Zuo Cheng, who worked multiple jobs, squatted on a large rock near the villa. The spot was well-hidden but offered a perfect view. With a phone in one hand and a big red apple in the other, he took bites with great satisfaction, the loud crunching sounds echoing around him.

The people in the voice chat group could hear him, and their cheeks tingled, as if they were about to start drooling.

Ye Zhen: “I’m hungry.”

Old Meng: “Zuo Cheng, can you be quieter?”

He Xu: “Let’s go for a big dinner tonight, but not with him.”

Zuo Cheng: “You guys still want the information, or what?”

The three of them went quiet for a moment, then simultaneously steered the conversation away from that topic. Zuo Cheng continued to smugly crunch on his apple, completely unbothered.

He Xu asked, “Those two still haven’t come out? What time is it?”

Ye Zhen sighed and said, “Lost in the warmth of the hibiscus curtain, the emperor has forgotten the affairs of the court.”

Old Meng summed it up, “A foolish ruler.”

“At around 10 a.m., the hotel staff brought a basket of dishes, and Young Master Ke appeared once.”

He Xu: “Wait, what the hell?”

Ye Zhen: “Didn’t you notice? Young Master Ke is actually the homey type, a real good guy. Points for him.”

Old Meng sarcastically said, “So what if he can cook?”

He Xu: “It’s actually impressive. You, who can’t cook and only eat, shut up.”

Zuo Cheng continued his report: “But Young Master Ke only took a piece of meat and two stalks of vegetables.”

Old Meng: “Tch.”

Ye Zhen: “…I take back what I just said.”

He Xu: “A piece of meat and two stalks of vegetables? Is he feeding a cat?”

“At 2:30 p.m., the customer service department sent over some cleaned clothes, and it was still Young Master Ke who answered the door.”

Old Meng: “Who sent the clothes to be washed?”

Zuo Cheng: “I did.”

He Xu: “You took advantage of the boss being drunk and stripped him naked again!”

Ye Zhen: “Zuo Cheng, didn’t you want to do something when you saw the boss in the nude?”

Zuo Cheng: “I’m not interested in men.”

He Xu: “You’re not interested in women either.”

The other two agreed, nodding in approval.

Zuo Cheng: “I’m still a kid.”

He Xu: “It’s time to wake up, little virgin.”

Ye Zhen: “How about I introduce you to two beautiful women?”

Old Meng: “How about I introduce you to two handsome guys?”

Zuo Cheng glanced at the half-eaten apple in his hand, feeling like the conversation had veered off course. He calmly said, “Don’t you guys want to know why it was always Young Master Ke answering the door?”

Sure enough, as soon as the question was raised, the three of them quickly snapped back to the main topic, almost at the speed of light.

Old Meng: “It’s definitely not what I’m thinking!”

Ye Zhen: “Stop fooling yourself. It’s obvious the boss was too exhausted to get out of bed because Young Master Ke wore him out.”

He Xu: “…As a woman, can you be a bit more subtle when you speak?”

Ye Zhen: “No matter how subtle I am, I still win. Remember to transfer the money to my account tomorrow.”

He Xu: “Even if the boss is on the bottom, there should be some give and take, right? How can Young Master Ke always be on top?”

Old Meng: “I can’t accept this reality. How could the wise and mighty Boss Bian be on the bottom!”

At that moment, the door to the villa opened again. This time, two people appeared in Zuo Cheng’s line of sight, both fully dressed, looking like they were about to leave.

The agile bodyguard, Zuo Cheng, quickly left the group chat. He stuffed the remaining half of the apple into his mouth with a loud crunch, then tossed the core into the nearby bushes and darted off like a little monkey.

As Bian Yiqiu and Ke Mingxuan stepped down the stairs, they saw Zuo Cheng suddenly appear from who knows where, grinning wide and showing eight teeth, smiling so brightly it was blinding.

Bian Yiqiu almost choked on his own saliva. For some inexplicable reason, he felt a bit embarrassed and quietly shifted his gaze to the side.

Ke Mingxuan casually greeted him, then turned to Bian Yiqiu and asked, “Wanna ride with me?”

Bian Yiqiu, who was already used to arguing with them after just a couple of words, found it a bit hard to adjust to their new relationship. He awkwardly cleared his throat and said, “Well, it’s not on the way. I’ll take my own car.”

Ke Mingxuan didn’t say much more, just nodded and turned to walk toward the garage.

Zuo Cheng followed him, pulling out the car and smoothly stopping it in front of Bian Yiqiu. Ke Mingxuan lowered the window and made a “call me” gesture toward Bian Yiqiu, signaling that he’d contact him later.

Bian Yiqiu understood but didn’t respond. He turned, opened the door to the Maybach, and got in. As he watched the other car drive off, he told Zuo Cheng, “Let’s go.”

Zuo Cheng felt like the relationship between those two had somehow changed, but Bian Yiqiu’s behavior seemed just as usual, as if nothing had changed. His burning curiosity was almost unbearable, and he kept sneaking glances at the rearview mirror, practically wishing he could see a flower blooming on Bian Yiqiu’s face.

Bian Yiqiu had originally been resting with his eyes closed in the back seat, but Zuo Cheng’s attention, which was almost palpable, was impossible to ignore. Unable to stand it anymore, he finally spoke up, “Focus on driving.”

Zuo Cheng quickly pulled his gaze away and obediently looked ahead. But a few minutes later, his eyes drifted back to the rearview mirror.

Bian Yiqiu opened his eyes and caught Zuo Cheng’s gaze in the mirror. The bodyguard flashed a big, goofy smile, leaving him with no outlet for his frustration.

