On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, Jing Hong made an appointment to have dinner with his eldest uncle to talk things over, and his uncle reserved a room at a Japanese restaurant.

The restaurant enjoyed a solid reputation. Inside, it was filled with expertly crafted artificial cherry blossom trees—though the petals were remarkably lifelike. Small private dining rooms were arranged on both sides of the corridor, their ceilings left open so diners inside could look up at the “cherry blossoms.” The private rooms were decorated in traditional Japanese style: sliding paper doors, Japanese ornaments, low tables, and floor cushions. However, to accommodate guests’ habits—or, frankly speaking, to protect their own business—the overall floor of each private room was raised by two steps, and two hollowed-out spaces were dug beneath the low table to accommodate guests’ feet.

Jing Hong arrived fifteen minutes early. He told his driver to grab something to eat as well, and then walked alone into the small private room reserved by Jing Tianping.

Just as he sat down, before he could even take a single sip of tea, Zhao Hanqing called with business. With time being limited, Jing Hong dialed back directly and asked, “What’s up?”

Behind the thin Japanese partition wall, Zhou Chang recognized Jing Hong’s voice from just those two words.

He thought to himself: Quite a coincidence. Never bumped into him in a restaurant before, and now it’s happened twice recently.

Dinner at Zhou Chang’s table had already ended, and he was the only one left in his private room, which happened to be nice and quiet.

He heard Jing Hong issuing orders: “Him? Why the sudden urge to sell the company? Didn’t he decline before, saying the company was his very life?”

After a moment of silence, Jing Hong spoke again: “I see… His mother fell ill. Mm, alright, this price is considered fair. No, let’s do this: still 600 million, no reductions, but we’ll only take an 80% stake and leave the remaining 20% for the founding team so they have something to hold onto. Also tell him that Fanhai welcomes him back at any time—there will always be a position for him here. And tell Tan Qian to prepare a gift for his mother and pay her a visit.”

Zhou Chang listened quietly.

Then Zhao Hanqing evidently reported another matter. After listening, Jing Hong paused in thought and said, “This entry point is indeed pretty good, and the founder is capable. How about this: funding the angel round is fine, but Fanhai requires the founder himself to put up some money too. If all the capital comes from Fanhai while he doesn’t put up a single cent of his own, he won’t necessarily be willing to fight with everything he’s got. Mm, right, he puts up ten million himself, and Fanhai matches it with forty million, making it fifty million total for the angel round. He just sold a company, so I know he has plenty of cash in his pockets. Right, pull out at least half of it, or else we won’t invest.”

Jing Hong didn’t actually care much about the amount of money, but he detested “failure.”

Zhou Chang thought: Here he goes again.

Intertwined with divine nature and demonic nature alike, different people might give wildly contradictory reviews of Jing Hong.

It was precisely this blend of divinity and devilry that fascinated others, drawing them deeper and deeper into a frenzy—always wanting to draw close, always wanting to probe.

Like an unintentional drop of ink spilled onto a painting—striking, distinct, and unexpected. It might ruin a painting, or perhaps it might complete one; it was hard to say.

A few minutes later, Jing Hong hung up the phone—his eldest uncle, Jing Tianping, had arrived.

The two ordered a few dishes. Sure enough, shortly after sitting down, Jing Tianping requested that Jing Hong refrain from redirecting Fanhai’s investment to “Xianglong Live” and instead asked him to continue supporting his son’s “Wujie Live.”

He even stated that if Jing Hong truly “abandoned” Wujie Live, he would sever his fully owned “Tianping Supermarket” from the Fanhai ecosystem.

Although “Tianping Supermarket” was 100% owned by Jing Tianping, it was in fact intricately linked with the Fanhai brand; ever since its creation, it had been managed by Fanhai Group, which collected management fees from it.

Jing Hong attempted to resolve this conflict amicably. Taking a sip of genmaicha, he said with a rather sincere tone, “Eldest Uncle, in this position, I have my own difficulties.”

Jing Haiping and Jing Tianping’s side of the family were originally southerners who later moved to Beijing. Therefore, when addressing family elders, Jing Hong and his peers used terms like “Eldest Uncle” and so forth, slightly different from native Beijingers.

Keeping his voice calm and steady, Jing Hong continued, “One-third of Fanhai’s profits come from our gaming business, and gaming live-streaming is inextricably tied to the gaming sector—it’s something we absolutely cannot afford to lose. As things stand now, Xianglong Live… is indeed a better fit for Fanhai’s direction.”

