When the signal to begin the game arrived on the phones the production team had prepared in advance, Xie Qingchi was still looking for a safe hiding place that would spare him any running.
In all fairness, Xie Qingchi was not particularly used to being the one pursued. He had only reluctantly accepted the arrangement out of consideration for Shen Shuangjian's slender arms and legs.
Unfortunately, he did not get his wish after all.
"We've been assigned to the chasing team."
Xie Qingchi frowned at the text message on his phone, seemingly sinking into a brief silence of thought.
After a long while, he abruptly looked up and said to Shen Shuangjian, whose expression was poor and even faintly dissatisfied, "Forget it. I doubt you could keep up with me anyway."
He snatched Shen Shuangjian's phone and quickly left his own phone number in the notes app.
"I'll chase people. Find somewhere to sit properly. If you see anyone, send me a message. You don't need to chase them. Just wait where you are."
Ordinarily, if Xie Qingchi had a teammate dragging him down like this, he would have long since started cursing at them in a nasty tone.
Only because it was Shen Shuangjian did Xie Qingchi have a little more patience and good temper, from some unknown source, and prefer to shoulder a two-person task alone.
Yet Shen Shuangjian still seemed thoroughly unappreciative.
He sat at one end of the bench beneath the tree, his eyes lowered and his head turned aside, without sparing the speaking Xie Qingchi a glance. He seemed to still be dwelling on what had happened earlier.
Xie Qingchi could tell that he was in low spirits. He reckoned that, if filming had not still been underway, Shen Shuangjian would probably have simply up and left long ago.
"Stop filming him, too. Come with me."
Xie Qingchi sighed somewhat helplessly and reached out to pat the camera beside him, signaling for the cameraman following them to come with him rather than keep thrusting a dark lens in Shen Shuangjian's face at a time like this.
As he left, Xie Qingchi could not help wondering: he had already taken the initiative to accommodate him, had already lowered himself, so why did Shen Shuangjian still look so unappreciative?
After Xie Qingchi left, without the pressure of the camera, Shen Shuangjian finally relaxed his faintly knitted brows, and his expression eased a little.
After a brief search with his thin, slender fingertips, Shen Shuangjian finally drew a small, narrow bottle of medicine from his jacket pocket.
Only after the bitterness passed down his throat did the palpitations and swollen ache brought on by insufficient sleep ease a little.
Shen Shuangjian had long since grown used to taking medicine anytime and anywhere without warm water to help it down. But the medicine was so bitter and difficult to swallow that it inevitably brought a faint flush of red to the corners of his eyes.
Before his sleeve slipped down, Shen Shuangjian caught sight of the faint pink finger marks still lingering on his wrist, tinged with white and difficult to notice.
Those were the slight marks Xie Qingchi had left when he reached out and grabbed him without knowing his own strength.
His pale lips immediately pressed together again in faint displeasure. Shen Shuangjian lowered his eyes and pulled his sleeve down over them.
Was this prolonged silence not itself proof of how restrained Shen Shuangjian was in his anger?
Growing up, because of his physical defects, Shen Shuangjian had been forced to learn to be quiet and distant, as well as withdrawn and difficult to approach.
He knew his personality made him hard to get close to. But accustomed to other people's politely observing boundaries, Shen Shuangjian had never encountered anyone as self-centered and overbearing as Xie Qingchi, and ultimately found him difficult to handle.
Shen Shuangjian could accept all indifference, could accept never growing close to anyone and forever maintaining a distance just a little closer than strangers.
But he could not necessarily accept being targeted without reason like this, or those cold words filled with hostility.
A breeze crossed the lake. The sound of a shoe crushing fallen leaves was faint and difficult to detect. Before Shen Shuangjian noticed, the newcomer had already spoken.
"Taking medicine that bitter must feel awful."
Xie Jinghui lightly drew together the suit jacket he had not yet had time to change out of. Keeping the safest distance between them, he counted this as sitting beside Shen Shuangjian.
"Why are you here alone?"
Before arriving at the estate, Xie Jinghui had smoked a cigarette out of habit.
Only when he got out of the car and caught the faint scent of nicotine mingling with his expensive cologne on the wind did he suddenly remember that Shen Shuangjian most likely could not stand the smell of smoke.
"Mr. Xie."
Shen Shuangjian still remembered him, because just yesterday, he had mistakenly entered that quiet, secluded garden and disturbed the estate's owner as he was reading.
Shen Shuangjian still remembered that he had said his name was Xie Jinghui.
Mr. Xie.
It was a distant, unfamiliar form of address, carrying courtesy and respect, and the respectful title Xie Jinghui had heard most often from others throughout the first half of his life.
Yet when Shen Shuangjian spoke those words, for reasons he could not explain, Xie Jinghui abruptly heard something different in them.
They held a little more lingering tenderness than other respectful titles, and a little more restrained distance than an overly intimate form of address, at once far and near, difficult to fathom.
And this was Xie Jinghui's third time seeing Shen Shuangjian.
Just like the two previous coincidences of fate, there was always a silence lasting a full ten seconds, with only the heartbeat continuing.
Xie Jinghui was neither glib nor taciturn. It was simply that, in this instant, he truly did not know what to say.
"What should I call you?"
And what should I offer in exchange for a reason to speak with you?
Xie Jinghui finally shifted his eyes, letting his gaze fall on Shen Shuangjian, who sat to his left with his wrist loosely covered.
"I should be a little older than you. Calling you 'sir' as well doesn't seem quite appropriate."
As Xie Qingchi's youngest uncle, Xie Jinghui now headed the Xie Family and was also the youngest child of Xie Qingchi's father's generation.
But ultimately, he was already twenty-seven this year.
He was certainly not old, but compared with Shen Shuangjian, who had just graduated from university and was in the prime of his youth at twenty-two, he was a full five years older.
"Whatever you like."
When older people addressed someone a little younger, they generally used their full name. Those being more courteous would leave off the surname.
"Shuang... jian."
When Xie Jinghui spoke the second syllable, there was a barely noticeable pause in his cadence. It did not sound awkward, but rather like a deliberate, familiar drawing out of the name.
Perhaps when dreams came last night, Xie Jinghui had already silently repeated it in his heart.
"Only when autumn gives way to winter does the frost turn cold, seldom seen. It's a very cool, austere name. Do you have any other nicknames?"
Xie Jinghui seemed merely to be asking casually, but as Shen Shuangjian heard it and took it to heart, he inopportunely recalled many things from his previous life.
Shen Shuangjian naturally had a nickname. He had still been young when his parents passed away, and a teacher from his childhood had found a suitable orphanage for him.
The director there was a gentle, warmhearted woman. Whenever she saw him, she would always deliberately call him Zhizhi.
She said that, for a child with a weak constitution, having an affectionate nickname that rolled easily off the tongue would gradually bring blessings as people called it.
But after the director died of illness, no one had ever called him by those two syllables again, and no one else knew them.