Bai Ying only cracked the changing room door open, poking half his body out. After Qin Juanshu entered, he shut the door behind him with a reverse hand motion.
He began to feel immensely grateful that he hadn’t let the male store clerk come in!
Bai Ying wasn’t wearing anything on his lower half!
Well, that might slander the little snake a bit—his underwear was perfectly in place, faintly visible beneath the shirt. It was only after putting on the shirt that Bai Ying realized he couldn’t figure out these shirt clips. So, with his two long, white legs bare, he had called for help. At that moment, with Qin Juanshu stepping in, Bai Ying didn’t see any issue with it.
They were both men, after all!
“Qin… Qin Juanshu,” Bai Ying remembered to use the boss’s full name. He innocently held out the shirt clips he was cradling. “How do you use these things?”
Qin Juanshu closed his eyes, trying to clear some stray thoughts from his mind, but it was no use. Even if his heart stilled for a moment, one glance and there was Bai Ying, pantsless and utterly unguarded, wandering right in front of him.
Qin Juanshu gave up struggling.
Even if Bai Ying took every advantage, didn’t he have any sense of propriety himself?
“Go to the sofa.” Qin Juanshu said, his voice slightly hoarse.
Bai Ying obediently walked over. The changing room was as big as his living room at home, with fruit and drinks even laid out on the table. Qin Juanshu took all the shirt clips from Bai Ying’s hands, draping the extras over the sofa armrest and keeping just one in his grip.
He knelt on one knee in front of Bai Ying.
Bai Ying’s eyelashes trembled lightly as he instinctively stepped back, but Qin Juanshu grasped his calf. As he looked down, Qin Juanshu happened to glance up. Bai Ying averted his gaze on reflex, stammering, “Um, that… maybe we should call a store clerk instead?”
A bold employee, daring to make the boss do this kind of thing! Bai Ying hadn’t expected Qin Juanshu to step in like this—he panicked.
Those words grated in Qin Juanshu’s ears.
Want some other man to come in? Qin Juanshu suppressed his anger. “In your dreams!”
Bai Ying didn’t dare make a sound. The god of part-time jobs as his witness, it was the boss who had made the first move!
The shirt clips were easy to put on—it was just that Bai Ying had never dealt with them before. The store clerk’s little accessories also included suspenders and sock clips, all mixed together, leaving Bai Ying momentarily at a loss.
Qin Juanshu fastened the garter around the spot near the root of Bai Ying’s thigh.
Bai Ying had a slender build, but his thighs carried some plump flesh. The elastic band cinched right in, squeezing out a clear ring of leg meat. The black strap made the leg look even whiter, and that patch of white was all too prone to marking. As Qin Juanshu adjusted the tension, he saw faint red marks where the flesh was pinched.
It had only just been put on…
His fingers brushed lightly over the snowy skin. Qin Juanshu thought that if he used a bit more force, he could leave his mark there.
Qin Juanshu looked up at Bai Ying. “Anywhere uncomfortable?”
He saw Bai Ying’s long lashes quiver slightly, like butterfly wings in the wind. It was the first time he’d ever looked at someone from this angle, but because it was Bai Ying, Qin Juanshu actually found it not bad at all.
“A little itchy,” Bai Ying said softly. “…When you touch it.”
His honesty made Qin Juanshu chuckle. After securing the clip to the shirt hem, Qin Juanshu grabbed another shirt clip.
Skin inevitably brushed against skin in the process, but Qin Juanshu had grown composed—this advantage was his to take. He even gripped Bai Ying’s thigh flesh, admiring his handiwork.
The shirt clips binding those legs were ones he had put on Bai Ying.
“All done?” Bai Ying asked awkwardly. Their position was just too strange. Did the boss really need to go this far for an employee?
“Not yet,” Qin Juanshu said. “Next one.”
At Qin Juanshu’s insistence, Bai Ying sat on the sofa.
He finally understood why Qin Juanshu had sent him to the sofa earlier—Qin Juanshu even planned to put on the sock clips himself! When his shoe was removed and his ankle gripped, even Bai Ying’s self-brainwashing couldn’t make it seem normal. “I can do this one myself!”
