Although Shen Yun was at a disadvantage, he still stretched out his hand to hook Zhou Lan’s chin and said with a smile, “Does it have anything to do with President Zhou?”

Zhou Lan sank down fiercely and slammed hard into Shen Yun with a soft snort. His clear eyes were covered with a misty layer of fog as he coldly asked, “Doesn’t it have anything to do with me?”

Shen Yun gasped and looked at him, still smiling: “Didn’t I already say? How else would President Zhou want me to answer?”

Zhou Lan stopped talking, leaned down and kissed the peach blossom mole at the corner of his eye. His eyes became a little blurred. While jerking his waist and hips, he moved his lips and teeth. The corner of Shen Yun’s eye was gnawed by him, tooth marks glowing scarlet red.

Shen Yun still bit his lip without making a sound. Zhou Lan’s lips travelled down the corner of his eye, kissing the bridge of his nose, then the tightly pursed corner of his lips. When he moved to Shen Yun’s blushing lips, Shen Yun turned his head silently, avoiding the other party’s kiss.

Zhou Lan froze, and then a cold light flashed in his eyes. He put his hands under Shen Yun’s shoulders and picked him up, making him sit on top of him, letting a part of him get buried deeper into the opponent’s body.

Shen Yun stifled a grunt, no longer able to control his breathing and groaning from Zhou Lan’s movements. Zhou Lan’s body heated up even more as he listened to the sound of his cries while he brutally slammed inside him, “Does it have anything to do with me?” He asked again.

Shen Yun couldn’t straighten up, so he just buried his face in Zhou Lan’s shoulder, gasping like a fish out of water. 

He wanted to get release, but Zhou Lan blocked his front end and waited for him to beg for mercy. It was so uncomfortable that Shen Yun bit his lip and cried out.

“Does it have anything to do with me?” Zhou Lan asked again.

This body had already been given to him. If he wanted to straighten it, he could straighten it, and if he wanted to bend it, he could bend it. 

But not the heart.

Shen Yun didn’t want to lie, so he endured and didn’t answer.

Until the end of a torment, Shen Yun didn’t say anything.

Looking at the other party’s drenched hair dripping with sweat, Zhou Lan was angry and remorseful.

When did he himself start acting like a bratty kid again? Reckless, impulsive, impatient…

Shen Yun, however, curled up and rolled to the side, trying to find his cigarettes in silence.

Zhou Lan pressed down his trembling hand that groped around: “So stubborn?”

Shen Yun smiled, with an oblivious charm in the corners of his eyes and his eyebrows: “I want to smoke.”

“How old were you when you started smoking? Is smoking so addictive?”

“I don’t remember.” Shen Yun said softly.

It was only then that Zhou Lan remembered that the first time, Shen Yun had said that he had been sick before and didn’t remember anything from the past.

He nodded, found his cigarettes and helped him light it.

Shen Yun didn’t get up, just curled up like that and puffed in silence, finishing a cigarette before saying softly, “Thank you.”

“Thank you for what?” Zhou Lan asked.

“Thank you for helping me light the cigarette.” Shen Yun smiled and closed his eyes.

When Zhou Lan woke up in the morning, Shen Yun was no longer at home. The same as last time, the clothes he wore were neatly stacked at the head of the bed.

There is a faint milky scent.

Shen Yun had another nightmare last night, and after waking up in the middle of the night, he sat alone on the balcony to smoke, just like last time.

Zhou Lan knew, but kept pretending to be asleep, never opening his eyes.

Zhou Lan quietly looked at the T-shirt that Shen Yun used as pyjamas for a while, and closed his eyes again.

Playing hard to get? Was this a new trick?

He admitted that he was mildly interested in Shen Yun.

The contract with Moxi had been signed on Monday afternoon.

At that time, Zhao Chun had implicitly asked Zhou Lan if he needed to take extra care of Shen Yun.

