For a period of time after this, Jing Hong and Zhou Chang continued to live a rather split life between day and night.

Once, the two of them attended a roundtable discussion at a forum together.

Jing Hong was accompanied by several people, including Zhao Hanqing, and Zhou Chang’s side was much the same.

Before the session began, Jing Hong waited in the lounge. Seeing that there was still a bit of time left, he wanted to place a brief call to a certain Fanhai executive.

Zhao Hanqing happened to glance over casually, catching sight of the call log in Jing Hong’s phone contacts. Shocked words burst out of his mouth: “Mr. Jing, you and Zhou Chang made six calls back and forth yesterday???”

“…” Jing Hong gave him a faint glance. “Just discussing a joint investment. The two sides couldn’t quite agree.”

“Oh…” Zhao Hanqing was persuaded. “So that’s how it is! I was wondering!”

Jing Hong stayed silent; in reality, the contents of those calls were entirely void of substance—pure fluff.

During the roundtable discussion, most unusually, Jing Hong and Zhou Chang held diametrically opposed, completely contrary views.

They went head-to-head. By the end, no one else could even get a word in edge-wise, leaving only the two of them trading verbal jabs back and forth—or rather, leaving only the two of them arguing.

Naturally, no winner or loser was decided in the end; they could only leave it for history to give the answer.

Upon stepping out, Jing Hong got into his car first, and Zhou Chang followed suit right after, telling Qinghui’s driver: “Follow Mr. Jing’s car ahead.”

The two weren’t staying at the same hotel, and Zhou Chang knew that in a little bit, Jing Hong would fly straight to Japan.

“!!!” The assistant beside him hastily tried to dissuade his boss, “Mr. Zhou, forget it! What’s the point of chasing after him just to keep arguing?”

“…” Mr. Zhou gave him a look and said, “Who said I want to keep arguing?”

Assistant: “Then you…?” If not continuing the argument, what else could he be doing?

“Why so much nonsense?” Zhou Chang said impatiently. “Just follow the car when I tell you to.”

Driver: “…” Didn’t dare to speak.

They quickly arrived at Jing Hong’s hotel. Jing Hong went in first. Zhou Chang’s aura had always been intimidating; saying a single “You guys head back,” he pulled open the car door without another word and stepped out, striding purposefully into the hotel as the car door slammed shut with a “thud.”

Seeing their Mr. Zhou in such a hurried rush, the assistant felt he still had to fulfill his duties as an assistant. Rolling down the car window, he shouted: “Mr. Zhou, stay calm!!! Hitting someone is definitely illegal!!!”

Zhou Chang ignored him, chasing after Jing Hong into the hotel.

Assistant: “…”

I’m so panicking.

Jing Hong stepped into the elevator, swiped his keycard, pressed the floor button, and the elevator doors slowly began to close.

Yet, just as the doors were a hair’s breadth away from shutting tight, a hand suddenly grabbed the edge of the elevator door and pushed gently. The doors opened once more.

Zhou Chang stared into Jing Hong’s eyes, stepped inside, and stood on the other side of the elevator.

Jing Hong said nothing, merely staring at the floor numbers.

Upon reaching the floor, Zhou Chang followed behind Jing Hong. Jing Hong opened the presidential suite, and the two walked in one after the other. But the moment the door shut, they leaned against it and kissed passionately.

Having not seen each other for days, the longing was intense.

They had finally met again just now, yet it had been a close-quarters clash, sharp as needles.

Neither would yield an inch, fighting over every step—the other was perhaps the only true opponent in this world.

A certain emotion reached its peak; while kissing, they rubbed up against each other. Because Jing Hong had a flight to catch, they didn’t do anything further, yet as they held and rubbed against one another, they could still feel each other’s extremely intense desire at that moment.

There was another time, three months after the previous instance, when once again—extremely rarely—the two held differing views during a roundtable discussion at a forum.

