Chapter 14
After brushing his teeth, Jiang Chaochao had calmed down.
He even looked back at his chat history with Xiang Ye and thought, it was nothing.
Nothing at all.
They didn’t even talk about anything much.
Just some discussion about his lost brooch.
Nothing much.
Xiang Ye asked: “Then did you hope it was the brooch?”
Jiang Chaochao replied: “I wasn’t thinking that much.”
Xiang Ye said again: “I’ll bring it to you next time, I’ll remember.”
Jiang Chaochao replied: “Okay.”
See, how normal. Just a very ordinary, not even qualifying as friends, casual conversation about bringing him the brooch next time.
Jiang Chaochao splashed water on his face, then pumped two squirts of facial cleanser and patted it onto his face.
You! Calm down.
Just then, Jiang Chaochao remembered some online posts he had read about being flirted with by straight men.
Almost all of them were cases of overthinking and wishful thinking. The straight man extended his hand, and the poster happily put a ring on it.
None of them ended well.
Jiang Chaochao in the mirror had his face covered in foam. He spaced out as he rubbed it in, looking at himself.
After a few seconds of quiet staring, Jiang Chaochao inexplicably gave a cold laugh.
After the cold laugh, he smiled helplessly.
Just as he lowered his head to rinse off the cleanser, Jiang Chaochao’s phone rang. It was Xu Hengzhi.
Jiang Chaochao’s wet fingers tapped the answer button, then tapped speakerphone.
“Guess what I discovered!” Xu Hengzhi’s voice boomed from the other end.
Jiang Chaochao wasn’t used to him being so energetic after their quiet drive, he was startled by the sudden outburst. He took a moment to collect himself, grabbed a facial towel, and asked, “What?”
Xu Hengzhi: “Xiang Ye added me on WeChat!”
Jiang Chaochao made a confused sound: “Huh?”
Xu Hengzhi: “Or rather, he accepted my friend request.”
Jiang Chaochao recalled: “What do you mean? Didn’t he disable adding friends from group chats?”
Xu Hengzhi boomed: “Good! Question!”
“Here’s what happened,” Xu Hengzhi began. “I have two work accounts, both in that group chat with Xiang Ye. After the party that night, I needed to contact someone on my secondary work account, so I switched over. After finishing the chat, I saw people talking in that group, so I clicked in to take a look. And then!” Xu Hengzhi suddenly raised his voice, “I don’t know what came over me, I thought I’d try adding Xiang Ye again. And guess what!”
Jiang Chaochao could guess with his toes: “He enabled adding friends from group chats.”
Xu Hengzhi: “Exactly!”
Jiang Chaochao: “And then you added him?”
Xu Hengzhi: “Not so fast,” he thought for a moment. “Well, maybe pretty fast.”
Jiang Chaochao: “What do you mean?”
Xu Hengzhi smiled sheepishly: “Because I was busy at the time, I sent the request, then switched back to my main work account.”
Jiang Chaochao understood: “You forgot about it.”
Xu Hengzhi: “Hey, it wasn’t forgetting, I remembered it now, didn’t I?”
Jiang Chaochao: “It’s been so many days, you remembered it really quickly.”
Xu Hengzhi chuckled, then tsked: “Is that the point?”
Jiang Chaochao: “What’s the point?”
Xu Hengzhi became confident again: “Let me ask you, why would he enable adding friends from group chats?”
Jiang Chaochao: “How would I know?”
Xu Hengzhi: “Damn, don’t you get it yet?”
Jiang Chaochao was puzzled: “Get what?”
Xu Hengzhi: “Let me give you another hint. I just tried adding him again with my main account, and guess what?” Without letting Jiang Chaochao guess, Xu Hengzhi, very urgently, said it himself, “I couldn’t add him!”
Jiang Chaochao seemed to have an idea, but how could he dare admit it, so he said, “So?”
Xu Hengzhi tsked again: “Don’t you get it yet?!”
Jiang Chaochao pursed his lips: “What am I supposed to get?”
Xu Hengzhi: “Isn’t there a possibility that he enabled adding friends from group chats for me? I added him, and then he turned it off.”
Looking at his ears in the mirror, Jiang Chaochao noticed they were a bit red.
How ridiculous.
But Jiang Chaochao only said: “You?”
“Yes, me!” Xu Hengzhi said this with inexplicable confidence. “So why me?”
Xu Hengzhi continued: “I’ve been in that group chat for so long, if he wanted to enable it, he would have done it earlier, why wait until that day?”
Xu Hengzhi continued again: “What happened that day! At the party, what happened! Who did he meet?”
Xu Hengzhi continued yet again: “Tell me yourself!”
Jiang Chaochao didn’t want to pretend anymore: “Heh.”
Understanding the implication behind Jiang Chaochao’s words, Xu Hengzhi instantly boomed: “You think so too, right!”
