattoo on his back waist.

The tattoo was on the lower side. As he was very thin, his protruding tail bone could be seen beside it.

After carefully touching it, Chu Yu sighed contentedly.

Chu Yu then exited the bathroom and was humming a messy tune while wiping his hair with a towel when the door lock sounded. Lu Shi then opened the door and entered, holding a square kraft paper file bag in his hand.

Thinking of the phone call Lu Shi had received before he took a shower, Chu Yu approached. “What other clues did Old Zhao find?”

Although Fang Weiyun had already been sentenced to death, due to the Lu family’s meddling and the fingerprint in the cement providing sufficient evidence so the case was closed quickly, there was still Fang Weiyun’s specific motive for the killing, as well as Lu Shaochu’s role in it. It hadn’t been uncovered in its entirety and no one had bothered performing an in depth investigation.

Lu Shi had always been investigating.

Finding a utility knife from the drawer, Chu Yu helped open the kraft paper bag and pull out a stack of paper containing information.

Lu Shi opened his text message keyboard and told Old Zhao that the data had been received.

Meanwhile, he said to Chu Yu, “Old Zhao found a person named Lin Cuifang who worked as a nanny for the Lu family 27 years ago. She hadn’t left the Lu family and returned to her hometown until I was three years old. She remarried twice and changed her city of residence twice, so she was hard to find.”

Chu Yu pulled over a chair and sat down beside Lu Shi. “What’s printed on these papers is her testimony?”

“Mn. When Old Zhao found Lin Cuifang, she’d been hospitalized for a long time. After being given a sum of money, she promised to speak of what had happened back then.”