“Mr. Sheng, here is the schedule for next week.” Qi Tao pushed the door open and walked toward Sheng Yannian with the files, placing them on the office desk.

“Okay.” Sheng Yannian glanced over to acknowledge it, then remembered something and called out to Qi Tao, who was already walking toward the office door. “Wait, when you go out, tell everyone they can leave early today.”

“…Yes, sir!” Qi Tao froze for just a second before immediately responding. As a qualified, hardworking corporate drone, who wouldn’t be excited to hear they could leave early?

The little secretary happily scurried out.

After a short while, Sheng Yannian could hear the cheers from outside through the glass office door.

“Mr. Sheng?” Qi Tao pushed the door open again, but this time only peeked half his body in. “Then I’m off too?”

Seeing Qi Tao looking completely packed up and ready to go, Sheng Yannian couldn’t help but laugh. “Go ahead, drive safely.”

“Alright! You too, boss, leave early!”

“Okay.”

About half an hour later, Sheng Yannian shut down his computer and picked up the schedule Qi Tao had just handed him.

Next Tuesday, there was a joint project meeting with Wanjia Real Estate. According to the original plan, the meeting should have been tomorrow. But as luck would have it, the weather forecast showed that S City would have an orange-level rainstorm tonight, which would last until next Monday.

Ding-dong~ The phone sitting on the side rang.

Sheng Yannian’s attention was instantly drawn to it; the sound came from his private phone. The notification ringtone indicated that this message was from his dearest older brother.

As a devoted brother-con, Sheng Yannian firmly believed that he couldn’t miss any message or update from his brother at any time or place!

Sheng Yannian quickly unlocked his phone, happily checking what message his brother had sent him.

“Yanqing, are you off work yet? The weather is bad tonight, go home early.”

“Just getting ready to leave. What about you, brother?”

“I’m already home, preparing to have dinner with Jinghang and Beibei in a bit.”

“….” Looking at the last two names, Sheng Yannian felt a long-forgotten wave of annoyance.

Meng Jinghang, a man who had absolutely nothing to do with Sheng Yanqing but married him solely because their interests were tied together. From the very beginning, Sheng Yannian did not approve of this marriage and had protested to his parents many times. But in the end, Sheng Yanqing himself didn’t say anything and even comforted him instead, so Sheng Yannian had no choice but to suppress his dissatisfaction. And the result? That man didn’t even hold a wedding with Sheng Yanqing before going abroad, and he was gone for three whole years. He had just returned a few months ago, and when he came back, he even brought along a little tagalong child!!!

Who could tolerate this?! Yet, his good-tempered brother could. And he himself couldn’t throw a tantrum in front of his brother.

After a long while, Sheng Yannian grit his teeth and texted back a single word: “Okay.”

A moment later, Sheng Yanqing sent another message from the other side:

“By the way, Yannian, I ran into senior a few days ago on the street, and he even asked about you.”

“?” Seeing the word ‘senior,’ Sheng Yannian raised an eyebrow.

Sheng Yanqing seemed to misunderstand his reaction and sent a message to explain:

“I mean Senior Gu Yuanqiao, the one we accidentally ran into at the charity gala before.”

Sheng Yannian stared at the name and pondered for a moment. Roughly calculating, it seemed like more than a month had passed since they hooked up. As he had wished, he hadn’t crossed paths with Gu Yuanqiao since then. If it weren’t for his brother mentioning him this time, he probably would have thrown that person into some forgotten corner of his mind.

Snapping back to reality, Sheng Yannian realized that two minutes had already passed. Feeling a bit annoyed, he quickly replied:

“It wasn’t ‘we.’ I only saw the back of that dead pervert.”

“You, so many years have passed and you’re still holding a grudge against him?” In fact, Sheng Yanqing had never understood why Sheng Yannian held such strong hostility toward Gu Yuanqiao. Didn’t they seem fine when they met for the first time?

“Yannian, this is the first time you’ve disliked someone for so long, right? But Senior is actually a very good person. You also know he helped me a lot back then. He has always tolerated your attitude too.”

‘Ha,’ Sheng Yannian sneered in his heart. Who says Gu Yuanqiao, that dead fox, isn’t a total fake? He clearly detested him to death, yet he still put on a harmless act in front of Sheng Yanqing.

“Anyway, brother, stay away from him. He’s up to no good.” As usual whenever this topic came up, Sheng Yannian just gave a conclusion, never explaining to Sheng Yanqing the reason why he hated Gu Yuanqiao.

