The Ring

"Okay, I promise you," Zou Yan said.

Sheng Ke had not left home for three days. He had shut himself in his study, working overtime to finish a script.

He was completely absorbed, paying no attention even to the papers scattered beside the printer. When he picked up his cup, he found that the coffee had gone cold, though he had yet to take a sip. He drank the icy, bitter liquid and was about to make another cup when a notification for a new WeChat message popped up on his phone.

Zou Yan: What are you busy with?

: Writing a script.

Zou Yan: Are you free tonight? Want to grab dinner?

: No.

Zou Yan: Then I'll say it here. Stop scaring Xiaobai. He's afraid of you now.

Holding the cup in his left hand and his phone in his right, Sheng Ke went over to the coffee machine, but he had lost all appetite for it. He typed with one hand: I don't understand. What did he tell you?

Zou Yan: I should be asking what you said to him.

: He told you I scared him?

Zou Yan: Don't deny it. Don't I know how harsh your words can be?

Sheng Ke had taken a few minutes out of his busy schedule to argue with him only out of regard for his old friendship with Zou Yan. He had no energy to spare on the details.

Had he ever scared Xie Yibai? He couldn't remember.

: So what do you want? Do I have to throw a banquet to apologize to him too?

Zou Yan: I'll ask him.

Sheng Ke was astonished. He had underestimated Xie Yibai.

"Xiaobai, do you want Sheng Ke to apologize to you in person?" Zou Yan asked, following his wishes.

Xie Yibai had a mouthful of tea that he couldn't swallow. He gulped it down too quickly and choked, coughing as he said, "No, no, no... there's no need for that."

What had he done to deserve that?

Zou Yan relayed his exact words: There's no need for that. Just be more careful in the future.

Sheng Ke stood where he was, lost in thought for a long time.

What did that mean? Was he trying to drive a wedge between them?

He returned to his study and stared at the unfinished document on his computer screen, his fingers hesitating on the mouse. In the end, he didn't press delete. He saved the manuscript and moved it into a folder named "Drafts."

What was Xie Yibai doing? Hadn't their few meetings all been perfectly ordinary?

Sheng Ke sat in his chair, unable to make sense of it. His feelings were complicated. He ought to have been indignant that a close friend of more than twenty years had said something like that to him over an outsider. But he felt no intense love or hatred for Zou Yan, nor had he placed too much emotional reliance on their friendship.

He had warned Zou Yan long ago that Xiaobai was no innocent; he had also warned Xie Yibai that only sincerity could be exchanged for sincerity. As a friend and a bystander, he had said everything he should have said. If those two insisted on getting tangled up with each other, what could he do to help them?

When had he ever scared Xie Yibai? He had even given Xie Yibai unprecedented attention and preferential treatment.

Call him arrogant or say he thought too highly of himself, but the fact was that his scripts were in great demand among actors. Xie Yibai thought this was intimidation? To think there was someone in the world who couldn't tell what was good for him.

Sheng Ke only regretted losing his script: its concise framework, its ingenious development and twists, its accessible subject matter, its theme conveyed without belaboring the point. It should have made a good film, and Zou Yan would have thought highly of it too.

He suddenly recalled the WeChat message Xie Yibai had sent Zou Yan in the middle of the night, saying he still wanted to shoot a web drama.

Fine. Everyone had their own ambitions; a melon forced from the vine was not sweet.

Sheng Ke came to terms with it. When he met an actor better suited to it in the future, it wouldn't be too late to finish the story.

However-

This change of heart and the reason hidden behind it lodged in his heart like a thorn. It didn't hurt; it was merely unsettling.

What he deliberately ignored and was utterly unwilling to admit was that this was the first time anyone had met him with resistance.

Xie Yibai had no interest in the olive branch he had offered and had even used Zou Yan to turn him down.

The more he thought it over, the deeper the thorn sank, and the clearer Xie Yibai's face became.

"Brother Yan, are you chatting with Director Ke?"

"Yeah, but he stopped replying to me."

Xie Yibai said, "Maybe he's busy."

He hadn't seen what Zou Yan had said to Sheng Ke, but he figured Sheng Ke wouldn't pay him any more attention from now on.

It suddenly dawned on Xie Yibai that what he wanted was for Sheng Ke to stop paying attention to him.

He was afraid of that physical contact. Whenever he recalled the feeling of his face flushing and his heart racing, his whole body trembled in fine, violent shudders.

He didn't know what it was, but he instinctively wanted to avoid it, wanting only to retreat into his thin, fragile, rounded snail shell. He was a snail, and Sheng Ke was a child with a stick, poking and prodding him every time, making him terribly uncomfortable.

Xie Yibai already had a faint premonition: if he became involved with Sheng Ke, he feared he would be swept into a vortex from which there was no return.

For he had belatedly realized that those fine, violent tremors were the "first stirrings of attraction" so often portrayed in romance dramas.

Zou Yan treated him so well that he had no complaints. He didn't have to like Zou Yan, but he couldn't betray him.

Call him a hypocrite if you liked. Not doing anything to trouble his conscience was his guiding principle in life.

He would treat Sheng Ke as a stranger, not covet a momentary gift, and go his own way on the broad road.

That was what fit his plan for the next five years. He was going to work hard on his career!

