Chapter 3

The elevator doors had been open for two seconds, but neither of them moved.

Wen Fu tilted his head toward Fei Bolin so slightly it was almost imperceptible, as if waiting for something.

And Fei Bolin, the instant their eyes met, immediately pulled his hand back and lowered his lashes.

After a beat of silence, he stepped into the elevator.

Wen Fu watched Fei Bolin, thoughtful.

But he didn't say anything. He followed him in, and the two of them stood silent together in the small car.

Wen Fu was still turning the scene over in his head. He glanced at the reflective wall and suddenly realized he was still wearing his hat.

Maybe that was what had made it awkward for Fei Bolin.

So without a word, he took the hat off. Out came his slept-on, staticky hair - the same inky-dark strands as his lashes, now flying every which way.

Fei Bolin: ?

Fei Bolin caught the move in the mirror and blinked, confused. Then he noticed those pitch-black eyes above Wen Fu's mask watching him through the reflection. They met his gaze, and Wen Fu blinked, as if waiting for something.

Before he could think it through, the elevator doors opened.

Waiting for the elevator had felt endless. The ride itself flew by - just a few blinks and they were already at ground floor.

Wen Fu's car was at the back exit of F1. Fei Bolin needed LG1 parking. They weren't getting out on the same floor.

When Wen Fu stepped out, he paused at the elevator door for a beat, then - like it was nothing - tilted his head and glanced at Fei Bolin.

Until Wen Fu was out of the elevator, Fei Bolin hadn't reached for him again.

After Wen Fu stepped out, the elevator doors in front of Fei Bolin slowly closed, dropped down to B1, and opened again.

From here, a right turn took you to B2, where Fei Bolin's driver was waiting in the car.

But he stood still in the elevator car. Didn't even lift a foot forward. He just reached out, lit up the F1 button, then hit close.

Back at F1, Fei Bolin walked slowly toward the back door of the office building.

He stood at the double glass doors Wen Fu had just left through. From his coat pocket, his hand emerged - long, slender fingers closing around the upright aluminum handle, which still seemed to hold the warmth of Wen Fu's palm.

Fei Bolin pushed the door open and stepped out. The late-autumn cold hit him full in the face.

The sidewalk behind the building was pitch dark, with only the occasional hurried passerby. But the main road it connected to at the far end glowed with neon and lights from a distance.

Fei Bolin stood under the night sky, watching the dark commercial vehicle in the distance pull away, silently seeing Wen Fu off.

Not until the car turned at the end and vanished completely did he finally drop his chin and murmur to himself, "Xiao Fu. Long time no see."

-

The car was pretty quiet.

Stella kicked off her stilettos and slipped into slippers, half-sprawled across her seat. She'd just closed a sizable investment deal, so she was in that loose, satisfied state of body and mind.

Out of boredom, she glanced left at Wen Fu. He was sitting in his seat, zoned out, silently running on standby. No way of knowing what was going on in that head of his.

Stella turned back, bored stiff. On a whim, she picked up her phone and opened her private chat with Fei Bolin.

[Stella: Director Fei, did you add him?]

She sent the message and switched away from the screen. She wasn't expecting an instant reply from an executive director who had ten thousand things on his plate - especially not from Fei Bolin, whom she'd personally deleted a few years back.

Five minutes later, her phone buzzed. Stella looked - it was Fei Bolin replying.

His answer was brief.

[Lin: No]

Stella raised an eyebrow. Reason told her to stop here - other people's private business wasn't her concern. But she couldn't stand by and watch a done deal fly out the window. What if Wen Fu had offended him and Sifuse Media Group pulled their sponsorship?

If Wen Fu really hadn't accepted Fei Bolin's friend request, she'd grab his phone out of his hands and approve it herself.

So she shamelessly followed up with some concern.

[Stella: What happened? He didn't accept?]

[Lin: No]

Looked like he wasn't in the mood for a deep chat. Stella sighed and was about to close her phone when another message from Fei Bolin came in.

[Lin: He's mad at me]

Stella's first reaction was relief.

So that's what he was worried about.

Worrying is good. Worrying is the best dowry a man can bring.

Keep worrying, keep the sponsorship coming.

She offered a couple of fake-comforting lines.

[Stella: Wen Fu's not complicated. His brain's a straight line - one pipe straight to his gut. I can read everything he's thinking at a glance. If he were really mad, he wouldn't have shown up tonight. Don't worry.]

After sending it, she thought about it and felt she'd been a little out of line, so she added another line.

[Stella: Of course, no matter how well I know him, I can't hold a candle to Director Fei. You know his temper better than anyone.]

No idea if Fei Bolin took it in. After a long while, she got a reply.

[Lin: Mm]

That was enough. Stella put her phone away with a light heart, feeling even better than she had ten minutes ago.

Even the statue-like Wen Fu beside her looked a lot more pleasant.

She turned, pleased as punch, to look at this oblivious guy - and found Wen Fu had already snapped out of his daze. He was now experimentally reaching up to feel the hair on top of his head. After touching it, he lowered his hand and stared thoughtfully at his open palm.

Stella, deadpan: "What are you doing now?"

Wen Fu looked up: "Is my hair... prickly?"

Stella: "..."

Totally impossible to detect any anger on this guy.

She really wanted to drag Fei Bolin into the car and show him - the person he was so sure was angry was actually obsessing over something completely unrelated.

