Ren Yu had staked out Fu Chun Shen for three nights before finally finding him at a quiet bar.
In the darkest bend of the L-shaped counter, Fu Chun Shen sat alone like a sculpture. Beneath the carefully tailored sleeves of his suit, his long fingers slowly traced the rim of his glass.
It wasn’t as though no one approached him. Even beneath the dim lighting, Fu Chun Shen still drew attention. Fingertips painted crimson brushed across the back of his hand; a man wearing cedar-scented cologne tapped the watch on his wrist against the neighboring stool—yet none of it managed to stir even the slightest reaction from Fu Chun Shen.
As a secretary, Fu Chun Shen had always been humble, meticulous, and measured in speech. But once stripped of his workplace mask, he seemed devoid of warmth altogether. Beneath the shadows cast by his lowered lashes lingered nothing but a cold distance that kept everyone far away.
Still, someone eventually pulled out the stool beside him. Long legs, dress trousers. As the man settled halfway onto the high stool, the fabric outlined the full, shapely curve of his backside. He lightly tapped the counter with his fingers. “A double of aged rum, on the rocks.”
Hearing the voice, Fu Chun Shen raised his eyes, glanced once at the newcomer, then looked away again and silently drank.
The rum slid across the counter toward him. Speaking as though to the air, he asked, “Assistant Ren here to inspect the sorry state of an unemployed man?”
Wearing gold-rimmed glasses in such a decadent setting, Ren Yu looked every bit the refined scoundrel.
“Of course. A spectacle like Secretary Fu’s downfall might not come around again for another ten years.” He deliberately enunciated the words “Secretary Fu,” his tone edged with humiliation. “But I’ve been too busy lately. The new job is incredibly demanding, and I honestly couldn’t spare the time.”
Fu Chun Shen slowly drank. “So you finally found some free time today?”
“Just now.” The distinctive sweetness of the rum slipped out together with Ren Yu’s laughter and dissolved into the air. “So I hurried over to enjoy Secretary Fu’s embarrassment.”
Fu Chun Shen raised his glass. “Enjoying the show?”
“Very much.” Ren Yu lightly clinked his own glass against it. “Secretary Fu can’t even afford decent alcohol anymore? I remember you used to drink tequila.”
Fu Chun Shen swirled the cheap whiskey in his glass. The clink of ice couldn’t conceal the indifference in his voice. “I lost my job. Naturally, I need to save money.”
Ren Yu glanced sideways at Fu Chun Shen’s clothes and watch and scoffed. “I know Secretary Fu is calculating, but pretending to be poor in front of me is pointless.”
“Everything I earned before went into keeping up appearances. Now that I’ve been fired, I’m basically blacklisted across the entire industry.”
The delight in Ren Yu’s eyes deepened. He snapped his fingers to summon the bartender. “One tequila.” Then he turned toward Fu Chun Shen. “Say thank you.”
Fu Chun Shen drained the rest of his drink before finally lifting his eyes and staring directly at Ren Yu. Slowly, he said, “Thank you.”
Ren Yu’s brows furrowed. The Fu Chun Shen before him felt both familiar and unfamiliar, as though the silent, withdrawn teenager from ten years ago had suddenly appeared again. Back then, Fu Chun Shen hadn’t yet learned tact, restraint, or how to read a situation and adapt. He had been like a rusted nail—stubborn and abrasive, maintaining a cold indifference toward everything around him. He was often surrounded by people yet seemed detached from them all, just like this isolated corner of the bar: invisible walls rose on all four sides, Fu Chun Shen stood within them, and everyone else remained outside.
Ren Yu hated remembering high school. Forcing himself back to the present, he picked up his phone. “I’m planning to organize a reunion for our old high school classmates soon. Secretary Fu finally has some free time. Why not come join the fun?”
The malice behind the invitation was painfully obvious. He had never organized a reunion before, yet suddenly chose to do so right after Fu Chun Shen was fired. Clearly, he wanted Secretary Fu’s humiliation to spread a little farther and cut a little deeper.
