◎What Kind of Terrible Karma Is This?◎
Fang Ke and his wife went to soak in the hot springs in the morning and were currently enjoying full-service spa treatments.
Yang Ximing and Jiang Yiyi had played a few rounds of snooker and were getting completely hooked.
The only ones who arrived at the restaurant on time to eat were Su Yun and Si Yan.
Su Yun was still feeling guilty about the excuse he had used earlier to brush off the portrait request. Facing Si Yan alone made him feel somewhat pressured, not to mention that Si Yan had suddenly turned silent with the ambient air pressure plunging sharply, doubling the pressure.
“I should probably go urge them again,” Su Yun said.
“No need, let them play. Coming here today is all about relaxing,” Si Yan said, his tone gentle and contrasting sharply with his cold, aloof aura.
Su Yun felt aggrieved inside: Yes, it is about relaxing, but why is he the only one feeling stressed out to the max?
Taking advantage of the moment while Si Yan was not paying attention, he sent WeChat messages to both Yang Ximing and Jiang Yiyi: “Hurry over, there is snowflake ribeye steak here. If you are any later, it will all be gone.”
Sure enough, Yang Ximing and Jiang Yiyi let bygones be bygones, set aside their worthless sense of competitive pride, dropped their pool cues, and rushed straight to the restaurant.
A meal for two instantly turned into a dinner for four.
Pretending not to notice anything, Si Yan cut his steak with total composure, his casual short-sleeved T-shirt making him look as elegant as young nobility.
Su Yun lowered his head and ate in gloomy silence.
The steak was quite good, tender and juicy. His attention was quickly distracted by the delicious food, and he ended up drinking every last drop of the borscht.
The borscht here had a sweetish slant that completely suited his palate.
After the meal, Su Yun returned to his room intending to rest for a bit before going to soak in the hot springs and get a massage later.
With his heavy workload recently, he had not exercised in a long time, and the muscles around his shoulders were extremely stiff.
That afternoon, he went to soak in the hot springs alongside Yang Ximing and Jiang Yiyi. Si Yan had arranged for the hotel to set them up in a private hot spring pool that had not opened to the public yet; the moment they approached the entrance, they could smell the sulfur.
“Wow, this little courtyard is so quaint,” Yang Ximing praised the rustic landscaping surrounding the hot spring pool endlessly.
Surrounded by green bamboo with wisps of white steam curling up, it indeed possessed quite a bit of artistic conception. Su Yun liked it a lot too; soaking in a hot spring amidst such surroundings was the ultimate relaxation.
“Mr. Si arranged this, is he not coming himself?” Jiang Yiyi had already stripped down to his swim trunks, which were covered all over in little yellow ducks.
Squinting his eyes and not daring to look directly at them, Su Yun analyzed, “He probably figured we would feel awkward with him around.”
As it turned out, without Si Yan present, they indeed felt much more at ease and enjoyed a wonderful soak.
After soaking, Su Yun even treated himself to a shoulder-focused massage.
Following the whole routine, his body felt much looser, his steps grew light, and his mood turned exceptionally bright.
Dinner that evening consisted of a healthy vegetarian set meal. Nearing the end of the meal, the lobby manager brought out a feedback form for everyone to fill out experience ratings.
The form consisted entirely of multiple-choice questions, which Su Yun breezed through quickly, mostly picking favorable options.
“Don’t hold back,” Si Yan, seated beside him, said. “Only by giving feedback can they improve.”
“I am not holding back, I really am quite satisfied with everything,” Su Yun said, checking “Yes” on the final question asking whether he would choose to visit again.
“As long as you are satisfied.” Si Yan did not need to fill out a form; his fingers tapped rhythmically and cheerfully against his knee like a piano player.
On the return trip, they miraculously managed to avoid peak traffic, smoothly returning to Jiuzhang Yazhu the whole way.
They arrived home right at 9:30 PM, allowing plenty of time to tidy up slightly and head to sleep without interfering with work the next day.
The entire itinerary was flawless to a fault, prompting Su Yun to once again feel a heartfelt wave of admiration for Si Yan’s planning skills. He figured traveling with Si Yan would undoubtedly be an effortless affair.
Though, such opportunities probably would not come around often.
Tidying up and lying in bed, he closed his eyes intending to get a wonderful night’s sleep, yet his mind kept flashing back to what Si Yan had told him in the garden: “Alright, I will wait for you.”
When Si Yan said those words, he had not really displayed much expression, and his tone had been quite calm. Precisely because of that, it gave rise to a sense of unexpressed, restrained control.
It was rather ascetic and rather sexy.
Su Yun’s sleepiness was scared away by this abruptly popping thought. Tossing and turning through several flips, he ended up getting up to drink a cup of warm milk and counting a few hundred sheep before finally drifting off into a hazy slumber.
Upstairs, Si Yan was still running on the treadmill when a phone call came through. Hearing his voice, the person on the other end asked, “Are you night-running or doing other exercises?”
“What do you think?” Si Yan gradually slowed the treadmill down to a walking pace.
“Judging by your tone, the former seems much more likely. As for Si Yu, it is hard to tell,” the caller analyzed.
“Big brother, calling me this late, don’t tell me you are checking attendance,” Si Yan asked.
“Just finished a meeting and heard you went to the hot spring project in City S today,” Si Cheng said. “I checked the reviews; they are all very high. There is someone named Su Yun among them, the blind date object Mom introduced to you, right? He seems pretty satisfied with your service.”
“It is not like I was the one providing the service,” Si Yan stopped the treadmill.