Jing Tianping didn’t give up either. He said, “Jing Hong, as a father, I have my own difficulties too. Jing Bo is already 36. He doesn’t want to lose his position as CEO, nor does he want to lose his company.”

Jing Hong went along with his train of thought: “That’s why Fanhai divesting all its shares is also out of consideration for Jing Bo. If we invest in Xianglong Live, Fanhai’s resources won’t be able to go to Wujie Live’s side. Rather than muddling along, Jing Bo would be better off finding a different backer.”

Yet Jing Tianping seemed all too clear about his son’s capabilities: “Without Fanhai’s support, how could Wujie possibly survive?”

After a brief back-and-forth, Jing Hong still refused to relent, saying, “As you know, I must be responsible to the shareholders, and I must be responsible to the employees.”

Then, Jing Hong’s topic seemed to abruptly pivot somewhere seemingly unrelated. He said, “Ten years ago… back in 2008.”

Jing Tianping: “…Mm?”

Jing Hong continued as if to himself: “During the 2008 financial crisis, I happened to be interning at Merrill Lynch.”

Merrill Lynch, a veteran American investment bank and one of the global Bulge Bracket banks—Jing Tianping knew of it too. Back then, Jing Hong was still pursuing his doctorate in the United States, but as Jing Haiping’s son, interning anywhere he wanted was effortless. Where others fought tooth and nail just to get in, Jing Hong could draw straws, picking a lucky Bulge Bracket investment bank every summer vacation to intern at.

“That summer, I saw the scene during the massive layoffs with my own eyes,” Jing Hong’s voice sounded extremely distant. “Because of the subprime mortgage crisis, Merrill Lynch lost 19 billion dollars. The day before the big layoffs, everyone had lunch together. When it ended, the whole team hugged one another, saying, ‘Hope to see all of you tomorrow.’ I was in the industry group back then. A colleague made an appointment with an Associate from the product group to discuss a project. They scheduled it for Friday and marked their calendars, yet both of them said mournfully, ‘I wonder if the two of us will still be here by then.’ Before leaving work, people exchanged contact info with colleagues from neighboring teams, agreeing to stay in touch. Every single person who looked at someone else was thinking, ‘Will we ever see each other again?’ ‘Is this the last time the two of us will ever see each other?'”

At this point, Jing Hong took another sip of genmaicha: “On the morning of the massive layoffs, everyone waited for notifications. The colleagues in my team refreshed their inboxes over and over; the entire building was dead silent. At 9 AM, I watched with my own eyes… as the meeting organizers for several meetings I had that week canceled them. They had been laid off and wouldn’t be attending. On the intranet, familiar face after familiar face said goodbye to everyone. By 12 noon, their accounts vanished. The past conversation histories were still there, but the accounts were deleted, with a line following behind their IDs: ‘This account has been deleted.’ There was no distinction between good performance and bad performance—top performers walked out all the same. There wasn’t even a distinction between important positions and unimportant positions; no one was safe. Those who stayed cried, not knowing how to help, so they went on LinkedIn to write glowing recommendations for those who left or shared mutual-help group links with people they knew. It was hell. I still remember a line sent to me by a back-office Quant I knew back then. He said, ‘When packing up your things, you only then realize that what you can actually take away are just a few items like a water cup or a picture frame.’ Only then do you realize that the hundreds of thousands of lines of code you painstakingly typed out over all these years don’t belong to you—you can’t even showcase them to your next employer. Only then do you realize they never belonged to you.”

Later on, when September arrived, Merrill Lynch accepted its fate of being acquired, and Bank of America took over.

In the end, Jing Hong added, “It’s like I said—in this position, I have my own difficulties.”

When he was in Silicon Valley, Jing Hong had naturally heard about the bleak, apocalyptic scenes when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. Hardly any cars were on the roads across Silicon Valley, turning it into a ghost town—completely different from the sardine-can traffic jams it became later. Countless people had their houses foreclosed; the high earners of the tech world had been singing and dancing yesterday, only to wail in sorrow today.

Many people had worked at companies for years to the point where even their phone numbers were company benefits. After being laid off, even the phone numbers they had used for years were revoked, making it feel as though they had lost everything in an instant.

And nowadays, the threshold for layoffs had dropped even lower. In the past, those large companies would only lay off staff when facing exceptionally severe crises; today, however, they would wield the axe simply to satisfy Wall Street investors or merely to show that “profits are still continuously growing.”

