In a café where the music was soft and languid, Xue Bao Tian and Tong Yan sat in the most inconspicuous corner.
The few photos in Tong Yan’s phone were swiped back and forth by Xue Bao Tian, who then used two fingers to zoom in and look at them clearly.
“You took photos of this contract behind Sheng Yu’s back?” Xue Bao Tian asked.
Tong Yan nodded. The act was hardly gentlemanly, and he felt both guilty and ashamed, so his words came out haltingly. “I once helped Sheng Yu deliver documents, so I knew the combination to his safe. I just didn’t expect he’d never changed it.”
The saccharin-sweetened coffee did not suit Xue Bao Tian’s taste. Even the leaf-shaped latte art on the cup he had pushed away remained undisturbed.
“From what I can see right now, this is only an ordinary contract for hiring security services. Do you really think there’s something wrong with it?”
Tong Yan was silent for a long while. Only after the bitter coffee was nearly empty did he say faintly, “I’m only guessing too. I’m telling you because I hope Yan Ye can be a little more alert.”
Xue Bao Tian had just taken out a cigarette when a staff member came over to stop him. Smiling, he called the person “baby” and said in a very improper tone, “This cigarette is like a woman. I’m only looking at it to satisfy my eyes.”
The staff member left with a red face, and Xue Bao Tian’s eyes turned indifferent again as he tapped the cigarette against the tabletop. “I didn’t know you and Yan Ye had gotten this close. Are you trying to use Yan Ye to deal with Sheng Yu?” He paused, his tone sharpening. “Or are you trying to use him to protect Sheng Yu?”
Tong Yan frowned slightly and looked away. “Sheng Yu and I have nothing to do with each other anymore. I just don’t want something to happen that can’t be taken back.”
Xue Bao Tian bit the unlit cigarette into his mouth and asked with a playful grin, “Tong Yan, you keep saying you like me. What do you like about me?”
This time, Tong Yan did not hesitate. “You’re a good person. Everyone says I have terrible judgment. I can’t seem to make friends with anyone genuinely sincere, and when I date, I somehow end up choosing an absolute scumbag. You also said my eyes can’t tell right from wrong and might as well have grown there for nothing, so…”
“So you want to find a good person to prove you’re not fucking blind, is that it?”
Xue Bao Tian’s words were ugly, but unexpectedly, Tong Yan admitted it outright. “Yes.”
To prove that he really liked Xue Bao Tian, Tong Yan wanted to imitate Yan Ye and drink the coffee Xue Bao Tian had left behind. After struggling with himself several times, he still could not bring himself to do it and gave up.
Xue Bao Tian’s brows were cold while his eyes smiled, making his expression impossible to read. Lightly biting the cigarette, he used a spoon to destroy the latte art. “I once buried my family’s dog in someone else’s ancestral grave. I played an indecent video of a competitor on the giant screen in People’s Square. I switched someone’s medical examination report and nearly scared that old bastard who kept making things difficult for me to death. I also set Yan Ye up once and almost got him thrown into the police station.”
Xue Bao Tian took the cigarette from his mouth and lifted his eyelids. “Still think I’m a good person? If you chose me, you’d be short another organ: not only blind, but fucking brainless too.”
Tong Yan’s expression looked somewhat ugly, yet he remained stubborn. “You once schemed against Yan Ye, and now he still likes you and pursues you. That’s enough to prove that you’re good.”
Xue Bao Tian cursed, “Fuck,” and laughed. “On that man’s whole body, aside from one organ that works well, everything else is just decoration.”
Tong Yan subconsciously blurted out, “Which organ works well?”
Xue Bao Tian choked. Biting the cigarette, he clicked his tongue with a strange expression. “Don’t ask.”
Tong Yan understood immediately. Remembering Sheng Yu’s mockery, he suddenly felt a little jealous. “Mine also… works well.” He lowered his eyes to the little coffee remaining and said softly, “Good stamina.”
Xue Bao Tian immediately perked up. Leaning over the table, he lowered his voice even further than Tong Yan. “Sheng Yu…” He fumbled for the wording. “He really plays the wife for you?”
Tong Yan did not admit it, but he also did not deny it. Only the skin of his face reddened another degree.
“Damn.” Xue Bao Tian grinned wickedly and egged him on. “If you can pin that bastard down, why the hell break up? If he won’t fucking behave, drag him into bed and teach him a lesson. Just thinking about it feels satisfying.”
Whatever Tong Yan thought of made his expression turn even grayer. He forwarded the secretly taken photos to Xue Bao Tian and emphasized again, “If anyone approaches Yan Ye to sign this contract, he has to be careful. It would be best not to sign it.”
Xue Bao Tian went straight to the heart of it. “You’re worried Sheng Yu might be breaking the law, aren’t you? Afraid he’ll land himself in legal trouble over this?”
Tong Yan abruptly raised his head and quickly refuted, “No.”
Xue Bao Tian lightly waved the hand holding the cigarette. “Tong Yan, who you like and who you have in your heart have nothing to do with me. I’ll pass these contract photos to Yan Ye. Whatever your original motive was, I still have to thank you.”
The expression on Tong Yan’s face slowly changed into loneliness. “This matter has nothing to do with you anyway. There’s no need for you to thank me.”
