Translator: Xena
Editor: tart
Duan Zhuxian was invited to the club by Feng Yan.
Feng Yan had a project that required a large amount of investment, so he wanted to get close to Duan Zhuxian in private.
Duan Zhuxian rejected his invitation at first.
Thinking about it, Duan Zhuxian was very different from his peers as he had never participated in any messy parties.
Feng Yan immediately changed his plan and decided to find an elegant place in two days to invite Duan Zhuxian to an earnest dinner.
However, just before the party began, he unexpectedly received news that Duan Zhuxian had agreed to join.
Since a distinguished guest was going to attend, Feng Yan specially invited several popular models to join in the fun.
Duan Zhuxian sat in the private room, his eyes calm the entire time and not even looking at the beauties. It wasn’t long before he said he had to take a call and didn’t return for a long time.
Feng Yan was afraid that Duan Zhuxian was not satisfied with his hospitality, so he quickly went out to look for him. Just as he was about to invite Duan Zhuxian back, he turned around and met Jiang Yao.
Right then, Jiang Yao, who was hugging a hot beauty, met them face to face on the narrow path1It has the whole idiom, meeting enemies on a narrow path, but I integrated it into the sentence..
“Mister Jiang,” Feng Yan greeted with a smile, “Long time no see.”
Jiang Yao’s brain buzzed for a long time at the chance encounter, but his face did not show any emotion.
He nodded slightly and his knife-like gaze swept across Duan Zhuxian, who was beside the other party. He realized that Duan Zhuxian was also looking at him.
However, the man only glanced at his hand on Amy’s shoulder before moving his gaze away and continuing to look at his phone. His shoulders and neck were lit up by the pale yellow lights of the corridor, while his facial lines appeared somewhat cold and hard.
Duan Zhuxian’s tall nose has an abrupt red mark on it. It was caused by their fight in bed last night.
It destroyed the original balance of his facial features and made his whole face a little less mean and a little more relaxed, causing him to look less serious and even inexplicably coquettish.
Like a slut in a club.
Jiang Yao thought maliciously.
At this moment, a strange male voice suddenly sounded, “Yo, who did President Duan offend? How did he get beaten up?”
Jiang Yao looked in the direction of the voice.
He happened to know the person. His name was Li Ruizhi. Unfortunately, he was a standard idiot.2Ruizhi means wise and farsighted.
Duan Zhuxian treaded the elite route and drew both admiration and jealousy from others. He had attracted countless hatred until now and Li Ruizhi’s was one of them. It wasn’t known how many rumors he had created regarding Duan Zhuxian.
Still, the matters between him and Duan Zhuxian were not something trash like him could criticize.
Before Duan Zhuxian and Feng Yan could react, Jiang Yao let go of Amy and took a few steps forward. “How do you still have the time to care about others? Why don’t you first think about how you can hide the fact that you hit someone with your car while street racing from your father?”
Jiang Yao raised his chin and stood in front of Duan Zhuxian. He didn’t notice Duan Zhuxian’s slightly stirred expression.
Li Ruizhi let out a “fvck” after hearing it.
That man demanded three million yuan in damages or he would call out to the media and make a scene. It was not that he couldn’t afford it, it was just that there was no guarantee that his father wouldn’t find out if he transferred such a huge sum.
He had been worried about this for several days. When Jiang Yao suddenly exposed it in public, he immediately flew into a rage out of humiliation. “How can a smelly upstart from the countryside like you interrupt me when I’m talking?”
Jiang Yao wasn’t a local and had heard many such derogatory terms before.
He rubbed his ears and asked with amusement, “If I’m a smelly upstart, then what are you, a smelly beggar?”
Feng Yan was watching the battle excitedly from the side. When he heard Jiang Yao’s words, he suddenly remembered that Li Ruizhi was an illegitimate son brought by a mistress to seek a title. He hasn’t been popular since childhood in the Li family, which valued face.
He couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
Li Ruizhi’s face turned red after continuously being humiliated. He glared at Jiang Yao and said fiercely, “Jiang Yao, just you fvcking wait!”
