Fu Yanzong woke to the warm afternoon sunlight streaming in.
He lifted his eyelids and stared into the sunlit air for a beat, too slow to speak before the soft rustle of fabric announced an ice-cold kiss pressing against his jaw.
Song Linyu nestled in his arms, half his face buried in the soft sheets, only a gentle curve of his profile visible. His blinks and breaths came in slow, halting rhythms, like some especially lethargic, silent pillow. The moment he noticed Fu Yanzong stirring awake, he silently leaned in for a kiss and a nuzzle.
Fu Yanzong let out a soft chuckle, his way of showing satisfaction with this soothing good-morning kiss that chased away his morning grumpiness. He rested his face on Song Linyu’s shoulder again, eyes half-lidded in lazy contentment as he murmured, “I want to sleep more.”
He was fully awake by now, but Fu Yanzong still voiced his habitual complaint about getting out of bed.
Song Linyu wouldn’t dream of rushing him. He simply murmured softly, “Then sleep a little longer,” before unobtrusively settling deeper into Fu Yanzong’s embrace and unlocking his phone screen.
Song Linyu had woken a bit earlier than Fu Yanzong, roused by a series of faint vibrations from incoming messages. He had slipped out of bed to grab his phone from the nightstand, checked the notifications, then slid right back into Fu Yanzong’s arms without a word.
His biological clock and restless emotions made it hard for Song Linyu to sleep soundly during the day. If he hadn’t been utterly exhausted from the night before, with not a scrap of energy left, he probably could have stayed awake all day.
But in Fu Yanzong’s arms, Song Linyu never had nightmares.
Now, he was pulling out his phone to handle work.
Dongyu’s workload was enormous, and Song Linyu never fully delegated uncertain tasks to anyone else. It was no wonder his employees griped about him being a control freak or a demon king—those were the usual dramatic nicknames thrown around.
At this moment, he calmly logged into the company’s internal software to lurk in the daily meeting chat. He tapped approve on plans he liked and shot down the unsatisfactory ones with a quick X. Even just leaving his name hanging there unspoken exerted a strange, oppressive pressure.
“President Song, you’re so mean,” Fu Yanzong drawled, lowering his gaze with deliberate slowness.
Song Linyu’s phone screen was right there in plain view. Fu Yanzong just had to shift his eyes a little to see it. The Dongyu group chat was flooded with woebegone rat memes, captioned: Life is suffering. Boss, have mercy.
Song Linyu had been about to type a stern reply—unqualified is unqualified—but Fu Yanzong’s comment made him slam the phone face-down against his chest in a panic. He snapped his gaze up, his voice small and guilty as he explained, “I’m not being mean…”
It wasn’t exactly mean, just strict. Otherwise, no one would dare spam memes in the chat to slack off and sneak an early end to the meeting.
“Really?”
Fu Yanzong drew out the word with feigned doubt, his tone teasing.
Song Linyu hurriedly set the phone aside and grabbed Fu Yanzong’s wrist where it rested across his body. He rubbed it pitifully for a moment before dryly stammering an excuse: “I just—I only wanted—”
Fu Yanzong suddenly dipped his head and planted a kiss on the nape of his neck.
Song Linyu’s body went rigid on instinct, his fingertips curling slightly. Just as he opened his mouth, he felt Fu Yanzong casually nudge his chin against the top of his head. In a light, offhand tone, Fu Yanzong said, “It’s fine.”
“I actually like seeing it, Song Linyu.”
He didn’t need Song Linyu to be sweet and obedient or playfully coquettish every moment. Serious, ruthless, or icy cold—it was all fine. As an actor, Fu Yanzong knew better than anyone that people had more than one side, so he didn’t mind Song Linyu’s other facets.
As long as they were real.
Song Linyu froze, instantly grasping the meaning behind Fu Yanzong’s words. A complicated expression crossed his face as he gently pressed his palm against Fu Yanzong’s wrist bone. Emotions churned in his eyes, and in a voice as solemn as a vow, he whispered, “I know.”
I won’t hide from you anymore. Even if it’s not perfect, it doesn’t matter.