“Then why didn’t you go straight to Yan Ye and lay everything out? Why insist on taking this detour through me? Do you think that as long as you don’t contact Yan Ye directly, what you’re doing doesn’t count as completely betraying Sheng Yu?” Xue Bao Tian dropped the look he had been giving him as though he were an idiot. “Since you came to me, I can thank you on Yan Ye’s behalf.”
Tong Yan raised his head and slowly met Xue Bao Tian’s gaze. “Are you and Yan Ye already together?”
Xue Bao Tian hesitated for a moment. He gulped down half a cup of the unpleasant coffee, wiped the moisture from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, and replied, “Whatever relationship Yan Ye and I have right now, stop wasting your time on me. You can’t handle my personality or my temper. Be good. Stop forcing it.”
Xue Bao Tian stood and strode toward the café exit. As he passed Tong Yan, he patted his shoulder and bent down. “If your eyes are no good, close them. If you’re missing common sense, just pretend you were born without that organ too. Sometimes you have to learn to accept your imperfect self. Instead of pinning your hopes on someone else, rely on yourself. Put a little more effort in bed, and won’t Sheng Yu end up listening to everything you say?”
As his words faded, leisurely footsteps sounded. The bell-hung door was pushed open, and after a clear, airy chime, it swung shut again.
Tong Yan propped both elbows on the table, scrubbed a hand over his face, and muttered, “How could it be that easy…”
Another page of the little comic booklet turned, and Xue Bao Tian tucked himself farther into the shadow at the foot of the wall. In the bookstall owner’s chipped enamel mug lay the five yuan Xue Bao Tian had just tossed in, enough to read ten little picture books or comic booklets.
Xue Bao Tian had come out on a date. It was also his and Yan Ye’s first proper date. Yan Ye had always been mature beyond his years and handled things as steadily as an old tortoise, yet when it came to dating, he repeatedly found himself at a loss.
An hour earlier, Xue Bao Tian had come downstairs from the apartment building and found Yan Ye straddling an old-fashioned 28-inch roadster bicycle, one foot planted on the ground as he stood among a row of luxury cars.
Elio’s Notes: The “28-inch bicycle” here is the old, heavy roadster style once ubiquitous in China. It gives Yan Ye’s date an intentionally retro, nostalgic feel.
Xue Bao Tian walked over and flicked the bicycle bell. Amid the clear ring, he drawled with a smile, “General Manager Yan, what act are you putting on now?”
Yan Ye pulled Xue Bao Tian closer and, while no one was around, pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips. “All those dating routines online looked unreliable, and I didn’t like them either, so I decided to follow my own heart. I’m taking you out on a date.”
“Your feelings?”
“Back when I worked on a Republican-era drama set, the male lead rode a bicycle and took the person he liked on dates. I hadn’t seen much of the world back then, so I thought it was very romantic.”
Xue Bao Tian tossed a cigarette into his mouth, lowered his eyes, and asked with a smile, “How old were you then?”
“Probably sixteen or seventeen.”
Sixteen or seventeen, when love first begins to stir and a young heart feels its earliest, sweetest flutter.
Xue Bao Tian’s hand paused as he lit the cigarette. A strange emotion he had never felt before wound tightly around his heart.
He had always felt that a rotten person like him did not deserve beautiful words like “first,” “most beautiful,” or “most heart-stirring,” the kind of words that made your heart tremble just hearing them. Yet now someone had laid the most moving feelings of his youth right in front of him, leaving Xue Bao Tian feeling as though he were walking on cotton, weak in the knees.
The cigarette caught, and Xue Bao Tian slowly exhaled smoke. He patted the bicycle handlebar, full of swagger. “Get off. Big Brother’s taking you for a ride.”
Yan Ye smiled, squeezed the back of Xue Bao Tian’s neck, and dropped a gentle kiss onto his eyelashes. In a low voice, he coaxed, “Don’t make trouble, Two Hundred. Be good.”
Xue Bao Tian ground out a “Fuck” between his teeth. He climbed onto the back seat and thought, Fuck, I’m never falling for this shit from Yan Ye again.
Yan Ye had clearly done his homework beforehand. After turning away from the noisy commercial district and winding through two or three alleys, they entered a quiet, secluded area.
There were few cars on the road, and theirs was the only bicycle in sight. Sunlight shimmered across the pavement, while tall, dense pagoda trees cast long, deep shadows along the road. Yan Ye’s white shirt billowed in the wind and occasionally brushed Xue Bao Tian’s cheek. The clean scent of soap came with the summer breeze, making Xue Bao Tian inexplicably think of a lyric.
You wore a white shirt and came to me through wind and dust, more tender than all distant tenderness.
Fuck, that’s so fucking sentimental.
Mottled shadows covered the road, and sunlight streamed through gaps in the leaves in dreamlike beams. It was amid that light that Yan Ye turned his head and said, “Xue Bao Tian, thank you for fulfilling the dream I had when I was sixteen.”
The smile at the man’s lips seemed almost to melt into the light. The breeze stirred his loose hair, and his white shirt brushed across Xue Bao Tian’s soft lips. Time seemed to stretch, the tree shadows beside them retreating little by little in slow motion…
In the middle of that damned romance, Xue Bao Tian met those tender eyes and shouted, “Grandson, brake! We’re fucking going to crash!”
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