Chapter 79

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Yang Youming personally taught Xia Xingcheng how to change the door’s passcode.

Xia Xingcheng hesitated for a moment before entering a string of numbers that seemed like a date. Yet with a single glance, Yang Youming knew what day he set the password as–it was the exact date Xia Xingcheng confessed his feelings for him at the hotel not long ago.

After changing the passcode, Yang Youming went to the bedroom’s en suite bathroom to take a shower. Xia Xingcheng wouldn’t let him close the door as he showered and sat on the toilet seat cover as he insisted on chatting with Yang Youming while brushing his teeth, his words slurring. He asked, “Do you have any work arrangements after this?”

Yang Youming stood in the bathtub, the hot water running down his head. He raised his hand to wipe the water off his face and brushed his wet hair back, saying, “There are a few scripts I’m still eyeing, but nothing will be finalized any time soon. I won’t have any work until the new year.”

Xia Xingcheng got up, spit out the foam in the bathroom sink, then picked up his toothbrush and continued brushing, saying, “You’re not going anywhere, are you?”

Yang Youming merely rinsed the sweat off his body with the hot water and quickly turned it off, leaning over to grab a towel from the towel rack and wiping his hair and body, then answered Xia Xingcheng, “Not for now.”

Xia Xingcheng stood in front of the sink and looked up at Yang Youming through the mirror. He stopped brushing his teeth and didn’t continue talking.

Yang Youming dried off and put on his pants before facing Xia Xingcheng. He asked him gently, “What’s the matter?”

Xia Xingcheng seemed somewhat rushed as he rinsed his mouth, washed his toothbrush clean, and put it back into the cup. He turned to face Yang Youming and asked, “You live in such a big house by yourself, aren’t you afraid of being lonely?”

Yang Youming let out a soft laugh. He lowered his gaze and held one of Xia Xingcheng’s hands, saying, “Of course I’m afraid. Would you like to come live with me?”

Without even thinking twice, Xia Xingcheng replied, “Okay.”

Yang Youming laughed again, lifting Xia Xingcheng’s hand to his lips to press a light kiss there, and said, “Thank you. Then, what do you want to eat for breakfast? I can make it for you.”

Xia Xingcheng asked, “You can cook?”

“Mm,” Yang Youming hung his towel on the rack, put on a casual long-sleeved shirt, and headed outside, “I like cooking.”

Xia Xingcheng realized that he didn’t actually know all of Yang Youming.

The fridge that was completely empty yesterday was now filled with fresh vegetables and raw meat.

When Yang Youming took some eggs out, Xia Xingcheng asked him curiously, “Did you go shopping this morning?”

“The supermarket delivers goods at dawn,” said Yang Youming. “It’s inconvenient for me to go out to buy groceries, so I usually have them delivered.”

This community was located in one of the best neighbourhoods in the city centre. Life was truly made easy.

After taking out the eggs, Yang Youming shot a glance at the fridge and said to Xia Xingcheng, “Are tomato egg noodles all right?”

Xia Xingcheng immediately replied, “Sure.”

Yang Youming then took out tomatoes and dry noodles and walked over to the kitchen.

Some simple seasonings had been added, but the kitchen utensils had already been there for a while, neatly arranged.

Xia Xingcheng had nothing to do, so he followed Yang Youming into the kitchen and leaned against a cupboard, watching Yang Youming’s skillful and fluent movements as he prepared breakfast.

Yang Youming was obviously used to doing this.

Xia Xingcheng still had a lot of questions he wanted to ask Yang Youming, but many of those questions were related to Yuan Qian, including both Yang Youming’s past and what Yuan Qian sought out Yang Youming for yesterday. Yet he was very reluctant to ask—he didn’t want Yang Youming to think of Yuan Qian again.

The tomatoes were peeled and cut into small pieces.

Yang Youming boiled water for the noodles while frying eggs in a non-stick pan.

Xia Xingcheng sat on the kitchen counter and asked Yang Youming, “Are you going to cook for me everyday?”

Yang Youming probably thought that Xia Xingcheng was blocking the way. Washing his hands and wiping them dry, he walked over to Xia Xingcheng and directly picked him up and sat him down in the corner. His fingers caressed the corner of Xia Xingcheng’s mouth. “Just tell me what you want to eat.”

Xia Xingcheng pressed his lips to the man’s ear and said, “I want to eat you.”

