T.N: From this point forward, the timeline is a bit confusing, at least it was for me. This chapter recounts the events that occurred before their relationship was exposed, providing some backstory.
That night, after signing the collaboration contract, Li Que kept his word and took Jiang Cenglan to a Japanese restaurant where the average cost per person was a thousand dollars.
At the end of the meal, the waiter came over, as custom dictated, to ask if the guests would like a photo. However, Li Que shook his head and declined. Then, he said back to Jiang Cenglan, in Chinese: “My agent once told me that a photo with me costs a bit more than tonight’s bill…”
…So it was a losing business.
His humor amused Jiang Cenglan, but before he could respond, he was pulled into the man’s embrace, an arm loosely wrapping around his waist.
With practiced ease, Li Que pulled out his phone and snapped a selfie. However, the moment Jiang Cenglan saw him open the camera app, he instinctively flinched a little. Li Que didn’t seem to notice. While holding the phone in one hand, his other hand, already around Jiang Cenglan’s waist, slid upward.
The final result was like this: in the photo, a handsome man was smiling elegantly at the camera, while his younger partner, slightly smaller than him, leaned lightly against his chest. Li Que’s arm reached from under his shoulder, with his left hand gently tilting Jiang Cenglan’s chin upward, his ring finger resting right against the bump of Jiang Cenglan’s Adam’s apple.
The warm yellow lighting of the restaurant looked decent through the front camera. At a glance, their posture could be explained away as two close buddies, arms slung around each other. One of them even had only part of his jawline showing, the rest of his face slightly out of the camera’s lens.
Yet on closer inspection, the photo felt more intimate than a cheek-to-cheek pose. Jiang Cenglan, held by the throat, could feel it all too clearly.
After the meal, Li Que drove him back to his apartment. He never mentioned anything about sharing the selfie, and Jiang Cenglan didn’t ask either. After all, the man had claimed to want to pursue him, but the next morning, Li Que flew all the way to Toulouse. Over the following week, the two kept in touch via WeChat, but not frequently.
Under the hot, dry Mediterranean summer, Toulouse in southern France remained drenched in sunshine, while New York transitioned abruptly into autumn under a torrential downpour.
That week, Jiang Cenglan no longer spent his days and nights rushing work at his senior sister’s studio. Things there had entered a stable rhythm, and all he needed to do was submit drafts periodically, which, in practice, meant longer intervals. Therefore, his main focus had shifted to designing formalwear for Li Que to wear at his Christmas charity gala.
Immersed in drawing, he finally had the mental space to reflect deeply on the mess his private life had been for the past month. As a gay man, Jiang Cenglan had always possessed sensitive and delicate nerves… Otherwise, he wouldn’t have picked up on the signs that he’d become the third wheel in his own relationship.
Despite the men in his life being completely different, both Li Que and Zhang Ruien gave him the exact same feeling. When together, he was always the one being led around by the nose, with the older man in total control. Now that Li Que was in France, it finally gave Jiang Cenglan some real breathing room to think.
And he realized that he actually knew very little about Li Que.
That “very little” referred to the deeper layers. After all, Jiang Cenglan could swear that, when it came to public information, he knew everything there was to know about Li Que.
But what he didn’t know, what he wanted to know, what he felt he needed and deserved to know… It was Li Que’s past with Zhang Ruien.
In fact, at one point, Jiang Cenglan had tried to contact his ex-boyfriend again, but the result was always the same. Complete radio silence.
After realizing he had been cheated in both his personal and professional life, there was no need to discuss their relationship further. Breaking up didn’t require mutual consent and, as far as Jiang Cenglan was concerned, his relationship with Zhang Ruien was over.
But still, something felt unfinished. Something wasn’t quite right…
As for Li Que, he kept up sporadic contact with him, completely out of character for a man who claimed to be pursuing him. All the while, Jiang Cenglan worked and thought, but before he could figure things out, the internet gossip incident blindsided him.
And now, right now…
Less than half an hour after Li Que sent a message saying he was on his way to the airport, that selfie of the two of them at the Japanese restaurant was posted on Li Que’s own Instagram.
Jiang Cenglan saw it almost immediately, but he had no mental bandwidth left to question what Li Que intended to do, coming out like that and not asking for his opinion at least once.
His roommate hit the nail on the head: “You’re avoiding it,” he said.
Jiang Cenglan was silent for a few seconds, then answered: “My head’s a mess right now.”
Avoidance might be shameful, but it worked. At the moment, Jiang Cenglan truly didn’t know what to do. If Li Que’s earlier words had offered him even a shred of comfort, then now, after he posted that selfie, Jiang Cenglan couldn’t help but start wondering… Was he really the only one left in the dark throughout all this? Was Li Que… Not entirely innocent?