Fu Chun Shen had exchanged a “thank you” for a drink. Now, sipping his tequila, he asked blandly, “Assistant Ren never attended any of our high school reunions before. And this time you dare?”
That single sentence wiped the smile from Ren Yu’s face.
He loosened the button beneath his throat. His suit jacket fell slightly open, revealing the faint line of his waist.
“Fu Chun Shen.” This time, Ren Yu called him directly by name. “You still dare bring up high school?”
Fu Chun Shen’s gaze withdrew from the glimpse of Ren Yu’s waist beneath the suit. “Why wouldn’t I dare?”
“You schemed against me on purpose. You deliberately set me up.”
Fu Chun Shen’s brows were long and his eyes deep, his gaze cool as it settled on Ren Yu. “You were the one who flirted with me for no reason, then started something only to abandon me.”
Ren Yu visibly froze. He looked Fu Chun Shen up and down, undisguised disdain appearing in his eyes. “Playing idiom chains now? Secretary Fu really knows how to entertain himself in difficult circumstances.”
Back when he worked at Shengkai Foreign Trade, Fu Chun Shen had been famous for his extraordinary composure and precision. Some people even joked that he calculated exactly how long it should take to finish a glass of alcohol in order to preserve its ideal flavor.
Yet now, the fresh drink in his hand was already nearly empty. He raised a hand to summon the bartender again, tapped twice beside his empty glass, then pointed toward Ren Yu. “Another one. Put it on his tab.”
Only then did he look directly at Ren Yu. “In our second year of high school, you pursued me for three months. We officially dated for fifteen days. On the first day of winter break, we broke up. Ever since then, you’ve kept me on the hook for ten years.”
Ren Yu sat stunned for more than ten seconds before finally exploding. “What the hell are you even saying? Why can’t I understand a single word?”
＊
A new singer had taken the stage. The young man announced the title of an old song from the last century. With a gentle strum of the acoustic guitar, a melancholy melody slowly spilled through the bar.
Ren Yu pressed the back of his hand against Fu Chun Shen’s cool forehead. “Secretary Fu, this is the first time in years I’ve seen you make such a spectacle of yourself. Do you really have to pretend to be crazy just to scare me?”
Suddenly, fingers tightened around his hand. Fu Chun Shen caught the hand that had been about to withdraw, his index finger sliding first into the gap between Ren Yu’s fingers, calm and methodical—like solving the final problem of an Olympiad math exam ten years earlier—until their fingers interlocked perfectly. “The fifth desk by the window was mine.”
Those words instantly dragged Ren Yu back to afternoons buried beneath Five Years of Gaokao, Three Years of Mock Exams. Those gold-embossed notes had clearly gone into Qiu Wei’s desk. How could that desk possibly have belonged to Fu Chun Shen?
“But that seat was obviously…”
At that exact moment, the guitar music drifted across the booth. The warmth seeping through their interlocked fingers slowly overlapped with Ren Yu’s memories, washing across the ten years between them like a tide.
Ten years earlier.
City No. 1 High School.
Ren Yu was in his second year of high school and had fallen for a girl.
She was from the elite class—long hair, pure-looking, with dimples that appeared whenever she smiled.
As the treasured top class of the entire school, the elite class had its classroom on the top floor: quiet, undisturbed, even the bathrooms stocked with scented beads. It was nothing like the ordinary classes downstairs, where after taking a dump you had to clean up after yourself or the next person might chase you through three classrooms cursing.
Students from the ordinary classes rarely went up to the top floor. Only Ren Yu occasionally sneaked upstairs after class, just to catch a glimpse of the girl he liked.
Her seat was by the window, the fifth desk from the front.
From that day on, whenever the elite class had PE, Ren Yu would secretly slip snacks into the fifth desk. Sometimes he left books or records too, along with a few brief words, signing only with the single character “Yu.”
This went on for three whole months. Right before Christmas, Ren Yu got a Polaroid camera. The very first photo he took was of himself. He tucked it inside a book and slipped it into the fifth desk.