Chapter 29: The Ring

He Limei had gotten upset with her husband and come to enjoy herself with her son for a few days. Once her anger had faded, she began to miss her friends and the card table, so she told Xie Yibai she was leaving. She wasn't going home, though. She had booked a hotel in Sanya and was going to carry on having fun with her girlfriends.

Xie Yibai supported her travels, shopping, and beauty treatments unconditionally, but her love of mahjong had once kept him on edge. He feared she would be set up and drawn into high-stakes gambling in Macau. Losing money was a small matter; getting addicted was a big one. Fortunately, He Limei was content with what she had. She played only with acquaintances and reported wherever she went, all to put her son at ease.

Xie Yibai took her to the airport and watched her video call her friends, saying she wanted to sign up for a tour of Europe a week later. He asked, "You're not going home?"

He Limei said breezily, "I'm really angry this time. Either your dad comes and apologizes and asks me to come home, or I'll leave him there to fend for himself."

That was the love life of a long-married couple, and Xie Yibai couldn't very well ask more. Afraid his mother really would cut off his father's spending money, he quietly transferred his father thirty thousand yuan and told him to sign up for a seniors' tour too, so he could get out and clear his head.

Who would have thought his father would be so stubborn? He declared with great spirit, "Can I starve myself to death? She can come back or not, as she pleases."

He didn't accept the money either, only sending Xie Yibai a video of himself fishing by the river.

Well done. A father who didn't give him cause to worry really was easy to look after.

Xie Yibai exited his chat with his father and replied to Zou Yan instead: Brother Yan, I'll come as soon as I've seen her off.

Just like that, his vacation was over. He hadn't gotten to do anything fun, and now he was being dragged off to another social engagement.

He was very unwilling to drink with people, but when he was working for a living, it wasn't up to him whether he was willing or not.

Zou Yan had said that today's gathering was crucial and that everyone attending was an investor. Terms they couldn't be persuaded to accept at a meeting would be easier to discuss over drinks.

Since it was work, Xie Yibai had taken particular care with his clothes. If he could gain leverage with his looks, he wouldn't need to compete at drinking.

He was slender and graceful, fair-skinned and tall, with a small head, a slim waist, and long legs. Even the most basic pieces looked designer on him. Keeping up with the trends, his stylist had put together a clean-fit casual outfit for him: a short-sleeved white T-shirt, black trousers, and a gleaming silver necklace hanging against his chest, with a fashionably cut denim jacket over it. Gold hoops clipped onto his earlobes, and his ring was a matching piece made of the same material.

His hair had been permed into slight waves and combed behind his ears, with a small lock of bangs left over his forehead and held in place with setting spray, framing his delicate brows and eyes. His face was smooth like a canvas, a fine, straight nose rising from snow-white skin, while soft red ink-wash strokes outlined his dewy lips.

Zou Yan had waited downstairs especially for him and accompanied him into the elevator. He glanced at the lower half of his face from time to time and asked, "Are you wearing makeup?"

Xie Yibai had paid attention to Zou Yan's preferences. Zou Yan judged whether someone was wearing makeup by the color of their lips, like a very straight man.

The drinking party was on the thirty-third floor, and the elevator had only just reached the tenth. He lifted his chin and openly showed him. "Guess."

Zou Yan didn't guess. Instead, he pressed his thumb to the corner of his mouth, rubbed lightly, and then looked at the pad of his finger. A thin, glossy layer of red clung to it like glaze.

Xie Yibai moved back belatedly, his brows drawing together slightly as he looked for his face in the mirrored elevator wall. "Don't smudge it. I didn't bring a makeup artist, so I can't touch it up."

Zou Yan supported his chin with the care one would use to hold a flower and turned him so they were facing each other. "Don't move," he instructed.

Xie Yibai stayed still while Zou Yan's thumb continued to rub his lips. All he could see were the other man's lowered lashes; he had no idea what state his own face was in. "Is it all smudged?" he asked.

Zou Yan smiled but didn't answer him.

"Brother Yan, lip gloss is sticky. You can't wipe it clean with your hand," Xie Yibai helpfully explained. He spotted a folded pocket square in the left pocket of Zou Yan's suit jacket and reached for it. "Use this to wipe it off for me."

Just then, they reached their floor, and the elevator doors opened.

Xie Yibai stood toward the back, while Zou Yan had his back to the doors. He was only a few centimeters shorter than Zou Yan, so he could see right over the other man's shoulder and clearly make out the scene outside.

He would have been better off not looking. The sight scared the soul out of him.

As the doors opened, Xing Zhanyun's face came into view.

Both hands in his trouser pockets, Xing Zhanyun looked startled at first, then watched them with the detached expression of someone enjoying a show.

Xie Yibai suddenly pushed Zou Yan away with his wrist. He checked his face in the wall to his right-good heavens! Zou Yan had wiped off all his lipstick, leaving uneven traces of color smudged around his lips.

Without another word, he pulled the pocket square, folded into a single peak, from Zou Yan's pocket and strode out of the elevator.

Xing Zhanyun's gaze followed his face. As they passed each other, he said, "You dare get intimate in public? You're really not afraid there are surveillance cameras in the elevator?"

Xie Yibai froze for a second before realizing that, from Xing Zhanyun's perspective, the position he and Zou Yan had been in must have looked rather like they were kissing.

He had been misunderstood again, and once again he had no way to explain himself!

But it was Xing Zhanyun, so whether he explained or not hardly mattered...