The answer, of course, was a flat no: “I’ve already eaten it all. How is that wasteful?”
It was hard to argue with, but eating it this way…
“Don’t eat it like that.” Ying Qiuman’s ears turned red at this sudden strange behavior. He blinked twice, and his eyes filled with moisture, reflecting the white light overhead, flickering like stars.
He was growing more and more fluent at saying no to Xu Shuyuan anyway. Whether it was accepted or not ultimately depended on Xu Shuyuan.
Xu Shuyuan heard him and clearly looked a little aggrieved. He pouted but didn’t continue, instead cutting the cake properly and eating it.
Ying Qiuman ate a few bites. After that, he felt that overly sweet, luxurious food often felt somewhat empty in his mouth, and he didn’t like that feeling.
But so as not to waste it, he still finished his portion, which also stirred up the hunger in his stomach.
After an afternoon of high-intensity work, Ying Qiuman was actually very hungry now. If he treated this cake as dinner outright, his body probably wouldn’t be able to handle it.
“I bought noodleslongevity noodles are what you eat on birthdays, right?” After saying this, Ying Qiuman went to look for what he’d bought. But Xu Shuyuan held him tightly and didn’t move, even pulling back his outstretched hand and smiling at him.
“There’s no pot here. How am I supposed to cook?”
There was a small electric pot, low-powered, the kind you could use in a dorm. Ying Qiuman occasionally used it to cook instant noodles when working late.
But in Xu Shuyuan’s eyes, it didn’t seem usable. Seeing him frown and hesitate, Ying Qiuman swallowed his words and simply put the pot away neatly again.
“It’s not that it can’t be used, but this pot probably isn’t enough for me.” Xu Shuyuan was telling the truth. Thinking of his appetite, Ying Qiuman also felt that the pot wasn’t enough.
One pot wouldn’t be enough for two people, and cooking in two rounds seemed even more troublesome. Suddenly, Ying Qiuman also felt that the noodles he’d bought might not be enough.
He thought for a moment, then tilted his head up, waiting for Xu Shuyuan to go on.
But doing this made him suddenly realize that he had already begun, without noticing, to hand decisions over to Xu Shuyuan.
Xu Shuyuan looked down at him, seemingly deeply captivated by the way Ying Qiuman gazed up at him so seriously. After a full three or four seconds of pause, he finally spoke.
“Let’s eat outside. I’ve booked a restaurant.”
Once he had the answer, Ying Qiuman suddenly realized something. He felt his thinking had been too narrow or perhaps he’d never considered that a birthday could be celebrated by going out to a restaurant.
Who would make the birthday person cook for themselves?
After getting ready to go out, since he now had a new phone, Ying Qiuman hesitated for a long time over whether to bring the other one along.
His expression was noticed by Xu Shuyuan, who simply grabbed his hand and led him out, leaving the monitored phone behind.
There was a new number in the phone. When he clicked in and tried to register a new account, he found that it had already been created. The profile picture was a blurred half-body silhouette hidden in light and shadow, and Ying Qiuman immediately recognized it as himself.
It didn’t take much thought to know who had taken it. He glanced at Xu Shuyuan. He just didn’t know when it had been taken, judging from the background, it seemed to be at the villa, and he was still wearing a shirt.
There was only one contact in the phoneXu Shuyuanbut the note wasn’t a name. It was a form of address Ying Qiuman couldn’t bring himself to say out loud.
In the chat history, there were five photos sent from the other side, and the last one was the profile picture.
The one before it showed two hands. The ring finger of the upper hand wore their wedding ring, and the other hand was obviously his own as well. Again, he had no idea when Xu Shuyuan had taken it.
But the photos above that left Ying Qiuman a bit puzzled—
One was a group photo of many people standing together, shaking hands.
One was Xu Shuyuan smiling toward the camera, but the focus was actually on several people behind him.
The last looked like a candid shot, very blurry, but one could vaguely make out a hospital’s red-cross symbol.
