Shan Yu’s question carried an undeniably ambiguous undertone.
Under normal circumstances, Chen Jian might not have registered it so keenly, but tonight was different.
It was the dead of night, his very first time coming up to Shan Yu’s quarters to shower—and Shan Yu had just stepped out of the bath himself, his hair damp and beads of water still clinging to his bare skin…
All of these elements woven together created an undeniably charged atmosphere.
For a moment, Chen Jian had no idea how to respond. He gave the toothbrush in his hand a light wave: “Still need to brush my teeth.”
“Oh.” Shan Yu leaned against the bedroom doorframe, lips curving into a smirk as he watched him.
Chen Jian stood rooted to the spot.
“Go on ahead, no cover charge,” Shan Yu said.
Chen Jian smiled faintly and walked toward the bathroom. As he passed Shan Yu, he leaned in and planted a quick kiss on his cheek.
Shan Yu’s skin was still damp, carrying that familiar, clean scent. Chen Jian wanted to trail down and kiss his neck as well, but held himself back.
“Forget it,” he gritted his teeth, turning resolutely toward the bathroom door. “I’m covered in road dust right now.”
Shan Yu chuckled softly.
Warm steam still drifted through the bathroom, and the subtle, fresh scent of seawater instantly enveloped him.
It felt just like burying his face straight into the crook of Shan Yu’s neck.
“Leave your clothes outside,” Shan Yu called out.
“Oh.” Chen Jian stepped back out, placing his fresh change of clothes on the rack by the door.
Qian Yu had clearly never placed much stock in the art of bathing. While both the office and bedroom had been renovated with meticulous, opulent flair, the bathroom lacked even a proper storage shelf—hardly matching the standard of the guest suites.
…Or maybe there had been one, and it was swiped back when the guesthouse lay abandoned?
Please—the eight-thousand-yuan chair was still sitting right there. Who’d go out of their way to steal a cheap bathroom rack?
Then again, maybe the chair was just too damn heavy?
Returning to the bathroom, the moment the door clicked shut, Chen Jian’s wandering thoughts were once again submerged in Shan Yu’s lingering scent.
He turned on the hot water, letting the spray cascade over his head for a good while. Looking over the bottles lined up along the ledge—shampoo, body wash, facial cleanser—he went down the line, thoroughly washing his hair, body, and face with every single one.
The shower didn’t take long. Being in unfamiliar territory—even if it was Shan Yu’s bathroom—left him feeling somewhat restless.
Or rather, precisely because it was Shan Yu’s bathroom, his restlessness was magnified tenfold.
When he opened the bathroom door to fetch his clothes, a towel was resting on the rack, likely set out by Shan Yu. He grabbed the smaller hand towel and draped it over his head, leaving the larger bath towel underneath. As he picked it up, he realized the fresh clothes he had laid out on the rack were gone.
He paused in confusion, looking down at the bath towel in his hands to confirm his clothes hadn’t somehow gotten bundled up inside.
“Shan Yu?” he called out.
“Hm?” Shan Yu’s voice drifted from the adjoining bedroom.
“Where are my clothes?” he asked.
“No idea,” Shan Yu replied.
“You have no idea?” Chen Jian laughed in disbelief. “You took them, and you don’t know?”
“Mushroom came by just now,” Shan Yu said lazily. “Maybe he ran off with them.”
“…Hu Pan told me just yesterday that Mushroom is still too cowardly to even climb the stairs!” Chen Jian retorted.
Silence fell from the bedroom.
“Shan Yu?” Chen Jian called again.
Still, there was no answer.
With a resigned sigh, Chen Jian wrapped the bath towel around his waist, leaving the hand towel resting over his wet curls, and stepped out of the bathroom.
The bedroom door was slightly ajar. Pushing it open, he spotted Shan Yu leaning against the window ledge, gazing down at the courtyard below.
He was still in the same state as before: shirtless, clad only in loose track pants, his hair no longer dripping but still thoroughly damp.
The room’s only illumination came from the warm, dim glow of the bedside floor lamp. The amber light washed over Shan Yu’s bare back, outlining the sculpted lines of his shoulder blades and tracing the jagged scar that curved from his back around to the side of his waist.
Hearing him enter, Shan Yu turned around, remaining propped against the windowsill with his phone in hand.
Seeing Shan Yu raise the phone to point the lens right at him, Chen Jian blinked: “Hm?”
