C2 Part6

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P – Chapter 2.5

P – Chapter 2.6

Cao Ye was so bored he was about to fall asleep.

He’d jumped out of the taxi two hours ago in high spirits, and Lin Yan had led the way into this legendary unspeakable bar — it was actually just a hidden gay bar.

Telling him to sit down on a genuine leather sofa, Lin Yan had beckoned over two fruit trays and a cup of orange juice before he’d gotten too busy to care about him. He’d turned around and lustfully thrown his arms around the shoulders of an androgynous looking person.

Cao Ye truly couldn’t tell if that person was a guy or a girl. If he said that person was a guy, then there wasn’t a hint of male behaviour or bearing to be found in them at all. They had thin arms and thin legs and wore exquisitely applied dramatic makeup — and occasionally, a tinge of dreaminess would mix into the look on their face.

But since they appeared in a gay bar, they should be a man, right? Cao Ye secretly pondered to himself.

Were they really a guy? He couldn’t tell…

His curiosity kept drawing him back; he kept continuously turning to look at at that person. He couldn’t hold back.

Yet from time to time, Lin Yan would wrap his arms around that person’s neck and press them against the sofa, giving them a hot kiss as though there was no one else around… Cao Ye honestly didn’t want to watch.

But what was even more unbearable was that quite a few people had already come over just as Cao Ye was eating his fruit, wanting to buy him some drinks.

Cao Ye didn’t realise this at all, but his appearance in this bar had caused some people to consider him as prey within the few short moments of them turning around to look at him.

He was very tall, and since he exercised quite often, his forearm muscles exposed outside of his shirt were already beginning to develop. Just by his build, it was impossible for others to determine that he was only a fifteen, sixteen year old youth. But if they looked solely at his face, then that budding, youthful air of his couldn’t be covered at all.

A youth with a good figure, a temperament carrying some slight immaturity and a face that was very much good-looking — he sat alone in the corner of a sofa unguardedly eating a platter of fruit. In a hazily ambiguous gay bar, a scene like that was particularly attractive.

“Would you like a drink?”

“How old are you?”

“Why are you sitting by yourself? Want to chat?”

“Did you come here by yourself?”

After two hours, Cao Ye’s ears were about grow calluses from the amount of times he’d heard those phrases.

Uneasiness covered his whole body. He raised his head to sweep a look around, and yet just this one look actually had him meeting the eyes of five or six people who were studying him.

As he thought about how those people who were staring at him were planning on taking advantage of his front — or his behind — he found it hard to stay still. He wished he could find a sign somewhere, write on it the two words of not interested and attach it to the top of his head. This way, no one would think about either his front or his behind.

Cao Ye couldn’t handle it anymore. Just as Lin Yan and that guy finished a passionate kiss, he jumped over to them in the gap of time before they started a second one and patted Lin Yan’s shoulder.

With that guy in his arms, Lin Yan raised his head to look at him.

The dance music in the bar was loud, the sound of it blasting. Bending over, Cao Ye eased close to Lin Yan’s ear and asked, “How long are we staying here?”

Lin Yan’s area was close to the speakers, so the music was even more deafening. He only stood there for a short while, but Cao Ye felt like his eardrums were about to burst. Deep in his heart, he thought Lin Yan was amazing — he’d actually been there for two hours without going deaf.

But Lin Yan seemed to be not too far away from losing his hearing. He shouted back at him, “Huh? What’d you say?”

Cao Ye couldn’t tell if he’d gone deaf or not, so he pulled out his phone and typed out a message in a text field: Can you kiss at home?

Lin Yan laughed at that message for quite a while; he returned the phone back to Cao Ye and then released the guy in his arms, standing up. He grasped Cao Ye’s shoulders.

That guy followed along, lifting his head to look at Lin Yan. After gesturing to the guy, most likely to mean I’ll be gone for a bit, Lin Yan went with Cao Ye over to his previous leather sofa.

Maybe because the decibels at Lin Yan’s spot had truly been too high, but when Cao Ye got back to his leather sofa, he actually had the mistaken feeling of being cleansed from all human desire1.

Lin Yan sat down, his back leaning into the soft back. He turned his head around and said to Cao Ye with a smile, “What’s wrong? Envious?”

Cao Ye thought, not only was there something wrong with Lin Yan’s ears, but his eyes probably weren’t working right either — leaving aside the fact that he wasn’t interested in guys to begin with, what part of the guy in Lin Yan’s arms earlier was worth him being envious?

