By August, Qinghui initiated a lawsuit against Fanhai over several matters.

Fascinatingly, the amount Qinghui claimed in damages was 5.2 million yuan.

Fanhai immediately launched a fierce counterattack, accusing Qinghui of playing the thief crying “stop thief” and filing a counterclaim. Their requested damages were likewise 5.2 million yuan—except this time, they tacked on a tiny addition: 5,200,131.4 yuan.

When the news broke, netizen onlookers blew up online again:

【IceCreamScoopDropped: Wait, what’s going on? Are you two flirting??? Flirting all the way into a courtroom? Don’t be so blatant, I swear!】

【WannaPinchHandsomeGuysButts: Keep it coming, keep it coming! I love watching this!】

【DiscoveringNewIdiotsEverywhere: Even knowing they’re both just trying to disgust each other, I’m still shipping them so hard… I hate myself for being such a trash shipper.】

【LinDaiyuUprootingWillows: Yeah… Even knowing Fanhai and Qinghui are just disgusting their rival, I’m still shipping them…】

On the day Fanhai and Qinghui clashed head-to-head in court, Jing Hong was away on a business trip abroad.

This trip was to a European country to negotiate an acquisition. However, this time it wasn’t a tender offer, but a Scheme of Arrangement. During the day, both sides had already signed the SIA (Scheme Implementation Agreement)—lately, more and more acquisitions were being carried out through Schemes of Arrangement.

Come evening, Jiang Mei suddenly wanted a set of travel photos from Jing Hong. She asked him over the phone, “Where did you put that set of photos from our trip to the US a few years back?” At that time, Jing Haiping had just been diagnosed with an early-stage illness and was extremely nervous. He went to the US for surgery, and Jing Hong naturally accompanied him. After the surgery, their whole family toured around the area for a bit.

“Let me check,” Jing Hong said, holding the phone against his shoulder as he opened one of his cloud drives. After searching for a good while, he failed to find it—he had likely forgotten about it due to being overly anxious about Jing Haiping’s treatment back then. Thus, he said to Jiang Mei, “I’ll look for it and send it to you in a bit.”

Jiang Mei replied, “OK, OK.”

Hanging up, Jing Hong called Zhou Chang. He got straight to the point: “Zhou Chang, I need a favor. Swing by my new place and turn on the computer in my bedroom. General Manager Jiang needs something.” To cover up their “cohabitation” in the long run, Jing Hong had also bought a new villa in Zhou Chang’s residential complex; their two houses were extremely close to each other.

Jing Hong knew his mother’s swift, impatient nature and didn’t want to keep Jiang Mei waiting until he returned to Beijing a few days later.

“Sure thing,” Zhou Chang said, picking up his car keys. “Though, is it alright for me to touch your computer?”

“It’s fine,” Jing Hong said. “There’s nothing on that computer; it’s just used for leisure.” In reality, there wasn’t anything important on the computer in his study either; the truly sensitive stuff was on the internal system.

Zhou Chang said, “Alright then.”

Arriving at Jing Hong’s house, Zhou Chang placed another call to Jing Hong, asking in a lazy, unhurried tone, “Where is it?”

“G Drive,” Jing Hong said. “There’s a folder named ‘Photos.’ Inside, there should be one named ‘2016-10 Texas.'”

Zhou Chang put the call on speaker, tossed his phone aside, and opened it while casually chatting, “J Drive??”

“G Drive.”

Zhou Chang said, “You really love your partitions, don’t you? Ever heard the term ‘partition demon’? That’s you. Alright, I see it.”

“Mm.” Jing Hong paused, then added, “That computer doesn’t have much on it, but the storage is big enough, so I partitioned it like that to save myself the hassle of clicking an extra layer down every time.”

Zhou Chang let out a soft chuckle.

“Alright,” a moment later, Zhou Chang said, “It’s uploading. I’ll share this folder to your private email in a bit.”

Jing Hong said, “Okay. Thanks.”

“Though, Little Executive Director Jing,” Zhou Chang’s tone suddenly shifted as he asked, “when I accidentally clicked into the J Drive just now, I saw a folder called ‘Eternal Sunshine.’ What’s that?”

The line instantly fell dead silent.

Zhou Chang pressed further, “Little Executive Director Jing?”

Jing Hong asked, “Did you open it?”

“Not yet,” Zhou Chang said, dragging the folder back and forth across the screen, playing with it repeatedly. “In a bit, though? No guarantees.”

“…” Jing Hong surrendered, telling Zhou Chang, “It’s about you. It’s only normal, isn’t it? Given that we’re already ‘together.'”

