Chapter 20

Li Xuan followed Xie Liang across the lobby. Xie Liang settled the woman onto a bench, then went to the self-service kiosk alone.

Looked like he was checking when the results would be ready.

When Xie Liang sat back down, Li Xuan pulled up his mask and drifted over to the kiosk, asking the volunteer in the red vest quietly: 'What test did that man just run?'

The volunteer thought about it. 'Sperm quality check, I think.'

Li Xuan went completely still.

Who gets that test? Couples about to get married. Or couples who've been married a while and haven't been able to conceive.

But wasn't Xie Liang gay?

He turned and looked back at Xie Liang.

Xie Liang hadn't noticed Li Xuan — only half a face visible above the mask anyway. He was deep in conversation with the woman beside him, the two of them side by side on the bench, Xie Liang's whole body angled toward her. She took the form from his hand and pulled out her phone, checking something against it, their heads close together. They looked comfortable. Easy.

More than comfortable, actually. There was a kind of unspoken sync between them.

The kind you only get after years of being around each other.

Li Xuan took a step forward, then stopped — he had no idea what he'd even do next. His phone buzzed: the department head, on WeChat, wondering where he was. He had no choice but to leave.

After his shift he called Xu Zhengdong and asked him to dig up something on Xie Liang. Xu Zhengdong listened, then said, sharp and gleeful: 'No need to go all that trouble, Xiaouan. If you want to make your move, Su Xingchuan's at your uncle's company right now — you don't need to go around sniffing at the boyfriend. Uncle just has to pull a few strings and he'll be crying—'

'Shushu. Say one more unhinged thing and I'm telling Mom.'

'...'

Li Xuan cut him off, already irritated: 'I'm worried he's running a scam — stringing Su Xingchuan along and playing some other girl at the same time. What is wrong with you?'

Xu Zhengdong had the grace to sound a little sheepish. 'Fine, fine. Uncle'll look into it.'

Li Xuan spent the whole evening on edge, waiting. Couldn't sleep again.

If Xie Liang really did have a girlfriend — or a wife — did that mean he still had a shot with Su Xingchuan?

Did Su Xingchuan still have feelings for him?

Could he even try again?

He tossed and turned, his thoughts tangling into a headache.

The next day, Xu Zhengdong dropped a bombshell: Xie Liang had a girlfriend — five years in — named Xue Ningzi.

Xu Zhengdong sent over a photo.

The same young woman he'd seen with Xie Liang yesterday.

Li Xuan felt his temple throb, hard, twice. Okay. Now what? He had to do something.

He'd grown up cocooned by his family, so he'd rarely had any strong drive to go after things himself. Most of the time, if he wanted something, his parents or his uncle just handed it to him. School came easy. Medicine wasn't much harder. Even winning Su Xingchuan over hadn't cost him much — a little coaxing here, a little charm there, and barely a month later Su Xingchuan was his boyfriend, spoiling him without any limit at all.

The breakup at twenty had been a blow. It knocked him back inside the circle of his family's protection, and he hadn't dared step outside it since.

He set his phone down. His hands curled slowly into fists.

No. Not this time. He wasn't running.

He had to do something. No more running.

.

Su Xingchuan dragged himself out of the office, exhausted, just as Xu Zhengdong's secretary passed by and gave him a conspiratorial wink. 'Hey — did you piss off Director Xu or something? Lately every time your name comes up he gets this look on his face. He used to actually like you.'

'Yeah, kind of,' Su Xingchuan said with a short laugh.

'What happened?'

Su Xingchuan shook his head.

'You look rough lately — is it the workload, or is something actually wrong? Look at you, you've got no color in your face.'

Su Xingchuan pressed his fingers to his forehead and sighed. 'Just swamped. Once this project wraps, I'm taking a real vacation.'

It wasn't just the workload, though. He was bone-tired in a different way.

Looking at Xu Zhengdong, he couldn't help feeling jealous — and sometimes, underneath that, something closer to shame. He'd think: if he'd been sharper, more accomplished, would Li Xuan have stayed? But thinking got him nowhere. All he could do was channel it into work, head down, grinding, until the days blurred together.

'Take a break, seriously. Oh, and —' the secretary seemed to suddenly remember something, a teasing note in her voice. 'Has Xu Zhengdong tried to set you up with anyone?'

'What?'

'He didn't say anything to you?' She looked surprised. 'Maybe I read it wrong — but he asked me to find out if you were seeing someone. Said you seemed like a good catch. I figured he was trying to play matchmaker.'

'When was this?'

She thought about it. 'Two months ago, maybe.'

