Xia Zeyu worked overtime until eight o’clock in the evening before finally leaving the building. Upon reaching the parking lot, he spotted a familiar vehicle parked right beside his own, accompanied by Fu Dongyan leaning casually against the door frame. Without missing a beat, Xia Zeyu turned around and walked in the opposite direction.
“You left that reply on my post, so I assumed you weren’t angry anymore,” Fu Dongyan called out.
Stopping in his tracks, Xia Zeyu kept his back turned as he replied, “I’m not angry.”
“Then why did you block me?”
“Do you need me to list out every brilliant stunt you pulled?”
“What did I do?”
“You…” Xia Zeyu found himself rendered utterly speechless by his brazen shamelessness. “Do you have any idea that forcibly kissing someone of the same sex legally constitutes sexual assault?”
“If you’re genuinely that furious about it, feel free to assault me right back.”
Unable to resist turning around, Xia Zeyu shot him a look of profound disgust and snapped, “I’d have to be out of my mind to kiss you. I have zero interest in a guy like you!”
“Then what type do you like?”
“I only like myself.”
“Splendid.” Clapping his hands together, Fu Dongyan offered a round of applause. “I am genuinely relieved to see you’ve finally stopped acting as Shen Congjin’s lapdog.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Since I’m already here, would Director Xia care to honor me with your company for some late-night supper? My treat.”
“Not interested.”
“I know of an exceptional hot pot joint where they only roll out their prized snow-marbled beef cuts after 8:00 PM. It’s wonderfully aromatic, carries the ideal fat-to-lean ratio, and the meat texture is unbelievably tender. Are you sure you aren’t interested?”
“…No.” Xia Zeyu’s resolve wavered slightly.
“Drinks and soft beverages come with unlimited free refills, they serve twenty distinct flavors of shaved ice, and their baby lamb chops are exceptionally tender. One bite and you’re flooded with a rich, savory aroma that isn’t gamey in the slightest.”
“…”
“Their crab roe is exceptionally plump and packed tight beneath the shell, and the sea prawns you don’t even need any dipping sauce, just blanch them plain. They’re sweet, crispy, and incredibly fresh.”
“Where is it?” Xia Zeyu’s self-control finally collapsed as he strode over. “Take me there.”
Failing to suppress a chuckle, Fu Dongyan pulled open the rear passenger door and gestured with an inviting sweep of his hand.
“Get in, Director Xia.”
Initially, Fu Dongyan intended to casually draw Xia Zeyu into conversation, probing for any useful slip of the tongue, but Xia Zeyu’s chopsticks and mouth refused to take a single second off—devouring his food as though he hadn’t eaten a single meal in three days.
Truth be told, this wasn’t entirely Xia Zeyu’s fault. In his original world, all aquatic life had undergone catastrophic mutations, meaning he hadn’t tasted seafood a single time across his entire twenty years of life. His entire conceptual understanding of seafood derived strictly from historical textbooks.
“Slow down,” Fu Dongyan murmured, handing him a beverage cup. “You’re eating like someone who’s starved for weeks.”
“I genuinely haven’t eaten this sort of food before.”
“…Huh?”
No matter how intensely the Xia family detested Xia Zeyu, they wouldn’t stoop to starving him of meat, would they? Or was the current Xia Zeyu actually some extraterrestrial entity completely unfamiliar with Earth cuisine?
Fu Dongyan cast furtive, sideways glances at Xia Zeyu, nursing a sudden surge of apprehension. If the man sitting across from him was genuinely an alien, victory was mathematically out of the question.
“Stop staring at me,” Xia Zeyu muttered with mild displeasure. “That sort of look makes me deeply uncomfortable.”
“Oh,” Fu Dongyan extracted a pair of sunglasses from his chest pocket and slipped them on. “There. Now you can’t see my gaze.”
“…”
Xia Zeyu let out a dry laugh. Humans genuinely resort to laughing when pushed past the threshold of speechlessness.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Xia Zeyu asked.
“I already finished two bowls of rice. This is… what, your fourth bowl? For someone with such a slender frame, your appetite is shockingly massive.”
“Is that a bad thing? The more you eat, the faster you can run.”
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Xia Zeyu noticed someone covertly snapping photographs of their table. Deciding against intervention, he deliberately chose to let the rumors between himself and Fu Dongyan continue fermenting after all, looking at the bigger picture, the benefits heavily outweighed the drawbacks.
Laying down his chopsticks and rubbing his forearms, Xia Zeyu lowered his voice. “Everything else here is fantastic, but the AC is cranked up a bit too high.”
His volume was meticulously calibrated just soft enough to remain inaudible to neighboring tables, yet crystal clear to Fu Dongyan sitting directly across from him.
Rising to his feet, Fu Dongyan walked over, slipped off his outer jacket to drape it across Xia Zeyu’s shoulders, and leaned down to murmur right beside his ear: “I actually quite appreciate this sort of clumsy little scheme of yours.”