For five straight days, Ren Yu lived in nervous anticipation. Then, on the evening of the sixth day, he walked out of class and nearly jumped when he saw Fu Chun Shen leaning against the wall outside. His nervousness simply transformed from one kind into another. “Let’s go.” Back then, Fu Chun Shen had only said those two words.
The hallway was silent. Or rather, aside from the faint whispers, the entire hallway was quiet.
In high school, Fu Chun Shen was either the king of the elite class and the top student of the entire grade—or, depending on who you asked, a cold and unsettling weirdo. The gossipmongers spoke with absolute certainty: either autistic or antisocial. One extreme or the other; Fu Chun Shen definitely had to fit somewhere.
So with only two words, he instantly pushed Ren Yu—the top student of the ordinary classes—straight into the spotlight.
Honestly, Ren Yu was confused.
He pointed at himself. “You’re talking to me?”
Fu Chun Shen said nothing. He merely glanced at Ren Yu once more before turning toward the stairwell.
Someone behind Ren Yu shoved him forward. “Go see what’s going on. If it’s just an academic exchange between top students, there’s no need to come back and report to this emperor.”
Out of curiosity, Ren Yu hitched the backpack higher on his shoulder and followed.
Both Fu Chun Shen and Ren Yu rode bicycles. The two traveled side by side in silence the entire way. The only unusual thing was that Fu Chun Shen, whether it happened to be on his way or was deliberate, escorted Ren Yu all the way to his front door.
“Did you want to tell me something?” Ren Yu asked while pushing his bicycle.
“Let’s go home together after school from now on.” At the time, it was the longest sentence Ren Yu had ever heard Fu Chun Shen say.
After that, the two somehow began traveling together every day.
Fu Chun Shen always waited for Ren Yu by the bike shed. They didn’t talk much. Occasionally Ren Yu would ask him academic questions, and the top student would answer carefully, even bringing additional practice problems of the same type the next day. Ren Yu didn’t dislike having such a capable study partner. It was just that the friendship had begun so strangely that sometimes the whole thing felt unreal.
Half a month passed in the blink of an eye. Winter break arrived. That day, as usual, Fu Chun Shen escorted Ren Yu home. Aside from saying goodbye, he unexpectedly added one more sentence: “How are we going to see each other during the break?”
That strange feeling surfaced again. Ren Yu always felt that his relationship with Fu Chun Shen resembled one of those bonus problems in a workbook—something he could never quite figure out.
“We… probably don’t need to meet during the break, right?”
Ren Yu clearly saw Fu Chun Shen frown slightly. Standing half a meter away, the boy’s cool voice reached him. “Not meet? Winter break lasts thirty-two days. It only takes half an hour to bike from my house to yours.”
Aside from academic discussions, it was the second long sentence Ren Yu had ever heard Fu Chun Shen say. Letting out a soft “Ah,” he replied casually, “If you want to come find me, call first. I’ll see whether I’m free.”
“Mm.” Fu Chun Shen seemed satisfied.
“Oh, right.” Ren Yu suddenly blushed. Lowering his head, he pressed his bicycle bell awkwardly. “Do you have Qiu Wei’s contact information? She’s in your class.”
“No.” Fu Chun Shen answered immediately.
“Could you ask for me? You’re classmates, so it’d be easier for you.”
“What do you want with her?”
A boy in love naturally wanted someone to confide in. Ren Yu looked away and, in the middle of the freezing winter, spoke the hottest feelings in his heart. “I like her. I want to pursue her. I actually tried before—used to secretly leave things in her desk—but it didn’t work out. So I thought I’d try again.”
His love-struck eyes turned back toward Fu Chun Shen. “Genius Fu, help me out?”
The words hung in the cold air, but no reply came for a very long time. Fu Chun Shen was nothing like the warmth implied by his name. Holding the handlebars, he kept his eyes lowered in silence, the line of his jaw taut and hard, with an inexplicable trace of hostility surfacing there.
Ren Yu stared blankly for a moment before his brain finally caught up. Lowering his voice, he asked jokingly, “What, are we love rivals?”