11:45 AM.

A search term climbed Weibo’s trending list at speed.

#NO1BackroomBossXieJinghe#

The term had originated with an entertainment reporter by the name of Wei Jian.

Half an hour earlier, this person had posted a text-and-image Weibo without any preamble. The caption was a single line. Three photos accompanied it.

[V] Wei Jian: NO1’s boss has appeared at company headquarters in person, reportedly to sign Xie Jinghe directly. Wondering if Fugu Entertainment’s CEO will get any sleep tonight [Image 1] [Image 2] [Image 3]

The first image was a screenshot of old trending posts documenting Xie Jinghe’s falling-out with Fugu. The second was a wide-angle candid: a man stepping out of the back seat of a silver-grey car, tall, the line of his profile clean and distinctive. Anyone with eyes would recognize him immediately.

Xie Jinghe.

In the background, a tall building, the company logo large on its facade and impossible to miss. A corner of sky was visible at the edge of the frame — clear and bright, full midday light.

One photograph that established time, place, and subject with complete efficiency.

The third image was a screenshot of a WeChat conversation between Wei Jian and someone else, the timestamp at the top of the chat window showing just a few minutes before the Weibo post went up.

Wei Jian: Yue-jie, heard your boss came to the office in person today? [curious emoji]

Five or six minutes elapsed.

The other person replied:

Yeah, came to check on things, taking care of some business while he’s here [smile emoji]

The moment this post went up, every entertainment marketing account of any size shared it, several of them writing short analytical pieces to accompany the reshare. Fans from every corner piled into the comments. The heat kept climbing.

Xie Jinghe’s own fanbase was the loudest.

“Xie-fans clicked so fast their fingers left marks. Spreading the word, this is huge news!”

“Huge news +1. Are we finally getting out from under the Fugu hellhole? The contract’s almost up anyway but the way they’ve been operating is absolutely disgusting, I want to sue them just on principle!”

“The whole company runs on Xie-ge’s work and they still had the nerve to pull this. Everyone already knows you’re trying to push your new acts, but do you have to use Xie-ge as a blood bag? My eyes are rolling so far back they’re looking at my spine.”

“Let’s be rational, we don’t know if this is confirmed yet. Wait and see.”

“Genuinely though, NO1 is in a completely different league from Fugu’s little workshop. They’ve been growing fast, and with Pei Yue as their flagship name, the resources she has access to are enormous. I am on my knees praying this is real!! [hands clasped emoji]”

“NO1’s legal team is also very strong.”

Beyond the core fanbase, there were shipping fans, casual observers, and rival camps all chiming in.

“Emmm is no one going to talk about this mystery boss?”

“Just passing through for a quick bite of the ship.”

“The entertainment industry’s resident enchanter strikes again — another ship superthread has appeared in the time it took me to read this.”

“I’m crying, the shipping-from-nothing energy here is genuinely transcendent.”

” “

” “

Xie Jinghe himself knew none of this.

He had come to NO1 today with a specific purpose. Business. Real business.

Before entering the CEO’s office, he had put his phone on silent. What he had not anticipated was that the moment he pushed open that door, he would find his husband — currently, technically, unemployed — already inside.

In the stretch of time that followed, they had argued, exchanged heated words, kissed, nearly gone further than that, and then been pulled back, somewhat improbably, to the actual matter at hand.

The contract.

Neither of them had touched their phones the entire time. Had not so much as glanced at them.

Xie Jinghe had been too busy looking at the man.

He thought there was some truth in an old saying he’d heard: a man who is willing to spend money on you does not necessarily love you, but a man who is unwilling to spend money on you definitely does not. Money could, in some sense, carry feeling.

He looked at the words in black on white on the contract in front of him, and his mind was not on what this contract could do for his career.

He was turning over each clause slowly, and thinking:

Maybe Shi Linchuang doesn’t actually dislike him that much.

Because he would never spend a single coin on someone he disliked.

Whereas Xie Jinghe himself would happily hand every coin he had to Shi Linchuang.

Xie Jinghe: “…”

He bit the inside of his lower lip without letting it show, working to rein in the thoughts bouncing around his head. Then he lifted his gaze from the paper and let it drift, carefully, toward the man standing at the window — and pulled it back before he could be caught.

Like a thief casing the place.

He had just been caught looking a moment ago and been told off for it.

Even though they had been married for three years. Even though, with or without clothing involved, they had been looking at each other for three years now. Making an issue of this at this point seemed unreasonable in the extreme.

Three years.

The phrase had barely passed through his mind before he found himself thinking about how NO1 had also come into existence within that same span of time, and from there his thoughts seemed to grow legs and sprint away in a particular direction, impossible to stop.

So he lifted those deep and feeling eyes again and let them drift back toward the window.

The man’s posture had not shifted. The glasses chain at his cheek continued to sway faintly on its own.

Xie Jinghe ran back over everything that had happened in the past week, up to and including right now. He opened his mouth. He was aware that what he was about to say was going to sound self-important.

But honestly, it was difficult not to think it.

He took several slow breaths. Then he raised the document in his hand and asked, carefully:

“Linchuang, was it because of me that you—”

He did not get to finish the sentence.

The man by the window moved as though he’d been bitten by something. He whipped around, fixed Xie Jinghe with a stare, and spoke in a tone designed, specifically, to be maddening.

