Naturally, Lin Yanshu had no idea what was running through Ji Yanzhi’s mind; he was simply resting back comfortably in the chair, leisurely sipping his juice.
After swimming a lap, he felt completely refreshed and invigorated.
Ji Yanzhi withdrew his gaze from Lin Yanshu and dove back into the pool to swim a few more laps.
Lin Yanshu leaned against the soft chair, holding his cup in one hand while his gaze landed entirely upon Ji Yanzhi in the swimming pool.
His swimming form was exceptionally standard, and his physique radiated a strong sense of power, carrying a fluid, effortless aesthetic.
Lin Yanshu wondered inwardly whether he were to actually race him, determining who would win and who would lose would truly remain an unknown.
After swimming a few more laps, Ji Yanzhi climbed ashore as well.
He shook off the water droplets clinging to his hair, grabbed the towel from his chair to wipe his face, and then sat down beside Lin Yanshu, picking up the glass of juice on the table to take a sip.
The juice in Lin Yanshu’s cup was nearly empty; initially, he had felt that his swimming matched Ji Yanzhi’s stroke for stroke, but now he had to admit that the CEO’s stamina was somewhat superior to his own.
“Did you really just swim a single lap?”
Lin Yanshu placed his cup back down on the table, cast a glance at Ji Yanzhi, and spoke leisurely: “I’m not used to swimming with other people.”
A knot tightened in Ji Yanzhi’s chest; wasn’t this kid’s implication in everything he said simply that he didn’t want to swim with him?
“Other people”?
Didn’t “other people” clearly refer to himself?
He let out an internal chuckle, and his expression sank as well. Before he could open his mouth, Lin Yanshu looked at him with an innocent expression, “Yan-ge, you’re not getting mad, are you? I’m sorry, this habit of mine is indeed not very good, it’s not directed at you!”
That tone… was thoroughly choked up inside him!
Ji Yanzhi: ……
He was utterly speechless, yet had no idea how to respond.
Every plausible and implausible excuse had already been spoken by this kid…
Smiling with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, he uttered an “oh,” “How could I possibly get mad? You can go swim now if you want, I’m going to go take a shower.”
“Did Yan-ge only swim this few laps?” Lin Yanshu lifted his eyelids, letting his gaze linger on Ji Yanzhi’s face for a brief second before lowering his eyes to scan his lower torso, suddenly letting out a light chuckle. Looking utterly innocent and pure, he said,
“Yan-ge, this stamina of yours… still needs some work!”
Ji Yanzhi: ……
There it was the breath Ji Yanzhi had just managed to smooth down was blocked right back up again!
Why was the way this kid spoke always so exasperating?
Grinding his back teeth together, he waited a few seconds before speaking, “Yanshu, whether my stamina is good or not doesn’t require your judgment. After all, you aren’t a woman; if you were a woman, you’d be able to experience it firsthand.”
Scarcely had those words fallen when Lin Yanshu suddenly stood up. He stood up so abruptly that Ji Yanzhi hadn’t even had time to react before the two of them ended up face-to-face, their noses practically brushing against each other.
A warm, soft tactile sensation transmitted right across the tips of their noses; viewed from afar, the two of them appeared like an intimate couple in the middle of a kiss.
Ji Yanzhi’s heartbeat skipped half a beat, and with his breathing stagnating for a second, he couldn’t help taking a step backward.
The moment he stepped back, Lin Yanzhu advanced half a step forward, closing the distance between them until they were nearly plastered against one another.
Lin Yanshu wore an expression of looking slightly offended and angered, “Yan-ge, what you just said sounded rather distasteful.”
Ji Yanzhi’s ear tips grew somewhat warm, though his face maintained an outward composure. The fingertips hanging by his sides twitched slightly, as if instinctively wanting to grasp onto something.
“Apologies!”
Lin Yanshu took a step back, instantly resuming his harmless, angelic appearance.
He tapped a finger lightly against Ji Yanzhi’s chest, “Yan-ge shouldn’t make jokes like that next time; I don’t really like them.”
With that, he turned around and walked out of the swimming club.
Ji Yanzhi: Weren’t you the one who started making jokes first? Why are you the one getting upset now???
Ji Yanzhi stared at Lin Yanshu’s retreating back until it vanished completely from his line of sight before finally pulling his gaze away.
Lifting a hand, he touched the spot on his chest where he had just been poked, feeling an inexplicable wave of dry heat washing over him.
It wasn’t until he sat back down on the chair and drank a glass of water that he began to feel slightly better.
He thought back to Lin Yanshu’s remark.
