When Pei Yuan emerged once more, Xie Wangzhou looked as though he had already left for a while.
The room was completely silent.
As he walked out, drying his hair, his eyes immediately caught the yellow sticky note on the table. Pei Yuan walked over and peeled it off.
Scrawled across it in massive, flying characters were the words: “Your technique is decent, consider this your tip.”
The handwriting was so astoundingly ugly that it was practically earth-shattering.
At a single glance, Pei Yuan could easily guess who had written it.
Xie Wangzhou’s handwriting always looked as though a dog had scratched it in the dirt.
Furious, Pei Yuan clenched the sticky note tightly in his fist, but the sudden movement pulled and strained the arm that had been struck earlier.
“Hiss.” Inhaling sharply through his teeth from the pain, Pei Yuan lowered his gaze to inspect his arm. A noticeable bruise had already formed right where he had been hit. He pressed a hand against his shoulder and rotated it carefully; thankfully, nothing was broken.
He then raised his head to look at his reflection in the mirror. The side of his face was red and swollen, and upon closer inspection, traces of blood were faintly visible.
“That bastard surnamed Xie really didn’t hold back at all.”
Running into Xie Wangzhou was most definitely an accident.
After attending An Zhinan’s wedding and wanting to return to his own room, Pei Yuan had spotted Xie Wangzhou standing right by the doorway, reeking of alcohol, holding a room card and repeatedly swiping it against the door lock.
Pei Yuan, who was equally drunk, instantly felt a surge of anger flare up inside him. The bitter feud between him and Xie Wangzhou had been planted all the way back during their senior high school entrance exams.
Their relationship had started with a competition over exam scores and served as a turning point regarding their feelings for An Zhinan. In front of the person they held a secret crush on, they would constantly try to outdo one another to show off. After entering university, the competition over their grade point averages became intensely cutthroat. There was never an instance where they participated in an activity independently; they always had to fight to see who was superior.
In the end, they even ended up comparing the exact timestamps of when they received their job offers.
Because he had received his offer a mere five minutes earlier, Xie Wangzhou had both openly and subtly gloated to him for five whole hours.
So what now? Were they going to fight over a hotel room too?
Extremely displeased, Pei Yuan stepped forward, grabbed Xie Wangzhou by the collar, yanked him backward, and pulled his own room card out of his pocket.
Beep.
The door clicked open.
Smug with triumph, Pei Yuan raised his chin at Xie Wangzhou. His meaning was abundantly clear: “This is mine, now scram.”
Yet those dim-witted peach blossom eyes completely misinterpreted the gesture, bypassing Pei Yuan entirely as Xie Wangzhou walked straight inside.
As he walked, he kept turning his head back to look at Pei Yuan, tilting his head slightly with a smile as he said, “What are you standing there stunned for? Hurry up and come inside.”
Clueless as to what was going on, Pei Yuan had no choice but to follow Xie Wangzhou.
It was just unfortunate that he was heavily intoxicated and lacked balance. Seeing that he was about to trip, Pei Yuan lunged forward two steps to prevent himself from crashing to the floor. Driven by the mentality of ‘let the Daoist priest die so the follower may live,’ he threw himself at Xie Wangzhou, hoping someone could act as a human cushion to break his fall. However, because they were standing far too close to the bed, the two of them tumbled down onto the mattress together.
With the two of them positioned intimately close, Pei Yuan tilted his face slightly, and his lips brushed right across Xie Wangzhou’s nose. Their breaths intertwined. Fueled by the lingering effects of the alcohol, Pei Yuan felt the surrounding temperature begin to rise, making him feel highly unsettled.
The last time they had been this close was back when Xie Wangzhou had cracked open his head with a blunt object.
Just as Pei Yuan made to push himself up, Xie Wangzhou suddenly grabbed him firmly by the wrist and used the leverage to pull himself upward. Amidst Pei Yuan’s expression of utter panic, Xie Wangzhou leaned in and kissed his lips.
Pei Yuan: “?”
Pei Yuan: “!!”
He tried to push Xie Wangzhou away.
With a hazy, drunken gaze, Xie Wangzhou looked at Pei Yuan with profound dissatisfaction, his voice sounding frivolous as he murmured, “You’re not nearly as proactive as you were a few days ago, baby~.”
Only then did it dawn on Pei Yuan: Xie Wangzhou was completely drunk and had mistaken him for someone else.
What was this? Did he possess such a generic, common face?
Not receiving any response from Pei Yuan, Xie Wangzhou wasn’t annoyed in the least. He sat up and attempted to press Pei Yuan downward, his hands actively fumbling around to undo Pei Yuan’s belt.
Pei Yuan understood now. Xie Wangzhou intended to pin him down and take him.
