The security department ran on three rotating shifts, morning, afternoon, and night. Cheng Yue took over promptly at midnight, patrolling for the first half of his shift before rotating to gate duty for the second half.
The aches he had felt upon waking during the day lingered into the early hours. In that same little room, Cheng Yue leaned back in his chair, dimly aware that his whole body felt cold, yet the breath he exhaled was scalding hot.
His sluggish nerves finally caught on. He probably had a fever.
The hours before dawn were almost the coldest part of the day. The security booth had no heating, only a small radiant heater to keep them warm.
Cheng Yue usually spent money like water on his appearance, but was rather less generous in other areas. Faced with waiting until he got home after work to take medicine or ordering some delivered now, he decisively chose to drink more hot water.
Mostly, he didn't think it was that serious. He could eat and drink, walk and move. At worst, he just felt a little unwell.
"I probably caught a chill in the shower yesterday."
Cheng Yue touched the cold tip of his nose and cradled his steaming cup, sighing to himself, "Things really are different now."
Now that he had lost his virginity, he could never return to the iron constitution he once possessed.
Cheng Yue had reflected on it. He bore his own undeniable share of responsibility for the whole affair, but someone had to take the brunt of his pent-up frustration. So he promptly pulled out his phone.
Qi Su, who slaved away for his boss by day and still had to fulfill his marital duties when he got home, was enjoying a wonderful dream of becoming a capitalist himself and calling the shots when a shrill ringtone suddenly pierced the night.
"Wake up and go back to sleep!"
Before the person on the other end could react, Cheng Yue hung up in satisfaction, silenced his phone, and wrapped himself in his padded coat, leisurely closing his eyes to rest.
He left Qi Su alone at home, hopping mad and powerless to do anything about it.
His discomfort lasted until daybreak, and he barely slept through the latter half of his shift. Just as he finally made it close to clocking out, two cars scraped each other at the gate.
His head heavy and foggy, Cheng Yue sternly ordered the two parties, who were arguing furiously, to move their cars. After clearing the residential complex's morning rush-hour congestion, he helped the traffic police check the surveillance footage.
The chaotic morning finally came to an end as the rising sun spread its light across the earth.
Cheng Yue tilted his head back toward the golden sun and let out a long breath.
Finally, I can get off work.
"Cheng Yue."
He had called it over a little too soon.
Cheng Yue sighed inwardly and turned toward the figure a short distance away.
The moment Fang Zhiyou saw him look over, delight flared in his forlorn eyes. He hurried toward him. "Cheng Yue!"
He had caught the first subway that morning to come here, crouching by the gate Cheng Yue often used and waiting for over an hour before finally seeing him.
"What are you doing here?"
Fang Zhiyou's smile froze for an instant, then he forced another radiant smile as though nothing had happened. "I came to pick you up after work."
After a whole night, the cold Cheng Yue had dismissed had escalated into a high fever. Even the face before him, both familiar and strangely unfamiliar, had begun to blur into a double image.
He blinked hard and endured his headache as he said, "Did you not understand the message I sent?"
At the thought of that photo showing the hotel room number, Fang Zhiyou's face went white. His bright, round eyes instantly filled with tears.
"Cheng Yue, you've misunderstood. That man was a producer. He had a role in an ad and asked me to discuss working together. Who knew a woman would suddenly barge in? It scared me too."
It was so clichéd that he didn't even need to hear the rest to guess what excuse would follow.
Weak from the fever, Cheng Yue pinched the bridge of his nose. All he wanted now was to hurry home and lie down, not continue this pointless argument.
"Fang Zhiyou, we're both adults. You have to face the consequences of what you've done. And could you stop treating me like an idiot?"
He had entered this relationship with serious intentions. While they were together, he had conscientiously fulfilled his role as a boyfriend.
Fang Zhiyou was young and hadn't even graduated from university. The young man looked like someone who had grown up cherished, so Cheng Yue had never been stingy with his patience or respect.
He remembered every single thing Fang Zhiyou disliked and made sure it never appeared in front of him again. When Fang Zhiyou said he was afraid of pain, Cheng Yue had restrained himself and never once crossed the line.
In the end, it had all been a butterfly dream, a bittersweet tale to drown in wine.
His face deathly pale, Fang Zhiyou cried as tears fell one after another. He stepped forward and clutched the hem of Cheng Yue's coat, as though trying to hold on to something. "Please, it wasn't like that. Nothing happened between him and me. We only... only..."
Under Cheng Yue's calm gaze, he could no longer get the rest out. All he could do was keep shaking his head, denying everything that had already happened.
Both his betrayal and Cheng Yue's determination to break up.
At the busy entrance to the residential complex, passersby kept casting curious looks their way. Though they couldn't hear a word, the atmosphere between the two made it easy to guess that this was another classic lovers' quarrel.
Ji Huaijin sat in his car, watching the central figures of this farce through the gap in the passenger-side window, his gaze calm and his expression indifferent.
Cheng Yue sighed softly. With a touch that seemed gentle yet carried an unyielding resolve, he slowly pulled the hem of his coat free. "Zhiyou, you understand, don't you?"
Whether anything had happened or not, it couldn't change the choice Fang Zhiyou had already made.
"Go home. Don't come here again."
Looking at the man before him, who couldn't stop crying, Cheng Yue couldn't claim to feel nothing. His feelings for him had once been real, after all. But now, all he could do was offer him a packet of tissues. "That road isn't easy. I still hope you'll think it through before-"
"What do you know!" Fang Zhiyou's eyes were bloodshot as he knocked the tissues away. "I want to shoot ads and make movies the normal way too! I want to do what I love! But that's how this world works, and this industry is no different."
As long as there was profit to be made, those people would gladly strip a layer of skin off him.
Fang Zhiyou came from a comfortable family. They weren't fabulously wealthy, but they never wanted for anything. Both his parents were company executives, and as their only son, he had naturally been showered with love.
He lacked neither money nor affection. He simply loved the feeling of being adored in the spotlight. Yet beneath its glamorous exterior, the entertainment industry was a field of thorns.
Entering that industry without anyone to back him was like a lamb falling into a wolves' den. Gaping jaws surrounded him, ready to tear him apart at any moment.
As though resigned to his fate, Fang Zhiyou trembled all over and lowered his head, murmuring to himself, "I didn't want this either. I just really want to be seen. Is that wrong?"
The sun continued its ascent, and the morning light that had fallen on him quietly vanished.
Cheng Yue could no longer tell whether the heat in his body came from his fever or the sun. He only suddenly realized that the turmoil in his heart had quietly subsided.
"Then I wish you a bright future."
An unknown length of time passed as Fang Zhiyou stood in the shadows, tears streaming down his face while he stared at the packet of tissues on the ground.
At last, he turned away resolutely.
The upscale residential complex had beautifully maintained landscaping. The plants in its flower beds looked as though they had been measured with a ruler, neither too tall nor too short, every row perfectly neat.
In the busy morning, pedestrians hurried to and fro. Cheng Yue sat alone on a bench, his eyes lowered as he quietly studied his hands, his thoughts unreadable.
"Do you need any help?"
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