Li Shanqing had originally thought the scene upon waking could be more dreamlike. After all, this was his and Zhuang Xu’s first night together, and Zhuang Xu’s performance had been so much more unfriendly than he had imagined, almost like a different person. At the very least, Li Shanqing should have been allowed to wake up in a warm atmosphere, right? Li Shanqing hoped to achieve perfection in everything he did, especially in this matter. At worst, they should have opened their eyes together, pressed against each other like a pair of intertwined mandarin ducks, the atmosphere tender and lingering.
However, because he was too tired last night, Li Shanqing slept too deeply, not even dreaming. His limbs were heavy and his whole body was sore to an unspeakable degree. In his drowsiness, he vaguely felt an itch on the back of his neck, and then he realized Zhuang Xu had lifted his hair and was looking at the wound behind his neck.
Li Shanqing’s implantation of NoaLume was a last-minute request from the public relations company after much consideration.
As the product was about to be launched, the confrontation between criticism and support had reached a fever pitch. Opponents, using the reason that the CEO himself was unwilling to be implanted with the slow-release device, appeared overnight around the regulatory bureau and the group’s headquarters, holding signs in protest.
If Li Shanqing did not undergo the implantation surgery before the launch, and the pressure from public opinion became too great, it would be difficult to advance the launch approval in new regions. This was Li Shanqing’s personal responsibility, which no one could bear for him.
So, at the end of July, Li Shanqing underwent another evaluation. He talked with Zhao Zixi and Fang Tinghan for a long time, then spent a whole night on the phone with his parents and grandparents, persuading his family before finally making the decision.
As for Mary, she supported whatever Li Shanqing did, and this time was no exception, though she was visibly extremely worried.
On the night of August 2nd, the day he had his assistant confirm the implant surgeon, Li Shanqing was too anxious to sleep. Around three in the morning, he most wanted to contact Zhuang Xu. He didn’t know if it was better for Zhuang Xu to find out from him directly or from the news.
They had met very frequently this past year, but Li Shanqing was no longer a child and was well aware that their current relationship was not serious. He didn’t even have Zhuang Xu’s contact information now.
Li Shanqing imagined several possible outcomes after contacting Zhuang Xu, none of which he was willing to accept. He didn’t want to have a face-to-face argument with Zhuang Xu. He already felt very tired; just maintaining their current relationship was enough for him. In the end, he chose to be an ostrich.
Li Shanqing was inherently dictatorial, a fact Zhuang Xu had long been aware of. And this was not the first time he had made a decision on his own, regardless of whether it was right or wrong.
The only unexpected event was that Zhuang Xu’s visit to Licheng in August was sudden. Li Shanqing happened to be preparing for the surgery those few days, needing to finish his work ahead of time and also get his body in good shape. He had no time to deal with personal matters and had given his phone to his assistant. By the time he read the message from Zhou Silan, Zhuang Xu was already on his way to Licheng. He had no choice but to bite the bullet and apologize, and then he lay on the operating table that afternoon.
The surgery went smoothly in terms of procedure, but Li Shanqing had a rather strong reaction to the anesthetic. He lay there for a full ten hours before waking up, and after waking, he vomited all morning and then slept昏昏沉沉for several days.
Fortunately, the rejection reaction he had worried about most did not occur. Li Shanqing rested quietly for a month, attending almost no social events. After finally confirming the surgery was a success, he thought it over and decided to meet with Zhuang Xu before the company announced his implantation news.
This decision was selfish; Li Shanqing understood that.
As a person with such a strong sense of justice and morality, perhaps as soon as the news was announced, Zhuang Xu would feel he had been deceived again. In a fit of anger, the two would return to the state of no contact they had been in a year ago.
Therefore, Li Shanqing made an even more selfish decision: to lure Zhuang Xu into taking the final step with him.
Although he hadn’t expected that even with his pain nerves numbed, some things could still become unbearable. He hoped Zhuang Xu would blame him a little less, seeing his forbearance and sacrifice last night.
