Consequences of your actions

Tao Yuanming's eyes glinted with malice, but then he blinked and the glint was gone, and replaced by the usual haughty superiority. "Go," he told Fu Shulin, nodding towards where the other winning contestants had taken their place.

He placed one hand on Xin Rufei's shoulder and tried to steer him in the direction he wanted, but he wiggled out from under his hold. "Shixiong, I'm not a child," he said, sounding genuinely embarrassed about the attention.

Fu Shulin had yet to see Tao Yuanming show anyone the same level of care he showed Xin Rufei. Perhaps 'care' was the wrong word, there was an undercurrent of possessiveness to the interactions that took out any selflessness out of the gesture. To him, it often felt as if Tao Yuanming was keeping Xin Rufei under close scrutiny, making sure he was never out of his line of sight for long.

He wondered what Xin Rufei made of it; if he even noticed it, or if after so many years he had simply grown accustomed to it.