Dizziness came quickly, starting from the moment Shan Yu approached rapidly and his eyes couldn’t focus.
It gradually spread as the point of contact on his lips slowly grew.
A buzzing sound, a mix of high and low frequencies, rang in his ears, like the chaotic and grand background music to his current state of helplessness and excitement.
Everywhere the scalding breath touched felt like it was set on fire, burning from his lips to his ears, to the side of his neck… burning so much that it became difficult to breathe.
It was a bit like a dream whose details he couldn’t recall, a comfortable feeling lingering in a half-asleep, half-awake state.
But it wasn’t entirely like that; there was also more out-of-control euphoria and joy.
His vision burned blurry, unclear, a field of mixed-color static jumping, with flashes of white light occasionally. In the disorder, he carefully explored, touched, drew closer, intertwined…
Only when the scorching air around them gradually dissipated did Chen Jian, in his slowly returning normal body temperature, find his breath again.
And his vision.
…His breathing was still a bit unsteady.
His vision had also declined.
It felt like the kiss had given him astigmatism.
He stared at Shan Yu for a good while before the double images around his face disappeared.
The smile on his lips also became clearer.
“What?” Shan Yu asked, watching him with his elbows propped on his knees, lightly brushing his knuckle against the corner of his mouth.
This lip-related gesture instantly threw him into confusion again. He turned his head and reached for the coffee table.
He didn’t even know what he wanted to grab.
But his butt, which was only half-seated on the sofa, slipped due to this flustered movement.
He slid off the sofa and knelt in front of the coffee table.
“Maybe you should face me,” Shan Yu said. “Over there, it’s uncertain who you’d be kneeling to.”
Chen Jian didn’t speak, quickly propping himself up on the sofa to sit back down.
Too embarrassed to look at Shan Yu, he leaned back on the sofa and stared blankly for a moment before starting to laugh.
“Want some water?” Shan Yu reached out and gently hooked a finger under his chin.
“Mhm,” Chen Jian nodded.
“Go get it,” Shan Yu said.
“Damn,” Chen Jian said, laughing as he turned to look at him.
“I’m injured,” Shan Yu said, holding up his hand.
“I…” Chen Jian hesitated, staying put. “Let me recover for a bit first.”
“Mhm,” Shan Yu smiled and also leaned back into the sofa.
Chen Jian glanced at him. Shan Yu had one leg crossed over his knee, so he couldn’t tell anything.
He also lifted his leg and crossed it over his knee.
“It’s all the same,” Shan Yu said. “If it weren’t, one of us would definitely be abnormal.”
“You…” Chen Jian felt his ears were about to burn off in an instant. “I’ll go get some water.”
“See if there’s any Coke in the fridge,” Shan Yu said. “I want to drink Coke.”
“Mhm,” Chen Jian responded.
But he didn’t move.
After another moment, he finally got up and walked towards the fridge.
There was Coke. He took it out, opened it, poured it into a glass, and then poured a glass of water for himself.
He tilted his head back and chugged a glass of water, then filled another one before returning to the sofa and sitting down.
Shan Yu was already lying on the sofa. Maybe the kiss… had tired him out. He looked a bit weary now.
“Want to go to your room to sleep?” Chen Jian asked, placing the Coke on the coffee table.
“I definitely wouldn’t be able to sleep,” Shan Yu took the Coke, had a sip, and beckoned to Chen Jian. “Come over and chat for a while.”
“Go where?” Chen Jian looked around. There was only so much space on the sofa. Besides the spot next to Shan Yu’s legs, there was nowhere else for him to go.
“Next to my head, closer,” Shan Yu said. “Otherwise, I’ll just detach my head and put it over there.”
Chen Jian was a bit speechless. He finally got up, walked over to Shan Yu’s head, and sat down on the carpet in front of the sofa, leaning against it.
Shan Yu’s hand came over and rested on his shoulder, his fingertips gently pressing the side of his neck, then tapping lightly, rhythmically.
“Counting my pulse?” Chen Jian asked.
“Mhm,” Shan Yu smiled. “It helps with sleep.”
“I’m not, so whose are you counting?” Chen Jian asked.
“My own,” Shan Yu said.
Chen Jian held his wrist, his fingertips resting on his pulse.
He could feel the gentle beat under the skin, but he couldn’t count it. He lost track before he even reached twenty.
“Does it really work?” Chen Jian asked.
“Sometimes it works,” Shan Yu said. “Most of the time it doesn’t, but it helps quiet my mind a bit.”
