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Gu Chong studied Shen Wang from head to toe.
He looked a little more energetic than usual, but the more he spoke, the softer his voice became. His face was flushed, almost feverish. The Shen Wang in his memory had never been this awkward, this openly flustered.
Gu Chong didn’t expose his lie about casually “buying” something that was clearly custom-made. He only gave a faint, indifferent response.
Shen Wang, as if remembering something else, asked, “Is it busy over at Huangtu now that you’ve just taken over?”
Gu Chong opened a bottle of liquor. “What, you trying to gather intel for Chengtian?”
“No.” Shen Wang immediately waved it off.
He looked up at Gu Chong, the corners of his lips still faintly curved. It sounded like a joke—he wasn’t offended.
Only then did Shen Wang quietly exhale in relief.
After a pause, he fidgeted with his fingers. “Me calling you out like this… did I mess up your plans?”
“There weren’t any plans to begin with,” Gu Chong said casually.
“Not… not even anyone celebrating your birthday?”
Gu Chong let out a quiet laugh at that. “So that’s what you want to ask.”
His gaze shifted slightly. “Then you? Why today of all days?”
“Coincidence,” Shen Wang said, eyes lowered.
Silence settled between them.
Gu Chong had changed. He now dismantled Shen Wang’s questions with ease, then casually tossed them back at him. When had he learned this kind of skill? Or had Shen Wang simply always mistaken him for someone softer, more naive, more easily read?
Either way, there was resistance in his tone now. A faint one—but real.
Shen Wang started thinking about how to explain what had happened in New York—the awkward, unfinished encounter.
“I… I really didn’t have anything with that engineer of yours,” he said quietly, not daring to meet Gu Chong’s eyes. “I just wanted to talk. Even if we left the bar, it wouldn’t have led to anything…”
Gu Chong set his glass down.
The sound wasn’t loud, but it landed cleanly in the silence.
Shen Wang immediately pressed his lips together and stopped talking.
He didn’t know how to explain his “condition” to Gu Chong. If he said he only wanted to sit somewhere quiet with someone similar to him and talk for a while, Gu Chong probably wouldn’t believe it anyway.
After all, his credibility had never been high.
Gu Chong rested his head on one hand, fingers brushing lightly under his eye. A faint smile appeared.
“These are things you should explain to your boyfriend,” he said lazily. “Why are you telling me?”
Shen Wang froze. “But I don’t have a boyfriend.”
Gu Chong merely raised an eyebrow. “That’s unfortunate for Xu Si.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, still smiling.
Shen Wang looked at him.
The face was still the same—sharp, defined, familiar—but something indefinable had been added to it. Something he couldn’t quite read.
But he knew, instinctively, that there was something cold hidden beneath that smile.
Shen Wang gathered himself. “I really never… with Xu Si, I never—he and I grew up together, that’s all. We’re just friends. Nothing more.”
“And he’s not even in the country now. He left half a year ago—went to the desert.”
“The desert?”
“Yeah. He said he wanted to see the Sahara.”
Gu Chong gave a low laugh and took a sip of his drink on his own.
“That does sound like Xu Si.”
“He’s always liked wandering around,” Shen Wang added.
Gu Chong said, “I thought you’d call that ‘pursuing freedom.’”
Shen Wang paused. “He already has freedom. He just likes moving around.”
“Moving around?” Gu Chong chuckled. “Only you would describe a famous writer like a child.”
Then, after a beat, his tone shifted slightly.
“But it doesn’t matter who you explain things to. It’s not like you need to explain anything to me anyway—we broke up two years ago, didn’t we?”
He lifted his glass again. “Drink?”
Shen Wang shook his head.
Gu Chong didn’t insist. Instead, he drank more and more.
Shen Wang wanted to stop him, but didn’t dare provoke him.
Gu Chong held the glass between long, defined fingers. The cold gleam of his watch and the shifting reflections of liquor light were swallowed by the vast cityscape behind him. He turned slightly, as if watching the view outside, or simply staring into nothingness.
Then he spoke.
“Funny… when you look at it like this, Beijing and New York aren’t all that different. They both look extravagant, romantic even—but it’s just a layer on the surface. Underneath, it’s all the same worn-out world. Same old indulgence.”
He paused, then added lightly:
“But there are differences.”
“The bars in New York aren’t even as interesting as Beijing’s.”
“They’re too shabby. The equipment’s broken, even the sofas have holes—but the people inside aren’t bad. Right?”
He rambled on, his voice calm, almost careless. The night skyline behind him only made his face look colder, more refined.
“I don’t really know,” Shen Wang said quietly. “I don’t go to bars much anymore.”
Gu Chong clearly didn’t believe him.
He lifted his brows slightly. “Shen Wang, you’re always lying. Don’t forget how we met in New York.”
“That was a coincidence.”
Gu Chong’s smile thinned. “So all your coincidences just happen to include me?”
“I heard you used to break up with lovers cleanly and neatly—except with me. You say you don’t go to bars, but you met me in one.”
“What am I supposed to think? That it’s fate? That I was meant to witness every ugly part of you?”
Shen Wang listened quietly.
Gu Chong’s voice was getting softer, his eyes increasingly red. Shen Wang frowned slightly.
“Are you sick?” he asked.
Gu Chong looked at him, gaze unfocused. “Why would you say that?”
“You get like this when you’re sick,” Shen Wang said.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to cry.”
Even though the man in front of him was tall, striking, seemingly unbreakable, what Shen Wang saw—and what he felt—was still the same boy from years ago. The one who, after being rejected, had gone all the way to America. The one who always pretended otherwise when he was hurting. The one who never seemed to tire of it.
Gu Chong’s eyes darkened.
“Cry?” he repeated.
“What kind of joke is that?”
He stared at Shen Wang for a long time, brows furrowed sharply.
Shen Wang couldn’t hold his gaze. He regretted speaking the moment the words left his mouth.
Because the old Gu Chong—whenever he was unwell—used to turn quiet and fragile. He would cling to him, bury his face in his neck, and say everything that was on his mind.
He had told him countless times not to do that.
But Gu Chong never listened.
Back then, Shen Wang would end up with his face covered in kisses, helplessly pushed down by a clingy, stubborn man who looked like he might cry at any moment—yet still refused to admit anything, still insisted on arguing back.
In Shen Wang’s eyes, Gu Chong had always been that boy.
But now—
The man in front of him was in a suit, distant, composed.
And maybe… a little angry.
Gu Chong suddenly coughed violently.
His whole body tightened with fatigue, veins standing out clearly along the side of his neck.