The others looked at them, and one person couldn’t help but say: “Mars colliding with Earth…” The others nodded in quick agreement.

This time, Jing Hong rode back to Beijing on Zhou Chang’s private jet. Zhou Chang hadn’t brought flight attendants; only the captain was on board. Jing Hong and Zhou Chang pretended to look at the scenery for a bit and ate some food, before Zhou Chang asked Jing Hong: “Mr. Jing, it’s still early. How about watching a movie on the LED screen? I have all the fairly famous films here.”

Jing Hong looked at Zhou Chang, nodding after a moment: “Okay.”

So the two entered the private compartment, locked the main door, and turned on the TV to play a classic war movie.

Then, amidst the booming sounds of grand battles, the two rolled onto the bed—shirts unbuttoned, pants pulled only halfway down. Jing Hong tried his absolute best to suppress his voice. In the end, Zhou Chang covered the two of them with a thick quilt, kissing while…

In that cramped, sweltering, enclosed space, stifled low moans sounded from beneath the blanket.

After finishing a round, the two impeccably smoothed the bedsheets and tidied everything up.

Finally, holding two wads of plain white tissue paper in his hand, Jing Hong asked: “What about… this? Things from both of us.”

Zhou Chang took them with a chuckle. Opening one of the tissues first, he carefully folded it back into its original shape, neatening it into a small square, before doing the same with the other piece. Then, Zhou Chang unbuttoned Jing Hong’s suit jacket, opened his front lapel, and placed the two stacked pieces of paper into Jing Hong’s inner suit pocket, saying softly: “Guess we can only take it home.”

Jing Hong: “…”

“Alright, you head out first. I’ll double-check to see if there are any oversights here.”

“…Mm.”

…………

In the blink of an eye, it was the end of the year.

On a day before Christmas, Jing Hong worked until 11 o’clock before returning to Zhou Chang’s place. Passing by the small dining room on the first floor, he glanced casually at the table and froze.

Two boxes of cupcakes were placed on the table—small cakes, and Christmas-themed at that.

A set of five in a box, the design actually looked very simple, but at the same time exceptionally beautiful.

The first was a Christmas tree, with white icing dusted over spiral green cream. The second was a blue cake topped with a snowflake decoration. The third was a Santa hat, with spiral red cream surrounded by clusters of white cream flowers to pretend to be a pom-pom. The fourth was Santa’s reindeer: atop a layer of chocolate-colored cream sat a round biscuit at the bottom with an M&M in the middle for the reindeer’s mouth, two mini pretzels above served as the reindeer’s ears, and two white candy beads pressed together—each dotted with a bit of chocolate—formed its two eyes. The last one was a Christmas wreath, green cream flowers squeezed into two circles filling the edges, the middle packed with chocolate shavings to look like real “soil,” the cream flowers dotted with various colored M&Ms, and a small Christmas star resting at the “top of the wreath.”

Distant memories rushed over him across the layers of time.

This set of five small cakes was identical to the ones in his memory.

Jing Hong looked at them quietly.

So today was an anniversary. The anniversary of their first meeting, their first clash.

Without him realizing when, Zhou Chang gently arrived on the first floor, standing behind him and asking Jing Hong: “The same? As that business competition?”

Jing Hong nodded: “Identical to my memory.”

“The taste is a whole lot better, though.” Zhou Chang pulled out a chair. “Sit.”

Jing Hong had worked normally today without wearing a suit or tie, so he simply washed his hands and sat down neatly at the edge of the table.

Opening the box and looking at the cakes, Jing Hong let out a chuckle, saying: “Must have been tough for you to still remember what they looked like.”

“Deep impression,” Zhou Chang sat opposite Jing Hong, resting his chin on his hand. “My first loss, and I lost without a clue why.”

Jing Hong smiled faintly: “Did Mr. Zhou learn how to verify counterfeit bills afterward?”