Sheng Yanqing knew he failed to fish out any answers this time either, so he had to change the subject:

“Alright, alright, Jinghang is calling me to dinner. You should leave work early too. Remember to lock the doors and windows tonight, and stay safe.”

“Okay.”

After locking his phone, Sheng Yannian began packing up his things, preparing to drive home.

Sheng Yannian lived in a neighborhood consisting entirely of uniform, detached three-story villas. This neighborhood had very thorough security measures, making it the top choice for most wealthy people or celebrities.

Of course, for Sheng Yannian, it was a bit remote. Driving from home to the company took nearly half an hour. But the perk was that the environment was good and it wasn’t as noisy as the downtown area.

The rain came even earlier than the weather forecast predicted. When Sheng Yannian was halfway through his drive, thick dark clouds had already gathered in the sky. In no time, raindrops as large as beans slammed against the front windshield, becoming denser and denser. By the time Sheng Yannian drove to the entrance of the neighborhood, the rainwater had completely blurred the car windows, and the visibility was less than five meters.

When Sheng Yannian came out of the garage, he discovered an uninvited guest standing at his front door—Gu Yuanqiao.

“……” Sheng Yannian felt speechless. He had just thought of this person forty minutes ago, and now the guy had actually appeared. What was this? “Speak of the devil”?

Holding an umbrella, Sheng Yannian stood not far from his door and watched.

Gu Yuanqiao didn’t have an umbrella. Luckily, there was a protruding shelter above the door, otherwise Gu Yuanqiao would probably look no different from a drowned rat pulled out of a river right now. But even so, his pant cuffs and the edge of his white shirt still bore wet marks from the rain. The man was also holding a bag in his hand, containing who knows what, but the paper bag was already half-soaked.

Gu Yuanqiao stood facing the door, straight as a rod. Even though it was windy and raining outside and he was dressed so thinly, it didn’t affect his posture at all. From this, it wasn’t hard to see that Gu Yuanqiao had excellent posture, at least much better than his own.

Perhaps because there was no one else present right now, Gu Yuanqiao dropped his usual perfectly measured smile, looking so expressionless that Sheng Yannian found it unfamiliar.

“….” A flicker of strangeness passed through Sheng Yannian’s heart. He realized that he seemed to have never truly known the person in front of him. Even though their distance was very close right now, so close that he could walk to his side in just a few steps, his feet felt as if they were filled with lead, unable to lift.

Another gust of wind blew past, and Sheng Yannian shivered, snapping back to his senses. He felt baffled by the thought that had just popped into his head. What did he mean by “never truly known”? It was just that the dead fox in front of him had stopped putting on an act, that’s all.

Thinking this way, Sheng Yannian began to look at him with annoyance again. He stepped up the stairs and came up behind Gu Yuanqiao:

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

Hearing the voice, Gu Yuanqiao turned around, switching back to his smiling expression:

“What? Can’t I come if there’s nothing special?”

Sheng Yannian clearly saw that this pair of eyes, which had been like a pool of stagnant water just a moment ago, now rippled with life. That fading sense of strangeness welled up in his heart again.

“Hmm? Does my coming to find you surprise you that much?” Gu Yuanqiao saw Sheng Yannian’s eyes widen slightly.

“Ha.” Coming back to his senses, Sheng Yannian regained his usual dismissive attitude. “I don’t recall our relationship being good enough to meet privately in person.”

“Then I don’t mind getting closer to you~” Gu Yuanqiao gave Sheng Yannian a flirtatious wink.

“….” Whether it was because of these words or Gu Yuanqiao’s behavior, goosebumps broke out all over Sheng Yannian. Thinking of something, he looked at him with quite a bit of disgust, “You can’t… have developed feelings for me now, have you?”

“….” This time it was Gu Yuanqiao’s turn to fall silent, not even bothering to fake a smile anymore. He looked at Sheng Yannian as if looking at an idiot.

He was speechless to the extreme.

“It’s for the best if you haven’t.” Before Sheng Yannian could fully breathe a sigh of relief, another thought struck him: wouldn’t this mean that this dead pervert was still pinning after his brother?! Tsk.

“What exactly are you here for?”

Gu Yuanqiao couldn’t fathom Sheng Yannian’s sudden shift from being in a decent mood a second ago to being completely impatient now, but he was already used to it.

Gu Yuanqiao shook the shopping bag in his hand: “Returning your clothes.”

Sheng Yannian took a few seconds to process before remembering: “Just for this? You could have just thrown them away. Do you really think I would wear clothes that you’ve already worn?”

“What a young master indeed.”

