Moving In

On the surface, Ding Biehan was a trainee who excelled at extreme sports. Before his debut, two clips of his extreme-sports feats, filmed by bystanders, had already set the entire internet on fire.

In the videos, the young man's features were handsome, his bearing cold and aloof. The wind swept red maple leaves across the mountainside as the biracial youth cut through every obstacle in his path, like burning ice given flesh.

The ultimate contrast of fire and frost.

"Life hanging by a thread, yet always clawing his way out of certain death—never compromising with the extreme, never compromising with the pursuit of the extreme!"

Some people liked other things about him.

"Is SOS-bro's waist something I'm actually allowed to look at online?"

In fact, Ding Biehan was an infinite-flow player. At irregular intervals he was dragged into infinite-flow dungeons. In real life, he was also plagued by clinging ghosts and sudden infinite-flow missions.

The two street free-fall videos that had made him famous online were actually clips someone had caught by accident while he was chasing—or being chased by—a ghost in the real world.

Ding Biehan had no feelings whatsoever about his own viral fame. Ever since the accident that left him haunted, he'd developed the cold, unshakable inner core of an infinite-flow male lead. It fit the trope of rocketing to stardom in the entertainment industry disturbingly well, but all he wanted was for other people to stay out of his way.

Someone like him was destined never to form ties with ordinary people.

The day before yesterday, he'd caught an emergency dungeon on short notice and had to beg off with a stomachache, heading for the most out-of-the-way bathroom on the fifth floor. Heaven itself seemed to help him—the wildly popular boy group Team X had dropped by the agency to coach the juniors that day, and everyone had run off to the training room to watch.

By the time Ding Biehan finished the mission, his face was covered in blood. Expressionless, he'd used the electric baton he always kept ready to beat back the ghost that had followed him through the escape gate.

That had made a fair amount of noise, but fortunately the ghost hadn't managed to make a sound.

He'd cleaned himself up and stepped out of the stall. That was when he saw a figure walking out of the restroom.

He had never heard that person enter the bathroom!

Which meant... that person had already been inside for at least ten minutes!

Ten minutes. What had that person seen?

The brief moment of shock cost Ding Biehan his chance to chase the man down on the spot. He braced a hand on the doorframe, eyes dark with suspicion, able to recall only that the man's hair was a bit long and that he wore a purple jacket.

Since the information was so thin, and since he always kept to himself anyway, Ding Biehan never managed to find out who the man was. He asked a few fellow trainees, and none of them had any impression of the guy at all.

But after finishing today's sudden infinite-flow mission, he saw the man again—in the company president's office.

His name was Yi Wan.

He looked bland and harmless on the surface.

His new teammate.

Even when Ding Biehan shot him a cold, piercing look, and their eyes met, the man remained utterly calm and indifferent, as if everything were entirely within his control.

Had he shown up in front of him on purpose?

Neither life nor death, neither ghost nor grave, had ever stopped Ding Biehan's steps. And Yi Wan—Yi Wan could not be allowed to become a liability.

Until —

The faucet still dripped, one drop at a time, catching the evening light like falling beads of blood. Those crimson beads reflected in the twisted, icy glint of Ding Biehan's eyes.

Hemo—

Hemorrhoids?

He stared at the man, unable to find words, wondering whether the guy was playing dumb or genuinely that oblivious.

But the look in Yi Wan's eyes as he returned the stare was, astonishingly, sincere. Ding Biehan could even feel Yi Wan's gaze drifting toward his own hands, a faint trace of concern in his eyes over whether Ding Biehan had washed them properly this time...

That look made Ding Biehan feel —

In this man's eyes...

He wasn't clean.

"...It's true, actually."

Ding Biehan had never once yielded to a ghost.

And yet in that moment, he made peace with his own fate.

"Sorry for being so rough with you just now. But I'd rather other people not find out about my privacy," he added.