Qin Juanshu still held his ankle. Bai Ying’s wrists and ankles were slim, the ankle bones prominently protruding. Qin Juanshu rubbed them gently, like fondling a piece of warm, smooth jade.
Just a light brush or two, and a faint red bloomed there.
Qin Juanshu’s gaze darkened. Bai Ying suddenly didn’t dare meet his eyes, his fingers clutching the sofa’s fluffy cushion. “…I want to do it myself.”
A moment later, Qin Juanshu let out a soft breath. “Fine.”
Deeply regrettable, but he couldn’t push Bai Ying too hard. Bai Ying still didn’t understand anything yet.
The sock clips worked like the shirt ones. The little snake was a bit clumsy but not stupid—he watched Qin Juanshu do it twice and got the hang of it. Qin Juanshu sat on another single-seater sofa, watching as Bai Ying put on the dress socks and fastened the sock clips.
White, white… Ever since entering the changing room, all that white belonging to Bai Ying’s body had been dazzling Qin Juanshu.
But his skin wasn’t bloodless pallor—it was like jade with a hint of color, faint reds and pinks at the joints, his toenails like pale petals fallen at his toes. Qin Juanshu had never imagined he’d stare at a man’s feet like this, even feeling a pang of regret as the black sock covered the snow-white skin.
Bai Ying soon had both sock clips secured. In his mind, the little snake gave himself a round of applause—well, tail slaps, since he was a snake.
Bai Ying stood and pulled on the trousers folded nearby. He checked himself from both sides and felt it was perfect.
“And the suspenders,” Qin Juanshu reminded him.
True enough, there was a long strap still on the sofa armrest.
“Let me do this one. It’ll be inconvenient for you,” Qin Juanshu said.
He’d picked classic trousers with buttons. As he pulled the thin straps out from inside the trousers, the touch at his waist made Bai Ying let out a soft hum. “Itchy…”
Qin Juanshu: “…”
Forget propriety—Qin Juanshu thought viciously to himself: So sensitive like this—what happens if you end up in someone else’s bed? Won’t you just get played until you cry?
Saying it itched wouldn’t make anyone stop; it’d only make them press harder, using faint pain to override the itch, leaving trails of red marks like brands.
His thoughts had strayed far from gentlemanly conduct, but Qin Juanshu’s movements barely clung to his upbringing. Even seeing the straps dig into his chest, he resisted the urge to snap one against the skin.
The shirt felt a bit in the way now.
The mirror took up an entire wall of the changing room. Bai Ying curiously examined his fully kitted-out self in it. After tying the tie, he shrugged on the suit jacket Qin Juanshu handed him. It was black like the ones he’d worn before, but it felt entirely different.
“Qin Juanshu,” Bai Ying asked, “do you always wear all this stuff?”
“Shirt clips usually, the rest not always,” Qin Juanshu replied.
Bai Ying nodded. Surface polish required under-the-hood work—no wonder his old outfits made him look like an insurance salesman.
If Qin Juanshu knew what Bai Ying was thinking, he’d laugh helplessly. Insurance salesman? He looked tender enough like a student fresh in a suit, foolable with a single internship letter.
But now, he was like something he had crafted—a treasure belonging solely to him.
The thought of others seeing Bai Ying like this soured Qin Juanshu’s mood.
Qin Juanshu’s own formal wear had been put on earlier. Once Bai Ying was fully dressed, they could set off—the driver had been waiting a while. The sensation of all those straps binding him felt quite odd, and it wasn’t until they were in the car that Bai Ying barely adjusted to their presence.
He glanced out the car window. It was five in the afternoon, the sun just beginning to set. Did the banquet start this early?
“Where are we going?” Bai Ying asked.
“The suburbs, Willow Mansion on Maple Mountain,” Qin Juanshu said.
Bai Ying had never heard of the place. He searched it on his phone, but info was scarce. He only learned that Maple Mountain was a peak on the outskirts of the Capital City, fairly close to downtown.
