Chapter 12

In fact, Ye Ji’an’s mouth hadn’t done anything other than talk, smoke, eat, and drink for eight hundred years.

Now, the feedback it gave him was:

First, how the hell could Liang Xiao kiss so well.

Second, you really are terrible.

It was just a brief kiss, maybe a few seconds? At most, no more than twenty. Clearly, Ye Ji’an was the one who had opened his mouth first, but once another breath entered, his dominance was inexplicably surrendered, shifting from offense to compliance in an instant. To call it compliance wasn’t quite right; it felt more like being taken care of. Liang Xiao was attentive in every breath and movement. Perhaps this kid really had some kind of magic; Ye Ji’an felt that certain parts of his mouth had become extraordinarily sensitive. Before Liang Xiao had licked them, they seemed dead—he couldn’t even feel their existence when eating spicy hot pot, let alone now when they were tingling.

He still gripped the collar of Liang Xiao’s shirt tightly because Liang Xiao hadn’t embraced him, nor had he even touched his body. He merely cradled Ye Ji’an’s cheeks gently, as if holding a precious blue-and-white porcelain vase about to be placed on an auction block. When Ye Ji’an felt his old waist beginning to soften and his breathing rate suddenly escalate, he forced himself to open his eyes wide.

He saw Liang Xiao’s eyes still closed, his brows relaxed, the corners of his eyes lifting in a way that seemed to hold a smile. If he were an artist, this expression would be the one he would play on his favorite instrument at that moment, Ye Ji’an thought, momentarily lost in thought. Just then, those eyes opened.

In the next second, Liang Xiao released him, but still held his face, their foreheads almost touching, as he gently wiped the moisture from the corner of Ye Ji’an’s mouth with his knuckles. “Senior, do you feel comfortable?” he asked softly.

“…It’s quite good.” Ye Ji’an felt that the sudden stop was a bit abrupt.

“Yeah, but we can’t kiss for too long,” Liang Xiao laughed, straightening up a bit as if he understood what Ye Ji’an was thinking. “Senior wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Ye Ji’an thought to himself, what do you take me for? I can swim five hundred meters in freestyle, isn’t that enough lung capacity for you to kiss?

But he heard Liang Xiao explain pointedly, “This requires a gradual process, both physiologically and psychologically. If I rush it, it will only backfire and make Senior resistant.”

Ye Ji’an felt a bit dazed; when he got nervous, his thoughts would jump around. For instance, right now he was randomly thinking: Okay, I see it now, your Chinese has improved significantly lately, and after a few compliments, you’ve become particularly fond of using idioms. You’re quite familiar with the “if only” structure, right? It would be a shame to send you to elementary school to teach language, after all, you’re a prodigy, analyzing a kiss as if you were analyzing stocks, with logic and reason.

But he couldn’t let his overly rich inner thoughts show on his face. Ye Ji’an simply asked, “Gradual process? Like kissing for five more seconds next time?”

Liang Xiao raised an eyebrow. “We can try.”

Ye Ji’an decided to be straightforward. “Is it because I’m straight?”

Liang Xiao nodded seriously. “Will Senior have a physiological reaction to me?”

Ye Ji’an felt as if he had been choked again, though he had felt good, and his waist was soft, it wasn’t to the point of getting hard. To be honest, the changes over the past year had been particularly noticeable. He had lost interest in watching films; lying in bed, the only thing he wanted to do was sleep deeply, dreaming of not wanting to wake up, not even dreaming of peach blossoms or wealth. Even if he occasionally watched half a movie out of boredom, he still felt disinterested. The melancholy of the “sage time” was far more intense than that brief pleasure. He even suspected he was about to join the ranks of thirty-five-year-olds with no sexual needs.

But could he tell Liang Xiao that? Wouldn’t that be equivalent to indirectly admitting to his ambiguous partner that he was in such a dire state he was about to become impotent?

So Ye Ji’an countered, “Have you?”

Liang Xiao shrugged nonchalantly. “Do you want to check?”

Ye Ji’an reached out. “I’ll give it a try.”

But Liang Xiao dodged him, turning away. “…Forget it.” He looked out the window at the dark sky, no longer interested in watching Ye Ji’an.

This time, it was Ye Ji’an who secretly found it amusing. A paper tiger, he thought, easily more shy than I am. He focused on Liang Xiao’s reddening ears and neck, suddenly realizing these were familiar sights; Liang Xiao had long begun to blush in front of him for various reasons.

He encouraged himself, poking Liang Xiao’s shoulder, and asked, “So now we—”

Liang Xiao immediately turned his face back to him, and instead of being shy, his eyes sparkled. “You have feelings for me, I know.”