“Oh?” Zhou Chang right-clicked to open the folder’s “Properties,” scanned it, and said, “Creation date: June 21, 2018. Little Executive Director Jing, this isn’t quite normal then.”

Jing Hong suddenly felt that the other man also knowing computer science wasn’t such a great thing—every operation came way too naturally to him. Composing himself, Jing Hong said, “I created it on a whim. Nothing special by it. Back then, when we added each other’s contacts, your handle was ‘Eternal Sunshine.’ It just suddenly reminded me of someone on the ‘Cocoachina’ forum from early 2008 who seemed to be named ‘Eternal Sunshine.’ So I searched his posts and read through his line of thought. I was fairly certain back then that the two of you were the same person, purely wanting to research a competitor—don’t overthink it. Then I spotted a basic mistake and saved it on a whim, with no good intentions involved.”

Zhou Chang glanced at that screenshot, not caring about whether there was an error or not, and said, “‘Nothing special by it,’ ‘no good intentions involved’—I almost believed you.”

Jing Hong: “…”

“Jing Hong,” Zhou Chang said, “so back then, after Chongqing, I wasn’t the only one running hot after all.”

He loved these tiny clues that could prove something real.

Every single one brought both surprise and delight.

At this point, Jing Hong finally sighed, implicitly admitting it.

Zhou Chang thought for a moment, then suddenly asked, “The ‘Swan’ on Cocoachina—was that you?”

“Mm,” Jing Hong said, surprised by Zhou Chang’s understanding of him, and asked, “You remember?”

“Back then,” Zhou Chang said, “indeed, the style was very similar, with code that was clean and beautiful across the board. Translating so many tutorials—how many people’s mentor into the industry were you?”

Jing Hong said, “…That’s enough out of you.”

“Alright, alright, alright.” Zhou Chang stopped teasing Jing Hong. He glanced at his cloud drive and said, “The photos have been sent over. Did you get them?”

Zhou Chang actually felt a surging thrill of colliding destinies.

In 2008, the curtain rose on the mobile internet era, a towering wave of heat inside.

And as it turned out, the two of them had stood side by side in front of that heavy door ten years ago.

“Mm.” Jing Hong transferred the folder to his own cloud storage and shared it with his mother, Jiang Mei. “Alright, lock the main door on your way out, and double-check it.”

“Understood.” Zhou Chang shut down the computer, stood up, picked up his phone and keys, and said in a low voice, “Jing Hong.”

“Hmm?”

“Can we video chat in a bit? In half an hour, I want to see you.”

“…” Jing Hong checked his calendar and said, “Ah, sure.”

When the video call connected, Jing Hong was still wearing a shirt—bright white—while Zhou Chang was wearing a bathrobe.

“Just finished showering.” Zhou Chang looked at Jing Hong, his gaze deep and intense, asking, “Did your day go smoothly?”

“Pretty good.” Jing Hong nodded, revealing no specifics. “Everything is proceeding according to the original plan.”

Zhou Chang nodded as well: “Then congratulations once again.”

As usual, the two chatted for a long time. However, Jing Hong noticed that throughout the entire process, Zhou Chang kept staring at him with those deep, dark eyes—staring at his smiling eyes, staring at his lips as he spoke, the entire atmosphere hot and intoxicating.

Toward the final stage of the video call, Zhou Chang finally asked, “Jing Hong, when you go to the shower in a bit, can I take a look too?”

The video software was absolute security, as the two of them had built it themselves. Naturally, the code wasn’t written from scratch; they had copied relevant programs Fanhai already possessed.

Jing Hong hesitated slightly.

Ultimately feeling a bit abashed by such a thing.

Zhou Chang’s voice carried a alluring charm as he asked, “In the shower room? With the computer’s camera pointing inside through the glass.”

“…” It was a bit embarrassing, but also rather thrilling. In the end, Jing Hong looked around the room and finally said, “I’ll only shoot from above the waist. Take it or leave it.”

Zhou Chang nodded: “Deal.”

“See you in a bit then.”

Afterward, Jing Hong carried the laptop outside the shower room, placing it on a mid-height flower stand from the main room, directly facing the hotel’s glass shower enclosure. The flower stand was a rectangular column, built to hold only a single potted plant.

When Zhou Chang turned on his camera, Jing Hong was already showering.

His back was turned toward the camera.

Streams of water washed over his back muscles, carrying white foam sliding down together.

Then Jing Hong turned off the shower, turned around, and wiped his hair dry while looking toward the lens.

Zhou Chang’s hair wasn’t fully dry yet, his black hair swept straight back from his forehead, brimming with edge.

