A knock sounded from outside the door. Xue Bao Tian looked up toward the man entering the room.
The newcomer was broad and powerfully built, with an imposing presence, yet his features were utterly ordinary, barely enough to scrape together five points out of ten.
“You’re Song Zhixin?”
“Yes, Mr. Xue.” The man stood squarely with his feet shoulder-width apart, hands clasped together and brows lowered in a solemn posture before Xue Bao Tian.
“I just watched your combat training and live sparring videos. I’m pretty satisfied.” Xue Bao Tian paused, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “How much to hire you as a bodyguard?”
“Mr. Xue, may I ask who needs protection?”
“My sister and my dad. You just need to make sure nobody harasses them.”
The man lowered his gaze, speaking in a rigid tone. “I violated company regulations during my last assignment and was demoted. The fee isn’t high.”
Xue Bao Tian frowned. “What regulation did you violate?”
“While protecting a client, I used excessive force on someone threatening the client’s safety. So now… it’s one thousand yuan a month.”
Faced with Xue Bao Tian’s astonishment, the man hesitated for the first time.
“Eight hundred is fine too.”
Slapping the table, Xue Bao Tian finalized it immediately. “You’re hired.”
After signing all the paperwork, Xue Bao Tian relaxed inwardly, letting his back sink into the chair as he casually asked, “Do you know Zhang Chi?”
“No.”
The burly man handled the stapler with surprising care while binding the contracts together, aligning the pages again and again and stapling them perfectly straight.
For some reason, Xue Bao Tian suddenly thought of the terrible handwriting in that seventh-grade textbook.
“Yan… Ye? Do you know him?”
Snap.
The staple went crooked.
“…Don’t know him either.”
Smiling, Xue Bao Tian nodded. “Got it. Then I’ll leave my father and sister to you, Brother.”
He stood to leave, and the burly man followed protocol by escorting him to the company entrance.
All the way there, Xue Bao Tian rambled about everything under the sun. Only when they neared the entrance did he casually ask, “Which way is Yan Ye’s office?”
“That side. The far-left off… office.”
The man froze in place, mouth slightly open. Huge as a bear, he somehow still managed to look pitifully wronged.
Xue Bao Tian patted his shoulder. “Thanks, Brother.”
Crossing the hallway, he slowly approached the office door. Staring at the tightly shut door, he neither kicked it nor knocked.
Instead, he pulled out a cigarette and leaned against the wall beside the door. Facing the “No Smoking” sign, he leisurely puffed away.
After exhaling one final long drag, he crushed the cigarette butt against the door itself. Smoke gradually dispersed, leaving behind only a dirty black mark.
Straightening up, he turned back the way he came.
The corridor had no windows, only harsh fluorescent lights overhead. The brightness stabbed at his eyes and made his head throb even more heavily. Xue Bao Tian thought his cold had probably worsened.
“Two Hundred.”
Behind him came the sound of a door hinge turning, followed by that long-unheard gentle voice.
His footsteps paused. Expressionless, Xue Bao Tian ground his molars lightly before slowly turning around.
He only angled a third of his body toward the end of the hallway, then curled his lips into a sneer.
“Well, look at that. It really is you.”
The man standing in the doorway was tall and solidly built, powerful muscles stretched tightly beneath a black silk shirt and long legs wrapped in draping suit trousers. His face remained handsome and resolute as ever, but dressed in expensive clothes, all traces of an ordinary laborer’s air had vanished, replaced by an almost elegant refinement.
Xue Bao Tian’s gaze roamed shamelessly over the man a few steps away as though inspecting livestock. After looking his fill, he rubbed his eyes and muttered to himself,
Fucking pathetic. Why am I staring at a deformed tadpole?
“Master Xue, come inside for a while.” The man’s voice was slightly tense, as though afraid of saying the wrong thing. “I learned how to make coffee.”
Xue Bao Tian waved lazily. “I’ve already quit bitter things.” Then, seeming to recall something, he turned back with a grin and raised a brow. “By the way, that eight-hundred-yuan discount earlier, that was because of your face, wasn’t it?”
Turning around to walk backward, he blew the man a kiss.
“Thanks. What did I say? Master Xue really loves you.”
Just as the automatic door slid open, someone grabbed his wrist.
“Two Hundred, I have something to say to you.” The man’s earnest tone carried a hint of weakness.
Xue Bao Tian lowered his head to look at their joined hands. When he lifted his gaze again, only coldness remained.
“Excuse me, do we know each other?” Then he added with a smile that wasn’t a smile, “I really don’t have friends across species, especially not livestock like you.”
The man fell silent for a moment before tightening his grip slightly and lowering his body closer.
“Two Hundred, sorry. I’ll have to use force for a moment.”
“What… do you mea…”
Before the sentence could finish, Xue Bao Tian was thrown over the man’s shoulder.
“Fuck you, Zhang Chi! Put me the fuck down!”
Out of habit, the man raised a hand, intending to smack that ass. But afraid of genuinely provoking him, and equally afraid Xue Bao Tian’s endless vulgarities would entertain all the people secretly peeking from every corner, his itchy palm rubbed uselessly against his trousers instead.
Entering the office, the man locked the door behind them, even twisting the key twice more before carefully placing Xue Bao Tian onto the sofa.