Jiang Yao raised his eyebrows. “No problem. I’ll wait. I’ll wait and see your father break your leg while your mother will cry for you.”
Li Ruizhi opened his mouth and wanted to say something but knew that he couldn’t retort better. Still surrounded by four pairs of eyes, he finally walked away in despair.
Feng Yan cursed Li Ruizhi’s back with an ‘idiot’ and turned to Jiang Yao. “Is Mister Jiang alone today?”
“Hm.” Jiang Yao nodded.
“Why don’t you go to our place? It’s more lively with more people.” Feng Yan pointed to a private room not far behind him.
Jiang Yao wanted to refuse, but when Duan Zhuxian looked at him, he swallowed his words.
He didn’t want to act like he was avoiding Duan Zhuxian on purpose.
“Alright.” Jiang Yao raised his chin. “I’ll go sit down.”
Arriving at the private room, they were met with a group of colorful people partying like crazy.
Jiang Yao was a little surprised that Duan Zhuxian would come to such a place to have fun.
The others didn’t expect Feng Yan to recruit a new member. They greeted Jiang Yao while their inquiring eyes looked back and forth between Jiang Yao and Duan Zhuxian.
Duan Zhuxian walked in front of Jiang Yao. He walked past the single-person sofa he was originally sitting on and headed straight to the hard seat opposite it.
After Jiang Yao exchanged pleasantries with the others, he sat down on the single-person sofa nearby, leaned back, and rested his waist on the soft duck-down cushion which made the soreness and swelling immediately ease a lot.
The sofa was quite comfortable to sit on.
Unlike Duan Zhuxian, who was an independent noble young master, Jiang Yao had a strong aura of the underworld. He was generous and frank, and had always been popular. There were many people in the private room who wanted to be friends with him. Soon, he became the center of a new conversation.
After Feng Yan greeted Jiang Yao, he walked to the small bar and clinked glasses with someone, looking gossipy.
“I heard rumors from those people a while ago that Mister Jiang and President Duan were not on good terms. But I was outside just now and saw Mister Jiang defending President Duan.”
The news that Jiang Yao and Duan Zhuxian were not getting along had long spread throughout the entire circle, but the news was all mixed up and no one could be sure of the truth, so everyone could only listen to it for fun.
The other person waved his hand disapprovingly. “That’s because you weren’t there in Lingbei back then. No one knows how many years those two have been fighting. When I was in high school, I was in the same school as them and often watched them play basketball. As long as those two celebrities played against each other, it was guaranteed to be exciting…”
As the two of them talked through the music, fragments of their words vaguely floated into Jiang Yao’s ears.
Although it sounds a bit exaggerated, it was not entirely nonsense.
Jiang Yao simply suffered from his looks which resembled an uneducated embroidered pillow. But he actually has a good brain and well-developed athletic ability, so he stood out among his peers in everything.
Before he entered high school, he thought he could still easily stay at the top of the grade. However, after the first monthly exam, someone appeared on the leaderboard who surpassed him by one point.
On the day the results were announced, he stood alone in front of the bulletin board for a long time.
Duan Zhuxian.
Jiang Yao silently repeated the name several times on the way back to the school building when he suddenly heard someone next to him calling out those three words.
Following the direction the person was looking at, he raised his head and looked into the distance.
A group of students were leaning on the second floor railings to get some fresh air, and Duan Zhuxian was among them.
His skin color was obviously not particularly white, but as he stood among the group of people, he seemed to be glowing. The moment his eyes dropped in response to the call, he was akin to a god who had strayed into the mortal world, giving a quick glance at the passers-by.
Arrogant as hell.
Jiang Yao had been used to having everything go smoothly for him since he was a child. He placed his eyes slightly above his head and just happens to be in the most arrogant period of adolescence. No one could enter his eyes.
Duan Zhuxian was the first person who made him look up for a long time.
From then on, Jiang Yao and Duan Zhuxian started to thoroughly compete with each other. The two sides were equally strong and both wanted to suppress the other.
In addition to their fixed monthly competition for the first and second place in the academic performance list and leaving the third place far behind, they would also compete on the sports field, represent their classes in debates, or even stand one after another under the national flag to give speeches.