"I understand." Yi Wan nodded. "It's like how I don't want people to know I hide in the bathroom all the time to play on my phone. I guess we've traded secrets."

Ding Biehan: What kind of garbage secret is that.

He threw Yi Wan out of the mental red-flag list he kept and was about to let go when he heard Yi Wan continue, "Although I get it, just hiding it isn't enough. Some things come to light eventually no matter what. Forcing yourself to keep it hidden only makes it worse. And since we're teammates now..."

The faint upward tilt at the corners of Yi Wan's eyes seemed to carry some deeper meaning.

Alarm bells went off in his head!

Ding Biehan's grip tightened at once, his face hardening like frost!

Someone heading for the bathroom happened to glance in, saw two young men squared off, eyes red, one pressed against the wall—and bolted in fright.

Yi Wan went on, "So, you should probably eat lighter from now on."

He was, as ever, perfectly bland about it. No anger, no conflict, no fierce resistance—like an NPC passerby who could never trigger any plotline at all.

Ding Biehan: ...

Yi Wan: "I'll keep an eye on your diet from now on. We're teammates now, after all—we have to look out for each other if the group's going to go far."

In that instant, Ding Biehan's whole world lost its color and sound.

...So Yi Wan really was just a passerby.

...An oblivious passerby. With abysmal emotional intelligence, too.

A phone rang. His expression faintly cracking, Ding Biehan let go of Yi Wan's hand and left the bathroom with a strange, hollow sense of loss. Turning back as he answered the call, he saw that a fresh bruise had already bloomed on Yi Wan's wrist.

Yi Wan's wrist was pale, tied with a red string, which made the bruise stand out even more starkly. Yi Wan hung his head, slender fingers rubbing at the spot.

From that little bit of contact, a bruise had already come up.

Something unfamiliar stirred in Ding Biehan's chest in that moment.

That's way too fragile... some other voice in his head muttered, papering over a faint, not-yet-recognized emotion.

Still. He smirked faintly to himself—probably within a few days, Yi Wan would leave the company, just like the other three "fifth members" before him.

After Ding Biehan left, Yi Wan pulled out his phone again. Ignoring the bruise on his wrist, he tapped away at the calculator with flying fingers.

Savings: present.

Budget: present.

Subtract the contract-breach penalty... deep in the negative. Factor in post-debut salary.

...

"...Forget it. The one piece of good news is I can use this chance to save up a bit and outrun inflation."

Beyond that, he just hoped he could get along with his teammates.

No unnecessary misunderstandings.

He had no ambitions at all. All he wanted was to be a safely surviving salted fish.

Before leaving the bathroom, he opened the stall Ding Biehan had come out of.

It was spotless inside. No blood.

...

Yi Wan made it back to his dorm room before sunset.

He lived in a four-person room, sharing with three other trainees.

"...It can't really be because Jiang Bei got kicked out, can it."

"Did he really bully him?"

"Maybe the company just didn't want to keep feeding dead weight anymore..."

"With that face, it's basically a miracle he hasn't debuted after all these years."

"No presence at all... and honestly, that guy's always been weird. Isn't his nickname 'the autistic freak'?"

"My cousin went to the same middle school as him. Said he always joined every competition under the sun and always, always came back with second place. Guess that's just his fate..."

All the chatter cut off the instant Yi Wan pushed the door open.

Yi Wan walked in with his earbuds on, not a trace of extra expression on his face. The other three looked suddenly uncomfortable, heads ducking back down to their phones.

Yi Wan didn't have much on his side of the room, but what he had was kept spotless. A locked diary, a guitar, a sketchpad, a drawing pad, a laptop—all arranged in neat order. By the sunlit spot near the desk sat a potted plant, well cared for and thriving.

His manager, having lost face, predictably hadn't shown up to help—just had someone drop off a few empty cardboard boxes. So Yi Wan turned on a TV show on his phone, put in his Bluetooth earbuds, and started packing.

