The atmosphere had reached this point.
Tan Xiao might have been clueless about romance, but he was excellent at reading the room. Alarm bells went off in his head. Something was very wrong.
There was definitely something strange about this atmosphere. Otherwise why would he suddenly remember the King of Advice’s crooked theory that one straight man and another straight man could date?
Was that right? No. Completely wrong.
Zhang Xingchuan had never imagined Tan Xiao truly had no romantic experience.
In his eyes, Tan Xiao had already reached the absolute peak of handsome and adorable, a darling of creation itself, so perfect that the entire world ought to want to kiss him. And somehow, before now, nobody had managed to date him first?
Was the kid really that hard to pursue?
Tan Xiao broke the silence. He had to. If this continued, something was going to happen.
As for what exactly might happen, he had not thought that far. In any case, emergency containment came first.
“Why did you stop talking?” Tan Xiao said. “Is a forever-single doctoral student really that rare?”
Zhang Xingchuan worked hard to control his expression. At a moment like this, it would be better not to look too openly delighted.
“Not rare. Perfectly normal,” he said. “You prioritized your studies. That’s a good thing.”
Tan Xiao continued internally persuading himself: See? Get those weird ideas out of your head.
Look how upright and straight Zhang Xingchuan is. He’s still finding gaps in the conversation to encourage academic achievement. He’s nothing like your unserious self.
Zhang Xingchuan walked onto the balcony too. Neither of them could quite look directly at the other anymore, so without discussing it they both turned toward the view, standing shoulder to shoulder and looking down at the campus they both knew so well. At night it was quieter, its lights glittering like stars.
“I didn’t date anyone when I was a student either,” Zhang Xingchuan said. “I don’t know Lovers’ Slope very well.”
What? That was different from what Tan Xiao had assumed.
“You mean you didn’t date anyone during undergrad?”
“No,” Zhang Xingchuan said. “No time. Endless assignments, endless projects.”
So the white moonlight senior was not a Qing University alumna.
Then the story must have happened in America.
“What about during graduate school in the U.S.?” Tan Xiao asked. “Surely you dated then?”
“No. I was even busier there.”
Computer Science was academically demanding, and Zhang Xingchuan was also someone who held himself to very high standards. His life plan had been clearer than most people’s even at that age. The moment he entered Qing University’s Computer Science program, he had already decided to pursue graduate study overseas. Once he went to America, he had already planned to return to China and start a company.
“Then… then…” Tan Xiao said.
Tan Xiao could not get beyond the word then. He desperately wanted to ask about Zhang Xingchuan’s romantic history, but felt that such questions might be inappropriate. He and Zhang Xingchuan were only ordinary friends. Would asking this cross a line?
If they truly were ordinary friends, a friendship this deep would make even more private questions perfectly reasonable.
But Tan Xiao was currently only at the preparatory stage of becoming a thief. He kept looking around guiltily, struggling to decide whether or not to steal. As a completely inexperienced little heart-thief, he was already feeling guilty before he had stolen anything at all. Of course he did not dare ask.
At that moment, Zhang Xingchuan remembered something he had nearly forgotten. “Later, when I was working in Silicon Valley, I did have a little more personal time.”
Tan Xiao had a premonition. Something had definitely happened during that “personal time.” Was this when the white moonlight senior finally appeared?
“Back then, I went on a few dates with a Chinese woman who also worked in Silicon Valley,” Zhang Xingchuan said.
Tan Xiao felt this was very likely the main character of the story. He held his breath and waited for Zhang Xingchuan to continue.
Then Zhang Xingchuan stopped. He glanced sideways at Tan Xiao. He could tell Tan Xiao was getting jealous again, and the feeling was honestly excellent.
Tan Xiao wanted to ask so badly he was practically giving himself internal injuries.
Zhang Xingchuan deliberately let the silence stretch for a while before asking, “Why aren’t you asking for details?”
Tan Xiao forcibly suppressed his curiosity. “Because you don’t look like you want to talk about it.”
Zhang Xingchuan turned slightly and looked at him with a smile. “You’ll get jealous over someone as irrelevant as Secretary Feng, but when it’s something actually worth being jealous about, suddenly you’re not jealous?”