He sat down and reclined backwards as well, his two long legs bending at the knees and supported firmly by the ground. Scoffing, he said, “As if.”

Lin Yan was unwilling to give up, and he moved his face closer to say to Cao Ye, “I know you’re not interested in men. But use your young straight man’s eyes and tell me — he’s good-looking, right?”

“Who’s young?!” Cao Ye glanced over at that guy, who just so happened to be looking at the band performing on stage. His side profile landed in Cao Ye’s eyes.

For some inexplicable reason, his brain suddenly brought up the side profile he saw that afternoon — the side profile of Liang Sizhe standing at the end of the narrow alley, messy hair tied up behind his head and face faintly tilted upwards to study the row of old shopfronts in front of him.

Four words appeared in his mind: nowhere near good enough.

But the words that came out of his mouth were fairly tactful. “He’s okay.”

Lin Yan was incomparably proud of his own discerning eyes and tastes, so as soon as he heard Cao Ye’s offhand and uncaring voice, he sniffed in contempt and said, “Shouldn’t have asked you… What can a young child like you understand, your pubes haven’t even grown in yet.”

Indignation rose in Cao Ye’s heart; he couldn’t stand people bringing up age when talking about things. Lin Yan was only older than him by three years — why was he acting as if he’d been around and seen much of the world?

“That one of yours is no good.” Cao Ye pretended to be even more sophisticated than Lin Yan. “I have a friend much better looking than him. Without even mentioning his face, just his bearing alone can completely outclass your guy here.”

Lin Yan had only just acquired that lover — he was currently at the time where he was protective and indulgent of him, so he took exception to Cao Ye’s words and said, “What kind of heavenly friend do you have that I don’t know about?” He was sure Cao Ye was making things up to trick him. They usually hung out within the same social circle, so even though he might not be too familiar with Cao Ye’s friends, he at least knew all of them.

Cao Ye’s immature heart swept over him in the end: seeing Lin Yan not believe him, he took out his phone, tapped into his address book and aimed his thumb at the three characters of ‘Liang Sizhe’. “This one. You know him?”

Lin Yan pulled his phone out of his hands and brought it to his face. He read out, “Liang Sijiji…2”

Cao Ye burst into uproarious laughter. “That character’s read ‘zhe’3! How could you be so illiterate?” As he laughed, he used Lin Yan’s original method of using his age to return fire. “And you’re even three years older than me. Aren’t you embarrassed…”

Lin Yan wasn’t paying attention at all; he’d already dialled the number. “Hello, this is Liang Sizhe, right?”

“Fuck.” Cao Ye sprang over to snatch his phone back. “Give it back to me!”

Taking the chance to lie down on his side, Lin Yan stuck the phone into the gap between his face and the sofa, making it so Cao Ye had nowhere to grab. Lin Yan’s voice was quite composed as he said, “Can you come to Yunguang Bar at 144 Qiuming Road?”

On the other end of the phone, Liang Sizhe must’ve asked for what, because Lin Yan then mischievously said, “Cao Ye’s waiting for you to sleep with him4, hurry—” Before he could finish, Cao Ye’s hand wedged its way into the space between the side of Lin Yan’s face and the sofa and immediately plucked the phone away.

Cao Ye didn’t have the time to come to blows with Lin Yan. Once he had his phone, he wanted to give Liang Sizhe an explanation, but the moment he placed the phone speaker to his ear, a cold ‘piss off’ came through. The call was hung up right after.

By the time Cao Ye sent through another call, Liang Sizhe had already turned off his phone.

Lin Yan was gloating, laughing at him as he said, “Oh no, oh no, the little beauty’s angry now.”

“Piss off with the little beauty, you son of a bitch,” Cao Ye sourly said. He tried calling again, but Liang Sizhe’s phone was still turned off.

“Fuck, he really did turn off his phone.” Cao Ye chucked his phone over in Lin Yan’s direction. “You screwed me over.”

Tilting his head to the side, Lin Yan dodged the phone and then picked it up after it landed on the sofa. He attempted to call too, raising his head to look at Cao Ye and carelessly saying with a grin, “So what if it’s turned off. Aren’t you uninterested in men?”

“My dad brought him here to keep an eye on me!” Cao Ye sat down heavily onto the sofa, his voice somewhat vexed. “I’d just made a deal with him too, but now you’ve messed it up.”

“What, what?” Lin Yan thought nothing of it and joked, “Your dad specifically went to find someone to monitor you? You’re that important?”

“He didn’t specifically go looking for someone to monitor me… He found an actor and is having him watch over me while he’s here.”

