“Tell me, why are people so unaware of their own contentment?” Shen Yun smiled and flicked off the ash, looking at the little bit of grey falling into the white ashtray.

It was an ashtray in the shape of a small toilet pod, and at first Shen Yun thought that Xiao Bo was very funny.

Xiao Bo, however, insisted on using this shape. At that time he said, “Cigarette is just that, after smoking it, that’s what is left. This shape is very suitable”.

Shen Yun smiled and asked, “Hey, can you tell me what ‘that’ is?”

Xiao Bo let out a smoke ring and said, “I don’t swear.” 

Shen Yun laughed so hard that his stomach hurt. He fell on Xiao Bo and said, “Then why do you still smoke?”

Xiao Bo didn’t change his face: “If I don’t go to hell, who will go to hell?”

Shen Yun didn’t know why he remembered such a small thing, so he looked at Xiao Bo with a smile. Xiao Bo was wearing a flower shirt today.

Few people could handle this pattern, but Xiao Bo wore it in a natural way.

Sleek, sexy and unrestrained, capable of hooking a human soul with a glance of his foxy eyes.

He sat next to Shen Yun, half leaning against him: “What’s wrong?”

Shen Yun thought for a while and said: “There are some things that I didn’t want, but when I got used to them, I became greedy. Do you think I don’t know how to be content?”

Xiao Bo thought for a moment and asked, “You mean Zhou Lan?”

Shen Yun smiled and shook his head, “No.”

Xiao Bo didn’t believe it and wanted to ask more, but Shen Yun grabbed and pulled his collar.

A piece of white skin exposed under the collar was without a single blemish. Shen Yun smiled and said, “Have you been very good lately?”

Before Xiao Bo could answer, Shen Yun suddenly shivered.

An extremely sharp gaze stabbed straight at his hand that was pulling Xiao Bo’s collar, making him feel chilly.

Shen Yun unconsciously loosened his fingers and looked at the source of the chill.

It was a twenty-seven or twenty-eight year old man, tall, with a handsome face, but cold enough to freeze people into ice.

At this moment, he was standing behind the bar, but his gaze was unabashedly looking this way, his brows frowning extremely tightly.

Shen Yun poked Xiao Bo and asked in a low voice: “You hired a new bartender?”

Xiao Bo didn’t raise his head: “Ex-boyfriend.”

“Scary?” Shen Yun hurriedly sat up and put a little distance between himself and Xiao Bo. Xiao Bo followed him like a shadow.

Shen Yun pushed him, “Hey, look at that glare in his eyes, I’m afraid that if you get this close to me again, I won’t be able to walk out of this door.”

Xiao Bo smiled wickedly: “Isn’t it exactly what I want, for you not to be able to walk away? Then don’t walk out, stay with me every day.”

Iceberg Face seemed to have reached the end of his patience and came out of the bar and walked towards them.

When Shen Yun saw that the other party was coming, he secretly poked Xiao Bo’s waist.

Xiao Bo thought Shen Yun was teasing him and giggled, itchy, and went straight into Shen Yun’s arms.

Shen Yun was helpless.

Iceberg Face walked straight up to them, but didn’t make things difficult for Shen Yun. He directly reached out and grabbed Xiao Bo.

Xiao Bo looked around and lowered his voice to call out, “What are you doing, you are here eating my food and drinking my drinks, do you also want to control me…”

Iceberg Face covered his mouth and said to Shen Yun, “Sorry, it’s time to take care of the kid.”

Before Shen Yun could react, Xiao Bo was dragged away.

The warmth of Xiao Bo’s skin remained on his body, but the man was gone.

Shen Yun bit the cigarette between his teeth with a dumbfounded look, and after a while, a little smile finally flooded his eyes.

Iceberg Face seemed a little familiar, but Shen Yun couldn’t remember where he had seen him before.

Shen Yun didn’t bother to think about it anymore. He looked out the window, and Xu Moran’s figure finally appeared in the night.

He came in and saw that Shen Yun was the only one there. Taken aback, he looked around and asked, “Where’s Xiao Bo?”

These two were like siamese twins all day long, and he was not used to one missing.

Shen Yun smiled and said, “Left with his father.”

Xu Moran: “His father?”

Shen Yun nodded seriously: “Yes.”

Xu Moran ordered a glass of wine and looked at Shen Yun: “It’s been a long time since I saw you. Have you been busy lately?”

Shen Yun curved up the corner of his lips, “There is no such thing as not being busy in this business.”

Xu Moran smiled gently and looked at Shen Yun: “Even if you are busy, you should pay attention to your health, you… seem to have lost weight again.”

Shen Yun blinked, “Thank you, Teacher Xu. So do you.”

He straightened his expression and added, “My studio will be established next month, thank you for taking care of me all along.”

Xu Moran raised his eyebrows in surprise, “So soon?”

Shen Yun smiled and nodded, “Well, I hope there will be another opportunity to work together in the future.”

He gently rubbed his wine glass, “But the market is like a battlefield. If something happens in the future, I beg Teacher Xu to bear with me.”

Xu Moran was a bit lost. He drained the wine in the glass in one gulp and said softly. “Congratulations. In the future, will we still be able to see each other often?”

Shen Yun nodded and said politely, “Of course, Teacher Xu is my friend and my respected senior. In the future, I will still have a lot of places where I need to ask Teacher for advice.”

Xu Moran nodded, “Did you ask me out today just to talk about this?”

