Gu Qingzhou didn't answer immediately. He stared fixedly at him, seemingly wanting to say something but unable to get a single word out. Finally, he turned his head away to avoid his gaze. "...Why are you asking this?"

Jiang Xu pressed his forehead against his. "It's nothing, just asking."

It was fine if he hated him; that was normal. Back then, if Jiang Xu didn't like Gu Qingzhou, he should have crushed his hopes instead of unscrupulously enjoying his efforts, agreeing to be with him, and then mercilessly kicking him to the curb.

Who wouldn't hate that? He wasn't a saint.

Gu Qingzhou closed his eyes. His thick eyelashes trembled slightly, casting a shadow on his pale skin. After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly spoke, saying in a low voice, "Jiang Xu, you're not good to me at all..."

Jiang Xu was not good to Gu Qingzhou at all.

When he said this, his tone was low, like a wronged child whose thoughts were naive and simple. 'I'm so good to you, I gave you all my candy, why don't you like me yet?'

Hearing this, Jiang Xu's body paused for a moment. He saw Gu Qingzhou biting his lower lip so hard that a hint of blood appeared. He raised a hand to force his jaw open and asked in a low voice, "Am I that bad to you..."

He seemed to be asking Gu Qingzhou, but it was more like he was asking himself.

Jiang Xu's fingertips were stained with flecks of blood, a testament to the sheer force with which Gu Qingzhou had bitten his lip. Between the two of them, one was like wild grass, bending with the wind and surviving even after being burned by wildfire. The other was like green bamboo growing from rock, tough and hard, yet liable to break with a single snap.

The one who seemed weak was not truly weak, and the one who seemed indestructible would often crumble at the first blow.

Jiang Xu looked at Gu Qingzhou's pale face and suddenly said, "Then I'll be a little better to you from now on."

He said, I'll be a little better to you from now on.

Gu Qingzhou didn't want to beg for anything humbly. Hearing this, he slowly raised his eyes. They were starkly clear, without a trace of any other color, silently revealing a hint of hidden cold arrogance. "...Are you pitying me?"

Jiang Xu not only didn't deny it but even nodded seriously and retorted, "Don't you look like a pitiful little thing?"

Gu Qingzhou raised his hands to push him off, but Jiang Xu grabbed his wrists and pinned him heavily onto the bed. Unwilling to concede, he struggled relentlessly but couldn't break free, exhausting himself in the process. Finally, he turned his head to look at Jiang Xu, his chin slightly raised, and asked through pursed lips, "Is this how you're 'good to me'?"

Jiang Xu burst out laughing. "I said I'd be good to you, but I never said I'd stand still and let you hit me."

With that, he released Gu Qingzhou, pinched his chin, and smiled. "The top student position is yours, the school tyrant position is mine. Don't cross the line."

Gu Qingzhou was also a formidable character when it came to fighting. If he hadn't focused on his studies back then, Jiang Xu's position as school tyrant might have been in jeopardy.

Gu Qingzhou lowered his eyes and scoffed. "Didn't you hate being the school tyrant?"

Nobody knew that Jiang Xu fucking hated fighting. Unless he had no other choice, he generally wouldn't make a move. Otherwise, if he hurt someone, he'd have to pay their medical bills, which was a huge loss.

Jiang Xu shrugged, once again showing off his half-baked literary knowledge. "Can't be helped. When Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on a man..."

Gu Qingzhou closed his eyes, not bothering to correct him.

The night deepened, and it was soon midnight. Jiang Xu still had some miscellaneous finishing touches left, which he planned to do at the company tomorrow. He got out of bed, put on his slippers, and said to Gu Qingzhou, "I'm going back to my room. You should rest early."

His thinking was very direct. Having grown up on the city streets, things like romance and tenderness had nothing to do with him. Seeing that Jiang Xu was about to leave, Gu Qingzhou grabbed his sleeve and pulled, forcing him to look back.

Jiang Xu thought he had something else to say and leaned closer. "What's wrong?"

Gu Qingzhou didn't speak. He just half-knelt on the bed, straightened his body, and bit Jiang Xu's earlobe. The force wasn't heavy, but it certainly wasn't light, leaving a clear bite mark.

Jiang Xu hadn't expected this. He hissed, sucking in a breath of cold air, and felt his earlobe throb with pain. He subconsciously touched it, then looked up at Gu Qingzhou, both annoyed and amused. "Are you a dog?"

Gu Qingzhou expressionlessly eyed the mark on his earlobe, his eyes narrowing in satisfaction. Then he raised his hand and pointed from a distance to the spot on his own lip that Jiang Xu had bitten this morning, pointedly saying, "You bit me first."

Jiang Xu smiled. "So petty."

When he reached the door, he paused. He reached out and turned off the light in Gu Qingzhou's bedroom. In the darkness, only a blurry silhouette was visible. "I'm going to sleep. Good night."

Gu Qingzhou hummed in response. "Good night."

After returning to his room, Jiang Xu wasn't sleepy at all. His mind was a jumbled mess. It felt like he had thought about many things, yet also nothing at all. The image that kept flashing in his mind was the earring that had accidentally fallen out of the drawer.

A cheap, faded earring.

That seemed to be the only thing Jiang Xu had ever given Gu Qingzhou in their three years of high school. It hadn't seemed like a big deal back then, but thinking back on it now, it was pathetically shabby, and it left him with an inexplicable feeling of emptiness.

