Chen Huanyi massaged Lin Kai’s temple and then slowly pulled his hand back.
After standing there silently for a while, he still couldn’t help himself—he knelt down by Lin Kai’s feet and gently laid his head on his knees. Chen Huanyi was very tired, but he could imagine that Lin Kai had to be even more exhausted than him. Amid this weary dark night, he was a bit light-headed. He hadn’t had anything to drink, yet he felt almost tipsy.
Lin Kai didn’t object, which only stoked Chen Huanyi’s courage. The question he’d kept stifled all day tumbled from his lips.
There was something marvelous about nighttime that let people put down their caution and defenses, allowing them to reveal their hidden innermost feelings. Hence there were late-night talk shows, and heart-to-hearts under cover of darkness.
“Lin-laoshi… ten years ago, what were you like?”
Lin Kai didn’t open his eyes. He leaned back slightly, his Adam’s apple and jawline standing out starkly.
Ten years ago—
He was nineteen, a third-year university student. He rented a room off-campus and sometimes skipped class. Usually, it was because he had gotten sucked into writing code and couldn’t tear himself away to leave the house. That other person was always very understanding and never disturbed him—he would quietly make Lin Kai some tea or coffee and then go to class himself. He picked up groceries if he got out of class early; later, Lin Kai would smell the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen as he typed out his code.
Back then, Lin Kai didn’t have the same stability as today. His world was very simple—his code, his friends, his boyfriend. He was a high-flier at school and came home to a gentle and attentive lover. His programming had already afforded him financial independence. At the time, he was preparing for a major competition, where he planned to lead a team of stand-out classmates to get his name out there and catch the eye of potential investors.
“I was very happy,” said Lin Kai.
So happy he never stopped to think about what happiness meant, even though he later realized it had all been empty. The bubble had been destined to burst, but you couldn’t say that it hadn’t been beautiful before.
Chen Huanyi opened his mouth. “That man from today…”
“The Zhen family’s young master—” Lin Kai’s lips curved, but there was no smile in his eyes. He shook his head, his eyes slightly narrowed as the corners of his mouth rose yet higher, as though mocking himself. “My first real relationship.”
From taking walks to holding hands to kissing, to making love. Later on, he had also discovered his sadistic tendencies. But when he saw the bullied look of the person beneath him in bed, he would rather rein in his desire—he couldn’t harden his heart to do anything, even though his partner was so considerate and deferential.
It was the first time Chen Huanyi had ever seen this kind of expression on Lin Kai’s face. He had never imagined that Lin Kai would have romantic relationships too. Of course, logically speaking, this was extremely normal. A handsome and accomplished youth couldn’t grow into a mature and steady young man and remain completely unsullied. But when Chen Huanyi first saw Lin Kai, he was already as he was now—calm and self-possessed, moderate and rational. Even when Lin Kai put his hand on Chen Huanyi’s naked body, he seemed to have planned it out very precisely and never lost an iota of control. This kind of person didn’t seem to belong in a relationship at all, seeing as relationships were always transactional in nature, full of tiptoeing around matters; sometimes, they were even rife with rage and jealousy. Such emotions and behaviors didn’t seem to apply to the person before Chen Huanyi.
There’s nothing to get jealous about, Chen Huanyi, he told himself. You can’t be envious of every bit of the past that didn’t include you. With so many people in this world, it’s already immensely fortunate that you were able to meet him when you did. Maybe in some parallel universe, you wouldn’t run into each other until you’re eighty years old and tottering down the street with a cane, and he’s sitting on the corner in a wheelchair. You glance at him, none the wiser about how magnificent his ninety years have been. Just another old man with one foot in the grave, you think. Then you lean on your cane and take your leave. Now that would be a real tragedy.
You pass by thousands of strangers—what if every one of them were your lover, his face indistinguishable from the crowd? Now that would be a real tragedy.
“He probably still loves you.” That’s why he looked so gentle.
Lin Kai looked at Chen Huanyi, widening his eyes slightly. Chen Huanyi propped his chin on Lin Kai’s knees and gazed up, the picture of obedience.
“But I… don’t love him anymore.”
The CEO of the Zhen family’s tech company was a man with uncompromising vision. Ten years ago, he had decided to expand into e-commerce. Back then, the Zhens hadn’t yet become synonymous with other things; the company was built on real estate and construction materials, with no reputation in the tech world. The family was a heavyweight in its established areas, but its success with regards to the internet was far from assured. At the time, the beginnings of online entrepreneurship were already evident. The experts with the core technical know-how weren’t willing to be devoured by big corporations. Despite the risks, they usually decided to strike out on their own.
The Zhens wanted to recruit talent from universities. They immediately set their sights on students from the top-ranked computer science program who had achieved distinction in competitions, and they were especially interested in Lin Kai. The company tried to recruit a group of students who worked under Lin Kai with an extremely attractive offer: they would receive a salary even while they were still taking classes. After graduation, they would join the company and help set up the research and development division. The company would even provide them with their own apartments and cars. Of course some people were swayed, but not Lin Kai.