The phone clicked through several rapid shutter snaps. “Candid shot.”
“That’s a pretty aggressive candid shot,” Chen Jian said.
“I’m going to post this on the forum in a bit: ‘Here’s Dayin’s handsome store manager in the buff’—let’s see how many comments that pulls in,” Shan Yu said.
“…You’re still nursing that jealousy?” Chen Jian was genuinely astounded. “If you’re hungry, I can whip you up something to eat.”
“What of it?” Shan Yu tossed his phone onto the nearby armchair, looking him over. “When my time comes and I get all auspicious, I’ll still have it carved right onto my tombstone…”
“It’s the New Year, stop spouting that cursed nonsense!” Chen Jian glared at him.
Shan Yu laughed, falling silent as he simply leaned back against the ledge, watching him.
Chen Jian hesitated for two seconds before crossing the room. He wrapped his arms around Shan Yu, burying his face into his neck and closing his eyes.
The instant bare skin met bare skin, Chen Jian heard his own breathing hitch—heavy and ragged, as though he had just sprinted a hundred-meter dash.
This was entirely different from their usual embraces through layers of clothing. The delicate, firm warmth exclusive to bare skin triggered a wave of pleasant shivers that rippled from the point of contact throughout his entire body.
Shan Yu bowed his head, his lips and breath grazing softly across Chen Jian’s shoulder. His palm swept down along Chen Jian’s spine, tracing from his shoulder blades down to his waist before catching the edge of the bath towel.
Unlike a pair of pants, where a tug merely catches the waistband, a single tug on a bath towel leaves a person completely bare.
Instinctively, Chen Jian reached down and caught Shan Yu’s hand.
“Hm?” Shan Yu’s voice murmured right against his ear.
“What are you doing?” Chen Jian whispered.
“When you washed your hair, did you wash your brain inside and out too?” Shan Yu lifted his hand, his fingertips tracing from Chen Jian’s lower back along his vertebrae all the way to the nape of his neck, finally resting against the towel on his head to give it a gentle rub.
It took Chen Jian two full seconds to catch the implication, and he burst into a quiet laugh.
“You look pretty good with longer hair,” Shan Yu murmured, using both hands to knead softly through the towel, absorbing the dampness clinging to the ends of his curls.
The gentle pressure felt exquisitely comfortable. Resting his hands on Shan Yu’s waist, Chen Jian closed his eyes and leaned in.
After rubbing for a moment, Shan Yu’s hands shifted down to rest firmly on Chen Jian’s shoulders. Before Chen Jian could open his eyes, Shan Yu shoved him back.
Chen Jian stumbled back two paces, falling back onto the mattress behind him.
In the very next second, he opened his eyes to find Shan Yu already straddling him, reaching down to seize the bath towel around his waist with a sharp yank.
It didn’t budge.
“Fuck,” Shan Yu couldn’t help but laugh. “Is there a trick to this? How’d you tie it so tight?”
“I’m lying on it,” Chen Jian said. “Did you wash your brain inside and out too?”
Shan Yu didn’t answer. He tapped a finger against Chen Jian’s forehead, gently brushing aside a damp stray curl that had fallen across his eye, before gripping the towel once more and yanking it cleanly aside.
As the towel came loose, Shan Yu leaned down and captured his mouth.
Chen Jian wrapped his arms tightly around him, his chest rubbing firmly against Shan Yu’s bare torso as his hand reached down to tug at the waistband of Shan Yu’s track pants.
Without hesitation, Shan Yu braced one hand on the bed and kicked his pants off in a few swift motions.
“Going commando?” Chen Jian asked.
“Fair is fair,” Shan Yu murmured.
“Wait…” Chen Jian let out a breathless laugh. “You’re actually keeping score on fairness for this?”
“I’m worried you’ll feel shortchanged in a minute, so I’m leveling the playing field while I can,” Shan Yu looked down at him.
The dim lamplight illuminated the left side of his face—stunningly handsome, truly living up to his title as the best-looking boss in town.
Chen Jian turned the phrase over in his mind before the realization hit him: “What do you mean, shortchanged in a minute?”
Shan Yu offered no reply.
Though Chen Jian couldn’t read the exact expression in Shan Yu’s eyes through the amber haze, some things required neither clear sight nor explicit words; they could simply be felt.
Everything about tonight carried a subtle, distinct charge.