Ye Ji’an’s face heated up as if he had been in a conference room with both air conditioning and heating for an entire day, presenting a project report. He heard his heart pounding wildly and concluded that Liang Xiao must have heard it too, which was why he was so certain about his feelings. “I wouldn’t kiss someone I didn’t feel anything for.”

“What about sleeping? If Deputy Director Chen has insomnia, would Senior help him like this?”

“Of course not!” The answer came out instinctively, but Ye Ji’an only realized after saying it that his previous thoughts, such as believing he should be Liang Xiao’s sleeping pillow, were not without reason.

Some reasons had already quietly existed before, hadn’t they?

He certainly remembered Liang Xiao saying he had someone he liked, someone he was pursuing, and that it had to be that person.

If pursuing someone didn’t need to be spoken aloud, then being pursued was also a subtle influence—Ye Ji’an felt that the more he recalled, the more clues he could grasp, just like the detective novels Liang Xiao had read backward—he had actually had a premonition, hadn’t he? The power of psychological suggestion was equally not to be underestimated.

“Yeah, I know Senior wouldn’t,” Liang Xiao didn’t give him much time to think, his brows and eyes curving in a way that suggested he was confident. “Actually, you don’t need to consider whether or not to be with me right now.”

“Ah?” Ye Ji’an was momentarily taken aback. He had kissed someone and was now tracing the roots of his own psychological state. He had no intention of denying it because he firmly believed that discovering a feeling meant it truly existed, and he should acknowledge it openly and adapt to it. What did Liang Xiao mean by this?

“Love is too heavy for a newly formed fondness, especially since the object of affection has changed gender and is of the kind not accepted by most people,” Liang Xiao leaned against the cold glass window, comfortably and calmly explaining his viewpoint. “Fondness is a fragile thing, easily dulled by the various troubles that come with love, even being dismissed as an illusion, and ultimately abandoned. I’m not an idealist; because I genuinely like Senior, I don’t want to be seen as an illusion.”

Ye Ji’an’s surprise was like a wave that kept rising. He understood that contemporary young people’s views on love varied widely, but he hadn’t expected Liang Xiao to be so rational and honest. He was truly a good candidate for investment; holding a billion-dollar project, he could do so without trembling and always remember to pull the other party into a pit.

“You’re right,” Ye Ji’an finally organized his thoughts and adopted a clear and sincere attitude, after all, he wasn’t one to dawdle. “But no matter when, being in a relationship will come with troubles; I’m not unprepared for that.”

“Then I will wait until Senior is unafraid of any level of trouble and just wants to be with me, just like I am now,” Liang Xiao pinched the end of his tie, gently smoothing it out, his eyelashes softly lowering. “I want to wait until Senior truly loves me; I will work hard for it.”

Ye Ji’an silently digested this for a while, feeling inexplicably like crying, but ultimately he chuckled instead. It wasn’t that he wasn’t serious; he just found Liang Xiao’s demeanor oddly cute, making him suddenly crave something like hot chocolate. “So now we are in a—quasi-relationship state.”

Liang Xiao tilted his head to look at him. “You could say that.”

Ye Ji’an rubbed his eyes. “I understand now. So does Philosopher Xiao Liang have any requirements for me?”

Liang Xiao immediately replied, “Just don’t date anyone else.”

“What about Senior’s requirements for me?” he asked again.

Ye Ji’an considered for a moment, just a moment, when they were discovered by the flight attendant, who kindly suggested they return to their seats quickly during the turbulence. So Ye Ji’an led Liang Xiao back to their seats obediently. He saw four colleagues still sleeping soundly, and Lao Chen’s head was even tilted awkwardly against Liang Xiao’s chair back. Ye Ji’an pushed him back to his own seat and pressed Liang Xiao back down into his seat. “I have just one request: when the holiday comes, can you invite me to stay at your place for two days?”

Liang Xiao’s big, bright eyes widened slightly. “Living together?”

“…Not so absolute,” Ye Ji’an grasped his chair back, carefully organizing his words. “I mean, you bought that apartment; you really must have liked the community conditions, right?”

“Of course, I want to be closer to Senior,” Liang Xiao said seriously, with his own persistence. “But living together is still too soon.”

“Don’t think too much; I’m not planning to do anything else. I won’t even help you sleep, just like these past few days,” Ye Ji’an also sat back in his seat, crossing one leg and looking at him across the aisle. “It’s just that now it’s not just you pursuing me; with work being so busy, we need to work together to cultivate our feelings.”