A jolt ran through Xu Qingnan’s heart. Within his customarily placid, ripple-free eyes flashed unmasked delight as he repeated the question, “How on earth did you pull that off?”
Xu Qingnan looked genuinely happy.
The kind of happiness that even a masquerade mask couldn’t successfully conceal.
That realization made Ren Xubai’s tone turn light and breezy. Basking in the moment like someone offering up a prized treasure, he maintained a pretense of modesty while holding back a fraction of his pride: “It’s just a matter of stringing a few lines of code together.”
Xu Qingnan grew even more astonished. “How on earth did you convince the production crew to let you inject your own code?”
The smile blooming across Ren Xubai’s face widened, utterly devoid of any impurity, born purely out of the joy of winning Xu Qingnan’s approval.
He discovered that Xu Qingnan’s emotions were actually remarkably transparent; whatever he felt was reflected outward. He always assumed the man wore a perpetual cold face, but in reality, he simply lacked extraneous emotional fluctuations.
He was actually a lot like a kid.
“If I put that code out on the open market, it’d easily fetch tens of thousands,” Ren Xubai babbled on haphazardly while speaking off the cuff. “Handing it over to them for free lets them add a new feature without disrupting their existing system layout. Why would they ever say no?”
Without waiting for Xu Qingnan to formulate a response, he raised his wrist to gesture for Xu Qingnan to stand still.
He had finally managed to get a read on the man’s pulse; he couldn’t afford to waste the opportunity now. He needed to make Xu Qingnan even happier.
The camera possessed built-in filter tuning functions, which combined with the icy blue floodlight washing over from nearby softened the harsh texture of the sand. Set against a backdrop of glowing blue rose clusters, a castle resembling fine white jade stood proud and tall.
In the frame, Xu Qingnan stood off to the side draped in lavish attire, cold, aloof, and dignified. The feathered mask concealed his features, leaving solely his detached, razor-sharp eyes sparkling with a layer of stunned appreciation.
Resembling a deity quietly admiring their own private domain.
Ren Xubai tapped twice on the floating boundary frame to lock in the snapshot, took three quick steps forward until he stood right in front of Xu Qingnan, turned his forearm outward to face the man, and displayed the screen. “Xu-ge, take a look!”
The night was dim. Stepping forward a pace to inspect the details more closely, Xu Qingnan extended his left hand to zoom in on the focal point within the floating frame.
This scent again.
The uniform blocker spray distributed by the production crew.
Cedarwood.
Even though several individuals carried this exact trace, only catching a whiff of Xu Qingnan’s signature stirred an involuntary jolt in Ren Xubai’s chest.
A soft, shallow breath brushed against his ear, and the radiating body heat pressing in from behind quietly signaled just how close the two of them were standing at this moment.
Tentatively, Ren Xubai pivoted his head slightly.
Xu Qingnan’s profile drifted directly into his field of vision.
Half-obscured by the feathered mask, caught by a gentle sweep of sea breeze as the distant lights washed across his features, he was unintentionally cast in a layer of ethereal halo, inexplicably radiating a touch of divine detachment.
While the lower half of his face, silhouetted against the dark feathers, looked exceptionally fair and soft, rendering the pale pink curve of his lips an unavoidable focal point.
Ren Xubai stared in a dazed trance.
Until a tap against the back of his head from Xu Qingnan’s retracting left hand snapped him back to reality: “Come back to earth.”
“!” Startled, Ren Xubai missed his footing. The sand beneath his shoes was loose and soft, making it remarkably difficult to maintain balance. Before he could react, his upper back crashed squarely against a soft, resilient surface, while his opposite shoulder was yanked tight into a powerful embrace.
An assertive posture backed by commanding strength.
Eyes widening, Ren Xubai felt as though he had forgotten how to breathe.
Xu Qingnan muttered, “Stand straight.”
Just as he prepared to step back and release his grip, Ren Xubai swayed and tipped right back against his chest with dead weight.
Snatching him back with practiced reflexes, Xu Qingnan asked, “Staging a fall?”
“No,” grabbing blindly onto the lapel of Xu Qingnan’s formalwear with a trembling voice, Ren Xubai stammered, “No, my legs went weak.”
Why on earth would his legs go weak for no reason?
He figured Ren Xubai’s earlier sprained ankle must have put undue pressure on the bone when he manually reset it.
Thinking along those lines while allowing the man to lean against him until he recovered his equilibrium, Xu Qingnan remained still.