He actually enjoyed the feeling of being rivals with Duan Zhuxian.
Later, through Duan Zhuxian, he met Duan Zhuxian’s deskmate Shen Tang, and became attracted to Shen Tang’s tranquil temperament.
After much inquiry, he learned that Shen Tang came from a scholarly family and his greatest hobby was modern poetry.
Jiang Yao was quick at learning everything except Chinese, where he lagged behind. It was even more difficult for him to write even a single word in poetry.
He spent a month, and almost exhausted all his brain cells, to finally compose a love poem, but it was so pretentious that even he himself couldn’t bear to read it.
For the first time in his life, he felt a serious sense of shame, so he asked a classmate from the next class with whom he had a good relationship with to help him pass the letter.
As a result, the letter was intercepted by Duan Zhuxian before it was delivered.
At that time, their school was strictly enforcing discipline, especially on premature love, and Duan Zhuxian was the disciplinarian representative appointed by the dean. It was said that he didn’t give any chances and was nicknamed “Jade-Faced Yama”3Cold faced, king of hell.
In the snowy alley next to the school gate after evening self-study that day, Jiang Yao took large strides to catch up with the back of the tall boy in front of him.
He asked breathlessly, “Did you hand my letter over to the Political and Educational Office? ”
“I confiscated it.”
Duan Zhuxian did not stop walking.
Jiang Yao breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, Duan Zhuxian didn’t do anything too harsh, which saved him some trouble.
But he still couldn’t help feeling a little knot in his heart.
He followed behind. “I know this is your duty, I understand, but we at least have a bit of friendship, so can’t you give me some leniency?”
When Duan Zhuxian heard this, he suddenly stopped and turned to look at Jiang Yao, his face completely hidden in the night and snow.
“A bit of friendship?”
While standing next to a noisy and annoying little grocery store, Duan Zhuxian only said these four short words.
But Jiang Yao will never forget Duan Zhuxian’s tone at that time——
It was full of doubt and disapproval, with a hint of mockery in the ending tone. It wasn’t known who he was mocking.
It would be a lie to say he was not disappointed.
He and Duan Zhuxian had indeed never formally declared their friendship, and most of the time, they interacted with each other in the form of confrontations.
But he originally thought that Duan Zhuxian also sympathized with him and did not regard him as a mere enemy.
At that time, Duan Zhuxian’s icy attitude dealt him a heavy blow.
It turned out that it was his own wishful thinking, and Duan Zhuxian didn’t even want to give him the status of “a bit of friendship”.
“It’s our third year of high school, the most important thing is to study.”
Immediately afterwards, Duan Zhuxian uttered something extremely stiff and hasty before walking towards the parking lot in front.
Jiang Yao remained standing there in a daze.
A speculation suddenly emerged.
Then he remembered some details that he had overlooked.
For example, every time he went to the next class to look for Shen Tang, he could always see Duan Zhuxian’s ambiguous gaze through the window glass.
There were many times when he was talking to Shen Tang and Duan Zhuxian would suddenly appear and call Shen Tang away for various reasons.
Moreover, after he gradually showed his interest in Shen Tang, Duan Zhuxian distanced himself from him for no reason…
“Duan Zhuxian, you like him too.”
Jiang Yao coldly said what he was thinking in a declarative tone, and Duan Zhuxian did not refute.
“You are abusing public power for personal gain!”
Jiang Yao shouted towards Duan Zhuxian’s receding back, but the only response he got was the howling north wind and the snow painfully hitting his face.
Perhaps, Duan Zhuxian did not fail to regard him as a friend, but in the face of love rivalry, their friendship became insignificant.
Thinking of this, he suddenly felt a surge of fury in his heart, causing him to punch forward with his fist.
Duan Zhuxian tilted his head slightly. The fierce fist flit pass his cheekbone before being caught with his hand, but his cheek was still scratched.
However, Jiang Yao was not in a much better condition. The little finger of the hand that was grabbed by Duan Zhuxian was slightly sprained because of the excessive force used by the other party. For a week, he could only lift up his hand when holding a pen, and doing his homework was like performing in an opera.