Shen Yun looked at Xu Moran.

He had newly cut his hair and just shaved. There was still the familiar smell of aftershave coming from him, and his clothes were neat and straight.

He should have deliberately dressed up.

Shen Yun curved his lips, “Well, what else can there be?”

Xu Moran frowned; what else could there be? These words made him sad and lost.

Shen Yun’s teasing and flirting with him, could it be that it was all an illusion on his part?

Could it be that they no longer have anything to do with each other but business?

Did he have no feelings for him at all?

Going for the next best thing, could he not feel anything for him at all?

He wanted to ask questions, but Shen Yun had never really given him any reason.

Xu Moran suddenly realised that he was not even qualified to question.

His heart was blocked, hot and stuffy, just like this scorching summer day, making him restless and hazy.

Shen Yun sat opposite and smoked quietly. Xu Moran drank one glass after another, and the two of them were relatively silent for a while.

The ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts. Xu Moran watched Shen Yun light a cigarette again.

He couldn’t help but reach out and pull the cigarette out of his mouth, saying sternly, “You’ve smoked too much today.”

Shen Yun leaned over and snatched the cigarette back, smiling, “Teacher Xu drinks, I smoke, it’s fair.”

Xu Moran did drink a bit too much, and for a moment he didn’t know how to refute him.

He drank a few more glasses, looking at Shen Yun with somewhat foggy eyes.

Shen Yun stubbed out his cigarette and said, “Do you need me to call Teacher Zhao and ask him to pick you up?”

Xu Moran was taken aback, “Zhao Chun?”

Shen Yun smiled, “Yes.”

Xu Moran reacted vehemently, “No, I’m with him… don’t!”

Shen Yun didn’t say much and nodded, “Then I’ll send Teacher Xu home.”

The taxi stopped at the entrance of the neighbourhood. Shen Yun helped Xu Moran out of the car.

He had walked this road thousands times before, and even with his eyes closed, he could not go wrong.

But now he could only walk forward following Xu Moran’s steps.

He followed him into the courtyard, and the roses all over the courtyard were in full bloom, and the fragrance of flowers was rich.

The swing, the gazebo, the round table, the stone bench…

As if he had never left, silently and stubbornly waiting here.

Countless nights, they drank and chatted in the courtyard.

Countless mornings, they pruned the flowers together.

In winter when there was no wind and the sun was good, he liked to sit in the swing chair and swing gently…

Shen Yun lowered his eyes and couldn’t bear to look more.

He helped Xu Moran to sit down in the living room, poured him a cup of hot water, and then said, “Teacher Xu, I have to go.”

The room was the same as the courtyard, everything was the same as the day he left.

Standing here, time seemed to have been relentlessly squeezed, and those years in between never seemed to have existed.

The photo wall in the dining room was full of pictures of Gao Xi and Xu Moran, smiling, laughing, playful, quirky…

Even a book he had placed on the dining table, which he had not finished reading, was still lying there quietly.

If it wasn’t for the fact that this room was spotlessly clean, he would almost think that the reason it was kept as it was was because no one had ever come here.

This was his home!

Shen Yun didn’t dare to look anymore, he was afraid that tears would flow out of his eyes.

But he couldn’t leave. Xu Moran grabbed his wrist, leaned on the sofa and looked up at Shen Yun.

His gaze held a bit of a plea, “Stay today, okay?”

Shen Yun’s eyes widened in shock: “What do you mean?”

Xu Moran said softly, “I like you, Shen Yun.”

Shen Yun clenched his fists. In this room, he actually said he liked someone else.

He bent over and grabbed Xu Moran’s face. Xu Moran thought he was going to kiss him and silently closed his eyes.

Shen Yun turned his face towards the dining room, his voice trembling a little, “Xu Moran, look clearly, where are you now?”

Xu Moran slowly opened his eyes, and saw the photos.

Although it was too far away to see clearly, every photo there, he had caressed it with his hand thousands of times.

Every expression of that person in the photos had long been carved into his heart.

His heart was in agony. He turned his head to Shen Yun in fear and said in a trembling voice: “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t know whether he said “sorry” to Shen Yun or to Gao Xi, he just murmured “I’m sorry.”

He even hit his head hard on the tea table with hatred, making a thud.

Shen Yun frowned and took a step back, staring at him in a daze, seemingly at a bit of a loss for words.

Slowly loosening his fists, he turned around and went out of that room, picking a rose in the courtyard.

He closed the courtyard door for Xu Moran, finally letting himself lean helplessly against the outside of the courtyard wall.

The rose was pressed tightly against his heart, and as he raised his head, tears finally slid down uncontrollably.

Big ones, sliding down his cheeks, merging into thin trickles on his jaw and pooling in two small puddles at his collarbones.

He didn’t know what he was doing. It was Xu Moran’s heart that he wanted to punish, but at the moment his own heart was hurting just as much.

He even wanted to be like Xu Moran and hit his head against the courtyard wall as a way to ease the pain in his heart.

Never again, never again, he said over and over.

He just missed his home, and it had nothing to do with Xu Moran.

But after today, he would no longer dare to come here or think about it.

Sort of a farewell, he thought.

The bone-deep longing for this place needed a farewell like this.

For Xu Moran, a formal psychological farewell was also needed.

When we meet again, we will be enemies, not friends.

I have warned you, Xu Moran.

It was time for Moxi to break up. Xu Moran and Gao Xi could no longer fight side by side.

Nor should they ever be compared again.

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