Chapter 14
I was so stupid, truly.
I only knew that Shi Ye and Xia Fengsheng had bad luck whenever they went out. I did not know that my luck was bad whenever I went out too.
Ding Qizhen felt as though he were standing on the edge of a vast, desolate cliff, where one more step forward would send him plunging into an endless abyss.
People really could not afford to be too idle.
He should never have let himself become curious about Xia Fengsheng, this old acquaintance from high school.
All at once, Ding Qizhen understood a profound saying:
It is better to remember someone than to meet them again.
The Xia Fengsheng from high school had already left him with an explosive enough impression. Who could have expected…
Ding Qizhen’s gaze quietly flicked back, then shut again as if stung.
There was always a higher master.
Someone even stronger than high-school-era Xia Fengsheng was the current amnesiac Xia Fengsheng.
“Sir, your friends are waiting for you over there.”
Ding Qizhen said to the doorman, “Thanks.”
Then he lowered his head and hurried over, afraid someone might get a clear look at his face.
Coming here to lose face right before going abroad—he wished he could sprout wings and fly away tonight.
When Ding Qizhen reached the table, Shi Ye, acting as the button between the two of them, began the introductions.
“Xia Fengsheng.”
“Ding Qizhen.”
Xia Fengsheng stood up and took the initiative to shake hands with him. “Good evening.”
Ding Qizhen’s smile reached only his skin, not his flesh. Good evening was a bit difficult. He was not doing very well anymore.
Still, he maintained the proper courtesy. Xia Fengsheng had amnesia. In Xia Fengsheng’s memory, this was their first meeting, and besides, Shi Ye was now pretending to have gotten back together with him, so no matter what, Ding Qizhen had to leave Xia Fengsheng with a good impression.
He even took the initiative to ease the awkwardness for him. “Your clothes are pretty distinctive. You have your own style. Stay true to yourself.”
Xia Fengsheng smiled. “You mean my pants? I’ll give you a pair another day.”
Ding Qizhen recoiled in horror and snatched his hand back.
I was trying to compliment you, and you repay kindness with enmity?
“No need.” Ding Qizhen smiled stiffly. “I’d also like to be myself.”
Ding Qizhen had seen quite a few finance people. On the surface they were polished and glamorous, but in private they indulged in all kinds of crude nonsense, and another major trait was that they loved putting on airs.
Xia Fengsheng gave off a cold, refined air, and at least so far he had not shown that greasy quality of being all about booze and filth.
What was visible, though, was that aura he had back in high school—strangers keep away, acquaintances get lost even faster.
“How long have you two been here?” Ding Qizhen asked.
Shi Ye answered casually, “Fifteen minutes.”
Ding Qizhen whipped his head around. His features all scrunched together as he stared at Shi Ye with a face full of question marks.
Bro, what part of your body is talking right now?
Why do you sound completely different from usual?
After puberty, Shi Ye’s voice had dropped a lot. It had not been that obvious when he was younger, but once he became an adult, his voice had fully settled into a layered low-to-mid register.
What he had just done was very clearly raise his tone on purpose. It was not some weird voice—technically it sounded normal.
Anyone who did not know him would just assume that was how he naturally spoke.
But Ding Qizhen could hear it.
He was absolutely putting on a voice.
And putting it on hard.
Shi Ye met his gaze, seeming to ask: What?
Ding Qizhen’s entire being seemed to be telling Shi Ye: What are you doing? Are you insane?
Once again, he regretted not checking his horoscope before leaving the house today.
Very soon, the food they had ordered arrived.
Once the meal started, surely nobody could make trouble anymore.
Shi Ye and Xia Fengsheng might be a couple, but during all three years of high school, they had never had any nasty, clingy habit of feeding each other.
Ding Qizhen picked up his knife and fork and warily glanced at Xia Fengsheng. Seeing that his movements looked normal, he relaxed and started eating his own food.
He had worried too much.
The very next second, a notification sound rang out like thunder splitting the sky.
“Alipay has received one yuan!”