Chen Jian glanced toward the nightstand.
Shan Yu caught his chin immediately, gently turning his face back. But Chen Jian had already caught sight of what lay there, and his breathing shattered instantly.
“You…” Chen Jian reached up to cup his chin, his fingers trailing down Shan Yu’s throat, across his collarbones, down to his chest, and tracing along his lower abdomen. Words completely failed him.
Whether from sheer nervous anticipation, blood rushing to his head, or the dimness of the room, his vision blurred slightly, pulsing in rhythm with the frantic pounding of his heart.
“Mm,” Shan Yu leaned down, his nose brushing past the shell of Chen Jian’s ear, his voice laced with warmth. “Me.”
The kiss was deliberate and thorough, unfolding like the prelude to uncharted territory—careful exploration suspended between breaths and heartbeats, amidst the friction of bare skin.
All he knew was the dizzying, suffocating thrill dragging him under. He could no longer distinguish what was pressing against what, or where hands were wandering; ragged, runaway murmurs mingled with heavy breathing, voices and bodies overlapping so closely that words became indistinct, tiptoeing lightly across every raw nerve ending.
Yet in some quiet corner of his mind, a sliver of sharp awareness remained, taking in every tiny detail upon the mattress—even the faint rustle of fingers gripping the sheets was registered with piercing clarity through the hazy blur…
…
The heavy panting seemed impossible to rein in. Chen Jian could hear his own ragged breaths, and Shan Yu’s alongside them—sometimes in sync, sometimes rising and falling in counterpoint.
The warm breeze from the air conditioner drifted over their bare skin, carrying a slight chill against the film of sweat.
“Chen Jian.” Shan Yu’s voice brushed the back of his ear, exceedingly soft and laced with a subtle tremor.
“Hm?” Chen Jian, half his face buried in the pillow, answered with his eyes closed.
“Want to go rinse off?” Shan Yu asked.
“…You go first,” Chen Jian kept his eyes shut. “I need a minute.”
Shan Yu didn’t speak or move. After a moment, the warmth of his breath shifted from behind Chen Jian’s ear to somewhere above him.
“What are you looking at?” Chen Jian asked.
“Just looking,” Shan Yu said.
Chen Jian smiled, opened his eyes, and turned his head.
Shan Yu was propped up on his elbows, looking down at him.
“How does it feel?” Shan Yu asked.
“…Screw you,” Chen Jian paused. “Is that something you’re supposed to ask right now?”
“How should I know?” Shan Yu said. “It’s my first time asking too.”
“Fuck.” Chen Jian laughed out loud, burying his face back into the pillow.
The two of them lounged quietly on the bed for a while longer before Shan Yu finally climbed up and went into the bathroom.
Right up until Shan Yu finished showering and returned to the bedroom, Chen Jian hadn’t moved an inch.
“Asleep?” Shan Yu’s finger lightly hooked around his ear.
“No,” Chen Jian said.
“Going to wash up?” Shan Yu asked. “If you don’t want to move, just sleep.”
“I’m on duty tonight,” Chen Jian mumbled.
“…Tonight is practically already over,” Shan Yu said.
Chen Jian smiled without answering.
“Are you uncomfortable anywhere?” Shan Yu asked softly.
“No,” Chen Jian thought about it. “Just a kind of… spiritual shock to the soul.”
“That intense?” Shan Yu said.
“Are you entirely calm?” Chen Jian looked up at him.
“How could I be?” Shan Yu said. “I still have to put on a bit of a front. We can’t both be lying here looking like stunned idiots.”
Chen Jian burst into laughter. “You can still put on a front?”
“Mm.” Shan Yu crouched down, resting his arms on the edge of the bed, and planted a gentle kiss on the tip of Chen Jian’s nose.
“I’m going to shower,” Chen Jian said. “Want to take another one with me?”
“Sure,” Shan Yu nodded.
The steam in the bathroom hadn’t fully cleared all night. Stepping inside, the air was so thick you could barely make out figures, and the mirror was completely fogged over.
Chen Jian wiped a patch clear with his hand.
“What are you doing?” Shan Yu turned on the showerhead. “What do you want to see? Might as well just record a video next time.”
“Works for me.” Chen Jian pulled him under the spray, wrapping his arms around him as the hot water washed over them, leaning his cheek against Shan Yu’s wet shoulder to gaze at their reflection in the cleared glass.
