Tan Ze sat at the dining table eating his meal while Liang Xubai and Zhai Xu occupied the living room sofa. The appetizing aroma drifted over from a short distance away, making Zhai Xu’s stomach rumble loudly.
Both Liang Xubai and Zhai Xu were seniors, but Zhai Xu attended Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, where their graduation thesis timeline ran a bit later, only kicking off formal procedures in November.
Jiangnan University, on the other hand, started the process right at the start of the senior year—handling advisor selections, topic proposals, and project defense preparations all at once. Liang Xubai’s advisor was his uncle, whose strictness was enough to make people want to bang their heads against a wall in despair.
Yet, despite it only being October, Liang Xubai had already gathered all his data and even finished his first draft.
Zhai Xu had always bowed down to Liang Xubai’s terrifying levels of self-imposed pressure and self-torture. After staring at Liang Xubai’s thesis for a bit with a splitting headache, he flopped back down onto his back, fished out his phone, and messaged Liang Xubai.
Zhai Xu: [Honestly, I really think Tan Ze seems pretty well-behaved. Look at the way he eats.]
Zhai Xu: [Plus, I was just chatting with him, and his attitude was great.]
Zhai Xu: [Maybe your personality just sucks and he simply doesn’t like you.]
Liang Xubai: [?]
Liang Xubai replied with a single question mark. Though he couldn’t be bothered to entertain Zhai Xu, he still let his gaze drift toward the dining table as if following the thread of the conversation.
Tan Ze had terrible table manners; he loved scrolling through his phone while eating. He kept his volume turned down low, but some faint sound still leaked through.
He had tied up his troublesome long hair into a ponytail and habitually shoved a massive mouthful of food into his cheeks, chewing vigorously.
Just like the very first time Liang Xubai had laid eyes on him—his eating habits hadn’t changed a bit.
Sensing his gaze, Tan Ze sharply turned his head and shot him a glare. The moment their eyes met, Liang Xubai smiled faintly, looked away, and redirected his attention back to the laptop.
Liang Xubai picked up his phone again, opened that unreplied chat window, clicked follow back on Tan Ze, and sent another message along with his own contact info.
[Black Dog: Add me.]
Before long, Liang Xubai received a friend request notification, though he waited a good while before finally accepting it.
Tan Ze had sent him several messages, thanking him repeatedly in a sincere, polite tone, and sweet-talking him with ge at every turn.
Flossy Yanbei? Tan Ze?
The kid certainly knew how to put on a show. To squeeze a few thousand bucks out of someone, he was even willing to fake being gay.
He genuinely wanted to see just how far Tan Ze—who had previously stood on his moral high ground yelling about how money wasn’t everything—would go with his act for the sake of cash.
Tan Ze had no idea Liang Xubai was actively plotting to lead him into a trap. His reaction to the sudden arrival of “Black Dog” was a mix of mild joy and overwhelming panic; his popularity was usually low, and he’d never received such massive gifts before, leaving him completely clueless about how to cultivate a wealthy viewer who dropped in purely for entertainment.
To put it simply, his experience playing up to sugar daddies was severely lacking.
The livestreaming industry ran deep, and dropping one or two Carnivals didn’t actually mean much.
Some viewers would gift an entertainment streamer enough to push their fan club all the way to level twenty, only to diss their account and vanish without a trace. Others would drop gifts for a while, lose interest if they grew tired of the streamer, and pivot to someone else entirely.
Such occurrences were commonplace. To put it bluntly, the profession of an entertainment streamer was no different from countless paintings hanging in an art gallery—they earned a living off other people’s tips and gifts, completely lacking any sort of irreplaceability to the audience.
With a population as massive as the country’s, claiming to be one-of-a-kind was downright naive.
When money came too easily, it lost its value, and Black Dog could walk away at any second.
Even so, Xu Xiu was right: a big fish like this rarely ever wandered into Tan Ze’s stream room. Even if it cost him every ounce of effort and meant throwing his dignity to the wind, he had to secure this relationship.
Wasn’t it just pretending to be gay? Wasn’t it just putting on a sweet voice? He’d play the part. If the money came in fast, playing along wasn’t shameful at all.
Tan Ze still wanted to buy a home. If he could blow up in popularity before graduation and scrape together enough for a down payment, he’d be more than satisfied.
He didn’t know any gay people in real life; Liang Xubai was literally the only one he actually knew.
He had intentionally observed Liang Xubai before, hoping to catch a glimpse of how Liang Xubai’s sexuality manifested so he could subtly copy it, but the observation yielded zero results.
Liang Xubai was nothing like the stereotypes online; the only thing that matched was his strict adherence to image maintenance.
Back when they first met, Tan Ze had already noticed that Liang Xubai possessed an absurd amount of clothes—he practically went half a month without repeating an outfit. His styling was low-key yet trendy, striking a balance where it wasn’t overly blinding yet instantly gave a sense of effortless comfort.
After moving in together, Tan Ze discovered that Liang Xubai dressed immaculately and with strict intention every single day, even when he had zero plans to step outside.
While Lei Miaomiao joked that this was just a male god’s self-discipline, Tan Ze privately thought Liang Xubai was just showing off to an insufferable degree.
Who knew who he was opening his peacock feathers for inside an empty house every day.
After finishing his meal, Tan Ze lingered at the dining table, scrolling through short videos, searching his own name and keyword tags to check public sentiment. It wasn’t until around three or four in the afternoon that Zhai Xu finally cleared out of Bay View, accompanied by Liang Xubai.
The moment they left, Tan Ze completely relaxed, collapsing lazily across the table to stare at last night’s livestream clip when his phone suddenly gave a ding.
Black Dog: [Wearing a dress tonight?]
