Twelve-ten past midnight.
Pei Zhen’s body couldn’t handle staying up late; he was already asleep. Han Fu had promised to join him soon, but minute by minute ticked by, and he was still sitting in front of the Perfumer’s Workstation, lost in thought.
An hour ago, he’d been trapped in an inescapable cycle of failure.
Pei Zhen had comforted him. “Just do it properly. The day you successfully complete the distillation, we’ll take half a day off and go out to have fun together.”
“Wherever you want to go, I’ll go with you.”
Han Fu had been stunned speechless.
Pei Zhen was also startled by his own words. He felt a bit awkward, as if he’d somehow gotten something wrong…
Weren’t they in an employer-employee relationship, Sugar Daddy and male escort? For an employee, what kind of reward was having to “have fun together” with the boss outside working hours?
That was clearly overtime! A punishment, right?
“Mistake… I meant that when you succeed in the distillation, I’ll give you a bonus, a performance reward, and a day off so you can go out and play by yourself!!”
Han Fu: “…”
It was truly amusing. A joy to behold. The rarest sight ever—he actually got to witness Zhenzhen panicking on the spot, looking utterly mortified.
He couldn’t help silently savoring the sight for quite a while before shaking his head. “Zhenzhen~ I don’t want a bonus. I want you to take me out on a date.”
Pei Zhen exhaled in relief. The look he shot Han Fu even held gratitude. “Then you pick the place. A hot spring resort in the suburbs, or a nearby island. No upper limit. Private beaches, luxury cruises—anything! You choose!”
He finished speaking in one breath, still wearing that awkward expression of “I’m really putting you out, just have to try my best to take you somewhere outrageously expensive.”
Cute. Dense. And heart-wrenching.
Han Fu swirled the test tube, thinking to himself, Sigh. When will he finally understand…
No, no. He shook his head. Mustn’t rush. Patience. He’d already monopolized the person by his side every day, and no one else could snatch him away. Eventually, one day, he’d surely be able to carry him home, right?
“Uh…”
His thoughts were forcibly interrupted because the liquid in the test tube had… sedimented again!
Maddening.
It was nearly one in the morning! He hadn’t successfully distilled even once. Forget any island date—at this rate, what time would he even get to sleep? And how would he face Zhenzhen during the day tomorrow?
The official competition was just over a hundred days away!
Yet he couldn’t even master the most basic distillation skill. This was beyond merely drinking down the horrifying product before him to solve the problem!
He sighed soundlessly, wanting to check the book again to find the root of the problem. Reaching for it, almost by some strange instinct, his hand picked up the book that had been propping up the textbook instead.
“…” Han Fu knew it was wrong.
With less than four months, of course, he should be burying his head in professional textbooks every day. Books like A History of Perfumery… that kind of story-collection-like entertainment—surely it was for reading later when he had free time?
But the more he shouldn’t escape reality, the more he couldn’t stop once he opened this collection of stories.
The thick, hardcover, finely bound volume recorded the various lives of perfumers.
There was the legendary baron who was incredibly prolific his entire life, creating countless intense, rich, distinctive perfume works.
He mingled daily with noble ladies of high society and courtesans from the back alleys of Paris, living a life wildly unrestrained and full of sensual pleasure. Even on his deathbed, he was still murmuring, “I have lived an utterly magnificent life, without a single regret.”
Yet there was also the perfect family man who was low-key his whole life, creating only a dozen or so perfumes, each one a timeless classic. Loving home, loving his wife and children, he privately blended a fragrance of betrothal for his wife, which became an immortal legend passed down to this day.
There were noble heirs from perfumery families striving for excellence, and strong women who rose from common districts.
Some pursued the opulent intensity of decadent luxury; others sought the understated elegance of minimalism. Some adored rose; some favored citrus. Some specially blended tea scents. Others created ocean-inspired, icy-water-inspired, forest-inspired, woody-inspired scents…
And some, beyond just the scent, cared more about the meanings represented by the language of flowers. White roses symbolized purity; small daisies embodied resilience; lily of the valley spoke of luck; cherry blossoms narrated the cycle of life. The perfumers’ design concepts were always wildly imaginative: “Byzantium,” “Dragon and Knight,” “Mechanical Devil,” “Kiss of Death,” “Rose Cemetery”… so many strange and complex themes.
There were rivalries, covert struggles, intimate friends, irreconcilable enemies.
Interspersed with the roaring gunfire of World Wars, a world both fragmented and whole, countless love stories and blood-soaked tears hidden behind the scenes.
……
Condensed within this thick book was a strange, ostentatious world of luxury and fragrance.
Han Fu couldn’t help but feel as if… he was once again seeing Alice’s rabbit hole.
Once upon a time, he’d been a spoiled, arrogant little brat, until someone slapped him awake, and his worldview shattered and crumbled.
The rabbit hole had opened for the first time. Click, click—it was like a part had fallen loose deep within his heart, or a gear stuck for years had slowly loosened.
