Xie Guan successfully scared off his own amorous daydreams through sheer imagination. He grabbed his pen and practiced his calligraphy for a while, scribbling like a ghost drawing talismans, and managed to give Huo Mingjun's elegant and dashing signature the spirit of the modern abstract school. After writing, he picked it up to examine it for a moment, feeling very satisfied with himself. He then put down the pen, stretched, and said, "You probably didn't have a good dinner. Want a late-night snack?"

Huo Mingjun glanced at the wall clock and saw that less than fifteen minutes had passed since he sat down. He figured this one wouldn't have been a worry-free child in school either, and shook his head with a smile. "ADHD."

Xie Guan said righteously, "This is called being lively and active."

"Yes, and you're also young," Huo Mingjun chimed in. "You're still growing, so you need to supplement your nutrition. Does your agent know you eat late-night snacks at ten o'clock?"

Putting on a fierce front, Xie Guan slapped the table. "Cut the crap. Are you eating or not? One word!"

Huo Mingjun: "Eating."

The two looked at each other and hit it off immediately, happily going downstairs to cook.

According to the health doctrines passed down within the Huo family, dinner should be light and sparse, one must not eat before bed, and things like late-night snacks were a cardinal sin. Huo Mingjun had lived under such rules for twenty years, and coupled with the fact that he himself didn't have strong culinary desires, he was basically insulated from things like late-night snacks. Even if he was often out for social engagements and barely ate anything for dinner, he would at most heat up a glass of milk for himself after returning home. Because no one would prepare it for him proactively; if he needed something, he had to call an auntie to make it fresh, and the enthusiasm for eating would have long since been worn away during the process of finding someone and waiting.

Xie Guan's cooking skills were not necessarily any better than the auntie's, who had been cooking her whole life, but Huo Mingjun had always loved his dishes, and by extension, he began to look forward to the late-night snack as well. What was important wasn't that sip of soup or bowl of rice, but the unique "special effort," which signified that even as midnight approached, he was still treasured and tucked away carefully in someone's heart.

"I saw bone broth in the fridge. How about a bowl of wontons?"

As expected, Xie Guan was much more at ease in the kitchen than in the study. He fished out a few shiitake mushrooms and a handful of small scallions from the refrigerator, then found a pack of ground meat. Huo Mingjun came in to help him wash the vegetables, and Xie Guan didn't stop him. The two stood side by side at the counter, one a CEO and the other a star. From their image to their temperament, nothing about them resembled a househusband, yet the atmosphere was inexplicably harmonious, giving off an indescribably warm and intimate feeling.

The meat filling was marinated with sugar, salt, light soy sauce, and five-spice powder, then mixed with chopped scallions and shiitake mushrooms. Xie Guan quickly rolled out the dough wrappers and cheerfully taught Huo Mingjun how to wrap wontons. The bone broth came to a boil, and when the lid was lifted, a large cloud of warm white steam billowed out. Seaweed and dried shrimp danced in the bubbling soup, and the dark color of the meat filling was faintly visible through the thin wonton skins. A few minutes later, they were ladled out. A small pinch of green cilantro was laid at the bottom of the white porcelain bowls. With the white broth, green leaves, purple seaweed, and red shrimp, the delicate and plump wontons floated in the bowl. Their appearance was simple, yet their fragrance was tantalizing, hooking one's senses strand by strand.

Each with a bowl, they ate face to face, completely content.

Although something like a late-night snack was sinful, it also brought an unparalleled sense of happiness. The hot soup soothed not only a rumbling stomach, but also all anxieties, awkwardness, and anxieties; the hesitant, unspoken words of indecision, and the subtle, lingering, and hard-to-explain emotions.

The heart is hard to touch, the stomach is easy to conquer.

Xie Guan probably never would have guessed that the first time he made Huo Mingjun have the thought, "Living like this for a lifetime would be pretty good," wasn't due to his talent and face, nor was it due to fate or reckless devotion. It was, surprisingly, just an ordinary, steaming hot bowl of wontons late at night.

This foodie.

After they had eaten and drunk their fill, they returned to their respective rooms. Xie Guan had stayed in the master bedroom last time, but this time he moved into the guest room. He had just sat down by the bed when he heard a knock on the door outside. He called out, "The door's unlocked."

Huo Mingjun pushed the door open and entered, wearing a deep blue silk robe and carrying a round, chubby... crab.

Xie Guan couldn't help but burst out laughing. Huo Mingjun pinched one of its claws and held the thing up in front of him, asking with a twitching corner of his mouth, "How did it get onto my bed?"

"Sorry," Xie Guan said apologetically. "It's a gift from a fan. I took my eyes off it for a second, and it ran off on its own legs." As he spoke, he reached out and pinched the small, thin legs sticking out of the pillow, saying innocently, "See, it has eight legs, after all."

Huo Mingjun was rendered speechless by his childishness. Heaven knows what a shock he'd gotten when he pushed open the door to see a pink crab pillow squatting brazenly on his pillow, smiling with a look of blissful intoxication. And the culprit even had the gall to ask with ill intent, "Surprised?"

To have guarded his chastity for thirty years, only to have his bed crawled into by a crab. Where could one even go to complain about this?