The weight in that earnest tone sent a tingle through their touching skin. Fu Yanzong’s lips curved slightly as he plucked the phone from Song Linyu’s hand and flipped it over to show him.
Suppressing a laugh, he said, “Yeah, very clever… but darling, I think I should point out that you might’ve tapped the wrong thing just now.”
In his flustered haste to hide the phone, Song Linyu’s finger had swiped the “send recommended emoji” button in the chat box.
And then—
Song Linyu: “Woebegone rat furiously chugs three vials of rat poison.jpg”
AAA Admin Xiao Zhang: “…”
AAA Admin Xiao Zhang: “Horrified rat drops to its knees.jpg”
Marketing Drone or Die: “Woebegone rat drops to its knees.jpg”
Payday? Don’t Care: “Woebegone rat drops to its knees.jpg”
The entire Dongyu group chat exploded with shocked, gleeful rat memes. Meanwhile, in countless department subgroups, everyone agreed: President Song must’ve snapped and developed a split personality from those trash proposals.
Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Gotta nail today’s tasks.
Song Linyu: …
He slowly buried his face in Fu Yanzong’s chest.
Fu Yanzong chuckled muffledly and prodded his pale cheek.
“Bad cat poke poke.jpg”
/
At four in the afternoon, Assistant Xiao Sun pushed open the villa door and spotted his boss casually eating noodles in the first-floor living room.
Fu Yanzong had thrown on a jacket, his eyelids half-lowered as he twirled pasta onto his fork. A golden runny egg sat beside it, yolk slowly oozing over the edge amid rising steam. It looked utterly mouthwatering.
Sun Jiayang greeted Fu Yanzong cheerfully, then scanned the room suspiciously. No lingering staff in sight. He whipped back around, stunned. “Brother Fu… y-you—you can cook now?!”
He plopped down across from Fu Yanzong, dramatically wiping away nonexistent tears. “The Heartthrob Game crew is terrifying. They pushed our Brother Fu to this in just one day. No wonder Brother Cheng insisted I bring you back and told me not to freak out.”
“You’ve really been suffering, bro—”
Sun Jiayang’s dramatic tones echoed through the empty room. Mid-head-bob for emphasis, he froze—locking eyes with Song Linyu, who stood silently on the stairs, head tilted as he watched.
In an instant, Sun Jiayang’s neck snapped back like a startled turtle.
Can’t blame him for being jumpy; the scene was downright eerie.
Sun Jiayang had always viewed this President Song—who existed only in news reports and seemed utterly unapproachable—through a filter of intimidation. And there Song Linyu stood in the shadows, his dark hair deep and mysterious, eyes icy cold. His face was stark white, almost translucent, devoid of any other color. Unlike the glamorous stars of the entertainment world, he exuded a thick, chilling gloom that demanded respect and caution.
Sun Jiayang’s playful banter evaporated. He straightened up formally and stood. “G-Good afternoon, President Song. I’m Brother Fu’s personal assistant—”
He barely got “personal assistant” out before it twisted oddly in his mind. In that moment, Sun Jiayang finally clocked why Song Linyu seemed extra off today.
The man’s jacket zipper was pulled all the way up, covering his neck completely. The cuffs were rolled twice, pushed high to keep the slightly oversized sleeves from slipping, revealing a slender, pale wrist.
It was obvious at a glance: this jacket wasn’t Song Linyu’s size. And as Fu Yanzong’s personal assistant, Sun Jiayang belatedly realized it looked like his boss’s.
He desperately winked at the calmly noodle-munching Fu Yanzong.
But Fu Yanzong clearly had no time for his little show.
Instead, Song Linyu descended two steps and said evenly, “Personal assistant. I know you. No need for introductions.”
…There it was—that scalp-tingling chill down his neck!
Sun Jiayang shot to his feet and retreated two steps from Fu Yanzong’s side in one fluid motion. Fu Yanzong let out a lazy laugh without looking up, asking casually, “All washed up?”
“Yeah.”
Song Linyu’s expression softened instantly. He curved his eyes into a smile at Fu Yanzong and sat down beside him.
