Chapter 49: Two-Faced Phoenix Man 8 Part 1

Ding-dong, ding-dong—

The delicate wind chimes tinkled pleasantly as they were struck by the glass door.

In the afternoon, the elegantly decorated dessert shop wasn’t crowded with customers. The beautiful glass windows, partially shaded by the building next door, cast a soft patchwork of light and shadow.

The man, dressed in a fitted suit shirt and thin-rimmed glasses, nervously smoothed the wrinkles from the hem of his jacket. He then carefully adjusted his slightly thick hair in the faint reflection of the glass.

Perhaps hearing the chime of the door, he stood up awkwardly on instinct and looked over.

The glass door swung shut behind the newcomer, swaying like a leaf on the water from the momentum, while the sunlight pouring in from outside danced wildly with its motion.

The young man in the pastel pink shirt was shrouded in that hazy glow and drifting motes of dust. Pink suited him perfectly, making his skin look even creamier and as white as jade. The slightly loose shirt draped casually over his elbows and slim waist, accentuating his slender, graceful figure. It was impossible to tear one’s eyes away.

Almost from the moment Jiang Rang stepped into the shop, every gaze in the place subtly lingered on him.

The young man seemed utterly accustomed to it. His dark eyes, slightly downcast, swept the room before settling on the man’s flushed face. After a brief pause, his beautiful lips curved into a faint smile. “Senior.”

The man in the suit shirt grew even more tense. He raised a hand in instinctive greeting, only to realize how stiff and distant it seemed. Caught in that awkward limbo, he lowered his rigid arm and rasped, “J-Jiang… Jiang, junior. You’re here.”

Jiang Rang’s brows furrowed ever so slightly, but the faint crease smoothed away like ripples vanishing on water.

He spoke in a warm, good-natured tone. “Senior, you got here so early.”

The man was so flustered he was on the verge of comically tripping over his own hands and feet. Today marked the first time Jiang Rang had agreed to his private invitation. He’d been preparing since yesterday, rising at dawn to groom himself meticulously, pulling out all the stops to make a good impression.

Jiang Rang was a new member of the Photography Club this year. Handsome and mild-mannered, he kept a certain distance from others, but that did nothing to dim the goodwill he inspired.

The man had never dreamed that the youth who’d once barely acknowledged his existence would one day accept his invitation.

And today, he planned to confess for real.

A proper confession, of course, called for a gift to convey his feelings. To that end, the man had gone out of his way to ask alumni from Jiang Rang’s old high school about the young man’s tastes.

The reaction had been bizarre. Their eyes had turned profoundly strange at the mention of a certain name, and that alumnus had said exactly the same thing as the guy named Chen Ming from his elective class.

“You like Jiang Rang?”

“He’d even give you the time of day?”

Naturally, the man had felt dejected and stung, ready to protest—only for the other to snort with derision, his face darkening. “As someone chasing him, you don’t even know what he likes most?”

“He loves money. Loves a bright future.”

With that, the alumnus had given him a pitying look. “My advice? Stay far away. Don’t come crying when he bleeds you dry.”

The man refused to buy it. To him, Jiang Rang was perfection incarnate—courteous, gentle, endlessly kind. His good temper was so extreme that even when bullied, he wouldn’t fight back.

Their true acquaintance had begun when Jiang Rang faced down a relentless suitor, still offering kind words of consolation. Perhaps it was that excessive patience that only fueled the pursuer’s arrogance; the man had turned into a spurned lunatic. In the end, it was the senior who’d helped Jiang Rang slip away.

They’d been friends ever since.

In the man’s mind, it was fate—something uniquely theirs.

Still, those words had planted a seed of doubt. When picking out a gift, he’d leaned toward the extravagant, not as a test, but because only the finest would suit someone so pure and upright.

His family wasn’t well-off, and the money in his pocket came from two years of scrimping part-time wages. He rarely splurged on himself, but this time he’d mustered the nerve to step into a luxury boutique he’d always avoided, gritting his teeth to drop most of his savings on a classic high-end watch.

They’d barely taken their seats when he eagerly slid the gift box across the table.

Yet Jiang Rang’s demeanor today held none of the eagerness from that day in the classroom, when he’d said he’d think about accepting the confession. He offered only a polite smile, clearly unimpressed by the gift. The gratitude on that lovely face felt skin-deep at best; a closer look revealed a faint undercurrent of boredom and disdain.

Jiang Rang’s dark eyes, gleaming like pools of water, fixed on the nervous man as he smiled. “Senior, may I open it and have a look?”

The man nodded at once, his fingers trembling from sheer tension.

He was clearly too desperate for Jiang Rang’s approval.

Or rather, it wasn’t approval he craved—it was the youth’s love, sweet and intoxicating as ripe honeyfruit, that he yearned for with every fiber of his being.

Jiang Rang idly extended his slender, pale fingers and untied the gift bag.

To be honest, Zhou Yichun had already bought him several limited-edition versions of this watch. It might be an international luxury brand, but after a while, it all looked the same—gathering dust in some forgotten corner of the house.

Jiang Rang was bored out of his mind right now. The destitute senior before him was a dull stepping stone at best, and this ridiculously cheap dessert shop was even more tedious.

In his boredom, a mischievous urge took hold—like toying with a stray dog.

This outdated timepiece had probably cost the poor guy most of his savings, yet from the look of eager excitement on his face, he clearly thought he’d scored a real gem.

The youth lifted the gray strap, his thick lashes quivering faintly. The shadow they cast veiled the disdain flickering in his eyes.

What a… truly lamentable sense of taste.

He didn’t even feel like trying it on.