Both of them had consumed a significant amount of alcohol, and the scent of liquor radiating from Xie Wangzhou drifted in gentle wisps into Pei Yuan’s nasal passages. Mingling with the alcohol he had consumed earlier, it severely weakened his willpower.
Meanwhile, Xie Wangzhou’s striking peach blossom eyes were flushed red at the corners due to drunkenness. Every glance upward and downward was brimming with seductive charm. Just looking at Pei Yuan with a faint smile was enough to shatter the final line of defense in his neural pathways.
However, having spent a lifetime competing with each other over who was superior, Pei Yuan was certainly not going to let Xie Wangzhou have his way so easily regarding who was on top.
He grabbed Xie Wangzhou’s restless hands and pulled them upward. Leaning forward, Pei Yuan pressed his lips to Xie Wangzhou’s eyes.
That night, both inside and outside of dreams, the spring scenery was intoxicating. As the moonlight filtered through the sheer curtains, the two of them drowned within it entirely.
It felt as though it had all been nothing more than a dream.
Yet the tangled bedsheets, the messy floor, and the ugly handwriting on the sticky note were all relentlessly reminding him of the absurdity of the previous night.
He, Pei Yuan, had actually slept with his ultimate nemesis and romantic rival, Xie Wangzhou.
This made Pei Yuan, who always prided himself on being upright and honorable, feel that his behavior had been somewhat sordid and disgraceful.
However, his meager sense of guilt was instantly obliterated the moment he saw the two hundred yuan bill that Xie Wangzhou had left casually tossed on the bed.
As expected, people never truly changed; Xie Wangzhou was still just as deeply irritating as ever.
Pei Yuan felt that Xie Wangzhou was always putting on an act.
For instance, the day before an exam, a classmate would ask Xie Wangzhou how his review was going.
At that time, Pei Yuan, who consistently ranked as the eternal runner-up, would perk up his ears to listen. He would sense Xie Wangzhou’s gaze seemingly land on him, but by the time he looked back over, Xie Wangzhou had already lowered his head, a faint, ambiguous smile lingering at the corners of his lips as he spoke in a tone tinged with false regret: “I didn’t review very well this time.”
Pei Yuan would clench his fists tightly, utterly convinced victory was within his grasp.
Then, on the following day, Xie Wangzhou would still score five points higher than him.
Shaking his head and sighing as he looked at the ranking list, Xie Wangzhou would lament, “Ah, as expected, I really didn’t test well.”
His voice, neither too loud nor too soft, would drift precisely into the ears of Pei Yuan, who happened to be standing right beside him.
Pei Yuan: “”
The bitter rivalry between the two of them had lasted for seven whole years, right up until their university graduation when Pei Yuan finally left Beijing.
When Pei Yuan had originally left Beijing, he possessed absolutely nothing; and now, he had returned with just as little.
Most of his money had been wiped out to pay for a contract breach penalty, yet he had still stubbornly insisted on beating Xie Wangzhou in the wedding gift monetary contribution, giving twenty thousand yuan.
Now, sighing deeply as he checked his remaining bank account balance, Pei Yuan decisively tucked away the two hundred yuan bill. A mosquito’s leg was still meat, no matter how small.
His most urgent priority right now was to find a job first, and then rent a place to live.
As he browsed through online recruitment advertisements, Pei Yuan’s workflow was abruptly interrupted by the ringing of his phone.
The person calling was his university roommate, Lu Wensheng.
“Old Pei, I heard that you’re no longer working at Guangzheng. Is that true?”
“That’s right. My plan moving forward is to find a law firm here in Beijing.”
“Come join me then. We’re old classmates after all; what, you think my small temple can’t accommodate a grand Buddha like you?”
Pei Yuan fell silent and didn’t speak. Lu Wensheng remained patient, quietly waiting for Pei Yuan’s response.
After a long while, Pei Yuan spoke with difficulty: “Wensheng, you might not fully understand my situation. The final lawsuit I handled at Guangzheng didn’t go well, and my reputation in the industry is very poor right now. I was essentially fired by Guangzheng. Large law firms won’t take me anymore, so I’ll consider myself lucky if I can get into a minor firm. If I come to your place, I’ll only end up dragging down the reputation of your firm for nothing.”
“As for that incident, of course I believe you were framed. Guangzheng suppressing you and firing you just shows they lack the judgment to recognize true talent. If you really end up at some small-time firm, your career will genuinely be ruined. Come to me, and I’ll offer you the same compensation package you had at Guangzheng,” Lu Wensheng said earnestly. He simply couldn’t bear to watch a bright pearl covered in dust.
Seeing that Pei Yuan remained silent, Lu Wensheng continued, “Pei Yuan, there will definitely be a way to resolve your situation. When the day comes that this is all sorted out, I’m the one who’ll be getting the better end of the deal.”
After pondering it for a moment, Pei Yuan nodded in agreement: “Alright. Thank you, Wensheng.”
