The room was an ordinary suite. On one side, the bed faced a frosted-glass bathroom, while the other side featured a three-meter-long floor-to-ceiling window. The curtains weren’t drawn, allowing the brilliant city lights to spill into the room.
Though Huo Youqing had memories of intimacy, his body wasn’t used to it. His face flushed uncontrollably, and the corners of his eyes turned red—a shy and instinctual reaction. He gritted his teeth, and after a long while, finally squeezed out two words.
“Get off!”
The youth, deeply immersed in his “cat snuggling,” reluctantly lifted his lips away before obediently standing up. He twisted open a bottle of unopened water, but Huo Youqing didn’t take it.
Huo Youqing laid on the bed for a while longer. Only when he felt the heat in his cheeks subside did he sit up.
He thought his gaze was cold enough, but unfortunately, the redness hadn’t completely faded from his face, and the lingering moisture in his phoenix eyes softened his intended severity. What he thought was a fierce glare was, to others, nothing more than a kitten swiping with soft paws.
But Huo Youqing wasn’t foolish. He noticed how Dai Yixin’s gaze changed after his glare. Clenching his teeth in frustration, he wanted to say something but stopped. If he let his anger show, it would put him in a disadvantageous position in their relationship.
No leader would be enraged and wear their emotions on their face like this.
So, he forced himself to suppress his obvious anger and gestured for Dai Yixin to hand him the water bottle.
After taking a sip, Huo Youqing poured the rest of the water over Dai Yixin’s head. He made Dai Yixin bow his head, and though the water was spilling over him, Dai Yixin didn’t resist at all.
Soaked through, Dai Yixin’s misty blue shirt and suit pants clung to his body. Though he was only two years older than Huo, he carried a maturity beyond his age—not in looks but in his demeanor.
Earlier, Dai Yixin had chosen to stand under the camphor tree to avoid attention. His attire and aura had drawn too many eyes, and a few people had even dared to approach him for his contact information, though his cold stare quickly sent them away. Annoyed, he had hidden under the tree.
Dai Yixin’s physique was different from Huo Youqing’s. While Huo Youqing had the typical build of someone his age—long limbs, soft skin from lack of exercise—Dai Yixin’s body had clearly been shaped in the gym, with broad shoulders and just the right amount of muscle.
After pouring the water, Huo Youqing handed the bottle back to Dai Yixin. “Did you know me long before we met?”
This question made Dai Yixin raise his head. His pale face, now drenched, had water dripping from his hair, giving his eyes a misty look.
He slowly nodded, mentioning a past event that Huo Youqing had no recollection of.
***
When Dai Yixin was ten years old, he stayed in the country for a while. The reason for his return was that his grandmother had discovered the injuries all over his body.
At that time, Dai Yixin was already taller than his peers and had striking looks, but he was in poor health, frequently ill, and extremely thin.
When his grandmother went to visit her two grandsons in the United States, she unexpectedly discovered Dai Yixin’s injuries. At first, she thought the Dai family’s servants had mistreated the young master. Later, she found out that the person abusing Dai Yixin was his biological father.
In a fit of rage, his grandmother took him back to China, declaring that if Father Dai couldn’t take care of his child properly, he should no longer be responsible for him. After all, she and her husband could certainly afford to raise him.
They had initially wanted to take Dai Yuan back as well, but Dai Yuan refused.
Standing behind his father, with a timid expression on his face identical to his brother’s, Dai Yuan said, “Grandma, if I leave too, Dad will be very lonely.”
Grandmother had no choice but to take only Dai Yixin with her.
Dai Yixin’s grandparents lived next door to Huo Youqing’s house.
Although his grandparents were kind to him, they often didn’t know how to deal with him. Dai Yixin had a sullen temperament and would often sit in the yard for an entire day, only moving to eat, sleep, or use the bathroom.
Over time, he naturally noticed the sound of piano music coming from the house next door.
That was eight-year-old Huo Youqing playing the piano.
Huo Youqing had a natural talent for piano and had almost pursued a career as a professional pianist. However, he later decided he didn’t want to turn his hobby into a profession, so he stopped.
The smooth piano music drifted through the open windows into Dai Yixin’s ears, sometimes accompanied by other sounds.
He knew there was a child about his age living next door, and in the mornings, he could hear the child’s voice.
The soundproofing between the villas was good, but because Dai Yixin spent most of his time in the yard, he could hear the child talking to the adults.
“Uncle, I don’t want to practice piano today.”
“Aunt Su, can I skip my tutoring session today?”
“Aunt Su, have you seen the bottle I brought home yesterday? It’s for my science project.”
One day, the child wandered from the house to the yard, searching for his project and eventually finding the rain-soaked bottle in a corner. As he turned to leave, his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a pale face peeking through the dark iron fence, and he was so startled he almost screamed.
When he looked more closely, he realized the darkness was the fence between the two yards, and the pale white was someone’s face.
