“When people are not on the same wavelength, even half a sentence is too much.”
“Ah…”
Shen Xuchuan crouched on the ground, both hands propping up his chin as he stared at the ingredients in the cabinet, sighing nonstop. Right now, he looked very much like a helpless little dog.
“Why bother,” he said to himself. “Of all the things to choose, why choose to be an hourly worker, and an hourly worker who has to cook at that? He should be working in property management, just to give him a hard time.”
Ever since he came in, he had felt completely at a loss. First he stood there in a daze, and after standing until he was tired, he squatted down. It felt like he was about to stare a few holes through the food bags.
Just then, a lifesaving call came in.
Shen Xuchuan took out his phone. The caller ID showed a foreigner named “Barry,” whose full name was longer than the man himself. Shen Xuchuan had long since forgotten it.
Barry was a good friend Shen Xuchuan met when he studied in Chicago. The two had shared the same ideals and kept in touch for many years. Barry even came back to the country with him to pursue someone, learned Chinese, and gave himself a domineering Chinese name: Li Liqiang.
“Li Liqiang.” Shen Xuchuan blurted it out, saying it with complete ease.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t, I know this name is stupid. Before I think of a better Chinese name, just call me Barry, thanks.” Barry burst out laughing on the other end, his voice carrying the hoarseness of an old smoker.
Shen Xuchuan was infected by the laughter and laughed along with him.
The happier Shen Xuchuan sounded, the more speechless Xu Qingchen in the living room became.
The laughter lasted a full two minutes and still did not stop. Xu Qingchen had no choice but to twist his upper body around, turn half his face toward the kitchen and dining area, and say, “Lower your voice.”
“Wait,” Shen Xuchuan said to the phone first, then raised his head and asked, “What’s wrong, Painter Xu.”
Xu Qingchen said, “You’re being a little noisy.” His voice was very light, but it carried a trace of sharpness.
Shen Xuchuan was wronged to no end. “Brother, I’m just talking normally, I’m not shouting. You won’t even let me laugh?”
The laughter really was not loud, but Xu Qingchen’s hearing was too sensitive, perhaps because he had long stayed in a quiet environment.
His way of thinking was different from ordinary people too. He always refused to follow common sense, and asked inexplicably, “What did you just call me?”
Shen Xuchuan sprang to his feet in one motion, as nimble as a fox, and quickly bounced to the kitchen doorway to shout outside, “Bro, big bro.”
“Little brother, can you be quiet for a while?” Xu Qingchen pressed his temple in exasperation, beginning to reflect on why he had had a moment of poor judgment and hired such a troublemaker.
“Do you still want to eat?” Shen Xuchuan asked back instead, his tone carrying a hint of threat.
Xu Qingchen expressionlessly turned his body back into place and made up his mind not to bother with this person anymore.
Shen Xuchuan thought he had won this battle, and his mood was very pleasant. He hummed a little tune, put the phone back to his ear again, and while talking on the phone, rummaged through the food in the bag.
“You really went to find him?” Barry’s tone was extremely exaggerated, and he cried out to God three times in a row.
“Mm-hm,” Shen Xuchuan said, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear. He took out a box from the bag, and the shaved ice inside had already melted into water. He lowered his head and sniffed it, and a fishy smell rushed straight into his nose. “Good heavens, this stuff spoils way too fast.”
“Oh! Does Mr. He know you’re doing this?”
“Of course he doesn’t.”
Barry laughed and said, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll be angry?”
“Will he…?” Shen Xuchuan’s full lips puckered slightly. “I’m not going to hurt his sweetheart. I’m just curious. I promise I won’t do anything that crosses the line.”
“For example?”
“Uh…” Shen Xuchuan rolled his eyes and deliberately lowered his voice. “I won’t sow discord. I’ll use my own way to prove that I’m the one most suitable for him.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Shen Xuchuan gave the phone a happy kiss.
Barry clutched his little heart, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. Although the two had not met, he could imagine what Shen Xuchuan looked like at this moment. He must be a smiling angel.
Shen Xuchuan had loved laughing since birth, and his smile had a distinct quality to it, the kind of childlike smile with a bit of mischief that made people forgive him no matter what he did.
A lot of people could not resist Shen Xuchuan’s charm. There was no end to the people pursuing him. Whether among men or among women, he was the most popular one. He had an easygoing personality, loved making friends, liked sports, and enjoyed pursuing fresh and exciting things. He was a famous heartthrob, yet he had run into someone as stubborn as He Jinyue.
