Chapter 11

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Whether or not Chen Gong had a heart-shaped birthmark to the left of his chest wasn’t something Zheng Yi could choose not to care about.

Ever since he accidentally saw that video, Zheng Yi found himself unable to hate Chen Gong any longer.

Though to be fair, he never did “hate” Chen Gong—it wasn’t like they lived in some wuxia universe where one killed the other’s father or stole his wife, so how could there be strong enmity? At worst, it would only be a matter of not liking the look of someone.

His sense of sympathy kept acting up. Every time Zheng Yi saw Chen Gong, he couldn’t help but see his image overlap with that of the drowsy man from the video.

Then Zheng Yi couldn’t bear to be difficult anymore. He quietly speculated that Chen Gong’s cold, distant personality arose from that incident, that it was a defence mechanism…

As for why they kept bickering, though Zheng Yi wasn’t too clear on his own motives, he did feel vaguely that this was their habitual way of communicating— in some respects it was as if they had a tacit understanding…?

If either of them were a bit kinder to the other, it felt like they were backing down.

Zheng Yi didn’t want to back down.

Zheng Yi thought to himself that if one day, Chen Gong acted like Li’l Sheep… if on some drunken night, with his emotional barriers at their most vulnerable, Chen Gong would lower that proud head of his and tell him about the pain he had once gone through… Zheng Yi was certain he himself would end up shedding “hot-blooded manly tears of rage”, then pat Chen Gong on the back and say: “From now on we are brothers! I will never allow this pain to approach you again so long as I am in your life!”

But Chen Gong was a lump of iron. He was even less likely to back down.

“Well, you deserve not to have my loyalty then!” Zheng Yi muttered to himself, annoyed.

Li’l Sheep was better by comparison. He knew how to play coy.

So Zheng Yi sent him a text: [I dreamt of you last night.]

Li’l Sheep: [What did you dream of us doing?]

Zheng Yi: [Can’t say, might get in trouble.]

Li’l Sheep: [:shy:]

Zheng Yi: [I’m back tomorrow, wanna go play tmr night?]

Li’l Sheep: [Play what?]

“Naughty little lamb!” Every sentence tempted Zheng Yi to spell out his dreams and desires.

Zheng Yi’s head warmed. He restrained a leer as his mind filled with several scenes: the tearful little sheep frowning as he, the big bad wolf, pinned him down; heavy breathing, licking, gasping…

Zheng Yi rolled down the car window, hoping the wind could cool down his overheated head.

Zheng Yi had imagined these scenes countless times before. Sometimes he laughed at himself: was this a prolonged puberty, for such amorous tides to keep sweeping through the ocean of his mind?

Li’l Sheep’s moans had not vanished from his thoughts, only blurring a little, but in the next instant, those expressions and movements suddenly calmed, as if fainting. Zheng Yi suddenly realised that Li’l Sheep’s face had changed into Chen Gong’s.

His eyes were closed, incognisant of the violations to his body; his expression was simple, calm as the most solemn of saints.

And Zheng Yi himself was the demon desecrating him.

Zheng Yi started, his face in the blowing wind.

Five minutes later, the horror began to dissipate from his body at last.

Zheng Yi rubbed his face. He took out his phone and replied to Li’l Sheep: [Tell you later.]

The journey from the site to the hotel took about an hour. Only when he got out of the car did Zheng Yi remember that the room’s keycard was with Chen Gong.

Zheng Yi felt tired. He really didn’t sleep enough last night, and now without the keycard, he couldn’t enter the room. Zheng Yi felt suffocated. He lit a cigarette as he scrolled through his contact list and found [Chen Gonggong]. But just as he was about to call, Qiu Mang rang him.

“I received a few resumes— some of them are for your visual department, do you want to take a look?”

“No need, just give them straight to Chen Gong!” Zheng Yi held onto his last shred of consciousness as he blew smoke into the air. “Stop making him feel like the whole visual department is mine and we’re ganging up on him. Let him decide.”

After hanging up, he called [Chen Gonggong] only to be met with an engaged line. Zheng Yi figured that Qiu Mang must’ve gotten there first.

Give it a few minutes then… until he finished his cigarette.

When he put his cigarettes and lighter back into his pocket, the lighter slid into the inner layer on the jacket and hit something hard. Zheng Yi felt the bottom of the jacket. The inner lining held a lighter-shaped object and a card.

Reaching into his pocket, he found a hole.

He’d only worn this V— branded jacket a few times. “Not the least bit of artisanal pride left!” grumbled Zheng Yi, straightening out the garment in an odd posture. He reached into the hole and retrieved a lighter and a stiff card.

The card was his “lost” ID.

So he didn’t need to call Chen Gong and rush him to come back.

–

When he finished the account cancellation process, Chen Gong received a call from Qiu Mang. “I have a few resumes for your department, want to filter them?”

“Just give them to Zheng Yi, he might nitpick if I do it.”

Qiu Mang explained: “Zheng Yi told me to give them straight to you—he said you have a better eye for these things!”

“I… have an eye for recruitment?” Chen Gong laughed coldly. “Self-praise, huh…”

Qiu Mang realised that the words she carelessly blurted were a bit off— Chen Gong’s old foe Zheng Yi had been interviewed by Chen Gong himself.

Qiu Mang hadn’t thought her words through, simply hoping to improve the relationship between the two. She laughed. “Whatever, Zheng Yi basically said he trusts your judgement, so he wants you to decide!”

Chen Gong said, “Fine. Send me an email, I’ll look at it once I’m back at the hotel.”

When he hung up, he noticed a missed call while on the phone. The contact name read: [Xiao Zheng].

Chen Gong called back. “What is it?”

