“Um…”
Seeing that the young master in front of him remained silent, Shen Yanxing couldn’t help but ask again.
“Is there anything I can help you with, sir?”
Truth be told, Shen Yanxing’s smiling muscles were starting to ache.
Gu Congjue didn’t hear a word he said. He was still entirely consumed by the pure, euphoric shock of finding his soulmate.
How could he even describe it? It was a sensation so intense it felt like his very blood and bone marrow were boiling.
Just when he had been wandering in circles, wavering and doubting whether his past life and his memories of Shen Yanxing were even real, Shen Yanxing had appeared.
He had suddenly materialized, practically glowing with an aura of his own.
Looking at this face which was identical to the one in his memories, though perhaps a bit younger and more innocent Gu Congjue felt a rush of excitement mixed with an inexplicable shiver of awe.
It was like that sudden, overwhelming sense of déjà vu you get when doing a specific motion, a jolt that sends a physical thrill through your body, whipping up a tidal wave of memories and theories in a split second.
The sealed vault of his past life was blown wide open. The Pandora’s box of his mind had finally been unlocked.
“Do you want to be friends with me?”
This young master usually a prodigy of few words, stoic expressions, and a composure far beyond his years suddenly smiled. It was a bright, genuinely joyful smile.
“Let’s be friends!” Gu Congjue repeated, desperate.
Shen Yanxing’s expression shifted from bewilderment to shock, and finally to sheer confusion. Frowning slightly, he gave a helpless reply to the elegantly dressed young master, who clearly came from an extraordinary background.
“I’m sorry, but our supervisor strictly forbade us from socializing.
“Most of the greeters and hosts here are just art students working part-time. Making personal connections during the event reflects poorly on us.” Shen Yanxing’s expression was completely innocent and serious.
He wasn’t lying; the training officer had explicitly hammered that point home.
After all, this was a star-studded fashion gala, teeming with industry bigwigs and celebrities. What if someone with ulterior motives tried to use a part-time gig to bag a sugar daddy or climb the social ladder?
Granted, plenty of people had exactly that in mind. During the days of training, Shen Yanxing had overheard plenty of gossip about who was hot, who was gorgeous, and who wanted to seduce whom. But let them talk. Shen Yanxing looked down on that kind of gold-digging behavior. He had absolutely zero desire to entangle himself with anyone in the entertainment industry.
He was strictly business, only here to earn his one-thousand-yuan part-time wage.
“If making friends during work hours reflects poorly, what about after work?” Gu Congjue quickly pivoted. “What time do you off the clock? I can wait for you.”
Shen Yanxing stammered, “I…”
He stared at the young master’s handsome face, racking his brain for a long time, but he couldn’t come up with a rejection that was polite yet firm.
What do I do, what do I do? Am I being harassed by a weirdo?
I’m only sixteen! I don’t want to be hit on by strange people!
Besides, he doesn’t even look that old, does he? He might actually be younger than me. Why is his aura so intimidating?
Shen Yanxing felt that Gu Congjue was being aggressively forceful and overbearing, carrying the natural, commanding air of a high-born ruler. What he didn’t realize was that Gu Congjue was actually just being naturally dense.
“What time?” Gu Congjue asked, his eyes full of anticipation as he waited for an answer. “Have you eaten anything yet? When you finish your shift, let’s go grab dinner.”
“Uh…” Shen Yanxing puckered his lips. “If you don’t need any help, then I’ll be going.”
“Going?” Startled, Gu Congjue hastily stepped out to block Shen Yanxing’s path. “Why are you leaving? Don’t you… don’t you want to get to know me?”
Shen Yanxing found the question bizarre. “Why should I want to get to know you?”
“Because—”
When it came down to giving an actual reason, Gu Congjue froze. Right. Why should he?
The only reason he had bonded with the Shen Yanxing of his past life was that they were in the exact same predicament both of them desperately struggling, giving everything they had just to survive on the fringes of society.
Their shared misery had allowed them to close the distance instantly and find common ground. But what about now? Their circumstances were completely different. It was entirely reasonable for Shen Yanxing to find him baffling.
Gu Congjue clicked his tongue inwardly. He never expected that the very first hurdle he’d face upon meeting his beloved would be answering the question, “Why should I want to get to know you?”
To make matters worse, he caught the faint sound of Nanny Rong calling out from nearby: “Young Master? Are you around here?”
Damn it, he thought, panic flaring. How had Nanny Rong found him so fast?
“Because I—I can help you with a lot of things!” Caught in a pinch, Gu Congjue blurted out the first excuse he could think of. “I think you’ll want to be my friend. I really admire you, and I want to get to know you deeply! I—”
He bitterly regretted not bringing his phone when he got out of the car. And seeing how professionally Shen Yanxing was acting, it didn’t look like the boy had a phone on him either. Exchanging contact info was going to be an issue.
But in a stroke of absolute luck, he had casually stuffed a pen into his pocket before leaving the house that afternoon. The moment his fingers closed around the pen inside his pocket, a wave of relief washed over him.
“I’ll give you my number!”
Without waiting for permission, Gu Congjue grabbed Shen Yanxing’s left hand. Before Shen Yanxing could react, he pried open a palm that wasn’t particularly soft in fact, it felt a little rough and calloused.
He didn’t care about the roughness of a hand shaped by hard work; he only felt a deep ache in his heart and an overpowering sense of urgency.
The heartache was for Shen Yanxing’s current reality. Why did God only think to save my life, but forgot to pull Shen Yanxing out too? In the rough texture of that left palm, Gu Congjue saw glimpses of his own agonizing past, but more than that, he saw the small, unyielding, resilient figure of Shen Yanxing.