Shi Ye: ……
Ding Qizhen: ……
The knife and fork in Ding Qizhen’s hands clattered onto his plate.
Xia Fengsheng—you really have something.
“Sorry, I forgot to mute my phone.” Xia Fengsheng dabbed at his mouth, then unhurriedly pulled out his phone and muted it. After that, he looked at the two of them and said, “The fund I invested in today made another one yuan.”
The arrogance in his tone made it sound as though every person in the country had just given him a yuan.
It looked like two people wanted to die, but in truth the third one did not want to live either.
Xia Fengsheng mechanically shoved steak into his mouth like a walking corpse. Once inside, it tasted like chewing wax.
The money was something he had asked He Qiang to transfer to him.
In order to leave Ding Qizhen with a “good” impression, he was injuring the enemy by a thousand while injuring himself by eight hundred.
He did not dare think about whether there might be future big names in this restaurant, or acquaintances from the professional world he had already met and merely exchanged nods with.
He did not dare think about any of those possibilities.
Every single one was terrifying.
Halfway through the meal, Shi Ye stepped out to take a phone call.
Once Shi Ye left, the atmosphere at the table instantly became awkward. Xia Fengsheng and Ding Qizhen had nothing much to talk about.
The two of them sat there staring at each other.
Back in high school, they had not interacted much either. At most, they knew each other’s names and knew what relation the other had with Shi Ye. Years had passed in a flash, and still they had just as little to say.
“I heard your flight is tomorrow.”
Out of sheer professional instinct, Xia Fengsheng was the first to break the silence. In normal social settings, he never let things go cold. If he wanted resources and connections, then things like pride and face meant nothing.
“Mm, right.” Ding Qizhen rubbed his nose.
“Wishing you a smooth trip. Remember to make a call after you land.” Xia Fengsheng offered the simplest courtesy.
Ding Qizhen looked surprised. “To who—you?”
With a smile, Xia Fengsheng said, “Your mom.”
“……”
The moment the words came out, both of them lowered their heads at once.
What a terrible conversation.
Xia Fengsheng’s features looked sharp and intelligent, but also misleading, like one of those sirens in Western stories that bewitched people’s hearts. Right now, looking at only his upper body, dressed in nothing but a white short-sleeved shirt, he even carried a calm, effortless air of nobility.
“So after losing your memory, you really don’t remember anything?”
Xia Fengsheng gave a simple, “Mm.”
“You really don’t remember Shi Ye at all?”
The relationship between those two could basically be summed up as a painful youth melodrama. A life this dramatic—and Xia Fengsheng had not retained even a shred of it?
“I don’t remember. I even forgot who my parents are.”
Ding Qizhen sucked in a breath.
Then… well, if even his parents were forgotten, maybe forgetting that was understandable too.
Speaking of parents, it seemed like this was the first time Ding Qizhen had ever heard Xia Fengsheng mention them. Back in high school, during parent meetings, Xia Fengsheng had been the only one in his class whose parents never came.
Added to the fact that Xia Fengsheng had looked ragged back then, with patches sewn onto his backpack, Ding Qizhen had always assumed he was an orphan.
“There must be a lot going on for finance students. Since you lost your memory, hasn’t anyone come looking for you on purpose?” Ding Qizhen asked. “Like people who don’t get along with you.”
He had heard the competition in finance was brutally intense, with no end of dirty tricks behind the scenes.
“You mean someone might come looking for me to cause trouble and curse me out?”
“Possibly.”
But Xia Fengsheng only gave a light laugh and shook his head.
Ding Qizhen’s brow twitched. All at once, he had a bad feeling. “What?”
Xia Fengsheng placed a finger dramatically by his lips. “If someone came to curse me, then after seeing me look like this, would they still have the heart to do it?”
“……”
Ding Qizhen froze solid. His eyes went blank white.
Xia Fengsheng, you are even more conceited than I imagined.
After Shi Ye came back and the meal was finished, the three of them picked up their coats and left.
It was clearly only a meal, yet when the three of them came out, each of them looked as though they had dropped several pounds.