Barry had never been able to figure out why He Jinyue did not like Shen Xuchuan, and even less could he figure out why Shen Xuchuan was so stubbornly fixated on He Jinyue.
“Feelings really are complicated.” Barry voiced his thoughts, glad that he was not involved.
Shen Xuchuan agreed, “You’re right. The adult world is just too complicated, everything goes wrong. I really want to travel back to when I was a kid, going out every day with my dad and uncles to street race.”
Barry let out a string of hearty hahahaha laughter. “You’re still racing every day and not satisfied? Keep it up, little baby.”
“Get lost!”
“I was wrong, Director Chuan, see you tonight.”
Shen Xuchuan suddenly had a flash of inspiration. “Don’t hang up yet. Can you make salmon?”
“What?”
“Someone wants to eat sashimi or something like that. I want to know how to make the sauce.”
“You’re so free that you want to do it yourself?”
“It’s not that I’m free, it’s work requirements. You don’t know how hard this guy is to serve.”
“No way!” Barry reacted half a beat late, laughing until he bent over backward. “Your brilliant idea is to go over there and be his servant?”
“……” Shen Xuchuan wanted to refute him, but had nothing to say.
Barry laughed even more recklessly. “Just don’t blow up the kitchen. Oh right, that also counts as a way to take revenge on a love rival, destroying his base.”
“You’ve got nothing to do with this, you can shut up and get lost now.”
Shen Xuchuan hung up the phone and stuffed it into his pocket. He stood straight with his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze fixed on the food bag he had brought, growing more and more irritated as he looked at it.
In the end, he calmly made his decision: “Takeout is still the most reliable.”
Xu Qingchen looked at the person who came out of the kitchen and dining area and thought, Was there finally something he could eat now?
Shen Xuchuan strode over to him. Under Xu Qingchen’s puzzled gaze, he actually plopped down beside him, then moved forward a little and copied his posture by folding his long legs.
“?”
Xu Qingchen’s eyes were full of question marks.
Shen Xuchuan’s face carried honesty and innocence. “Employer Xu, there’ll be food soon.” Then he rubbed his stomach and complained, “I’m hungry too. Why don’t you even have any backup snacks at home?”
The employer hadn’t even complained yet, and he was already the one acting wronged.
Xu Qingchen decided to ignore him. He moved his gaze away from his face and went back to working on the drawing paper.
Shen Xuchuan leaned his head forward, habitually propping up his chin with his hand, his eyes following Xu Qingchen’s hand as it moved up and down.
Those hands were beautiful, noble and resolute, carrying their own kind of magic.
With just a couple of strokes, the outline of a person emerged.
“Wow, you’re pretty impressive.” Shen Xuchuan thought it was amazing.
Xu Qingchen did not even look at him. Beneath the face, he drew another outline, identical in appearance to the one just drawn, only with a different expression.
Shen Xuchuan curiously leaned back a little, and only then did he see the unfinished work in full.
It was still a single color scheme, mainly black, gray, and white. From sky to ground, it seemed to be pierced through by a pillar that looked like a tree stump, and on it grew a string of heads.
That’s right, in Shen Xuchuan’s view, the faces were growing on it.
Every face was a person, and even the details were the same, only the expressions changed endlessly. Starting from the first head, there was no repetition. Judging by the length of the drawing paper, Shen Xuchuan guessed that this painting was only one-third finished, and he did not know how many more heads had yet to be born.
Waves of chill spread from Shen Xuchuan’s arm to his fingertips, as if he were traveling through hell.
To prove that he was still in the human world, he moved closer to Xu Qingchen’s warm body and took the initiative to open a topic. “Xu Qingchen, why are your paintings all this kind of weird, mysterious stuff? It’s a little scary. Cowardly people would have nightmares after looking at them.”
Xu Qingchen acted as if he had not heard him, and slowly picked up the palette to consider it seriously.
“You’re really weird…” Shen Xuchuan muttered, staring at the man’s profile.
Xu Qingchen listened to every word with a cold, detached air.
“Are you hungry?” Shen Xuchuan poked Xu Qingchen with his finger. This little gesture was rare.
The feeling was extraordinary. He had thought this man’s skin would be ice-cold, but he had not expected it to be so warm.
Xu Qingchen finally responded, glancing at him lightly. “What do you think?”
Shen Xuchuan glanced at the time on his wristwatch and, feeling guilty, curled his lips. “Don’t worry, I definitely won’t let you starve.”
