"Why did he tell you to wait?" Xia Shule looked at the message Lu Mingwen had sent, puzzled.
Yan Zhiyi kept his eyes straight ahead and said mildly, "Maybe he was worried we'd get impatient?"
Xia Shule was confused, but he actually believed it. "Really? Oh..."
Meanwhile, at Jiang Corporation, Jiang Gechen sat in his chair with a stormy expression.
A bright red wedding invitation lay in front of him.
The entire office had been smashed beyond recognition, wreckage strewn across the floor. Its owner had clearly just finished a rampage.
Jiang Gechen's eyes were bloodshot. He breathed heavily, unable to calm down.
His phone lay beside the wedding invitation, a crack across its screen from when he'd thrown it earlier. The message on it had come from a friend of his, who had spotted Song Dimu in a practice room at Shengshi.
Those two things together had inevitably sent Jiang Gechen into a frenzy.
Just moments ago, he'd called Song Dimu and ordered him to get there within ten minutes. That was just enough time if he came from his rented apartment, but it would take longer from Shengshi.
He'd been late every time, yet Jiang Gechen had somehow never noticed anything wrong.
Creak.
The office door opened. There was still sweat on Song Dimu's face that he hadn't managed to wipe away.
When Jiang Gechen called, he'd been practicing his dance routine. He'd been panting, but hadn't dared let the man on the other end notice anything amiss.
Ten minutes. He hadn't dared slow down the entire way and had even run a red light. He'd run all the way upstairs, only catching a couple of extra breaths while waiting for the elevator.
Thud!
A thick copy of A Brief History of Time struck Song Dimu in the head. The man had hurled it with so much force that tears sprang to his eyes from the pain.
He wasn't prone to crying. This was purely a physical reaction.
"You fucking signed with Shengshi as a trainee?! When have I ever treated you badly?! Huh? You little slut, haven't I given you enough?!"
Song Dimu held his head, not daring to speak. Whenever this man lost his mind, all he had to do was stay silent and let him vent for a while.
But today was different. With those two things laid out before Jiang Gechen, his rage had already gone through the roof.
"Speak! You could've gone any-fucking-where! It's not like I wouldn't let you become a trainee. Jiang Corporation has an entertainment company too. But you just had to fucking go to Shengshi?! Do you know whose company that is? Yan Zhiyi's! I hate him more than anyone!"
"Song Dimu, did a few days of being nice to you go to your head? Huh? Now that Xia Shule isn't giving you trouble, are you itching for a beating?"
"I stood up for you so you'd know who treats you best, not so you could go against me."
"Open your mouth. Speak."
Song Dimu lowered his hand, his eyes red from holding back tears. "I didn't know. I only went for the interview because Shengshi said they paid more."
"Paid more? Don't I give you enough? Is that money no longer enough to satisfy you? Why do you insist on going against me?"
Song Dimu accidentally met the other man's gaze. His eyes were scarlet. "I'm not going against you. I was just worried I wouldn't have enough savings if something unexpected happened..."
He couldn't exactly say he was doing it to get away from him, so he'd settled for an innocuous excuse.
Jiang Gechen approached Song Dimu step by step. His hand slid gently from his forehead down the side of his face to his chin, then he abruptly kicked the door shut.
The deafening bang made Song Dimu shudder all over. Jiang Gechen lightly patted his cheek.
"If something unexpected happens, just ask. It's not like I won't give it to you." Jiang Gechen leaned in and kissed Song Dimu's head, then closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his. "You know I love you more than anyone. I can give you anything you want..."
Song Dimu didn't dare speak, but inwardly, he was already cursing Jiang Gechen to hell and back. This fucking poser, so stingy and so full of theatrics... You won't even give me the freedom to get a job. What else is there to talk about?
They stood like that for ages. Jiang Gechen shifted his forehead away and leaned in to kiss Song Dimu on the lips. Song Dimu instinctively wanted to dodge, but then remembered that he was being paid for this.
So Song Dimu stayed rooted to the spot. No matter how Jiang Gechen kissed him, his lips remained sealed as though they'd been stapled shut.
"Fuck... You're like this every time. Like a dead fish."
Song Dimu lowered his head without speaking. When you want to fight back or push him away, don't say anything. Hold it in.
After a stretch of silence in the room, Jiang Gechen spoke in a subdued voice. It was hard to tell whether he was disappointed or still angry. Either way, his voice was low.
"Did you know Xia Shule is getting married?" His voice sounded hollow, less like he was asking Song Dimu and more like he was asking himself.
He knew. In fact, he'd been happy about it for quite a while, because Xia Shule had come to deliver an invitation, and the little figures drawn on it looked like a lot of care had gone into them.
Song Dimu looked past Jiang Gechen's shoulder and saw the red invitation behind him. No wonder he'd thrown such a huge tantrum.
Jiang Gechen continued on his own. "You think he's deliberately doing this out of spite to get my attention too, right? Come with me when the time comes. Let's see who cracks first."
His gaze passed through Song Dimu, vacant, as though he were seeing someone else.
Everything Jiang Gechen did was baffling. He clearly seemed to care about Xia Shule, yet he was constantly finding ways to humiliate and mistreat him.
Song Dimu thought, Are you out of your mind? That's not what I think.
"Okay. Don't be angry anymore."
Someone outside pressed down hard on the door handle twice, but the door didn't open.
Standing in front of Song Dimu, Jiang Gechen stretched out his long arm, almost enclosing him in an embrace as he opened the door.
Qin Dong poked his head in from outside, sensing that something was off about the atmosphere in the room.
The two seemed to have had a fight. He felt a little guilty, because he was the friend who'd told Jiang Gechen that Song Dimu had signed with Shengshi. That was probably what they'd fought about.
"Uh... Did I come at a bad time?"
Jiang Gechen grabbed Song Dimu's hand and pulled him aside, clearing the doorway. "Come in. Nothing happened."
Qin Dong didn't believe that bullshit for a second. He walked into the wrecked office. Who would believe nothing had happened? There wasn't even anywhere to put his feet...
"What is it?" Jiang Gechen returned to his chair and crossed his legs.
As Qin Dong passed Song Dimu, he fumbled over his words for ages. "Sister-in-law... No, um... Brother-in-law."
Song Dimu gave him a faint smile, then walked over to the sofa and sat down by himself. The two probably had something to discuss, so there was nothing left for him to do.
But he couldn't leave at a time like this. Otherwise, that lunatic would fly into another rage.
Song Dimu gazed at the blue sky and white clouds outside. This was how he spent every day, scraping out a living at the mercy of a man whose moods changed without warning.
His gaze swept around the office, this cage that devoured people. He'd be moving to a new job soon. There was no hurry.
Qin Dong spoke conspiratorially. "You know how I've been working with Shengshi lately? I heard some big inside news. There was quite a stir about it a few days ago, but they're all pretty tight-lipped. I only managed to find out a little."
Shengshi. The company belonging to that uncle he hated. No, how does that man deserve to be my uncle? Sooner or later, I'll crush him underfoot.