Fatigue was hidden beneath Xia Fengsheng’s eyes as he strutted magnificently out of the restaurant in those floral fleece pajama pants, under everyone’s gaze.
If the restaurant’s doors had led straight to his dorm, he did not dare imagine how happy he would have been.
Xia Fengsheng took the initiative and said, “You two go back together. I’ll go back by myself.”
Shi Ye was holding Xia Fengsheng’s phone and helping him follow all of his social media accounts on various platforms.
While waiting for the valet to bring the car over, Shi Ye handed the phone back. “I’ll take you.”
Xia Fengsheng refused. “No need. The school isn’t far.” Right now, all he wanted was some peace and quiet.
But Shi Ye did not back down. “It’s not safe for you to go back by yourself.”
Ding Qizhen poked his head out to look at the two of them. Unsafe how? In a society ruled by law, if someone were going to rob him, what would they rob him of—the one yuan that just got transferred into his Alipay?
Though he looked all damp and darkly seductive, Xia Fengsheng was still a man.
Over one eighty. Still a man.
Xia Fengsheng did not yield, and Shi Ye stared at him. “Since losing your memory, have you noticed that you have night blindness?”
Xia Fengsheng’s breathing slowed by half a beat.
There was a small night light by his bed. He had prepared it precisely because he could not see well when he got up at night. As soon as his hand touched it, light would shine into his eyes. Usually, he would wait until the glow lit through his eyelids before opening them.
His night blindness had not flared up in a long time.
Xia Fengsheng kept his tone casual. “I noticed. Found out when I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. There are streetlights all the way. It’s perfectly safe for me to go back on my own.”
Since the other already knew, Shi Ye did not continue pressing him. He took the keys the valet handed him and got into the car.
The sports car drove out from the side road onto the main avenue, then soon vanished into the night.
After they had driven a while, Ding Qizhen asked, “You’re really not taking him back?”
Shi Ye held the steering wheel. “He said he didn’t need it. What, was I supposed to kneel down and beg him?”
His tone had changed back, and the aura around him had gone cold again.
“He really has night blindness?”
“He does.”
“How do you know?”
Some unpleasant memory surfaced in Shi Ye’s mind, and he did not answer.
The inside of the car fell silent.
Ding Qizhen: Looks like I’d better stop talking.
The very next second—
Ding Qizhen: “Ah, I left my phone at the restaurant.”
*
After Shi Ye and Ding Qizhen left, Xia Fengsheng pulled out his phone and got ready to call a car.
It was peak traffic time, and there were fifty orders ahead of him in line.
Xia Fengsheng narrowed his eyes, considering whether he should just bike back instead.
Just then, a long, fine-boned hand lightly settled on his shoulder.
“You’re Xia Fengsheng, right?”
It was a very crisp, clean young male voice.
The moment he heard that voice, Xia Fengsheng turned to stone like a weather-dried statue in the desert, as though the black had disappeared from his eyes.
Lin Xingcan, dressed in a suit, stood beside him and leaned closer to take a careful look at his face.
“Well, well—it really is you.”
The instant he confirmed the person was Xia Fengsheng, he immediately grew utterly unserious.
“Xingcan, need a ride?” someone shouted from farther away.
“No need—I ran into an acquaintance. You guys go ahead first!”
With one arm hooked over Xia Fengsheng’s shoulder, Lin Xingcan called back toward them.
When he turned back again, his whole face was steeped in a worldly, playful air.
“I already spotted you in the restaurant just now. I was too embarrassed to come over and interrupt your meal.”
He deliberately bit down hard on the words too embarrassed.
In that kind of situation, nobody would have come over to look for him.
“I saw every single thing you did in the restaurant.”
He leaned close to Xia Fengsheng, the contrast between their faces reaching its sharpest point.
Unlike Xia Fengsheng’s cold, damp, eerie vibe, Lin Xingcan’s looks were his total opposite—bright and hot like the sun.
Xia Fengsheng’s fox eyes met Lin Xingcan’s round apricot eyes, and sparks flew like flint striking stone, carrying the smell of gunpowder.