His impression of Duan Zhuxian also hit rock bottom that day.
“Sincerity” was his principle in life. He welcomed opponents at any time, just like Duan Zhuxian who always competed with him in all aspects, who fought hard and refused to give in.
But it was a must not to play dirty with him.
He found it hard to accept that the person he had admired for so long turned out to be a sanctimonious hypocrite. He even felt angry as if he had been betrayed. From then on, he never treated Duan Zhuxian well again.
This gap from one kind of hostility to another could be described as devastating.
But in the eyes of others, their relationship has never changed.
*
“Come and sing, Mister Jiang.”
A microphone rolled in a parabola into Jiang Yao’s arms.
“I won’t sing. My throat hurts.”
Pulling himself away from the annoying memories, Jiang Yao’s brows were slightly creased and his voice a little cold as he handed the microphone to another person.
The man was drunk, so he picked up the microphone and started howling in an out of tune manner. One person produced the sound of a whole choir, which was very noisy.
Jiang Yao was talking to the people around him in a perfunctory manner. When he became bored, he stretched out his arm to take the vodka on the table.
The moment he approached the bottle, he suddenly touched a slightly cold hand.
He shrank back as if he had been electrocuted and watched helplessly as the bottle of alcohol was taken away by Duan Zhuxian on the opposite side.
He held his breath and waited for Duan Zhuxian to finish and return it.
Unexpectedly, after Duan Zhuxian poured a glass, he put the bottle directly on another table far away from him.
?
Do you have to be so lacking in public morality?
Jiang Yao frowned slightly, opened a bottle of fruit juice on the table, sipped it, and squinted in Duan Zhuxian’s direction.
Duan Zhuxian was sitting on a chair, chatting about the project with Feng Yan. His face was refined, calm, and at ease, making this messy private room look like a negotiation table.
How pretentious.
At this time, someone took the props and suggested playing a board game where the two people with the lowest points would sing a love song.
Jiang Yao and Duan Zhuxian, as rare guests, were both pushed onto the gaming table.
In continuation of his bad luck in the playing cards, Jiang Yao lost the first round.
However, what was even more unfortunate was that Duan Zhuxian had as bad a luck as him.
When the result was announced, the atmosphere froze for a moment, before abruptly coming to a boil—
“Sing a love song! Sing a love song!”
“Hurry up and give the microphones to the two.”
“How about a classic old song, ‘Marry Me Today’?”
Jiang Yao felt as if he was stabbed by something when he heard this. He clenched his fists, frowned, and glanced at Duan Zhuxian.
Someone winked and asked, “What does President Duan say?”
Duan Zhuxian threw down the props in his hand and said, “I accept the loss.”
Jiang Yao’s brows twisted.
From the time they met by chance until now, Duan Zhuxian has always looked calm and composed, as if nothing had happened last night.
Right.
His body was the one in disarray, and he was also the one treated wantonly by the person he hated.
Duan Zhuxian just shivered a few times.
“Mister Jiang doesn’t seem to dare to sing a love song with President Duan.”
“Haha, Mister Jiang is shy.”
Seeing Jiang Yao’s expression that looked as if he had swallowed a fly, the others started to make even more noise.
They all heard the rumors about Jiang Yao and Duan Zhuxian not getting along, which made this seem somewhat deliberate.
When the noise was getting more and more intense, Jiang Yao suddenly stood up with a gloomy face, which scared everyone.
A girl asked timidly, “What’s wrong, Brother Yao? You look very unwell.”
“I want to vomit.”
Jiang Yao uttered these words expressionlessly. Without asking anyone to make way, he took a large step over the low table in front of him, and left the private room.
*
As he walked out of the noisy nightclub, it was as if the surroundings were suddenly sucked into a vacuum, leaving only slight ripple-like vibrations on his eardrums.
Jiang Yao’s stomach was indeed not feeling well. He hadn’t eaten properly the whole day, and all the alcohol he drank was churning in his stomach.
He lit a cigarette, trying to use nicotine to suppress his discomfort.
September’s autumn night hung overhead, the silence overwhelming.