“Where did you learn that?” Chen Jian turned his head to look at him.
“I used to do this when I couldn’t sleep as a child,” Shan Yu said. “When my first aunt took me to see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, the doctor took my pulse, and I felt very at ease.”
“So you started taking your own pulse after that?” Chen Jian said.
“Mhm,” Shan Yu nodded.
Chen Jian didn’t speak. He lowered his head and pressed his lips to Shan Yu’s wrist. He could feel the pulse there too, even more clearly than with his fingers.
It did bring a sudden sense of tranquility.
It made him suddenly recall the countless nights he had spent alone.
Shan Yu was really smart. At least, he had never thought of comforting himself this way.
“You said your siblings and cousins are all outstanding, like Liu Wu,” Chen Jian said, placing Shan Yu’s hand on his own knee and moving the bracelet on his wrist aside. He rested his head on it, looking at Shan Yu.
“Mhm,” Shan Yu looked back at him.
“Liu Wu…” Chen Jian hesitated. “He’s just so-so. Getting into a top-tier university isn’t that amazing, and sometimes his brain is like he’s chewed too many digestive tablets.”
Shan Yu was silent for a few seconds, then started laughing. “Are you trying to comfort me?”
“Mhm,” Chen Jian responded. “Although I shouldn’t praise you by putting down Liu Wu, but… he’s not here anyway.”
“He actually could have scored higher. His family wanted him to repeat the year, but he wasn’t willing,” Shan Yu said, then clicked his tongue. “Two high school students, quite daring in private with what they say.”
“You say plenty in public too,” Chen Jian said.
Shan Yu paused, then laughed so hard his hand trembled. “You didn’t drink today, did you?”
“I’m dizzier than if I had been drinking,” Chen Jian smiled.
“Are you sleepy?” Shan Yu asked.
“I’m okay,” Chen Jian said.
“Want to see the photos?” Shan Yu asked again. “Yue Lang sent them to my phone.”
“Where’s your phone?” Chen Jian didn’t move, still resting his head on Shan Yu’s hand. He just looked around, and his peripheral vision caught Shan Yu’s phone on the coffee table. He reached out and grabbed it.
He held it in front of Shan Yu to unlock it.
“I saved them all in the album,” Shan Yu said, raising his hand to tap the screen.
“Let me see,” Chen Jian immediately turned the phone towards himself. Before opening the album, he glanced at him again. “Can I look?”
“Are you hoping to see the carpet photo?” Shan Yu’s lips curled into a smirk.
Chen Jian clicked his tongue.
“Go ahead, just don’t delete anything,” Shan Yu said.
Chen Jian opened the album. The first ones were the photos sent by Yue Lang. The colors and lighting had a high-quality texture even in the thumbnails. Chen Jian didn’t bother looking at them and scrolled down first.
A large swath of his face in various forms appeared on the screen.
“What the hell…” he said, scrolling down in utter shock. “How many did you take! Are you sick…”
“A little bit,” Shan Yu said. “Otherwise, why would I be taking medicine?”
Chen Jian glanced at him.
Scrolling further down, he saw a few other photos of himself: at the station, getting his hair permed… He glanced at Shan Yu again.
“What?” Shan Yu raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing,” Chen Jian smiled. Further down, there weren’t many seriously taken photos. Many were of the renovation process of Dayin, and some landscape photos of the mountains and streams.
It seemed the boss hadn’t completely ignored things during the grand reopening. He had even taken some pictures.
“I didn’t save the old photos to the new phone,” Shan Yu said. “If you want to see them, they’re in the cloud album.”
“Let’s look at the new ones first,” Chen Jian scrolled back up to the photos saved today.
Yao Yi was quite a professional photographer. When he opened the first one, Chen Jian felt like he was looking at a fashion magazine.
The one where he and Shan Yu turned their heads at the same time. Although the whole scene in the distance under the moonlight looked a bit chilly, he and Shan Yu in the foreground were bathed in a warm tone, looking very comfortable.
“This one looks really good,” Chen Jian said.
“The one after it is your solo shot, it’s even better,” Shan Yu said.
Chen Jian looked at him. “How did you know which one I was looking at?”
“With your personality,” Shan Yu’s lips curled into a smirk, “under normal circumstances, you’d open them in order.”
“Oh,” Chen Jian said.
“Did you secretly drink?” Shan Yu asked.
“No,” Chen Jian swiped to the next one. “I’m just like this when I’m in a good mood.”
“Have you been in a bad mood this whole time I’ve known you?” Shan Yu asked.