Su Xingchuan couldn't make heads or tails of it. He said goodbye to her in a daze and stepped into the elevator alone. He thought: I really am running on empty. He picked up his car from the garage, and had just pulled up to the front gate of Zhongjin when he spotted a familiar figure standing at the curb.

Li Xuan.

He had this habit — when he was just standing around, he'd balance on the edge of a step, leaning forward, like he was playing some private game with gravity.

Still did it, apparently.

Su Xingchuan knew Li Xuan wasn't here waiting for him. He knew that. And yet some self-destructive part of him pulled over anyway, right in front of Li Xuan, and rolled down the window. Li Xuan looked up.

Their eyes caught.

'Don't bother waiting,' Su Xingchuan said, keeping his voice flat. 'Xu Zhengdong's got dinner plans tonight. He won't be back.'

'I'm here for you,' Li Xuan said.

Su Xingchuan went completely still. His brain stalled out.

'What?'

'I'm here for you.' Li Xuan said it again.

Something in Su Xingchuan's exhausted body came back online.

For him?

Not for Xu Zhengdong — for him?

Before he could even process that, Li Xuan added: 'Can I catch a ride? There's somewhere I need to go.'

He'd given her nothing — no real reason, no context, and that expression of his was ice-cold, not even a hint of please in it. Su Xingchuan should've said no. Should've turned down this inexplicable ex-boyfriend without a second thought. But he couldn't.

Su Xingchuan cleared his throat. 'Get in.'

Li Xuan opened the passenger door and got in.

Su Xingchuan noticed, suddenly, that Li Xuan wasn't wearing his backpack today. The hair above his forehead was a little messy too — like he'd left work early and rushed straight here, just to stand outside Zhongjin and wait for him. Su Xingchuan, embarrassingly, felt a small flicker of pleasure at that.

'Where to?'

Li Xuan sent him an address over WeChat.

Su Xingchuan tapped it open. A restaurant.

He said, with a pointed little smile that didn't quite reach his eyes: 'Dinner? Shouldn't we be bringing Xu-zong along? Just the two of us — that's a bit awkward, isn't it?'

'Drive.' Li Xuan's brow was furrowed, his face perfectly serious.

'...'

Su Xingchuan must've owed Li Xuan eighty billion in a past life. Nothing else could explain why this one felt so much like being his personal servant.

The car pulled slowly out of Zhongjin Group and turned onto Huajiang Avenue. Li Xuan looked down at the message his uncle had just sent: [Xie Liang and his girlfriend are at Francis Restaurant in the city center.]

He wanted to get there immediately. Expose Xie Liang for exactly what he was.

But if he exposed Xie Liang — would Su Xingchuan be upset?

He tilted his head slightly and looked at Su Xingchuan.

Su Xingchuan caught the look and quietly straightened his back. 'What?'

Li Xuan looked back down.

Su Xingchuan hated seeing Li Xuan like this more than almost anything.

He started talking just to fill the silence: 'Four-point-three kilometers — a cab would cost you at least fifteen yuan. And you're just hitching a ride with me like it's nothing —'

'Su Xingchuan.' Li Xuan cut him off. 'Do you really like your boyfriend?'

'Huh?'

He'd told such an absurd lie that every time Li Xuan brought up Xie Liang, Su Xingchuan's brain needed a second to catch up.

Li Xuan's hands were laced tight in his lap, knuckles white at the tips. 'How much do you like him?'

What he wanted to ask was: as much as you used to like me?

Su Xingchuan didn't know how to answer that.

He had this nagging feeling that something was off. Li Xuan's reaction was off. Xu Zhengdong's reaction was even more off.

Never mind what the secretary had let slip today.

Just think about the last time they'd met.

Su Xingchuan had always found Xu Zhengdong's attitude strange — contradictory, almost unsettling.

He wasn't just Li Xuan's ex. He was the ex who'd kept coming back, the one who'd thrown a fit in front of Xu Zhengdong and sworn up and down that he still loved Li Xuan — and somehow Xu Zhengdong bore him zero grudge, handed him the Zhongjin project, treated him like any other subordinate. Su Xingchuan's eyes caught a bare, skeletal tree on the roadside and he suddenly remembered that line of Xu Zhengdong's: 'rotten wood can't be carved.'

Something was stirring inside him, words clawing their way up before he even decided to let them out. Seven years. Four months of feelings he'd carried for seven years. His whole body felt like it had turned over new blood, and he still loved Li Xuan — didn't Li Xuan deserve to know that?

'Actually, him and me, we're not even —'

'Wait till we get inside.' Li Xuan cut him off again.

Li Xuan was getting more and more wound up.