The TV show was playing the latest news: "Last year's top scorers in the liberal arts and sciences tracks of the college entrance exam in S Province were reportedly involved in a physical altercation at T University. The sciences top scorer, in a fit of rage, reportedly pinned the liberal-arts top scorer against a wall and kissed him, eyes red. High school classmates say the two have always been at odds—longtime rivals."

"The 'canary' idol caught up in the sugar-baby scandal just dropped another bombshell! His former sugar daddy knelt in the rain, eyes bloodshot, voice hoarse: come back to me, I'll give you my life."

"Fu Corporation makes a bold move, dumping all its shares in the An Corporation overnight. Experts can't explain President Fu's behavior—either he has a grudge against the An family, or he's been reborn."

"The young heir of the Fang Corporation announces the dissolution of his engagement to the An family."

Iris5's An Yelin was a member of the An family. This earth-shattering turn of events was surely why An Yelin hadn't shown up at the president's office today to welcome the new member.

Yi Wan quickly finished packing the bulk of his things, leaving only a few scattered odds and ends—like a potted plant.

"Ugh, someone on the forum says they caught Ding Biehan on camera in the bathroom!"

"Ding Biehan, the one the General Administration of Sport keeps trying to recruit?"

"A photo of him using the toilet?"

"Someone saw him gripping a guy's wrist in the bathroom. The guy looked like a trainee too, like there was some conflict between them—looks like bullying... wait, the image loaded."

"Even the golden boy they're grooming for debut has scandals now? This just got good..." the guy said smugly, leaning in closer.

But in the very next moment, he lost his voice entirely, and couldn't tear his eyes away either.

The photo was blurry and hastily taken, but Ding Biehan's knife-cut profile was clear enough. The person he had pinned to the wall, though, was reduced to a blurred shoulder and a single hand.

A wrist, held in the grip of another hand—all sharp knuckles and lean lines.

That wrist was slender, but unmistakably male, and young. Suspended in midair by Ding Biehan's grip, the fingers hung limp, as if trying weakly to grasp at a curtain or a drape, struggling faintly and failing.

The setting sun fell across that wrist, held fast, a red string tied around it. The string burned vivid red, making the wrist look even more slender and fragile, strikingly pale. The owner of the hand—the rest of his body—was swallowed in shadow, which only left more room for imagination.

The sheer tension in the image made Yi Wan's roommates freeze for a second. "That conflict is so— no, that sunset is so beautiful..."

"Holy crap, what is even happening here?"

"Are they about to— no, they're already fighting, but who even is this guy?"

"That hand is unreal..."

"That red string is unreal too..."

"Didn't I hear a rumor that Ding Biehan has kidney problems? He bailed on training again the day before yesterday, and then halfway through another session he suddenly bolted for the bathroom—looked like he couldn't hold it even a second longer."

The topic quickly shifted from Ding Biehan himself to the relationship between Ding Biehan and the owner of that hand. The group buzzed with excited debate, utterly unaware that, behind them, Yi Wan had already sealed up every last box. After pulling out his earbuds, Yi Wan thought for a moment, then pulled a small box out of the last carton.

"Someone anonymously says they finally got dirt on Ding Biehan, been annoyed at his smug act for ages, going to leak it..."

"Fight, fight, but whose hand even is that... holy crap!"

One of the gossiping trainees jumped, startled, as Yi Wan appeared silently right behind him.

Honestly, Yi Wan moved like a cat in this regard—never a sound when he walked. Half the time, none of them even noticed when he left or came back into the room, or passed right by them.

"Um... Yi Wan." The guy forced out a smile, another kind of curiosity sprouting in him. "By the way, your manager came by earlier, dropped off a few boxes, and left. Said you're moving out. Where are you moving to?"

Another roommate, equally eager for drama, patted him on the shoulder since Yi Wan showed no particular expression. "Don't worry, there are better places than this company out there, haha."