“What is this?” he asked. The scene and Xu Shuyuan’s styling were the same as the investment event Xu Shuyuan had messaged him about two days ago.
Xu Shuyuan rested one hand on the steering wheel, turned his gaze slightly to look at him, and a faint smile curved at the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t you recognize it?”
Ying Qiuman had a very good memory he could recall even obscure, complicated data with high accuracy, let alone such deeply memorable scenes and those clearly distinguishable faces.
Even if the lighting in the entertainment venue’s private room had been dim, he would definitely remember those alphas he had come face to face with, and they matched the neatly dressed, elite-looking people in the group photo.
Although he didn’t know Ying Kangcheng personally, he could still clearly read the concept poster—
This was the investment bidding meeting for Circle 2.
It matched exactly the time of the investment meeting Ying Kangcheng had mentioned on the day he proactively added him.
So Xu Shuyuan had been there too, and the Xu family had also invested in this film.
But why was Xu Shuyuan telling him all this? Those people doing business negotiations at Lihe were already proof enough that they had commercial dealings with Huahai but what did that have to do with him?
Ying Qiuman didn’t speak. Xu Shuyuan drove the car into the garage but showed no intention of getting out. Instead, he held his hand and looked at him quietly and gently. After a long moment, he slowly said, “I’m right here.”
The before and after didn’t seem to connect, but Ying Qiuman didn’t know how to respond. It felt like there were still things he didn’t know in between, and Xu Shuyuan didn’t seem very eager to explain them right now either.
Being protected inside an ivory tower often implied a greater hidden danger it could be a kind of psychological shock. But Ying Qiuman didn’t really mind. If he were capable of being shaken like that, maybe he wouldn’t have been so confused by Xu Shuyuan’s sudden displays of affection.
Since he didn’t understand, he would set it aside for now. Xu Shuyuan didn’t seem to intend to drop any big revelations on his birthday. Since he had come to find him, it meant tonight should be a time for the two of them to focus only on each other.
Xu Shuyuan had looked over his rented apartment before and seemed dissatisfied with it. Ying Qiuman had assumed that after dinner Xu Shuyuan would take him to get a hotel room, and that the things he’d bought would go unused. But in the end, Xu Shuyuan still brought him back to the rental.
The wooden bed wasn’t small, but when two people lay on it, it let out a very unromantic creak. Ying Qiuman swallowed, then pushed Xu Shuyuan’s shoulder and said, “Let’s go to a hotel.”
Xu Shuyuan was confined in this small bedroom, looking somewhat cramped and restrained. Normally by this point things should have already moved to the next stage, but Xu Shuyuan still didn’t movemaybe he was just waiting for Ying Qiuman to speak first.
“Not used to it?” Xu Shuyuan leaned in and captured his lower lip, stopping him from going on.
Being uncomfortable was one thing, but today was Xu Shuyuan’s birthday. They couldn’t ruin the mood over something like this. Besides, he only couldn’t sleep in hotels as long as he didn’t sleep, the problem was solved, right?
But before he could find a chance to say it, Xu Shuyuan murmured softly and clingily, “We won’t do anything. Just kiss for a while.”
That “a while” turned out to be much longer than expected. The air conditioner was set too high, even doing nothing made Ying Qiuman break into a sweat.
Yet Xu Shuyuan didn’t let go. His fingertips slipped under Ying Qiuman’s clothes, slowly sliding downward.
Ying Qiuman had spent a long time analyzing Xu Shuyuan’s earlier confession to him and concluded that the other man’s “liking” might stem from this physical contact. Otherwise, there really didn’t seem to be anything else between them worth being moved by, or worth calling “liking.”
But Xu Shuyuan’s words just now confused him. He had gone to so much trouble to come over and spend his birthday with himbut if it wasn’t for that kind of thing, then… had he misunderstood?
There was a deer in his heart, running through the cosmic river of stars, always heading toward brilliant constellations, but the floating, weightless sensation beneath his feet left him uneasy, until—
“Don’t…”
Xu Shuyuan did not obey him. He crossed the forbidden line and tasted the forbidden fruit.