The urgency came from his desperate need to pull Shen Yanxing out of the mud as fast as possible.
Faster, faster, faster.
This was the promise he had made in their past life: to stay alive, and to get better together. A happy, stable life meant nothing if he was the only one living it. He had to fulfill that promise immediately. He had to rescue Shen Yanxing right now.
“I don’t have my phone on me, so I have to do it this way.”
He began pressing the pen against Shen Yanxing’s palm, scribbling down his phone number.
“If you ever run into trouble, if an emergency happens, or if you just need comfort or support whenever you need it, you can come find me.”
The sensation of the pen tip scratching against his palm was strange. It tickled, sending a faint, electric buzz up Shen Yanxing’s arm and through his entire body.
“I’ll be waiting for your call. Please, you must call me.” Leaving behind a string of eleven digits, Gu Congjue clicked his pen close, spun around, and sprinted away.
Within seconds, he had vanished into thin air.
For the time being, he didn’t want Nanny Rong or his parents to find out about Shen Yanxing’s existence or what the boy meant to him.
At the very least, he needed to see how Shen Yanxing felt about him first and whether he would actually get a phone call tonight.
Meanwhile, Shen Yanxing stared in the direction the boy had run, then looked down at his palm. His mind was an absolute knot of confusion.
“What a total weirdo…”
The part-time work wrapped up as the red carpet concluded and the main fashion gala commenced. Once the event officially started, other professional staff took over the cleanup. Shen Yanxing and the rest of the “amateur” part-timers changed out of their formal attire, collected their pay, and were cleared to go home.
Until the work was officially done and the cash was firmly in his hands, Shen Yanxing hadn’t dared to relax. Having just received his money and been dismissed, he was heading toward the restroom to wash his hands when his phone suddenly rang. It was Auntie Mei.
“Hi, Auntie!” he answered eagerly, excited to report his victory for the day. “I just finished my shift! I’m heading home now. Do you want me to pick up anything to eat on the way—”
“No need.”
Gao Qiumei’s voice sounded exhausted and helpless, carrying a heavy trace of bitter sorrow that was hard to define.
“Xingxing… your mother is here. She’s come to take you home.
“Hurry back. She’s been waiting for you for a long time.”
“Mo—”
Shen Yanxing froze right where he stood. The warm, bubbling joy he had felt just a second ago was instantly snuffed out by a sudden deluge of ice water.
“What mother? Which mother?”
The word, both painfully familiar and utterly alien, sent his thoughts into a chaotic tailspin.
What did she mean, mother? Right now, wasn’t his “mother” Auntie Mei, the woman who had gone through thick and thin to raise him? Then who was this other mother supposed to be…
“Your biological mother,” Gao Qiumei sighed softly through the receiver. “Zhang Yuehan. She drove all the way here. You’ll need to pack a few changes of clothes, right? Auntie Mei will start packing some for you.”
“I… I don’t want to…” Shen Yanxing panicked, his voice rising in fierce protest. “I don’t want any mother! I don’t have a mother! My ‘mother’ is you!
“I want Auntie Mei! Auntie Mei is my mom! You promised me before that you would never abandon me, how could you change your—”
“Three changes of clothes, right? Okay, okay, I know it’s easy to sweat in the summer, I’ll pack a few extra T-shirts for you.”
Gao Qiumei completely ignored Shen Yanxing’s protests and tears, continuing to speak entirely over him.
“Don’t worry, she won’t leave without picking you up. Silly Xingxing, don’t rush, take your time coming back, okay?
“Alright then, Auntie is hanging up now.”
With a sharp beep, the call disconnected, and Gao Qiumei’s voice dropped into a flat, rhythmic dial tone. Shen Yanxing pulled the phone away from his ear in a daze. Staring at the “Call Ended” screen, he felt a volatile mix of shock, betrayal, and disbelief, but beneath it all, a sudden realization hit him…
Wait. Was there a hidden meaning in Auntie Mei’s words?
Forcing himself to calm down, he forced his brain to analyze the situation carefully. Would Auntie Mei really just let a so-called “mother” take him away?
Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Back when he and Auntie Mei were still neighbors, the memories of Auntie Mei screaming and fighting with his “mother” were burned into his mind. Auntie Mei loathed that irresponsible, shameless biological parent even more than he did.
On the surface, the phone call sounded like a demand for him to hurry back. But reading between the lines, every single thing Gao Qiumei had said actually meant the exact opposite.
Don’t come back. Whatever you do, do NOT come back.
Auntie Mei knew he had been working a part-time job today and had enough cash on him to survive outside for a night or two. She trusted him to catch the hint, which is why she had made the call to warn him away.
As for why she had to resort to hints, Shen Yanxing had no way of knowing. Perhaps his aunt was being threatened, or perhaps she had other motives. He was terrified and gripped by panic. He knew next to nothing about this part of the city. The moment he stepped outside the safety of the gala venue, he would be like an ant dropped into a vast, sprawling labyrinth, wandering blindly.
In a situation like this, what could he possibly do?
Amidst his blind panic, Shen Yanxing’s eyes fell once more upon his left palm. Because he had sweated during work, the edges of the ink had blurred, but the digits were still clear enough to decipher.
He had originally intended to scrub this bizarre numbers off, but right now, he changed his mind.
Suddenly, that string of digits felt less like a prank, and more like a lifeline he needed to grasp with everything he had.
Author’s Note: Don’t hesitate, silly Xingxing! Hurry up and dial the Cong-Cong hotline, the silly little Cong-Cong is standing by!