Jiang Chaochao: “Think my ass, you’re overthinking.”
Xu Hengzhi: “How am I overthinking? Why is it impossible!”
He continued, “How do you think he wanted to add you on WeChat?”
He continued again, “Wasn’t it only through me?”
He continued yet again, “Look, I couldn’t add him at eight or nine that night, but I could when I got back, and now I can’t add him again.”
He continued yet again and again, “There weren’t any new members in the group chat, so what do you think he meant?”
His final, fatal blow: “He wanted to add you through me!”
Stop talking, Jiang Chaochao was already a bit dizzy.
But his last shred of rationality pulled him back to reality.
Jiang Chaochao: “He’s not only in that one group chat, how can you rule out the possibility that he was giving other group members a chance?”
These words were too powerful. The excited Xu Hengzhi on the other end instantly fell silent.
Xu Hengzhi: “You’re being difficult.”
“Just being realistic,” Jiang Chaochao thought for a moment, and then delivered another blow to Xu Hengzhi, “You also said you only discovered today that he accepted your friend request. There were so many days in between, how do you know when he turned it off?”
After he finished speaking, Jiang Chaochao heard Xu Hengzhi take a deep breath.
Jiang Chaochao also fell silent.
Right, made sense, didn’t it, you punk.
They were silent for a few seconds, then Xu Hengzhi spoke again: “That doesn’t mean my deduction is wrong.”
Jiang Chaochao was amused by Xu Hengzhi: “How narcissistic would I have to be to agree with you?”
Xu Hengzhi disagreed: “What do you mean? Why not? Although Xiang Ye is handsome and excellent, I think he’s still a bit beneath you.”
Jiang Chaochao laughed: “You’re really bold.”
Xu Hengzhi said seriously: “What, I’m just telling the truth.”
Jiang Chaochao: “Okay, okay, okay.”
Jiang Chaochao then thought of another point: “According to you, he could have just added you directly, why go through all that trouble?”
Xu Hengzhi was very confident about this question: “Oh! I can explain that. He probably didn’t know which account was mine. He didn’t work with me directly, we didn’t usually interact.”
Jiang Chaochao was deflated: “Fine then.”
Xu Hengzhi: “So?”
Jiang Chaochao: “So what?”
Xu Hengzhi: “How does it feel to be liked by Xiang Ye?”
Jiang Chaochao was speechless: “You’re crazy.”
Xu Hengzhi laughed even harder: “It’s not impossible, right? Oh right,” Xu Hengzhi remembered, “Didn’t you two go on a date today? How was it?”
Jiang Chaochao: “Date my ass, we didn’t go on a date.”
Xu Hengzhi: “So? What did you do today?”
Jiang Chaochao thought for a moment, then confessed honestly: “Went to buy a birthday present for his niece. He hadn’t eaten dinner so we had steak together, then went home. That’s it.”
Xu Hengzhi: “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
Jiang Chaochao: “Just shut up.”
Xu Hengzhi: “Hahaha, fine,” he then whispered quickly, “I still think he likes you.”
Jiang Chaochao: “Shut. Up.”
Xu Hengzhi laughed: “What are you so afraid of?”
Jiang Chaochao: “What do you, a straight man, know.”
Xu Hengzhi: “Okay, okay, okay.”
Jiang Chaochao: “Anything else? I’m going to take a shower.”
Xu Hengzhi said “oh”: “One more thing.”
Jiang Chaochao: “Say it.”
Xu Hengzhi: “I haven’t found out if he’s gay yet.”
Jiang Chaochao was speechless: “Then what’s the point of mentioning it?”
Xu Hengzhi really enjoyed being scolded, laughing heartily on the other end: “It’s not easy to find out, but I’m working on it.”
Jiang Chaochao: “You may leave.”
Xu Hengzhi: “As you wish, my lady.”
Jiang Chaochao: “Get lost.”
Jiang Chaochao entered the bathroom after hanging up the phone.
He was already overthinking things, and then Xu Hengzhi called.
Great, now he was overthinking even more.
Xu Hengzhi was really crazy.
Jiang Chaochao, you are even crazier. His rational mind clearly analyzed that Xu Hengzhi’s words were all nonsense, but his heart kept thinking, what if it was true?
What if?
It was true that Xiang Ye was the one who initiated adding him on WeChat.
It was true that Xiang Ye was the one who suggested meeting.
And the things Xiang Ye said.
And the things Xiang Ye did.
So agonizing.
Jiang Chaochao tried to convince himself that it was all nothing, very normal, while uncontrollably overthinking and his heart racing.
If it was all true…
Then Xiang Ye, liked, him?
Thinking of this, Jiang Chaochao smiled to himself.
He tilted his head back, letting the water from the showerhead wash over his face.
What was all this about?
Next time they met, he might as well bring a ring and put it on Xiang Ye’s finger.
Seriously…