Huo Mingjun's gaze passed over Xie Guan's shoulder, and in his peripheral vision, he caught a glimpse of half a light-grass-green crab pincer by his bed. He then looked down at the sakura-pink one in his hand and suddenly got the hidden meaning. His anger immediately vanished.

Not only was he not angry, he even felt that while his Crab Fans could be unreliable with their words sometimes, their actions were extremely thoughtful and meticulous. They were truly a bunch of understanding little angels.

Xie Guan pinched the crab's other pincer and said, "Don't you like it? It's so cute."

"..." Huo Mingjun gave a reserved cough and said hypocritically, "I've never put things like this on my bed. You should keep it. Isn't this one a pair with the one on your bed?"

He was just waiting for Xie Guan to say "we'll each take one," so he could logically get a matching couple's item. Who knew that this blockhead's focus would be skewed again? He waved the pincer at him. "If you haven't, you can start getting used to it now. It's not like it's going to molest you, what are you afraid of?"

Huo Mingjun: "..."

He was afraid that if he continued talking to Xie Guan, he'd be too choked with exasperation to sleep tonight. Swallowing his anger, he carried the crab and prepared to return to his room. Xie Guan was still talking behind him, "Be careful, don't pull its pincer off."

Huo Mingjun took a deep breath, tucked the pink crab under his arm with a dark face, and left.

"Tsk tsk tsk, so haughty," Xie Guan said as he returned to his bed and rolled around while hugging the grass-green crab. "His mouth says no, but his body is very honest."

The next day's schedule originally consisted of only a magazine cover shoot in the afternoon. He happened to run into Wang Ruolun and Li Yan, who were shooting at the same location. The three of them were acquainted but had never been formally introduced as a group. So after the shoot ended, Wang Ruolun found a place, and the three of them drank and chatted happily until late into the night.

Around twelve o'clock, Lin Yao suddenly called him, adding another item to his schedule: an indoor cooking show called《Super Hubby》. The original guest was a new little fresh meat Lin Yao had just signed, but unfortunately, he had a sudden bout of acute appendicitis on the eve of the show and had just been sent to the hospital for surgery. The show had certain requirements for the guests' cooking skills; a basic level like scrambled eggs with tomatoes wouldn't cut it. Among the company's male artists, not many could cook, and even fewer had outstanding culinary skills. Fortunately, there was Xie Guan, a brick to be moved wherever needed. He was supposed to attend a charity gala the next night, which was the main event of this trip back. He should have been resting and preparing his look, but since Lin Yao herself had come to him, Xie Guan found it hard to refuse and had no choice but to agree.

When he told Huo Mingjun about it that night, Huo Mingjun stopped tapping on his keyboard and asked, "The Red Square Gala? Is the organizer the Sun Family of Taihe?"

Xie Guan didn't know who the "Sun Family of Taihe" was, but he understood the first part. "Yes, the Red Square Charity Gala."

"Then that's easily solved," Huo Mingjun said as he casually resumed typing. "I happen to be going tomorrow night as well. After you finish recording the show, come find me at the company. The clothes and stylist will be prepared on my end."

"You're going too?" Xie Guan asked, puzzled. "Why didn't you mention it before?"

Huo Mingjun: "I just decided."

Xie Guan: "..."

Lacking confidence, he said, "Mingjun, you really have the potential to be a fatuous ruler..."

Xie Guan had expected him to fire back a few verbal shots to dismiss his "wishful thinking," but Huo Mingjun didn't deny it. He just gave him a deep look.

That one look was silent yet earth-shattering, exploding into a huge cloud of ethereal confusion and vague unease. That familiar feeling of his heart clenching returned.

No matter how straight or slow on the uptake Xie Guan was, he wasn't a fool, after all.

He remembered everything Huo Mingjun had done for him, every word and every action. Even between friends, there should be a limit to how nice one could be. This act of changing his schedule just for a word from him, this almost unconditional indulgence, had clearly crossed a line.

But Xie Guan didn't feel the anger of having his boundaries crossed, or any disgust. He didn't even focus much on the issue of sexual orientation. He was simply stunned by the guess "Does he like me?", completely immersed in immense bewilderment and disbelief. But this wasn't a negative emotion; it even concealed a bit of an "oh, so that's how it is" realization, as well as a slight feeling of things falling into place as if it were meant to be.

With a heart like dead ashes, he thought, "What can I do? I'm also very desperate..."

He walked back to his bedroom in a daze. He was already going to bed late, and after such a huge shock, he couldn't sleep at all. He only managed to get a hazy two hours of sleep around dawn, and came downstairs for breakfast with huge dark circles under his eyes.

Huo Mingjun was startled by his haggard appearance. He came over and cupped his face to examine it closely. "What's wrong? Didn't sleep well or are you hungover?"

Xie Guan's mind was full of worries, and the sight of him just made him want to sigh. Startled by Huo Mingjun's sudden touch, he overreacted, instinctively taking a step back and creating distance between them.

Huo Mingjun's hand froze in mid-air.

Xie Guan clearly saw a flash of astonishment in his eyes. The disbelieving look seemed to slice open a small, bleeding wound on his calm expression.

A pang went through Xie Guan's heart, as if pricked by a tiny, invisible needle.

Without thinking, he grabbed Huo Mingjun's hand, feeling as if he had mustered all the quick-wittedness of his entire life in that one moment. "Don't touch, I haven't washed my face yet..."