“Huh?” Lu Xingyan let out a short sound and stared at his brother as if he had gone stupid.
The pleasure from that deep kiss had not even faded yet, but the person who had created it had already pulled away and given him a failing review: he had felt nothing.
…Really?
Or was he saying that on purpose?
Lu Xingyan froze in humiliation. It took him several seconds to recover before he shot to his feet in anger. “I didn’t feel anything from you either!”
He stood up so abruptly that he nearly crashed into Jiang Ji. The two of them glared at each other with all the hostility of the countless arguments and confrontations they had had since meeting, as if they were about to start fighting—if not for the dampness in Lu Xingyan’s eyes.
Jiang Ji knew he was a paper tiger, but he had not expected him to be this fragile. Jiang Ji had barely poked him and he was already about to shatter.
And this guy still wanted to learn how to be a scumbag? His entire act had fallen apart.
“You didn’t feel anything either? Weren’t you supposed to like me?” Jiang Ji kindly reminded him, helping him pick his script back up.
Lu Xingyan choked. “I… What I meant was…”
His conscience and his grand plan waged war inside him, but he had to endure hardship, swallow humiliation, and bear the burden.
“I got too excited. You stopped before I even had time to feel anything.” Fighting back tears of humiliation, Lu Xingyan shamelessly clasped Jiang Ji’s hand. “Bro, can we kiss again?”
“…”
Jiang Ji could not take it anymore.
Lu Xingyan’s acting was somehow both excellent and terrible. Jiang Ji was actually starting to have trouble telling which expressions were real and which were fake.
“No. Forget it.” Jiang Ji withdrew his hand. “We already tried it. No feeling means no feeling. Get some sleep early tonight.”
He headed for the door, then looked back once more. He had been planning to say something to leave Lu Xingyan hanging, but the sight of him desperately trying to hold together such a pitiful, devastated expression made Jiang Ji temporarily put away his tricks. He said nothing.
Lu Xingyan was the one who insisted on competing with him.
He was terrible at it and still could not get enough, practically delivering himself to Jiang Ji’s doorstep every day to be tormented. Then Jiang Ji would torment him and feel guilty afterward.
Like a murderer going to church to confess after killing someone, Jiang Ji reflected that this was not good. He was a brother with morals.
He decided to give his little brother one more chance.
As long as Lu Xingyan stopped now, Jiang Ji would pretend nothing had happened today.
Unfortunately, Jiang Ji’s rare display of kindness went completely unappreciated.
Someone had already sworn that a gentleman who failed to avenge a wrong was no gentleman at all.
“I hate him so much!”
At two in the morning, unable to sleep, Lu Xingyan poured out his grievances over the phone. “Do you know how miserable I am? I got forcibly kissed by a gay guy. He kissed me until I was dizzy—”
Sun Cheng, who had been jolted awake on the other end, felt dizzy too. “For fuck’s sake, Lu Xingyan! Can you two make out without calling me in the middle of the night to announce it? I’m straight! Straight!”
“I’m straight too,” Lu Xingyan insisted. “You’re my best bro. Can’t you comfort me a little and help me come up with an idea?”
Sun Cheng closed his eyes. “Please spare me.”
“He’s the one who won’t spare me!” Lu Xingyan said miserably.
“…”
“I thought all my hard work these past few days had finally paid off and he was going to agree to date me, but then he screwed with me again! He said kissing me did nothing for him!”
“You’re straight, and you just let him kiss you like that?” Sun Cheng could not help exposing him.
Lu Xingyan replied righteously, “I did it for the greater plan. You can’t catch a wolf without bait. I had to risk something. Besides, why is he so good at kissing? I don’t understand… I mean, yeah, I’m straight, but… you get it, right?”
“I don’t.”
“You do. You have a wife. Haven’t you ever kissed your wife?”
“…”
“What I mean is, even if the person kissing you isn’t your wife, if she’s really good at it, you’ll still feel something. That’s normal human behavior. It’s a physiological reaction. It’s not my problem.”