When they got up, there had still been remnants inside Song Linyu’s body—messy enough that one wrong move could turn him into a cream-filled pastry. Sure, in a certain sense he was happy to keep it there and it hadn’t overflowed yet, but the risk of fever was a physiological fact he couldn’t ignore.
So when Fu Yanzong repeated his instruction to shower, after Fu Yanzong finished cooking, Song Linyu had obediently gone off to clean up.
It was only in the shower that he noticed the marks on his neck were glaringly obvious. With no turtleneck to hide them, Song Linyu hesitated in front of the mirror—until he spotted Fu Yanzong’s jacket already hanging on the rack.
Fu Yanzong had left him clothes before, too.
The thought made Song Linyu smile to himself as he slipped into the jacket and padded downstairs in slippers. But the moment he reached the stairs, he overheard Sun Jiayang’s heartfelt greeting—and that inescapable “our Brother Fu.”
Logically, there was nothing wrong with the words.
But Song Linyu still found them very wrong.
While Fu Yanzong was still asleep, Ji Cheng’s calls had come through five or six times. To avoid waking the man bundled in the sheets, Song Linyu had simply muted Ji Cheng and set him to Do Not Disturb.
Ji Cheng waited forever for a reply. He pushed up his glasses and suddenly, as if struck by divine inspiration, dug Song Linyu’s number out from the depths of his contacts. In utter silence, he tentatively sent six dots.
Ji Cheng: “…”
Ji Cheng: “You hung up?”
Pesce: “What else?”
Pesce: “I’m just curious who else you thought it could be. No ulterior motive—just wanted to say hi.”
Ji Cheng: “.”
Ji Cheng: “Whatever. This afternoon, I’ll have Sun Jiayang go pick him up. He should be awake by then, right?”
Pesce: “No idea.”
Pesce: “Also, next time outside work hours, can you not call him directly?”
Ji Cheng: “? It’s work hours now.”
Pesce: “I mean 7 a.m.”
Ji Cheng silently cursed “damn gay couple” behind his screen. Out of sight, out of mind, he deleted the chat window. After a moment’s thought, he very kindly added two more precautions for Sun Jiayang:
One: No matter what you see when picking up Fu Yanzong, don’t act surprised.
Two: Keep your presence as low-key as possible.
Because the guy’s got issues.
Of course, Ji Cheng had no idea what kind of impact his 7 a.m. call had caused. In a certain sense, Song Linyu flying off the handle a little was perfectly understandable.
But in the pure and simple worldview of Sun Jiayang, the most earth-shattering, thunderous, world-ending event he could imagine was Fu Yanzong personally cooking up a gourmet feast that looked, smelled, and tasted amazing—not him and Song Linyu holed up alone in a room, exchanging flirty glances and playing borderline R-rated games like “I’ll wear your jacket after bed.”
Not to mention that Sun Jiayang remembered how, at first, Fu Yanzong wouldn’t even pick up Song Linyu’s calls. The two of them had given off vibes like they’d rather die than interact.
So Sun Jiayang turned his head and gazed at his boss with wide, hopeful eyes, praying he’d say something pure and wholesome like, “We’re just best friends who buried the hatchet!”
But Fu Yanzong merely lifted his gaze calmly. With excessive gentleness, he tilted his head toward Song Linyu. “You should introduce yourself to him too.”
“Okay.”
Song Linyu agreed without hesitation. Then, right in front of Fu Yanzong, he turned and flashed Sun Jiayang an exceptionally mild smile.
The light spilled across his face, casting a quiet fan-shaped shadow from his long lashes onto his lower eyelid. It lent the smile an extra layer of nuance.
Song Linyu paused for a beat, then spoke with utmost seriousness. “As you can see, I’m currently pursuing Fu Yanzong.”
Sun Jiayang shifted his gaze to Fu Yanzong in disbelief.
Fu Yanzong met Sun Jiayang’s eyes with mild puzzlement.
A half-second of contemplation later, realization dawned. He gripped his fork with perfect composure and reassured Sun Jiayang. “Don’t worry. When he finally catches me, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
Sun Jiayang: “…”
“Rat rat kneels.jpg”
