Elio’s Notes: 冤家 can mean an enemy or troublesome adversary, but it is also commonly used for someone with whom you have an exasperating romantic attachment, roughly the person who drives you crazy because you cannot stay away from them. Both meanings suit Xue Qian and Liang Youhui rather well.
The field investigation through the urban villages where the three cities met had yielded a breakthrough witness and a trail of evidence. The old case was like an enormous monster finally dragged from the swamp where it had hidden, its body still covered in black blood, festering wounds, and rot clinging deep to the bone. What remained was for the task-force investigators to patiently handle documentation and evidence collection, brushing away layers of dust and moss until the monster’s true face stood completely exposed. Every group involved had been electrified by the new clues, and streams of carefully organized information poured back toward the municipal bureau. The final good news seemed within reach.
Captain Xue, who had gone an entire night without sleep or rest, was genuinely exhausted.
This out-of-town assignment had produced enormous gains and offered a real chance at cracking the case and earning commendation, but it had also nearly dismantled his entire skeleton. Lying face-down across the back seat of a police car, he felt as though every bone had been taken apart and reassembled incorrectly, with none of the tendons or joints properly reconnected. His arms and legs felt newly installed, strange and unresponsive to the instructions sent by his brain and nerves.
Plainclothes investigators moved in and out of the village entrance finishing up the last tasks while Xue Qian fell asleep directly across the back seat.
Unfortunately, he enjoyed only a few moments of dozing before the murderous chain of notification tones from his phone dragged him awake. Still half asleep, he answered in an unexpectedly soft voice. “Mm, me. What is it?”
“Who? Who went to your station looking for me?”
Xue Qian’s head went blank. He abruptly sat upright in the rear seat and immediately smacked the top of his head against the car roof. His body was still stuck in the stalled, striking state of sleep, but the collision woke his brain thoroughly, leaving his temples throbbing.
A colleague at the local bureau reported with obvious enjoyment, “Captain Xue, there’s a rather handsome gentleman surnamed Liang here. Says he rushed over from Yandu. He brought flower baskets, fruit baskets, and nutritional supplements to visit Captain Xue, the heroic officer who charged forward on behalf of the people and suffered serious injuries while eliminating evil. He’s waiting in the conference room next door. What would you like us to tell Mr. Liang? Looks like he came straight from the airport and hasn’t eaten breakfast yet. Should we take him to the government cafeteria and give him some buns, wontons, and pickled mustard greens?”
Yasha Xue’s face nearly turned green.
He was not exactly young anymore and had never had thin skin. He had never deliberately hidden his sexual orientation from supervisors or colleagues either. After all, a thirty-year-old man with good looks, an excellent physique, no psychological illness and no embarrassing physical problem, who had somehow never dated a woman, was not fooling anybody. Let people gossip if they wanted. Normally, no one truly dared create trouble for him over it. The two bars and two stars on his shoulders as a second-rank police inspector reflected his professional competence. But he had gone out of town on one damned assignment. Did Young Master Liang intend to turn his romantic gossip into headline news across the entire city? All those romantic schemes of yours are apparently growing beneath a pig’s brain!
Xue Qian immediately called Liang Youhui and unleashed a barrage at the cheerful, travel-weary voice on the other end. “Young Master, what kind of insanity is this? Are you sick? Who told you to come here?!”
Liang Youhui had always been sweet and ingratiating around Captain Xue, his voice practically coated in honey. “Brother Xue, don’t be angry. I was worried about you, so I came to see whether you were feeling better.”
Xue Qian demanded, “How did you even know I was here?”
Even mighty Captain Xue occasionally suffered a surprise attack and found himself scrambling. Liang Youhui could not help laughing. “That’s easy. You cops aren’t the only ones with good intelligence networks. I’ve got friends at several airlines. Searching by your name and information made it pretty easy to find where you went…”
“You investigated my movements?!” Three streams of smoke nearly rose from Yasha Xue’s head. His temper had already been hot, and now he finally had somewhere to vent it. “You’ve got too much fucking free time. I still have work to do!”
Liang Youhui laughed shamelessly. “I knooow! When you’re finished, we’ll go back together. Do you want to travel by road, water, or air? I’ll book everything! Are there any decent hotels around your police bureau? I’ll get a room and wait until you finish, then I’ll take you to dinner.”