The cedar scent radiating from the man, mingled with a burning wave of body heat, genuinely simulated the ambiguous warmth of actual pheromones. Crucially, the man didn’t pull away, resting against him entirely uninhibited, setting Ren Xubai’s heart fluttering wildly while his tone turned coaxing and submissive: “Xu-ge, you’re not mad at me anymore, right?”
He had delivered a piece of code worth tens of thousands.
He had even snapped the photos.
If he kept clinging to such a trivial slight, it would be far too childish.
Choosing to forgive with utmost efficiency, Xu Qingnan answered simply, “Mn.”
“Then can you stay mad at Deng You a little longer?” Ren Xubai instantly flashed a bright smile, hastily appending a rider, “Don’t let him piggyback off my apology.”
“…” Childish.
Lowering his gaze to look at the man currently buried against his shoulder—their heights differed by barely a couple of centimeters, meaning the moment he crashed into him earlier, Ren Xubai’s breathing had brushed directly across his face.
Somehow, things had shifted.
Ren Xubai’s head was now resting comfortably squarely against his shoulder.
Releasing his hold on Ren Xubai’s shoulder, Xu Qingnan watched the other man look up at him with an expression that carried an unexpected hint of grievance.
Xu Qingnan observed, “You look awfully comfortable.”
“!” Snapping upright instantly, Ren Xubai coughed twice. “Ahem, my legs really were weak just a second ago.”
Offering an affirmative hum to signal his complete lack of intent to debate the point, Xu Qingnan inquired, “And right now?”
Ren Xubai muttered softly, “There’s no harm in taking advantage of a good thing.”
Xu Qingnan: “…”
Half willingly and half as a form of penance, Ren Xubai snapped a fresh batch of photographs for Xu Qingnan.
Yet the wristband remained obstinately silent, with the production crew dragging their feet on announcing next week’s roommate pairings. The rule dictated that once one person successfully found their partner, the remaining two would be automatically paired by default; yet right now, zero notifications had dropped.
Meaning that among the remaining four individuals across the board, not a single one had successfully located their target.
Frowning in mild confusion, Xu Qingnan wondered, “Is it really that hard to find someone?”
Lowering his gaze to store the pictures in his gallery, Ren Xubai kept his mouth shut.
He harbored a strong suspicion that the rest of those guys were intentionally dragging their feet, keeping the search active for the sole purpose of tracking down Xu Qingnan.
Right on cue, his wristband buzzed with a vibration.
“Ren Xubai and Xu Qingnan have successfully confirmed their match. Will the remaining guests please expedite your progress~”
Finishing the notification prompt, Xu Qingnan furrowed his brow, quietly wondering why the system had taken its sweet time. Not five minutes later, a follow-up message popped up on screen:
“Deng You and Cheng Yanzhi have successfully confirmed their match. Huo Zheng and Ye Yuyao are automatically assigned as a group. Please assemble on the main deck, guests—the fireworks show is about to begin~”
The timing of these discoveries felt bizarrely coincidental suspiciously so.
Had the arrival of the first notification triggered an influx of competitive drive?
The world of A, A, O, and O truly defied simple comprehension.
Xu Qingnan couldn’t wrap his head around it.
Making their way back side-by-side, the towering androids that had previously roamed the deck had vanished entirely, leaving solely three human silhouettes standing there waving them over.
“Qingnan!” Jogging down two steps ahead of the rest, Deng You latched directly onto the sleeve of Xu Qingnan’s jacket, having learned from experience that this specific maneuver rarely met with rejection. Feeling a lingering ripple of anxiety since Xu Qingnan still hadn’t fully cleared him of his morning offense, he whined, “I searched everywhere for you why weren’t you up on the deck?”
“Ren Xubai dragged me off to take a couple of pictures,” Xu Qingnan stated plainly.
“Pictures?” Deng You’s thoughts instantly vaulted back to the afternoon event. “Down at that spot from earlier today?”
Stepping forward with practiced smoothness, Ren Xubai displayed his wrist with proprietary flair. “Had the production crew inject an extra line of code.”
His expression carried a distinct shade of smugness.
It felt precisely like a scenario where everyone had blissfully coasted through a weekend without opening their homework books, only to arrive at school on Monday morning to discover the teacher fuming over missed assignments yet unable to unleash wrath due to a procedural oversight—when suddenly, someone calmly raised their hand with innocent, earnest eyes, offering: “Teacher, I completed two extra worksheets over the break and got stuck on a few problems.”
Deng You thought with a completely blank expression: Unbelievable.