In truth, he did not know whether he could catch the person before him, or whether he should.
He did not know what he was thinking. He simply took a few instinctive steps forward the moment the other man backed away.
Shen Shuangjian had not expected Xie Qingchi to be the "ghost," and even less had he expected to be the first one found, so soon.
So Shen Shuangjian took another step back. This time, however, before he had even made it halfway through that step, the other man reached out. With just a little force, he caught Shen Shuangjian by the forearm and pulled him back.
"Don't-"
As momentum forced Shen Shuangjian to fall toward him, his long hair, already loosely tied behind him, hung in the air for a moment before coming completely undone.
The red cord fell to the floor, and Shen Shuangjian was forced up close to Xie Qingchi. He both recoiled from and vaguely feared people with Xie Qingchi's temperament, so he instinctively turned his head away, avoiding Xie Qingchi's eyes.
"You..."
Xie Qingchi swallowed almost imperceptibly. He had only uttered that one word when the loudspeakers mounted throughout the estate rang out.
"Shen Shuangjian, eliminated."
As though afraid that once would not be clear or noticeable enough, the voice on the broadcast repeated the announcement more than three full times.
The hand on his forearm seemed to loosen for a moment. Shen Shuangjian's eyes shifted slightly, and then he felt Xie Qingchi slowly let go of him.
"Shen... Shuangjian?"
There was hesitation in Xie Qingchi's voice. For some reason, Shen Shuangjian even thought he heard a faint tremor.
"Mm..."
Xie Qingchi seemed to have fallen into a bad state altogether. He stood frozen, no longer even registering Shen Shuangjian's resistant retreat or his quiet departure through the door.
He stood there in a daze. In the dim light, even his expression was impossible to make out.
This meeting of the century left Xie Qingchi bewildered and with a headache, while the livestream's barrage of comments exploded too.
[...what kind of cursed scene is this? So awkward.]
[Sworn enemies crossing paths. Foes coming face-to-face.]
[The crown prince was the ghost, and the first person he caught was Shen Shuangjian, of all people. Honestly, when he went over just now, I was scared he'd hit Shen Shuangjian.]
[Am I the only one who thinks... Crown Prince Xie's expression changed when he saw wifey Shuangjian? It didn't look like he wanted to hit him. More like he was stunned by his beauty...?]
[Yes, you're the only one.]
[They're not close, okay? Stop letting every lowlife throw themselves at our crown prince.]
[Please, the Qing dynasty is dead.]
[Exactly. Where did this feudal garbage come from? Calling him crown prince day in, day out. Anyone who didn't know better would think he had a throne to inherit.]
[...he's the Xie Family's sole heir in this generation. His family is rich enough to rival a nation and has immense power. Saying there's a throne... isn't that much of a stretch, is it?]
[Then why aren't there any Northeastern crown princes, Henan crown princes, or Guangxi crown princes? Why does only "Beijing-circle crown prince" sound so grand?]
[Huh...?]
[Still, when Xie Qingchi caught wifey, he looked a little dazed no matter how you look at it.]
[A beauty in a dark room, wifey all covered up, neat and proper and coolly aloof, but when he got pulled over and the red cord fell out of his hair, he looked so sensual. If I were Xie Qingchi, I'd have crawled over panting already.]
[Feels like Xie Qingchi's been hooked like a fish. Wifey's been gone for ages, and he's still spacing out.]
[Can you brain-dead idiots stop being so ridiculous? Have you seen how viciously Xie Qingchi cursed Shen Shuangjian out? He's obviously holding back his anger and is too disgusted to speak, okay?]
[Stop shipping nonsense. Stop forcing an association. Xie Qingchi left the show because of Shen Shuangjian, and it's a fact that he cursed Shen Shuangjian out on Weibo. Have some shame.]
Xie Qingchi was now in an utterly terrible state.
He had never imagined that the person he had met in the flower corridor would turn out to be Shen Shuangjian.
No wonder. No wonder Li Yi kept hemming and hawing, not daring to tell me.
Xie Qingchi's expression nearly twisted out of shape. He did not even know what he was feeling.
Should he regret that the person was Shen Shuangjian, or regret the things he had said?
And so, throughout the allotted time, Xie Qingchi had no heart to search for anyone else. Once half an hour had passed, everyone except Shen Shuangjian was declared a winner.
When the others returned from their separate hiding places to their original starting point, Shen Shuangjian had already been waiting at the long banquet table for quite some time.
[Poor wifey. But still, he looks so sensual with his head lowered and his shoulders hunched.]
[Pfft, hahaha, he really is so pitiful.]
[How does Shen Shuangjian even look like that? He looks so cool and aloof, but somehow there's this sensuality to him.]
[Poor unlucky wifey. Kisses to comfort you.]
[He only caught him in half an hour and didn't even bother trying to catch anyone else. Isn't the targeting way too obvious? He clearly just wanted Shen Shuangjian to lose...]
[Exactly. Who's even shipping this...?]
[Wait, doesn't Xie Qingchi's reaction mean that seeing wifey left him so utterly captivated he just went blank?]
[Exactly. Only catching wifey isn't targeting him, it's favoritism, right? Still, he needs to go through the crematorium regardless.]
[These freaking idiot shippers.]
[Can't ship it. Please spare us.]
In fact, ever since learning that the person he was looking for was Shen Shuangjian, Xie Qingchi had remained in a drifting haze, as though he were up in the clouds.
Countless thoughts ran through his mind over and over.
For instance, why was that person Shen Shuangjian? How could it possibly be Shen Shuangjian?
Yet after that profound bewilderment, Xie Qingchi had to admit to the secret delight and quiet smugness welling up from the bottom of his heart.
Shen Shuangjian seemed to like him.
In truth, he should not have used "seemed," because from everything Xie Qingchi had heard and seen, Shen Shuangjian's feelings for him were already an established fact.
It was just that, when facing someone like Shen Shuangjian, even complete confidence dropped into the negatives.
But before he could fully savor that secret delight, anxiety and panic suddenly began to rise within Xie Qingchi again.
Why had he run his mouth and posted those remarks on Weibo? Why had he shown his disgust in front of other people?
Now look what had happened. Not only had he made himself and Shen Shuangjian enemies on opposing sides, but he had even put himself over a burning fire.
One step forward, and their relationship would deteriorate further.
One step back, and he would lose every scrap of face.
Like a cigarette held between his fingers, he knew that delaying any longer risked burning his hand, yet he still could neither advance nor retreat, wavering in place.
"Shuangjian."
Someone else's low, husky voice softly calling that name reached his ears. Xie Qingchi did not look up. Instead, he lowered his eyes, his gaze falling on the streak of cinnabar red in his palm.
It was the red cord Shen Shuangjian had dropped in the storage room, the one he used to tie his hair. Xie Qingchi had long since picked it up and had been rubbing it in his palm for quite some time.