“Boss, you’re making things awkward now,” Chen Jian said.
Shan Yu didn’t say anything more, just lay on the sofa laughing silently.
The solo shot was also very good. Chen Jian knew he was decent-looking, but he didn’t expect to look this good in a photo. After all, when he got his school ID photo, he had to rely on his hairstyle to recognize himself at first glance.
He didn’t know if it was because he had been looking at it with his head tilted while resting on Shan Yu’s hand, but the him in Yao Yi’s lens looked quite… chic.
Even his old jacket was photographed with texture, giving off a feeling that a new one might not have the same vibe.
“Did Yao Yi study photography?” he asked.
“Not really, she taught herself for work,” Shan Yu said. “Don’t be fooled by her usual playful demeanor; she’s a very motivated person in private.”
“What about Yue Lang?” Chen Jian asked.
“Very smart, loyal. As for work…” Shan Yu thought for a moment. “He learns when he needs to, but he absolutely will not engage in any form of extra self-improvement for the sake of work.”
It took Chen Jian two seconds to understand that sentence, and he laughed. “But he looks like an elite, even if he has a bit of a thuggish air.”
“He’s smart, after all,” Shan Yu said.
“Kind of like you,” Chen Jian said. “My impression of you is that you’re very smart.”
“And handsome,” Shan Yu said.
“…Mhm,” Chen Jian glanced at him.
“When did you realize I was handsome?” Shan Yu pursued with great interest.
“…Why don’t you ask me when I realized you were smart,” Chen Jian said.
“When did you realize I was smart?” Shan Yu asked again.
“When you tricked me into working here,” Chen Jian said.
“Then when did you realize I was handsome?” Shan Yu continued to ask.
Chen Jian laughed, somewhat helplessly. “You’re really not much older than Xiao Dou’er… I noticed when we first met. You weren’t wearing a mask, so it was easy to see.”
Shan Yu didn’t speak, just looked at him.
“What’s wrong?” Chen Jian looked back at him.
“When you realized you had feelings,” Shan Yu asked softly, “weren’t you scared?”
Chen Jian fell silent.
After a while, he finally answered, “Not really scared. For things that have already happened, you avoid them if you can, and if you can’t, you just have to face them.”
“Just like paying off a debt,” Shan Yu said.
“What kind of analogy is that…” Chen Jian clicked his tongue, but then thought about it and nodded. “But it’s about the same, I guess.”
Shan Yu smiled and closed his eyes.
“Are you going to sleep?” Chen Jian asked.
“No,” Shan Yu said. “Just say something, about your childhood.”
“My childhood… there’s not much to say,” Chen Jian thought for a moment. “It was more boring than the average kid’s.”
“Because you had to take care of your mom?” Shan Yu asked.
“Mhm,” Chen Jian nodded. “Her health wasn’t great for as long as I can remember. But sometimes she would take me out to play, to pick mushrooms, and to swim in the summer.”
“Are you a good swimmer?” Shan Yu asked softly, his eyes still closed.
“I’m okay. I can dive to the bottom of the river to pick up rocks,” Chen Jian said.
“Next summer,” Shan Yu said, “go get a few for me.”
“Okay,” Chen Jian said.
“Have you ever raised chickens?” Shan Yu asked.
“…I have. And pigs too,” Chen Jian said.
“Let’s skip the pigs,” Shan Yu said. “They smell too much.”
“What, Boss Shan, you want to raise chickens too?” Chen Jian looked at him.
Shan Yu’s eyes were still closed, his voice very low, almost like he was talking in his sleep. “Isn’t there a small patch of land outside the eastern wall? Zhao Fangfang said before that we could raise chickens there, for us to eat.”
“Sui Yun’s people are growing vegetables there,” Chen Jian said.
“Snatch it,” Shan Yu said. “If we can’t snatch it, just let the chickens loose in there. We’ll even save on feed.”
“…You’re really a troublemaker, boss,” Chen Jian said.
Shan Yu continued to chat with him in a very low voice.
Chen Jian had always felt that his childhood didn’t have many interesting events, but as Shan Yu asked bit by bit, and he thought bit by bit, he slowly discovered that his childhood also seemed to have had some very happy times.
Climbing trees, swimming, picking mushrooms, collecting leaves to draw with, chasing after a pig that escaped from the village from one end to the other just to try and ride it—which of course he failed at and almost got bitten…
Shan Yu’s voice grew lower and lower, and finally faded away, leaving only the sound of his slow breathing.
