The night wind pushed the heavy clouds forward, obscuring the cold, white moonlight. Fortunately, the neighborhood streetlights were bright and clear, perfectly illuminating the steps underfoot.

Lin Zhu was still feeling a little dizzy.

He had already gotten out of the car and was currently standing on the stone steps by the community’s main gate, letting the cold wind blow over him to relieve the burning heat on his face.

Even though Lin Zhu’s appearance looked world-weary and listless, even carrying a bit of a fierce edge, many adolescent boys and girls would unconsciously be attracted to this type of cool guy…

So, it wasn’t that Lin Zhu had never been confessed to before.

It was just that those people were around the same age as him, and their ways of expressing affection were relatively subtle and indirect. Even face-to-face confessions were usually just a shy ‘I like you’.

Therefore, Lin Zhu had never encountered someone like Yan Ruoyun—even without saying a word, just a brief exchange of glances was enough for the ambiguous tension in the air to almost drown him.

Breathing had become a difficult task.

Lin Zhu took a deep breath, casually brushed his wind-tousled bangs, and desperately wanted to crouch down, hold his head, and let out a screech to mourn his eighteen years of single life.

Thinking of this, he couldn’t help but glance across the street again.

That corner was the outdoor parking spot where the red Ferrari had just parked. The driver’s side window was rolled all the way down, and Yan Ruoyun was still sitting inside, holding his phone to his ear.

He rested his elbow on the edge of the car window, his head tilted to the side, highlighting a beautiful neckline.

While talking on the phone, Yan Ruoyun’s gaze drifted outside the car. He quickly caught sight of the teenager’s figure a dozen meters away, and immediately met the eyes hidden beneath those golden bangs.

The white light from the phone screen illuminated the man’s face, reflecting the faint smile on his lips. In the very next second after making eye contact with his newly minted little boyfriend, the curve of his lips gradually widened…

Only then did Lin Zhu realize that Yan Ruoyun actually had dimples when he smiled.

He blanked out for a moment before snapping back to reality, subconsciously shifting his gaze away, only to quickly move it right back.

Yan Ruoyun had finished his call.

Seeing him wave, Lin Zhu jogged over. He naturally bent down to lean close to the driver’s window and awkwardly muttered a pointless question: “Done talking?”

The call had come at a particularly bad time. It rang at the exact moment when Lin Zhu, rendered completely dizzy by Yan Ruoyun’s series of direct, flirtatious approaches, couldn’t help but nod and say ‘okay’.

Lin Zhu had instantly turned into a dud firecracker, leaving the space inside the car to Yan Ruoyun while he stood in the cold wind to cool down his overheated, overloaded brain.

…It didn’t seem to have much effect, though.

After asking that utterly nonsensical question, Lin Zhu’s eyes grew listless again, and he didn’t know what else to say.

Actually, what he really wanted to ask was whether Yan Ruoyun had heard him say ‘okay’ just now.

“Yeah.” Yan Ruoyun simply nodded, then dragged out his words as he added another sentence.

“—My mom called.”

Lin Zhu’s pupils instantly shook with shock. He listened as the man continued, “She asked if I had seen you, what my impression of you was… she asked a whole lot.”

Lin Zhu touched his nose and asked in a low voice, “Then what did you tell her?”

Yan Ruoyun leaned back against his seat and replied, “I said you were too small.”

As soon as his voice fell, the System couldn’t help but pop out to clear its Host’s name: “Hey, wait a minute! How is our Host small? According to our database analysis, the Host’s physical stats clearly beat out the vast majority of Alphas in this world!!”

The temperature on Lin Zhu’s face, which had just cooled down, instantly shot back up. Those few minutes of blowing in the cold wind had been completely in vain.

…How on earth did this crappy little System manage to make his vision go dark with every single thing it said?

Perhaps because Lin Zhu’s expression was too strange and his gaze was darting everywhere, Yan Ruoyun’s train of thought unexpectedly synced up with the System’s for once. He suddenly clarified,

“I meant you’re young in age.”

That sentence almost sent Lin Zhu into outer space. Dead memories launched a 360-degree, dead-end attack on him.

