In the front passenger seat, Jiaxin was nodding off like a pecking chick. One particularly hard nod snapped her awake. By professional instinct, the first thing she did was check the rear-view mirror to see what her boss was doing.
Zhang Xingchuan still held the same posture he had used while reading financial news, eyes on his phone, but his brows were lightly drawn together.
The president rarely frowned. He liked to smile. When he first started mentoring Jiaxin, he had even encouraged her to learn to face the world with a relaxed expression. Difficulties would never disappear, but every problem had some solution.
So much for the relaxed expression. What problem had he run into that could not be solved for the moment?
Was the Cyberspace Administration about to issue another new regulation? Jiaxin could not think of anything else recently capable of making the president frown.
The president himself, however, was much more imaginative than Jiaxin.
Inside his head, he was currently filling in the missing scenes between the two Lovers’ Slope photographs. The more complete the imagined sequence became, the more irritated he felt.
Tan Xiao himself did not care much about the Lovers’ Slope misunderstanding.
He replied one by one to the classmates who had kindly forwarded the post. Chen Shu was merely an undergraduate friend he had met recently. They had only been fooling around. The photo angle had created a misunderstanding. There was no need for his friends to privately message the blogger and ask for deletion. The whole thing did not affect him, so everyone could stop worrying about it.
He could play with just about anyone and planted rows of little friendship saplings wherever he went. In romance, however, he did not even have a seedling.
His classmates had only stumbled across the post and come to tease him. Hardly anyone truly believed he had suddenly acquired a “boyfriend.” Everyone knew Tan Xiao was brilliant at everything except romance, where he had yet to unlock basic understanding.
There were too many messages. By the time he had replied across more than a dozen chat windows, several friends had also taken the opportunity to chat about unrelated things. An hour passed before it all finally ended. Tan Xiao’s social battery temporarily ran dry. He dropped forward onto his desk and let his brain empty out.
Meanwhile, the other person involved, Chen Shu, finally heard about the post half a beat late and messaged Tan Xiao on WeChat.
Chen Shu: Who said there were no gays? Turns out you and I are both gay!
Still sprawled over his desk, Tan Xiao laughed weakly.
He could not be bothered having another serious conversation with Chen Shu about this nonsense. He only replied with an exhausted dog reaction sticker.
Chen Shu: My wife just said you and I actually look really compatible.
Tan Xiao surrendered. This couple were truly made for each other. Even their brain circuits matched. If anyone deserved a wish for love that lasted, it was those two.
He sincerely sent them his blessing and flipped his phone face-down on the desk.
The phone chimed twice more.
Assuming Chen Shu was still saying bizarre things, Tan Xiao did not pick it up. He did not want more psychic pollution.
From where he was lying, his gaze happened to fall on the clothes rack in the corner. The jacket Zhang Xingchuan had given him was hanging there.
Tan Xiao stared at it and unconsciously drifted into thought.
He did not really have any other thoughts. He just missed Zhang Xingchuan a little.
And the more he thought, the sadder he became. But what exactly this sadness was, and why he felt it, even he could not explain.
The phone chimed again.
It would be rude to ignore King Chen forever, so Tan Xiao finally turned the screen over, planning to cooperate and say a few absurd things back.
But it was not the king. Tan Xiao shot upright.
Zhang Xingchuan, who had not initiated contact in several days, had sent three messages in a row.
The first two were from a few minutes earlier and had arrived consecutively.
Zhang Xingchuan: [screenshot]
Zhang Xingchuan: Who is the guy playing with you?
The screenshot was the first Lovers’ Slope photo from that Xiaohongshu post.
The most recent notification, just now, was a third message.
Zhang Xingchuan: I’m asking too much. Sorry.
A few minutes earlier, Jiaxin had reached home first. Before getting out of the car, she had worriedly asked the president, “Nothing happened, right?”
“Nothing,” Zhang Xingchuan said. “Go home and get some proper rest. See you tomorrow.”
The driver pulled the car back onto the road. Zhang Xingchuan distractedly refreshed WeChat.
All that had happened was that Tan Xiao had not immediately replied, yet Zhang Xingchuan had already started doubting himself. Had the question been inappropriate?
Was this his place to ask? Did he have the right? Was it any of his business?
If Tan Xiao was not answering, either the blogger’s description was accurate, or Tan Xiao simply did not want to explain his private life to an outsider.