Tan Ze: [Ge, the only reason I wore a dress yesterday was because I lost a PK match and had to do it as a punishment. I don’t wear dresses during my regular streams… crying-stars.jpg]
Black Dog: [What do you usually wear?]
Tan Ze pondered for a bit, dug a few casual outfits he usually wore on stream out of his closet, tossed them onto the bed, and snapped a photo for Black Dog.
Black Dog: [Mm.]
Tan Ze waited for a long time, hoping for a follow-up, but nothing came. Hesitantly, he rubbed his chin and typed out a message.
Tan Ze: [Ge, are you coming to see me tonight?]
Black Dog: [I’ll come when you wear the dress.]
Tan Ze’s vision went dark. His phone slipped from his hand and slammed onto the dining table. In his heart, he dragged Black Dog out and cursed him a dozen times over, wishing he could turn the guy into a living target and puncture him with tiny darts every single day.
Tan Ze didn’t wear the dress that day, and Black Dog genuinely didn’t show up.
The next day, Tan Ze still didn’t wear it, and Black Dog didn’t show up again.
Tan Ze messaged Xu Xiu for advice on what to do in this situation, and the reply he got was just a single sentence.
Xu Xiu: [Wearing it won’t make a chunk of meat fall off you.]
Tan Ze compromised. He tidied up and headed out, planning to buy a dress in a suitable size, making sure to put on a mask before stepping out the door.
He took the subway to the most famous wholesale market in the area and browsed around the women’s clothing section.
The wholesale market had gone through a quiet slump for a while without much foot traffic, but in recent years, fueled by the trend of store-review bloggers and bargain-hunting shopping tips, it had transformed into a cluster of vintage shops.
Naturally, bargaining had become much harder as a result.
Tan Ze’s eyes landed on a blue puffy dress—easily the prettiest one in the entire women’s clothing section of the wholesale market. The back featured a gathered elastic design, and judging by the length, he figured he should be able to squeeze into it.
The dress was hung up near the top; even with his height of 1.8 meters, he had to tilt his head all the way back to see it properly. He stared at the price tag closest to him, which read 299.
“Boss, can you let this dress go a bit cheaper?” Tan Ze pointed at the blue dress on the wall. “299 is way too expensive.”
The clothing store owner was an older woman with a Northern accent. She had tattooed brows, wore her signature full-rim eyeliner, and sported classic red manicures. She didn’t even stop cracking melon seeds as she glanced him up and down. “No bargaining.”
“No bargaining? How come everyone else lets you bargain?”
“I don’t care about everyone else. I don’t bargain here.”
Tan Ze raised a hand and pinched the hem of the dress. “The material on this dress is so stiff, and the style is as outdated as they come. How do you even have the face to sell it for three hundred?”
“Whether I have the face for it is my business, little miss. If you want to buy it, buy it; if not, get out.” The woman glared at him.
Tan Ze: “…… Jie, I’m a guy.”
The woman paused, looking suspiciously at Tan Ze up and down twice. “Say something else, let me hear it.”
“I really am a guy,” Tan Ze repeated.
“If you’re a guy, why are you being so nitpicky buying a dress for your girlfriend? Can’t afford designer so you come to the wholesale market and can’t even bear to shell out three hundred bucks?”
Hearing that, Tan Ze lowered his head in apparent shame, raised a hand to rub beneath his mask, and let a slight quiver enter his voice. “Jie, my girlfriend is currently going through chemotherapy, all her hair has fallen out, and I don’t have much money on me anyway. How could I ever afford designer clothes?”
“She just wanted to wear a pretty dress for her birthday. I’m just a broke college student who hasn’t graduated yet and doesn’t have much skill, so I’m just trying to find a way to make her a little happier.”
“Sorry, no bargaining.”
With a deeply wretched and miserable expression, Tan Ze turned to leave. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the woman’s utterly bewildered expression and bit down hard on his lips beneath his mask, terrified he’d burst out laughing.
Before he could even step out of the shop, he heard the woman call out to him, sounding like someone who had given up trying to care: “Fine, fine, take it for one hundred and fifty, alright? I’m just taking pity on you, that doesn’t even cover the wholesale cost.”
“Thanks, Jie. You’re a good person and good things will come to you—you’re definitely going to make a fortune in the future!” Overflowing with a look of overwhelming gratitude, Tan Ze grabbed the woman’s hand and shook it vigorously before transferring her one hundred and fifty yuan.
Having successfully beaten the price down by a hundred and fifty, Tan Ze felt his tactical victory for the day was quite impressive. On his way back, he stopped to buy two bags of duck necks, only remembering right as he reached the front door that Liang Xubai didn’t allow him to eat strongly scented foods inside the apartment.
Standing in front of the digital keypad, Tan Ze hesitated for a moment, silently praying that Liang Xubai wouldn’t be home.
Before he could even punch in the passcode, the elevator bell chimed. Bay View featured a layout of one elevator per household, and you needed a security card just to use the elevator anyway, meaning only two people ever stopped on this floor: Liang Xubai, and him.
Before a sound could escape him, Tan Ze already caught a whiff of that familiar scent coming off the other person. He instinctively stepped aside to give Liang Xubai room to pass.
Liang Xubai was tall—several centimeters taller than him even—and he cast a downward glance, spotting the neatly folded dress sticking out of the plastic bag. Punching in the code, he smiled: “Junior, you really do have a cross-dressing fetish, huh?”
Having been caught red-handed once before, Tan Ze felt a lot more at ease this time and didn’t think there was anything left to be mortified about. He just turned his head and let out a cold huff.
“Though next time, buy something with better quality. The hem on this dress is already fraying.” Liang Xubai pushed the door open, looking at Tan Ze with a smile. “You get inside, duck necks stay out.”