Lying in bed, he turned over. Jiang Xu suddenly felt like he had forgotten something, but he couldn't remember what it was. Finally, he glanced at the calendar on his phone screen and realized that Gu Qingzhou's birthday was next week. He shot up in bed—

What the hell!

At first, Jiang Xu thought he had remembered wrong. He carefully calculated the date again and finally confirmed that next Friday was indeed Gu Qingzhou's birthday. His eyelid twitched, and he slowly lay back down.

In their current relationship, he had to get him a gift, one way or another. It would be too unreasonable not to.

But Jiang Xu racked his brains and had no idea what to get. In the past, when his group of degenerate friends had birthdays, they would just get together for a round of drinks and be done with it. He couldn't exactly take Gu Qingzhou to a night market for skewers.

Jiang Xu silently shook his head, immediately vetoing the idea.

It was as if he didn't understand Gu Qingzhou at all. He didn't even know what he liked to eat or what he did for fun. Faced with this kind of situation, he was utterly clueless. He lay there with his eyes open until dawn without coming up with anything, only succeeding in making himself exhausted.

The next morning, when Gu Qingzhou woke him up, he looked at the dark circles under Jiang Xu's eyes and was silent for a moment. Honestly, if he wasn't certain that the other man had been sleeping soundly in the next room all night, he would have suspected Jiang Xu had been up to something inappropriate for minors.

Gu Qingzhou's sleep schedule wasn't exactly regular, but no matter how late he went to bed, he would always wake up at six the next day. He placed the breakfast he had bought downstairs on the table and said faintly, "What were you doing last night?"

Jiang Xu was dozing with his eyes closed. He opened them at the question and gave him a meaningful look. "What do you think I could be doing?"

Gu Qingzhou gave a half-smile. "I'm sure you couldn't have done much."

Jiang Xu's aesthetic still leaned towards curvy, well-endowed beauties. Although Gu Qingzhou didn't want to admit it, it was the truth. Jiang Xu currently had no "deep" interest in men. Kissing and hugging were already his limit.

When Jiang Xu was sleepy, he ate very slowly, sipping his congee one mouthful at a time. His tongue was numb, and he had no idea what it tasted like. Gu Qingzhou glanced at his watch and reminded him, "Eat faster, we have to go to work soon."

Jiang Xu was unfazed. "Don't you understand the importance of chewing slowly?"

Gu Qingzhou: "..."

A kiss before leaving the house seemed to have become a routine. Jiang Xu timed it perfectly. After finishing breakfast, he left himself thirty seconds to pin Gu Qingzhou against the wall and kiss him until he was breathless. Finally, looking at the slight redness at the corners of his eyes, he commented in a low voice, "Your lung capacity isn't very good."

Gu Qingzhou, who still hadn't recovered: "..."

Jiang Xu was still thinking about the birthday gift. As he drove, he casually tried to get some information. "What do you usually do for fun?"

Gu Qingzhou was handling work matters. He lifted his gaze from his phone, glanced at him, and said flatly, "I don't 'do fun'."

Jiang Xu: "..."

Jiang Xu should have known. Gu Qingzhou's extracurricular life in school had been frighteningly bleak—nothing but practice tests. Could he really expect him to have improved as an adult? He shook his head with a tsk. "You're so boring."

Gu Qingzhou seemed to mind this comment. He put down his phone and asked in an emotionless tone, "Then what kind of person do you find interesting?"

Jiang Xu smiled, looking refreshed and clean. "Someone like me, of course."

Gu Qingzhou probably thought he was shameless. He looked away and ignored him, turning his gaze to the scenery rapidly receding outside the car window. He noticed that the plane tree leaves were beginning to fall, rustling as they blanketed the entire asphalt road.

It wasn't that Gu Qingzhou didn't know how to have fun; he just didn't like it. Back in City A, the people in his circle did all sorts of things—gambling, racing cars, womanizing—a life of debauchery. He never participated. At most, he would get together with Dou Xun and the others for a few drinks, and nothing more.

Jiang Xu hadn't slept all night and started feeling drowsy early in the morning. When Gu Qingzhou came out to print some documents, he saw him slumped over his desk, fast asleep. A stack of blueprints had been deliberately placed beside him to hide his form and conceal his little act.

It was a classic case of burying one's head in the sand.

Gu Qingzhou glanced over and then looked away, pretending he hadn't seen anything.

Jiang Xu felt much better after napping for three hours. He woke up, sat up straight, yawned, and slowly stretched. He asked Li Si'ao, "What time is it?"

Li Si'ao was also sleepy. He rubbed his eyes. "Around eleven, I think. What's up?"

Jiang Xu seemed to recall something and zoned out for a moment. Then he asked out of the blue, "For your past birthdays, what kind of gifts did I get you?"

Li Si'ao looked at him and corrected, "You've never given me a gift."

Jiang Xu: "Oh."

Fan Jiajia's desk was close to Jiang Xu's. Hearing their conversation, she couldn't help but laugh. She straightened up slightly and asked, "Designer Jiang, are you getting someone a birthday gift?"

Jiang Xu's spirits lifted. "How did you know? Hey, any good suggestions for me?"

Fan Jiajia leaned on the desk partition and thought for a moment. "Hmm, that depends on who you're giving it to. A girlfriend or an elder? Male or female? The gifts are all different. You could search online, there's a ton of stuff."