Nan Qing felt a little unsettled.
After posting on Weibo, he had stopped using his phone. The European-style garden was suffused with the fragrance of roses, moth orchids swayed in the air, and great swaths of tulips stretched into the distance.
He held a strawberry stem, fiddling with its green calyx, but Huo Yuzhou's face kept surfacing before his eyes.
Thinking it over carefully, he could no longer explain Huo Yuzhou's behavior with the idea that he had made him sign the agreement to boil the frog slowly before taking brutal revenge.
After all, how could someone seeking revenge put himself on the line and nearly lose his life deep in the mountains?
But...
But he wasn't treating him so well because he liked him.
He never touched him. Even the agreement had contained no physical demands. He had even stripped off Nan Qing's clothes with a calm expression, then dressed him again without batting an eye.
Then why had he saved him?
Because he was kind?
The absurd thought made Nan Qing's lips twitch. He could barely keep his expression under control.
A sound came from behind him, footsteps against the ground. Nan Qing put down the strawberry in his hand.
"Hello, could you please wheel me back to my room?"
"Sure thing!"
A very youthful voice rang out. Nan Qing turned and saw a strikingly handsome face.
He was around Huo Yuzhou's age, but his air was completely different. He wore casual clothes without any logos and a pair of sneakers, his outfit simple and understated, but on his wrist was a vintage-style Patek Philippe mechanical watch.
"Are you here to see Mr. Huo?"
Nan Qing felt he had been a little presumptuous, mistaking him for a servant, and hurriedly spoke.
"Mr. Huo is in the study. You can go straight there to find him."
The other man waved a hand.
"Huo Yuzhou wears that same deadpan face every day. It makes no difference whether I see him or not."
"Sister-in-law, I came to see you today. I'm just checking on him while I'm here."
The sudden "sister-in-law" made Nan Qing blush. He wanted to explain, but the man gave him no chance.
"Sister-in-law, have you forgotten who I am?"
He plopped down in front of Nan Qing, picked a strawberry without any ceremony, and popped it into his mouth.
Nan Qing looked at him hesitantly.
Huo Yuzhou had no siblings, and during the years the Bai Family had supported him, he hadn't made any friends either.
That meant this could only be a friend he had made after achieving success in his career.
But by that stage, Nan Qing and Huo Yuzhou had already gone their separate ways. There was no way he could know the man before him.
Nan Qing thought for a moment.
"Are you a friend of Mr. Huo's? Sorry, my memory might not be very good. I don't quite remember."
"It's normal not to remember."
The man sitting across from him smiled and gestured to show a height.
"You were only this tall back then, sister-in-law. I even-"
Nan Qing's eyes widened in shock.
What kind of small talk was this? Wasn't this something relatives said when visiting over the New Year?
The man swallowed his strawberry and smiled at him, finishing what he had been saying.
"I even bought you coffee. Iced black coffee with full sugar. You didn't take a single sip. You just raised your hand and splashed it all over Huo Yuzhou."
Nan Qing's eyes widened in shock again. He finally realized which incident the man meant.
If he remembered correctly, that had happened seven years ago.
Huo Yuzhou had been in college then, seeking investment everywhere for a project he had developed with his roommates.
Huo Yuzhou had been especially busy during that period. As the vicious cannon fodder, Nan Qing had naturally known what he was busy with, but his role was to show up and cause trouble.
Huo Yuzhou had changed into a suit and was on his way to meet an investor when he ran into Nan Qing, who was idling around the mall with his lackeys.
Following his plot mission, Nan Qing had accepted the coffee Huo Yuzhou's friend handed him, then splashed it over Huo Yuzhou's suit. Even the ice cubes in the coffee went skittering across the spotless floor.
The pack of disreputable friends following him had cheered. Huo Yuzhou's friend had turned livid with anger, insisting on teaching the brat a lesson.
But Huo Yuzhou had stopped him.
Nan Qing felt that Huo Yuzhou had hated him even then, but Huo Yuzhou kept his thoughts deeply hidden and showed not the slightest impatience.
He had even kept that cold, icy expression as he wiped Nan Qing's coffee-stained fingertips with a tissue.
Seeing Nan Qing's expression, the man smiled and picked another strawberry to pop into his mouth.
"It's me, little sister-in-law. Gu Xingchen!"
"Huo Yuzhou even asked me for the tissue he used to wipe your hand!"
With that, Gu Xingchen looked at him expectantly again.
Nan Qing was now so overcome with embarrassment and shame that he wanted to sink into the ground. Just as he was wondering what expression to show Gu Xingchen, Gu Xingchen spoke to him excitedly again.
"I've got to hand it to you, sister-in-law! You really have great taste-"
"That suit you picked for Huo Yuzhou really suited his image. It was so much better than that insurance-salesman black suit you splashed coffee on!"
Gu Xingchen even gave him a thumbs-up. "Awesome!"
Nan Qing: "..."
"I was rather willful back then. Sorry for causing you trouble."
Nan Qing answered with a guilty conscience.
Gu Xingchen waved a hand generously again. "No big deal. You were still young back then!"
"But you really don't remember me? We met several times. Even that wasn't our first meeting!"
Counting on his fingers, Gu Xingchen excitedly listed them for him.
"Once, a few of us were celebrating Yuzhou's birthday, and you came holding a dog. The moment we turned around, that little black poodle of yours plunged headfirst into the cake!"
"And another time, during Yuzhou's final defense, your drink leaked and spilled all over the laptop. We could hear the components crackling inside through the casing. Even the keyboard was smoking!"
"And, and..."
Gu Xingchen recounted his troublemaking exploits as though listing his own treasures, while Nan Qing's scalp prickled as he listened.
He no longer dared entertain even the slightest possibility that Huo Yuzhou liked him.
With all the trouble he had caused, he was practically a jinx. Whenever he got near Huo Yuzhou, Huo Yuzhou suffered.
Just how out of his mind would Huo Yuzhou have to be to like him?
Nan Qing's face flushed bright red. He wished he could flee.
But his legs weren't well, so he could only pretend nothing had happened and keep listening to his various misdeeds.
Yet in that brief moment of distraction, Gu Xingchen had already finished listing everything and was making his final summary.
"But I never saw you again after that. Huo Yuzhou wouldn't tell me anything when I asked him, either. Did you two have a falling-out?"
Nan Qing had no idea what he was talking about, so he could only evade the question.
"It was so long ago that I've forgotten too. Maybe everyone was just too busy."
Gu Xingchen nodded and sighed regretfully.
"I've never had a cake that delicious since. It's a shame you stopped celebrating Yuzhou's birthday after that, or I really would have asked you where you ordered it."
"But Yuzhou was down for a long time and could only bury himself in work. He hasn't taken a vacation in years."
"Right?"
Gu Xingchen raised his eyebrows at someone behind Nan Qing.
Nan Qing followed his gaze and looked back, seeing a handsome man who had been standing there for who knew how long.
Mature, composed, and elegant.
With a lush wall of roses behind him, he watched Nan Qing with a smile, his phoenix eyes half-lowered.
The instant their eyes met, Nan Qing felt even guiltier.
Yet Gu Xingchen, like some NPC in a wealthy-family story, sighed with a gratified expression.
"Seriously, it's been so long since our President Huo smiled this happily!"