Lin Kai had never wanted for anything and only pursued things because he liked them. He took art classes to make the UI he wanted, and he sat in front of the computer for hours on end without eating or drinking or even taking exams until he was satisfied with the runtime of his optimized program. He liked math, so he taught himself analysis; he liked programming, so he wrote code all day; he liked a boy, so he went and won him over. Simple and straight to the point.
Lin Kai had no interest in a salary, an apartment, or a car. He wouldn’t sell his ideals for any of these things.
When he met the assistant to the company’s CEO, he immediately made his position clear. He remembered that the assistant had laughed and said, “Executive Zhen wants to meet you. Not to discuss anything technical—he wants to talk to you about the young master and you.”
“Young master?”
The assistant smiled meaningfully at him.
“The Zhen family…” Lin Kai came to a realization. “Xueji?”
He got into a car on these pretenses that turned out to be false.
They met in an extravagantly luxurious restaurant in a private room that was called “Emperor’s Favor.” There were sixteen different dishes on the table. Lin Kai remained silent all throughout.
“Xueji didn’t enter the Zhen family until he was twelve,” said Zhen Ruifeng. “Before, he wasn’t in the line of inheritance. Xueji is very clever, heh, as you should know very well. I’ve handed the R&D division over to him so he can prove himself and receive what he rightfully deserves. He hasn’t let me down.”
Zhen Ruifeng paused. His assistant brought over a laptop.
After Lin Kai took one look at it, he grabbed his jacket from the back of his seat and pushed open the door to leave.
He heard Zhen Ruifeng call out from behind him. “Young man—don’t be so quick to anger. We should work together for our mutual benefit.”
Lin Kai stopped for a moment. He gripped the doorknob tightly before slowly letting go of it again. “No need. Our philosophies are incompatible.”
That night, he only asked Zhen Xueji a single question. “Did you touch my computer… Young Master Zhen?”
Zhen Xueji was in the kitchen chopping tofu for dinner. His knife hand shook, the blade cutting haphazardly into the neatly stacked cubes of tofu. A sizable block crumbled like collapsing ruins.
Through trembling lips, Zhen Xueji said, “Please—I can explain.”
Lin Kai was leaning against the doorframe and didn’t walk over. “Answer me first.”
“…I did.”
Lin Kai started packing.
After looking around the apartment, he discovered that he didn’t have all that many belongings to gather. All the niceties here, all the comfortable furnishings throughout the place, were things that Zhen Xueji had bought.
Zhen Xueji walked up behind Lin Kai.
Lin Kai heard him speak, his voice unsteady.
“I… I just wanted to go a little faster, just a little bit faster, and then turn around… to hug you, to protect you.”
Lin Kai’s hands stilled in the middle of packing. “…Xueji, I was always… trying to do that too.”
Zhen Xueji wrapped his arms around Lin Kai. “It’s not that I didn’t believe you could do these things on your own,” he murmured into Lin Kai’s ear. “But there are some things that I’m better at, considering my background, and… can you leave these things to me? You can still do what you like—let me take care of the rest.”
Lin Kai lapsed into a long silence. “I can still do what I like?”
Zhen Xueji nodded, his jaw moving against Lin Kai’s shoulder. “You like writing code and technical work. But you don’t have the patience for networking, and you don’t like wining and dining people. Whether it’s raising money, finding partnerships, or doing PR, I know I’m better at these sorts of things. You can still do what you like and focus on the technical side. I can handle all the rest, okay?”
Lin Kai fell silent again. This was probably what Zhen Ruifeng had been referring to when he said that they should work together. If he brought his technical knowledge into the Zhen family company, he would never again need to worry about running out of money or taking care of all the details by himself. After all, the company had deep pockets, a publicity arm, and a marketing division—it was practically a one-stop shop for all his needs.
If that were the case, he could actually focus on the technical aspects alone.
But then a company called “KAIJI” would never exist on this earth.
Lin Kai gently pried apart Zhen Xueji’s hands from around his waist. “Xueji, in the end, the two of us are different kinds of people.”
Zhen Xueji sat down on the sofa, seemingly exhausted. “I know… you don’t like it when I do these things, but I—I’ve been doing them all along. It’s been like that since I was little, I can’t help it… Kids who grow up in a happy family are always straightforward and pure. I wanted to protect that side of you. But someone’s always going to have to do the things you don’t want to. Just because I’m an… an illegitimate child… doesn’t mean you should…”
Lin Kai walked over and embraced him. “Sorry, I’m sorry, Xueji… That’s not what I meant at all. I’m so sorry…” I never knew that you’ve had such a tough time.
Lin Kai continued quietly. “Xueji, let’s both calm down, all right?”
Zhen Xueji’s eyes were filled with sorrow. “Are you still going to leave?”
Lin Kai nodded. “I need some time to think.”
But sometimes, what you thought would be smooth sailing turned out to be anything but, and what you thought was a matter of course instead defied all expectations. Everything you thought would turn out well ended up taking a turn for the worse—it was only those things you had a bad feeling about that did indeed turn out badly.