Xu Qingchen stuck paintbrush into the paint and resumed his cold, keep-strangers-away posture.
“Why don’t you paint flowers and plants instead?” Shen Xuchuan was purely overflowing with curiosity. His eyes were clear, and everything he asked was sincere.
Xu Qingchen thought of a chattering myna bird.
Seeing that he would not pay attention to him, Shen Xuchuan really wanted to use his elbow to send the man flying.
Very soon, he found a new topic. “Mr. Xu, how old are you? Is the age on the internet accurate?”
The other side still remained silent.
With the liveliness of a child, Shen Xuchuan kept chattering, “I saw that you collect a lot of masks. Are you very knowledgeable about this?”
Xu Qingchen of course knew. Aside from painting, what he liked most was collecting handicrafts with ethnic characteristics from all over the world. Among them, he had the most masks made of ebony from Africa. He knew them all, down to which tribe made them.
It was just that he did not want to say any of this, afraid that once he started, Shen Xuchuan would never stop.
However, the next second Shen Xuchuan proposed, “Mr. Great Talent Xu, tell me about it, won’t you?”
The way he addressed him changed again?
Xu Qingchen felt a headache coming on and closed his eyes. After pondering for one or two minutes, he turned his face back and said, “Can you shut up?”
“Can’t,” Shen Xuchuan said, grabbing the hem of the man’s clothes and tugging it lightly twice. “Brother, it’s just the two of us here. If you don’t speak and I don’t speak, how boring would that be?”
Xu Qingchen was very puzzled. “Once you have a mouth, can’t it stay quiet?”
“If you have a mouth and don’t use it, wouldn’t that be letting God down?” Shen Xuchuan argued back with one point after another.
“I just want to be alone, not disturbed.”
“Then why did you hire an hourly worker?”
Xu Qingchen was choked into a pause. “…. People still have to eat, after all.”
Shen Xuchuan’s eyes flickered mischievously. “There’s a price to pay for sitting around waiting to be fed.”
There was nothing more satisfying than making a love rival suffer, and Shen Xuchuan felt that he had won this round.
“OK,” Xu Qingchen put down the paintbrush and shifted to face him. “What else do you want to say or ask? Say it all at once.”
Shen Xuchuan immediately revealed his signature smile, like a child who had gotten candy, and eagerly leaned forward. “Painter Xu, what do you usually like to do?”
Xu Qingchen was like a machine without feelings. “Create, listen to music, eat, sleep, study handicrafts, and occasionally watch stage plays.”
“That’s it?” Shen Xuchuan could not believe it.
Xu Qingchen said, “I can’t even do all that.”
“……” Shen Xuchuan resisted the urge to roll his eyes, lowered his head to look at his toes, and said softly, “I don’t understand. He loves life so much, he’s cheerful and warm-hearted, so how could he like you…”
“Who likes me?” Xu Qingchen vaguely heard his muttering and wanted to confirm whether he had heard wrong.
Shen Xuchuan said unhappily, “The people who admire you.”
“They like my works,” Xu Qingchen subconsciously looked toward the corner and the pile there, “Not me as a person.”
A trace of sadness flashed through Shen Xuchuan’s clear eyes. “No, there are people who love you more than your works.”
“That’s not impossible,” Xu Qingchen said with a nod. “My mom is like that.”
“……”
The corners of Shen Xuchuan’s mouth twitched twice. He could not stand it and stood up from the floor. Looking down at Xu Qingchen, he said, “Words don’t connect, not even half a sentence. You really know how to talk.”
“You need to understand one thing,” Xu Qingchen raised his head to meet his gaze. “People do not want to talk when they are hungry.”
Shen Xuchuan cupped his hand around his mouth like a loudspeaker and said, “OK, you win.”
Xu Qingchen blinked like him. “Please fill my stomach as soon as possible, or I really won’t have the energy to put up with you chattering in my ear.”
“Just wait,” Shen Xuchuan ground his back teeth hard. “I’ll let you eat. I’ll let you eat right now!”
After throwing out those words, Shen Xuchuan rushed into the kitchen in a huff. Before long, there was a clanging and banging from inside. He might really have taken Barry’s suggestion and blown up the kitchen.
Xu Qingchen rubbed his ear and could not describe his mood at this moment. He just followed his heart and curved his lips, letting a relaxed smile bloom on his face.
Every time he smiled, it came from the heart. He really wanted to smile.