“I’m a businessman, and I never make a losing deal. You’re trying to calculate an abacus way too loudly if you think a few words are enough to make me lose my mind and charge into battle ahead for you,” Chen Xingjian said leisurely.
“Can’t you?”
Chen Xingjian paused mid-gesture as he toyed with Lian Jue’s finger bones, then raised his gaze to look at the canary who was putting on such a pitiful, tragic act.
Lian Jue pressed his thin lips together and inched closer to Chen Xingjian like a little cat. His warm breath spilled entirely across Chen Xingjian’s neck, feeling like a tiny feather sweeping lightly against the skin, sending a tickle straight to the heart.
“Can’t you just help me out?” Lian Jue tilted his head up, his eyes watery and the bridge of his nose tinged with red.
The surrounding area fell into absolute silence, as though even the air had frozen in place.
Lian Jue’s heart thumped up and down, and his fingertips tugged lightly at Chen Xingjian’s sleeve with an imperceptible force.
Perhaps a century had passed; it was possible Chen Xingjian had genuinely been bewitched by his beauty, or perhaps he was in a good mood after just finishing a business negotiation and didn’t bother haggling with a canary like him.
Unexpectedly, Chen Xingjian relented.
His gaze landing on the side of Lian Jue’s cheek, he spoke in a slow, deep voice: “I can, but I have to remind you—I never make a losing deal.”
Joy bloomed across Lian Jue’s face. He wrapped his arms around Chen Xingjian’s neck and pecked lightly at his chin.
Who cares what kind of abacus Chen Xingjian was calculating right now? Suffering first doesn’t necessarily guarantee sweetness later, but being sweet right now was genuine sweetness.
Chen Xingjian didn’t linger much longer. Before long, he stood up and left first, though this time he didn’t take Lian Jue with him.
He was probably heading off to the company to work, and Lian Jue had no intention of inquiring any further into the specifics.
The two of them were only putting on a show for the moment; just as Lian Cheng had said, the next second he might be cast aside by Chen Xingjian, and prying too much would only make him look ungrateful.
Lian Jue lowered his eyes and brows, preparing to head back for a quick nap, when a new message suddenly popped up on his phone.
It was from a photographer he used to be fairly familiar with—the two of them had only crossed paths a few times.
[Lian Jue, there’s a shoot this afternoon. Are you coming?]
He was blessed with good looks, never threw tantrums for no reason, and expressed emotions as effortlessly as breathing.
Over time, through accumulated small jobs, he could more or less supplement his household expenses with part-time modeling gigs.
Lian Jue glanced at his phone, calculated the time and distance, and figured he could just about make it in time.
Anyway, since Chen Xingjian had gone off to the company and couldn’t keep tabs on him, every extra bit of money he could earn counted as a win.
When he finally arrived at the shooting location, he was still running a tiny bit late.
Lian Jue froze for a moment at the scene before him.
The set design was already fully constructed, boasting a level of luxury far beyond the ordinary.
The model stood before the camera looking somewhat overwhelmed and out of place, while the usually bustling photo studio was dead silent.
The photographer steering the shoot had suddenly changed to someone else—a lean, middle-aged man whose voice sounded just like a duck, filling the air with a constant quack, quack, quack.
“~What kind of outfit is this supposed to be? Do you have any idea how much it costs to hire me? Quack, quack, quack, quack!”
” Quack, quack, quack, is this what a model hired at a huge expense looks like? Crying over a couple of words where’s your professional competence? Quack, quack, quack, quack!”
“What’s there to be too shy to show off? Wasn’t your courage pretty big when you were flashing it for your sugar daddy? Quack, quack, quack!”
Perhaps that photographer was an out-of-towner, as his speech naturally carried a heavy regional accent. Lian Jue could only understand a small fraction of what he was saying; everything else he couldn’t parse simply turned into the sound of ducks quacking inside his head.
Oddly enough, the photographer’s assistant seemed to be a fellow townsman, persistently trying to coax the photographer into dialing back his temper in gentle tones.
To Lian Jue’s ears, it just sounded like a duet sung by two ducks going quack, quack, quack.
Lian Jue couldn’t hold it in any longer and let out a soft chuckle, which sounded exceptionally prominent in the dead silence of the room.
Every single gaze in the surrounding area instantly converged onto Lian Jue’s face, carrying a hint of what looked rather like sympathy.