Amidst this silence, steady footsteps coming from leather shoes followed leisurely from behind him.
When he was almost at the roadside, Jiang Yao turned around.
The night fog was thick and with a distance of a few meters, the face of the man approaching was unclear.
“How far do you plan to follow?”
Jiang Yao asked expressionlessly.
“I called you after the gathering, but the system prompted that you were on the phone.”
Duan Zhuxian walked forward as he spoke. The darkness that covered his body slowly faded away, revealing a face with indiscernible emotions under the street light, along with a conspicuous red mark on the bridge of his nose.
“Because I blocked your number using the note you left.” Jiang Yao tightened his lips and flicked the ash from his cigarette.
Duan Zhuxian hummed, apparently not surprised.
In recent years, they’ve hardly taken the initiative to interact with each other. Even if they were in the same social circle and could not avoid running into each other from time to time, they would either pretend not to know each other or confront each other tit for tat.
Jiang Yao wanted to ask Duan Zhuxian how he got his cell phone number, but after thinking about it carefully, his number didn’t seem to be a military secret, so he changed the question.
“Why did you call me?”
Duan Zhuxian answered, “To confirm your situation.”
Jiang Yao said with a cold face, “Don’t worry, I won’t ask you for compensation for mental damages.”
“I mean——” Duan Zhuxian lowered his eyes and glanced behind Jiang Yao, “That.”
Jiang Yao’s face froze, but he said nonchalantly, “I don’t feel anything at all, maybe it’s too thin.”
Duan Zhuxian didn’t become angry as most men would about Jiang Yao’s fabrication. He just said calmly, “I applied medicine to you this morning. It has a strong effect in reducing swelling. It’s normal that you didn’t feel too uncomfortable after waking up.”
Jiang Yao: “…”
The air instantly fell into a suffocating silence.
Jiang Yao took out the cigarette from between his lips and blew a puff of white smoke in Duan Zhuxian’s direction. Only when that eternally calm face gradually became blurred did he finally suppress his surging emotions and spoke coldly through the layer of haziness.
“There is one more thing I want to ask President Duan.”
Duan Zhuxian nodded and motioned for him to speak.
“How dare you… how dare you tie me up?”
Jiang Yao gritted his teeth and pointed at the red mark on his wrist, faltering to ask the most difficult question.
“You were quite cooperative last night,” Duan Zhuxian said.
Jiang Yao was speechless as the absurd memories of sinking in the sea of desire surged in and engulfed his restless heart for a moment.
He had to admit that, putting rationality aside, his body did give in.
It was like some unknown nerve was suddenly injected with a high concentration of desire, which made it impossible for him to resist.
But he was like this now.
Being dominated by your old enemy for a night could cause damage to your mind and body.
And Duan Zhuxian still didn’t forget to criticize him, what a piece of shit!
Seeing Jiang Yao droop his eyes and suddenly stop talking, Duan Zhuxian stared at him for a moment and his originally indifferent tone suddenly became a little strange, “I thought you wouldn’t wear my clothes.”
“What do you mean?”
Jiang Yao lowered his head, and a mad storm swept through his mind at once.
He suddenly grabbed the front of his clothes and said, “Isn’t this new?”
“No,” Duan Zhuxian said.
“The wrong room you entered was my private suite. That shirt belongs to me.”
Jiang Yao didn’t look up when he heard that, but instead continued to stare blankly at the ill-fitting black shirt on his body.
Duan Zhuxian slept with him, and then made him put on his clothes obediently just like marking him, violating him completely inside and out…
A gust of night wind blew by, and Jiang Yao suddenly felt a sour sensation in his nose.
He mechanically turned around and put out the cigarette in the trash can with red eyes. His voice was soaked by the cool breeze, clear but slightly trembling.
“Duan Zhuxian.”
“Hm?”
“Let’s not see each other again.”
After Jiang Yao finished speaking, he strode towards the oncoming taxi without looking back.
【Author’s words】
Wu, wife feels wronged. < ₍ ⸝⸝ᴗ͈ ‸ ᴗ͈⸝⸝ ₎ >
