Chapter 72: Plagiarism
He had thought one kiss would be the end of it, but who knew the other man would do it again and again. An Yi’s mind was a complete mess. He still had to go to work tomorrow. At last he reached the end of his patience and opened his eyes to glare at him.
“Huo Beixing!”
The man above him froze for a few seconds, then, as if nothing had happened, flipped over and lay back down in his own spot. He pulled the blanket over himself, perfectly copied and pasted his original sleeping posture, then closed his eyes as though absolutely nothing had happened.
An Yi reached out and shoved him.
Huo Beixing lifted himself slightly. “What’s wrong, wife?”
Blushing furiously, An Yi said in humiliation, “You’re moving out tomorrow.”
“Why? Did I do something wrong?”
An Yi spoke with perfect righteousness. “You kissed me just now. You crossed the line. We agreed you weren’t allowed to paw at me, and you didn’t keep the agreement.”
Huo Beixing looked baffled. “I didn’t.”
“You obviously did.”
Huo Beixing suddenly looked enlightened. “Maybe I was sleepwalking.”
An Yi: ……
If he believed this bastard again, he’d be the idiot.
They had slept in the same room for two whole years before this, and Huo Beixing had never once had any sleepwalking habit.
An Yi said, “Tomorrow after breakfast, you’re moving out.”
Huo Beixing replied, “I didn’t break the agreement.”
With the evidence conclusive, Huo Beixing still refused to plead guilty. Judge An sentenced him to deportation, but he refused to accept it and demanded an appeal.
“You did.”
“What was the agreement?”
An Yi said, “Not to put your hands or feet on me.”
Huo Beixing answered, “I followed it. I didn’t put my hands or feet on you.”
“You kissed me!”
Huo Beixing said, “I moved my mouth.”
An Yi: ……
It was spring now, and the nights carried a faint chill. Huo Beixing tucked the blanket tighter around An Yi.
“And besides, I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to accept it, so I only kissed you after you fell asleep.”
An Yi: ……
You’re so considerate.
“Only…”
“Only what?”
“I didn’t expect you to still be awake.”
An Yi: ???
So now it was his fault too???
Huo Beixing pulled An Yi back down onto the bed and brushed him off with, “Go to sleep first. You still have work tomorrow.”
After all that tossing around, An Yi really was getting sleepy. As soon as he lay down, his eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and in the end he stopped arguing with Huo Beixing.
The next morning, when An Yi woke up, Huo Beixing was already gone from his side.
He walked to the kitchen, only to see Huo Beixing bustling about inside, wearing an apron that utterly did not fit his build. The happy little dog printed on it had been stretched by Huo Beixing’s chest into a sloppy little dog. The moment he saw An Yi come out, he stepped over and blocked the kitchen doorway.
“Good morning.”
An Yi answered politely, “Good morning.”
Huo Beixing pointed at the breakfast on the dining table. “Eat. Try how it tastes.”
“You made it?”
“Mm.”
An Yi craned his neck and looked at the takeaway containers inside the kitchen. “Does Wang Ji Breakfast Shop know they have an unofficial chef like you?”
Huo Beixing: ……
His virtuous husband and good-father persona had failed.
Huo Beixing laughed. “I thought you liked the more domestic type.”
An Yi looked at the sloppy little dog on his apron, its face completely distorted by the strain.
“……”
Domestic…
Even dogs wouldn’t agree with that.
Still, Huo Beixing wasn’t entirely useless. At the very least, he had poured the food from the takeout boxes onto proper plates.
He had already planned a backup route for this needless fussing. He’d do chores and wash dishes right in front of An Yi, building himself up as the domestic type. He’d barely started before it had been exposed.
When An Yi finished breakfast and was about to go out, Huo Beixing brought over his drawing bag.
“Be careful on the way.”
An Yi took it, and something about it tugged strangely at his heart.
Huo Beixing asked enthusiastically, “Want a goodbye kiss?”
An Yi rushed out the door in a panic.
His actions made it very clear:
Absolutely not.
Huo Beixing wasn’t annoyed. He simply raised a hand and smoothed down a slightly unruly strand of An Yi’s hair. Standing by the doorway, he said in an affected tone, “Darling, I’ll wait for you to come home.”