“For real? That decisive?” Shan Yu’s hand stroked gently across his back.
“You brought it up. What, chickening out now that you said it?” Chen Jian countered.
Shan Yu laughed softly. “Fine, video next time it is.”
“My turn next time,” Chen Jian added.
“Mm,” Shan Yu nodded.
Having showered three times in a single night, Shan Yu stood before the bedroom mirror, inspecting the scar on his waist: “This scar’s been scrubbed completely flat.”
“Flat already?” Chen Jian, toweling his hair, chuckled. “Did you just never bathe in the past?”
Shan Yu sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, reaching over to pinch Chen Jian’s cheek: “That mouth of yours is really having a field day tonight, isn’t it?”
Chen Jian smiled, letting the topic drop.
Once dried and dressed, Chen Jian fished out the spare clothes he had brought up earlier from Shan Yu’s wardrobe and pulled them on.
“You’re actually going on duty?” Shan Yu paced the room, unable to find his own phone, and picked up Chen Jian’s to check the time. “It’s almost five in the morning.”
“It’s a shift,” Chen Jian said. “You’d be surprised—sometimes guests call as early as four or five in the morning. Especially road-trippers who drive overnight; they arrive around six or seven, and call at four or five asking if breakfast is ready.”
Shan Yu closed his eyes and sighed. “I’ll keep you company.”
“Hm?” Chen Jian looked at him.
“I can’t sleep anyway,” Shan Yu said. “I’ve never actually seen how you guys run your night shifts.”
“If you wanted to see, you should have shadowed a full overnight shift. What’s there to see in a measly couple of hours?” Chen Jian said.
“That’s precisely why I’m watching—would I be insane enough to stay up all night?…” Shan Yu stood up, throwing on his coat.
“Such an honest boss,” Chen Jian said with a laugh.
“Let’s go.” Shan Yu wrapped an arm around his shoulders from behind, herding him out the door. “First stop: the kitchen, to see if there’s anything to eat.”
“Patrol round first,” Chen Jian corrected.
“How does the patrol work?” Shan Yu asked.
“Fourth floor down to the first, out through the garden, then sit at the front desk,” Chen Jian said.
“…Fuck, it’s that complicated?” Shan Yu asked. “How many loops?”
“Just one,” Chen Jian smiled. “Normally, Sanbing and the crew rotate through the rounds at night. I’m just used to doing an initial sweep myself—in case they slack off, I can catch anything out of place.”
Shan Yu buried his face against the back of Chen Jian’s neck and sighed: “Oh, Store Manager…”
Stepping out of the office, Shan Yu kept his arm draped around Chen Jian’s shoulders. No guests were staying on the fourth floor anyway—only their own colleagues, who were currently sleeping like logs in the dorms.
Reaching the third floor, Shan Yu finally released his hold, walking beside him as they did a sweep of the hallway, followed by the second and first floors. As they stepped out into the chilly garden air, Shan Yu slung his arm back around him.
“Freezing,” Shan Yu whispered against his ear.
“Mm.” Chen Jian pulled his coat tighter. “I’m doing fine. Did you… burn through a bit too much energy earlier?…”
The words had barely left his lips when he spotted a figure sitting on the bench beside the doghouse.
“Who’s there?” The figure spotted them too, turning around and asking in a hushed whisper.
It was Lao Wu, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Smoking in the courtyard again?” Chen Jian pointed an accusatory finger at him.
Only then did Shan Yu casually drop his arm from Chen Jian’s shoulders.
“There’s nobody out here right now,” Lao Wu muttered.
“There are fireworks, though,” Chen Jian walked over, plucking the cigarette straight from his hand.
“The fireworks are way over there,” Lao Wu sighed. “I deliberately looped around to this side—there’s an entire building between us and the fireworks, Store Manager.”
“What are you doing sitting out here in the dead of night instead of sleeping?” Chen Jian leaned down to inspect Lao Wu’s face, noticing faint tear tracks glistening on his cheeks. “Ran into trouble?”
“Nah, just casually getting dumped, that’s all.” Lao Wu glanced between the two of them. “What are you two doing?”
“On duty,” Chen Jian said.
“I’ve been sitting out here all night,” Lao Wu pointed out. “Where exactly were you two on duty?”
In the boss’s bedroom.
In the boss’s bathroom.
Lao Wu, why don’t you try staying auspicious for once.