…
The deer was chased by a meteor. It ran for its life, but every step felt like stepping on cotton. When he was pulled into an embrace again, that floating sensation slowly settled, falling into Xu Shuyuan’s palm.
“You…” Ying Qiuman couldn’t put the leaping feeling in his chest into words. His eyes were forced red from holding it in, and even his ears were a disaster zone, completely unpresentable.
He looked up, waiting for Xu Shuyuan’s answer, but the other man only held him and smiled faintly. Ying Qiuman couldn’t keep looking at him, so he grabbed at Xu Shuyuan’s collar and, after hesitating for a few seconds, leaned forward.
But the moment Xu Shuyuan saw his intention, he gripped his shoulders and lifted him back up, thumb gently brushing away the tears at the corner of his eyes. In a soft voice, he said, “No need. Go take a shower.”
Xu Shuyuan tightened Ying Qiuman’s clothes around him, then gently coaxed him to get up and wash.
Earlier, when Ying Qiuman had wanted to bathe alone, Xu Shuyuan wouldn’t allow it. Now, however, he was coaxing him like a child to go by himself.
It was strange.
But Ying Qiuman’s mind was a complete mess now he couldn’t think about any of this. He went to wash up in a daze and obediently put on cotton sleepwear when he came out.
When he returned to the bedroom, Xu Shuyuan looked at him and laughed softly, lowered his head to kiss the corner of his mouth, then took his clothes and went out.
Ying Qiuman lay on the bed, his thoughts as if locked inside a box. He couldn’t find the door, and didn’t even want to find it. It felt like he already knew what was outside, and that made him uneasy, so he just curled up tightly in a corner of the box.
Xu Shuyuan took a long time in the shower. When he came back, he seemed to carry a faint chill with him. When he hugged Ying Qiuman, he smelled of the same body wash.
There was a question stuck in his throat, but Ying Qiuman never asked it whether because the answer was already obvious, or because he couldn’t handle what that answer might be.
Unless Xu Shuyuan gave a negative answer that would instantly push him back, that wavering boundary line was already on the verge of collapse, almost uncontrollably about to let Xu Shuyuan take the lead and draw him completely inside.
His heart couldn’t settle. With his back pressed against Xu Shuyuan’s chest, which had shifted from cold to warm, he drifted into sleep just like that.
The jasmine tea–scented body wash entered his lungs through his nose. Yet by the time it reached his heart, it had somehow turned slightly bitter. In his drowsy sleep, he instinctively grasped at that scent, until someone pried open his fingers and forced him to let go.
He jolted awake. He saw Xu Shuyuan’s gaze move from his hand to his face, then break into a tender, lingering smile. Xu Shuyuan kissed the center of his brow and whispered softly, “Be good. Something came up at the company, I need to go. Sleep a little longer.”
Outside, it was still very dark. Ying Qiuman did not obediently go back to sleep. Instead, he grabbed Xu Shuyuan’s hand and sat up.
“II still have a gift I haven’t given you.”
Because it hadn’t been part of his original plan, the gift hadn’t been handed over last night. But if he still didn’t give it now, then once Xu Shuyuan left, he’d have even less reason to give it later.
He took an exquisite black box from the cabinet. Inside was a tie, chosen according to Xu Shuyuan’s usual way of dressing.
He couldn’t think of anything else, so he simply gave a tie.
Xu Shuyuan looked at the tie in the box and seemed to like it very much. One hand supported Ying Qiuman’s hands holding the box, the other lifted his chin, and he left a light kiss.
“Thank you, Manman.”
The warmth of that kiss lingered until dawn without fading. Ying Qiuman tossed and turned for a long time, only to find it was barely seven o’clock.
He wanted to sleep a little more, but his thoughts seemed to have gone with Xu Shuyuan. In the end, almost on impulse, he opened the phone Xu Shuyuan had given him and flipped to that slightly out-of-focus photo.
This time, it was truly over.