“Ha, look who’s talking,” Sheng Yannian said with a fake smile. “So you risked this orange weather warning just to deliver a piece of clothing to me?”

“Of course not. I came here to look at houses. I remembered that you seemed to live in this neighborhood too, so I dropped by to deliver the clothes. Who knew I’d wait for ages and you still wouldn’t be back.”

“…Couldn’t you just leave the clothes with the property management?”

“Who knows if they would have selfish motives? After all, selling this piece of clothing secondhand wouldn’t be cheap.”

“……” For a moment, Sheng Yannian didn’t know what to say. Wasn’t that a bit too distrustful of people?

“Then you could have left the clothes with property management and then messaged me. I believe you have my contact information, right?” If Sheng Yannian remembered correctly, he had reluctantly added Gu Yuanqiao on WeChat back then only to get a hold of his brother.

“I do, but young Mr. Sheng is a busy man with a short memory; you probably forgot that you blocked me a long time ago.”

“….” Old memories were awakened once again.

Since the other party had come all this way just to deliver his clothes after all, Sheng Yannian showed a shred of conscience and took the bag from Gu Yuanqiao’s hand. Then he bypassed him to unlock his door. “Alright, you’ve delivered the clothes. If there’s nothing else, you can leave.”

Even until Sheng Yannian stepped inside, he didn’t hear any response from the person behind him. Right before closing the door, he glanced at the person at the doorway. Gu Yuanqiao’s smile sent a chill down his spine.

“What? Is there something else?”

“It’s raining so hard, aren’t you going to invite me in to sit for a bit?” Gu Yuanqiao asked politely.

Sheng Yannian frowned. “What does the heavy rain have to do with coming into my house?”

“…I did come all this way to bring you your clothes, you know,” Gu Yuanqiao said through gritted teeth, his urge to smack Sheng Yannian to death reaching its peak at this moment.

“Oh, so what? It’s not like I asked you to bring them,” Sheng Yannian said matter-of-factly. “Besides, didn’t I already accept the clothes you brought? I’ve already given you plenty of face.”

“….” Gu Yuanqiao felt his face twitching unnaturally.

“If there’s nothing else, leave quickly.” Sheng Yannian issued a dismissal, closing the door before Gu Yuanqiao could reply.

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating Gu Yuanqiao’s eyes.

“….” Having been shut out, Gu Yuanqiao still maintained a smiling expression. Following that, he pulled out his phone, opened his contacts, found “Sheng Yanqing,” and pressed the call button without any hesitation.

After the phone rang three times in his ear, the person on the other side picked up:

“Hello? Senior?”

“Yes, it’s me.” Gu Yuanqiao switched back to a gentle tone.

“Is something wrong, Senior?”

“Yanqing, can you ask your brother to open the door?”

“Huh?”

“It’s like this, I passed by Yannian’s house today and thought about bringing him something. After all, so many years have passed, and I wanted to ease the tension between us. But he seems…” Gu Yuanqiao said with a hint of helplessness, “a bit unwelcoming towards me.”

“I know I should come back another day. But the weather isn’t very good today, and it’s probably hard to call a cab right now. So…” Gu Yuanqiao said with difficulty, “could I trouble you to tell Yannian to let me stay over for one night?”

“No problem, Senior!” Sheng Yanqing agreed immediately. He wished nothing more than for the relationship between these two to ease up, and he also knew his brother’s foul temper. “I’m so sorry, Senior, Yannian is just…”

“It’s fine, I understand. I was abrupt today; I should have sent him a message before coming. But I didn’t expect that I’d been blocked by him.” Gu Yuanqiao smiled bitterly. “Actually, Yannian didn’t do anything wrong. When I was his age and saw someone I disliked, I couldn’t control my temper either. Sigh, in the end, it’s my fault.”

“No, no, no, Senior, don’t say that. I’ll call Yannian right now, please wait for a moment.” Sheng Yanqing felt his face flush with embarrassment from Gu Yuanqiao’s words.

“Alright, then I’ll trouble you, Yanqing.”

After hanging up the phone, Gu Yuanqiao sneered at the tightly shut door.

Before long, the phone rang again; it was Sheng Yanqing calling back. At the same time, the front door was opened. Sheng Yannian, who had already changed into loungewear, looked at Gu Yuanqiao at the doorway with an unfriendly expression. He wanted to say something, but before he could, he was interrupted by Gu Yuanqiao’s actions.

He saw Gu Yuanqiao raise his phone and wave it in front of him, the three large words “Sheng Yanqing” clearly visible to Sheng Yannian. He had no choice but to swallow down the words at the tip of his tongue.