He’d expected the man to explode in fury, but when their eyes met again, he saw an unreadable emotion instead.
“I originally thought I’d let it go. Even real grandparents and grandchildren can turn against each other, let alone some stray picked up along the way like you.” Xue Bao Tian pulled a cigarette from his pocket and shoved it carelessly between his lips. “But you had to run into me yourself. What did you want to say? Go on. Grandfather’s listening.”
Rising from the sofa, Zhang Chi instinctively reached to rub that soft hair again. His fingertips brushed lightly over the strands, creating only a faint ticklish sensation before ultimately retreating.
“I’ll make you a cup of coffee. I bought a new machine and practiced for a long time. I don’t know if it’s any good. Try it.”
In the corner by the window stood a tall side table topped with an expensive coffee machine, grinder, and various coffee beans.
“Don’t bother. I doubt your skills amount to much anyway. The only thing you’re really good at is pressing the left side of your face to the right, shameless on one side and thick-skinned on the other. Impressive.”
Smiling faintly, the man moved to the window and began grinding beans.
“Geisha, Blue Mountain, or Kona?”
“Zhang Chi, you motherf…”
Xue Bao Tian suddenly stopped speaking, laughing bitterly at himself.
“What’s your name? Yan… Ye?”
“Mm. Yan Ye. Ye as in the character for ‘open field.’ You can still call me Zhang Chi if you want. My mom’s surname was Zhang, and Chi was a name I picked myself from a dictionary.”
Coffee beans rattled together inside the grinder as Yan Ye slowly turned the handle.
“I didn’t deliberately lie to you about my name. At the time, I was on assignment at the construction site, so I couldn’t use my real identity.”
Smiling lazily around his cigarette, Xue Bao Tian’s eyes were dim beneath a shadowy veil.
“So your name wasn’t an intentional lie. What was intentionally fake?”
Yan Ye didn’t avoid his gaze. His expression showed obvious guilt as he admitted quietly,
“The background and life experiences I told you were real. Only the profession was fake.”
“Oh, got it. Pretending to be poor to scam sex. You really did hardworking migrant workers dirty with that one.”
“…No.” Yan Ye walked over and crouched before Xue Bao Tian until they were eye-level. “Do you want to hear the truth?”
Xue Bao Tian flicked open a lighter and lit his cigarette, lazily dragging the ashtray closer to tap ash into it.
“Talk.”
“Because there was no future between us. If that’s the case, what difference do truth and lies make?”
The slightly bitter aroma of coffee beans drifted through the air.
Yan Ye’s gaze on Xue Bao Tian was calm to an almost excessive degree. Xue Bao Tian stared back through thin wisps of cigarette smoke curling between them, obscuring those deep, difficult-to-read expressions.
“Pretty fucking reasonable.” Xue Bao Tian suddenly laughed. “You’ve practically convinced me. Impressive, Zhang… no, Yan Ye. One sentence and you reversed the whole situation.”
Crushing the cigarette into the ashtray, he watched the window frame shadows stretch across the floor like prison bars.
“I’ve got a sentence for you too. Want to hear it?”
Yan Ye tensed immediately. The fingers pressing against the sofa turned pale as his voice roughened.
“Say it.”
Xue Bao Tian leaned close against his ear and enunciated each word clearly:
“You’re so damn capable. Can you hold in your piss?”
For once, Yan Ye had no answer.
Just as a smile began forming at Yan Ye’s lips, the warm breath against his ear burned him unexpectedly.
Something about that feeling was wrong.
He suddenly turned his head, his lips brushing lightly across Xue Bao Tian’s chin. He’d already sensed something off earlier, and now he confirmed it completely.
“Two Hundred, do you have a fever?”
Risking getting hit, Yan Ye pressed a hand against Xue Bao Tian’s forehead.
“Did you take medicine?” The heat beneath his palm was alarming. He quickly pulled out his phone and made a call. “Xiao Li, bring a cup of warm water in. Also ask around the office for fever medicine.”
“Fuck off!” Xue Bao Tian kicked Yan Ye away. “What character are you playing today? Calm and rational rich young master turned considerate, gentle second male lead? Nice acting, but I don’t fucking watch TV dramas.”
He stood to leave, only to find a heavy ashtray shoved into his hands.
“If you’re still angry, smash me with that again. But take the medicine first. I still have things to say.”
Xue Bao Tian weighed the object in his hand and found it suitably satisfying.
“Since you requested it, Master Xue will grant your wish.”
Chaotic crystal reflections scattered across Yan Ye’s face. Xue Bao Tian raised the ashtray…
Knock, knock.
A sweet female voice came through the door.
“General Manager Yan, I brought the water and medicine.”
Yan Ye patted the hand holding the weapon and coaxed softly,
“You can continue smashing me afterward.”
After opening the door, the girl bypassed Yan Ye entirely and delivered the water straight to Xue Bao Tian’s side. Clearly, she was burning with curiosity about the man General Manager Yan had carried into the office.
“General Manager Yan.” Xue Bao Tian slipped another cigarette into his mouth and bit it loosely between his lips as he laughed. “So you’re actually some kind of big shot.”
He narrowed his eyes at Yan Ye.
“Then why the fuck were you taking me to eighty-yuan-a-night motels?”