A bit of moonlight slipped through the pitch-black window, a gentle streak of white. Gu Zhuoyan held Zhuang Fanxin, one hand on his shoulder and the other around his waist, holding him tightly. The ragged breaths by his ear made him reluctant to let go.

After a long moment, he broke the silence, "You've agreed?"

Zhuang Fanxin's cheeks were flushed red, his trembling lips unable to make a sound. Gu Zhuoyan took his silent stillness as obedience. The hand on his waist moved up, finding his hot cheek, giving it a squeeze, brushing his temple, and hooking his earlobe, full of a scoundrel's playfulness.

He continued to tease him verbally, "How can you be so silly? You don't know if you're straight or gay, you don't understand if you like someone or not. Besides being melodramatic, what else are you good at?"

"You motherf..." Zhuang Fanxin retorted, unconvinced. "I'm also non-mainstream. What part of me do you even like!"

Gu Zhuoyan suddenly said, "That was my first kiss."

He was a novice, yet skilled, making the other person blush with urgency and anger, but then soothing them with a single sentence. The words "first kiss" were like an anesthetic. A tingly numbness shot up Zhuang Fanxin's spine, surging all the way to his nasal cavity before it subsided. He was thirty percent coy and twenty percent embarrassed, and as if introducing himself on a blind date, he replied, "Me too."

Gu Zhuoyan laughed at him. "How could it not be? You're purer than my scratch paper."

Science students were a bit hopeless. White jade, pearls, soft tofu—out of all things, he chose to mention scratch paper. Zhuang Fanxin, always one to fuss over trivial details, probed, "Your lips... are they burned or not?"

Gu Zhuoyan said, "I kissed you that hard, what do you think?"

He hugged him even tighter. Those shoulders, arms, and small ribs were so slender they were almost sharp. Zhuang Fanxin was completely embedded in his embrace. Although there was no skin-to-skin contact, their two bodies were warm enough through their school uniforms.

Neither of them spoke again, just holding each other in silence. Gu Zhuoyan was afraid that if he loosened his grip or shifted even slightly, this dream-like reality would end. He had longed for this for so long, waited for so long, and almost saw it all fall apart and become a joke. It was only with great difficulty that he had finally secured this certainty.

Clang. The front door of the classroom was pushed open.

Zhuang Fanxin was scared out of his wits, not even knowing how he fell off the windowsill. Gu Zhuoyan was also startled. Before he could turn around, he stumbled backward while holding Zhuang Fanxin, knocking over a chair. A beam of light shone on them; it was Head Teacher Feng, standing at the classroom door with a flashlight.

The scene was like an anti-vice raid, the two of them caught in the act of clinging to each other. Gu Zhuoyan shielded Zhuang Fanxin behind him and said calmly, "Good to see you, Head Teacher Feng."

"What's so good about it?" Head Teacher Feng switched on the lights. "What time is it? Why are you hiding in the classroom in the dark instead of going home?"

Gu Zhuoyan explained that they had just finished their homework and were about to leave. Zhuang Fanxin, hiding behind him, nodded like a pestle pounding garlic. Head Teacher Feng stared at them. "And you have to hug before you leave? Huh?!"

Gu Zhuoyan said, "My fault. I didn't know the school rules forbid students from hugging."

Respectfully choking him with his words, Head Teacher Feng's face darkened. "The school rules don't forbid it, but they do forbid excessively intimate behavior! Is it appropriate for two boys to be clinging to each other like that?!"

Gu Zhuoyan said, "Exams are next week. Zhuang Fanxin missed a lot of classes and is worried he won't do well, so I was comforting him." He poked him from behind, and Zhuang Fanxin reacted quickly. "Mhm, mhm, I've never ranked outside the top eighty in our grade, I'm so scared..."

Head Teacher Feng was exasperated, like hating iron for not becoming steel. "Such poor mental fortitude! Will hugging help you do well on the exam? He gives you a hug and you're not scared anymore?!"

Gu Zhuoyan said, "I didn't know how else to comfort a guy, so I just hugged him. Isn't that what the song says? Brothers, give a hug, and speak what's on your mind..."

"You're singing now!" Head Teacher Feng couldn't take it anymore and waved them away. "Hurry up and go home! If you're caught loitering here again, I'll call your parents to come get you!"