“Mm-hmm, sure.” Sun Cheng sounded utterly exhausted. “But I only react to beautiful women. Someone with a dick? No.”
Lu Xingyan scoffed. “That’s because you lack experience. My brother has more charm than all those beautiful women you know, doesn’t he?”
Sun Cheng said, “…Listen to yourself.”
“I mean Jiang Ji is very good at using tricks to make other people mistakenly think he’s attractive,” Lu Xingyan explained. “But I won’t fall for it. I’ve known him for over ten years. If I don’t understand him, who does?”
“Whatever makes you happy.”
“But I’m not happy.”
“…”
In the pitch-black room in the dead of night, Lu Xingyan sighed again and again. “You don’t understand how I feel at all. Do you think I enjoy chasing after him like this? No. I’ve already invested too much into this plan. The sunk cost is too high. There’s no turning back now.”
Sun Cheng was nodding off.
Lu Xingyan muttered to himself, “Even if I’m unhappy, I have to pull myself together. Like the saying goes, only those who endure the bitterest hardships can rise above others. If I don’t work hard now, how am I supposed to turn the tables and become the one in charge later?”
“So?”
“So I’m wondering whether my kissing technique is so bad that my brother didn’t feel anything.”
Sun Cheng said, “…”
Sun Cheng hung up in agony.
If possible, he sincerely wished Lu Xingyan and Jiang Ji would run toward each other, unite their hearts forever, and grow old together. As long as the two of them kept each other contained, they could stop coming out and tormenting normal people.
Lu Xingyan, whose call had been disconnected, had no idea that his buddy supported his grand romantic strategy so wholeheartedly. With no one left to vent to in the middle of the night, he had no choice but to post on WeChat Moments.
But he and Jiang Ji were currently in an ambiguous flirting stage—if it even counted—so he could not post just anything on Moments. Even though Jiang Ji probably would not look, Lu Xingyan still had to carefully compose something that showed his indomitable determination to keep pursuing his brother.
Lu Xingyan typed, deleted, typed again, deleted again…
After repeating this for half an hour, he finally posted a line that he personally thought had a great deal of feeling.
“I woke with a start in the middle of the night. I dreamed of you.”
The attached photo was one he had just taken of the water glass beside his bed. He hoped Jiang Ji would see the glass, think of the coaster from that milk-tea shop, and decipher his secret signal.
Lu Xingyan had plenty of active contacts on WeChat: classmates and alumni, relatives and friends, people he had met through gaming, and people “pursuing Jiang Ji”…
It was the holiday season, so barely ten minutes after he posted, a number of night owls had already liked it.
Someone commented, “Who did you dream about?”
Another person said, “Funny, I just had a dream too. I dreamed about your brother. What a coincidence, hahaha.”
Lu Xingyan said, “…”
Coincidence?
Did this person actually think they were funny?
Lu Xingyan blocked this straggler who had somehow slipped through his net. The drowsiness he had just started to feel disappeared from sheer irritation.
He added this grievance to Jiang Ji’s account as well. Anger and hurt twisted together inside him as he once again remembered the detached expression on his brother’s face when he pulled away after kissing him. His chest felt stifled, and sleep refused to come.
It was nearly dawn before Lu Xingyan finally managed to fall asleep.
By the time he did, Jiang Ji was already awake.
Today was the first day of the holiday, and Jiang Ji had promised to go shopping with Jiang Wanyi and carry her bags.
Jiang Ji was normally too busy to spend much time with his family, so as a rule, whenever Jiang Wanyi asked him for something, he rarely refused.
After breakfast, Jiang Wanyi put on her makeup while discussing their shopping route with him. She wanted to buy a dress, a bag, and shoes, then have lunch while President Jiang paid the bill.
Jiang Ji agreed to everything. He sat nearby waiting for her to finish her makeup, but after half an hour, Ms. Jiang still was not done.
