Forbidden Fruit

A thousand thoughts flashed through Qin Ci's mind in an instant.

After a moment of surprise, Hua Jian raised an eyebrow and joked with a smile, "Looking for me, Young Master Qin? Got another two-million-yuan job for me?"

The displeasure on Bo Lin's face abruptly turned icy. He frowned at Qin Ci. "What two-million-yuan job?"

Qin Ci broke out in a sweat.

He said sheepishly, "I was just joking with Hua Jian. Haha, what brings you here, President Bo?"

Fuck. Bravo, you idiot. What kind of question was that?

Hua Jian watched Qin Ci cower with an amused smile, thinking leisurely, So even a bastard like Qin Ci has someone he's scared of. I'd better stick close to Bo Lin from now on.

Even under these circumstances, hearing Hua Jian say his name actually lifted Bo Lin's mood a little.

As for Qin Ci, the moment he heard Hua Jian insult him, he shot him a vicious glare.

"Qin Ci."

Bo Lin's voice wasn't loud. It was even a little offhand.

But Qin Ci's heart was already in his throat again.

Fuck, what exactly did Bo Lin want when he said his name?!

He really was sweating buckets!

"Xiao Jian? President Bo, what are you two doing here?"

Just then, a voice suddenly came from behind them.

Qin Ci was saved!

Inwardly weeping with relief, he turned around with an expressionless face.

"Qin Ci?"

Xie Zhitan frowned as soon as he saw him.

The atmosphere was rather strange. How had three people with nothing to do with one another ended up together?

Qin Ci swore viciously to himself, but his body obediently moved toward Xie Zhitan. "Hey, genius, come on. I've got something to talk to you about."

Before Xie Zhitan could react, Qin Ci dragged him away, and they disappeared.

Once he left, the terrace was immediately exposed to everyone's view.

Quite a few nearby guests spotted Bo Lin, and their eyes lit up.

"Go take care of things. We can talk another day."

As the host of the banquet, he really couldn't stay out of sight forever.

Bo Lin turned to Hua Jian. "We'll talk next time, then."

After he left, Hua Jian tugged at the tie around his neck, then froze for a moment at the slight dampness on his palm.

Elsewhere, Xie Zhitan finally broke free of Qin Ci's grip.

"Qin Ci, what exactly do you want?"

The long corridor had a distinctly classical Chinese air. Uniquely shaped lamps glowed a dim yellow in the night.

Stirred by the night breeze, clusters of flickering light fell over Xie Zhitan's stern, handsome face, lending him an air of mystery.

Qin Ci snorted, somehow reminded of what Jiang Yueming had said earlier.

Back in middle school, Xie Zhitan had been the brightest star in their entire elite school.

Young and naive teenagers admired classmates with good grades more than anyone else.

Not only did Xie Zhitan excel academically, but he was also good-looking and had an even better temper.

Tutoring classmates and writing speeches for them were little favors hardly worth mentioning.

Qin Ci, on the other hand, had been an unrestrained little terror since childhood. He avoided studying like the plague and spent every day indulging in adolescent fantasies of becoming the Imperial Capital's crime boss.

They had been classmates for all three years of middle school and had barely spoken.

If they hadn't happened to live in the same apartment building after going abroad,

that lofty academic genius probably would never have had anything to do with a spoiled rich kid like Qin Ci.

Xie Zhitan, meanwhile, sighed inwardly. Ever since returning to China, every encounter with Qin Ci had brought endless trouble.

He lowered his eyes and flexed the spot Qin Ci had grabbed.

Seeing the movement, Qin Ci immediately asked, "That Hua Jian back there-what's your relationship with him?"

Xie Zhitan's lashes flickered slightly before he looked up at him. "You didn't recognize Xiao Jian?"

Qin Ci frowned in displeasure. "Calling a grown man Xiao Jian? Doesn't that make you sick?"

Xie Zhitan said coolly, "What, do I need Young Master Qin's permission to address my own younger brother?"

Qin Ci froze. "Brother? What brother?"

Xie Zhitan pressed his lips together slightly, then calmly looked away.

Qin Ci exploded at once. "What's that look supposed to mean? You think I'm stupid? I'm warning you, Xie Zhitan, don't fucking look down on me! Xie Zhitan, don't walk away!"

Hearing Qin Ci's impotent rage now seemed to overlap with Xie Zhiyan clinging to him and bawling earlier.

Xie Zhitan's intolerance for stupidity flared up.

He walked so fast that by the time Qin Ci reacted and chased him into the hall, he was already nowhere to be seen.

Qin Ci, on the other hand, had the bad luck to be spotted by his father's secretary.

The Bo Family's banquet ended very late.

Bo Lin was reserved by nature, but Old Master Bo loved a lively gathering more than anything.

Without the noise and bustle, the vast Winery Estate seemed terribly lonely.

From the backyard, however, the faint sound of splashing water still drifted over.

Bo Lin swam three thousand meters without stopping before finally climbing out.

Breathing hard, he raised a hand to wipe the water from his face.

He swept the hair plastered to his head back in one motion, fully exposing his face.

Bo Lin hadn't had a proper rest in a long time while preparing for the old master's birthday banquet.

He settled onto a lounge chair and gazed at the pitch-black sky. The moment when all his strength was spent was his favorite.

His body felt weightless, his mind worked slowly, and all sorts of stray thoughts followed.

Before long, he got up and went upstairs.

Water kept dripping from his hair, tracing his sharply defined collarbones and flowing over his rising and falling chest before gathering in the deep grooves of his abdomen and disappearing.

After washing up, Bo Lin wasn't sleepy at all.

He picked up his phone and found messages from several friends.

All of them were asking him out for drinks another day.

He chose two to reply to, then lost interest.

As he exited the messaging app, he tapped the back button in the upper left corner.

That tap happened to hit a notification that had just arrived.

It was a livestream.

Bo Lin's finger paused. In that brief moment of distraction, a man appeared on-screen, adjusting the camera.

Indifferent, he tapped to exit again, but the next moment, his finger stopped.

The screen showed the man from below his neck to above his waist.

With no beauty effects or filters on the camera, a vivid red mole where the base of the man's ear met his jaw abruptly captured Bo Lin's entire attention.

He didn't notice that he had suddenly held his breath.

It was as though he feared a gasp of surprise would startle the man on his phone.

In an apartment dozens of kilometers from the Bo Family's Winery Estate,

Hua Jian finally managed to position the camera and let out a relieved breath.

"Sorry, it's been a while since I streamed. I'm a little rusty."

"I'm just painting whatever comes to mind. Feel free to watch, and if you don't like it, just close the stream."

After saying those two things, Hua Jian didn't even check whether anyone was watching. He turned and immersed himself in painting.

A dense forest, dark clouds drifting across the sky, and dim yellow moonlight that seemed almost shy.

The forest's colors were dark and oppressive.

An apple lay beneath a tree, its vivid red seeming to tempt someone to steal a bite.

It looked mysterious and beautiful, yet stood out as deeply incongruous within the gloomy painting.

With inspiration flowing, the painting came together in one go.

After touching up the apple one last time, Hua Jian was thoroughly satisfied.

Two words abruptly popped into his excited mind.

Forbidden fruit.

The next moment, the dozen or so viewers in the livestream, Bo Lin included, heard a sudden thump.

The artist had abruptly stood up. Then he let out an extremely filthy curse.

Sure enough, the livestream was forcibly shut down for swearing.