Xue Qian: “…”
At that moment, Xue Qian finally understood that he had indeed been too clever for his own good and underestimated Liang Youhui. The rich young master was apparently an expert hiding his skills in this particular field. Normally, he pretended to be an innocent fool while playing the pig to eat the tiger, but when the moment mattered he simply descended from the sky and cornered Xue Qian in another province, skipping every tedious intermediate step. He was already talking about getting a hotel room!
Really, when two gay men in the community hooked up, if they liked what they saw they could throw arms over each other’s shoulders and go find somewhere to sleep together. Neither of them was an inexperienced minor. They were grown adults. Why should there be so much pointless talking? Why was Officer Xue the only one twisting himself into knots and refusing to be straightforward? This time, Xue Qian truly had nothing to say.
Bad-tempered, he replied, “There aren’t any fancy five-star hotels around here. I don’t stay in five-star hotels on work trips anyway. I sleep in sixty-yuan-a-night guesthouses!”
Liang Youhui had an exceptionally good temper. Slapped on the left cheek with a police baton, he would happily offer the right. “Fine. Then I’ll stay in the guesthouse with you.”
He was like an enormous piece of sticky candy that could not be peeled off once attached. Xue Qian practically begged him. “Stop making trouble. This is another city, and I’m inside an administrative workplace. If people see this, it’s bad for me professionally. Take back the flower baskets and fruit baskets you brought, hide them, and leave immediately!”
Liang Youhui displayed the sophistication of someone experienced in romance. “Brother Xue, do you really think I’m stupid? I didn’t say anything inappropriate. It won’t affect you. I told them I was traveling for business and happened to pass through, and that my younger sister asked me to deliver those flower and fruit baskets to you.”
Xue Qian: “…Huh?”
Liang Youhui laughed. “I really do have a younger sister. I just said she was grateful to Captain Xue for your excellent police work and sent the baskets to thank you!”
Xue Qian froze for a moment, then suddenly experienced a strange mixture of feelings. “You brat. Pretty experienced, aren’t you? You’ve done this plenty of times before, haven’t you? Sending luxury gifts and giant flower baskets all over the place, using your sister as an excuse. How many times have you pulled this trick? Heh… You want to pick me up? You think I’m that easy?!”
Xue Qian immediately hung up, leaving only the phone system’s meaningless disconnected tone on Liang Youhui’s side.
Mr. Yan, whose sensitive ears had been standing at attention, walked past in his jacket and rested one hand on the roof of the car. Teasingly, he asked, “Captain Xue, who’s brave enough to try picking you up?”
“That friend of yours.” Xue Qian threw out the answer with swagger. “The bastard is fucking asking for it.”
The moment the curse left his mouth, Captain Xue himself felt a strange tremor inside. He imagined Liang Youhui and realized he had never actually considered doing that to him. Liang Youhui was handsome and had an excellent figure. Having grown up pampered, he understood grooming and presentation, always wearing short jackets, sequined shirts, branded slim ankle-length jeans, and gleaming pointed shoes without socks, polished and fashionable with a faintly flirtatious air. From behind, Young Master Liang’s ass was particularly impressive, round, lifted, and shapely…
Still, Xue Qian believed that some of his deeply rooted ideas, combined with his foul temper and personal principles, made it impossible for him to become entangled physically or emotionally with anyone from the circles of the rich and powerful, even if he admitted that assumption might simply be prejudice viewed through tinted glasses.
Besides, men of that social class were notorious for playing around. They flirted everywhere because they wanted one-night stands. Xue Qian had only recently recovered from his previous heartbreak and had no interest in becoming some wealthy young master’s temporary novelty, a new flavor to tease and discard when bored.
“My friend Youhui is actually a pretty good person. He doesn’t have that arrogant, self-important stink a lot of spoiled young masters carry.” Yan Xiaodao spoke as though casually. “His biggest problem is that his romantic mind wanders too much and he’s notoriously promiscuous. On that point, yes, he really is asking for it! I think he desperately needs someone formidable to discipline him properly and straighten him out.”
Yan Xiaodao stopped there without making the implication too blatant, then waved goodbye. “We’ll leave first. You can keep that three-wheeled bengzi and figure out what to do with it. Captain Xue, take care of yourself. We’ll see each other again when you’re back in Linwan.”
Mr. Ling, following a step behind, gave Xue Qian a deeply meaningful look. Suddenly leaning closer, he said lightly, “Captain Xue has always been especially good at subduing demons and monsters. You might as well take that restless little slut off my hands. I can’t be bothered dealing with him. Thanks.”
