The fish still dangled in midair. It gave a few final twitches before the cold froze it stiff.
Yu Xiuyuan laid the fish on the ice, his mind racing.
Then he hit on the key point:
"Aren't you straight?"
Qiu Ziye fell silent for a few seconds. He had no intention of lying.
He looked straight into Yu Xiuyuan's eyes, his gaze open and his voice gentle but firm.
"Yes, but if it's you, I could."
After saying that, he seemed to feel he hadn't expressed himself accurately, and corrected himself.
"It's not that I could. It's that I like you."
"I came here for you."
His words were direct and passionate.
Yu Xiuyuan was a little surprised, and a little moved.
But he didn't stop thinking. He couldn't understand how the plot had veered so far off course.
Soon, Yu Xiuyuan realized where the problem lay.
"But back at the mall, you liked me because you thought I was a woman."
The way he looked at Qiu Ziye grew a little strange.
Was this guy treating me like a woman?
Yu Xiuyuan leaned back and narrowed his eyes.
"Ewww."
"No, that's not it!" Qiu Ziye hastily denied it.
Seeing Yu Xiuyuan's gaze grow stranger and stranger, he knew his thoughts had gone off in the wrong direction.
He did have some understanding of how this man's mind worked.
"I was attracted to you then, yes. But you turned me down and wouldn't even give me a chance to get to know you, so I never planned to keep pestering you."
Yu Xiuyuan remembered refusing to add him on WeChat and played dumb. "I just didn't have my phone."
"Xiuyuan, I'm twenty-eight. I can recognize a rejection." Qiu Ziye smiled helplessly, then suddenly changed tack to tease him again.
"If