The two of them slung on their backpacks and retreated quickly, running out of the Science Building in one breath. Under a streetlight on the path, Gu Zhuoyan used the light to look at Zhuang Fanxin. The blush on his cheeks hadn't faded, two patches of crimson. His lips were swollen from being gnawed on, and they quivered with every breath.

Zhuang Fanxin felt ashamed and even more embarrassed being stared at like that, but a layer of joy floated in his eyes. "That scared me to death!" His tone was also a little excited. "When I saw Head Teacher Feng, I thought we'd have to publicly come out five minutes after getting together!"

Gu Zhuoyan burst out laughing. "Are you being sarcastic?"

"No, no." Clutching his backpack straps with both hands, Zhuang Fanxin looked like an elementary school student. "You really live up to being an experienced gay man. So calm in a crisis, it makes me feel especially secure."

It was the first time Gu Zhuoyan had been praised like that, and it felt a bit strange. He reached out to put an arm around Zhuang Fanxin's shoulder, but Zhuang Fanxin dodged nimbly, saying with a guarded expression, "I seem to be a cautious and conservative gay man." As if acting in a cop movie, he scurried along the edge of the path toward the bike shed after he finished speaking.

'It was hard enough for him to turn gay, it would be terrible to provoke him back to being straight.' Gu Zhuoyan could only go wait by the side of the road, laughing so hard he swallowed a bellyful of the evening wind. They hadn't walked home together for a week. Gu Zhuoyan gave Zhuang Fanxin a ride home on his bike, but as they neared his house, he took a turn and rode into a small park nearby.

The park was quite old; eight out of ten lamps were broken, making it pitch-dark at a glance. Gu Zhuoyan and Zhuang Fanxin sat in a pavilion, able to see only each other's silhouettes. They relied entirely on sound, their breaths and heartbeats mingling together.

Zhuang Fanxin's face was still hot. "What for."

The moment he spoke, he sounded like a little girl, shy and with a hint of coquettish pouting as if asking something he already knew. Gu Zhuoyan was just a young lad himself. He fumbled for Zhuang Fanxin's hand and held it, his Adam's apple bobbing as he said, "I want to spend a little more time with you."

The two of them just stayed like that. Neither had eaten much of their clay-pot rice at lunch, and their stomachs were growling. Several calls came from home, their phone screens flashing on and off, but they ignored everything, just sitting there, dry yet sweet.

Zhuang Fanxin's hand was enveloped in Gu Zhuoyan's palm, warming until it grew sweaty. He wiggled his fingertips, feigning carelessness as he traced Gu Zhuoyan's palm lines. He couldn't help but speak. "These past few days, I've been thinking about what I should do. The more you ignored me, the more I panicked, and the more I panicked, the less I could think."

Gu Zhuoyan said, "There you go again, playing dumb." He exposed him ruthlessly. "You understand your feelings for me, but you're a coward, so you're always conflicted and terrified. When I ignore you, you can't stand it and want to go back to being friends like before. So you dawdle and hesitate, looking pitiful."

This string of words hit him where it hurt. Zhuang Fanxin was so ashamed he could have died. He turned sideways and burrowed into Gu Zhuoyan's arms. Gu Zhuoyan hugged him, stroking his back. He knew he was like that. If Gu Zhuoyan hadn't pushed him today, he really would have dithered until Taiwan was reunified.

After burrowing for a while, Zhuang Fanxin looked up again. "Once I agree, the relationship changes. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to adapt, and that would be so awkward." He suddenly became shy. "I didn't expect to adapt so well. Holding hands, kissing... it's all pretty good."

Their breaths drew closer. Zhuang Fanxin closed his eyes, but before their thin lips could press together, Gu Zhuoyan's phone fell out of his pocket and onto the ground. Both of them bent down to pick it up at the same time. The screen lit up, and a text message popped up.

The sender displayed: Pei Zhi.

Zhuang Fanxin froze. "You have a friend named Pei Zhi too?"

Gu Zhuoyan's eyelid twitched. "...Your friend is my friend."

