He didn’t smile, nor did he look angry.
He just had a straight face.
His thoughts were interrupted by the voice on the other end of the phone. “Hello? Why aren’t you saying anything? Are you mad?”
Shu Ci really did pout a little and complained, “Why did you let someone else see the message? I only sent it to you because I thought of you as a good friend.”
He looked gentle and obedient, but in reality, he was thin-skinned.
Especially in front of people he wasn’t close to.
Great. Now Lu Xianyan must think he was easy and foolish enough to be tricked.
“I didn’t show him. I just left my phone there, and he happened to see it,” Zhou Mingran was used to coaxing people. “My bad, my bad. I’ll come over to your place and apologize in person, okay, Your Highness?”
Shu Ci ignored him and opened WeChat to search for Lu Xianyan’s name.
In the six months since they’d reconnected, their chat history contained nothing but occasional split-bill transfers after gatherings. No casual conversations at all.
Lu Xianyan hated trouble.
Back in school, Shu Ci had already caused him plenty of it. Even when he suffered heatstroke, Lu Xianyan had been the first to notice and had carried him to the infirmary.
And now, eight years later, he was troubling him again over something as embarrassing as chasing someone…
Shu Ci had no idea what to say, so he closed the chat window and pushed the task back to Zhou Mingran. “Tell him I’m home. Don’t let him make the trip for nothing.”
Then he hung up.
Soon after, Zhou Mingran sent back an “OK.”
Shu Ci let out a breath and scrolled through the messages he hadn’t had time to read earlier.
Aside from cursing Fu Zhiheng, Zhou Mingran was mostly telling him not to go out and not to get tricked.
Still unwilling to give up, Shu Ci typed:
[Do you really think Fu Zhiheng meant… that? Couldn’t it have been a truth-or-dare loss, or maybe he sent it to the wrong person?]
Zhou Mingran probably didn’t feel like typing and sent a voice message instead.
“So what if he did mean it? Sending a message like that just shows he doesn’t take you seriously. That guy’s clearly not well-intentioned. Even if you two got together, he’d probably rush to do something to you. Says he’s straight, but he’s practically lost his mind over your face. Last time I saw him, his eyes were glued to you.”
“And if he sent it to the wrong person, that just means he already has someone. Even more reason for you to ignore him.”
Shu Ci pressed his lips together.
At that last sentence, the light in his eyes dimmed completely.
He wasn’t upset because he couldn’t get Fu Zhiheng.
It would be fine if they didn’t end up together.
He wasn’t desperate to be in a relationship.
More than anything, he was afraid the image he’d built up in his heart would collapse.
For so many years, Shu Ci had imagined Fu Zhiheng’s appearance and personality more than once. He believed that someone as kind as him would treat relationships with sincerity and devotion.
But that message from Fu Zhiheng made the moonlit boy in his memory suddenly turn dim and murky.
Maybe people really do change.
Shu Ci thought this was probably karma.
After all, his reasons for pursuing Fu Zhiheng hadn’t been entirely pure.
A white moonlight should stay sealed in memory—never approached.
…
In the end, Shu Ci couldn’t bring himself to delete Fu Zhiheng from WeChat.
He set his phone aside and was about to sit down at his computer to work when his stomach growled at the worst possible moment.
There was a commercial street right below his apartment complex, and he was too lazy to change out of his pajamas.
The pajamas were a gift from his mom—pink, with two rabbit ears on the hood.
He liked them himself, but didn’t want acquaintances to see him wearing them.
He had known Lu Xianyan was strong since middle school. In eighth grade, Lu Xianyan had casually lifted Shu Ci’s desk with one hand to help him rearrange the classroom during cleaning duty. Standing beside him, Shu Ci had felt like a scrawny little chick.
Later, during military training, when Shu Ci got heatstroke under the blazing sun, it was Lu Xianyan who carried him to the infirmary—running the whole way without even panting.
Not to mention his performances on the basketball court.
Tall, aloof, exuding a maturity and distance beyond his age.
That was the Lu Xianyan Shu Ci had observed back in school—like a kitten secretly observing a human.
But such a cold person had just forcibly kissed someone in the middle of the night.
Was it the alcohol?
Some people really did become completely different when drunk.
Right—did Lu Xianyan usually drink?
Shu Ci didn’t know.
At gatherings, he never paid much attention to whether Lu Xianyan drank or not.
The lingering numb soreness in his mouth and the swelling sensation made it hard for Shu Ci to think clearly. He lifted his head and only then realized that during the long silence, Lu Xianyan had been standing there the whole time, watching him.
Different from usual, the man’s gaze was dark and burning—fixed and intense, like a beast locking onto its prey.
Shu Ci’s already flushed ears burned even hotter.
In his mouth, aside from the lingering numbness from being rubbed and pressed, there was also a different scent.
Not alcohol.
Had it evaporated? Or had Lu Xianyan not drunk much at all?
Shu Ci tried to dismiss these irrelevant thoughts.
In any case… being kissed was strange.
He parted his lips slightly, but in that instant, his breathing suddenly grew rapid. Within seconds, fine beads of sweat formed on his cheeks and the tip of his nose.
An indescribable, strange urge spread from his throat to his teeth.
He desperately wanted to bite something.
The sensation wasn’t unfamiliar.
His condition.
Before all this, Shu Ci had never even heard of it. Recently, the pressure from his comic serialization had been overwhelming. He locked himself in his room every day, drawing and revising nonstop, sitting for entire days at a time. His weight had dropped rapidly, and he frequently felt the impulse to bite things.
After a week of biting his chopsticks every single day, he finally realized something was wrong. He did some research online and went to see a doctor.
“Sorry…”
Lu Xianyan broke the silence first.
Shu Ci snapped back to reality and nervously clenched his fingers. He could hear his own short, forceful breaths. He tried to stay calm, but his eyelashes trembled uncontrollably.
The tall man across from him spoke again. “Sorry. I wasn’t very clear-headed just now.”
His voice sounded hoarse, as if he couldn’t accept that he’d kissed another man while drunk.
“It’s okay… You were just trying to help me.”
After answering, seeing Lu Xianyan’s expression still serious, Shu Ci instead tried to comfort him. “It’s really fine. You were drunk.”
“I don’t mind.”
Not minding was one thing—but Lu Xianyan had kissed him far too hard.
The lingering discomfort from being forcibly invaded still remained in his mouth.
The tip of his tongue tingled with numb soreness.
Unexpectedly, after hearing his reassurances, Lu Xianyan’s expression grew even heavier.
Shu Ci had no energy left to pay attention to him.
He was in torment.
A thin layer of cold sweat had already formed on his back, and his chest felt tight.
His gaze fell unconsciously on Lu Xianyan—drawn to the distinct veins and strength in his forearm.