The moment the words fell, An Yi, red-faced, happened to come face-to-face with an old granny who had just stepped out as well.
The old granny’s eyes moved back and forth between him and Huo Beixing.
An Yi: ……
After a long and twisting journey, by the time he finally reached the studio, the flush on An Yi’s face had faded.
The three of them had earned a pretty decent sum after participating in the brand’s autumn design project last year, so they rented a flat in a relatively quiet location. It wasn’t close to the city center, and the area wasn’t particularly bustling, but none of them cared. They liked the environment there, and the greenery was good too. Most importantly, their studio could finally afford to hire a cleaner now.
The moment An Yi stepped into the studio, he saw Gu Lingling had moved her chair to the window and was gazing up at the sky.
An Yi walked over to take a look. “Admiring the scenery?”
Gu Lingling was completely out of it. “Mm, I’m looking at a willow tree.”
As she said this, she lifted a finger and pointed.
An Yi looked at the plane tree outside the window.
“……”
He set his drawing bag on his desk, went into the break room to get a cup of coffee, then handed it to Gu Lingling. “What is it? You look pretty nervous.”
Gu Lingling said, “Today’s the day the results for the international design competition we entered at the start of the year are being released. The whole design world is paying attention. I’m waiting for the phone call right now. Some studios have already gotten theirs.”
An Yi asked, “Has there been a winner yet?”
Gu Lingling shook her head. “Not yet. They said the winner would get notified last.”
Great. Now he was nervous too.
When Lin Jiu arrived and learned that the results would be coming out today, the world gained one more nervous person.
Gu Lingling clutched her phone in her hand. In the next second it vibrated sharply.
Her heart jumped, as though it had leapt all the way into her throat. With lightning speed she picked up.
“Hello, this is Pink Crystal Maiden Heart.”
“Hello, customer, we’ve run out of braised pig trotters here. Would fried be okay instead?”
Gu Lingling: ???
Lin Jiu scratched his head. “Sorry, that one was for me.”
With a smile, Gu Lingling answered, “Sure, fried is fine.”
She hung up the call with a smile, then turned to look at Lin Jiu.
Lin Jiu looked at An Yi.
An Yi quietly averted his eyes.
!
Weren’t they supposed to be good brothers?!
Lin Jiu swallowed and said, “Their pig trotters are really good. My phone died, so I left them your number just now.”
Smack!!!
“Ow!”
Two or three birds shot up into the sky in alarm.
The competition call arrived painfully late. The pig trotters came first, but the phone still stayed silent. From morning till afternoon, the three of them waited, and finally, at two in the afternoon, the call from the competition organizers came.
Gu Lingling hardly dared breathe as she blurted out the full studio introduction in one breath.
“Hello, this is Pink Crystal Maiden Heart Studio.”
The organizers’ side replied in fluent English.
What they brought was news that the competition entry had been rejected, followed by a wish that they have a pleasant life.
The three of them sat around the phone for a long time, each with their own stunned expression.
Being rejected had always been within the realm of possibility, but people were emotional creatures. When the outcome of something was unknown, hopeful results usually took the lead. When people thought privately, they always wove themselves some dream of victory.
An Yi was the first to speak. “It’s okay. Victory and defeat are common in war. There’ll be plenty more competitions in the future. Even though we didn’t get selected this time, we still learned a lot…”
Lin Jiu asked, “A lot of what?”
An Yi replied, “A lot of English.”
Gu Lingling: ……
Still, being rejected was disappointing no matter what. The three of them didn’t try to numb themselves with work. Instead, they went on a wild pig-trotter binge right there in the studio.
Gu Lingling said, “Remember this flavor.”
Lin Jiu asked, “The flavor of pig trotters?”
Gu Lingling said, “The flavor of failure.”
An Yi quietly interjected, “Better not.”
Gu Lingling: ?
Holding a pig trotter, An Yi said, “Because it really smells too good.”
Gu Lingling: ……
True. Saying that failure tasted too fragrant somehow didn’t sound right.
After stuffing themselves with pig trotters, the three of them stared out the window, like three salted fish that had lost all their dreams.