Zhou Lan smiled and shook his head, saying that there was no need, Moxi could treat him as it treated other employees, there was no need for anything special.

Everyone was a part of the jianghu (the community of martial artists in wuxia stories; here figuratively meaning a section of society with its own laws), so who couldn’t see through the tricks of the trade?

Without Zhou Lan behind his back, how much weight could Shen Yun have?

He also wanted to teach Shen Yun a lesson.

He really couldn’t get used to Shen Yun’s personality of not knowing the immensity of heaven and earth. If he wanted to fly up to the branch and become a phoenix, it was not that easy.

Judging from Shen Yun’s previous work experience, he hadn’t even had a small project to follow, and he tried to follow such a large-scale high-end project.

There was no self-awareness.

The business of design was inherently collegial.

Entering Moxi was entering someone else’s turf. Regardless of whether others were convinced or not, there was too much manpower and material resources to be mobilised for the entire project in the later stage. Why should others listen to the command of an outsider?

Without considering this level, he rushed in, in a hurry to make quick gains.

Shen Yun was like a child who hadn’t learnt to walk yet and was in a hurry to run, so he was destined to fall badly.

As for Zhou Lan, he didn’t intend to help him, and wanted to see how far he could go before kneeling down and begging him.

Doesn’t have anything to do with me? Zhou Lan sneered.

When the time comes, you will still have to say whatever you’re told to say. Like a puppet!

Thinking like this, he felt a little annoyed again.

***

In the evening, when he was drinking with Fang Qin and Qu Yuan, his mood didn’t improve.

It caused Qu Yuan’s cheap mouth to say that his energy was sucked out by the little fairy.

Fang Qin laughed when he heard this. He said that he went to Constellation Mile a few days ago and heard Lao Fang say that Zhou Lan left with a young man.

Lao Fang was the boss of Constellation Mile, and they often got together there, so he could be considered an old acquaintance.

Qu Yuan was surprised when he heard it. Zhou Lan rarely took people home from the outside.

So he joked and asked when the other party had changed his style, and added, don’t take anyone to bed indiscriminately, so as not to catch a messy disease.

Zhou Lan didn’t want to mention Shen Yun, he just said that it was a designer who wanted to enter the Lanqiao project.

Fang Qin also worked in real estate, so he asked, since you left with him, did he succeed?

Zhou Lan nodded.

Fang Qin was a bit confused: “Isn’t it set for Moxi?”

Zhou Lan glanced at him, “You are well informed.”

“You’ve placed someone in Moxi?” Fang Qin’s brain was smart, and after a little thought, he figured out the links.

Zhou Lan nodded. Fang Qin and Qu Yuan clinked glasses and gave each other a wink, “You slept with him?”

Zhou Lan took a sip of wine and nodded again.

Qu Yuan said, “Don’t blame your buddies for talking about you. You’re surrounded by people who are looking for money. When will you find a good person to settle down, so that your brothers can be relieved? There is also Lin Jianyang. Did you get him another lead role a few days ago?”

Zhou Lan laughed: “It’s not the first day that Zhouquan invested in film and television. Lin Jianyang has the talent, what does it matter if I get him a role?”

Qu Yuan snorted, “It’s not because he’s your little love.”

Fang Qin, however, was still thinking about the problem in front of him, and patted Qu Yuan: “The designer would be a good match for Zhou Lan.”

Qu Yuan glared at him, “Someone who can go to bed just to get into a project, where is he a good match? If you ask me, it’s Wei…”

Having said that, he closed his mouth, chagrined.

Fang Qin saw that Zhou Lan’s face was not very good, so he clinked glasses with Zhou Lan: “Don’t you know Lao Qu? What hasn’t he seen in all his years? He’s just worried about you.”

Zhou Lan smiled, “After so many years, can I still not understand him? His mouth is just cheap.”

There was still a thorn in his heart, but it was not because of Wei Chen.

