This was the case every time. Shen Yun always lacked courage more than he thought.

Standing in front of the familiar door, he hesitated for a long time and didn’t have the courage to knock on it.

It seemed to be an extremely difficult task.

A person who had already died once was afraid of a door?

Shen Yun smiled self-deprecatingly and muttered in a low voice, it was just a door, a door…

He took a deep breath and finally raised his hand.

Every face in the office was incredibly familiar to Shen Yun. In the past they treated him with respect and love, calling him Teacher Gao.

Now they all glanced at him like a stranger in a hurry, cold, stiff, turning to lower their heads and continue to work.

Revisiting the old place, but the world has changed… Moxi, it seemed, was no longer the Moxi in his heart.

The girl at the front desk was called Jiang Qi. Shen Yun explained the situation. Jiang Qi glanced at him curiously, then smiled and said, “So you are the new designer. Our managers are waiting for you in the conference room. Come with me.”

Shen Yun nodded and followed her.

In this office, every room was personally designed and decorated by him and Xu Moran, so familiar that even with his eyes closed, he could not go the wrong way.

Now everything was just like yesterday, quietly and silently waiting there, as if the world had never changed.

The door of the conference room opened. Xu Moran and Zhao Chun sat casually on the sofa, a pot of tea was on the table, the steam rising from the cup. The sunlight poured in, and the dust floating in the air had nowhere to escape, blindly and disorderly structuring a world.

Shen Yun clenched his fists tightly and slightly lowered his eyes to hide his emotions.

He tried to curve up the corners of his lips and said to Xu Moran softly, “Hello, Teacher Xu.”

Then he turned to Zhao Chun, “Hello, Teacher Zhao, I have heard so much about the two famous names.”

Xu Moran and Zhao Chun were also sizing him up.

Although Zhou Lan had said that the other party was a kid, the person who could make Zhou Lan feel at ease to deliver the project into his hands indeed turned out to be a kid.

It was really quite surprising.

The young man standing opposite seemed a bit prim, his eyes drooped slightly, and his small face was so tender that you could squeeze water out of it.

His figure was tall and thin, his height about 178 cm, but because of the good proportions, he appeared to be a little taller.

The simple hoodie, jeans, sports shoes, the clothes were clean but old, and one could see that he was not well off.

But his aura was exquisite and noble, the one of a young master, his hair black and smooth, his skin milky white and soft, his eyelashes long, his eyes bright…

For some reason, there was a strange sense of incongruity in this person.

There was also a subtle sense of familiarity, and Xu Moran was somewhat startled.

It seemed that there was also such a young man in his memory, noble like a young master, but his smile was sunny and innocent, blazing and pure.

Xu Moran collected his thoughts and smiled at Shen Yun.

Such a ”kid”, by relying on personal connections, could easily get things that others had not been able to get for many years. For people who had worked hard for many years and had only come to this day step by step, it was inevitable to despise him a little in their hearts.

Xu Moran’s heart had always been relatively soft. Seeing Shen Yun’s nervousness, he warmly said, “Shen Yun, right? Sit down first.”

Shen Yun complied and sat down, relaxing a bit, raising his eyes to say, “Thank you, Teacher Xu.”

Xu Moran had lost a lot of weight, and also had aged a bit, and his entire body seemed tired and haggard.

Shen Yun blinked and made an effort to suppress those complex emotions that flooded up from the bottom of his heart, sadness, grievances, pain, resentment and injustice…

Like waves washing up the shore, pressing down a wave made a wave surge up.

The most hurtful thing about feelings was not the sword pointing to the chest, nor the evil words thrown at each other, but the good memories of the past, frame by frame, picture by picture, giving you the illusion that you could go back to the past.

After all, it was the young man he once loved the most, accompanying him through his youth and his years of struggle, all the way to the best age of a man, fifteen years of companionship and mutual care. If he was not dead, if he was still Gao Xi today, then Shen Yun was not sure if he would forgive Xu Moran. Maybe the moment Xu Moran held him in his arms and wept, he would kiss him fiercely, hug him, and torment him…

Love to the bone can make a man cheap!