“Spit it out if you’ve got something to say, or just let it go. Are you staring at me because you’ve got a thing for me?”

Zuo Cheng wasn’t shy about it and just went straight to the point: “Heh, Boss, you and Young Master Ke are on good terms now?”

Bian Yiqiu rolled his eyes dramatically: “What’s the basis for that question?”

Zuo Cheng muttered, “Wasn’t it because you had a fight with Young Master Ke that you were in a bad mood recently?”

“I didn’t fight with him,” Bian Yiqiu said honestly. “If the problem can be solved with action, why use words?”

Zuo Cheng took a full two minutes to process what he meant, then finally realized. So it wasn’t a fight, it was a full-blown showdown.

The simple-minded Zuo Cheng, took a good look at his boss from top to bottom in the rearview mirror. Then, he seriously replayed the surveillance footage he had seen earlier and made a more reasonable estimate of Young Master Ke’s skills. He quickly ran through a scenario in his head of the two of them getting into a fight and came to a conclusion. The damage would definitely be intense.

Then, he started to get torn. If those two started fighting in front of him, should he step up and do his duty, help out?

As a full-time bodyguard, it felt a bit awkward to just stand by and watch his boss fighting. But isn’t there an old Chinese saying, “Fight at the head of the bed, make up at the foot”? If they ended up on the bed while fighting, what was he supposed to do, just stand there?

Zuo Cheng  had an unusually forward-thinking understanding of the unique dynamics between Ke and Bian. To avoid getting caught in a difficult situation, he decided that from now on, he would make sure Bian Yiqiu understood: “Domestic violence doesn’t solve anything…”

Bian Yiqiu, who had been fiddling with his ears, looked up: “What did you say?”

Zuo Cheng gave him a serious look: “What problem can’t be solved by sitting down and talking? Why resort to violence?”

Of course, there were. For example, issues of who was on top.

Bian Yiqiu found it hard to respond, so he just hummed a couple of times, pretending to be deep and acting like a big shot: “You’ll understand when you fall in love. Some things can’t be explained just by words.”

Zuo Cheng, seemingly eager to learn, nodded seriously and then, with remarkable speed and precision, zeroed in on the key point: “So, are you saying you’re in a relationship with Young Master Ke now?”

“…”

That was a good question.

Bian Yiqiu fell into deep thought.

When it didn’t involve company decisions or gang-related matters, Bian Yiqiu rarely engaged in the “thinking” process, a mental exercise that required high levels of intellectual effort and difficulty. But when it came to the issue of love, he felt it was something he should actually give some thought to.

First, what exactly is love?

He opened his phone and searched it up. The search result explained: The modern definition of a romantic relationship is one where two people, based on certain material conditions and shared life ideals, develop the most genuine admiration for each other in their hearts, desiring the other to become their lifelong partner. This is the strongest, most stable, and most devoted feeling.

After reading it, Bian Yiqiu gave a blunt one-word evaluation: “Bullshit.”

The person who wrote this entry either had never been in a relationship or had watched too many melodramatic soap operas. If all you want from a relationship is to fantasize about being “stable and devoted” and eventually becoming “lifelong partners,” then your brain structure must be different from most people’s, and the outcome will undoubtedly be tragic. Take his silly, naive mother, for example.

If Bian Ying hadn’t been so young and believed that man who once told her, “Be patient, and autumn shall be the appointed time,” she definitely wouldn’t have died in such a crazed, vengeful way on that winter day, leaving behind such a frustrating, infuriating name.

Bian Yiqiu never believed in love. Even his unrequited feelings for Lu Xiao couldn’t be considered love. It was just that, many years ago, when Lu Xiao was surrounded and bullied by a group of prisoners in prison, his stubborn defiance and desperate resistance reminded Bian Yiqiu of his own younger self. He thought they might be kindred spirits, and when people are alike, they naturally want to get closer.

But unfortunately, he was wrong. Not only were Lu Xiao and he not the same kind of person, but there was a chasm between them as vast as the distance between Earth and Mars, something impossible to cross, impossible to bridge. His attempts to “get closer” only made Lu Xiao want to run to Mars. Eventually, the true soulmate for Lu Xiao appeared, and Bian Yiqiu could only silently step back, resigning himself to years of “unrequited love,” lingering in the shadow of his failed affection.

However, whether fate was finally opening its eyes or just playing another prank on him, in his relentless pursuit of Lu Xiao, an unexpected figure, Ke Mingxuan, stepped onto the scene. From the moment he appeared, he carried with him an overwhelming arrogance that could not be ignored, pushing toward him with undeniable force. What started as an irreconcilable clash, like fire and water, gradually turned into a mutual attraction followed by distance. What were originally two parallel lines that should never intersect began to entangle deeper and deeper, pulling Bian Yiqiu into a whirlwind that left him scared and confused.

Desperate to retreat, he acted as if nothing mattered, pretending to be indifferent. Yet, when he encountered Ke Mingxuan again, he realized that all his pretenses were in vain. Not only had his body already become accustomed, but even his mind was no longer in his control. Once the seed of emotion is planted, it’s like wild grass in spring, growing rapidly with the wind, the roots twisting and entangling tightly, until it becomes a towering tree that has taken root deep within his heart. Trying to uproot it would only leave him bleeding and torn.

It was alright.

Bian Yiqiu thought, it really was alright.

It was alright that Ke Mingxuan hadn’t left him to fight this battle with the tree alone.

Bian Yiqiu placed his hand over his heart and smiled, for some reason.

Zuo Cheng glanced in the rearview mirror again and this time, he was truly sure that something about his boss had changed.