Although Zhao Muqing did not quite understand whether having others spray perfume before bedtime was some sort of special hobby of Shen Guanzhi’s, he figured it was not an unreasonable request, so complying with it was no big deal.
He sprayed the perfume near his neck, deliberately reducing the amount so that only a faint layer of fragrance lingered on his skin. With something this expensive, he certainly could not bear to use too much at once.
Pushing open the door to Shen Guanzhi’s bedroom, Zhao Muqing saw Shen Guanzhi sitting at the edge of the bed in a bathrobe, flipping through a magazine. Sensing someone entering, he laid the magazine aside. “Come here.”
Zhao Muqing obediently sat down beside him. Shen Guanzhi glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Closer.”
Staying up late without sleeping, what new trick was this? Zhao Muqing frowned inwardly. He was already sitting right next to Shen Guanzhi, and moving any closer meant practically pressing against the other person’s body.
Considering that Shen Guanzhi was his boss, Zhao Muqing squeezed as close to him as he could, thighs pressed tightly together, practically ready to turn around and sit right on Shen Guanzhi’s lap.
“Like this?” Shen Guanzhi finally turned his face to meet Zhao Muqing’s gaze.
“How else do you want it?” Zhao Muqing felt slightly impatient, yet put on a nonchalant front. “It is about time for you to rest, right?”
“Fine.” Shen Guanzhi turned off the bedroom lights. Pitch darkness enveloped the room, though Zhao Muqing could still vaguely make out Shen Guanzhi’s silhouette.
“Do you like this scent?” Sitting close together, Shen Guanzhi turned his head slightly, his nose catching the cool fragrance radiating from Zhao Muqing.
“I like it. It smells pretty nice.”
“You can use it often.”
“Won’t it run out in no time?”
“I will buy you a new one.” Shen Guanzhi lay down on the other side of the bed first, and Zhao Muqing sensibly followed suit, sliding under the covers on his own side.
Normally, whenever Shen Guanzhi shared a bed with him, they slept back-to-back without exception. To his rare surprise, Zhao Muqing felt a gentle breeze of breath brush past his back this time.
He pondered what made tonight different from usual, ultimately concluding it was the perfume. Could Shen Guanzhi really enjoy the scent of perfume that much? Did this particular fragrance have a calming effect?
Zhao Muqing thought with mild discontent that he had essentially turned into a human aromatherapy diffuser.
Shen Guanzhi had grown busy again lately. As for what exactly he was busy with, low-level employees directly under the boss like Zhao Muqing had no way of knowing.
The only clue was that Shen Guanzhi spent a long time in the study every night, mostly revising the design drafts for the necklace intended for his mother.
Even the smallest details of the design had undergone numerous adjustments, with multiple drafts compared side by side. Zhao Muqing could tell that despite not earning a single penny, Shen Guanzhi treated this necklace a hundred times more seriously than any paid client order.
“This looks great already,” Zhao Muqing offered his opinion. “Actually, every version has its own unique charm, just like you said before. Aesthetics are subjective, and different people have different views, so there is no such thing as the absolute best or most perfect design in the world.”
Shen Guanzhi did not refute him, clearly agreeing with Zhao Muqing’s perspective, yet it failed to help him make a final decision.
“Or think about your mother. You lived with her, so you certainly understand her. What kind of style would suit her better?” Zhao Muqing sat next to the desk, resting his chin in his hand.
As an outsider, Zhao Muqing usually just watched from the sidelines. Had he not been utterly unable to bear watching Shen Guanzhi agonize back and forth over it, he genuinely wouldn’t have planned to speak up.
“I have thought about that too.” Shen Guanzhi’s gaze swept back and forth across several design drafts. “She was a very beautiful person, and anything she wore would have suited her. I keep wondering which one she would choose if she were standing in front of these drafts.”
He paused before continuing. “After thinking it over and over, I still believe she would have left the choice up to me.”
“And you? You wouldn’t want to leave it to me, would you?” Zhao Muqing casually poked the desktop with his fingertip.
Shen Guanzhi curved the corners of his mouth in an imperceptible smile. “Do you have any ideas?”
“If you really want me to choose,” Zhao Muqing circled the desk, pretending to inspect every design draft carefully from different angles, before finally resting his fingertip on one of them, “take this one. It looks nice.”
“No special reason?” Shen Guanzhi couldn’t help feeling curious.
“Because this is the latest version you modified! If you go back and forth revising only to pick the first version in the end, wouldn’t that be a waste of effort? That sounds pretty annoying.” Zhao Muqing chuckled awkwardly.
Shen Guanzhi let out a light chuckle. “I will listen to you.”
“Really? Don’t you want to think about it more?” Zhao Muqing felt an inexplicable wave of pressure. He had just been talking nonsense, yet Shen Guanzhi accepted it just like that.
“I have thought about it enough.” Shen Guanzhi gathered up the printed drafts scattered across the desk, leaving only the single one Zhao Muqing had chosen.
Creating this necklace had taken Shen Guanzhi over two months. Zhao Muqing only found out because when Shen Guanzhi came to pick him up after class, he didn’t drive him straight back to the villa.
“We are heading to the showroom,” Shen Guanzhi said, looking at Zhao Muqing. “Follow me.”
Zhao Muqing followed Shen Guanzhi into the elevator. The showroom was on the same floor as Shen Guanzhi’s office, just a turn around the corner.
This was Zhao Muqing’s first time visiting the showroom. Various display cabinets filled the room, holding all sorts of jewelry alongside certificates he couldn’t make head or tail of. Most of them were securely locked away with heavy anti-theft measures fully in place.