Yang Youming laughed and gently stroked his neck, “Will it be enough?”

Xia Xingcheng lowered his voice and said, “Use your—” stopping mid-sentence and looking down at Yang Youming’s lower body, he continued after a pause, “—feed me till I’m full.”

Xia Xingcheng felt a wave of embarrassment the moment he uttered those words, hugging Yang Youming and burying his face in the man’s neck, his ears slightly reddening.

He then heard Yang Youming laugh, the low and sweetsound resounding clearly in his ears.

Xia Xingcheng was immediately dissatisfied. He lifted his head to look at Yang Youming. “What are you laughing at? Shouldn’t you be grabbing at my clothes and ripping them apart and say ‘I’ll satisfy you’ right now?”

The smile on Yang Youming’s face had not yet dulled as he said, “If it were me, I wouldn’t be acting like that.”

Xia Xingcheng asked, “How would you act?”

Yang Youming’s gaze pierced him. There was obviously no expression on his face, but a hint of lust exuded from his eyes. His hand paused at Xia Xingcheng’s neck, but the simple caresses suddenly grew heavy, as if he was repressing something. Just then, he slowly leaned in and the tip of his tongue lightly licked at Xia Xingcheng’s Adam’s apple.

Xia Xingcheng sensed the moist warmth of that light touch, it turned slightly cool as the tip of the man’s tongue moved on.

Yang Youming kept licking gently all the way to his earlobe, sucking it into his mouth, then said, “The water’s boiled,” and left his side to approach the stove and turn off the fire as Xia Xingcheng fell into a daze.

Xia Xincheng froze for a moment longer, then raised his hands to his face.

In the afternoon, Xia Xingcheng drove back by himself to pick up his things.

He didn’t actually have much to pack. Yang Youming had already provided him with brand new daily necessities over at his place, so all he needed to do was pack a few clothes and move in.

The first thing he did when he got home was to call Huang Jixin and tell him that he was moving in with Yang Youming.

The moment Huang Jixin heard this, he immediately said, “Wait for me at home! Don’t leave until I get there!”

Xia Xingcheng didn’t take this to heart as he hung up. He grabbed a suitcase, spread it out in the cloakroom, and picked out clothes to pack up.

Huang Jixin didn’t know where he was, but he arrived at Xia Xingcheng’s house in less than ten minutes. He came in in a wave of fury, and the door closed with a heavy sound.

Xia Xingcheng sat cross-legged on the floor tidying up his clothes. The door slamming shut gave him a scare and he raised his head to peep outside.

Not long after that, Huang Jixin followed the lights to the door of the cloakroom. He was still slightly out of breath, leaning against the door and looking at Xia Xingcheng as he said with a straight face, “Have you gone mad?”

Xia Xingcheng tilted his face up to look at him, “Chief Cai doesn’t even care about this, so you don’t have to mind me.”

Huang Jixin looked solemn, almost a little fierce, “Chief Cai doesn’t care about you because there are nearly a hundred artists in the company. You still haven’t even made it big yet, so forget about this! I care about you because I brought you up with my own hands, if you’re ruined, my years of hard work will be ruined as well!”

Xia Xingcheng’s back was hunched as he sat weakly on the floor. “It’s not that exaggerated, nothing like that will happen.”

Huang Jixin’s breathing sounded rough, like he was exhausted. Or angry. He said, “Do you know why Yang Youming and Yuan Qian got divorced?”

Xia Xingcheng was stunned. His tone wasn’t entirely confident as he said, “Wasn’t it because Yuan Qian cheated, so she insisted on a divorce?”

Huang Jixin said, “I asked someone to ask Yuan Qian’s friends about it. Strictly speaking, it’s not that Yuan Qian cheated. The reason they claimed was actually true—it was simply personality differences. Yuan Qian loves to play, she has too many friends outside, she socializes too much, she likes to drink and party, but Yang Youming is quiet and calm—he stays at home most of the time and doesn’t go out much.”

Xia Xingcheng stared at Huang Jixin wordlessly.

Huang Jixin continued, “After a long time, Yuan Qian herself felt that she didn’t suit him and suggested a divorce.” At this point, he paused for a moment before adding, “Maybe in her mind, Yuan Qian had let go. Maybe not. There are many things that can’t be spoken so clearly to others. No matter what, she didn’t suit him anyway.”