“Buzz buzz—”

The phone’s vibration cut through the quiet like a grating screech.

Yet when Jiang Rang glanced at the screen and picked up, the cool detachment on his face softened into a slow, curving smile.

It was a deep smile, gentle and stirring, as light and captivating as a breeze.

“Hello? Classmate Chen, what’s with the sudden call…”

Chen Ming on the other end was practically frantic. He caught his breath and blurted out to the oblivious, mild-mannered youth: “Jiang Rang, did you not hear a single word I said last time?”

His voice simmered with barely restrained irritation. “You know how Lu Xiang feels about you, don’t pretend otherwise. Keep your distance from that worthless senior. You have no idea what Lu Xiang’s like—he found out, and he’s already on his way to you.”

Jiang Rang’s smile deepened further. His voice came out soft and puzzled, trailing off languidly. “Classmate Chen, I’m not sure I follow. What does my business with the senior have to do with Classmate Lu?”

“He likes me, sure. But does that mean I can’t be around anyone else?”

“At the end of the day, Classmate Lu and I are just ordinary classmates.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a pair of long, taut hands—veins bulging across the backs—clamped down hard on the youth’s slender shoulders.

Jiang Rang’s heart skipped a beat. He lifted his gaze slightly and found himself staring into a face twisted in a mocking half-smile, radiating raw menace.

Lu Xiang had clearly sped here, his clothes deeply creased, his slightly wavy hair tousled across his ears. The man’s chiseled features were stark and intense; when he fixed those shadowed eyes on you, they burned with reckless arrogance that chilled the blood.

“Jiang Rang.” He leaned down, looming over the youth whose face had gone pale. His voice rasped low. “Say that again. Every word.”

Jiang Rang’s eyelids fluttered. The senior beside him looked stunned by the sudden intrusion. He opened his mouth to speak, only for Lu Xiang’s entourage to swarm from behind, forcing him back into his seat. They seized a dessert cake from the table and jammed it into his mouth, smothering his lips, teeth, and nostrils.

The man stood no chance. Pinned down completely, he choked and sputtered, his face flushing crimson.

A few scattered customers caught sight of the scene and bolted, hastily settling their bills as they fled the shop.

Lu Xiang, however, acted as if nothing had happened. He tilted his head, those bewitching peach-blossom eyes locking onto the youth with unyielding intensity. After a long moment, he broke into a grin and drawled, “Cat got your tongue?”

The youth was visibly terrified. A deep flush stained his pale, thin eyelids, his lashes trembling as crystalline tears spilled freely down his cheeks with every blink.

He shrank back instinctively, his voice hoarse and strained. “Lu Xiang, what the hell is this? Wasn’t humiliating me last time enough? What gives you the right to treat my senior like this?!”

Lu Xiang’s laugh rang out sharp and knowing, his keen brows arching with dark intent. “Jiang Rang, why don’t you ask yourself? Isn’t this precious senior of yours just collateral damage—because of you?”

Jiang Rang’s voice quivered. “What exactly do you want?”

Lu Xiang closed in on the pitiful, quaking youth. He flicked a scornful glance at the desperately thrashing man nearby and let out a derisive huff.

With a subtle flex of his long wrist, he seized the youth’s jaw in an iron grip, forcing his face up.

He drank in the sight of that exquisite, tightly reined expression, waves of thick, cloying fragrance crashing over him—heady and depraved, like the scent of utter moral collapse.

It felt like plunging a razor-sharp blade straight into the youth’s duplicitous heart. But from that festering wound poured no blood—only a demonic, alluring perfume.

Lu Xiang could barely control his expression. He suddenly let out a twisted, abrupt laugh. In the terrified gaze of the man pinned down beside him, he forcefully lifted the young man’s fragile, slender neck.

That pale white neck, veined with delicate blue lines, was breathtakingly beautiful. Raised like an offering in sacrifice, it carried an air of vulnerability laced with seduction.

Lu Xiang buried his face into it.

For an instant, he nearly felt himself drowning in that intoxicating scent, his back erupting in a thousand pinpricks of raw desire.

It was no use. Utterly pointless.

The moment he laid eyes on Jiang Rang, every shred of reason crumbled into ridiculous folly.

He had always treated the other man as nothing more than a toy. Yet seeing him bask in someone else’s affection—standing amid shifting light and shadow, smiling blissfully at another man—felt like his very bones were splintering in agony.

His mind, both clear and clouded, screamed at him: he had to seize him.

Love or not, he needed to cage that exquisite white bird first.

The youth was far too elusive, teasing with faint allure one moment and pulling away with cool detachment the next. He was capricious, silver-tongued, a master at driving people to the brink of madness for him.

So before White Bird could fully spread his wings and soar away—discarding everyone in his wake—he had to lure him, terrify him, claim him by force.

The youth’s struggles were fierce, but Lu Xiang held him effortlessly in his grasp.

Those pink lips parted desperately, and Jiang Rang’s voice trembled on the edge of a quiver. “Lu… Lu Xiang, snap out of it. Let go of Senior first. We can talk this through slowly, okay?”

Lu Xiang drew a silent breath. The face he raised from the youth’s neck gradually regained its composure.

In a heartbeat, he shifted from feral beast back to the polished gentleman cloaked in civility.

Lu Xiang pulled back a fraction. His slanted phoenix eyes were webbed with fine red veins, his lips swollen and vividly flushed.

He fixed his gaze on Jiang Rang, Adam’s apple bobbing as he rasped, “Jiang Rang, I can let him go. But you—you’re coming with me today.”

He had devised the perfect scheme: a way to bind the youth that would make him step willingly into the trap.