The ultimate goal of an office worker is promotion and a raise. Jiang Xu had originally wanted to be promoted to team leader, but it seemed quite unrealistic at the moment. Unless he could get rid of Gu Qingzhou. Job hopping was even more out of the question; all the rival companies in this area knew each other inside and out. Jiang Xu was afraid he'd be treated as a spy if he went over.

He finished his takeout on a bench downstairs from the company, sighing for a while over his bleak career prospects. He dawdled until the lunch break was over before finally going upstairs. But before he even entered the office, he saw Li Si'ao sitting at his desk, waving at him from a distance. "Jiang Xu, Manager Gu wants to see you in his office."

If you switched out a few words, this sentence had the same destructive power as the often-heard 'Jiang Xu, the head teacher wants to see you in their office' from his school days.

Hearing this, Jiang Xu subconsciously wondered if he had done anything wrong recently. The answer seemed to be no. He pinched his nose, walked over, and leaned against a desk partition to ask, "What does he want me for?"

After all these days, Li Si'ao could probably tell that he and Gu Qingzhou didn't get along. He scratched his hair and said, "He didn't say, but he must want you for something. You'll know when you get there."

'It's probably nothing good,' Jiang Xu thought. He stuck one hand in his pocket and pondered for a moment before walking to the office door. He knocked twice. After hearing a deep voice say "Come in," he pushed the door open and entered.

The moment he entered, Jiang Xu shivered from the blast of cold air from the air conditioner. The AC was on outside as well, but the temperature in Gu Qingzhou's office was clearly lower; even the desk, chairs, and sofa were steeped in coolness.

Jiang Xu sat down in the leather swivel chair opposite Gu Qingzhou. Touching the icy armrest, he subconsciously glanced at the AC temperature setting.

From the moment he entered, Gu Qingzhou hadn't given him a single proper look. He held a thick stack of blueprints, methodically flipping through and organizing them, the papers rustling. "What, are you cold?"

Jiang Xu didn't answer. Spotting the AC remote on the corner of the desk, he picked it up and raised the temperature a little. He didn't believe Gu Qingzhou had called him in just for idle chit-chat, so he waited calmly for the other man to make his move.

Seeing Jiang Xu ignore him, Gu Qingzhou narrowed his eyes and tossed the stack of blueprints he had just organized in front of him. "These are the plans for the Huaji Hotel. Li Si'ao and the others are short-staffed, so you'll assist them."

Jiang Xu didn't have any clients of his own at the moment; his current responsibility was just to follow the construction team and monitor their progress, so he had plenty of time. But he had a feeling Gu Qingzhou wasn't being this kind, so he didn't agree immediately. Instead, he pointed at himself and asked for confirmation, "Me?"

Gu Qingzhou rested his elbows on the desk, his fingers interlaced, hiding the lower half of his face. Jiang Xu could only see a meaningful emotion flash through his dark eyes. "I heard from Manager Luo before that he planned to promote you to team leader. I looked at your performance reports, and your sales volume is indeed quite good."

Hearing this, Jiang Xu wanted to say something but didn't. He just shifted his sitting position.

Seeing this, Gu Qingzhou slowly leaned back in his chair. "I don't like to force people. If you're unwilling, I'll have Wu Yang do it."

As he spoke, he reached for the blueprints.

The workplace is far more complicated than one might imagine. Even classmates in the same class can dislike each other, let alone colleagues in a company. Wu Yang happened to not get along with Jiang Xu. They didn't show it on the surface, but only they knew what their private relationship was like.

You only get a commission if you take an order, especially for such a large project; it would be foolish to refuse. With quick eyes and fast hands, Jiang Xu pressed down on Gu Qingzhou's hand as he tried to pull the documents back. He was about to speak but paused for a second at the cold temperature of the back of the other's hand.

Jiang Xu said, "I never said I was unwilling."

After speaking, he released Gu Qingzhou's hand and instead pulled out the thick blueprints from underneath. He gave them a quick glance, thinking to himself that the workload was indeed quite large. Just as he was about to get up and leave, he remembered something and hastily recalled his runaway manners. "If there's nothing else, I'll head out first."

Gu Qingzhou didn't look at him, just gave an emotionless "Mm."