A person who can go to bed with someone for a project? Someone who would sleep with someone just for a project?

Wasn’t that how he looked at Shen Yun in the beginning?

Now that someone else was saying that, why was he upset?

Qu Yuan was his best mate, and Shen Yun was just a toy.

***

Shen Yun’s life in Moxi was indeed not good.

As soon as he entered the office on Tuesday, Shen Yun felt the complicated gazes cast on him from all sides.

If on Monday everyone only looked at him as an ordinary newcomer, then today’s gazes were much more complex.

There was jealousy, there was contempt, there was resentment, there was disdain…

Although Moxi wasn’t considered one of the top three high-end design studios in the country, it couldn’t be out of the top six either.

This was the result of Gao Xi and Xu Moran’s hard work, and of course Zhao Chun joined in the later stage.

On the slow path to today, personnel change and flow was inevitable.

In addition to the first few veterans who followed him, the designers who came in later either had high academic qualifications, or had accumulated many years of experience, and had worked alone on projects of a certain size.

Not to mention the designers, even the assistants recruited for the designers were all those who could hold their own in an ordinary studio.

Even so, for projects like Lanqiao, only a very small part of these designers could do peripheral handyman work, so why could this kid stand side by side with Xu Moran and Zhao Chun as one of the main designers, strutting into Moxi like this?

In terms of qualifications, experience and even talent, how could he compare to those of them who had followed more than one large-scale project, the people who had been through mountains of swords and seas of flame?

What a joke!

Moreover, for such a project, Shen Yun came to take advantage of the fisherman’s profit. If the project failed, Moxi would take the blame. Xu Moran and Zhao Chun were famous, Shen Yun’s name was not known, who would care about him?

But if the project was successful and had a good reputation, then Shen Yun could sit back and enjoy the benefits, attracting a lot of attention because he could handle such a large-scale project at a young age.

Why should he?

Jealousy makes people crazy. In short, overnight, there were all kinds of rumours.

Some people said that Shen Yun came in through a relationship. But if it was understandable to come into Moxi through a relationship, how could it be possible to do the Lanqiao project as the main designer without Zhouquan’s approval?

Then it was rumoured that Shen Yun was Zhou Lan’s little lover, and Zhou Lan was just throwing his money around to get a smile from his love.

But looking at Shen Yun’s food and clothing, a discerning person would clearly see that not only his circumstances could be described as constrained, they were simply difficult.

Zhou Lan could take out such a big project to make people smile, how could he not be willing to give a little bit of money?

In fact, people are like this. If Shen Yun had a wealthy backing, if his food and clothing were high-end, even if people were not convinced, they would hide it in their hearts; who wasn’t capable of faking a little smile on their faces?

But Shen Yun was a poor man no matter how you looked at it, so the seventy or eighty percent of sour anger rose to one hundred twenty percent, and everyone hated to show him some respect. 

Zhao Chun didn’t communicate with Shen Yun again about the Lanqiao project, and Shen Yun didn’t go to him either.

Every day, he was in the office under the disdainful stares, being ordered around, frantically busy.

To make copies, to get samples, to take pictures of the construction site, to serve tea and pour water, to draw floor plans, to get material samples…

Zhou Lan hadn’t looked for him recently, and Shen Yun was so tired every day that he couldn’t wait to fall asleep. He had no time to think of the man.

Sometimes when he was half asleep and half awake, he would think that Shen Yun was probably under some kind of curse.

Why had the faces that were sincere and kind in front of Gao Xi now changed shape?

Whether it was physical or mental fatigue, Shen Yun skilfully suppressed it.

At least in Moxi, he moved like walking on clouds every day, and it was as if he had never heard nor seen those unpleasant rumours and ugly faces.

After about a week of simmering like this, Zhao Chun and Xu Moran finally approached him again.

Shen Yun smiled. The downward spiral was almost over. It was time to negotiate terms.

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