A poisonous smile curved at Ling He’s lips before he strode away.
“…” Xue Qian did not understand what the hell that was supposed to mean.
On the ride back into the city, Captain Xue remained on the phone constantly until his mouth was dry. He instructed task-force investigators that the disgraced official You Jinglian, whose birthplace was confirmed as Luojiang City, was now a major suspect. They were to use You Jinglian as the central node and expand outward through his social network from those years, dividing into three investigative teams to locate the remaining suspects. Suspect Number One: a core member, possibly even the leader, of a Three Rivers loan-sharking gang who had financial and violent disputes with Chen Jiu before the crime and who must later have fled with money under a new name. Suspect Number Two: an outsider who had come to the Three Rivers region to run a small trading business and was known in the underworld by the still-unexplained nickname “Duidui.” Suspect Number Three, or perhaps a knowledgeable witness: the unidentified driver of the Ling family group’s truck hijacked by Chen Jiu. Whatever their relationships had been then, and regardless of whether the killing arose from a planned robbery or sudden passion after an unexpected confrontation, the old case would eventually be dragged completely into the light.
An investigator passed another important lead to Captain Xue: Ling Huang, chairman of the Ling family group, had once been implicated in economic crimes and sentenced to a heavy prison term. But closer examination of the historical file showed that the customs-smuggling and fund-raising-fraud case had been riddled with suspicious points and unclear facts even at the time.
“A case full of doubts and unclear facts still got him more than ten years? Who the fuck handed down that sentence?!” Xue Qian immediately started cursing.
The investigator replied helplessly, “Captain Xue, you know what investigation, prosecution, and court procedures were like ten or twenty years ago. You can’t even look at some old files by today’s standards. They’re full of holes. Wrongful and false convictions weren’t exactly rare…”
According to the charges listed in the file and the terrifyingly huge sums involved, clear facts and conclusive evidence could theoretically have justified the death penalty. Yet the evidence chain had been incomplete. Instead of acquitting for lack of evidence, the authorities had simply compromised somewhere between innocence and death and handed down fifteen years. Many cases had been decided like that. On the surface, it almost resembled the Confucian doctrine of moderation, but when applied to law and justice, such “moderation” was simply irrational.
Once again, this case stretched beyond the reach of Yasha Xue’s claws. He could leave that part to the local economic-crime investigators.
……
Xue Qian stepped out of the police car. At the main entrance of Fanjiang Municipal Bureau, a tiny square barely larger than a palm had been completely dominated by an extremely conspicuous sapphire-blue luxury car, forcing even the aunties doing public-square dancing into a corner.
One glance confirmed exactly what Xue Qian had expected. Another Bentley, this time in an even more dazzlingly ostentatious color.
The southern weather was hot, so Young Master Liang had exchanged his short jacket for a summery floral shirt. Below it, he still wore slim ankle-length trousers and pointed leather shoes with a slight heel. Liang Youhui liked dressing this way for two reasons. First, it made his figure look slender and brought his height a little closer to Officer Xue’s, allowing him to admire handsome men more clearly beneath the bright sun. Second, for an experienced driver of the romantic variety, tight trousers showed off his lifted ass, and if you had an advantage, why not display it for the person you wanted?
The moment Xue Qian approached, he noticed. Sarcastically, he said, “You’ve got another hidden lift inside those heels, don’t you? You’re almost as tall as me now. Shameless.”
The instant Liang Youhui saw the actual man, every bit of temper disappeared. He smiled happily. “I was afraid I’d be too short and you wouldn’t spot me in a crowd.”
Xue Qian frowned. “Didn’t you fly here? Where did you get the car?”
Young Master Liang shrugged. Among people from his social circle, Officer Xue’s question sounded adorably ordinary, the thinking of an average civilian. But Liang Youhui was not naturally arrogant, so he answered honestly. “My dad has business partners and hotel investments in the Three Rivers region too. This is one of our family’s cars. I can just take it when I need it.”
Xue Qian realized once again how much of a frog at the bottom of a well he was and snorted. “Fucking rich.”
Two men highly experienced in casual hookups now seemed to have stepped beyond the vague stage where neither acknowledged what the other was thinking, only to discover they suddenly had no idea what to say.
Xue Qian thought, Kid Liang, you know that I know exactly what you’re thinking, don’t you?