Jing Tianping understood Jing Hong’s meaning. He fell silent, let out two dry laughs, and said, “Jing Hong, you’re far too sentimental. Look at Zhou Chang of Qinghui, look at your old rival! Word has it that when he was doing consulting at McKinsey, he laid off a third of a company’s workforce all at once! The company was given a day off, the doors were locked, and everyone waited for an email. The next day, a horde of armed security guards patrolled the premises just in case! He made his name with that case! Doing things like this, how are you going to compete with Zhou Chang?”

“…” Jing Hong slowly replied, “First of all, for that company, laying off some people was necessary—it could no longer bear the burden. What I want to avoid is reaching that point in the first place. Secondly, that wasn’t Zhou Chang’s company, and the ones Zhou Chang needed to be responsible for were not those employees. The ones he needed to be responsible for were his clients and the core interests of the company itself.”

Jing Tianping gave a disdainful laugh: “Heh…”

Just as Jing Tianping was about to say more, Zhou Chang let out a soft fake cough.

Jing Hong froze.

From that single fake cough, he realized that Zhou Chang was actually right next door.

Separated by only a thin partition wall, Zhou Chang had heard everything loud and clear.

Jing Tianping looked at Jing Hong in confusion: “…???”

Jing Hong forcefully suppressed a smile. Without making a sound, he mouthed the name: “Zhou Chang.”

Having his words overheard by Zhou Chang actually brought a surge of secret satisfaction to Jing Hong’s heart.

The color on Jing Tianping’s face changed. He sat there in obvious awkwardness for a moment, then whispered to Jing Hong, “Forget it. I’ll head out first today.” He was likely afraid of bumping into him face-to-face in a moment.

Jing Hong nodded.

With a swish, the sliding door opened. Jing Tianping stepped down the stairs and leaned against the wall to slip on his shoes. Because of his large belly, his downward line of sight was blocked, and after a flurry of awkward stumbling, he finally shuffled away.

After Jing Tianping left, Jing Hong sat in his original spot, remaining silent for a short while. The server brought in the final dish they had ordered—a plate of sashimi.

It was bluefin tuna, its flesh looking fresh and smooth.

Two minutes later, Jing Hong saw a tall figure in the adjacent room walk up to the partition wall between the two private rooms. He knocked on the wooden frame and asked, “President Jing?”

Jing Hong raised his eyes and replied, “Mm?”

That partition wall could actually be moved; opening it allowed larger groups to gather. Hearing a smooth sliding sound, Jing Hong saw Zhou Chang’s tall, upright figure appear behind the partition, wearing a faint smile.

The two made eye contact for a second. Zhou Chang lifted his leg and walked in, sitting down lazily on the floor cushion across from Jing Hong. One knee was up while the other rested flat; one wrist draped over his knee while his other hand propped himself up against the floor as he said, “The server mentioned there should only be one person left on this side.”

Jing Hong sat up straight as before: “Mm.”

Zhou Chang gestured with his chin toward the table full of fresh Japanese food and asked, “Not going to eat any?”

Instead of answering directly, Jing Hong looked at Zhou Chang and said with a touch of casual Beijing cadence, “President Zhou really doesn’t treat himself as an outsider.”

When facing others, Jing Hong had always spoken in standard Mandarin—even with his closest friends, and even with Jing Yu and the rest. Yet recently, when facing Zhou Chang, for reasons he couldn’t quite grasp, he was becoming increasingly unreserved.

Zhou Chang didn’t take offense either, replying, “It’s no fun for President Jing to eat alone.”

Jing Hong agreed: “That’s true.”

For some reason, upon seeing Zhou Chang, the irritability in Jing Hong’s chest unconsciously faded quite a bit.

Jing Hong called the server back into the room, flipped through the menu, and ordered a bowl of tonkotsu ramen.

Zhou Chang looked at the massive table of food and asked, “Ordering new stuff again? You haven’t touched a single bite of this.”

Jing Hong said with distaste, “Don’t like eating raw stuff. Pack it up for the driver.”

Zhou Chang asked with a smile, “Why?”

Jing Hong said, “It’s raw.”

Zhou Chang gave a soft chuckle: “Same here. I don’t like raw stuff either.”

Jing Hong passed the menu back to Zhou Chang: “Would President Zhou like to eat anything else?”