“Is that so?” Xia Zeyu reached up to pluck the sunglasses right off Fu Dongyan’s face, locking eyes with him directly. “You call my scheme clumsy, yet how much better are you?”
Fu Dongyan’s gaze dipped downward, fixing intently on Xia Zeyu’s lips. The lingering memory of that soft tactile sensation stirred a restless, volatile heat within his chest.
If I leaned in and kissed him right here and right now, would Xia Zeyu still dare to act this insufferably arrogant?
Weighing his options, Fu Dongyan ultimately aborted the impulse. Even in a crowded public restaurant, Xia Zeyu possessed more than enough lethality to hand him a severe beating.
The moment the two stepped out of the restaurant, a fresh trending topic exploded across the internet.
[Fu Dongyan and Xia Zeyu on a dinner date.]
All nine accompanying photographs captured highly ambiguous angles ranging from Fu Dongyan draping his jacket over Xia Zeyu’s shoulders to Fu Dongyan leaning close to whisper in his ear, which, viewed from a distance, gave the striking illusion that Fu Dongyan was kissing Xia Zeyu’s cheek.
Unlike the comment sections under Shen Congjin and Tang Tang’s posts, however, this thread was entirely devoid of sweet romance-shipping comments. Instead, it was flooded with malicious speculation, universally dismissing them as a cold, calculating “business CP” manufactured strictly to suppress and crush Shen Congjin.
Scrolling through the social media feed and reviewing the photographic stills, Xia Zeyu let out a long, heavy sigh.
“President Fu, don’t you plan on issuing a clarification?” Xia Zeyu asked.
“What’s there to clarify? I think this current arrangement is rather splendid.”
“Are you treating this as a fleeting game, or are you actually serious?”
“Well…” Fu Dongyan mused thoughtfully. “I’d say kissing you felt rather pleasant.”
Could it not feel pleasant? Without locking lips, you literally wouldn’t be able to catch a glimpse of that terrifying blue dragon surging inside my soul.
“You’re just entirely obsessed with my physical body,” Xia Zeyu scoffed with a mocking laugh.
“You aren’t exactly rushing to welcome me into your heart either, are you?”
“Why on earth would I invite you into my heart? What even are you to me?”
Fu Dongyan stared at Xia Zeyu in silence, offering no response.
He could now state with absolute certainty that the current Xia Zeyu was fundamentally distinct from the original individual who had occupied this vessel.
So, what exactly was the true nature of the soul dwelling inside this body benevolent or malignant?
Noticing the heavy, scrutinizing stare, Xia Zeyu bristled slightly. “Stop looking at me like—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Fu Dongyan threw a sudden, heavy punch straight toward the headrest right beside Xia Zeyu’s ear. The fist stopped a mere ten centimeters shy of his face, the rushing backdraft of wind slicing sharply across his cheek.
Immediately following through, Fu Dongyan surged forward, closing the distance so fast that Xia Zeyu instinctively reacted by reaching out to grab a fistful of hair at the nape of his neck, aggressively hauling him backward to force physical separation.
“Hrk…” Fu Dongyan drew in a sharp breath of pain. “I literally just treated you to dinner, and this is how you repay me?”
“How long is the mandatory detention for sexual harassment again? Seven days? Fifteen days?”
“Let go. There are reporters outside.”
Pausing for a fraction of a second, Xia Zeyu loosened his grip and reached down to roll the passenger-side window all the way down.
Catching the cue instantly, Fu Dongyan cupped Xia Zeyu’s chin, pressed his thumb firmly against Xia Zeyu’s lower lip, and dragged him downward into a direct kiss.
Though the physical proximity was dangerously intimate, neither of them approached the moment with the breathless, fluttering heart-palpitations typical of a clichéd romance novel neither of them even bothered to close their eyes. Through the open visual field, Fu Dongyan once more caught a crystal-clear glimpse of those swirling, incandescent blue flames burning deep within Xia Zeyu’s irises.
Judging that the timing had reached its optimal threshold, Xia Zeyu shoved Fu Dongyan firmly away, and Fu Dongyan slid back smoothly to his side of the cabin.
“Drive.” Fu Dongyan instructed the chauffeur.
Silence blanketed the vehicle for the remainder of the return journey. In truth, a mountain of unspoken questions hovered between them, yet neither knew quite where to begin.
Are you an entity native to this planet?
Had Fu Dongyan dared voice that question aloud, he likely would have been diagnosed by Xia Zeyu as severely mentally deficient.
Upon reaching the neighborhood fork in the road, Fu Dongyan finally broke the quiet. “Drop you off at the Xia estate, or back at your rental apartment near the nightclub?”
“You’ve been running background checks on me again,” Xia Zeyu noted, his voice dropping into a chilly register.
Refusing to dignify the accusation with an answer, Fu Dongyan pressed forward with his own query: “Why refuse to purchase a property of your own? The wealth you’ve accumulated through your earnings is more than sufficient.”
