Disfigurement

Pei Yang casually smoothed his bangs over the bump on his forehead and climbed the stairs to the sixth floor as usual. He had just taken out his keys when the person crouching outside his door stopped him short.

"Pei Yang!" Yin Sufang slowly stood up with a hand against the wall. Having crouched there too long, he felt dizzy and staggered. "You're finally back!"

"Why are you crouching outside my place?" Pei Yang hurried to steady him.

Yin Sufang picked up the large bag of barbecue beside his right hand. "I came to treat you to dinner. Why weren't you answering my WeChat messages or calls?"

Pei Yang took out his phone and checked it. "Sorry. The battery died, so it shut off."

He unlocked the door and invited Yin Sufang inside.

This was only Yin Sufang's second visit, but he treated the place like his own home, kicking off his shoes and sprawling on the couch. "I waited half an hour for you."

"Sorry. I'll treat you another day. Somewhere expensive."

"That's more like it."

Pei Yang fetched a few clean plates from the kitchen and arranged the skewers Yin Sufang had brought. "Weren't you on a date with your 108th Boyfriend?"

"Wow." Yin Sufang raised an eyebrow. "Your memory's that good? Even I have to think for a minute to remember which number I'm on. Unfortunately, I have to inform you that I've already broken up with number 108."

Pei Yang: "?"

He asked, "When did you get together?"

"This morning," Yin Sufang said with a yawn. "We were together for four hours."

Pei Yang: "...Why did you break up?"

"Because... tsk, what was it again?" Yin Sufang unlocked his phone and found a note titled "Ex-Boyfriends." "I wrote it down. Oh! I remember! When we had lunch together, he actually didn't pull out my chair for me!"

The corner of Pei Yang's mouth twitched. "That does sound pretty serious."

"Right?" Yin Sufang looked at Pei Yang with sparkling eyes, as though he had found a kindred spirit.

Pei Yang shook his head helplessly and turned to the kitchen to cut some fruit.

Through the frosted-glass door, Yin Sufang gazed at Pei Yang's slender waist and long legs from behind and swallowed. "Hey, Pei Yang, how's it going at Headquarters? Why were you working overtime on your very first day?"

"I wasn't working overtime." Pei Yang set the cut fruit on the table in front of Yin Sufang. "Someone held me up."

"Someone held you up?" Yin Sufang instantly straightened from his slouch. "What's going on? You already have an obsessive admirer on your first day?"

"...No." Pei Yang wasn't sure how to explain it to Yin Sufang, either. He and Feng Wanting had parted on bad terms today. Pei Yang had done all the talking, and Feng Wanting hadn't finished what he wanted to say, so he was bound to come looking for him again.

Pei Yang felt as though he had developed a condition that made him fret whenever he thought of Feng Wanting. He paused, almost forgetting that the man sitting in front of him had been in over a hundred relationships.

"Yin Sufang," Pei Yang called. "Let me ask you something."

"What?"

With a thousand thoughts tangled in his head, Pei Yang asked, "How do you get rid of someone who won't leave you alone?"

"Ha, so after all that, it is an admirer pestering you?" Yin Sufang took an indignant bite of a skewer. "It's simple. If he bothers you again, slap him and tell him, 'I don't like you! Show your face again and I'll call the police!'"

"..." Pei Yang hesitated. "Isn't that a little harsh?"

The man in question was Feng Wanting. He could give it a try if he had a death wish.

"Harsh? If you don't like someone, you have to be that harsh to make him give up." Yin Sufang narrowed his eyes. "Unless you have feelings for him."

Pei Yang froze.

"Holy shit," Yin Sufang said, stunned. "You actually do? What kind of man could melt that icy heart of yours?"

"No, that's not it." Pei Yang lowered his lashes. After a long silence, he squeezed a few words through his teeth. "Is there a gentler way? Something that won't offend him... but will get him out of my life for good?"