Zhou Chang didn’t take it: “No need, I’m full.”

The ramen was brought out very quickly by a server wearing a kimono.

The tonkotsu ramen was rich with aroma. Jing Hong raised his chopsticks, picked up the noodles, and took large bites.

Zhou Chang didn’t speak, simply sitting across from him and watching Jing Hong eat ramen.

With a slurp, a large mouthful went into his mouth.

In the past, as the CEO of Fanhai and the CEO of Qinghui, they had both maintained a formal posture in public settings.

Holding themselves high, planning, managing, weighing every word and phrase—questions needed to be asked brilliantly, and answers needed to be delivered brilliantly. The moment something wasn’t brilliant enough, endless troubles would brew.

Yet right now, there was a sense of everyday, worldly warmth.

Homely, warm, peaceful, and relaxed—not always looking as though they had to fight someone to the death.

Suddenly, Jing Hong’s chopsticks slipped, and a few strands of ramen fell back into the bowl with a plop, splashing out some noodle broth.

The broth splashed onto the cuff of the light blue shirt Jing Hong was wearing today, soaking through a few small spots.

“…” Jing Hong raised his eyes to look for paper napkins.

Noticing that the napkins on this table were right by his right hand, Zhou Chang pulled out two. Instead of handing them to Jing Hong, he went straight for Jing Hong’s cuff and wiped it away himself.

“…” After being wiped down, Jing Hong put down his chopsticks, unbuttoned his cuff, rolled his shirt sleeves up a few folds until they rested below his elbows, and only then picked up his chopsticks again.

Zhou Chang watched Jing Hong’s two exposed wrists and forearms.

The muscles were well-proportioned, carrying a sense of strength. Particularly his left hand holding the chopsticks—because of the slight exertion, the tendons at his wrist pulled taut.

Zhou Chang asked, “President Jing seems to be left-handed? You use your left hand for tennis too.”

“It’s about the same.” Jing Hong spread his right palm open and said, “I count as left-handed, I suppose. But when I was young, the school teachers forced students to write with this hand, so I trained it up.”

Zhou Chang said, “Mm.”

As Jing Hong ate, the two occasionally exchanged a few words. For instance, Zhou Chang told Jing Hong, “That layoff case… I gave a very good severance package.”

Jing Hong: “…Mm.”

After finishing the ramen, Jing Hong held the large bowl and even drank half the soup.

At last, Jing Hong wiped his lips with a napkin and finally looked toward Zhou Chang.

Zhou Chang raised his eyebrows.

Because the ramen was spicy, Jing Hong’s lips were entirely red at this moment, as if they had been thoroughly ravaged, echoing quite nicely with the hint of red hooked beneath the outer corners of both his eyes.

Zhou Chang lowered his head and took a sip of tea.

Jing Hong said, “Alright, let’s settle the bill. Has President Zhou settled his side yet?”

Zhou Chang: “So I’m eating a free meal? How long have I been out here?”

Jing Hong: “…”

Ignoring Zhou Chang, Jing Hong pressed the bell to call over the server responsible for their room.

After settling the bill, Jing Hong had the server pack up the takeout boxes, then called his driver to take the boxes and retrieve the car to drive it to the entrance. While waiting for the car, Jing Hong and Zhou Chang waited for a bit as the server cleared the table.

Before leaving the restaurant, Jing Hong lowered his eyes again, slowly unrolling his sleeves to neatness. Aligning the top and bottom plackets of his right cuff, he picked up the diamond cufflink he had placed on the table earlier. Pinching the cuff with his left ring finger and middle finger, he tried to insert the cufflink using his index finger and thumb.

It didn’t go in on the first try.

“Give it to me.” Before Jing Hong even realized it, the diamond cufflink in his hand was snatched away by Zhou Chang. When taking it, their fingertips brushed against each other.

Zhou Chang adjusted his posture, sitting up straight and placing his legs into the hollowed-out space under the low table, before taking hold of the cuff on Jing Hong’s right wrist.

Reaching his hand across the low table, he gently pinched the two plackets of the shirt, giving a light tug to pull Jing Hong’s arm closer to himself.

Jing Hong rested his arm on the table, extending it toward Zhou Chang with his fingertips pointed toward his chest. It felt as though if he went just a tiny bit further, he could hook onto the buttons of his shirt. Jing Hong paused, instinctively wanting to pull his arm back, but ultimately made no movement.

Zhou Chang pressed the cufflink twice, yet it failed to go through either time.