As for Willow Mansion, there wasn’t a single mention.
Qin Juanshu sat close to Bai Ying, close enough to see his phone screen with a dip of the head. Bai Ying didn’t hide it from him—they’d read that book together, after all! Qin Juanshu said, “You won’t find anything. Maple Mountain is Zhong Family territory. The whole mountain has belonged to them for centuries, even after the founding of the nation.”
Bai Ying’s eyes widened. “This is the Capital City.”
“Exactly,” Qin Juanshu said. “So you can imagine how much power they wield.”
The Zhong Family might be the nation’s greatest dynasty, spanning politics and business. But Qin Juanshu felt little awe. Leaving aside his reluctant paternal clan, his maternal one was among the south’s elite families—not matching the Zhongs, but no need to tread lightly like lesser houses.
This trip was mainly to network with entertainment industry figures at the Zhong banquet… and to see a certain someone likely to appear.
Bai Ying spotted an inconsistency. “Why’s a house on Zhong turf called Willow Mansion? Shouldn’t it be Zhong Mansion?”
“I wondered that too when I first heard of the Zhong Family,” Qin Juanshu said, lowering his eyes in recollection of his mother’s words. “My mom told me the Zhong Family’s true powerholder doesn’t bear the Zhong name—it’s a man surnamed Liu… The entire clan serves as his retainers.”
“That’s so…” Bai Ying groped for a word. “…Feudal.”
“Indeed. His name isn’t known outside. People heard Zhong retainers call him Mr. Liu, so it stuck,” Qin Juanshu said.
“So bizarre—how can one man control such a massive family?” Bai Ying murmured. “What kind of person is he?”
“Maybe only the Zhong Family knows. Mr. Liu keeps a low profile, like an underground emperor behind the Zhong Family. No photos have ever leaked. Even his age is a mystery—some say he’s young, others that he’s ancient. All rumors, unverified.” Qin Juanshu gripped Bai Ying’s wrist. “Don’t overthink it. Mr. Liu doesn’t appear publicly—you won’t see him.”
Bai Ying wilted. “Seeing the others will be deadly enough. They’re all social elites…”
A plain office drone like him, what virtue did he have to mingle in such lofty circles!
“They’re nothing compared to you,” Qin Juanshu chuckled. “And you’re my plus-one—just stick close to me.”
Bai Ying swore he’d be the perfect vase, no disgrace to the boss.
How could he disgrace anyone? Qin Juanshu figured whoever stood by Bai Ying would draw the whole room’s envy and jealousy.
Bai Ying hypnotized himself into vase mode the whole ride. The car finally reached Maple Mountain. The Zhong Family’s influence was terrifyingly vast—long before the base of the mountain, roads were sealed, only invite-holders allowed through.
Qin Juanshu explained to Bai Ying, “The Zhong Family Head’s sole son has returned from studies abroad. At the banquet, the Head will hand over some power to him, so security’s tight.”
Bai Ying looked at him. “Didn’t you just return too?”
Qin Juanshu knew what he was getting at and laughed. “We’re not in the same country. I don’t know him.”
Once inside the mountain, Willow Mansion was close.
Even invite-holders were stratified—some had to get out midway and walk. Qin Juanshu’s car parked inside the mansion grounds. Still, the main building lay a good distance ahead.
Qin Juanshu had Bai Ying take his arm, leading him through the gardens fronting Willow Mansion. Bai Ying had no time to fret over how intimate they looked—others with their male or female companions did the same. He focused solely on not messing up.
Willow Mansion dwarfed his imaginings, nothing like the ones in Shen City—more like a miniature castle, just with different architecture. Before the towering structure, people felt minuscule. From the roof, those below probably looked like ants.
After showing the invitation, they were cleared. Rows of attendants ushered guests into a lavish, antique hall. The room showed its age but no decay—every inch oozed the opulence of centuries, screaming old-money dynasty at first glance.
Now, even without Qin Juanshu’s nudge, Bai Ying anxiously clutched his arm tighter.