Xia Xingcheng whispered, “So what? It’s her own loss if she wants a divorce.”

“”So what”?” Huang Jixin laughed, seemingly angry, “It was Yuan Qian who pursued Yang Youming in the first place! You think there’s a difference between you and Yuan Qian? By the time your passion passes, you’ll feel just like Yuan Qian—that their relationship isn’t right for her, that Yang Youming isn’t right for her, and it’s also not right for you! You’re just too deep in the act, wasting your time for a relationship that shouldn’t have happened while laying down landmines for your career at the same time. You’re just about done!”

Xia Xingcheng’s face sank. He rarely gets truly mad at anything; everytime Huang Jixin gets angry and yells at him, he wouldn’t argue back. The two had never really fought before.

This was the first time Huang Jixin saw Xia Xingcheng truly angry.

Huang Jixin didn’t continue. His heart was just bitter, and he wanted nothing more than to beat Xia Xingcheng sober. But in spite of his misgivings about Xia Xingcheng, there was no way he could ever do that as the latter relied on his face to make a living.

Xia Xingcheng got up from the floor, silently flipped the suitcase cover, zipped it up, then propped it upright. He said to Huang Jixin, “I’m leaving.”

Huang Jixin watched him drag the suitcase past him, and his tone softened, “Xingcheng, think it through.”

Xia Xingcheng didn’t answer. He kept walking to the door, and as he opened it, he said to Huang Jixin, “I’ll send you the address on WeChat. Call me if anything happens, if there’s nothing—don’t contact me.”

Huang Jixin sighed. He put his hands in his pants pockets and helplessly watched Xia Xingcheng’s back.

Xia Xingcheng took the elevator to the underground parking lot, put the suitcase in the trunk of the car, and opened the door to get into the driver’s seat. He didn’t immediately start the car, calmly sitting all alone instead, and yet he couldn’t calm down.

He knew that Huang Jixin really cared about him and also knew that Huang Jixin hadn’t lied about Yuan Qian and Yang Youming. In fact, he wasn’t entirely angry at Huang Jixin—but rather this unexplained depression that he didn’t know how to get rid of.

Too deep in the act.

Once again, these five words appeared in Xia Xingcheng’s mind. If he was really too deep in the act, then in that case, his life wouldn’t be this one lone act—there would always be a day when he would step out of this role. When that day truly came, and Yu Haiyang and Fang Jianyuan’s feelings no longer continued to affect him, would he be able to calm down and examine this relationship?

He reached into his pocket and took out his phone, tapped on the search function, and typed in Yang Youming and Yuan Qian’s names. The signal in the underground parking lot was poor, and the search results hadn’t yet loaded when a car across from him suddenly flashed its lights.

Xia Xincheng subconsciously raised his head to look, and his phone bumped into the steering wheel and fell under the car seat. He bent down to pick it up but couldn’t feel it with his hands after a while, so he gave up out of impatience and started the car, driving out of the parking lot.

After dinner, Yang Youming went to wash the dishes, and Xia Xingcheng hung up all his clothes in Yang Youming’s cloakroom.

He arranged his clothes on hangers, then inserted them between Yang Youming’s clothes.

When Yang Youming came over, Xia Xingcheng feigned indifference, yet he was adamant about mixing his clothes together with Yang Youming’s.

“Won’t you be too lazy to look for your clothes when you want to get dressed?” Yang Youming asked him.

Xia Xingcheng replied, “I won’t, I like finding stuff.”

Yang Youming walked over and swept his fingers over the row of hanging clothes, took several of them down, then said to Xia Xingcheng, “Take down your clothes.”

Xia Xingcheng stared at him in bewilderment, but still did as he was told and took down the clothes he had just hung up, watching Yang Youming swap the hangers with ones that all happened to be the same color.

When Yang Youming helped him hang his clothes back up, he said, “Feel free to hang whatever you want from now on, you don’t have to worry about not being able to find your clothes.”

Xia Xingcheng stood beside him. Gazing at the man’s side profile and gentle eyes, his heart was still as out of control as before. It was obvious how much he really liked Yang Youming. As long as this man was in his sights, it seemed like all his doubts and anxieties could be completely tossed aside.

He raised his hands and jumped into Yang Youming’s arms.

☆ ☆ ☆

⟵ Chapter 78 | TOC | Chapter 80 ⟶

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