"Exactly. Your luck's bound to turn around. Don't take the whole Jiang Bei thing to heart. If you need anything in the future, come find us. Once we debut, we'll hook you up."

What they said on the surface was one thing; what was in their heads was something else entirely. As trainees who hadn't debuted after all this time, they loved to clique up and gossip behind closed doors. Yi Wan never joined in, and naturally, they'd frozen him out in return.

Besides, when it came to competitors, fewer was always better. On top of that, the one roommate who'd been trying to ride Jiang Bei's coattails as a former batch-mate had been needling Yi Wan with passive-aggressive comments for days.

And yet—strangely enough, Yi Wan spent most of his time mentally checked out, but there was a kind of magic to how he checked out. Even completely zoned, he somehow always seemed to be listening intently to whatever was said.

And his simple little "mm"s and "ah"s whenever he did speak always landed with uncanny precision, somehow encompassing every possible shade of meaning, like some kind of counterattack technique. The passive-aggressive roommate never managed more than a few lines before losing steam.

It even made them wonder whether Yi Wan was genuinely zoned out each time, or just faking innocence.

This time, though, Yi Wan didn't say "mm" or "ah"—he just nodded and said, "Yeah, I'm switching dorms."

"Oh, switching companies, that's great, which one— wait, switching dorms?"

One of them probed, "Where are you moving to, Yi Wan?"

"Section B," Yi Wan said.

Section B... that was the dorm block for the group slated to debut!

The three of them froze for a second. Yi Wan added, "Mm... I saw this on my way out, bought it wholesale outside Xiangshui Temple a while back. Brought it out on a whim today—guess something good really was going to happen."

He opened the box, and the three of them stared silently at what was in his hands.

In his hands... was a box of red strings.

A box of red strings, identical to the one in the photo, dozens of them bundled together.

"Here, this whole box is yours. If anyone else wants one, feel free to pass them along," Yi Wan said.

The three of them: ...

After Yi Wan left, the roommates who'd come to see him off stood in a silent row at the door, watching the little car that had come to pick him up.

They didn't look at each other, but without a word, every one of them tied the supposedly one-yuan-each red string around his own wrist. The one who'd tried to mock Yi Wan put his on fastest of all.

Passersby watching them move in such perfect unison might have mistaken them for a pack of oddly festive lunatics.

The festive lunatics, hearts churning with mixed feelings, filed back to their room in a row, each wearing the same tangled expression, each touching his own red string the same way.

...

Yi Wan reached Section B with the help of a cart. The mover, warmed up by the cigarettes Yi Wan had given him, turned out to be friendly and chatty, and asked, "Which floor are you on, kid? I'll help carry your stuff up."

"Building B7, fifth floor," Yi Wan said.

"Oh, Building B7, fifth floor..." the mover said. "Wait, Building B7, fifth floor?!"

The mover's voice shot up a good three octaves in that instant, thick with a very particular kind of unease. Yi Wan said, "If it's hard to deliver, I can just carry it myself. Thanks anyway."

"Ha... haha, no, it's nothing." The mover forced an obviously unconvincing laugh. He stole a glance at Yi Wan's faintly puzzled face and still couldn't hold back his curiosity. "B7... that's the newly renovated building, right?"

"Mm."

"Oh..." The mover gave a dry chuckle. "Have you met your teammates yet? How'd it go?"

"They seem nice. Very genuine. And a few pretty common health issues," Yi Wan said after a moment's thought. "Why, sir? Why ask all of a sudden?"

"Heh heh. No reason. Glad you're getting along."

They got into the elevator. Yi Wan pressed "5," and the elevator began climbing floor by floor. As it passed the fourth floor, the helpful mover suddenly said, "By the way, kid, you've got health insurance, right?"

Yi Wan: "I do. Trainee life is dangerous—wouldn't want to break a leg and have no coverage."

The mover: "Good, good."

The elevator doors opened.

At the sight of the door ahead, the mover looked as if he'd been scalded and fell silent at once. Yi Wan couldn't find where to tap his key card, so the mover pointed off to the side: "Right there."