Liang Youhui thought, Good ge, I’ve known for ages that you know. I really like you, so why don’t you just give in?
“I’m still fucking hungry!” Xue Qian jerked his chin and sneered. “Young Master, you’ve never eaten inside a police station before, have you?”
The first time Liang Youhui fell for Officer Xue had also been the first time he had entered a police station for questioning. Today marked his first government-station cafeteria meal. Quite a few of Young Master Liang’s “first times” apparently ended up being offered to his Brother Xue.
The cafeteria serving windows bustled like a wet market, and the dining area consisted of simple standardized fast-food tables and chairs. Holding a stainless-steel tray and looking around curiously, Young Master Liang found everything unexpectedly novel. He had attended an expensive private secondary school in Yandu, then joined the great army of wealthy second-generation students who went overseas for university. He had genuinely never experienced a traditional institutional or university cafeteria like this. The banners, slogans, and motivational signs hanging across the walls gave him more than enough to stare at.
As he stepped down the stairs, his foot suddenly slid with a skrrt, nearly sending him straight into a full split.
Fortunately, Captain Xue reacted instantly and caught both Young Master Liang’s waist and his stainless-steel tray. Otherwise Liang might have gone all the way down, splitting the seams of his skin-tight trousers on the spot and exposing his underwear.
Xue Qian fought to hold back laughter. “Sorry. The floor’s oily. Pretty slippery.”
“No, no, it’s my soles.” Liang Youhui immediately tried to take a mile from an inch, leaning his body closer against Xue Qian’s hip and attempting to rub against Officer Xue’s ass to see whether the real thing matched his imagination. Xue Qian instantly shook him off and shoved him aside. Did he really think he could casually rub a tiger’s backside?
That near-split revealed Young Master Liang’s impressive yoga foundation. He could apparently spread his legs very low and very straight. Lowering his lashes, Xue Qian mocked him. “You practice that sort of thing often, don’t you? Eighteen Bronze Men of Shaolin, Italian chandeliers, all those weird tricks?”
Liang Youhui’s eyes immediately lit up as if he had encountered a fellow enthusiast. “Brother Xue, you’ve tried those too? Next time I’ll take you…”
“Who the hell am I supposed to be doing that with?” Xue Qian glared at him. “Not interested!” He was a police officer after all. Even if he had never tried any of it, he knew perfectly well about the various sexual role-playing acts and price lists at places like Yurun Paradise and Blue Sea Cloudtop.
Liang Youhui immediately shut up and restrained his eager imagination. He had a growing sense that he really had walked straight into a trap, his soul apparently being led around by the cold, arrogant, ridiculously handsome Officer Xue. The occasional warm smile the man tossed him could keep him excited for ages. Am I being a little pathetic?
But if he was going to be pathetic, at least it was worth it. Plenty of people in the community loved exactly Officer Xue’s kind of heavy-flavored, hard-bodied masculine appeal. Was this really the kind of man anybody could casually win?
The cafeteria actually served decent stir-fried dishes, but Xue Qian deliberately took Young Master Liang to the mass-catering line so the foolish rich kid could experience some of the hardships of ordinary life. Facing a stainless-steel tray containing what looked like a convention of culinary disasters, Liang Youhui somehow managed to eat stewed beef with chives, fried glutinous-rice balls with cilantro, and rice stir-fried with spicy snack strips as though they were delicacies. In reality, he was swallowing everything whole purely to demonstrate sincerity and determination in pursuing Brother Xue. No matter how terrible the cafeteria food tasted, it had to go down.
Officer Xue sitting across from him was exceptionally appetizing, his handsome face possessing the texture of modern sculpture and the sheen of metal.
Liang Youhui had never eaten cilantro before. The strange taste nearly made him choke to death at the table, his face turning bright red. A bowl of cilantro-filled glutinous-rice balls was basically a cilantro bomb.
Xue Qian watched his suffering with great interest but eventually took pity on him and tapped his tray with his chopsticks. “You’re allowed to spit out the cilantro and spicy strips. You don’t have to eat those.”
Liang Youhui’s eyes shone with suffering tears as he continued his ingratiating campaign. “Whatever you eat, I’ll eat too.”
A wicked gleam passed through Xue Qian’s eyes. From the little side dish, he picked up an entire piece of a local specialty served with practically every meal, hairy fermented stinky tofu, and put the whole thing into his own mouth. He chewed with obvious enjoyment, then pointed firmly at Liang. “Delicious. Have one!”