Stella pushed Wen Fu's hand down and said, straight-faced: "Okay, stop studying your hair. Let me tell you your schedule for the next month."

She opened her notes app: "This weekend and next weekend, you've got two events - Weibo Night and V Magazine's gala. Both mandatory, can't skip. Just walk a red carpet, quick. Next Tuesday and Wednesday, you go to Changsha for the final episode recording of Sound into the Ear. Tomorrow you're back at Chuan Da University for class - your advisor wants you at a meeting. Monday, Thursday, and Friday: seven Commercial Performance and one brand offline event total. I'll try to coordinate the timing with the organizers so you're not rushing for flights. The two weeks after the V Magazine red carpet, there's an outdoor residency reality show in the Chuanxi Region - that's the favor you owe Huangtai Platform for the music variety show they put you on. Can't skip that either."

Wen Fu nodded. No objections.

Stella picked up the hat beside his seat and put it on him: "We're almost at your place. Hat and mask on. Stay in as much as you can. If you go out, take Zhou Ji with you, and keep your distance from female friends. Also -"

Stella paused, then stressed: "No sneaking high-oil, high-salt food, especially instant noodles."

Wen Fu was in the middle of putting on his mask. He froze at Stella's warning. He'd just started to lift his head to argue, hadn't even opened his mouth, when he met Stella's absolutely-no-room-for-discussion look.

He ducked his head, finished putting on his mask, gave a perfunctory response. When the car stopped at the Residential Complex gate, he got out, grabbed his luggage and guitar, and headed home.

Stella shouted out the car window: "Tomorrow at eight, Zhou Ji will pick you up here to take you to school."

Wen Fu raised a hand behind him without turning around.

Back home, Wen Fu made himself a cup of instant noodles first.

From getting off the plane today until now, he'd survived on one plane meal and one salad. Not heading straight to a barbecue stand was already him showing Stella a lot of respect.

Wen Fu ate fast. He dropped in the seasoning packets, filled the cup with boiling water, then used his fork to break the still-firm noodle cake into a few loose chunks. He waited a minute - barely patient - then picked up the cup. Hot or not, he didn't care. Steam rising, he hunched over and started slurping the half-soft noodles straight into his mouth.

Less than three minutes, the cup was empty.

Wen Fu tipped his head back and finished the broth, then gulped down a big carton of cold Jule Milk. He figured that completed the "cooling down the noodles in his stomach" procedure. He turned around and spotted two unopened sausages on the table.

He'd grabbed them when he bought the noodles. He'd eaten so fast, focused on the noodles, that he'd forgotten to throw them in.

Wen Fu stared at the two sausages for a few seconds, then reached over, picked them up, and ate them standing at the table, dry-chewing.

Finally, he realized this meal had no vegetables. He was about to head to the kitchen to check the fridge for any greens to boil up, when he suddenly remembered he'd already had his veggies, eggs, and beef in the last salad.

Vegetables, eggs, meat, carbs - all eaten today. Good. Wen Fu ticked each item off in his head like he was running through a checklist, then started unpacking his luggage and getting ready for bed.

Before his shower, he turned on the floor heating. Half an hour later, Wen Fu came out of the bathroom toweling his hair, sat down on the living room floor, turned on the TV, and cast the Jujutsu Kaisen episode he hadn't finished last time. With the anime playing in the background, he started opening the fan letters he'd received today, one by one.

Tonight his assistant had collected five handwritten letters from fans. Each one was a long two pages. One of them had a small pack of cookies tucked inside - the fan said in the letter that she'd made them herself.

Wen Fu read slowly, pen in hand. After each letter, he carefully wrote two words at the bottom of the page: thank you.

Of course he didn't mail the letters back. But Wen Fu believed that was the whole point of a letter - whether or not you sent one back, if you received one, you responded. So he'd kept the habit up. After all five letters were done, he capped his pen, folded each page back into its envelope, and carried them into his study, where he put them in the cabinet where he kept his fan letters.

Wen Fu put the cookies in the pocket of the clothes he'd wear the next day, so he wouldn't forget to eat them.

Soon his phone alarm went off. Twenty minutes had passed since he'd gotten out of the shower.

Twenty minutes meant: time to blow-dry his hair. Wen Fu turned off the alarm, went to the washstand, dried his hair, and went to bed.

This was his routine every day. As long as he was home, this was almost always the flow - so methodical it was almost rigid, even the gap between washing and blow-drying his hair locked at twenty minutes.

Before falling asleep, Wen Fu set a seven o'clock alarm so he could make it to his group meeting at school the next day on time.

He'd taken a two-year leave of absence in his first year of undergrad to debut. Later, he made it back before the leave expired, finished his bachelor's in finance, then crossed over to take the graduate entrance exam in music culture studies. Now he was doing his master's while working.

Less than six hours till he had to get up. Wen Fu closed his eyes.

His sleep quality was usually great. His popularity had climbed day by day over the past two years, and with the workload, after every schedule Wen Fu basically got home, tidied up, and passed out.

Logically, tonight shouldn't have been any different.

The blackout curtains kept the moonlight completely out. He'd get another short but solid sleep.

......

That night, at three in the morning, Wen Fu slowly opened his eyes after almost two hours of tossing and turning.

A voice kept echoing in his head.

Why didn't Fei Bolin touch his head today?

Four in the morning.

"...Chikushou." Wen Fu stared at the pitch-black ceiling with a blank face and blurted that out of nowhere.