“Oh… Your dad’s using someone new again?” Lin Yan was slightly curious. “Is he really that good-looking? Is he even better-looking than Zhang Minghan?”

Zhang Minghan was the previous actor Cao Xiuyuan had brought to fame; he’d been roughly the same age as Liang Sizhe when he became famous. When Cao Ye had initially said he knew someone even better looking than Qi Yu — the guy who’d been passionately kissing Lin Yan a hundred times just then — Lin Yan hadn’t dared to believe him. But now, he had no choice but to believe him.

Cao Xiuyuan’s ability to pick people was universally recognised in the entire country. Someone he chose to be an actor — at the very least, that person would be on the same level as Zhang Minghan, right?

Unexpectedly, Cao Ye was generous with his praise. “Much better-looking than Zhang Minghan.”

“Where is your dad having you guys stay?” Lin Yan straightened up, changing his attitude and turning into an upright person. “Why don’t I drive you over right now, and you can bring him out for an apology?”

Cao Ye wasn’t stupid; he promptly understood what Lin Yan was planning and shot him a look. He said, “Please. He’s not your type.”

“I’m fine with someone like Zhang Minghan too!”

“He’s not like Zhang Minghan either.”

“Then what type is he?”

“I can’t describe it.”

Disappointed, Lin Yan said, “Hey! What kind of language ability is that? You were making fun of me just then, too.”

Cao Ye didn’t want to continue along this conversation with Lin Yan. Discussing whether a guy was good-looking or not behind that guy’s back seemed to be rather strange. He pulled the conversation back on track and righteously, confidently said, “Anyway, you’ve ruined my spy. You’ll have to be fully responsible for my food, clothing, shelter and transportation these next few days.”

“All right.” Lin Yan took it easily enough, but he didn’t forget to blow Cao Ye’s cover. “Talking as though you didn’t need me to take care of everything if I didn’t ruin things. Weren’t you already planning on doing that?!”

Cao Ye grinned at him. “Yan-ge, you might not know too many characters, but your ability to understand things is still adequate.”

“Get lost,” Lin Yan said.

The Lin family and Cao family had been friends for over two generations — their two grandfathers still got together frequently to drink tea and play Chinese chess. Lin Yan and Cao Ye had known each other since they were children.

Lin Yan was older than Cao Ye by three years and had always taken him as a younger brother. Even though he would occasionally set him up a few times, if Cao Ye got into trouble, Lin Yan would truly help him out.

Cao Ye was the youngest in their circle of friends, and at the same time, he was the most popular person. Everyone else, no matter what, would have one or two people they didn’t care for, but Cao Ye didn’t. He got along with everyone, and so everyone also quite liked Cao Ye.

Lin Yan thought that was something fairly easy to understand. Everyone else probably thought the same way he did — Cao Ye was someone they’d watched grow up. He came back every summer to stay for a while, and when he was younger, he had been as pretty as a western doll. At that time, everyone had liked teasing him. Year after year passed, and after he grew up and turned into a youth, he was loyal and kind to friends, generous with his money and was even someone who could handle being made fun of. People couldn’t find anything about him to hate. This child had been charming and likeable since he’d been a child.

That night, Cao Ye lived in Lin Yan’s home. He took up a room by himself.

When they’d been leaving the bar, he had still been slightly uneasy about whether Cao Xiuyuan would throw a surprise visit tonight. But as he stood at the entrance of the super luxurious room the Lin family’s housekeeper had prepared for him, he immediately cleared his mind of those thoughts. The moment he flopped onto the bed, he thought: how would Cao Xiuyuan have so much free time? Even if he really did have that much time right now, Uncle Yin would still leak him some news before the surprise attack. With an inner spy, what was there to worry about?

He might as well… enjoy today while he could, and quickly clean up and go to bed!

Translator has something to say:

Buddhist terminology here: 六根清净. Means having left the worrisome world, and your senses have been cleansed and released from any earthly desires (such as eating). ↩Liang Sizhe’s name is 梁思喆. The character read as ‘zhe’ can be broken down into one character read twice: 吉吉 (read as ‘ji’). That character can mean ‘lucky’ (for 吉祥). ↩The character Cao Ye used here is 哲, which is a more commonly used character than the character used in LSZ’s name. ↩The term used here is 侍寝, which is used in ancient times to refer to the emperor having someone come sleep with him. In this case, Lin Yan is referring to CY being the emperor and LSZ as the concubine coming to sleep with him. ↩

P – Chapter 2.7

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