After Jiang Xu left, the office was so quiet that for a moment, only the hum of the air conditioner could be heard. Gu Qingzhou sat in his chair, maintaining the same posture, and didn't move for a long time.

He still had that 'keep your distance' air about him. No one could enter his heart, and naturally, no one could glimpse his emotions or his past.

Having just arrived, there were many things to get a handle on. After pulling several all-nighters in a row, Gu Qingzhou was extremely exhausted, yet he tossed and turned, unable to sleep due to the anxiety that shadowed him year-round. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples, finally unable to hold on any longer and slumping onto the desk for a short nap.

From the day he returned to Hai City, he couldn't stop himself from remembering many people and things he had deliberately forgotten. For example, the oldest camphor tree at Hai Cheng High School, the rusty basketball hoop on the sports field, the tall school building, the nagging head teacher, and...

And Jiang Xu...

Gu Qingzhou dreamed of the time when he had first started pursuing him.

The teenage Jiang Xu was utterly wicked. Wanting to be his brother wasn't hard; wanting to be his boyfriend was as difficult as reaching the heavens. After all, the only things he was interested in besides money were fighting and messing with people for fun. His emotional intelligence was completely undeveloped.

Gu Qingzhou was the one being messed with.

Jiang Xu had never taken his affection to heart.

On the school rooftop, you could see a sky as blue as if it had been washed clean. Sunlight poured through the clouds, bathing one's body. It was clearly warm and gentle, yet it made people afraid to look directly at it. Jiang Xu casually draped his school uniform jacket over his shoulder, intermittently bouncing the basketball in his hand. This was his response to Gu Qingzhou's confession.

He tilted his head slightly to look at Gu Qingzhou. The cross earring he wore flashed faintly as it refracted the sunlight. When he narrowed his eyes, he somewhat resembled a wolfdog. "Take back what you said, and I'll pretend I didn't hear it."

Gu Qingzhou didn't speak. The hand in his pocket clenched and unclenched, covered in a thin layer of sweat. He was wearing a white t-shirt, his teenage body tall but frail. He gazed down at the bustling sports field below, where people came and went and the trees provided lush shade. The clamorous noise felt unreal in his ears.

Seeing his silence, Jiang Xu seemed to lose his patience. With a flick of his wrist, the basketball slammed down heavily by Gu Qingzhou's feet, then bounced high, grazing past his ear and hitting the tiled wall behind them, before the force of the impact sent it rolling back to Jiang Xu's feet.

Jiang Xu bent down to pick up the ball, muttering to himself, "Damn it, I'm not even into guys. Confessing to me is just being a hooligan."

Gu Qingzhou still didn't speak. In fact, he kind of wanted to laugh, though he didn't know why.

Someone below shouted for Jiang Xu to come play basketball. Not wanting to linger on the rooftop, Jiang Xu turned to go downstairs without even looking at Gu Qingzhou, but was stopped.

"Jiang Xu—"

Gu Qingzhou's voice was very steady. His Adam's apple bobbed as he expertly concealed a slight tremor. He didn't know what Jiang Xu liked, or how to make Jiang Xu like him, so he could only resort to a very clumsy and direct method.

He blocked Jiang Xu's path. His hands were clenched tightly behind his back out of nervousness, hidden from view. The hair on his forehead concealed his distinct black and white eyes, which held a silent quality. With his chin slightly raised, he pursed his lips in a way that was both proud and humble and said, "...Don't you like money? Give me a chance to pursue you. I'll give you all my money."

Hearing this, Jiang Xu's interest was piqued. He looked him up and down. "For real?"

Gu Qingzhou's eyes darkened. "It's real. So I hope you'll seriously consider what I said today."

Jiang Xu thought for a moment, his eyes bright and full of youthful energy. "Alright. It's the weekend tomorrow. Wait for me at the basketball court, and I'll give you my answer."

After he finished speaking, he seemed to be in a hurry to go play basketball. He turned and left, his figure quickly disappearing around the corner of the stairs. Only Gu Qingzhou remained, standing silently in place. After an unknown amount of time, the bell for class rang, and only then did he return to the classroom.

That night, he tossed and turned, imagining many different answers, but in the end, he still couldn't figure out what Jiang Xu was thinking. He got up in the middle of the night and counted the small amount of allowance money he had saved up for a long time, wondering, 'If I give it all to Jiang Xu, will he like me?'