Why was he bringing that up again? Hadn’t they agreed to pretend it never happened? Tan Xiao felt embarrassed. But by now he was half enlightened too, and he understood that getting jealous because Zhang Xingchuan was good to someone else really did resemble the sort of feeling people had toward romantic partners.
“This is different,” Tan Xiao said. “It’s not the same thing.”
“How is it different?”
“When you were dating someone in America,” Tan Xiao found a defensible reason, one he could also use to convince himself, “I didn’t even know you yet.”
Zhang Xingchuan corrected him. “We weren’t in a relationship. We were only going on dates.”
Tan Xiao did not care about semantic detours anymore. Get to the point. He was asking now. “So you went out a few times. How far did it go?”
Being questioned like this felt so satisfying that Zhang Xingchuan confessed everything in one shot. “Two or three times. Dinner, coffee, nothing else. Neither of us felt a spark.”
“You didn’t even hold hands?”
“If shaking hands goodbye counts, then yes.”
Just dinner and coffee could not possibly be enough for Zhang Xingchuan to remain hung up on a woman for years.
So after this woman, another woman must have appeared.
Tan Xiao was getting annoyed. How many sisters were there supposed to be?
A moment ago he had desperately wanted details. Now he wanted Zhang Xingchuan to stop talking. If they did not click, why did they still go out for meals and coffee? Was white-people food and American coffee even fit for human consumption? How badly did he want to meet that woman? And if this was how he parted from someone he did not even like, holding hands to say goodbye, then who knew how deeply entwined he had been with the true white moonlight afterward?
But Zhang Xingchuan had already finished recounting his remarkably barren romantic history.
After that he returned to China and started his company, which left even less time. Nor did he meet anyone who made him feel that not dating them was impossible.
Now, perhaps, he finally had.
For the last several days, he had still been hesitating over how to respond to Tan Xiao’s sudden confession.
Even before the confession, every time he met Tan Xiao, he felt happier than usual. After the confession, looking back over the details of their time together, perhaps he had already been moved countless times. He simply had never examined what the happiness meant because Tan Xiao was a man.
It was the body’s mysterious chemistry. When someone you liked drew close, it appeared again and again. Body and brain together reminding you: love has arrived.
But still.
For a person who had followed his plans at every step, suddenly deviating from the track and becoming gay was a fundamentally disruptive variable in Zhang Xingchuan’s life plan. He could not make such a decision lightly.
Besides, liking someone did not mean you had to possess them. Human desire was endless by nature and had to be restrained constantly.
Then, that evening, he had seen the Xiaohongshu post shared in his classmates’ group.
It took less than half an hour for his thinking to become: whoever wants restraint can have it. He was not restraining a damn thing.
If he did not claim Tan Xiao, somebody else would. Gay men in relationships kissed and had sex. If Zhang Xingchuan asked himself honestly, he could not accept Tan Xiao doing either of those things with some unknown man.
That was reality. If he did not want him, Tan Xiao would be handed to someone else for free. Why should that happen? Tan Xiao should obviously be his.
The president wanted him. Therefore the president would get him. As for the life plan, rewriting one was not that difficult.
Zhang Xingchuan and Tan Xiao were actually very similar in this respect. Both possessed an enormous sense that they deserved the best. If they did not want something badly enough, fine. But once they truly wanted it, they wanted the version that satisfied them most.
Tan Xiao, meanwhile, was uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable.
King Chen had truly enlightened him. Without realizing it, he had begun positioning Zhang Xingchuan as a possible romantic partner. The thought of a younger Zhang Xingchuan holding and embracing some beautiful woman, sparks flying, made his entire body itch with irritation.
Did men in love absolutely have to do all those things?
Zhang Xingchuan was thinking about how to begin pursuing Tan Xiao when he noticed Tan Xiao’s strange expression.
“Did you just glare at me?”
“No,” Tan Xiao said.
Right now Zhang Xingchuan looked to him like one of those cocoa-dusted “dirty buns”: still fragrant, sweet, and delicious, just a little grubby.
