After dropping the young master at university that morning, Zhang Xingchuan returned to WenCheng to resume his duties as a highly paid corporate workhorse.
Everything proceeded as usual. The only difference was that his mind occasionally wandered.
Born in 1990, Zhang Xingchuan had lived through the country’s great years of economic expansion. When he was a teenager, stories about domineering CEOs falling in love with Cinderella were everywhere in popular culture. Back then, such stories didn’t have to disguise their core premise beneath layers of fashionable new values, insisting that nobody should admire wealth or be attracted to power until both the protagonists and their stories lost their authentic desires and their voice.
Yet the genuine Cinderella stories of that era had never really been about worshipping money or strength. A protagonist who represented truth, goodness, and beauty deserved the finest partner, the finest life, and the most complete happiness imaginable.
There was no need to hide that wish. In an age of vigorous development, it expressed the simplest hopes and most sincere desires of ordinary people. It wasn’t merely a Mary Sue fantasy. At its heart lay the yearning for a better life, a spirit of the times in which ordinary people like you and me could also live brilliantly.
That spirit had always shaped Zhang Xingchuan’s imagination of life and love.
Riding the great wave of opportunity and contributing some personal effort, he had grown into a domineering CEO, at least in name. He had hoped to become the other protagonist, the one who could bring happiness and help the leading character achieve their dreams.
All this time, he had been waiting for his destined protagonist to appear.
Fortunately, although the world had changed somewhat, he was still of prime CEO age when the person he had been waiting for finally arrived.
He’d imagined it would play out like the stories of his youth. He would give Tan Xiao the best love, the best life, and help someone already so remarkable build an even more extraordinary future.
So why was reality following an entirely different script?
For a small-business owner whose total fortune was only in the nine-figure-yuan A9 bracket, falling in love for the first time with the heir of one of the world’s richest families was almost too fantastic to comprehend.
Fortunately, Zhang Xingchuan was certain of one thing: he and Tan Xiao loved each other sincerely. That was the most important thing. Everything else came second or third.
Which brought him to the second matter. Tan Xiao was about to graduate. Would his family require him to take a position in the shipping business? Its principal mainland-China operations were based in Shanghai, with branches in Guangzhou, Ningbo, and other major ports. If Tan Xiao went to one of those cities, they’d soon be living apart.
Zhang Xingchuan remained fairly confident. The facts were obvious: the young master had him thoroughly captivated, and he had the young master just as thoroughly captivated in return.
Neither could bear to be apart. Besides, Tan Xiao hated having a job. The probability that he would abandon Zhang Xingchuan and move south was approaching zero.
Third, Zhang still needed to adjust his own attitude.
A partner who was a poor student and a partner who was an aristocratic heir could not possibly leave him feeling exactly the same. And it forced him to confront an uncomfortable truth. His affection for Tan Xiao had always been entirely genuine; he’d doted on him and wanted to give him everything.
But instinctive male possessiveness and ingrained assumptions had gradually led him to think of Tan Xiao as something that belonged to him.
Was that right? Of course not. No living, independent person belonged to anyone else. Tan Xiao belonged to himself.
He was Zhang Xingchuan’s lover, not Zhang Xingchuan’s property.
After running into Vice President Sun, Tan Xiao deliberately lingered in the garage to avoid meeting other employees. By the time he went upstairs, most of the President’s Office staff had left.
With his hands clasped behind his back and a bounce in his step, the tall, happy Tan Xiao resembled a giant rabbit. Through the glass partition, Zhang Xingchuan watched that huge rabbit bound toward his office door.
“Finished?” Tan Xiao pushed the door open without knocking. “I’ve come to fetch you. Let’s go.”
Zhang got up, took only his phone, and allowed the boy to carry him off.
Naturally, Zhang noticed Tan Xiao’s magnificent car. Tan Xiao was struggling not to laugh, while Zhang pretended not to feel awkward. What nonsense about buying my boyfriend some cheap, million-yuan car? Never happened.
The Bentley really was beautiful, its character a perfect match for Tan Xiao: sumptuous yet graceful.
On the way home, Tan Xiao mentioned that Zhou Ruofei would arrive in China within the next two days. He also explained their relationship. They’d known each other since childhood, real older-brother-next-door territory.
Zhang had met Zhou and already understood his earlier mistake, but he was still a little dubious about Zhou’s sexuality. The young master of the Zhou family simply didn’t look straight.
“Then you’ve misjudged him,” Tan Xiao explained. “He’s been in love with my sister for years.”
Zhou was two years younger than Zhang Xingchuan. He’d never dated or been engaged, and he’d been devoted to Tan Yun since secondary school. Unfortunately, she didn’t see him that way at all.
“What flight is he on? Do we need to arrange a pickup?” Zhang asked.
“Don’t worry about him. He has his own private plane. He’ll probably be here by the day after tomorrow at the latest.”
Sitting in the passenger seat of the luxury car, Zhang Xingchuan became as silent as the night outside.
“If you feel the need to denounce it, go ahead,” Tan Xiao said. “This decadent bourgeois way of life should’ve disappeared ages ago. I don’t mind. I criticize them all the time myself.”
Zhang assumed Tan Xiao’s family traveled the same way. “Do you have a private plane here in China too?”
“No. When I used to go back to Europe, I’d contact the family in advance and they’d arrange for one to collect me.”
“… There are so many people in your family. Can the planes keep up? They must need several. Are there enough pilots?”
Tan Xiao thought about it. He genuinely didn’t know the current details. “I’m not sure how things work these days. They used to have two medium-sized fleets of business jets. They were pretty busy.”