Yi Wan tapped his card, the door gave a soft beep, and the lock clicked open. Today really was going impossibly smoothly. Not only had he traded secrets and built rapport with a teammate, but even the mover hadn't gotten lost once in Section B's maze of corridors—he'd moved like he'd done this a dozen times before.

Found the card reader on the first try.

"You seem awfully practiced, sir. Like you've delivered someone to this suite a few times before," Yi Wan said.

A bead of cold sweat rolled down the forehead of the mover, who was still forcing out his dry laugh.

He helped Yi Wan carry everything into the living room, then refused even the cigarettes or the cash envelope, and bolted out as fast as his legs would carry him.

Being someone who was easily made happy, Yi Wan felt himself grow just a little happier still.

His first chance at debuting. His first time moving dorms. The mover who helped had even refused a cash tip, leaving him free to go on enjoying his peaceful solo time. His career so far had been free of regrets.

Iris5 lived in the penthouse suite, with a dance practice room and a piano room on the floor below. Since Building B7 was brand new, the whole building was, for all practical purposes, occupied by just them.

"Even if I scream my head off here in the middle of the night, it probably won't bother anyone else," Yi Wan thought, running his hand along the excellent soundproofing material.

Yi Wan's thoughts and speech had always run a little strange. It was, in fact, the very reason he'd once been sent for a psychological evaluation.

The suite had one living room, two bathrooms, and three bedrooms—two doubles and one single. Two to a room, which meant, inevitably, one person would end up alone. Cards on each door listed the room's occupants.

The innermost single was Ding Biehan's. The double on the right belonged to An Yelin and Bo Jiang.

The one on the left was also a double, the card scrawled in bold, flowing characters reading "Chi Jixia," the second line left blank. Just as Yi Wan was about to knock, Ding Biehan walked out of the small room.

The tall, handsome biracial young man wore a loose white T-shirt and leaned against the doorframe. His eyes held nothing but coldness—and the faintest tint of blue.

"We meet again," Yi Wan said.

"Bo Jiang's out, An Yelin's not here. Your room's that one—just go in. Chi Jixia's asleep," Ding Biehan said. "He told me, while he was awake, to tell you to just move straight in when you got here."

"I'll wait outside, so I don't disturb his sleep," Yi Wan said.

"Don't bother, he sleeps like the dead. Don't worry about it," Ding Biehan said flatly. "Oh, and—I'm in this room. Text me on WeChat if you need anything. Don't just knock on my door."

Once he saw Yi Wan nod, he added, "It's not personal. I'm like this with everyone."

There was no longer any trace of that particular focus on Yi Wan that had been in his eyes back in the bathroom.

Inside the double on the left, sure enough, someone lay dead asleep on one of the beds. Ding Biehan helped push Yi Wan's box inside and added, "Don't worry, my hands are clean."

He offered Yi Wan a hand—long fingers, well-defined knuckles, clearly strong.

"I'm not worried," Yi Wan said, nodding.

Ding Biehan: ...

Ding Biehan returned to his own small room, cold as ever, and locked the door. It seemed to be simply how he was—always keeping to himself.

With everyone, without exception.

Yi Wan moved quietly, setting his things into his own cabinet. Once he'd finished organizing the cabinet and desktop, he carefully placed the potted plant in a spot that caught the sun.

Chi Jixia never once stirred.

Chi Jixia had been a child star—entered the industry at four, became famous at eight, a prodigy of rare brilliance. At fourteen, he earned a Best Actor nomination for a film. One critic wrote of him: "That's not the kind of acting a teenager should be capable of—it's as if he's actually lived through war and displacement."

Just as famous as his acting was his likable personality.

Everyone assumed a new star was about to rise. Until, a year later —

One of Chi Jixia's films flopped hard.