Unfortunately, he never got an answer to that question.

Gu Qingzhou waited for him at the basketball court for an entire day, from sunrise to moonrise, but he didn't see even a shadow of Jiang Xu. Only later did he realize he had been tricked.

After being tricked the first time, there was a second, and a third. Even when Jiang Xu later agreed to be with Gu Qingzhou, it seemed it was only to have a convenient errand boy to order around—copying his test papers, making him help with homework, and then dragging him along to skip class and play video games.

It seemed as if from that moment on, this relationship was destined to be nothing more than Gu Qingzhou's one-sided wishful thinking. Even though he had forced the issue and gotten what he wanted, in the end, they could only go their separate ways.

This nap was filled with bizarre dreams from which there was no escape. Gu Qingzhou's hand twitched, and he finally woke up. The faint hum of the air conditioner was in his ears, and the sight that met his eyes was just the silent, empty office.

He closed his eyes. His arm was a bit sore and numb. The clock on the wall was pointing to closing time. Gu Qingzhou picked up the jacket draped over his chair and, for once, didn't stay to work overtime. He headed downstairs, and by the time he passed through the outer office, there were only a few people left.

Not far from the company building was a road. Stray dogs always nested in the green belt, sometimes wagging their tails as they crossed the crosswalk to forage for food near the trash cans.

Seeing this, Gu Qingzhou paused his steps toward home and instead went to a store to buy a bag of dog food. He casually tossed his expensive suit jacket onto a roadside bench, poured out some of the food, and squatted down, beckoning to a white-furred dog not far away. The dog seemed to smell the food and hesitantly approached, but for some reason, it walked away again.

Gu Qingzhou frowned at this and subconsciously wanted to check if he had bought the wrong kind of dog food when a familiar voice suddenly sounded from above his head.

"Yo, you must be the legendary 'dog-ignored' one."

"..."

Gu Qingzhou subconsciously looked up to see Jiang Xu on a bicycle, one foot on the ground, stopped nearby. He had no idea when he'd arrived. His face was full of mocking amusement; he had likely witnessed the entire thing.

Gu Qingzhou gave him an icy glare but said nothing. Then he stood up, picked up his jacket, patted off the dust, and the atmosphere around him grew heavy.

Jiang Xu had always wondered why Gu Qingzhou, who clearly liked small animals, had such terrible luck with them. Today, he finally found the reason. When the guy's face darkened, he looked like a giant iceberg. Even he was scared just looking at him, let alone a dog.

Thinking this, Jiang Xu glanced back at the white-furred dog, whistled, and beckoned with his finger. After a moment's hesitation, the dog actually trotted over slowly under Gu Qingzhou's silent gaze.

Jiang Xu burst out laughing at the sight, yet it wasn't an annoying laugh. For a fleeting moment, time seemed to reverse and overlap with the past, and he was that high-spirited teenager again. "Gu Qingzhou, your people skills are terrible. Even dogs don't like you. Look, it came over as soon as I beckoned."

He added, "Didn't you want to feed it? It's here now, go ahead."

Gu Qingzhou ignored him. Instead, his expression unchanging, he smoothed the wrinkles on his cuffs. "Do you know a certain saying from the Strategies of the Warring States?"

When Jiang Xu was in school, he was never biased toward any subject; his grades were equally terrible in all of them. Hearing the question, a look of scholastic bewilderment flashed in his eyes. "What saying?"

Gu Qingzhou glanced over casually. Seeing the white-furred dog wagging its tail and circling Jiang Xu, looking quite friendly, he nonchalantly withdrew his gaze and uttered eight words: "Birds of a feather flock together."

"..."

Jiang Xu got the message. Gu Qingzhou was insulting him. He gripped his handlebars with a devil-may-care attitude, recklessly dancing on a minefield. "What's that got to do with anything? You hung out with me for three years in high school. How do you account for that?"

'If I'm a dog, don't you bother being human either.'

Without waiting for the other to react, he rode off on his bicycle in a flash. Gu Qingzhou stood where he was, his cool eyes slightly narrowed as he watched his retreating back with a dark expression.

The author has something to say:

Author (cupping chin): I'm really worried you'll be fired tomorrow for stepping into the company with your left foot first.

Jiang Xu: ...