Liang Youhui’s eyes went rigid. His stomach churned violently as cilantro and chives joined forces and generated a toxic-gas mixture that surged straight toward his throat. If the handsome man he liked had not been sitting directly across from him, giving him reason to endure again and again, he would have vomited.
“Heh.” Xue Qian smilingly ate another piece of stinky tofu.
Liang Youhui silently swallowed his tears along with his food. Damn this evil local specialty, this hairy stinky tofu destroying the image of his male god!
He had originally arrived entirely confident of victory. His handbag contained condoms and lubricant, while he had wisely avoided bringing anything like aphrodisiac oils or supplements for fear of being beaten. He had imagined the wonderful scenario quite thoroughly. After dinner, he would lure Xue Qian into the Bentley. Neither of them was inexperienced, so there would be no need for coyness. They could find somewhere secluded, then he would pin Officer Xue against the seat, pinch his nose if necessary, and launch a surprise kiss…
Now the plan seemed doomed. The erotic fantasy unfolding inside Young Master Liang’s head had acquired the fermented smell of hairy stinky tofu, and there was simply no way he could bring himself to put his mouth there…
A colleague from the task force walked past their table with his tray and casually asked, “Captain Xue, friend of yours?”
Xue Qian answered without changing expression. “Mm. A suspect I questioned once.”
The officer could not resist giving Liang Youhui another look. A suspect? The man looked suspiciously like the famous rich second-generation playboy from Yandu who had appeared in entertainment headlines online…
Liang Youhui shot an openly suggestive glance across his tray. “Brother Xue, why don’t you arrest me again? Interrogate me.”
Xue Qian remained cool, but Liang’s shamelessness had clearly tugged a faint smile from the corner of his lips. Silently, he mouthed: Stop being pathetic.
After finishing their appetite-inducing cafeteria feast, Liang Youhui followed Captain Xue out of the bureau while clutching his gurgling stomach. He had certainly invested heavily in this expedition to win a handsome man. The plane ticket and flower and fruit baskets were nothing to him, roughly equivalent to an ordinary person buying a candied hawthorn skewer for a date. But that cafeteria meal was another story. He might genuinely need his stomach pumped when he got home.
They truly were not people from the same world. Their temperaments differed, their personalities differed, and their normal work and lifestyles could hardly have been farther apart. It simply could not… As Xue Qian walked out of the bureau, a trace of melancholy rose inside him. He had already prepared the words of rejection.
He climbed into Liang Youhui’s luxury car without hesitation and ordered him to park somewhere inconspicuous beside the small park on the next street.
Liang Youhui himself could smell the pickled stink of fermented tofu filling the car, but when he imagined that he might soon get to “eat Officer Xue’s tofu,” he decided he could hold his breath and endure tofu prepared in absolutely any flavor. Xue Qian sat in the passenger seat, the cold, strong line of his profile exceptionally handsome.
Elio’s Notes: 吃豆腐 literally means “eat tofu,” but it is also slang for taking flirtatious or sexual liberties with someone. Liang is therefore fantasizing about “eating Xue’s tofu” immediately after both of them have literally eaten very pungent tofu.
Between men, physical attraction naturally began with the face, chemistry, and body, whether the other person matched your preferences.
But more important than appearance was the fact that Liang Youhui, pampered since childhood and soft-hearted by nature, genuinely liked mature, muscular men whose personalities radiated security. That was why he had once been fascinated by Yan Xiaodao, and why he now sincerely adored Officer Xue.
Xue Qian rarely spoke with such calm warmth. Earnestly, he said, “Youhui, you came all this way. I appreciate the thought, but you should go home now.”
“My job keeps me extremely busy. I don’t have much time to look after friends around me. Sometimes I neglect people, and sometimes my temper is bad and I embarrass you. Don’t hold it against your ge. But you also shouldn’t keep wasting time coming after me.”
“So the two of us…” Xue Qian’s polite rejection had already reached his lips when he turned his head slightly and abruptly realized Liang Youhui’s face was almost brushing his eyelashes. Liang had not originally possessed the courage to play the role of a forceful kisser. After all, Officer Xue had police batons, handcuffs, whips, pepper spray, and more than enough equipment to beat an aspiring flower thief to death. But Xue Qian was speaking to him so unusually gently, and that straight nose, beautiful mouth, and chest outlined beneath his T-shirt were far too tempting. Without thinking, Liang followed the lingering smell of stinky tofu toward Xue Qian’s lips.