Zheng Yi’s voice was clearly fatigued as he spoke. “Nothing much… Are you still busy?”

“I’m done here, just managed to get a ride back. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much… wanna eat hotpot?”

Chen Gong had just buckled his seatbelt and was drinking some mineral water when he almost choked. Though surprised, he responded, “Alright.”

“The thing is… you can’t eat hotpot alone! Keep me company and we can celebrate the end of the prospecting together. It’s my treat.”

Chen Gong said, “Sure, I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, come back then, I’ll be waiting for you at the door.” Then he hung up.

At that moment, Chen Gong didn’t understand what Zheng Yi meant by “I’ll be waiting for you at the door”. He was just completely surprised by the thought that Zheng Yi would treat him to hotpot. Is he just hungry? Does he think I’m not so bad a person after all, does he want to make up? Or is he plotting something to mess with me?…

The driver saw Chen Gong hanging up, and asked in a friendly manner: “The missus calling you home?”

Chen Gong didn’t think before responding, “It’s my rival…”

But he realised after replying that there wasn’t a need for explanation, muttering inwardly: seems like Chengdu’s drivers have all become more and more gossipy while I’ve been away.

When he tucked his phone back into his pocket, his fingers rubbed against a card. He pulled it out and saw it was the hotel room keycard.

Chen Gong began to understand. Zheng Yi was staying in his room, but there was only one card; since the card was with him, Zheng Yi couldn’t get in. That was why he said “I’ll be waiting for you at the door”. Zheng Yi slept so little last night, he must have been utterly exhausted at this point, but it was hard to urge Chen Gong to come back when he was relying on Chen Gong’s charity. Hence, he invited him out for hotpot as a show of gratitude– also taking the chance to timidly say, “come back then”…

Managing his thoughts so cautiously, in a situation where he could only bow to someone else, was not at all the great Mr Zheng’s habitude.

Yet this made Chen Gong feel that he was quite pitiful.

–

Back when he had just finished interviewing Zheng Yi, his little Xuemei Qiu Mang had come over to the visual department to find out more. “So, xuezhang, how was my kid brother?”

“Zheng Yi’s your kid brother?” Chen Gong was taken aback. “He was great! On so many levels…”

Qiu Mang was bursting with pride. “That’s right, my little brother! Isn’t he silver-tongued and handsome and just so lovable?”

Chen Gong had laughed and nodded.

He had a very good first impression of Zheng Yi –in all honesty, it wasn’t bad even now.

Zheng Yi was impetuous, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing — he looked full of energy, like a shounen manga protagonist full of fire and drive, completely different from an ancient bronze artifact like himself.

On the other hand, his face was that of the male lead in a shoujo manga.

Well-groomed and fashionably garbed, girls in the company smiled instantly when they saw him — unlike himself, giving off so terrifying an air that people trembled when he opened his lips.

Chen Gong saw his own pale face reflected in the rearview mirror and turned to the window, fed up.

What Chen Gong really hated wasn’t Zheng Yi so much as the injustice of it all.

Some people fought all their lives to climb upward, but some were born with wings, and could fly to the summit with a few easy flaps.

Sometimes they even dropped a few feathers, dazzling your eyes as you gazed up at them.

Chen Gong didn’t hate the rich. Aside from some slight envy of the “natural phoenixes”, he didn’t care all that much.

But Zheng Yi was different. Before Zheng Yi appeared, Mr Wang had clearly reserved the position of director for him; but once he emerged, without even any sort of contest, just on the basis of his expensive education and his father’s request that Mr Wang “help” Zheng Yi out, Mr Wang took the position back out of Chen Gong’s hands and served it up to Zheng Yi.

What a coincidence.

Just when that father was helping his child’s career, on the other half of the screen, his mother was on her sickbed crying to him, “I was so useless… so irresponsible… I never managed to feed you enough growing up… even now I’m still using your money…”

Chen Gong gritted his teeth. “It’s okay… I’ll be promoted to director next month, I’ll get a raise.”

His mother nodded, her pock-marked face and deeply lined skin giving her a corpse-like look, not at all like her 47 years. Chen Gong had a fashion design tutor in university who ran a modelling agency that ended up collaborating frequently with Halo Studio. She was only a year younger than his mother, but looked like a newly debuted celebrity.

His mother would never say so herself, but Chen Gong heard it from her ward-mate: none of the nurses wanted to come; they forced the trainee to carry out the injections. The trainee was nervous and couldn’t even find the right vein after three stabs of the needle – the fourth stab went into her own hand, between her thumb and forefinger. “The girl freaked out so badly she threw down the needle and ran straight out!”

The wardmates were joking around about it, but Chen Gong couldn’t bring himself to make the right expressions. They were patients with a blood disease, it was natural that people were afraid.

Five days after she died, when Chen Gong came back from the leave he took to settle her affairs, there was someone new in the position of director, greeting Chen Gong with a familiar and innocent smile. “Chen Ge! It’s me, Zheng Yi, do you remember me? I’m in the visual department now– as director! Hehehe!”

In that instant, Chen Gong felt as if he’d told his mother the most abominable lie.

The more cheerful Zheng Yi’s smile, the more heavily he felt the guilt of his sin.

Common sense told Chen Gong that Zheng Yi wasn’t being hateful, he’d just happened to press on his wound by accident.

But human emotions are complex. You try to hold yourself back, but love and hate are born and persist without rhyme or reason; hard to change, impossible to erase.

–

Credits:

Author – Liang Azha (Weibo|Twitter)

Raws – Nandemonaiya

Translation – Nandemonaiya

Proofreading – Nandemonaiya, Terukutie, Zhiming

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< Chapter 10. The Prospecting and Deal Closing Incident

> Chapter 12. The “Confession” Incident

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