Or maybe he would never look back, take his own things and would rather cry bitterly in the dead of night than look at this person again, guarding his memories for a lifetime…

Love to the bone can also make a man determined.

But now that he was Shen Yun, everything had long been on an uncontrollable track. He had lost everything about Gao Xi, his lover, his relatives, friends, career, and even life…

He had also lost the opportunity to make choices as Gao Xi.

The origin of evil were the two people in front of him!

And at this moment, they were high above, entertaining themselves with scrutinising, slightly contemptuous gazes and false smiles.

Shen Yun also smiled and gazed back.

Fifteen years of companionship, fifteen years of care and bonding, fifteen years of countless late-night hugs and kisses, all had to be removed from his life one by one, with his tendons and his skin, flesh and blood. It was such a bloody process, and he didn’t know how long it would last before it ended.

Maybe it will be a lifetime, and you can’t talk about it or cry out in pain, because the memory is always there and cannot be deleted.

Before using torture on the opponent, Shen Yun had already used capital punishment on himself.

He felt very cold, chilled from the bottom of his heart, so he took the cup in front of him and slowly took a sip. “May I smoke?” He asked.

Neither of the two people across the table objected. Shen Yun fished out the cigarette pack from his pocket and knocked out one to light it.

Xu Moran watched Shen Yun’s movements in a bit of a trance. The action of knocking out a cigarette from the cigarette pack, the occasional gentle blinking, and the kind of vaguely revealed aura, it was all too much like Gao Xi.

It had only been a few minutes, and there were so many overlaps, it was a bit too much of a coincidence.

However, he was immediately relieved. Although Gao Xi smoked, but only once in a while, and never smoked such cheap cigarettes.

Shen Yun, on the other hand, gently puffed out the smoke in a moment of relaxation and relief, allowing Xu Moran to confirm that he was very addicted to smoking.

Zhao Chun couldn’t help frowning when he saw the cheap cigarette Shen Yun held in his hand, and he was even more disdainful in his heart.

He smiled and said, “Xiao Shen, oh, is it okay if I call you that?”

Shen Yun smiled: “It’s okay, just call me Xiao Shen.”

Zhao Chun nodded, “Have you had any previous works? Or just ordinary home designs?”

Shen Yun replied sincerely, “No, I just worked as an assistant designer in a very small private studio.” He smiled playfully, “There was only one designer in that design studio.”

Zhao Chun’s face looked a little embarrassed, “So you have almost no experience?”

Shen Yun nodded.

“Then why would President Zhou feel comfortable letting you participate in a project like Lanqiao?”

Such a question was already quite unceremonious, even to the point of crossing the line.

Shen Yun blinked and smiled, “Then Teacher Zhao will have to ask President Zhou.”

Zhao Chun was choked speechless, and Xu Moran interjected quietly, “Shen Yun, do you have any design concepts?”

“Yes,” Shen Yun replied with a smile, somewhat malicious. “People first, starting from home.”

“People first, starting from home.” It was Gao Xi’s original credo when he first entered the design industry.

Gao Xi had an inexplicable attachment to his home, to his parents’ home, and to his and Xu Moran’s home.

Home was a place for relaxation and enjoyment, a place where one’s soul was nourished and recuperated, so Gao Xi was willing to infiltrate his love for home into every part of his works.

He once said that if his design could make a family feel comfortable, relaxed and happy, then nothing could be better than that.

Home should be a specific environment for people to be happy, relaxed and joyful. No matter what difficulties there were, home was the place that could give people courage.

So, even if Gao Xi later devoted a large part of his energy to industrial design, every year he would insist on spending some energy to do home design. Many people, the higher they go on their path, the harder they are to be satisfied. But Gao Xi always said, don’t forget your original intentions.

His original intention was home, so he had always been satisfied.

The corners of Xu Moran’s eyes immediately turned red. His gaze was a little chaotic. The young man in front of him was slowly overlapping with Gao Xi: ”People first, starting from home? Is this your own philosophy, or have you heard it from others?”

The corners of Shen Yun’s lips were slightly raised as he puffed out two puffs of white smoke from his nose. Through the smoke, he looked at Xu Moran’s disoriented expression and Zhao Chun’s whitened face.