The clouds parted; everything became suddenly clear.
“So boring~” He remembered that day, Lister standing under the dazzling light filtering through stained glass, sighing with an exaggerated look of melancholy. Han Fu looked at him, as if seeing a reflection of his past self.
Envious, yet also deeply sympathetic.
Envious that Lister still maintained that carefree disregard for everything. Sympathetic because… it seemed he hadn’t yet found that one thing, that one person.
But one day, surely, something or someone would also suddenly burst into his life, shattering his self-righteous confidence. They would take root, sprout, and wildy proliferate smells of temptation and splendid colors in his world. From then on, the world would sway with hidden fragrances, utterly magical.
He would lose his weightless wings.
Just as he became stained with dust, he would also gain previously unimaginable desires and courage. He would know the taste of tossing and turning, yet every single day would also be immensely thrilling.
……
The hour hand slowly made another full circle.
The late night was a bit cold. Fortunately, Pei Zhen’s jacket was still draped over the back of his chair—he’d specifically placed it there for him last night. Faintly, it still carried Pei Zhen’s favorite scent.
The classic Les étoiles fragrance, Ink.
The Top Note was a stunning but fleeting ink scent, mingled with the heavily smoky vetiver from Haiti, a dark and mysterious patchouli, resins, the lingering resonance of white musk, and remnants of lush forests, faint light, and rainwater scent—all exquisitely highlighting the mature man’s mature yet melancholic temperament.
This scent was most suited for a man with stories.
So, it truly suited Pei Zhen perfectly.
In the oppressive darkness of the early morning, he buried his face in the jacket’s scent, unable to pull away. After a moment of silence, he suddenly raised his head, and an unusual light flashed in his eyes.
Suddenly, he wasn’t discouraged or tired anymore.
……
Clearly a fool who couldn’t even master the most basic distillation, yet at this very moment, suddenly plunged into a wildly insane notion—
Han Fu felt that he should be able to try replicating this Ink.
No formula table? No problem. He could rely solely on his sense of smell to precisely deconstruct it. There was no reason he couldn’t deconstruct it—this scent, irresistible from the very first day they met, was intimately familiar to him even with his eyes closed.
Never successfully distilled before? Not a problem.
Hadn’t Zhenzhen just taught him the process? Watch the container walls, watch the flame, pay attention to every second of scent change! His hands might be clumsy for other fragrances, but he wouldn’t fail to create the scent that haunted his dreams every night, the one that made his heart itch unbearably!
Essential oils dripped into the alcohol, creating small, rippling waves.
Musk was crushed and broken apart. Step by step, Han Fu felt he was beginning to understand the meaning behind every word Pei Zhen had ever said to him.
[Think about the things that made you happy, the things hard to forget, all the things you regret and grieve.]
[As you think of them, merge all that happiness, joy, pain, and desire into your creation.]
…How much love, how much wholehearted devotion was needed to say such things?
How much love, how much perseverance was needed to endure so many grievances and pains, yet never change one’s original heart?
But perhaps, precisely because that person had always been so tenacious and stubborn, he also liked him especially…
[Perfume blending is not a precise science.]
[What you seek is not at your fingertips, but within your heart.]
The blue flame of the alcohol lamp flickered.
The various liquids that would inevitably have precipitated at this stage were now flowing orderly, gurgling merrily inside the test tube.
Every spot where failure had occurred again and again—no bug happened at all. It was far from science! Essential oils, test tubes, glass bottles—every compatible or incompatible rich note at this moment fermented and intertwined into metaphysics that defied reason, even a delicate and magnificent sorcery.
Suddenly, those raw materials, those scents—they were no longer something uncontrollable and elusive.
They were all quietly resting in his little bottle, obediently listening to him, not randomly precipitating, not running off.
Nowhere to go.
The more he experimented and adjusted, the closer it approached the ideal scent in his mind. All the passing space and time seemed to freeze.
And only he was crazily grinding, kneading, extracting. Like a clumsy rabbit finally gritting its teeth and jumping down the rabbit hole, glimpsing a landscape once unreachable, utterly intoxicated and enchanted.
“Zhenzhen, Zhenzhen.”
The next morning, Pei Zhen was shaken awake from sleep, confronted by a pair of red, bloodshot eyes that hadn’t slept all night.
“You…”
“I succeeded in making it.” The Little Wolfdog was tinged with excitement, his breathing unsteady. “Although it’s still off by just a tiny bit, I made it! It’s already very close!”
Pei Zhen was stunned.
In Han Fu’s hand was a small glass bottle of clear liquid. No impurities whatsoever, a 100% successful, perfectly passing replica.
Ink scent, tobacco… the achingly familiar fragrance diffused in the air.
It was Les étoiles’ Ink, nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.
Those clumsy little paws that couldn’t even distill properly, after staying up an entire night, had actually managed to replicate it successfully—achieving a tiny miracle, perfectly.
