There were actually quite a few people eating dinner at this hour. But most tourists visiting South Boundary wanted to try the local specialties, not hotpot—something you could find in any city.
So by the time Jiang Mian and Chen Gu arrived, the hotpot place still had plenty of empty tables.
As usual, the two of them took a booth in the farthest corner.
Jiang Mian was born and raised in South Boundary and couldn’t handle spicy food well. Chen Gu didn’t like spicy food either. So once again, with seamless synergy, they ordered a non-spicy broth. Their preferences for ingredients were almost identical.
As Jiang Mian wiped his hands with a hot towel, he couldn’t help thinking that eating with Chen Gu was, in terms of food, a perfect match.
The meal passed without any major ripples. The only issue was that when Jiang Mian got back to the guesthouse, showered, got into bed, and prepared to review a few more legal statutes before sleeping, he discovered that Chen Gu hadn’t accepted his money transfer.
A bad premonition rising, Jiang Mian thought: “…”
Hopefully, he was overthinking it.
—
The next morning.
Jiang Mian woke up naturally to his punctual biological clock. He wasn’t the type to laze in bed, but every time he sat up, he needed a moment to “reboot” his system.
Sitting on the bed, he held the back of his neck and spaced out for a while before sluggishly getting up to wash.
It was Saturday, and the crowds were even bigger than last night. Jiang Mian actually felt a bit reluctant to go out. If Chen Yishen’s plan was to spend the whole day running wild outside… he would probably refuse.
He sent a message in their three-person group chat to say he was awake. Neither Chen Yishen nor Zhou Yuhui responded. Jiang Mian wasn’t in a rush; he figured he’d go get breakfast first.
And then he saw Chen Gu coming back with his easel on his back.
Jiang Mian paused. Chen Gu brushed back his sweat-dampened bangs and gave a soft laugh. “Morning.”
Only after Jiang Mian slowly nodded and returned the greeting did Chen Gu ask, “Had breakfast yet?”
Jiang Mian honestly shook his head. Chen Gu then said, “Can you wait for me a moment? Let’s go together.”
Before Jiang Mian could get his refusal out, Chen Gu added, “The roads around here are a bit complicated. I almost got lost coming back just now, and Chen Yishen isn’t picking up his phone.”
He pressed his palms together in a pleading gesture, a hint of difficulty appearing in his brow. “I don’t want to go alone.”
Jiang Mian: “…”
In that moment, he really cursed himself for always being so soft-hearted.
Because under Chen Gu’s pitiful words, he unconsciously nodded.
And then he watched as Chen Gu’s lips curved up. He turned back toward his room and, just before closing the door, said, “I’ll take a quick shower. Ten minutes.”
Chen Gu said ten minutes, and it was ten minutes. He didn’t make Jiang Mian wait a single extra second.
He came out in a fresh set of casual clothes and asked, with an easy familiarity, “What do you feel like eating?”
Jiang Mian had a touch of decision paralysis. “I’m fine with anything.”
“Then how about rice noodle rolls? On my way back, I saw a rice noodle roll shop that also sells braised radish and beef offal.” Chen Gu tilted his head. “I want to eat that.”
Jiang Mian’s eyes also brightened.
He wanted braised radish and beef offal, and he also wanted rice noodle rolls. The problem was: “If I can’t finish, it’ll be wasteful.”
Chen Gu curved his eyes. “No problem. We can share.”
Jiang Mian moved his lips. The words of refusal still couldn’t make their way out.
Just treat this as what normal friends do, he told himself. Maybe this would dispel Chen Gu’s interest in him.
—
The shop Chen Gu mentioned wasn’t far, and because it was still early, there were seats available.
On the way there, Chen Gu casually mentioned that he’d gotten up early to hike the mountain and paint the sunrise.
Jiang Mian mentally calculated what time you’d need to wake up in the height of summer to climb a mountain before sunrise. He felt a surge of genuine respect for Chen Gu.
He might have a biological clock, but he truly couldn’t manage waking up that early just to hike and watch a sunrise.
He’d die of exhaustion.
Jiang Mian nodded firmly to himself.
Jiang Mian ate fairly slowly. So halfway through the meal, Chen Yishen and Zhou Yuhui also came by looking for food.