“Getting impatient?” Jiang Wanyi asked. “You’re already impatient waiting for your mother to put on makeup. What are you going to do when you get a girlfriend someday?”
There was another meaning buried in her words. Jiang Ji smiled. “We’ll talk about that someday.”
“Always someday, someday.” Jiang Wanyi pretended to sigh. “I’m not going to pressure you to marry or have children. Marry if you want to, don’t if you don’t. Whatever makes you happy. But can’t I be a little curious?”
“…”
Ever since finding love a second time, life no longer felt as heavy as before, and Jiang Wanyi’s personality had become livelier too. Every now and then she would tease Jiang Ji. “Are you really that busy, or are your standards too high? You haven’t dated anyone all these years. Are you waiting for some heavenly beauty?”
Jiang Ji brushed her off. “I just haven’t met anyone compatible.”
Jiang Wanyi had no answer to that, so she changed the subject. “Xiao Yan is the same. We have two handsome men in this family, and I’ve never seen either one with a girlfriend.”
Jiang Ji said, “…”
He wondered what she would think if she knew these two handsome men had secretly been kissing last night.
Jiang Ji immediately felt even guiltier. No matter how Jiang Wanyi tried to pry, he played deaf and dumb and claimed he knew nothing about Lu Xingyan’s private life.
And Jiang Ji really did know nothing.
That was not his fault. Lu Xingyan barely had a private life to begin with. School, causing trouble, game streaming, and the occasional gathering with classmates?
Rather than asking about his private life, she might as well ask how many hours he spent on social media every day.
From ten in the morning until six in the evening, Jiang Ji stayed with Jiang Wanyi the entire time.
Jiang Wanyi and Lu Yong had their own dinner date that evening and were not taking him along, so Jiang Ji went home by himself and carried Ms. Jiang’s shopping haul into her room.
Jiang Ji had originally planned to eat out, but then he suddenly remembered that the housekeeper had the day off too, and there was still one living human being at home. If he did not come back either, that person would probably have a meltdown and post something passive-aggressive on Moments: “Heh. Nobody’s coming home. Guess I’m air.”
Lu Xingyan had done similar things several times before.
After putting everything away, Jiang Ji headed back to his own room to change.
As he passed the neighboring door, Lu Xingyan popped out like a ghost. “Bro, you’re back.”
“Mm. What are you doing?” Jiang Ji glanced at him.
Lu Xingyan did not like going out, but he loved dressing up. Even when he spent all day at home on his computer, he dressed as if he were walking a runway, and today he had even styled his hair with wax.
Jiang Ji’s gaze skimmed across his sharply defined face and caught the broken skin on his lip where he had bitten it. He paused. “You did that yourself?”
“Mm. I couldn’t sleep last night, so…”
The pause was vaguely suggestive, as though he were deliberately trying to hint at something. Then Lu Xingyan put on an obedient expression. “Bro, are you busy right now? I want to talk to you for a minute.”
“About what?” Jiang Ji asked despite already knowing, waiting for the performance.
Lu Xingyan lowered his voice. “I thought about it for a long time. What happened last night was my fault.”
“…”
Lately, for some reason, Jiang Ji wanted to laugh every time Lu Xingyan opened his mouth.
When it came to humor, Li Ling could tell a hundred bad jokes and still fail to match a single line Lu Xingyan tossed out effortlessly. Perhaps that was what people called talent.
Jiang Ji stepped closer and leaned against the doorway.
Lu Xingyan had spent the entire day waiting at home and had long since memorized his lines. He delivered them smoothly. “Kissing is an interaction between two people. If you didn’t feel anything, that’s my fault. I was like a block of wood. I gave you a terrible interactive experience.”
Jiang Ji nodded in agreement. “So?”
“So I want to ask whether you can give me one more chance?”
Lu Xingyan adopted the mournful tone of an abandoned imperial concubine banished to the Cold Palace. “If Brother gives me just one more chance, I promise I’ll work hard and serve you properly so you can feel something.”
Jiang Ji said, “…”
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