Feeling the touch of Zhuang Xu’s fingertips on the back of his neck, Li Shanqing sobered up a little. He slowly thought that Zhuang Xu had probably already seen the news.
He didn’t want to face it. He first pretended to be uncomfortable from the touch, moving with his eyes closed, and buried his whole head in the bedding. The chaotic scent of last night lingered in the bed, making his heart race with panic and pain, but it was slightly better than showing his face and accepting Zhuang Xu’s questioning.
Li Shanqing buried his head for a while, then heard Zhuang Xu call him, “Li Shanqing.”
He played dead. Zhuang Xu said again, “Your acting isn’t very good today.”
Li Shanqing had no choice but to emerge from the covers, asking shamelessly, “When have I ever lied to you before, for you to know whether my acting was good or not in the past?”
He saw Zhuang Xu sitting on the edge of the bed and noticed Zhuang Xu had already changed his clothes; he must have gone home. He was wearing a clean, branded loungewear hoodie, looking fresh and neat, his eyes clean.
Perhaps because his personality and moral compass hadn’t changed, Zhuang Xu could easily return to the nineteen-year-old he was when they first met just by changing his attire. Unlike Li Shanqing, who had thoroughly grown up and entered the adult world, his temperament had changed drastically, and he could no longer remember his carefree state of mind, or rather, he didn’t want to remember.
In fact, hearing Li Shanqing say such things, Zhuang Xu could have listed all the past instances of Li Shanqing deceiving him, or directly brought up the topic of the implant. But Zhuang Xu didn’t. He asked Li Shanqing, “What do you want for breakfast? I’ll make it for you.”
Looking into Zhuang Xu’s eyes, Li Shanqing had never been so certain that he had actually fallen in love. Otherwise, it would be difficult to describe his accelerating heartbeat and overly faint voice with scientific terms as he asked Zhuang Xu, “What are the options?”
Zhuang Xu listed a few ingredients Li Shanqing could eat, saying, “I only know how to make these. They might not be tasty.”
“Just make whatever. What’s ‘tasty’?” Li Shanqing tilted his head. “I wouldn’t know anyway.”
Zhuang Xu looked down at him. After a few seconds, he said, “I saw the components of your wellness pod. Why didn’t you put in an anti-allergy agent?”
“Ah,” Li Shanqing hadn’t expected him to bring up the topic this way. He was stunned for a moment, then told him, “That. The pod has restrictions on medications, very strict ones. I can’t change it either.”
“You’re not going to change it?” Zhuang Xu asked again.
This kind of reasonable questioning of Li Shanqing’s professional ethics was something Li Shanqing had been asked countless times over the years whenever he went to social events or attended interviews. Zhuang Xu’s way of asking was already one of the least aggressive, his tone very objective, without any personal emotion.
But of course, it wasn’t because Zhuang Xu asked gently, but because Zhuang Xu’s status in Li Shanqing’s heart was different from others’. Li Shanqing smiled at him and gave him the most honest and uninteresting answer he had never given anyone else: “I might have changed it when I was younger, but not now. You know my personality back then.”
“Besides, the full video of the surgical procedure will be released in two days,” Li Shanqing said, then joked, “It’s to prevent this kind of speculation from you.”
Zhuang Xu looked at him for a while, then went to cook.
Having touched upon a topic that shouldn’t have been touched, the relationship between the two seemed to have lost last night’s chaotic disorder and become realistic, as if another separation were imminent.
Li Shanqing’s bedroom was far from the kitchen, and he couldn’t hear any noise. He sat in bed for a while, then went to the bathroom to wash up. He didn’t look at the mottled marks on his neck and arms made by Zhuang Xu. He walked out slowly and smelled the aroma of breakfast.
The breakfast Zhuang Xu made was indeed just to the extent of cooking the ingredients. But Li Shanqing’s own cooking was even worse, so he ate the not-so-good-looking poached eggs and carrots bite by bite and drank a sip of orange juice.