“Xie Jinghe, do you think you’re the center of the universe? That every living person on earth revolves around you? It’s the middle of the day. Are you still half-asleep? There are limits to how self-absorbed a person can reasonably be.”

Xie Jinghe: “…”

A few seconds of silence.

Xie Jinghe drew a slow breath. “Don’t get worked up. I didn’t say every living person. I said you—”

The man gave a cold short laugh and cut him off. “Who’s worked up?”

Xie Jinghe: “…”

The silence stretched longer this time.

After quite a while, Xie Jinghe was still staring at the black lacquered surface of the desk. He sat up very correctly and said, in an extremely small voice: “I’m not sure, but there are two people in this room at the moment, so I think we can probably rule out me.”

The office was large — easily a third of the whole floor, fully equipped, with a concealed door set into the left wall that led to a private rest room.

But no matter how large the space was, or how quietly someone might speak — Shi Linchuang had entirely normal hearing, and in fact rather sharper than average.

Every word Xie Jinghe had said reached him with perfect clarity.

He had enough professional composure, however, to find this not worth engaging with.

Shi Linchuang fixed his gaze on that slender pale neck, which was bent at a slight angle, and said with a dark expression: “You’ve been staring for a while now. Arrived at any conclusions? Want me to call your lawyer in to have a look as well?”

Xie Jinghe shook his head immediately. “No need.”

Shi Linchuang found the opening and pressed it. “After being burned once, and still not learning your lesson?”

Before Xie Jinghe could respond, he continued:

“Last thing you need is to find a problem with the contract later, eat three bowls of rice out of spite, gain the weight back, and then blame whoever cooked the food for making it too well. And then when someone out of the goodness of their heart tries to help you watch what you eat, turn around and accuse them of trying to starve you. I genuinely don’t know who could be that unreasonable and ungrateful, but let’s go ahead and rule me out.”

Xie Jinghe: “…”

Petty. Shi Linchuang was a petty, grudge-holding person.

The thing was — that incident had actually happened.

When things had first broken down with the company, Xie Jinghe had gone through a period of low spirits. He had let himself eat without restraint for a while. He bloated up almost ten jin seemingly overnight, and was photographed at a public appearance looking less than his usual self.

The photos had circulated online and produced the predictable response.

“The yeast fairy spares no one, not even Best Actor winners.”

“Has he had something done? Why does his face look different?”

“So greasy. Give me back my ethereal boy.”

Because of the demands of his career and upcoming projects, Xie Jinghe had disciplined himself back into shape. But it was genuinely difficult to return to controlled eating after a period of indulgence.

During the diet and training stretch, there were moments when he couldn’t take it anymore. He would wrap his arms around Shi Linchuang and say with great pathos: “I’m starving. I want real food so badly. Can I please have some rice? Just a little?”

The honest truth was that he could have held out. He just couldn’t resist the excuse for closeness.

And the man would put his arms around him in return, smooth his hair back, kiss his temple lightly, and say in a gentle voice: “Eat a little less. I’ll go running with you later tonight, we’ll burn the calories off together.”

He had not eaten the rice. They had not gone running.

But they had done something that burned considerably more calories than running.

Thinking back on it now, Xie Jinghe found that the gentle face in his memory had grown blurry. In its place was the one in front of him: cold enough to have frost on it. The warm voice he remembered had curdled into something else entirely.

Like something laced.

In the days since everything had shifted, Xie Jinghe had been dreaming often.

One night, he had dreamed that two versions of Shi Linchuang stood before him. One was the Shi Linchuang he knew — careful and tender. The other wore the same face but carried it differently, and spoke in the kind of voice that felt like being stabbed somewhere important.

Both of them had said, in unison:

“Choose one.”

The dream was strange enough that he’d mostly forgotten it by the time he woke up, retaining only that opening image. He had spent a long time afterward trying to remember what his dream-self had chosen.

He couldn’t.

But it didn’t matter what he chose.

That gentler version was not coming back.

A pen moved across paper. A faint dry scratch.

“Click.”

The cap snapped onto the pen.

Shi Linchuang walked over, reviewed the content as he moved, and said: “Once the situation with Fugu Entertainment is resolved, the formal contract will take effect. Pei Yue will take over from there. Any other questions?”

Xie Jinghe looked up at him briefly. Shook his head without speaking. He had the look of a plant that had been left out in the sun too long — slightly wilted, the life drained out of him.

Two copies of the document.

Once both were confirmed, Shi Linchuang slipped the company’s copy back into the folder, then pulled open the original drawer and dropped it inside.

He didn’t close the drawer immediately.

The two of them were still at different heights: one seated, one standing.

Xie Jinghe had not moved from the chair. Shi Linchuang stood beside him, but the drawer was not on his side of the desk, so he had to lean slightly forward, extending his arm across to reach it.

His arm passed in front of the person sitting in the chair.

Three years of shared habit. Xie Jinghe didn’t lean back to give way. Shi Linchuang didn’t register anything unusual. They were very close — the distance between their faces was no more than a fist-width.

It was at the moment when Shi Linchuang was pulling out the divorce variety show proposal and accompanying contract that he felt it: something soft, like a small cloud, brushed the corner of his mouth. It lingered for a beat, then drew back with a tiny sound.

Shi Linchuang: “Are you genuinely incapable of stopping?”

The small cloud replied, in a statement that carried two meanings at once:

“I’m hungry.”