“I’m not entirely certain how long I’ll remain lingering in this city.”
“Whenever you speak like that, it always leaves me with the distinct impression that you don’t truly belong to this world.”
“Is that so?” Xia Zeyu offered a self-deprecating, helpless smile. “Drop me off at my rental place.”
True to form, the moment the car pulled up outside his building, Fu Dongyan bade him farewell and sent him off without wasting a single superfluous syllable.
He operated with rigid consistency whenever circumstances forced them into close quarters, he would orchestrate elaborate displays of manufactured intimacy, yet the second their paths separated, he bolted faster than anyone else, radiating the distinct aura of an employee punching out precisely the second their shift concluded.
The instant Xia Zeyu stepped through his front door, a familiar, grating burst of static fizzed inside his skull, causing him to instantly knit his brows in irritation.
“Can’t your system undergo a software patch or something? Stop generating these brain-melting noises,” Xia Zeyu snapped in annoyance.
[Apologies, Host. System optimization protocols are currently underway.]
“State your business.”
[Is your current strategy designed to maintain a pseudo-couple dynamic with Fu Dongyan, deliberately provoking Shen Congjin’s latent jealousy and possessiveness to drive him into a state of remorse?]
“I have zero intention of playing house with a fake romance that’s utterly cliché. Cultivating this kind of ambiguous, indefinable relationship is far more effective at scratching people’s itch for gossip. Besides, expand your strategic vision stop obsessing endlessly over men. Maintaining a close collaborative proximity to Fu Dongyan unlocks massive corporate and commercial leverage for me as well, doesn’t it?”
[Then precisely when do you plan to steer Shen Congjin toward genuine emotional remorse?]
“Must a man’s remorse manifest strictly within the realm of romance? Can’t a devastating collapse in business carry equal weight? Take his original plot trajectory, for instance—where he expropriated shares rightfully belonging to the original owner, weaponized that equity to swallow the Xia enterprise whole, and subsequently utilized it to balloon the scale of the Shen Corporation. What if I grip those exact shares tightly in my own fists and refuse to surrender them? What if I transfer them to an entirely outside party instead? Tell me, wouldn’t he experience supreme regret for letting his temper chase me off before securing those shares?”
[Your logic possesses a certain undeniable merit. While losing you might not break his heart, losing access to those coveted shares and vast capital will undoubtedly drive him to agonizing self-doubt.]
“See? You actually possess a functional brain.”
[However… utilizing Fu Dongyan in this calculated manner is that genuinely without risk?]
“Hard to say,” Xia Zeyu chuckled coldly. “Still, I genuinely look forward to seeing just what kind of massive waves this minor supporting character can kick up.”
Deep into the midnight hours, yet another explosive trending topic rocketed straight to the absolute summit of the charts.
[Fu Dongyan and Xia Zeyu locked in an intimate car kiss.]
Echoing the formatting of its predecessors, the comment sections were once again dominated by cynical, malicious conspiracy theories:
[Staged for the camera, obviously. How convenient that the moment they roll down the window to lock lips, a photographer happens to capture the shot?]
[When on earth did these two even become entangled? Wasn’t Xia Zeyu still running around like a deranged maniac under Tang Tang’s social media posts just last month?]
[Thank goodness for our precious Tang Tang. No wonder Shen Congjin insisted on annulling his engagement to chase after Tang Tang instead.]
Yet, for those willing to scroll deeper into the lower comment tiers, a burgeoning counter-narrative had quietly begun to take root:
[Some of you people possess utterly warped moral compasses. Regardless of how unappealing Xia Zeyu’s personality might have been, he was legally Shen Congjin’s affianced fiancé. If Shen Congjin couldn’t stomach the arrangement, he could have cleanly dissolved the engagement before pursuing someone else. Why is the entire internet exclusively laying blame on Xia Zeyu? Where is the outrage directed at Shen Congjin for cheating and Tang Tang for acting as a homewrecking third party?]
[+1. I’m no fan of Xia Zeyu, and I certainly don’t ship ‘Jin-Tang’, but let’s look at the facts: Xia Zeyu got engaged to Shen Congjin at eighteen, went abroad for studies, and returned only to discover his fiancé had replaced him with someone who shared his exact facial structure. Who wouldn’t lose their mind and go feral?]
[What if Xia Zeyu genuinely woke up and moved on? He stopped hounding Shen Congjin and swapped targets—is dating someone else forbidden?]
[Fake or not, I’m fully invested in this storyline. Keep the footage coming I love it. The height difference alone is chef’s kiss, and the raw sexual tension radiating from that car kiss photograph? Seriously, I’m swooning so hard I might faint.]
Unbeknownst to the masses, and perhaps defying the immutable laws of the narrative itself, an imperceptible shift had quietly taken root across the grid from some unknown point onward, the collective center of gravity anchoring this entire world had ceased revolving around Shen Congjin.