Chen Gu had messaged Chen Yishen to tell them where they were. By the time Chen Yishen and Zhou Yuhui arrived, Chen Gu was holding his bowl, unhurriedly dividing a large bowl of braised radish and beef offal into another bowl.
Chen Yishen said, “Jiang Mian, let me tell you—on the way here, we saw Song Wen and the others. What a coincidence. He and Haozi came over here for a mixer with the neighboring Performance Department.”
Jiang Mian didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded to show he’d heard.
Chen Yishen was about to say something else when he saw his brother push the divided portion of radish and beef offal in front of Jiang Mian.
Jiang Mian reflexively said thanks, then paused.
Chen Yishen found it a bit surprising.
He’d known Jiang Mian for so many years… and never seen him share food with anyone.
But he was happy for both his brother and Jiang Mian.
Because his brother didn’t have many friends, and Jiang Mian didn’t have many friends either. One was his biological brother, the other his best buddy. Them getting along was a good thing.
So Chen Yishen grinned. “Speaking of which, Bro, how come you and Jiang Mian ended up having breakfast together?”
Chen Yishen might have had the emotional intelligence of a brick, but he wasn’t an idiot. He could tell that Chen Gu actually wasn’t that keen on making friends. When Song Wen and the others asked him to call his brother out to play ball, Chen Gu had refused. When he sent “DingDong” friend requests to Song Wen and the others on Chen Gu’s behalf, Chen Gu hadn’t accepted them either.
Chen Gu didn’t answer immediately.
He pulled out a napkin and wiped a bit of broth that had splashed onto the table before speaking, his tone utterly nonchalant. “We’ve actually gone out together before.”
Chen Gu lowered his eyes, the shadow cast by his raven-feather eyelashes veiling the look in his eyes. “Come to think of it, the milk tea shop and cookie shop Jiang Mian picked out were both really good. I thought we just had similar tastes in BBQ, but turns out it extends to milk tea and cookies too. Even hotpot—we have the exact same taste.”
Chen Yishen completely missed any deeper meaning in those words. He just asked, cluelessly, “Hey, why didn’t you guys call me?”
It was Zhou Yuhui beside him who gave Chen Gu a slightly odd look, laced with a bit of uncertainty.
The way Chen Gu said that… why did it sound so much like he was telling Chen Yishen, “The friendship between you and Jiang Mian isn’t actually that special”?
And Jiang Mian, who had been eating a piece of radish, paused. He finally understood what all of Chen Gu’s earlier actions had been leading up to.
It had all been waiting for this.
At that table of four, there were eight hundred schemes at play—with Chen Yishen being the only one in the negative numbers.
Jiang Mian didn’t speak throughout the entire exchange. Zhou Yuhui, who had sensed something, glanced at her clueless boyfriend and didn’t say anything either.
The conversation at the table was basically just Chen Yishen babbling on. Chen Gu only responded a few times when directly called upon, and even then, it was lazy and indifferent.
By the time Chen Gu finished eating and waited with Jiang Mian for Chen Yishen and Zhou Yuhui—who had started later—to finish, he leaned back in his chair, sucking on the last dregs of an iced mung bean drink. He looked at Jiang Mian sitting across from him, gaze lowered at his phone, and felt, for some reason, a faint prick of irritation.
He’d schemed for so long, and now that the net was starting to close, he should be feeling satisfaction.
Was it because Chen Yishen was just too thick-skulled?
Or…
Was it that he didn’t actually want to make Chen Yishen upset as much as he’d thought?
Otherwise, why had he hesitated just now?
Why hadn’t he said the rest of what he’d planned to say?
Chen Gu raked a hand through his half-dry hair. His gaze, shifting downward, caught Chen Yishen’s knee about to bump against his, so he subtly shifted his leg inward, dodging any possible physical contact.
But that small movement inadvertently made him stretch his leg forward, and the tip of his shoe lightly nudged the tip of Jiang Mian’s shoe.
Jiang Mian paused. He lifted his eyes to look at Chen Gu.
His expression was calm, his willow-leaf eyes clear and cool, as if no different from usual. But Chen Gu could just feel it… he was angry.
And that one look from Jiang Mian inexplicably ignited the smoldering irritation inside him, like thick smoke about to suffocate him entirely.
It had been a long time since Chen Gu had felt this agitated.
The last time was when he was sixteen and his father brought a new mistress home and told him—for what felt like the hundredth time—to call her “Mom,” making that naive college student, barely two years older than him, giggle incessantly.