Xia Fengsheng slapped Lin Xingcan’s hand off his shoulder, then brushed off the place where he had been touched. “Sorry, sir, but I don’t know you.”
Lin Xingcan pressed a hand to his forehead. “Right, right, I forgot. You lost your memory. So it’s real?”
If there was anyone in their circle who could truly be called Xia Fengsheng’s mortal enemy, Lin Xingcan ranked first, and nobody could rank second.
Up to now, of all the projects they had competed over, there had never been a single one where one of them was absent.
“Then let me introduce myself.” Lin Xingcan looked put-upon. “I’m your senior. My name is Lin Xingcan. You admire me a lot.”
He had only entered the circle two days earlier than Xia Fengsheng. What senior was that supposed to make him?
Xia Fengsheng crossed his arms and looked at him with disdain. “You don’t look like there’s anything about you worth admiring.”
Lin Xingcan’s smile stiffened. Then he shook his head with a bitter laugh. “So if amnesia wipes those things out, they may as well never have existed? You’re just pretending to be tough.”
Neither of them had ever suffered less than a fair share of the other’s dirty tricks. The first time they met, they had disliked each other at first sight.
Lin Xingcan suddenly thought of something. “Since you lost your memory, do you still remember the dance?”
Xia Fengsheng turned his eyes and deliberately asked, “What dance?”
“Ha!”
In an instant, Lin Xingcan felt refreshed all over. He almost wanted to spread his arms and fly a lap through the night sky.
The teams they belonged to were both competing for a major client, a powerful woman surnamed Fang. She had no hobbies to speak of, except that she liked watching men dance.
Neither Xia Fengsheng nor Lin Xingcan had even the slightest dance gene in them. The moment they danced, all four limbs automatically started fighting each other.
It had taken a full month of practice before one routine barely began to look passable.
And now Xia Fengsheng had forgotten the dance.
Behind his back, Lin Xingcan applauded in delight. The amnesia had not gone to waste. He had forgotten exactly what needed forgetting. Now that was proper amnesia.
Xia Fengsheng stared at the pleasure on Lin Xingcan’s face.
Lin Xingcan’s smile was broad and bright as he continued boasting about himself. “There’s a reason I’m your senior. You know you’re in finance too, right? To tell you the truth, you’re actually pretty capable in the circle—but still just a little inferior to me.”
“The projects you can’t close, I can. The connections you can’t get close to, I can.”
Lin Xingcan patted his shoulder, leaned in, and said, “So? Don’t you admire me?”
Softly, right by his ear, Xia Fengsheng answered, “Only the one with a sore ass knows.”
The cold wind blew past, and the two of them looked at each other and smiled.
“Really, don’t disbelieve me.” Lin Xingcan threw his arm over Xia Fengsheng’s shoulder again, his wrist shaking him lightly. “You used to call me Senior, Senior all the time, asking me to pay attention to you.”
It was his usual move: acting cute.
“Come on.” He leaned in close. “Call me that once and let me hear it.”
When Shi Ye drove back, this was the scene he saw.
Ding Qizhen: “Holy shit! What’s going on?!”
They had only just left—how had Xia Fengsheng already ended up with someone else draped all over him?
The car came to a steady stop in front of the two of them.
BEEEEEP————
Lin Xingcan jumped from the horn in fright.
Mother of god! What the hell was that?! Scared me half to death!
The window of the luxury car rolled down.
Shi Ye stared at Lin Xingcan. “What’s your relationship?”
From the look of him, he seemed ready to get out and beat the other into a sandbag.
Ding Qizhen hurriedly tried to smooth things over. “Maybe it’s a misunderstanding.”
Nothing weird could happen the day before he went abroad. Absolutely not.
Under Shi Ye’s stare, Lin Xingcan felt his scalp go numb. He instantly stood at attention, planting himself there like a soldier.
“M-me and Xia Fengsheng? We’re good colleagues in our careers. Rock-solid friendship.”
Ding Qizhen let out a breath of relief and said to Shi Ye:
“You heard him, right? Good colleagues. Rock-solid friendship—not a friendship where they’ve already been hard together.”