“…” Jing Hong stepped up, separated by the glass and a few stray water droplets upon it, before suddenly raising his wrist and pressing his palm against the glass.

From this angle, the camera could just capture Jing Hong from above both shoulders. The extended hand rested right in the front-left of the frame, beside his own cheek, extremely close to the camera, appearing on the screen virtually identical in size to an actual palm.

Zhou Chang was startled for a second before catching on immediately. He pressed one of his own palms against Jing Hong’s, separated only by the screen.

It was as if they were separated by a single sheet of glass—one on this side, one on that side, pressing their palms together through the glass, seeking to hold on.

Both were using their non-dominant hands.

Maintaining that “palm-to-palm” posture, Zhou Chang reached down with his other hand first, followed by Jing Hong.

After an unknown length of time, Jing Hong suddenly slumped against his other forearm. His forearm pressed tightly against the glass, the fair inner side of his wrist facing the computer camera, several fingers curled together, tightly clenching and gripping.

His eyes were hidden behind his raised forearm, but his lips and chin remained exposed, unbeknownst to himself.

At the very end, Zhou Chang saw Jing Hong’s exposed lips move a few times, discerning the two words: “Zhou Chang.”

Zhou Chang couldn’t hold back any longer either.

…………

Afterward, Jing Hong took another shower, came out, and worked until around midnight before planning to turn in.

He had to catch an early flight tomorrow and needed to wake up early.

Yet, because Jing Hong was accustomed to resting only in the late hours of the night, he actually found himself unable to fall asleep.

Tossing and turning, Jing Hong suddenly recalled Jing Yu’s “bedtime story” from last year.

At that time, Jing Yu wanted to tell a story about Zhou Chang “washing the board of directors in blood” and asked if Jing Hong wanted to listen. Naturally, Jing Hong wouldn’t let the little girl catch on to anything, merely saying, “Just treat it as a bedtime story and let me listen with half an ear.”

When she finished, Jing Yu asked if the bedtime story was nice, but he gave a negative answer, saying, “Your story was too vivid—full of dramatic cadences and high pitches. Whose bedtime story makes someone more energized the more they listen?” Back then, Jing Yu refused to accept it, asking, “Then whose voice is suited for reading a bedtime story?” For some reason, the first name that surged into his mind at the time was “Zhou Chang,” because Zhou Chang’s voice was low, steady, deep, and laced with a magnetic resonance—it would likely make a fine bedtime story.

The corner of Jing Hong’s lips curled up slightly, and he placed an audio call to Zhou Chang. Zhou Chang’s voice remained unhurried: “Hmm?”

“Tell a couple of bedtime stories,” Jing Hong said, tossing the phone aside, eyes closed as he lay on his side in bed. “I have to catch a flight early tomorrow, and I can’t fall asleep right now.”

Zhou Chang let out a low chuckle: “Sure, what do you want to hear?”

Jing Hong said, “Just stuff from your past.”

“My past?” Zhou Chang thought for a moment, then actually began recounting his past, “How about the first case I had back at McKinsey? At the time, the company and the client had agreed that a deal had to be finalized before a certain date because an announcement needed to be issued. So I scheduled a meeting with that client for 8 PM that night, and we negotiated all the way until 6 AM the next morning. The client was too exhausted to stand it any longer and agreed to my terms. After my first case, my white boss started looking at me with fresh eyes.”

Jing Hong laughed out loud: “Not bad, very much your style.”

Zhou Chang continued, “My second case…”

Listening on, Jing Hong indeed grew sleepy.

“Hey, Jing Hong,” Zhou Chang’s voice was low and soft, “I’ve laid out my whole past experience for you here. What about you—not even opening your Moments to me?”

“…” Jing Hong struggled to flutter his eyelids open, letting out a soft laugh. “Right. I forgot. I’ll open it now.”

With that, Jing Hong barely kept his eyes open long enough to unblock Zhou Chang.

Then, persevering, he posted a Moments update visible only to Zhou Chang alone.

On the other end, a moment later, Zhou Chang casually refreshed Jing Hong’s Moments, only to find he had been unblocked.

And Jing Hong had posted an update just a minute ago.

There were no likes, no comments; Zhou Chang knew this post was visible to him alone.

Given Jing Hong’s status and standing, anything he posted out in the open would inevitably gather countless flatteries.

That new Moments post of Jing Hong’s contained only a single sentence:

[Is it too greedy? Wanting both the domain and the romance.]

Zhou Chang’s heart softened. He replied to Jing Hong:

[Not in the slightest.]