Lin Zhu tried to hold back but failed, explaining in exasperation, “…I wasn’t thinking in that direction.”

Yan Ruoyun glanced at him several times, confirming that Lin Zhu was indeed unbearably embarrassed and annoyed, as if even his bright blonde hair had turned dull and ashen. He had to cough lightly, suppressing the laughter rising in his throat as he began to soothe the boy’s ruffled feathers.

“Then I guess I was the one who thought it,” he said incredibly calmly. “Who told you to only care about covering your face at the time.”

The result was that he got a full view of everything—front and back, top and bottom.

Lin Zhu’s whole person began to lose color, looking extremely wilted. His already world-weary face looked even more devoid of the will to live. “…If there’s nothing else, I’ll go back first?”

He said he was leaving, but his feet didn’t move a single centimeter.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Yan Ruoyun clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction, waving his phone directly in front of Lin Zhu. “Add my WeChat first.”

“Oh.” Lin Zhu also took out his phone. He searched for Yan Ruoyun’s WeChat account via his phone number and sent a friend request.

Yan Ruoyun’s profile picture was a sunrise landscape photo, though it was unclear if he had taken it himself. The horizon divided the photo perfectly in the middle; the top half was a gradient sky, and the bottom half was the sea shimmering with fragmented light.

A fiery red sun was just leaping out over the horizon.

His WeChat name was even simpler; it was just his real name.

The friend request was quickly approved.

Yan Ruoyun operated his phone right in front of Lin Zhu, changing the boy’s string of an English username into his real name, and casually pinned the chat to the top.

Lin Zhu followed suit, secretly pinning Yan Ruoyun’s chat to the top as well.

Right beneath Yan Ruoyun’s profile picture on his screen, there was a long list of unread messages. Lin Zhu hastily glanced at them and realized these people were the character’s built-in shady friends and ambiguous flings, all messaging him to go out and party.

For some reason, Lin Zhu felt weirdly guilty. He quickly locked his screen, wanting to wait until he got back to deal with them.

Unexpectedly, Yan Ruoyun stared at him for a moment, then suddenly reached up. Using his thumb and index finger, he gently pinched the flesh of Lin Zhu’s cheek and asked with interest, “What’s wrong now? Why do you look so nervous?”

Lin Zhu bent over stiffly, not daring to move. With both hands gripping the edge of the car window, he forced out a single word with great difficulty: “Nothing…”

Yan Ruoyun’s slightly intimate action made his scalp tingle, while the sharp question sent a chill down his spine. Caught in this two-pronged attack, an indescribable sense of apprehension rose in Lin Zhu’s heart.

But this apprehension was built entirely upon a freshly minted intimate relationship.

After realizing this, Lin Zhu didn’t feel repulsed or resistant at all; instead, he felt a very unfamiliar sense of novelty.

—It seemed like Yan Ruoyun was… keeping him in check?

Just then, Lin Zhu felt the fingers on his cheek pull away. Before he could even feel a hint of reluctance, he heard the man chuckle softly twice: “Liar.”

Lin Zhu: “…”

Was it that obvious?

Yan Ruoyun didn’t press the matter. He simply grabbed the bag with Lin Zhu’s clothes from the back seat and got out of the car, glancing at him with a faint smile. “It’s still early. Aren’t you going to invite me up for a bit?”

Actually, it wasn’t early.

It was already 10:30 PM. Not a single person could be seen inside or outside the residential complex; there was only a duty officer in the security booth not far away.

The property values here were exorbitantly high, so the occupancy rate was low. The owners were either wealthy elites or celebrities, who essentially never went out for strolls at this hour.

Before Lin Zhu could answer, Yan Ruoyun slowly added, “Given your performance just now, I think it’s necessary for me to do a spot-check on you.”

Under the streetlight, the man’s shadow stretched out long, forming two parallel lines with Lin Zhu’s shadow.

The next instant, he took a step closer to Lin Zhu. The two shadows instantly overlapped, becoming indistinguishable from one another.

Lin Zhu looked down at the dark silhouette at his feet, and after a long while, softly replied.

“—Okay.”