Zhang Xingchuan couldn’t even begin to criticize. This was beyond the range of anything he knew how to denounce.
Back at home that evening, they fooled around again. Since they’d done rather a lot the previous night, they decided not to go all the way. No sense exhausting their resources.
Zhang was washing his hands at the bathroom sink while Tan Xiao lay lazily in bed. From that angle he had a perfect view of his husband’s back. If Zhang starred in a tokusatsu superhero show and wore a skin-tight costume, he’d be devastatingly sexy. From the shoulders all the way down to his calves, those lines were exquisite.
Zhang Xingchuan thought his own physique was nothing special. He preferred Tan Xiao’s.
Tan Xiao’s proportions showed traces of his father’s side of the family. He had long limbs, especially his legs, and elegant, elongated calves like a beautiful boy in a comic. He was leanly muscular, with pale, exceptionally smooth skin. When they were intimate, Zhang often felt as though he were trying to hold on to some creature out of mythology. More than once, he’d reached for him and failed to get a proper grip at first.
Zhang came out of the bathroom, gathered Tan Xiao into his arms, and prepared to sleep.
A minute later, Tan Xiao asked, “Maybe we should do it after all. Aren’t you uncomfortable?”
“No. I don’t want to wear you out.”
And with reason. Tan Xiao still couldn’t even ride his bicycle comfortably.
“Has that pretend brother-in-law of yours boarded his plane?” Zhang asked.
“I’m sleeping with you, and you’re thinking about another man?”
“Forget I asked.”
But he was thinking about him. This pretend brother-in-law was close to Tan Xiao, and no one knew how he intended to interfere when he arrived. A nuisance.
“He’s easy to handle,” Tan Xiao said. “Really easygoing. He’s always been good to me. Don’t worry. I’ll sweet-talk him for a bit and he’ll settle down.”
So anyone who’s good to you is easy to coax, Zhang thought. Before we started dating, you probably coaxed me exactly the same way. Maybe you still do.
“He said today that he’s going to give me a graduation present,” Tan Xiao continued. “He’s been arranging it for six months.”
“What is it?”
“An island in the Pacific.”
“… That’s hardly impressive. I can build you an island in Animal Crossing.”
Tan Xiao burrowed into his embrace and laughed. Naturally, he started coaxing him. “All the things they play with are so pointless. I really don’t care about them. Spending time with you is much more fun.”
“Did you play with those things when you were little?”
“No. I had lessons whenever I went back. This subject, that subject. Sometimes I’d go out and play with them, but I never liked them. We weren’t the same kind of people.”
“Then what kind of people do you like?”
“I like China. The happiest time every year was when school was about to start and I could come back. I missed my teachers and classmates so much.”
After a hesitation, Zhang asked, “Was there never a girl in your class you liked?”
That required an immediate answer. “No. Never.”
“Not even a particular person. Did you have a type you could imagine being attracted to?”
That was harder for Tan Xiao to answer. His own feelings about such matters had always been vague.
“What sort of older woman is your type?” he asked instead.
Zhang wasn’t much clearer about it, or he wouldn’t have remained single until now.
“I used to imagine the partner I might end up with,” Zhang said. “Probably someone tall, who likes smiling and talking with me.”
“You’re describing me.”
Zhang thought it over. “No, that’s not quite right. I prefer someone a little tongue-tied, with lower emotional intelligence. Someone who can only say pretty things to make people happy? That won’t do.”
Tan Xiao suddenly thought of something. Laughing harder with each word, he managed, “Then your ideal type… isn’t that… isn’t that Vice President Sun?”
Zhang nearly spluttered. “Don’t say things like that! How am I supposed to work with him now?”
Tan Xiao rolled around in his arms, tormenting him, until Zhang pinned him down. It might have looked like a forceful kiss, but they were equally enthusiastic.
“Seriously, isn’t this a bit much?” Tan Xiao asked. “Can you even fall asleep like that?”
Zhang’s face was flushed. He was very close to losing control.
Tan Xiao made a suggestion. Zhang was shocked.
Tan Xiao pushed him back against the headboard, made him sit there, and put his suggestion into practice.
It was no exaggeration to say that Zhang Xingchuan couldn’t describe how good it felt.
He’d tried doing something similar for Tan Xiao once. Tan Xiao had reacted so strongly that it was practically over before it began, and had nearly passed out. It took him a long time to recover. Zhang hadn’t dared overwhelm him like that again.
It really was intense.
Tan Xiao went to the bathroom. When he returned, Zhang was still staring into space, his chest rising and falling slightly. Ridiculously sexy.
Having managed to reduce his husband to this state, Tan Xiao was immensely proud of himself. He bounded onto the bed, embraced Zhang, and asked eagerly, “Did you like it? Did you? Did you?”
Zhang said nothing. Tan Xiao leaned in to kiss him. His mouth was cool after rinsing, while Zhang’s lips and tongue were warm. They kissed fiercely enough that Tan Xiao felt his mouth had been [bleeped] all over again.
Two days later, at the gate of Qing University.
Zhou Ruofei was a spectacular beauty. Standing at the school gate, he drew plenty of attention. Onlookers assumed he was some good-looking internet celebrity there to take pictures, except the supposed influencer hadn’t booked a visit and insisted on getting inside anyway. Students and tourists gathered to watch.
Tan Xiao could finally ride his bicycle again. He sped to the gate on his beloved bike, apologized repeatedly to everyone around, and hauled that beautiful, ill-mannered man away.