"No," Yin Sufang replied rather sourly. "As far as I'm concerned, there are two kinds of men: ones I dislike and ones I don't. If someone I dislike pesters me, I do exactly what I said and slap him. But if I don't dislike him..."

Yin Sufang left him hanging, looking at Pei Yang as though he had more to say.

Pei Yang grew a little impatient. "What if you don't dislike him?"

"Try dating him," Yin Sufang said. "You have to give it a try before you know whether you're right for each other."

Pei Yang: "..."

No wonder he has so many ex-boyfriends.

Pei Yang was curious. "May I ask how long your longest relationship lasted out of those hundred-plus ex-boyfriends?"

"Well..." Yin Sufang opened his notes again and scrolled for a long time before stopping. "Oh! Found it. The longest one lasted seven days and twenty hours."

"Seven days..." And that was the longest. Pei Yang's lips shifted. "Why did you break up?"

"Now this one really pissed me off." Yin Sufang gritted his teeth. "We agreed to meet at ten that night, and he was a whole three minutes and nine seconds late!"

"..."

It was a miracle that this "ex-boyfriend" had put up with Yin Sufang for seven days.

"What about the shortest?"

"Twenty seconds."

Every word out of Yin Sufang's mouth managed to shock Pei Yang. "Twenty seconds?"

"Yeah." This time, Yin Sufang didn't consult his notes. Apparently, the memory was vivid enough for him to answer immediately. "He pestered me for nearly half a month, fussing over me all the time. I thought he was kind of good-looking, so I agreed. The second I said yes, he couldn't wait to kiss me. I reacted on instinct and slapped him to the ground."

Pei Yang closed his eyes and rubbed between his brows. What on earth had possessed him to ask Yin Sufang how to get rid of someone?

Seeing Pei Yang looking miserable and not eating anything bothered Yin Sufang. He picked up a lamb skewer and shoved it into Pei Yang's hand. "Actually, I have another method. It calls for a pretty big sacrifice, though. Depends on whether you're willing to try it."

Pei Yang wasn't particularly interested in hearing any more, but he didn't say so. "What?" he asked casually.

"First," Yin Sufang said, "you have to figure out why he won't leave you alone."

Why? Pei Yang wanted to know why, too. For someone like Feng Wanting, the starting point he was born into was a finish line ordinary people could never reach. Why on earth would he keep clinging to Pei Yang? Was it because of his face? That would be terribly unoriginal. The male escorts surrounding Feng Wanting that night hadn't been much worse-looking than Pei Yang, and they were obedient, compliant, and sweet-talking, too. With so many people willing to fawn over him despite his cold indifference, why wouldn't Feng Wanting leave Pei Yang alone?

"We're both men. You know perfectly well that men are visual creatures, right?" Yin Sufang hinted.

"You are." Pei Yang refused to admit he was a sucker for good looks. "I'm not."

"Tsk, spare me the act." Looking as though he had seen right through Pei Yang, Yin Sufang rolled his eyes. "Your eyes practically popped out when you saw Director Feng, and you still claim you're not a visual creature. And that ex-boyfriend of yours-did he have any good qualities besides his face? Didn't you agree to date him because he was good-looking?"

Pei Yang grew agitated. "When did I-"

"Stop, stop, stop. We're not discussing Director Feng! Bringing him up just makes me regret everything!" Yin Sufang continued, "Maybe there are men in this world who care about the soul rather than appearances, but they're few and far between, practically an endangered species. Besides, the first thing anyone sees when they look at you is that face of yours, so cold it could shed ice chips. Who could look past your face to see your soul? If someone's pestering you, there's a ninety-nine percent chance it's because you're good-looking."

"...So what's this method of yours?" Pei Yang asked. "You can't possibly expect me to disfigure myself, can you?"

"Exactly! Disfigure yourself!" Yin Sufang said. "Once that face of yours turns ugly, I guarantee everyone pestering you will disappear without a trace!"

Pei Yang furrowed his brows, deep in thought.