The moment Sang Suiyu felt that familiar embrace, all his floating emotions seemed to find a clear landing spot in an instant.
His hanging heart finally returned to its proper place. He laid his palm over the back of Tan Chen’s head and whispered that he missed him too.
To be honest, although it was just a few days of separation, Sang Suiyu truly, deeply wasn’t used to it. Now that he finally saw Tan Chen again, he felt his life return to normal.
However, the most important business hadn’t been discussed yet. When Tan Chen finally loosened his grip slightly, Sang Suiyu looked into his eyes inquiringly.
“What is going on right now? Why are people suddenly saying you might be in love?”
“It spread from the business partner during the trip,” Tan Chen said, moving his brows.
This matched what Sang Suiyu had guessed. Aside from the business trip, they were together every day, and he had never seen Tan Chen have close contact with anyone else, let alone suddenly fall in love.
By all logic, even though communication frequency dropped during the trip, Tan Chen couldn’t possibly be carving out time for romance while burning the midnight oil to the bone.
So Sang Suiyu continued to guess it might be a rumor, spreading rapidly simply because the protagonist was Tan Chen. In the end, it was probably just a huge farce.
He was about to verify his guess with Tan Chen when he found Tan Chen looking at him.
Tan Chen’s pupils were very dark; when silent, they usually looked extremely deep and gloomy, yet right now, some kind of violent, churning desire seemed to pierce through, casting a bright sheen.
Such a jarring look made Sang Suiyu’s heart skip a beat, choking the words he was about to ask right back into his throat. Sure enough, he heard Tan Chen continue.
“But it’s not purely a rumor, either.”
“I really might be falling in love.”
A brief silence of suffocation.
Sang Suiyu looked at him as if seeing a ghost, only to find the light bursting from those deep black eyes hadn’t dissipated at all, carrying an incomprehensible fanaticism and heat.
And for some reason, staring straight at him, it gave the eerie illusion that he was talking about Sang Suiyu himself: “Actually, I’ve had someone I liked for a very long time.”
“But I hesitated and feared, terrified that the moment I said it, he would disappear, so I never brought it up actively.”
“Something happened on this trip, and I finally understood I have to take action. No matter what happens, I’m going to be with him.”
The sheer amount of information in just a few sentences was heavy enough to crash Sang Suiyu’s brain.
Meaning Tan Chen actually kept liking someone a secret from him, managing to hide it for so long without letting him know a thing. If not for the sudden accident on the trip exposing it, who knew when he would have been told.
There were so many bizarre and discordant details: how Tan Chen managed to leave zero trace while being practically glued to him, and what on earth happened on the trip to stimulate him?
Even the demeanor and actions while saying this—aside from the burning, churning gaze that practically enveloped him completely, arms re-tightening around his waist like he was afraid he’d run off.
Yet all these bizarre dissonances were shattered and pulverized by Sang Suiyu’s abruptly surging fury.
His chest heaved violently, stunned stupid to the point of lacking half a word to say, ending with a deep look at Tan Chen.
“Tan Chen.”
The moment his name was called, Tan Chen’s muscles silently tightened.
He knew he was bound to get hit. Fists rained down like raindrops with continuous thuds; Sang Suiyu directly beat him from outside the villa all the way inside, finally pinning him onto the bed to hit him.
Actually, though Sang Suiyu used force, it didn’t hurt Tan Chen much. Instead, his blood and nerves grew secretly, madly excited.
His temples throbbed wildly, the silhouette branded in his pupils trembling along with it. Suddenly, he flipped over, almost forcibly pressing Sang Suiyu tightly into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he suppressed the urge to affectionately rub against him. “Yuyu.”
His strength was oppressively heavy, often hurting Sang Suiyu and leaving him completely unable to move, able only to glance away slightly to look at him.
Fortunately, the anger had faded a lot. What Sang Suiyu couldn’t accept was him hiding such a major matter, asking almost interrogatively: “How do you plan to explain this?”
Then sternly adding: “First swear you’re confessing completely unreservedly this time.”
Given Sang Suiyu’s usual gentle and good temper, this qualified as a very serious situation, so Tan Chen turned serious immediately.
“I don’t know where to start. Didn’t like him particularly much at first, but feelings grew stronger over time.”
Half-truth, half-false.
“You knew him back then too, though it was too long ago you probably don’t remember. He wore a white dress and smiled very sweetly, and even took a group photo with us.”
“The business partner on this trip had bad alcohol tolerance and loved random matchmaking when drunk. Hearing him talk nonsense annoyed me, and suddenly I missed that person I like so much, really, really badly.”