He thought seriously for a while before he smiled, shaking his head while smiling, “I don’t quite remember. It seems like I heard someone say it. At the time I thought it was very interesting, so I wrote it down, and the more I thought about it afterwards, the more it made sense, so it was engraved in my heart.”

Zhao Chun waved his hand, “You can go, later I’ll ask my assistant to help you arrange a place in the lounge. The specific work allocation and arrangement will be discussed with President Xu and then we’ll let you know.”

Shen Yun smiled, nodded and walked out.

When he passed by Gao Xi’s office, he stopped slightly and looked up at the nameplate above: Gao Xi (designer).

This entire floor was Moxi’s place.

Moxi had been expanding very rapidly in recent years; especially after Gao Xi took on more and more projects of industrial design, it became even more famous.

Now, in addition to the design department, Moxi also had the engineering department, the materials department, the customer service department, and the promotion department.

Gao Xi, Xu Moran and Zhao Chun, although they were management, were also designers, so they had been in the design department, but each of them had their own separate office.

The office door had been locked, and there was a flash of moisture in Shen Yun’s eyes.

His seat had been arranged. Zhao Chun’s assistant Wang Kai added a desk on the right side of the entrance, and Shen Yun sat down very quietly.

In that position, as people came and went, the doors opened and closed, a cold wind kept coming in.

“Hi, can you make a copy for me?”

“Hi, please send this to the materials department for me.”

“Can you draw? Help me draw this floor plan… Why are you so stupid, just follow the template on the computer!”

……

Shen Yun looked at the faces of the people who used to be full of smiles and flattery in the past, and at the moment commanded him again and again with impatience and disdain.

He couldn’t help but hook the corner of his lips.

Anyway, Zhao Chun didn’t communicate with him about the work arrangements, so he did all the tasks one by one, always with a smile, as if enjoying himself.

When he finished the last floor plan on his hands, it was already more than nine o’clock in the evening, and he was still scolded by a young designer’s assistant, who said that he was too inefficient. Shen Yun didn’t even look at the other party, put the things on his desk, turned around and left.

The assistant looked at Shen Yun’s back and shook his head. Damn, why are these newcomers so ignorant of the rules now!

He didn’t think that it was supposed to be his own job.

After waiting in the cold wind for a long time before the bus came, Shen Yun got on the bus and only remembered halfway that he had to go to Zhou Lan’s place tonight, so he got off the bus and continued to wait for another bus.

It was so late that it took a long time for the bus to come. Shen Yun looked around while covering his face with his hands to keep warm.

Zhou Lan lived in a villa area, far away from the bus stop. It was almost half past eleven when Shen Yun braved the cold wind to knock on the door of Zhou Lan’s house. When the door opened, Zhou Lan’s face was black: “Why so late?”

When he saw Shen Yun’s frozen face, he was a little startled: “You didn’t take a taxi?”

Shen Yun didn’t answer, just muttered, “Do you have anything to eat at home? I haven’t eaten yet, I’m so hungry.”

Zhou Lan frowned and looked at him, not saying anything.

Shen Yun then said, “Forget it, I’m not very hungry.”

The room was well heated. Shen Yun took off his coat. Zhou Lan looked at his thin clothes: “Don’t tell me you don’t even have a piece of warm clothes?”

Shen Yun smiled: “The rooms are heated, and it’s not cold on the bus.”

Zhou Lan was silent for a while and said, “If you need money…”

Without waiting for him to finish, Shen Yun immediately interrupted him, “No, thanks.”

His tone was stiff and fearful, as if the words coming out of Zhou Lan’s mouth could kill him.

Zhou Lan was silent for a while and said, “There might be some food in the fridge, can you make it yourself?”

Shen Yun nodded.

Shen Yun cooked himself a bowl of noodles in boiled water, with a few plain green vegetable leaves floating on top. It looked bland and tasteless, but he ate it eagerly.

After eating and taking a shower, he was pressed into the bed as expected.

Zhou Lan’s dark, heavy gaze stared unflinchingly into Shen Yun’s clear, black eyes.

“Just for an opportunity, was it worth it?”

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