Right in front of Sheng Yannian, Gu Yuanqiao picked up the call and put it to his ear, looking completely like a winner. His eyes were full of provocation when looking at Sheng Yannian, but the words coming out of his mouth were incredibly “considerate.”

“Yanqing? Yeah, Yannian already opened the door. It’s fine, it was difficult for him today after all… Me? I’m fine, I haven’t been standing long… Yeah, yeah, okay, then I’ll hang up first. Yannian has been holding the door open for a while, I should head inside quickly so he doesn’t catch a cold… Okay, thanks for today… Yeah, let’s catch up another day. Bye.”

“Ha.” After hanging up the phone, Gu Yuanqiao stared at Sheng Yannian’s dark face for three seconds and let out a light mock. Subsequently, he made himself right at home.

Gu Yuanqiao changed into slippers at the entryway. Ignoring Sheng Yannian behind him, he walked toward the living room very naturally. But before taking two steps, he felt a large hand grab his arm and pull him back. The sudden pulling force caused Gu Yuanqiao to lose his balance. Sheng Yannian pulled very hard, and by the time Gu Yuanqiao snapped out of it, his spine had already slammed into the door with a loud thud.

“Hiss—” Gu Yuanqiao gasped from the pain. Following that, another loud bang echoed near his ear; it was Sheng Yannian slamming his other hand against the door. The force was so great that Gu Yuanqiao could feel the door behind him vibrating.

“Tattling to my brother?” Sheng Yannian leaned down, the distance between their faces suddenly becoming extremely close. If Gu Yuanqiao were to lift his head just slightly, their noses would collide. The breath hitting his face felt a bit ticklish.

To outsiders, their posture right now would look incredibly intimate. Sheng Yannian had practically enclosed Gu Yuanqiao entirely against his front, leaving the other party nowhere to escape. But only they themselves knew that the atmosphere right now was a ticking time bomb.

“Bringing me something? Wanting to ease our tension? I shut you out? I blocked you? I have a bad temper? Huh?” Sheng Yannian suppressed his anger as he questioned the person in front of him.

“Did I say anything that wasn’t the truth?” Gu Yuanqiao raised his eyes to look directly at Sheng Yannian, completely unfazed.

“What exactly do you want?” Sheng Yannian clenched his fists.

“What do you want right now?” Gu Yuanqiao threw the question right back. “Don’t you think the distance between us right now is a bit too close?”

“….” Gu Yuanqiao’s words were like a bucket of cold water poured over him, allowing Sheng Yannian to regain some sanity. He let go of his grip on Gu Yuanqiao, stood up, and took a step back to a safe distance between them.

“You leave first thing tomorrow.”

“The weather will be bad tomorrow too.” Gu Yuanqiao leaned against the door, a triumphant expression on his face.

Where was there any trace left of the proper posture he displayed at the very beginning?

Sheng Yannian cursed inwardly, “Then stay until the orange warning is lifted.”

Being interrupted like this caused Sheng Yannian’s anger to dissipate a bit. As he turned toward the living room, he irritably laid down some ground rules: “I’ll get a guest room ready for you in a bit. Don’t go wandering into other rooms over the next few days, don’t mess with things in the house, and don’t look for me if there’s nothing important. If you want to go into the study, you have to ask me first…”

Gu Yuanqiao followed behind Sheng Yannian. Looking at his back and listening to his nagging, he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Tsk, I’m setting boundaries with you, what are you laughing at?”

“Nothing, I just think you’re quite kind.”

“….” Sheng Yannian broke out in goosebumps again. Is this dead fox’s brain broken? He was treating him like this, and yet he was considered kind? He couldn’t have developed some weird fetish after not seeing him for a few years, right? It’s said that people abroad play quite wild…

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Gu Yuanqiao was puzzled by the complex expression on Sheng Yannian’s face.

“I… forget it.” Sheng Yannian subconsciously wanted to mock him, but remembering his guess just now, he held back. He turned back around and continued walking toward the living room, falling silent.

He was afraid that if he scolded that dead pervert, it might actually turn him on.

Translation Notes

• 苦逼打工人 (Kǔbī dǎgōngrén) -> “hardworking corporate drone”: A modern internet slang term combining “bitter/miserable” and “worker.” It describes the modern, stressed-out working class.

• 兄控 (Xiōng kòng) -> “brother-con”: Derived from the anime term “brother complex” (siscon/brothercon), used to describe someone who is deeply attached to or overly fond of their brother.