Chen Huanyi waited quietly for a while as he watched every miniscule change in Lin Kai’s face. In an instant, all of the fragments came together: from being plagiarized, to a shortcoming of trust, to Lin Kai’s ex-boyfriend, to pursuing a life with no regrets… From these scattered phrases, he could piece together the whole story in his head.
Only after a long while did he muster up the courage to say, “Lin-laoshi, this isn’t fair.”
Lin Kai was lost in his thoughts. “Hmm?”
Chen Huanyi jumped to his feet. Then he sat down on Lin Kai’s lap, his bare legs straddling Lin Kai’s waist. He put his chin on Lin Kai’s shoulder and inhaled a tiny whiff of his scent from the crook of his neck. “Trust needs to be nurtured,” Chen Huanyi said softly, right next to Lin Kai’s ear. “You can’t use your past mistakes to punish yourself now. You can’t use them to punish me either… I know everyone has fears from the shadows of their past. It’s not that you don’t want to give me the chance to prove that I’ve lived a life with no regrets. You don’t want to give yourself the chance to prove that there’s someone willing to live a life with no regrets for you.”
Lin Kai said nothing.
Chen Huanyi gathered his courage and pressed on. “Life is probably just an endless cycle of choosing and being chosen. What you’re most worried about isn’t trust. Or to put it another way, you don’t trust me either, and you don’t believe I’ll live a life with no regrets. You’re worried that I’ll be like him—that I’ll give you up for something else.”
Lin Kai shook his head. “You’re wrong about the last thing,” he said, his features very gentle.
Chen Huanyi was unconvinced. “Wrong how?”
“I wasn’t afraid of him choosing something else, and I’m not afraid that you’ll do the same either,” said Lin Kai. “What I’m most afraid of is if you guys chose me, but spent the rest of your lives regretting that you didn’t choose something else. There’s no turning back from many things in life. You’re still so young, with such a promising future ahead of you. I’ll turn into an old geezer someday, but your learning will never let you down—the truth will always be as wonderful as ever.”
“Even if you turn into an old geezer, you’ll be as wonderful as ever in my heart,” Chen Huanyi retorted.
Lin Kai laughed. “It won’t be the same.”
“Of course no one can prove that they’ll live with no regrets before their life is over,” Chen Huanyi said. “Are you really never going to give anyone a chance?”
“It’s not like I’m planning to die alone,” Lin Kai said begrudgingly.
Chen Huanyi gripped Lin Kai’s shoulder and took advantage of their proximity to look him in the eye. “If that person’s going to appear sooner or later, then why can’t it be me? We both want to contribute something to the field of biology. One of us likes to whip people, the other likes to be whipped… How could anyone be a better match than us? We’re two like-minded souls on the same path in life.”
As Lin Kai looked back at him, a smile slowly appeared in his eyes.
Chen Huanyi was seemingly both bewitched and emboldened. “I don’t have any experience, but I can tell that you like me… you like me at least a little bit, don’t you?”
After blurting out the words all at once, he threw his arms around Lin Kai’s neck. Even though he couldn’t see Lin Kai’s expression from here, he still screwed his eyes shut in apprehension.
Lin Kai could feel Chen Huanyi trembling.
A long silence ensued, so long that Chen Huanyi thought he wouldn’t receive an answer. He didn’t know what Lin Kai was thinking, but the longer he waited, the more panicked and regretful he felt. He regretted his impulsiveness, his decision to broach this topic in the first place.
Then he felt Lin Kai’s throat vibrate against his arm.
Lin Kai uttered a low sound of agreement. “Mmhm.”
Before joy could set in, Chen Huanyi was overcome by a staggering sense of disbelief.
He jerked back to look at Lin Kai, only to discover that he wore a gentle expression. Without his glasses in the way, a watery light glimmered in his eyes. It was all real, neither a hallucination nor a dream.
Chen Huanyi gazed into Lin Kai’s eyes, as if he wanted to peer through them to his heart. “Lin-laoshi, I don’t know why I’d receive this answer from you—let’s just say I’ve gotten lucky… but don’t change your mind, all right? When I wake up tomorrow morning, can everything still be the same?”
Lin Kai stroked his hair. “Okay,” he replied softly.
There were still so many things from earlier that Chen Huanyi had left unsaid, but none of it—not logic, principles, nor persuasion—mattered any longer. The rims of Chen Huanyi’s eyes had reddened. Lin Kai liked him too—what could be more important than that?
Neither of them spoke.
Chen Huanyi had a sudden thought. Did he pass?
He was prepared to wage war for years on end, yet before he even opened fire, he had already won?
Chen Huanyi murmured into Lin Kai’s ear, “Lin-laoshi, surely this should count as you confessing first?” [1]
Lin Kai found himself momentarily speechless. Chen Huanyi was done with the honorifics already?
“You’re not allowed to be a heartbreaker.”
Lin Kai was truly at a loss.
[1] From this point on, Chen Huanyi starts using the informal you, 你, for Lin Kai