Zhang Xingchuan laughed. “Did I offend you? You keep provoking me with your eyes.”
“No.” Tan Xiao said, “I’m just jealous that you’ve dated pretty women.”
Zhang Xingchuan assumed he meant the woman he had briefly gone on dates with. “So you’re allowed to cosplay as a couple with another guy on Lovers’ Slope, but I’m not allowed a few coffee dates in the past? Don’t be too hypocritical.”
“I told you, we were just messing around.”
“I only saw the post today,” Zhang Xingchuan said. “I really thought you had a partner at school.”
He emphasized the word also. Tan Xiao had already openly admitted getting jealous over Zhang Xingchuan, so if Tan Xiao still had unfinished romantic entanglements on campus, that obviously would not do. No multi-person romance. If they were going to date, it would be two people devoted purely to each other.
Tan Xiao missed the implication. “I already told you he has a girlfriend.”
“I’d still be jealous,” Zhang Xingchuan said.
“I already told you… Huh?”
Tan Xiao turned sharply. His large eyes opened perfectly round, his face full of shock.
Zhang Xingchuan looked straight back at him and repeated, “Don’t get too intimate with other guys. I’ll be jealous. Girls too.”
“…”
Tan Xiao froze for a long time. What, had the capybara actually transformed into a domineering CEO? Where had his enormous emotionally stable capybara gone?
Once his mind restarted, his first instinct was to flee the balcony immediately.
He had not sorted out his thoughts properly yet. Zero romantic experience limited the upper ceiling of his understanding in this area.
But his basic judgment still worked. The jealous Zhang Xingchuan had just used and the jealous Tan Xiao himself had used last week were definitely not the same word.
“Where are you going?” Zhang Xingchuan asked from the balcony.
Tan Xiao grabbed at the first excuse available. “I need water.”
Zhang Xingchuan followed him inside. Tan Xiao went to the desk and busied himself pretending to pour water, even politely asking, “Do you want some? Spring is very dry.”
“No, thank you.”
Tan Xiao poured himself a glass and drank two mouthfuls. When he lifted his head, he saw his reflection in the window glass. His face was terrifyingly red.
Zhang Xingchuan noticed too. Twice in one day he had now seen Tan Xiao blush. The first time was in the Xiaohongshu photo. Before today, he had never realized Tan Xiao blushed this easily.
A guess formed in Zhang Xingchuan’s mind. “What were you talking about with that classmate when those photos were taken? You looked like you were having fun.”
How was Tan Xiao supposed to answer? We were discussing how I, a straight man, and you, another straight man, have apparently been dating this whole time?
Of course he could not tell the truth. His brain buzzed. Normally he could always come up with a socially elegant line to close down a question. Now all he could think about was Zhang Xingchuan’s two declarations about jealousy.
There was a reason domineering CEOs had a market. This really did feel different.
“We didn’t talk about anything,” Tan Xiao said. His heart was racing, and temporarily overwhelmed by Domineering-CEO Zhang Xingchuan, he could not manage a high-EQ answer. He stupidly added, “I forgot.”
Then you were talking about me, Zhang Xingchuan thought, delighted. Both times Tan Xiao had blushed today were because of him. Both times.
Zhang Xingchuan was thirsty too. After thinking for a moment, he took the mug Tan Xiao was still holding and drank from it himself.
Tan Xiao nearly started smoking from the top of his head. “Why are you using my cup?”
“I used this side,” Zhang Xingchuan said.
He even turned the place he had drunk from toward Tan Xiao to show him.
Tan Xiao was so dizzy that he had already forgotten which side he himself had used. Now his face was not the only thing heating up. His lips felt hot too, and he pressed them together hard.
Lips were different from cheeks. When you got embarrassed your face turned red, but your mouth did not visibly change. Pressing his lips together like this was practically writing THERE IS DEFINITELY SOMETHING HERE in enormous characters. It openly told Zhang Xingchuan that this trivial little trick had worked on him.
Zhang Xingchuan thought: He’s not hard to pursue at all. What kind of idiots were the people who tried before?