Ji Yanzhi ground his back teeth together, stood back up, and went back into the pool to swim a few more laps.
When he finally emerged from the swimming club, he didn’t head straight back, opting instead to go to the fourth-floor gym.
Reaching out to pat his own eight-pack abs, Ji Yanzhi let out a soft huff did his stamina actually need any more work.
It was top-tier!
That evening, Ji Yanzhi didn’t work in his study; instead, dressed in home loungewear, he sat on the sofa with his laptop resting on his knees, clacking away at the keyboard.
When Lin Yanshu came back in, he glanced briefly at Ji Yanzhi sitting on the sofa, offered a cheerful greeting, and headed straight back to his room.
It was as though the incident that afternoon had never even occurred.
Ji Yanzhi smiled back in response.
A tacit mutual understanding between them.
Not long afterward, Lin Yanshu came downstairs dressed in his pajamas.
His hair had grown a bit longer, so he had used a small hair tie to gather the hair behind his ears, though it didn’t look overly feminine.
He was wearing a set of light blue cotton pajamas, with the buttons left unbuttoned right down to his chest, exposing his slender neck and beautiful collarbones.
Perhaps because he had just taken a shower and was wearing warm home loungewear, his entire persona seemed to soften considerably.
Without saying a word, he sat down right beside Ji Yanzhi, kicked off his slippers, and propped his feet up on the coffee table. This unrefined behavior caused Ji Yanzhi to fall silent for a couple of seconds.
When his gaze landed upon Lin Yanshu’s fair, delicate feet, he paused for another second. His toes were rounded, his toenails were neatly and cleanly trimmed, and they had a pinkish tint that looked somewhat adorable.
Ji Yanzhi felt a trace of puzzlement: why on earth was everything on a guy’s body pink? Even his toenails were pink…
Noticing that Ji Yanzhi was staring fixedly at his feet, Lin Yanshu raised an eyebrow. He had done it entirely on purpose; wouldn’t someone this impolite naturally get angry?
If he got angry, then he himself would be happy.
“Yan-ge, I’m just putting my legs up on the table for a moment, it’s not getting in your way, so you shouldn’t be mad, right?”
Having spoken, he even wiggled his toes a little bit.
Ji Yanzhi: ……
Silently withdrawing his gaze, he had initially thought Lin Yanshu lacked manners and upbringing, and wondered if he was simply a bit too overly familiar?
Yet… it seemed he didn’t actually mind it in his heart either; in fact, he even found his toes rather adorable, making him want to reach out and touch them…
He must have some deeply rooted illness.
“I don’t mind.” Having said that, Ji Yanzhi reined in those inexplicable thoughts, lowered his gaze back to his computer screen, and hammered away at the keyboard clack-clack-clack, assuming the posture of someone hard at work.
Lin Yanshu: ……
The male lead’s temper was actually ridiculously good!
His first plan having failed, a second plan immediately hatched in his mind.
Pulling out his mobile phone, he opened a video game and turned the game volume up a notch higher.
Ji Yanzhi’s train of thought was disrupted by the gaming sounds, and he couldn’t help knitting his brows as he glanced sideways at him. He had originally intended to ask Lin Yanshu to turn the volume down a bit, but upon catching sight of the faint smile curving the corners of his lips, the words hovered on the tip of his tongue, rolled around, and were swallowed back down.
Whatever!
Not long after, he heard Lin Yanshu exchanging a round of verbal abuse with his teammates over voice chat.
He found it genuinely difficult to believe that Lin Yanshu was capable of engaging in such mutual exchanges regarding each other’s entire ancestral family trees.
It wasn’t until Lin Yanshu finished cursing and turned his head, colliding gazes with an utterly dumbfounded Ji Yanzhi, that he stopped.
Before Ji Yanzhi could open his mouth, Lin Yanshu smiled at him, revealing two small dimples, though the smile failed to reach his eyes and looked somewhat artificial: “Yan-ge, he was the one who started cursing at me first. Oh right, I didn’t disturb your work, did I?”
With that, he even blinked his eyes, wearing an expression of pure, innocent compliance.
Ji Yanzhi: ……
I’m not deaf, you know!
The other person merely asked if you knew how to play, and you went straight for tearing up their household registration booklet!
Twitching the corner of his mouth, he simply felt that this kid putting on such a deliberate act to provoke his anger gave him a mild headache; he was truly exhausting to deal with.
“No disturbance, I’m pretty much done with my work anyway, I’ll head back to my room first.”
Once Ji Yanzhi had departed, Lin Yanshu pulled his feet back down, played another match of his game while sitting on the sofa, and only then returned to his room.