Zhuang Xu watched him put down his knife and fork and asked, “Did the surgery hurt?”
Li Shanqing looked up at him, feeling as if he were mishearing this kind of question. “Are you asking me?”
Zhuang Xu said “mm.” Li Shanqing looked at his expressionless face and couldn’t guess his thoughts. His usual habit of avoiding serious questions kicked in. “What, helping me practice for a press Q&A?”
Zhuang Xu didn’t speak. Li Shanqing had no choice but to change his answer. “It didn’t hurt. The surgery was done by the best experts. You couldn’t even hire them with money.”
“—Anyway, it didn’t hurt as much as last night,” he looked at Zhuang Xu’s face and couldn’t resist adding.
Zhuang Xu finally showed some expression and asked him, “Didn’t you use the slow-release medication last night?”
“Of course I used it,” Li Shanqing confessed. “But the dosage wasn’t large, and the distribution range was very limited. You know me, I’ve always been afraid of pain…”
Li Shanqing didn’t continue. The two looked at each other, and he couldn’t read what Zhuang Xu was thinking. After a few seconds, he heard himself ask, “Then do you regret it?”
After saying it, a dull pain like a crack began to appear in his heart again, as if everything he and Zhuang Xu were doing now was wrong, yet they had to do it. Before he knew Zhuang Xu, he had no idea what heartache was. But now, this pain also seemed to be a symbol that Li Shanqing’s faint life was still flourishing, tormenting him and fascinating him, and he had never thought of getting rid of it.
“Regret what?” Zhuang Xu probably didn’t expect him to say that. He first asked back, then, realizing, was slightly stunned.
Li Shanqing had a new thought every second. He didn’t want to hear his answer now and said again, “Nothing.”
“No,” Zhuang Xu still answered.
Li Shanqing couldn’t say he completely believed him, but he didn’t pursue it further. He stood up, pushed his plate aside, leaned over the dining table to kiss him, and praised him like a child, “Little Zhuang is so well-behaved.”
At first, it was their lips touching. After two seconds, Li Shanqing felt his hip bone ache sharply. Continuing the kiss would not be worth the loss, so he stopped kissing Zhuang Xu, retracting the deep kiss he had originally planned, and sat back down in his seat.
Feeling Zhuang Xu looking at himself, Li Shanqing didn’t respond. Just then, his phone had a message, so he picked it up to look. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zhuang Xu stand up and walk around the dining table towards him. Soon, Zhuang Xu was in front of Li Shanqing. Zhuang Xu’s hand appeared in Li Shanqing’s line of sight. He grabbed Li Shanqing’s wrist and took Li Shanqing’s phone away.
Zhuang Xu held Li Shanqing’s phone and seemed to be typing, though Li Shanqing didn’t know what. Li Shanqing saw the smooth, fair back of his hand holding his phone, the protruding knuckles. The phone seemed to have suddenly shrunk a size in his palm. His sleeve moved slightly with the action of operating the phone.
Not long after, Zhuang Xu returned the phone to Li Shanqing. Li Shanqing saw the screen was on the contacts page. A new number had been added to Zhuang Xu’s entry.
“I’ll start using the old one again too,” Zhuang Xu said to him, his voice a little low, but still like when they first met, clear and pleasant like silver and silk. “In the future, when you do this kind of thing, you should still notify me.”
Li Shanqing took his phone back. A huge tremor went through the world. The floor, the room, Licheng, the Earth, the universe all trembled slowly, sending one back to the purest moment. It was as if starting from this faint signal, the happiness that Li Shanqing had gazed at from near and far, both in his high school years and after he matured, was about to open its doors to him again.
It’s unknown who moved closer first, but they kissed again.
The muscles in Li Shanqing’s arm twitched for the first time, painlessly, for a short while. He didn’t pay it much attention, wrapped his arms around Zhuang Xu’s neck, and opened his lips.