Possibly both.
Zhang Xingchuan remembered the snap beside his ear that night.
Tan Xiao had told him to treat it as though nothing had happened. He had genuinely decided to turn the page. Whoever Tan Xiao grew close to next, what business was it of his, a washed-up “big brother”?
So Zhang Xingchuan sent another apologetic message. Forget it. If Tan Xiao did not want to answer, then forget it. He should never have asked.
He had just placed his phone onto the wireless charging pad on the center armrest when…
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding… Notifications sounded one after another without stopping.
For a moment Zhang Xingchuan almost thought the charging pad was malfunctioning.
A flood of messages from Tan Xiao was attacking the president.
Tan Xiao: He’s just an ordinary classmate, an Architecture undergrad.
Tan Xiao: He was on Lovers’ Slope with his girlfriend. She had just left at the time.
Tan Xiao: I was only passing by and chatted with him for a few minutes.
Tan Xiao: He talks so ridiculously that I seriously suspect his brain isn’t even the size of a broad bean.
Tan Xiao: I jokingly questioned how he ever got into Qing University.
Tan Xiao: Turns out that broad-bean brat got in without even taking the entrance exam! Scared me half to death!
Tan Xiao: So I fainted on the spot.
Tan Xiao: Then he started fooling around with me.
Tan Xiao: The first photo in the post is him acting annoying and pretending to give me CPR.
Tan Xiao: The second is after I got grossed out and kicked him over.
Tan Xiao: Then we traded some trash talk and I left. I had no idea anyone was taking pictures.
Tan Xiao: That tourist secretly photographed me, fine, but why did they have to take it out of context too?
Tan Xiao: How could that abstract-art master from Architecture and I possibly be a couple?
Tan Xiao: His actual CP is studying Computer Science next door.
Tan Xiao: Brother, I have been terribly wronged.
Tan Xiao: I’m going to tattoo the character for ‘injustice’ on my face.
The messages appeared so fast Zhang Xingchuan could barely keep up. He read slower than Tan Xiao typed.
After finishing the entire explanation, Tan Xiao added: I didn’t see your messages just now. I wasn’t deliberately ignoring you.
Zhang Xingchuan finally caught up.
There had been so much information that his remaining mental bandwidth could only produce one question.
Zhang Xingchuan: How do you type this fast on a phone too?
Tan Xiao: Brother, because I’m young.
Zhang Xingchuan had nothing. There was simply no response to that.
Tan Xiao could imagine Zhang Xingchuan’s expression on the other side. He was probably both amused and helpless, one of Tan Xiao’s favorite Zhang Xingchuan expressions. One of them.
Tan Xiao: Where are you? Busy?
Zhang Xingchuan: Just got back from Tianjin. Haven’t reached home yet.
That should mean he was free, right?
Tan Xiao: I’m not busy either. I’m lying in my dorm playing on my phone.
If Zhang Xingchuan said he was free, Tan Xiao was prepared to leave immediately and go find him.
Zhang Xingchuan: Then get some rest.
Tan Xiao had been full of anticipation. The reply was like a bucket of cold water dumped over his head. Suddenly he did not want to talk to CEO guy anymore either. Inside his mind, he silently pulled out the evaluation form and began deducting points.
Tan Xiao: bye.
He tossed the phone aside and took the sports clothes he had changed out of after his afternoon run down to wash.
In the laundry room, he ran into someone he knew. The guy was in a different program but also a third-year doctoral student, currently so worried about graduation that his face had turned green and he had even begun losing hair.
Tan Xiao’s situation had not reached that level. His empathy transformed into sympathy. Caring for balding doctoral students was everyone’s responsibility.
They talked a little too long. The washing machine even completed a quick cycle. Tan Xiao took out his clean clothes and said goodbye to the near-graduate doctoral student.
Because Tan Xiao had gone too hard on the emotional encouragement during their conversation, the man’s eyes were red by the end. He even hugged Tan Xiao hard and shook his shoulders like a teenager in an anime. “Tan Xiao! We have to graduate successfully! We absolutely have to graduate!”
Tan Xiao was shaken dizzy. Carrying the washed clothes upstairs, he privately decided that the next time he fed someone motivational chicken soup, he needed to control the dose. Absolutely no more maximum-strength servings.