'What is this situation?' Zhuang Fanxin trusted both Pei Zhi and Gu Zhuoyan, but them contacting each other secretly behind his back was fucking weird! He pretended not to care, but his peripheral vision was glued to the side, his heart itching and his liver scratching with the desire to know what the message said. Gu Zhuoyan picked up the phone, paused, then turned off the screen and stuffed it back into his pocket.

He could have endured it before, but now Zhuang Fanxin couldn't hold back. "Why aren't you looking at it?"

Gu Zhuoyan said, "It's nothing important..."

"Then why do you look so guilty?" Zhuang Fanxin was prepared to break up two hours into the relationship. "Pei Zhi is also gay, and he's good-looking. Are you being greedy, already looking for more?!"

Gu Zhuoyan asked in surprise, "Pei Zhi is gay too?"

It was dark, so he couldn't see clearly. Zhuang Fanxin wasn't sure if Gu Zhuoyan was playing dumb. He said, "He has a boyfriend, from Harvard in the USA." 'How would he know? He was just bluffing.' "Don't get cocky just because you're tall, rich, and handsome. I just turned gay, and I can turn straight again with a whoosh."

He originally had some momentum, but the "whoosh" completely deflated it. Gu Zhuoyan held back his laughter, weighed the pros and cons, and took out his phone to hand it over. "I'm not being greedy, and I'm not being cocky. But if you get angry after seeing this, get angry, just don't turn straight, okay?"

Zhuang Fanxin snatched it, muttering nonstop, something like 'It's none of your business, you should reflect on yourself first.' He opened the chat history and instantly froze. There were only a few messages. The first one was sent on Monday night, the night he went to Pei Zhi's house.

"This is Pei Zhi. Fanxin told me about what's going on with you two." This was the opening.

"Did he ask you to help him reject me?" Gu Zhuoyan had replied at the time.

"Is a self-inflicted misery ploy all you have?" Pei Zhi had asked directly.

"Do you have any advice, big bro?" Gu Zhuoyan was very polite.

"Give him the cold shoulder for a few days and let him think it over." Pei Zhi instructed.

"I understand." Gu Zhuoyan's final reply was, "He hasn't eaten much all day. I'll have to trouble you to take care of him, big bro."

Zhuang Fanxin clutched the phone in a daze. That night, he had told Pei Zhi about the things Gu Zhuoyan said in the little corner. Now, consuming that memory along with this text message, he choked on it. "So when you said you were going to hide from me and all that, it was a self-inflicted misery ploy?"

Gu Zhuoyan sniffled, tacitly admitting it. Zhuang Fanxin shot to his feet in agitation. Give him the cold shoulder for a few days—so this whole week of seemingly ignoring him was actually all planned? Forcing him to take the bait, then suddenly changing his attitude, yelling and lecturing him to provoke him into finally agreeing?

A mix of hard and soft tactics, feigning release to secure a capture.

An inside-outside alliance, a two-pronged attack by two gay men.

The phone screen had already gone dark. Zhuang Fanxin stood in the darkness, stunned, not knowing if Gu Zhuoyan's methods were too good, or if he himself was too stupid. Gu Zhuoyan felt uncertain. He reached out an arm, scooped Zhuang Fanxin up, and settled him in front of him, probing, "Are you angry?"

Zhuang Fanxin said, "I never doubted your words or actions at all. Fuck."

Gu Zhuoyan tilted his head up. "I said I'd hide from you, but how could I really do it? I could hide from you for a week, but could I hide for a month? Let me put it this way: as long as you didn't explicitly reject me, I would have used all thirty-six stratagems to make you agree."

Zhuang Fanxin asked, "And if I had rejected you?"

Gu Zhuoyan answered, "Then I'd have had to use the seventy-two transformations."

The corner of Zhuang Fanxin's mouth twitched, and he couldn't hold back a laugh. He had been so worried and scared these past few days, thinking Gu Zhuoyan would cut ties with him completely. Who knew that Gu Zhuoyan had come up with so many tricks for his sake, his feelings never having changed at all. In his memory, not even the White Bone Demon went to such lengths for Tang Sanzang.

What Pei Zhi had sent just now was: It's about time. I suggest you make your move. Gu Zhuoyan took back his phone and, under Zhuang Fanxin's gaze, replied: "The operation was a complete success." After sending it, he remembered something. "Is his boyfriend really from Harvard?"