The face had an extremely sharp chin, the kind only villains in cartoons have, and the most prominent feature was the large eyes, which seemed to take up the entire face.
Those eyes were staring right at him.
Huo Youqing shuddered in fear, said nothing, and hurriedly ran back inside with his science project.
For several days, Dai Yixin didn’t see Huo Youqing, and even the piano music had stopped.
He wondered if he had scared the boy. His younger brother Dai Yuan often said he looked frightening too, “Brother, don’t you ever scare yourself when you look in the mirror?”
Dai Yixin sat in the yard and took out a mirror. He carefully examined his own face. His amber eyes were lifeless, devoid of the energy and vitality typical of a boy his age.
It was normal for the child next door to be afraid of him. Even his grandparents often had strange and fearful expressions when they looked at his face.
The adults thought he didn’t know, but he had overheard them discussing his mental state in private. They believed he was mentally ill.
Suddenly, he heard the child’s voice again.
This time, it was much closer. He quickly turned his head and saw the child standing by the fence.
“Hey, what’s your name?” the child asked.
Dai Yixin didn’t respond, just stared at him.
The child, unhappy with the lack of a reply, wrinkled his nose. “I went to my uncle and aunt’s house to play these past few days and didn’t get a chance to tell you. I wasn’t scared of you last time, so don’t think I’m a coward.”
So, it turned out the boy hadn’t been avoiding him—he just hadn’t been home.
This realization caused a slight ripple in Dai Yixin’s eyes, but he still didn’t speak. The child continued to talk, but when he received no response, his voice gradually softened. After a while, as if to bolster his courage, he raised his voice again, “Why aren’t you talking? Are you really a ghost?”
Dai Yixin’s response was to walk over and extend his hand through the fence. The child hesitated for a moment before reaching out and touching his arm.
It was warm. Not a ghost.
The boy breathed a sigh of relief, his dark eyes darting around nervously. To cover up his fear, he pulled out a piece of chocolate from his pocket and placed it in Dai Yixin’s hand. “Here, it’s for you.”
After that, he said he had to go eat and would come back to play next time.
Although the boy wasn’t lying, he had many friends to play with and quickly forgot about the strange boy next door who was two years older than him.
But Dai Yixin remembered. He waited every night in the yard, getting bitten all over by mosquitoes, unwilling to leave. A few days later, the temperature suddenly spiked, and the chocolate he had kept in his hand melted, oozing sticky sweetness.
He stared at the melted chocolate in his palm and slowly licked it clean with his tongue. Just as he was finishing, he heard the child’s voice again.
“Aren’t you a bit too old to be licking your fingers?” The child frowned at him. Dai Yixin didn’t hide his hands. Instead, he spoke the first words of his life to Huo Youqing—
“Sweet.”
“Sweet?” The child blinked, his face, round and white like a snowball, lit up with curiosity. He gestured for Dai Yixin to come over and grabbed his hand through the fence. Instead of licking it, he sniffed, catching the lingering scent of chocolate.
The child’s hand was chubby and soft, almost as if it had no bones. Dai Yixin stood still, allowing the child to sniff his hand.
“It does seem sweet, but Aunt Su says you’re not supposed to lick your hands—there are lots of germs on them,” the child instructed him seriously. “Do your family members not let you eat sweets? They’re doing it for your own good. If you eat too many sweets, you’ll get cavities. But if you really want some, I can give you a piece of candy now and then.”
As he spoke, he pulled out a piece of milk candy from his pocket.
No one had ever said something like this to Dai Yixin before. His father never allowed snacks in the house, and his grandparents, because they felt guilty about the abuse Dai Yixin had suffered, treated him with extreme caution. They didn’t teach him such things at all, and they even wished he were more like other children who liked snacks and sweets.
Dai Yixin accepted the candy, then handed over a gift he had prepared for several days. It was a music box he had made himself, and the tune inside was the same one Huo Youqing had been playing on the piano recently.
If Dai Yixin had stayed longer, he might have become friends with Huo Youqing. Unfortunately, his grandfather fell ill, and his grandmother no longer had the energy to care for him. In addition, Father Dai made all sorts of promises to his grandparents, assuring them he would never hurt Dai Yixin again, so Dai Yixin was sent back to the U.S.
On the day he left, Dai Yixin didn’t cry or say a word. He simply stared at the villa next door for a while, thinking that in about half an hour, the child would start practicing piano again.
Later, Dai Yixin’s grandfather passed away, and his grandmother moved out of the villa. A few years later, she too passed away. Huo Youqing completely forgot about the boy he had only ever exchanged one word with.
***
After hearing the story, Huo Youqing was stunned for a moment before realizing something. “You’ve been investigating me since way back?”
Dai Yixin didn’t wipe the water from his face and replied in a low voice, “Yes.”