Lin Yi was a master specifically invited by the company.
His photo delivery rate was high, his marketing effect was stellar, but his temper stank to high heaven and he loved chewing people out.
The models hired at high prices had already had three run away in tears because of his scoldings, leaving this last one.
Yet even this last model was on the verge of cracking.
Lian Jue had accidentally stumbled right into the line of fire.
“What the hell are you laughing at? Is my work funny to you?!” Lin Yi had a stomach full of rage pent up with nowhere to vent, making his tongue run even more recklessly. “Acting like a leaking pot, can’t do a single damn thing right you better pack up and get out of my—”
Lian Jue raised his head slightly. His almond eyes shone like springtime blossoms, and his delicate face was fresh and tender, resembling a green apricot freshly formed on a plum tree branch—unripe yet adorable. The crimson mole beneath the outer corner of his eye added a refined, ethereal elegance, making him look like someone who had stepped right out of a pictorial magazine.
Lin Yi’s furious reprimand got stuck right in the middle of his throat, his eyes locking onto that face, utterly unable to tear themselves away anymore.
The predecessors hadn’t deceived him after all: the moment an artist encounters their muse, it’s just a sudden ding besides the muse standing right before them, the surrounding world loses all color.
“Um… sorry?” Lian Jue knitted his delicate brows slightly. “You talk a bit like a duck, and I couldn’t help laughing out loud.”
Lian Jue wasn’t a people-pleaser; exhausting every ounce of his energy to fawn over Chen Xingjian had already maxed out his tolerance limits.
He and Lin Yi weren’t close anyway, so he spoke his mind freely, hoping his words could pierce like a sharp blade straight into that quacking photographer’s heart.
“You know how it is it’s really hard for people to hold back when they hear a duck go quack, quack, quack,” Lian Jue added earnestly, with a sincerity that could break a heart.
A sudden, substantial commotion broke out all around him.
Immediately, a righteous young man stepped forward to stand up for the master, speaking in a serious, sternly righteous tone:
“Who do you think you are? Which department in the company are you from?”
“Talking so impolitely—don’t you want to survive in this company anymore?”
Lin Yi suddenly slammed his hand down onto the desk in front of him and roared at the top of his lungs: “Shut the fuck up, all of you!”
The righteous young man grew even more righteous, practically wishing he could jump right over onto Lian Jue’s head to lecture him: “Did you hear that? Master Lin Yi got so angry because of you! You’d better resign and get out of here right this second, and then apologize to Master Lin!”
The people around them began whispering among themselves, their voices floating continuously into his ears like flowing water:
“Look at that face—he’s obviously a shady character. Coming here probably just to latch onto some big tycoon, only for the master not to buy his act.”
“If I were him, I’d just go bang my head against a wall and die. Trying to stand out and act edgy only to completely crash and burn? Calling someone a duck does he really think he’s that funny?”
“Just wait for Lin Yi to blow his top now. I bet he gets blacklisted across every single platform.”
Lian Jue frowned, thoroughly regretting getting himself dragged into such a messy situation.
Instead of wasting time running back here on a public bus, he could have been sweet-talking Chen Xingjian on WeChat to see if he could squeeze a bit more money out of him.
Seeing that the righteous young man was already riding a high wave of blood-to-the-head adrenaline, Lian Jue decisively prepared to turn around and leave. Right at that moment, however, Master Lin acted as though he had been injected with adrenaline, surging straight up from his chair and marching furiously in his direction.
Lian Jue stiffened his back, his hands clenching tightly into fists as alarm bells started blaring wildly in his head.
If that master really tried to lay a hand on him, he would… he would…
He’d call Chen Xingjian and beg him to save his life.
The righteous young man was still waiting to watch Lian Jue get sanctioned, but to his utter shock, Lin Yi walked straight past him, reached out, and ripped the employee badge right off his neck.
“Freak! Didn’t you hear me tell you to shut the fuck up, quack, quack, quack?!”
Lian Jue couldn’t understand the words spilling from Lin Yi’s mouth, but judging by the young man’s face turning as pale as a sheet of paper, the insults must have been exceptionally filthy.
Having finished disciplining the righteous young man, Lin Yi spun around and drifted right up to Lian Jue, looking up close as though fighting a trace of nervous tension: “Handsome, got some free time to model a set of photos for me?”