“Nope,” Zhou Chang said. “Took the loss on the counterfeit bill thing.”

Resting his hands on his knees, Jing Hong lowered his eyes and examined those cakes up close in detail once more, saying: “I almost can’t bear to eat them.”

Despite saying so, Jing Hong still opened the box, picked up a fork, and gently took a bite.

The cream was indeed vastly superior.

Silky, delicate—top tier.

Zhou Chang didn’t care much for sweets, so he merely watched quietly. Occasionally, when Jing Hong raised a piece with his fork—whether cream or cake—and brought it to Zhou Chang’s lips, Zhou Chang would take it into his mouth as well.

That box of cakes from over a decade ago was now shared between the two of them, bridging all the elapsed time.

Over these past ten-plus years, both had traversed countless mountains and rivers, covered in the dust of many battles. Yet they knew full well that not a single speck of dirt or grain of sand on their shoes had fallen in vain.

Now, they finally stood before each other once again in a more mature, more powerful stance.

Neither Jing Hong nor Zhou Chang was in a hurry, chatting as they ate, quietly savoring this moment.

Zhou Chang said: “In fact, the pastry chef tried making each type of cupcake several times. I could describe them, but once the pastry chef made them, there would be discrepancies in the small details—like this star, it was either a bit too big or a bit too small. The one reworked the most was this very one. The pastry chef was even bewildered as to why I insisted on making these five plain, ordinary cupcakes.”

The corners of Jing Hong’s lips curved up.

“Jing Hong,” Zhou Chang looked up. “Was that competition memorable for you, too? But you guys clearly won. The number of people you’ve beaten, Mr. Jing, is simply too vast.”

“It was. Very deep,” Jing Hong said. “Only won out of luck. And back then, many of our strategies overlapped. When it ended, I was still thinking…”

“Thinking what?”

Jing Hong said: “A pity it wasn’t enough. I hoped we could face off again in the future. It was too thrilling.”

Zhou Chang said: “Turns out taking over at the same time ten years later fulfilled your wish after all.”

“Yes.” Jing Hong looked up, feeding a bit of cream flower to Zhou Chang’s lips. Looking at Zhou Chang, he said: “Though I didn’t expect… both of us wanted to destroy the other, but couldn’t, and in the process of trying, feelings actually bloomed. All within just a short year.”

Zhou Chang let out a soft chuckle.

On a night like this, Jing Hong and Zhou Chang spoke of many past events from their time in the US, and then discovered once more that their memories shared numerous overlaps.

“Back then at Oracle, or was it somewhere else,” Jing Hong said, “a server in the cafeteria’s actual identity was a major drug lord. Supposedly, the guy was super enthusiastic, asking everyone he served ‘What do you want, my friend?’ every single time. Did a great job. In the end, the police found massive amounts of heroin in the big company’s cold-chain trucks.”

“I remember that,” Zhou Chang said. “It spread all across Silicon Valley.”

“Mm.”

The two ate three cupcakes in total.

The Christmas tree, the Santa hat, and the Christmas wreath.

The flavor was delicate, with a long-lasting aftertaste.

After eating, Zhou Chang pulled out a deeply bizarre piece of clothing.

The latest model from a certain high-end brand.

Jing Hong had initially thought it was an anniversary gift, but after Zhou Chang slipped it onto him, he had to admit—some fashion was truly beyond his understanding.

The garment was knitted, a pullover, pure white.

The bizarre part was that over the left chest was a metal piece resembling a floor drain, with a large round hole in the middle that happened to frame the left… well, the left… sticking out. Surrounding this round hole were countlessly narrow, long teardrop-shaped metal openings, revealing the flesh tones of the skin inside. The openings across the entire circular metal plate formed the shape of a flower.

Jing Hong: “…”

What the hell is this thing?

Zhou Chang looked at it, saying appreciatively: “So trendy.”

“…” Jing Hong was speechless. “Wear it yourself.”