Tan Chen deliberated, picking out fragments of memories to recount. The details were perhaps genuinely specific enough to slowly talk Sang Suiyu round.
Sang Suiyu was shocked that he had planted the seed of liking so early long ago, though self-awareness brewing over a long period meant everyday silence wasn’t entirely unnatural.
Many awkward pieces clicked into place, yet a vague wrongness lingered because he always felt Tan Chen had uttered things like disliking girls—how did it flip back to liking?
He opened his mouth to press further, interrupted by Tan Chen’s next words.
Only hearing Tan Chen say: “Even so, I haven’t confessed to him yet, because before wooing him, I’m bound to sweep away all obstacles.”
“The hardest hurdle to clear is my parents. You deal with them often; you know their attitude on this.”
Sang Suiyu’s heart sank heavily, worry instantly overpowering all previous doubts.
Right, Tan Chen’s parents had a strong desire to control him and stricter demands on romance. Without securing freedom in love, rushing a confession wasn’t wise.
No matter how rebellious Tan Chen was, fighting his parents countless times over the years, familial bonds remained uncut at the core. Ultimately, he still hoped for his parents’ blessing.
Most importantly, only with a harmonious family atmosphere could the person Tan Chen liked avoid getting hurt while dating him.
The more one interacted with Tan Chen’s parents, the more one understood how difficult this was. In a flash, Sang Suiyu felt a bit of chest constriction.
Yet Tan Chen pleaded in a low voice, “Help me out, Yuyu.”
Voice light enough to fracture.
“I really like him.”
Lightning seemed to strike Sang Suiyu’s brain. Complex, indescribable emotions felt like a stuffy thunderstorm day. He had never seen Tan Chen look like this in his life, and the target was someone he had zero impression of.
Yet thought operated in parallel and rapid rotation: he had to help Tan Chen solve this no matter what, driving tactics to an extreme degree. “It’s not entirely impossible.”
He turned his head to stare seriously at Tan Chen: “First tell me how much you’re willing to sacrifice.”
“I’m willing to sacrifice anything.” Tan Chen was involuntarily sucked into the vortex of his eyes, feeling his blood boiling faster.
“Then here’s my plan.”
“Based on my understanding of your parents, their severity regarding your partner isn’t just listing endless conditions; they outright reject certain types.”
“That’s tricky. If it’s not the ideal type they want, they’ll hardly approve even if the girl fits all conditions.”
Tan Chen pressed: “So?”
“So the reality is, satisfying their demands perfectly is nearly impossible. What you need to do instead is destroy their demands first.”
“They can’t accept an imperfect girl? Fine, don’t even give them a girl.”
“Bring a guy back, tell them this is who you want to marry, and throw a huge scene with them until you force them to the point where any human being is acceptable!”
Words falling, mutual sudden gaze lock.
Both understood the weight inside.
This was absolute perfection as an effective plan, because Tan Chen’s parents had a clear template for future daughter-in-laws in mind and explicitly stated it would never be a guy.
Bringing a guy back would deal a massive shock, heavily lowering expectations for a future daughter-in-law, making subsequent steps smooth as natural progression.
It did demand a price—injuring Tan Chen’s parents fundamentally at the end of the day. To achieve the goal, both had to abandon morality and guilt first.
Of course, most importantly, Tan Chen had to find a guy to play boyfriend first. With Tan Chen’s eccentric temperament, that truly counted as a massive sacrifice.
Who would’ve thought Tan Chen looked at him, gaze dark, gloomy, and burning like it wanted to swallow him whole, even turning restless.
Tan Chen genuinely didn’t expect Sang Suiyu to abandon all moral baseline to help him, words hitting desire points directly, forcing him to suppress deep-seated anticipation.
“Yuyu,” Tan Chen couldn’t help saying, “how can you be so smart?”
“Then looking at it this way, the candidate playing my boyfriend has to be picked carefully too, right?”
“To enhance persuasion, I must find a boyfriend who looks utterly spellbound over me, willing to do anything for me—even better if I still like him a lot.”
Actually, until this exact moment, Sang Suiyu’s inner self had still tangled with mild anxiety, persisting even after pitching the plan.
He even vaguely sensed loss of control, as if from the moment he heard Tan Chen’s plea, events galloped completely toward a path he disliked yet couldn’t defy.
Who knew, hearing those last few words from Tan Chen, he abruptly sensed a few hints of weirdness, feeling like Tan Chen could barely control wanting to rub against him.
Before he could react, affectionate words poured into his eardrum: “Then it can only be you, Yuyu.”