Jing Hong thought to himself that the man really wasn’t suited for this kind of serving work, wanting to tease him with “Can you do it or not?” Before the words could leave the tip of his tongue, Zhou Chang, as if knowing beforehand, whispered softly without raising his voice: “Hush.”

“…” With the teasing line stuck in his throat, Jing Hong went silent.

In the quiet atmosphere, a mood akin to intimacy quietly circulated.

Looking intensely focused, Zhou Chang finally set one of Jing Hong’s cufflinks firmly in place.

Pinching the other one, he raised his chin and said, “Left hand.”

Jing Hong extended it silently.

This time, it was put on very quickly.

Finally, Zhou Chang raised his eyelids, and their eyes met.

Zhou Chang’s gaze was consistently powerful; even if for just a second, it felt as though it could pierce straight through.

Jing Hong: “…”

In fact, even up until now, every time he saw Zhou Chang, he still felt an impulse to wrap around him, kiss, and lick him—a surge of restless heat all over his body. He faintly felt that Zhou Chang was the exact same way.

Jing Hong withdrew his gaze, turned his wrists over, looked at his left hand and then his right hand, confirming everything was fine, and said, “Alright, let’s go. The driver should be at the door.”

Zhou Chang nodded. He had driven himself here today.

Jing Hong pulled open the thin sliding door and stepped out first, while Zhou Chang returned to his original room next door to grab his coat, put on his leather shoes, and rejoin Jing Hong.

In the hallway, a man holding a cigarette in his mouth saw them and casually asked, “Got a light?” Seeing as he was also preparing to leave, he had clearly been holding back his craving for the duration of the meal.

Jing Hong indeed didn’t have a lighter, so he said, “Don’t have one.”

As he spoke, he even patted himself down with his hands to signal “I don’t.”

First was the shirt chest pocket—he used both hands to pat both sides of his chest from the inside out, and then patted his pants pockets, this time brushing downward from top to bottom.

It was clearly a very normal, even friendly set of gestures to indicate “I really don’t have one,” yet Zhou Chang felt severely provoked by it, thinking this sequence of movements was exceedingly seductive.

He looked at Jing Hong.

Feeling baffled, Jing Hong asked Zhou Chang, “What?”

Zhou Chang said, “Nothing.”

The two walked all the way to the entrance of the Japanese restaurant.

Winter in the north was freezing cold, so the main door was naturally kept shut. The greeter at the door wasn’t around while the other servers were busy. Jing Hong wasn’t pretentious; bending his waist slightly, he grabbed the door handle to push open the door.

They were about to part ways again, with no telling when the next time would be. Seeing Jing Hong’s slightly stooped figure and his posture ready to leave at any second, Zhou Chang felt a strong urge to grab him by the waist, drag him back, wrap him tightly in his arms, and kiss his ears, below his ear, and his delicate neck.

He even wanted to hold him tightly, wedging himself firmly inside.

He kept recalling that night—the exquisite thrill, followed by the sweet aftertaste.

Stepping out of the restaurant, Jing Hong saw his driver’s car already waiting by the roadside, so he walked down the steps.

Zhou Chang didn’t follow him down. Remaining standing on the steps, he simply called out, “President Jing.”

Jing Hong stopped in his tracks and turned his head. The two looked at each other across the steps from different heights for a few seconds. With his gaze slightly deepening, Zhou Chang said, “See you around.”

Jing Hong hesitated briefly, then also said, “…See you around.”

Nearby, a small Golden Retriever wore a little vest, the small bell around its neck jingling and clinking as its moist eyes looked at them.

By the time he got into the car, night had already fallen.

Night always fell exceptionally early during Beijing’s winters.

Jing Hong looked out the window. A street of lights, a city brimming with radiance—in the winter night of the capital, the lights seemed like a river. Traffic flowed slowly, trickling along bit by bit. Rows of headlights flickered, and everything rippled in a thick, dense haze.

Jing Hong had naturally sensed the intimacy between the two of them earlier.

Zhou Chang really is something, Jing Hong thought to himself: Even intimacy is played with such perfect restraint.

The air conditioning seemed to be turned up too high.

Even though it was winter, Jing Hong rolled down the window.

Today was supposed to be a frustrating day. Yet with one hand resting on the window frame and his index finger pressed against his lower lip, Jing Hong recalled that steaming bowl of noodles from earlier, and suddenly let out a faint smile.