He was scared to hear anything that might crack him open right now. He had something to do — the right thing, even if his reasons were selfish — and he kept stealing glances at Su Xingchuan's profile, the ache behind his nose almost unbearable.

He still wanted so badly to go back to him.

They pulled up to the destination. Su Xingchuan squinted at the sign. 'Francis Restaurant — isn't this Xie Liang's favorite place? You like it here too?'

Li Xuan's face went stiff.

He got out without a word. Su Xingchuan scrambled after him.

The restaurant wasn't too crowded. Li Xuan swept the room and immediately spotted Xie Liang and Xue Ningzi sitting on the southwest side.

The two of them were deep in conversation, eating and laughing.

Su Xingchuan asked, 'Didn't you say you don't like this kind of food?'

Li Xuan turned to look at him, breathing fast and unsteady — but Su Xingchuan was lazily flipping through the menu, completely oblivious to the gravity of the situation, and just asked him, 'What do you want to eat?'

Not wanting to waste another second, Li Xuan hesitated briefly and then grabbed Su Xingchuan's sleeve and tugged him forward, pointing toward the southwest corner. 'Look over there.'

Su Xingchuan followed the direction of Li Xuan's finger.

He recognized them immediately — Xie Liang and Xue Ningzi.

He used to grab meals with the two of them all the time. Xie Liang always brought his girlfriend wherever he went. Su Xingchuan was a year younger than Xue Ningzi and called her sao — before she'd found out he was gay, she'd even enthusiastically tried to set him up with someone.

Li Xuan watched Su Xingchuan not react at all, and his patience snapped.

'Isn't that your boyfriend? He's having dinner with a girl — do you see that? Yesterday he went to the hospital with her to get his sperm checked. They're trying for a baby. They've been together five years!'

He had Su Xingchuan's sleeve in a white-knuckled grip, voice climbing with every word, practically tearing the fabric. He kept going: 'Look properly! Do you see it?'

Su Xingchuan just stared at Li Xuan.

'Su Xingchuan, you idiot, say something—' Li Xuan felt the grievance rising in his chest, guilt close behind it. All he could do was hold on tighter to Su Xingchuan's cuff, his voice dropping into something small and coaxing. 'He's no good. He's been playing both sides. You got played — don't you get that?'

Su Xingchuan didn't move. He just looked at Li Xuan.

Was he reading too much into this? Because why was he seeing a ghost of the past in Li Xuan right now?

Li Xuan's voice cracked. 'Do you still have feelings for him?'

Su Xingchuan's expression shifted in an instant — the daze gave way to something that looked a lot like joy.

Not his imagination.

Li Xuan still had him in his heart.

He grabbed Li Xuan's wrist, too overwhelmed to get any words out, wanting nothing more than to pull him close. 'What did you just ask me?'

But Li Xuan wrenched himself back. 'Su Xingchuan!'

Su Xingchuan still wanted to pull him back in.

Li Xuan genuinely didn't understand Su Xingchuan's reaction. He'd never dealt with anything like this before — didn't know the first thing about handling a cheater — but he couldn't just stand there while Su Xingchuan and that girl got played. He wanted Su Xingchuan to step up and do something. Instead Su Xingchuan was staring at him with this dopey, vacant smile, murmuring, 'Say that again? Please?'

Li Xuan shoved his arm away and turned around.

He walked fast, straight toward Xie Liang.

His uncle used to call him immature. Said he had no sense of responsibility, that he'd grown up expecting other people to clean up his messes, that when things got hard he ran. When Su Xingchuan's mother had tracked him down back then, he'd cried and run from that too. One act of cowardice, and seven years were gone.

Not this time, Li Xuan thought.

He walked right up to Xie Liang.

Xie Liang was in the middle of a conversation with his girlfriend about wedding photos. 'Babe, I really don't think outdoor shoots work in this weather. That studio we looked at yesterday was perfect, honestly —'

Mid-sentence, Xie Liang felt a chill.

He turned. Li Xuan was standing at the edge of his table, puffed up with rage like a blowfish, glaring at him like a judge about to hand down a sentence.

Xie Liang blinked. 'Huh? Dr. Li?'

The next second, Li Xuan raised a finger, pointed it directly at Xie Liang, and said to Xue Ningzi: 'Miss Xue, this man is gay. Don't let him fool you.'

Every head in the vicinity swiveled over — other diners, the servers — eyes landing on Xie Liang and staying there, carrying a certain unmistakable judgment.

Xie Liang: '..'

Xue Ningzi: '...'

Su Xingchuan: '..'

After a solid thirty seconds of silence, Xie Liang let out a howl: 'Su Xingchuan! Come get your goddamn ex-boyfriend!'