When Zhou Chang put the shirt on him, he hadn’t seen it clearly at all.

“Don’t,” Zhou Chang wrapped his arms around Jing Hong’s waist, his fingers trying to dig and probe through that central opening, then rubbing and twisting.

Jing Hong couldn’t help wanting to bend down.

Yet Zhou Chang held him firm, bringing his lips close.

However, when lying in bed, Jing Hong still couldn’t accept this weird thing, stripping off the top garment in one motion and tossing it aside.

After a wild, passionate mess, Jing Hong took another shower. Afterward, perhaps because his physical strength had been excessively drained, Jing Hong felt a bit hungry again. So he headed down to the first-floor kitchen, opened the large walk-in refrigerator, looked around, and found nothing he particularly felt like eating. In the end, he could only pull out that box of Christmas cupcakes from earlier.

There were two cakes left.

One snowflake, one reindeer.

He chose the reindeer one, eating the biscuit and mini pretzels first before starting on the base.

Jing Hong didn’t bother grabbing a plate and fork, simply eating it with his hands.

He always dropped crumbs when eating cake, which Jiang Mei constantly scolded him for. Mindful of this, Jing Hong ultimately sat sideways on the last chair by the table, his knees clamping the small plastic bucket Zhou Chang usually used for fruit peels, taking big bites.

Having finished his shower, Zhou Chang didn’t see Jing Hong, so he went down to the first floor to look.

The moment he walked into the small dining room, he saw Jing Hong facing away from him, wearing a loose white bathrobe, bent over with his neck lowered, doing who knows what, the back of his neck fair and slender.

“…?” Zhou Chang walked over gently.

Then, he saw Jing Hong holding a bucket while eating a small cake.

Zhou Chang immediately burst out laughing: “What are you doing?”

Jing Hong didn’t look up, saying: “Got hungry after that.”

Zhou Chang asked again: “Why eat like that? The housekeeper will clean up tomorrow.”

“Habit,” Jing Hong said. “Manager Jiang demands this of me—can’t drop crumbs everywhere. I’m truly used to being scolded; if crumbs actually hit the floor, I feel uncomfortable all over and have to pick them up.”

Zhou Chang looked at him with a smile.

When he finally finished eating, Jing Hong put the small bucket back in place and pulled out a tissue to wipe his mouth. Zhou Chang asked: “How’s this flavor? Didn’t even share a bit with me.” Jing Hong froze for a second, saying: “Not bad.”

Just as those two words left his mouth, his waist was tightly embraced, and Zhou Chang kissed him passionately.

The lingering fragrance spread—tongue, mouth, everywhere.

Jing Hong didn’t quite understand why Zhou Chang felt excited and thrilled seeing this side of him, but he was kissed all over anyway. From between his brows, to the bridge of his nose, to his lips, down to his chin.

Zhou Chang even murmured: “Baby…”

By the end, Jing Hong was even pushed against the edge of the table, leaning face down over it.

The dining room chandelier was exquisite and beautiful, but in Jing Hong’s eyes, the light flickered softly between brightness and shadow.

When everything came to an end, Jing Hong straightened up, tying his bathrobe belt with his fingers, looked at Zhou Chang, and suddenly said: “‘Baby’—not even my parents have called me that. It’s overly cheesy.”

“Alright, got it,” Zhou Chang checked the time. “You go to sleep first; I still have a meeting here.”

Jing Hong nodded.

Yet just before Jing Hong turned around, Zhou Chang lit up his phone placed to the side, raised his eyes, and said: “Jing Hong.”

Jing Hong stayed silent: “?”

Zhou Chang curved his lips, saying: “Good night, baby.”

Ever since meeting Zhou Chang, Jing Hong had felt the urge to roll his eyes a few times, and this time he finally couldn’t hold back. Looking at the chandelier, he let out a long sigh, shook his head, turned around, and walked away.