According to Shen Guanzhi’s explanation, these were primarily the designers’ auction collections and competition-winning pieces. Because they utilized exceptionally rare and precious gemstones, unlike mass-produced commercial items, the entire studio only possessed one or two pieces of each.
“Inside here, there is something I want to show you.” Shen Guanzhi led Zhao Muqing deeper into the showroom, finally stopping in front of a display cabinet covered by a black cloth.
Shen Guanzhi pulled back the black cloth to reveal a necklace embedded with a cyan-green gemstone. Its design was identical to the draft Zhao Muqing had picked out in Shen Guanzhi’s study earlier. Zhao Muqing nearly forgot to breathe; the finished product looked even more breathtaking than he had imagined.
“Try wearing it.” Shen Guanzhi stepped forward, unlocked the combination lock, and carefully retrieved the necklace, holding it in his hand. He walked around behind Zhao Muqing, looking as though he were about to put it on him the very next second.
Zhao Muqing looked clearly taken aback. “You really want me to wear it? Isn’t this necklace designed for your mother? And it looks extremely expensive.”
“You picked the design draft, and you took a knife wound because of Dryad.” Without waiting for Zhao Muqing’s consent, Shen Guanzhi began putting the necklace on him of his own accord. “You are the most suitable person for it.”
The cyan-green gemstone rested right below Zhao Muqing’s collarbone. Shen Guanzhi’s fingertips brushed gently over the gemstone, and as he withdrew his hand, he accidentally grazed against Zhao Muqing’s skin.
Holding Zhao Muqing’s shoulders, he guided him to stand in front of a full-length mirror. Looking into the mirror, besides his own reflection, Zhao Muqing saw Shen Guanzhi take a step closer, leaving only a hair’s breadth between their bodies, as if their body temperatures could cross that boundary and fuse together.
“Are you not wearing perfume today?”
“Nope,” Zhao Muqing answered rather sheepishly. “Because I almost overslept, I didn’t have time.”
“Never mind.” Shen Guanzhi frowned imperceptibly, but his gaze softened almost immediately as it landed on Zhao Muqing’s neck in the reflection. “You look very pretty right now.”
“Are you talking about me or the necklace?” Zhao Muqing asked instinctively.
Shen Guanzhi looked as though he were locking gazes with Zhao Muqing in the mirror. “What answer do you want to hear?”
“Fine, if you don’t want to say it, forget it.” Zhao Muqing felt completely baffled. Weren’t they talking about him, why did the question get thrown back at him?
“You.” Shen Guanzhi’s gaze remained fixed entirely on Zhao Muqing’s reflection in the mirror.
“Oh.” Deeply believing his external conditions as a male model had received affirmation, Zhao Muqing curved the corners of his mouth upward in high spirits. “Thanks.”
“Anything else to say?” Shen Guanzhi asked with a hint of amusement.
“What else do you want me to say?” Zhao Muqing pondered with a straight face for a moment. “Uh, the necklace is great, I will work hard.”
Shen Guanzhi let out a soft laugh, withdrew his hands from Zhao Muqing’s shoulders, and intentionally stepped back to maintain a proper distance. “Good.”
Zhao Muqing took off the necklace and placed it back into Shen Guanzhi’s palm. “Don’t you want to take it back?”
“Ah? With something this valuable, how could I dare?” Zhao Muqing put on a startled expression. “Besides, it would be bad if I got stabbed again. I am very fragile.”
Shen Guanzhi said nothing more, locked the necklace back inside the display cabinet, and pulled the black cloth over it once more.
He and Zhao Muqing stepped out of the entrance side by side, taking the elevator down to the basement parking garage to get the car. “In a few days, I will have a photographer take some pictures of you to put on the official website.”
“Our studio official website has never had my photos?” Zhao Muqing paused mid-motion while opening the car door.
“No,” Shen Guanzhi started the vehicle with a straight face. “It has no profile of you at all.”
Zhao Muqing thought: Truly not treating low-level employees like actual people.
“I discussed it with Li Shuqiao. We can start arranging some work for you to slowly turn public opinion around,” Shen Guanzhi explained. “If we announced the signing right away, you would end up being pointed at and criticized alongside the studio.”
Zhao Muqing understood the logic and his eyes instantly lit up. “There is actually work?”
“For now, just some relatively small events.”
Regardless, having the chance to make money was always a good thing. Zhao Muqing didn’t have grand ambitions of becoming a top supermodel; as long as the pay was right, the scale of the event didn’t matter all that much.
Without delay, Zhao Muqing contacted the photographer the very next day to discuss the photo shoot.
Taking the elevator up to the photography studio, he expected to find Jian Shigu at work, but upon walking in, the place was completely deserted, save for a retoucher working on edits in the adjacent office.
“Mr. Zhao,” the retoucher hurriedly set down his work and greeted the visitor. “Are you here to see Teacher Jian? He took a few days off.”
Jian Shigu, who practically lived at work, actually took time off? Zhao Muqing couldn’t help asking a few more questions. “Do you know why he asked for leave?”
“I am not sure about that, but it seemed like he mentioned going to the hospital. I wonder if he fell sick?”
Zhao Muqing had run into Jian Shigu at the studio several times, with the most recent instance being just two days prior. The man had looked ruddy and full of life, not looking like a patient in the slightest.
He pondered for a moment. Maintaining interpersonal relationships was a crucial part of life, and perhaps he should show some concern over what had happened to his friend.