Chen Jian felt the side of his face resting on Shan Yu’s hand go numb, and his neck stiffened. As he slowly straightened his neck, he even heard a ‘crack’ sound.
He looked at Shan Yu’s left hand; it was so pressed that all the color was gone. He stared at it for a good while before the blood slowly started to return.
He very carefully lifted Shan Yu’s hand and placed it on the sofa.
When someone who has trouble sleeping finally falls asleep, one must be extremely careful.
His mother also used to have insomnia as a child. When she finally fell asleep and was woken up by him, even the gentle mother would get angry at him.
He couldn’t wake Shan Yu. Although Shan Yu had been quite gentle today, if he were really woken up, it probably wouldn’t stop his sharp tongue.
When Chen Jian went to the bedroom to get a blanket, he passed a mirror and glanced in. He saw that his face had several clear red marks on it from being pressed against Shan Yu’s hand.
He stood there looking for a moment.
He remembered the marks on Shan Yu’s face before…
So he immediately took out his phone and took a selfie.
After gently covering Shan Yu with the blanket, he stood by the sofa again, looking down at Shan Yu. For a long time, he wanted to leave but couldn’t move.
In the end, it was because the scene felt a bit inauspicious that he finally turned around, switched off the light, and tiptoed out of the office.
Passing by Yue Lang and Yao Yi’s room, he noticed their light was still on, and he could even hear them talking.
To be precise, it was Yao Yi scolding Yue Lang.
“Ugh, so annoying! Hurry up and take your bedding roll and go be a vagrant! I don’t want to see you for another second!”
“That’s not appropriate, is it? We still have a few days of vacation left. Don’t you need someone to carry your bags?” Yue Lang’s voice sounded like he was already at the door. “You go to sleep quickly, I’ll go be a vagrant for half an hour and come back.”
Chen Jian quickly jogged back to his dorm, afraid that he would run into Yue Lang coming out with his bedding roll to be a vagrant, which would be too awkward.
He suspected that Shan Yu had arranged their rooms next to the office just to collect dirt on Yue Lang…
He ran back to the dorm and had just closed the door when he heard a noise behind him before he could even turn around.
“Who is it?” he turned his head and asked in a hushed voice.
“Me,” Hu Pan answered from a chair in the small living room, her voice choked with sobs.
“What’s wrong?” Chen Jian turned around and glanced at the closed doors of the male and female dorms.
He walked over to Hu Pan. The room was dark, but in the moonlight from the window, he could see her face was covered in tears.
“It’s nothing,” Hu Pan quickly wiped her face with her hands.
Chen Jian pulled two tissues from the side and handed them to her.
Hu Pan took the tissues and wiped her face again.
“Did something happen?” Chen Jian asked softly. “Do you need help?”
“I need to take a leave of absence tomorrow morning,” Hu Pan sniffled and looked up at him.
“Okay,” Chen Jian said. “Where are you going?”
“To fight!” Hu Pan said, gritting her teeth fiercely.
“Who are you fighting? Just say the word,” Chen Jian sat down in the chair opposite her. “Fighting is Dayin’s strong suit.”
Hu Pan looked at him and couldn’t help but laugh. “Is this how you act as a manager?”
“The boss acts like that,” Chen Jian said. “How standard can I, the manager, be?”
Hu Pan’s opponent was her elementary school classmate who worked at the accessory shop, the one who had initially given her the hiring information for Dayin. This person had revealed Hu Pan’s whereabouts to her younger brother, so it was possible her family would come looking for her.
Chen Jian planned to go to the accessory shop with Sanbing the next day to see what the situation was.
If Hu Pan really got into a fight, although it wasn’t appropriate for them to fight a girl, if Hu Pan was at a disadvantage, they could help tip the scales.
But after a night’s sleep, before the plan could even be executed, trouble came looking for them first.
Chen Jian received a call from Da Li.
“Chen Jian, isn’t this going too far?” Da Li’s voice was filled with a poorly controlled annoyance.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Although Chen Jian tried to avoid Shan Yu’s morning grumpiness, he had his own, especially when faced with such a question.
“How did you guys negotiate with the barbecue side?” Da Li said. “Now they’re only communicating with Dayin! Are you trying to steal our work?”
“I don’t know, I’ll ask the boss in a bit,” Chen Jian said, getting out of bed and trying to rein in his morning temper while putting on his shoes.
“Your boss told me to find you!” Da Li said. “He said he doesn’t know!”
Chen Jian froze.
…Damn it all.