“Is that so? Let me see: you went to the back kitchen to pick the best snowflake ribeye, asked the chef to adjust the borscht flavor, arranged a VIP bathhouse while skipping it yourself, and acted as the personal chauffeur for pick-up and drop-off the entire time. I recall you having a designated driver stationed in City S.” Si Cheng stopped right before over-explaining.
Si Yan: “I am hanging up, nothing else.”
“Oh, there is one more thing, not super urgent,” Si Cheng said. “Because of an argument with Dad, Si Yu got blacklisted by the family. Dad had me freeze all his cards, including his studio’s cash flow. He might come looking to you for refuge recently, so don’t take him in.”
Si Yan: “I will handle it.”
“I have delivered the message,” Si Cheng added. “He has your apartment password, remember to change it.”
Indifferently, Si Yan replied: “Mhm.”
Another busy workday arrived. Following yesterday’s relaxation, Su Yun felt his energy bar was completely full.
The preliminary design proposal for the new map he submitted last week had entered the sign-off stage.
This marked his first time navigating KG’s OA workflow, so he checked in on it from time to time. Logging into OA that afternoon, he received a personnel appointment notice.
Before he even had a chance to open it, Yang Ximing burst into his office.
“Su Yun, did you see the personnel notice sent out by HR?” Yang Ximing asked. “Our boss really knew how to keep things under wraps. Good thing we did not do anything out of line yesterday.”
Su Yun was completely lost. “What, what, what?”
“Go take a look, you will know once you read it,” Yang Ximing said with a hint of excitement.
“Oh,” Su Yun calmly opened it up.
The notice was brief, explaining that KG’s former CEO, Mr. Thomas, had chosen to resign due to personal reasons, and a new CEO had been appointed.
The moment he saw the new CEO’s name, Su Yun slammed his laptop shut with a loud snap.
“Pretty surprising, right?” Yang Ximing asked. “Even I only found out just now.”
Su Yun nodded mechanically.
“Yesterday, oh man, yesterday I even asked him so many personal questions. Do you think I will end up on his blacklist?” Yang Ximing muttered anxiously.
Su Yun was in a daze, though he still remembered that Yang Ximing had indeed practically courted death yesterday by asking Si Yan all sorts of bizarre questions.
Yet Si Yan had not shown any signs of annoyance at the time, answering them quite patiently.
“Probably not, I did not see him minding it much,” Su Yun pacified Yang Ximing absentmindedly.
“Really?” Yang Ximing touched his chin in recollection. “I guess so.”
After a moment, as if suddenly stumbling upon some incredible discovery, he blurted out: “Holy crap, the new boss lives right above us?”
“Mhm,” Su Yun responded woodenly.
His blind date, parenthesis: straight man, not only lived upstairs from him, but was also his new boss.
“Good thing he does not live right next door,” Yang Ximing patted his chest. “Otherwise I would not dare slack off casually ever again.”
Su Yun was suffering inside.
The previous night, upon realizing he still harbored some improper, illicit fantasies about Si Yan, he had intended to avoid contact as much as possible going forward and let time wash everything away. But now? Not only would time fail to wash anything away, it was introducing the possibility of even more intersections.
What kind of terrible karma is this?
“I need to figure out this new boss’s daily routine, such as what time he leaves, what time he comes back, and whether he goes to the cafeteria for meals,” Yang Ximing began calculating.
Clenching both hands into fists with stars glittering in his eyes, Su Yun pleaded: “Please, share the intel when you get it.”
Nodding solemnly, Yang Ximing said, “Don’t worry, we are in the same boat. Once I have investigated everything, I will tell you and Jiang Yiyi.”
“Mhm, mhm, mhm,” Su Yun nodded gratefully and repeatedly.
“Sigh,” Yang Ximing shook his head with emotion. “Yesterday I thought he wanted to hit on you, which is why he invited us to soak in hot springs. Turns out he was just scouting out enemy intelligence.”
“Hit on me?” Su Yun looked utterly shocked. “He is a straight man, why would he hit on me?”
Yang Ximing scratched his head. “I saw him being pretty attentive to you, and his tone when talking to you was quite different. But how do you know he is straight?”
Given that Yang Ximing seemed to have forgotten about that airport video, Su Yun had no desire to intentionally bring up someone else’s private business, so he could only mumble vaguely: “I just know.”
Although gossipy, Yang Ximing was a genuine straight man through and through. Seeing Su Yun state it with such certainty, he simply assumed his gaydar was broken; after all, when he first met Su Yun, his gaydar had not pinged either, only finding out later when Su Yun told him directly after they grew closer.
“Just gossiping here: if someone like Si Yan were not straight, would he be your type?” Yang Ximing asked.
Su Yun narrowed his eyes, pressing his lips into a resolute straight line.
Yang Ximing perked up his ears to listen.
With a hint of sorrow woven into his resolute tone, Su Yun declared: “In this world, there are no ifs.”
Taking it like a profound monk gaining enlightenment, Yang Ximing shook his head pityingly: “What a shame, what a shame.”
Once Yang Ximing left, Su Yun let out a soft sigh, sorting through his somewhat chaotic thoughts before throwing his energy straight back into the vast ocean of artwork.
He still had several scene illustrations left to modify, over a dozen game characters to design, and countless game assets awaiting approval; he had no time to dwell on such random nonsense.
Right now, work and career were his true faith and his greatest love.
[Author’s Notes]
Si Yan: Heartbroken, I turn out not to be my wife’s true faith.