Usually when taking laundry downstairs, there was no need to wait beside the machine. You set an alarm and came back when it was done, so people were only away briefly. Everyone in the building was also a familiar classmate. Tan Xiao had therefore left without locking his dorm door.
But he clearly remembered switching off the light and pulling the door shut. Now, as he approached, he saw the door standing open and the light on.
Had someone come looking for him?
He reached the doorway. Sure enough, someone was standing inside, bent slightly over the low bookshelf, looking at what books he had there.
Tan Xiao looked left and right to confirm that yes, he was standing in the hallway of the doctoral dormitory. Then he looked into the room to confirm that yes, this was his dorm.
So why was Zhang Xingchuan standing inside it?
“Hey.” Tan Xiao desperately wanted to smile but forced his face straight and demanded, “Who are you? Just because you’re handsome, you think you can break into my house?”
Zhang Xingchuan turned around and straightened.
The moment their eyes met, Tan Xiao almost lost the act. He wanted to run over and bear-hug Zhang Xingchuan. He also wanted to cheer.
But that would be too rude.
“First of all, my name is not ‘Hey,’” Zhang Xingchuan said.
Tan Xiao could no longer hold it and burst out laughing.
Zhang Xingchuan laughed too. Then he noticed the laundry basket in Tan Xiao’s hand. “So you went to do laundry. I knocked for ten minutes. I thought you had headphones on and couldn’t hear me. Standing in the hallway was attracting attention, so I took the liberty of trying the door and came in.”
Tan Xiao casually set the laundry basket on an empty storage cabinet by the door. Then he swept his gaze through the room, urgently checking whether he had left any trash or dirty things lying around. Fortunately, he had not.
His room was very clean, much cleaner than the stereotypical men’s dorm. There was no weird dorm smell either, only a faint citrus fragrance. No diffuser was visible anywhere, so it was probably from the shower gel he used regularly.
Zhang Xingchuan had not touched anything. His eyes, however, had already inspected everything in sight.
“How did you even get in here?” Tan Xiao was still curious. “Can tourists make last-minute campus reservations at night now?”
Zhang Xingchuan laughed. “Did you forget this is my alma mater too? I have an alumni card. I’m not a tourist.”
Tan Xiao genuinely had forgotten. “Then how did you know which building and which room I live in?”
Zhang Xingchuan said, “Have you considered the possibility that I possess a mouth?”
So he had asked around until he found this place?
Tan Xiao started laughing again. In his imagination, a chibi Zhang Xingchuan walked across campus holding Tan Xiao’s photo, asking everyone he met: Excuse me, do you know this person? Excuse me, have you seen this person?
After crossing mountains and rivers and surviving countless hardships, little Zhang Xingchuan finally discovered his dorm.
In reality, Zhang Xingchuan had simply called a professor he knew and asked which building housed third-year Finance doctoral students.
Once inside the building, WenCheng’s Zhang Xingchuan only had to stop a passing student and ask where to find Tan Xiao. His face was recognition enough.
“Please sit, please sit.” Tan Xiao said. “I’ll hang these clothes first.”
He picked up the laundry basket and headed to the balcony. The moment he stepped through the balcony door, he remembered he had forgotten the hangers and started to turn back. Zhang Xingchuan had already picked them up and walked over, handing them to him at the doorway.
As Tan Xiao hung up the clothes, Zhang Xingchuan stood nearby watching him. Tan Xiao looked freshly showered, and there was only one set of sports clothes in the laundry basket. “Did you go do something athletic again today?” Zhang Xingchuan asked.
“Went for a run on the main track.”
Zhang Xingchuan thought about it and reconstructed the facts. “So after your run, you passed Lovers’ Slope and got photographed?”
“I just found an empty patch of grass and sat down. I honestly didn’t notice it was Lovers’ Slope.” Tan Xiao said. “Why are you still talking about this?”
“I’m not trying to talk about that,” Zhang Xingchuan said. “I’m asking because you seem strangely unfamiliar with campus. You’ve been at this school almost eight years. You’ve never gone on a date with anyone at Lovers’ Slope?”
Tan Xiao gave him an odd look. “No. I’m the King of Eternal Singledom, Doctoral Edition. What about it?”
He had finished hanging the few pieces of clothing. He remained standing there. Zhang Xingchuan was still beside the balcony door.
For a moment, both fell silent at the same time.