Xue Qian’s Adam’s apple moved. His eyes and hands were faster. Two fingers caught Liang by the throat and pushed the little wolfhound back into his seat. “Stop messing around!”
“Ge, I’m not messing around.” Liang Youhui suddenly withdrew from his usual shameless grin and revealed a completely serious expression. “I understand what you’re trying to say. You think I’m not sincere, and you don’t trust me. I’m twenty-six already. I want someone stable and dependable too. I won’t go fooling around outside anymore. Nothing like that mess last time will happen again!”
Young Master Liang was not stupid. He simply disliked playing elaborate schemes and mind games with other people. Refusing to manipulate people did not mean he lacked common sense.
Xue Qian was slightly speechless. You’re actually bringing up that mess again?
Another idea immediately occurred to Liang Youhui. He reached into the car’s storage compartment and pulled out the things he had specially brought, an entire pile of glossy gift boxes. Last time he had sent one. This time he had brought four, enough for a full mahjong kong.
Xue Qian did not know whether to laugh or cry. “What are you doing? Why did you buy me so many game consoles? I’m busy. I don’t have time to play with these!”
“This thing works better than a consecrated Guanyin pendant. It blocks bullets for you, ge!” Liang Youhui solemnly unwrapped the gifts one by one and began positioning them against Captain Xue’s body. “I’ll teach you. This one goes over the left side of your chest to protect your heart. These two go over your abdomen and protect your left and right kidneys. A man’s kidneys are extremely important… two kidney protectors!”
“One left.” Xue Qian fought desperately to keep a straight face. “Where exactly does Young Master plan to put that one?”
“Do you even need to ask? Which piece of meat on your body is most important, ge?” Liang Youhui picked up the final handheld console and hung it vertically at the center of Xue Qian’s waistband, where its shape fit surprisingly well. “This one protects your crotch! What if your crotch gets shot?!”
“You’re fucking insane!” Xue Qian sprayed a mouthful of stinky-tofu-scented saliva across Liang Youhui’s face. He knew perfectly well the brat was teasing him, but this time he genuinely broke into loud laughter.
He slapped Liang Youhui, but it was only a playful, feather-light smack. His fingers even brushed the other man’s chin without force. All the exhaustion and drowsiness clinging to him had been thoroughly stirred away by Young Master Liang.
“Aiyah!” Liang Youhui received the gentle slap like a reward. “Ge, I only gave you four stainless-steel ‘kidney protectors’ and we’re already making physical contact. If I’d known, I would’ve bought the entire company and had them armor these things with copper heads and iron arms until you were bulletproof. Then would you come home with me?”
“Get lost.” Xue Qian cursed him with a laugh, yet somehow the rejection he had prepared kept becoming vague and disappearing back down his throat. He was wavering. He found himself reluctant to refuse.
Liang Youhui shamelessly tried lifting Officer Xue’s T-shirt again, insisting on inspecting the results of his lifesaving gift. His refusal to give up won him the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visually molest Captain Xue’s eight-pack abs.
Xue Qian had to dodge repeatedly before finally shaking the giant “lapdog” off him.
Xue Qian understood himself. His work was practically warfare. He had lived under pressure for so long that tension had become normal. Everyone he dealt with, from supervisors to colleagues to suspects from every imaginable corner of society, was clever, complicated, and exhausting. He spent every day physically and mentally drained. What he lacked was exactly one uncomplicated source of happiness, a living clown like Liang Youhui, someone without schemes or hidden depths, someone he could talk to without making his brain spin, someone who simply made him feel relaxed and happy.
If Liang Youhui were not the son of one of the richest men alive, considering his looks, body, and personality… Xue Qian would have gone straight to a hotel with him already. He would not have minded seriously pursuing the man.
Unfortunately, Liang Youhui happened to be Liang Tong’s biological eldest son, the heir of the enormously wealthy Mr. Liang whose background and influence were anything but ordinary.
It would never last anyway, so better to crush the little sprout before it had the chance to grow. Feelings should not begin with two lonely men rolling into bed purely to satisfy physical needs, only to end amid chaos because their families were mismatched, their personalities incompatible, their parents objected, or a hundred other disasters exploded around them. There was no point. No need. It simply should not begin.