No Leaving the Ideal Nation [Infinite Flow]

Huai Zhen had no family left after he was sent abroad.

The elderly couple he was fostered with spent most of the year traveling, so they entrusted his care entirely to their neighbor’s son, Shen Jingyan, who was always coming and going.

When Huai Zhen was little, he called him Big Brother. Starting in middle school, he called him Yan-ge. By high school, they had fallen into a silence together.

He knew nothing about the man who had raised him for seven years.

Shen Jingyan was busy, busy by day and busy by night. Only at five every day was he home, unfailingly cooking Huai Zhen a bowl of noodles, sometimes with an egg.

Shen Jingyan always wore a long coat like a white lab coat. Sometimes it was so wet you could wring rainwater from it; sometimes it bore inexplicable bloodstains.

Shen Jingyan was tall and thin, with glacier-lake blue eyes beneath his tousled black hair.

Near the meeting point of Shen Jingyan’s collarbone and neck was a tattoo of a black goose.

Shen Jingyan... always had his back to him.

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When Huai Zhen was seventeen, he had a huge fight with Shen Jingyan.

He said Shen Jingyan raised him like a stray dog, showing up at the same time every day before disappearing from his world again. He was no different from an automatic feeder.

He got into fights, drank, and cheated academically. The school contacted his guardian several times, and so did the police station. Shen Jingyan rarely showed up, and even when he did, he hardly spoke. He silently endured every accusation, then quietly asked Huai Zhen whether he wanted to come home for dinner.

Huai Zhen lunged at him and started a fight. “If you don’t want to raise me, then don’t.”

After that, Shen Jingyan left and never came back.

No matter how much trouble Huai Zhen caused, whether he dropped out to pursue extreme sports, went surfing or skydiving, or became an instructor, Shen Jingyan never appeared again.

Not until Huai Zhen had resigned himself to growing into a thoroughly crooked adult.

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After a skydiving accident, playboy Huai Zhen decided to turn over a new leaf.

He dyed his hair black again, took the rings out of his ears, bought a respectable set of clothes, and received an offer from a law school.

He believed he had come to understand the value of life. He stopped hoping for someone to return from an empty wait and decided to make a fresh start.

But along with his offer letter came a lawyer’s letter, informing him that he was the sole beneficiary of Shen Jingyan’s estate.

Shen Jingyan had been confirmed dead in the year Huai Zhen turned seventeen.

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Shen Jingyan × Huai Zhen

It’s called an infinite-flow story, but really it’s a long journey to save Big Brother (and husband)!

They’re mutually in love from the very beginning. Don’t break the delicate illusion between them.

The gong leaves early and comes home late, seemingly vanishing into thin air, but he is actually saving the world in dungeons until the day he dies. He seems cold and heartless, but he simply doesn’t know how to express his feelings.

The shou is a wayward, carefree playboy who chases thrills and takes nothing seriously. He seems sunny and cheerful, but inside he is obsessive and arrogant.

Also known as: “I Save the World Outside Every Day and Still Make It Home in Time to Cook Dinner for My Little Brother, But I Don’t Say So.”

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Notes before reading:

- The story involves past and present lives. The gong has his memories; the shou does not.

- There is a villainous protagonist in the previous life, and he gets what he deserves.

- They share a sovereign-and-subject bond and are each other’s loyal hounds. They have both knelt before the other to swear allegiance. The line “If you wish it, please cut off my head” would sound equally fitting from either of them.

- These two men love as though their lives depend on it. For a thousand years, they have had eyes only for each other, body and soul, and neither is willing to make even a single friend. The idea is, “You are the only one who can enter my heart, in any way.”

- In short, these two madmen have a deeply unhealthy relationship.

Theme: Cherish life, no matter the circumstances.