Huo Youqing held back for a long time, barely resisting the urge to call him a “pervert.” Dai Yixin had noticed him far earlier than he had imagined, and it hadn’t just been a passing glance—it had probably started when they were children.
After barely calming himself, Huo Youqing stood up from the bed. He was just about to say he would return to school when he realized it was already past curfew at his dorm. He hadn’t brought his ID, so he couldn’t check into another room.
He pressed his lips together and said to Dai Yixin, “It’s past curfew for my dorm now. You should go downstairs with your ID and see if you can switch to a double room.”
Dai Yixin quickly returned, saying that switching to a double room was possible, but it required two IDs.
“I can sleep on the couch. You take the bed,” Dai Yixin offered, as if he already knew what Huo Youqing was concerned about.
Huo Youqing hesitated for two minutes before nodding in agreement. He didn’t fully trust Dai Yixin, so when it was his turn to shower, he made sure to kick Dai Yixin out of the room. And while Dai Yixin was in the shower, Huo Youqing kept his back to the bathroom, avoiding looking at it. Even though he couldn’t see, the sound of the running water was unavoidable, echoing through the frosted glass.
In the nine years between eighteen and twenty-seven, Huo Youqing had heard the sound of Dai Yixin showering many times. That sound always signaled the arrival of something bad. Forcing himself to close his eyes and sleep, he tried not to overthink it.
Suddenly, a ringtone woke him.
Huo Youqing reached for the phone on the bedside table and realized that he wasn’t in the hotel outside his school anymore. He had returned to the timeline of his twenty-seven-year-old self.
The early-morning caller was his cousin, who asked if he had gotten up yet on his way to work and mentioned that he would come over to cook for him later.
Still half-asleep, Huo Youqing mumbled a couple of “uh-huhs” and hung up the phone. After going back to sleep for a while, he finally got up, slowly washed up, and had breakfast.
While eating, his phone lit up again.
This time, the caller was Dai Yixin, who now went by the name Dai Yuan.
“Hello?” Huo Youqing answered.
Dai Yixin’s voice sounded weary, but beneath the exhaustion was a barely concealed excitement. “Youyou, I’m back in the country. I filmed some orcas. I wanted to video call you so you could see them for yourself, but the signal was too weak on the open sea, so I couldn’t make the call. I recorded it with my camera instead. Do you have time today? I can bring it over to show you.”
Stirring his porridge with a spoon, Huo Youqing replied, “You must be really tired after just getting back. I’m in no rush. We can wait until you’ve adjusted to the time difference.”
Dai Yixin seemed to chuckle. “Okay.” Then, his voice dropped. “Youyou, I miss you.”
Huo Youqing’s spoon paused mid-stir. “You should know we’re just friends. If you keep saying things like that, I might have to reconsider our relationship. I’m not interested in romance.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for more than thirty seconds before Dai Yixin finally responded with a quiet “Okay.”
After hanging up, Huo Youqing finished his breakfast in a good mood. But that good mood didn’t last long. Feeling stifled at home, he took his laptop to a café to work on some translations, only to unexpectedly run into Gong Lang.
Gong Lang wasn’t alone. He had a female companion with him, and the two of them entered the café laughing and chatting, looking like a perfect couple. Huo Youqing considered changing locations, but since he had arrived first, he decided to stay put.
He assumed that if Gong Lang had any sense, he wouldn’t talk to him, or at the very least, that Gong Lang might not notice him. But Gong Lang did neither.
“Why are you here?” Gong Lang stopped by Huo Youqing’s table.
Shifting his gaze from the laptop screen, Huo Youqing first met the curious eyes of Gong Lang’s companion. She was a beautiful woman with thick, curly hair, alluring and captivating. For some reason, her face flushed slightly.
Then, Huo Youqing turned to meet Gong Lang’s clearly displeased expression. Gong Lang glared at him as if he had no right to be there.
With a calm tone, Huo Youqing asked, “Do we know each other?”
That sentence was like a fuse, instantly igniting the powder keg that was Gong Lang. Gritting his teeth, he snapped, “What are you pretending for? We’ve known each other for years, and now you’re acting like we don’t.”
At first, Huo Youqing really had intended to avoid conflict, but Gong Lang had sought him out. Saving his unfinished translation work, he closed his laptop and looked directly at Gong Lang. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have pretended not to know you. But I thought you might prefer not to recognize me, considering you have such a beautiful woman by your side. She probably doesn’t know you used to have a thing for me, does she?”
A few seconds later, the coffee that Huo Youqing ordered was splashed onto Gong Lang’s face.
His female companion, after throwing the coffee, walked away gracefully in her high heels, leaving a disheveled Gong Lang behind. Gong Lang was so furious that his eyes seemed to burn with rage, and he looked at Huo Youqing as if he wanted to tear him apart. But Huo Youqing just smiled softly at him.
Gong Lang was momentarily stunned, then he heard Huo Youqing say, “This coffee cost 168 yuan. I drank a sip, so just give me 150.”