Later, it wasn’t that things stabilized; it was that Chen Gu, expressionless, sold off several of that bastard’s most prized collectibles and simply moved out. Out of sight, out of mind.
But the feeling this time was different.
Jiang Mian looked at him but didn’t speak.
Chen Gu’s intuition hadn’t been wrong. He was, indeed, a bit angry.
The two silently stared at each other for a long while. Just as Jiang Mian was about to lower his eyes, Chen Gu, driven by some inexplicable impulse, spoke first. “Sorry.”
Jiang Mian paused. Chen Yishen, sitting next to Chen Gu, looked bewildered. “Huh? Bro, what’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.” Jiang Mian’s speech was, for once, half a beat faster as he cut in before Chen Gu. “He accidentally kicked me.”
Chen Gu didn’t say anything.
Chen Yishen believed it, fool that he was.
After they finished eating, Chen Yishen finally figured out what to do next. “It’s too crowded. Let’s not go out. The guesthouse boss told me yesterday that they set up a small escape room. He asked if we could test it for them.”
Chen Yishen looked at Jiang Mian. “Lawyer Jiang, what’s your verdict?”
When it came to escape rooms, Chen Yishen was hopeless. But Jiang Mian was an expert in this field.
His brain was good, and he had patience. Back in class, when they’d done escape rooms for activities, Jiang Mian was always the one carrying the whole team.
Jiang Mian had no objections. “Anything’s fine.”
So it was decided.
The escape room the guesthouse boss had set up was indeed on a very small scale—just two rooms. The initial entry room had some fairly narrow passages in places that only one person could pass through at a time.
The boss hadn’t thought of a name for the escape room yet. As they went in, the boss lady smiled and said that if the four top students were willing, they could help them brainstorm a name while they were at it.
The lighting in the first room was somewhat dim. In the center was a large platform displaying many broken and damaged sculptures, all firmly fixed to it—likely to prevent anyone from taking them.
On the surrounding walls hung various oil paintings. Under the orange-yellow glow of the lights, they seemed oddly eerie.
This wasn’t one of those escape rooms with a storyline. It was purely a puzzle-based escape.
They received no narrative. The room contained no story elements whatsoever.
Nothing could even be moved. The only interactive object was the combination lock hanging on the second door.
Whenever Chen Yishen and Zhou Yuhui entered an escape room, their contributions were minimal. The couple was especially prone to getting sidetracked—they were already off discussing which sculptures looked like what. Jiang Mian hadn’t expected any help from them.
His focus was entirely on the oil paintings.
However, as Jiang Mian moved around the room with his eyes tracking the paintings, he rounded a corner and came face-to-face with Chen Gu in a narrow passage only wide enough for one person, who had been inspecting the other side.
They stopped in front of each other. Up until now, they’d had zero communication.
Chen Gu assumed Jiang Mian would just ignore him and go around the other way, especially since Jiang Mian was still radiating visible “I am angry” signals.
But Jiang Mian calmly spoke. “Please move.”
Chen Gu moved his lips. “My side has 970.”
Jiang Mian nodded, said “Okay,” then turned around, went to the door, spun the combination lock, and opened it.
Still enthusiastically discussing with Zhou Yuhui what the central sculpture might look like and whether it was a clue, Chen Yishen: “…”
He stared blankly at the two people who had silently cracked the code. “You solved it already??”
Jiang Mian didn’t speak. Chen Gu explained, “Look at the sculptures—some have colors on them. The frames of the paintings have notches along the edges. Divide each painting into four quadrants from the center, then find the mismatched pigments on the painting and check the corresponding numbers. On the combination lock, ‘x’ comes first, then ‘+’. Multiply, then add. Then just arrange them in order based on the sculptures’ heights, either ascending or descending.”
Chen Yishen: “…”
With deep sincerity, he said, “Bro, tell me honestly—did you steal the brain that was supposed to be mine when we were in Mom’s belly?”
Chen Gu laughed a little but ultimately didn’t engage with that overly familiar joke. Yet he didn’t say anything further, either.
He just looked at Jiang Mian’s retreating back and, for some reason, had a fleeting thought…
It seemed like Jiang Mian wasn’t angry on behalf of Chen Yishen. And it wasn’t because he’d been used, either.
Then what was it?