Otherwise, why was it that Li Que’s privacy hadn’t been overly exposed, while his, a complete nobody’s, was being broadcast everywhere[mfn]Well, you see, this is exactly why I can’t bring myself to become emotionally invested in this novel. I feel like Li Que is playing around with Jiang Cenglan. Every time the boy wants to discuss serious matters, Li Que goes like “You don’t trust me?”, then uses his charm to confuse him, without admitting anything fully or coming clean with what he intends to do. Both he and Zhang Ruien treat Jiang Cenglan like a young and stupid child who doesn’t need to know what adults plan to do, literally stringing him along by the nose and just deciding for him, doing what they think is best. Of course, this will get addressed in the future, and we’ll get to see Li Que’s POV, but at this point in the story, as a reader, I can’t say I like where it’s going[/mfn]?
The composure he had forced himself to maintain came crashing down as reason and emotion pulled at him in a brutal tug-of-war, fueled by Jiang Cenglan’s admiration, infatuation, and trust in Li Que.
It was hard for him to even entertain the possibility that this might be some kind of “play”, orchestrated by Li Que himself. After all, things between them had moved far too fast, way beyond what Jiang Cenglan had ever imagined.
Strictly speaking, the two of them had only really spent two days and one night together in person. They hadn’t even fully addressed the awkward layer of ambiguity between them before rapidly becoming partners. There had been hugs, kisses, and even intimacy, though not in the conventional, fully consummated sense.
To put it simply, it was too much to call it just a hookup, but too little to call it real love.
Most importantly, did Li Que truly like him? Care about him?
Jiang Cenglan suddenly felt completely lost as the messages on his phone kept pouring in. Now it wasn’t just WeChat. People were even trying to reach him through QQ, which he hadn’t used in ages, just to get the inside scoop. He began to consider whether he should at least call his parents to give them a heads-up. Jiang Cenglan really didn’t know how far things might spiral out of control, but at that point, it was likely already beyond his ability to contain.
So he just sat in silence for a long time, brows furrowed with worry, as his roommate grew increasingly anxious about him.
After all, anyone in his situation would be panicking.
“Can you still get in touch with Richard?” his roommate asked cautiously.
Jiang Cenglan nodded, then shook his head. “He’s on a plane,” he answered. He had already checked the flight number Li Que had sent him, and the soonest he could see him was at 9 PM that night.
“Li Que told me to just wait at home for him,” Jiang Cenglan added.
His roommate exhaled in relief. At least Li Que’s attitude seemed proper, not like he was trying to wash his hands of the whole thing.
But the wait through the entire day was excruciating. Worried about Jiang Cenglan, his roommate called in sick to work and remained home. They didn’t even dare order takeout, afraid their address might have already leaked, so they cobbled together a simple meal to fill their stomachs.
But as it turned out, problems that happened outside the motherland couldn’t be fixed with simple traditional Chinese medicine. Watching Jiang Cenglan check the flight status more and more frequently and growing increasingly anxious, his roommate finally snapped into action, giving Jiang Cenglan two melatonin tablets and ordering him to go to sleep immediately.
“I can’t fall asleep,” Jiang Cenglan admitted honestly.
“That’s exactly why I gave you melatonin,” his roommate replied.
Jiang Cenglan tilted his head, thinking it over for a moment, and decided to trust in the wisdom of his elders. After all, his friend was two years older and had always taken good care of him, so he was willing to follow his advice.
Jiang Cenglan had always been a good sleeper, and with two melatonin tablets in his system, he dozed off quickly. He didn’t set an alarm, since his roommate had promised to wake him around 8 p.m. However, it was an extra nap and not a restful one. Jiang Cenglan drifted through countless murky dreams and woke up feeling more exhausted than before, soaked in a cold sweat.
Just before 8, his roommate kept his promise and gently woke him.
Jiang Cenglan’s head was spinning. Outside, the sky had long since gone dark. When his roommate asked what he wanted for dinner, Jiang Cenglan told him to make whatever, since he still needed a shower to snap himself awake first.
While his friend went to cook, Jiang Cenglan’s first instinct was to check his phone, only to see several missed calls.
They were from an unfamiliar number, one he hadn’t saved, and yet, Jiang Cenglan instinctively felt it was from Li Que. He didn’t call back right away and instead quickly opened WeChat.
As expected, Li Que had sent a message, pinned right at the top, informing him that due to turbulence, his plane had been forced to make an emergency landing at the Halifax airport in Canada. He wanted nothing more than to get to Jiang Cenglan as soon as possible, and would be taking a small connecting flight to New York in the early morning, telling him not to worry since his studio was handling things.
But Jiang Cenglan didn’t even have the strength to go online and check the news himself.
He tried calling the unfamiliar number back. The automated message said the phone was out of service, probablybecause Li Que was in the air, as Jiang Cenglan guessed.
So he could only set his phone down and go to the shower. However, just as he was rinsing off the last of the suds, he heard a commotion from the living room, sounding suspiciously like voices raised in argument, getting louder and louder.
What the hell?!
Had Li Que somehow used superpowers to teleport to his apartment?! Or had some crazy fan come to accuse him of stealing their muse?!
Jiang Cenglan quickly rinsed off, threw on some clothes, and stepped out to see what was going on.
But in the living room, standing toe-to-toe with his roommate, was someone Jiang Cenglan had never expected to see…
…Zhang Ruien.
The man who had disappeared for an entire month.