Lin Jiu said, “I think what we’re really lacking is more setbacks.”
Gu Lingling replied, “If you want setbacks, I can give you one right now.”
Lin Jiu immediately shut his mouth.
Because when Gu Lingling said “setback,” she meant it literally.
The three of them had no heart left for work and decided to call it a day, telling the cleaner she could head home too.
As An Yi walked down the street and passed an ice cream shop, he hesitated for a few seconds, then went in.
“Excuse me, can these be packed to go?”
The shop clerk brought out an insulated bag and takeaway box. “Yes. What flavors would you like?”
After a painful internal struggle, An Yi thought of Huo Beixing waiting at home and said, “Mint chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla.”
“Alright.”
An Yi came out of the shop carrying the bag. It wasn’t far from the city center here, and he planned to catch a bus from the main street.
Across from the bus stop stood a technology building. Above the front of it, an enormous electronic screen played investor advertisements. Because it was located in a central area with massive pedestrian traffic, he’d heard that even a few minutes of screen time there cost a shocking amount.
An Yi looked into the distance and could already see the bus route he was waiting for approaching.
At that moment, the phone in his pocket vibrated. He took it out. It was Gu Lingling calling.
“What’s wrong?”
Gu Lingling’s voice carried a level of panic he had never heard from her before. “An Yi, this is bad. Our… our studio…”
An Yi tried to steady her emotions. “What happened? Talk slowly.”
The next second, a cold sentence came through the line.
“They’ve exposed our studio for plagiarism.”
An Yi’s pupils contracted sharply.
Gu Lingling’s voice shook. “That can’t be right. Everything was designed by us together. But now… now it’s already in the news, and there’s a lot of it online.”
The bus slowly pulled up. Spring was in full bloom, yet An Yi stood rooted to the spot like he’d been thrown into a freezing winter.
Impossible.
Their work couldn’t possibly have been plagiarized.
His mind went completely blank. The bus drove off, and that giant electronic screen came fully back into view.
It was displaying a congratulatory message, celebrating Cooy Studio’s victory in the international design competition.
Then, at the exact same moment, the work shown on the screen and Gu Lingling’s voice slammed into his mind.
“Cooy Studio’s piece is seventy percent similar to ours.”
………
The hand holding his phone dropped limply to his side. An Yi stared dully at the design on the electronic screen.
That was his…
That was his.
Memories from when he was eighteen surged violently through his mind.
The ice cream in his hand was dropped on the spot. An Yi ran out of the crowded central district in huge strides, hailed a taxi, and went straight to the glass-fronted building of Cooy Studio.
The moment the results had been announced, investors and collaborators had swarmed in, paving their path straight into the upper levels of the design world.
An Yi’s eyes were wide open, unblinking for the longest time. His expression was empty, but both hands were clenched tightly into fists. After paying the fare, he stood at the entrance to their studio.
They had not plagiarized.
Every shred of inspiration had come from themselves.
And the original concept behind this work was not some unforgettable girl in the distance.
Its inspiration had been his mother—both of the mothers who had held defining meaning at different times in his life.
That wasn’t right.
An Yi’s breathing turned rapid. Ignoring the security blocking the entrance, he forced his way in, having completely lost control of himself.
Marching in to confront people like this, bare and direct, was an extremely risky and foolish thing to do.
But he couldn’t help it.
He couldn’t accept this.
His life had already been stolen from him once.
He could not accept it happening a second time.
He didn’t understand why something that had already destroyed him once was now surging toward him again.
That trembling fear swept through his entire body.
He strode forward, teeth clenched, while the front hall was crowded with media reporters interviewing Cooy Studio.
They were chatting and laughing, every face bright with joy. Their mouths spoke of how overwhelmed with happiness they were, while still putting on that humble act about being young.
And the person at the very front—
At that moment, An Yi felt as though all the strength had been drained from his body. His eyes burned red as he looked at that face. The first twenty-three years of his life crashed through him like mountain tides and roaring seas. Everything he had wanted to forget, and everything he had not wanted to forget, all surfaced at once.
“An Yi, this is your fate.”
Li Shouquan.