Zhou Chang’s call lasted nearly half an hour.

When Zhou Chang returned to the bedroom, he froze for a moment upon finding Jing Hong still awake.

Jing Hong was wearing anti-fatigue glasses, leaning against the headboard, looking at his laptop.

Zhou Chang asked: “Working?”

“What else? Being a little baby?” Jing Hong said expressionlessly. “Watching Peppa Pig?”

Zhou Chang: “…………”

Zhou Chang stripped off the dress shirt and suit pants he had worn for the video call. Jing Hong also turned his head slightly, took off his glasses, unbuttoned the dark pajamas draped over him, and tossed them aside.

Zhou Chang leaned against the bed as well, gazing at Jing Hong and asking: “Waiting for me?”

“Mm.” Jing Hong didn’t deny it, saying: “There was one sentence I forgot to say earlier.”

Zhou Chang’s eyes softened as he asked: “What is it?”

Jing Hong said: “I wanted to tell you, in the whole ten years after that competition ended—sometimes, not often—when I ran into an opponent who was too simple, I’d think of you. I never forgot you. Maybe… I’ve been waiting for you all along.”

Back then, he already knew that Zhou Chang was Zhou Buqun’s only son.

Zhou Chang looked deeply at Jing Hong. Leaning against the headboard, the two shared another long, tender kiss.

…………

The next day, Jing Hong felt a bit tired—the first time in half a year—yet he still appeared at Fanhai Tower with utmost punctuality.

In truth, the frequency between the two of them now was much lower than before.

However, despite the fatigue, the moment he handled work matters, Jing Hong’s entire demeanor transformed.

Extremely sharp, extremely shrewd, without a trace of slackness.

In the afternoon, the HR General Manager came to confirm the details of the company’s annual gala with Jing Hong.

Jing Hong pulled open a drawer, took out the handwritten letter and blessings he had prepared for Fanhai’s employees and their families, and asked: “Is this fine?”

The HR General Manager read it carefully and said: “No problem at all, Mr. Jing’s handwriting is far too beautiful.”

Jing Hong nodded, asking again: “Are the gift list and program schedule ready?”

“They’re ready,” the HR General Manager said, handing over the two items in her hand to Jing Hong.

Jing Hong glanced at the gift list and remarked casually: “Add a neck massager. There was a post on the internal forum yesterday complaining about sore necks. Tan Qian saw it, and it gained a lot of traction.”

The HR General Manager noted it down: “Alright, I’ll arrange it.”

“Mm.”

Jing Hong then looked over the program schedule and said: “Pretty good. This opening is interesting—a mascot dance. It should heat up the atmosphere. But why is the final headline slot still left blank? There are only a few days left, haven’t you decided yet?”

“No, actually it was decided long ago,” the HR General Manager looked at Jing Hong, speaking in a steady voice: “The headline performance is all of Fanhai’s executives performing a show for the employees. You’ll be leading in the front row, Mr. Jing, and I’ll naturally be in the back as well.”

“…” Looking at her expression, a very ominous premonition suddenly welled up in Jing Hong’s heart. He asked: “…What kind of performance?”

The HR General Manager was a woman in her early 40s, sharp and capable, yet appearing very approachable on the surface. However, at this very moment, she seemed like a demon as she said: “For the final headline act of the annual gala, Fanhai’s executives will collectively dance a girl group dance. To the theme song of the show XXXX.”

That show was a boy group and girl group competition program that Zhang Li had thrown massive funds to push after coming to Fanhai. Multiple groups from China, South Korea, Japan, and other countries competed against each other, exploding in popularity nationwide within two weeks of going online.

“…?” Jing Hong raised a pair of eyes, revealing a sliver of the whites of his eyes due to the angle, appearing dark, ruthless, and terrifying. He asked word by word: “Executives. Collectively. Dance… what???”

The woman opposite him pressed her lips together, suppressing a smile, and said: “A girl group dance.”