“What’s there to thank? It’s settled then. Send me a message as soon as you’re all settled in.”
Just as Lu Wensheng finished speaking, he seemed to greet someone on the other end of the line, his tone lifting slightly as he called out, “Zhaozhao, over here.”
Then, turning back to Pei Yuan, he said, “Alright, my younger brother and I are heading out to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. Regardless of anything else, make sure to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival with family first. Wishing you a happy Mid-Autumn Festival in advance.”
“Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you too.”
After hanging up the phone, Pei Yuan suddenly realized that the day after tomorrow was the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Ever since his university graduation, when he came out to his parents and completely severed ties with them, he hadn’t celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival with his family in a very long time.
In truth, they had rarely spent it together even before then. His parents had been extremely strict; every time there was a holiday, they would force him to continue studying, keeping meal times strictly under twenty minutes; the Mid-Autumn Festival was no exception.
To him, the biggest difference about a Mid-Autumn Festival meal was simply the addition of a mooncake. If he didn’t score well on his exams, he wouldn’t even get a piece of mooncake; all he would receive instead was verbal abuse, physical beatings, and being forced to kneel as punishment.
As for what counted as “not scoring well”, in the eyes of Pei Yuan’s parents, getting second place meant failure.
And ever since he became classmates with Xie Wangzhou, holding onto the number one spot had become a rather difficult feat for Pei Yuan to maintain.
The thought of Xie Wangzhou brought his attention back to the sticky note still clutched tightly in his hand. Regarding the events of the previous night, it took two hands to clap; Xie Wangzhou wasn’t solely to blame, and he himself had to shoulder a major part of the responsibility.
He stared at his phone for a long time before deciding to give Xie Wangzhou a call, not necessarily because he wanted to apologize, but simply because he hadn’t figured out what to say.
After flipping back and forth through his contacts three times, Pei Yuan suddenly remembered that he didn’t even have Xie Wangzhou’s contact information to begin with.
It wasn’t that he had deleted it; he simply had never possessed it at all.
During those university years, the internet wasn’t quite as developed as it later became, and the two of them hadn’t even added each other on QQ. Consequently, he knew virtually nothing about Xie Wangzhou’s recent circumstances.
Before he could place a call to Xie Wangzhou, however, his phone rang with an incoming call from an unfamiliar number.
“Pei Yuan, I know I was wrong. Everything I did was because I was forced into it. Can you please forgive me this time, and not leave Haining City…”
The voice of his ex-boyfriend, Yang Lin, poured out from the phone speaker. Without even listening to the end of the sentence, Pei Yuan hung up immediately and promptly blocked the number.
The fallout of his breakup with Yang Lin had dragged on for over a month. Yang Lin had been the one to pursue him in the beginning.
Yang Lin bore a strong resemblance to An Zhinan, though not in terms of facial features; Pei Yuan had zero interest in engaging in substitute romance tropes, nor did he hold any unfulfilled obsessions or resentment regarding An Zhinan. Their similarities lay much more in their personality and temperament; Pei Yuan simply favored gentle, introverted people like An Zhinan.
It was Pei Yuan who had initiated the breakup.
Yet Yang Lin refused to let go, constantly switching phone numbers in attempts to win Pei Yuan back. Pei Yuan, however, had no intention of looking back; Yang Lin had betrayed him, and he despised people who betrayed trust.
Even if it hadn’t been Yang Lin, and even if it hadn’t been An Zhinan, as long as someone fell into that general archetype, it didn’t make much difference to Pei Yuan.
But it would certainly never be someone of Xie Wangzhou’s type.
Xie Wangzhou’s ugly handwriting was still glaringly sprawled across the sticky note, leading Pei Yuan to think that the saying ‘handwriting reflects the person’ was probably accurate after all.
And yet, those peach blossom eyes from the previous night had been exceptionally stunning.
Startled by the sudden thought that had popped into his head, Pei Yuan shuddered with a sudden chill, and instinctively tossed the sticky note onto the floor.
He originally intended to pick it up and throw it into the trash can, but as if driven by some inexplicable impulse, he picked it up instead, smoothed it out flat, and casually tucked it inside a book. He then tossed that book haphazardly into his suitcase.
That book was reference material he had used while studying for his legal qualification exam, a volume he would most likely never open again in the future.
Much like the relationship between himself and Xie Wangzhou.
Pei Yuan soon found a place to rent: the price was low, and the location was prime. Had the landlord not been in a rush to lease it out, it probably wouldn’t have fallen into his hands at all.
As Pei Yuan marveled at his own good fortune, he silently hoped he would get even luckier. Beijing was massive, so hopefully, he wouldn’t run into Xie Wangzhou anytime soon.
And then, two days later.
Inside the office, he ran straight into Xie Wangzhou with effortless ease.