It felt like being suddenly caught mid-fall by a branch that appeared out of nowhere. The moment Li Xuan hit the answer button, he opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
“Li Xuan? Hello… Can you hear me? Why aren’t you saying anything?” Sheng Min’s voice was still as gentle as ever. “It was so noisy earlier; I didn’t even notice my phone ringing.”
Of course. Sheng Min wouldn’t intentionally ignore his calls. Li Xuan let out a deep breath, feeling like he’d just escaped a disaster. Sheng Min didn’t know he had spoken to Yang Xu, and these past few days, he’d been calmly reassuring him as always.
“Where are you?” Still anxious, Li Xuan decided to cut straight to the point. “Yang Xu told me everything.”
The line went silent for a long time. Finally, after nearly half a minute, Sheng Min spoke again. Maybe it was just Li Xuan’s imagination, but his tone seemed to have changed. It sounded brittle, like fruit peeled away from its skin to reveal a decaying core. “Told you what? He doesn’t know anything.”
Something must have happened. Li Xuan swallowed hard, his mind racing through countless troubling possibilities. The uncertainty made it even harder to stay calm.
“He doesn’t know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t know, does it?” Though his heart was in chaos, Li Xuan forced his tone to stay steady. “Sheng Min, remember what you said to me at the airport? You said you wouldn’t lie to me. So tell me the truth, where are you?”
“You lie to me all the time,” Sheng Min whispered in protest.
“I was wrong,” Li Xuan immediately apologized, though he couldn’t even recall what Sheng Min might be referring to. “I won’t lie to you anymore.”
“Liar.” Sheng Min chuckled faintly, the sound dry and hollow. Then, silence again.
The frequent quiet stretches left Li Xuan feeling powerless. “At least tell me what happened. Where are you?”
The traffic light ahead turned green, and the cars behind him honked impatiently. The navigation system reminded him to go straight for 700 meters before turning left onto South Airport Road.
“Are you heading to the airport?” Sheng Min suddenly asked. “On a business trip?”
“No, I’m coming to find you.”
Sheng Min seemed stunned, responding instinctively, “Where would you even look for me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, but you’re still going to look?”
It was such an obvious truth that Li Xuan didn’t see the point in the question. He simply hummed in affirmation, then abruptly realized that he did, in fact, have a way to find out.
For him, locating someone wasn’t a difficult task. There were countless easy ways to do it, but he had been so consumed by worry that it hadn’t occurred to him. Love, after all, was like a slow poison, gradually eroding rationality and leaving one driven by instinct alone—to rush to the person they cared for, no matter the cost or distance.
“Just tell me where you are, and I’ll find you, okay?”
Realizing this, Li Xuan pulled over to the side of the road as he spoke, grabbed his laptop from the passenger seat, and began running location software through his phone’s data.
“Are you trying to fool a child? Didn’t you just say you wouldn’t lie to me anymore? Do you really think I’m that gullible?” Sheng Min’s voice was faint and dazed. “Maybe I am that gullible…”
His words were disjointed and confusing, but Li Xuan didn’t have the mental space to analyze them. All he wanted was to keep Sheng Min talking, to prolong the call for as long as possible. “Didn’t you say you never wanted me to disappear again? Then don’t disappear on me either, okay?”
“I called you, didn’t I?” Sheng Min sighed softly. “I’m fine…really.”
“But I’m not fine if I can’t see you…” Li Xuan muttered as he tapped the keyboard furiously, his tone growing sharper before he forced it to soften. “Don’t make me worry.”
“There’s no need to worry, Li Xuan. I just want some time to think things through. Give me a few more days on my own…”
“No.” Li Xuan cut him off without hesitation. “You’re my boyfriend. I’m worried about you, so I need to see you now…” His brows furrowed as he stared at the screen, waiting for the code to process. His voice dropped to a low murmur. “Unless… you don’t want me anymore.”
Perhaps from the moment they met, Li Xuan had always been aggressive and uncompromising. Even when he softened his stance, Sheng Min found himself powerless to resist, despite knowing it was just a stalling tactic. Helplessly, he sighed.“You always know how to push my buttons.”
“I’m happy to let you push mine too. Just tell me where you are.”
The conversation circled back, revealing the true nature of Li Xuan—domineering, relentless, and unwilling to stop until his goals were achieved. Whether this was detestable or not, the judgment was entirely up to Sheng Min. Falling silent once more, Sheng Min suddenly heard a faint beep from Li Xuan’s side, like the notification sound of a completed program.
“…What are you doing? I think I heard your keyboard just now,” Sheng Min realized. “Did you… figure it out?”
Caught, Li Xuan was slightly tense, his breathing tightening for a moment. But he decisively pushed the laptop screen down and replied, “I can choose not to look. I’ll wait for my boyfriend to tell me.”
“Don’t go to the airport,” Sheng Min sighed after a long pause, finally giving in. “I’m in N city.”
The address was in the outskirts, and the road was clear, allowing Li Xuan to leave the city quickly. Once he hit the rural roads, the scenery felt strangely familiar. Parking his car, he glanced at the navigation display and realized they weren’t far from the ancient town they’d visited on their birthday.
The town was similarly remote, but in worse condition. The buildings were a mix of Ming-Qing dynasty architecture and modern cement. The intricately carved wooden brackets under the eaves had to be over three hundred years old, while the windows were covered with old calendars from the Olympics. In the distance, there were outdated skincare advertisements featuring long-replaced celebrity endorsers. The disjointed combination of old and new had left behind only the elderly and children, with Li Xuan being the only intruder in sight—except for Sheng Min.
There was no need for disguises. Sheng Min wasn’t wearing a hat or mask, just a light blue cotton shirt. He was half-squatting under a tree of an unknown species, watching two children, about five years old, playing house. He even humored them with comments on their “dishes” made of sand and grass, calling them “aesthetically pleasing.”
Sensing something, Sheng Min turned his head. When their eyes met, he said goodbye to his two little hosts and walked over to Li Xuan.
“So fast? You must’ve been speeding.” He wiped the sweat from Li Xuan’s forehead and glanced at his watch, softly offering his first words upon meeting. Then, “What happened to your hand?”
“I broke a glass.”
“A glass?”
“Yeah,” Li Xuan replied. Before Sheng Min could ask another question, he leaned forward and embraced him.