Zhuang Fanxin chuckled. "Not sure, I made it up."

Gu Zhuoyan said, "I'm going to apply to Harvard. I can't let you lose face in front of your friends."

Zhuang Fanxin was shocked. The way Gu Zhuoyan talked about getting into Harvard made it sound as simple as grilling lamb skewers. And don't even get him started on losing face—Gu Zhuoyan was immensely wealthy, a great student, and handsome. Besides his tendency to overthink and imagine things, he was practically flawless, and that overthinking was because he had misguided him.

Speaking of studying in the USA, Zhuang Fanxin took the opportunity to confess. "There's another reason I was so hesitant. I'll probably be studying abroad too." 'He had wanted to hide it at first, afraid Gu Zhuoyan would change his mind, but the guy was already talking about applying to Harvard...'

Gu Zhuoyan said, "That's perfect, we'll go together. Even if we don't go together, studying apart for a few years won't kill us."

People have a habit of taking a mile when they're given an inch. Since Gu Zhuoyan was willing to study abroad together, Zhuang Fanxin started haggling over more details. "You have to go home in a year, what about Bond?" He was still being coy, using the dog to declare his intentions.

Gu Zhuoyan knew exactly what he was getting at. "I'll take him with me."

Zhuang Fanxin opened his mouth. "The People's Daily says long-distance relationships never end well."

Gu Zhuoyan said, "I don't listen to the People's Daily's nonsense." He pressed Zhuang Fanxin's body closer with his palm and changed the subject. "I'll listen to you. If you don't want me to go back, I'll stay until after the college entrance exams before I leave."

Zhuang Fanxin's eyes grew hot. He didn't make a sound, but wrapped his arms around Gu Zhuoyan's neck. Imitating what couples do, he cupped the back of Gu Zhuoyan's head with his palm, his fingertips sinking into Gu Zhuoyan's neat, short hair.

The run-down park had no security guard and wasn't locked. They lingered until ten o'clock before heading home. The alley was brighter than usual. Zhuang Xianyang was waiting for his son with a flashlight, and Xue Maochen was waiting for his grandson with a flashlight.

"Why didn't you answer your phones?!"

Zhuang Fanxin stammered, unable to come up with a reason, so he decided to take an unconventional approach. "Dad, I want a new phone!"

Zhuang Xianyang switched off the flashlight. "I suggest you get a new dad!" All his artistic temperament was gone, replaced by anger. He turned and went home without asking for the reason they were late.

Xue Maochen was still waiting at the end of the alley. Gu Zhuoyan said simply, "Go on in."

Zhuang Fanxin went inside, closed the door, and slid the lock, but leaned against the iron gate without moving. When he was little, his parents told him that his name was Fanxin, and that only through hard work could he become extraordinary, and only by being good to others could he be happy. That's why he was nice to everyone. The first time he met Gu Zhuoyan, he was knocked flying. He got up, wished Gu Zhuoyan a happy new year, and gave him a bag of candy. When they met again, he took the initiative in everything, wanting to be Gu Zhuoyan's friend in Rong City.

Later, Gu Zhuoyan was also good to him, but that kindness was different from that of others. It was a bit flirtatious, a bit ambiguous, and gradually made him think about the other person all the time. He couldn't help but worry. During the competition, he asked Qi Nan to take care of Gu Zhuoyan, even calling him 'big bro' when he was actually a month older.

He misunderstood that Gu Zhuoyan liked Qin Wei or Wang Churan, but deep down, he was very resistant to the idea. When Gu Zhuoyan said he was going to confess, he also felt uneasy. He was so shocked on the day of the confession, but what no one knew was that he was secretly relieved that Gu Zhuoyan didn't like them.

He and Gu Zhuoyan had always misunderstood each other. He never expected that even amidst the misunderstanding, Gu Zhuoyan would come to like him, and he would come to like him in return.

The large gate behind him was cold, but Zhuang Fanxin felt warm.

There wasn't the slightest sound of footsteps. Gu Zhuoyan walked up to the other side of the gate. Through the gap in the iron, he said, "Zhuang Fanxin, are you with me now?" There was no sound from inside. He went even further. "Remember to find your boyfriend to do your homework tomorrow."

He enunciated the word "boyfriend" even more heavily than Bond gnaws on a bone.