After that, Chi Jixia vanished from the screen for two years, quietly exiting at the height of his legend. Rumor had it there were personal reasons, but his team kept it tightly under wraps. At seventeen, Chi Jixia made his comeback. His acting was as brilliant as ever, but he began taking idol-drama role after idol-drama role.

Ordinary ones. Melodramatic ones. Cliché ones.

At nineteen, Chi Jixia had a sudden whim and came to train as a trainee idol. The decision shocked everyone, but he turned out to have remarkable talent for it too, even managing to juggle acting on the side. Two months ago, he'd joined the cast of a weekly drama shooting and airing simultaneously, in a cameo role as the third male lead—a yandere eunuch, younger than the female lead, secretly in love with her—and once again earned rave reviews for his performance.

Yet Chi Jixia's expression as he slept was strange. It kept shifting, as if he were murmuring to someone in a dream. Yi Wan noticed the shooting schedule taped above the bed and saw that tomorrow was Chi Jixia's next day on set, so he thoughtfully tiptoed out, light as a breath.

He sat at his own desk, looking out at the bright sunlight through the window, and opened Weibo. The splash screen was Jiang Bei again.

A young man with dyed blond hair, pale skin, and a soft, sweet smile beamed at him from the screen.

Past the splash screen, over a thousand messages and notification dots popped up all at once. Hundreds, thousands of people had DM'd him, commented on his posts, tagged him—"asking" about the situation in thinly veiled ways, or openly taking Jiang Bei's side.

"Three comebacks and it's still a flop, fate really doesn't want him to succeed. Ugly face, uglier heart—even heaven can't stand to watch."

"I just want to ask—did you really bully Jiang Bei?"

"Is A.T. Entertainment still not going to respond and handle this? Just going to let the bullying slide?"

"Besties, don't leave comments here that'll be used against you later [crying][crying][crying]. Bei-bei's actually really sweet. Wishing the former teammates a peaceful split and good things ahead for both."

"Having fun riding Bei-bei's coattails for clout?"

The last comment was left under an old post of his, from a few months back—a photo of two guitars leaning together, intimate and close.

One of the guitars was Jiang Bei's. Yi Wan rarely posted on Weibo; that particular post had only happened because Jiang Bei had pestered him into it, taking the photo on Yi Wan's own phone.

A former teammate stabbing him in the back, dodging blame for jumping ship, and milking fan sympathy in the process—and somehow it was Yi Wan who'd ended up labeled as the one "riding the coattails."

Anyone else seeing a post like that would have felt their blood boil, but Yi Wan showed no reaction at all.

There was a strange sense of detachment about Yi Wan. Like an isolated entity, untouched by the world around him.

He set down his phone, carefully adjusted the angle of the potted plant, and once he was finally satisfied, opened his camera and took a very decent photo.

This potted plant was something he'd picked up off the side of the road—something like an orchid, but not quite. Its blossoms were a ghastly, eerie white, shaped as if they might bite down on human flesh. When he'd found it, it had looked half-dead, but under Yi Wan's care, it had since become strikingly vibrant and docile.

Yi Wan had some experience with both gardening and photography. Back in middle school, he'd placed second in the city-wide photography competition, and second in the city-wide gardening competition too.

He uploaded the photo. The plant, bathed in the bright daylight outside, framed the full view of the A.T. Entertainment Section B dorms behind it, captioned with a single line: "A new beginning."

After posting it, he gave the plant's head a light pat and didn't bother looking at the new comments loading in.

He studied the stock market for a while, then started memorizing vocabulary words.

A peaceful afternoon. A new job, a new home, new roommates.

Even today, while touching the plant, his fingertips had, for once, felt no sting at all.

Except for the sudden, pained moan that came from behind him.

"Don't leave me... Sister Ji Wan..."

"Wan-wan..."

The voice was shrill and oddly feminine, nothing like Chi Jixia's usual voice. It didn't sound like sleep-talking at all—more like something else had taken over his body.

Ji Wan was, in fact, the name of the female lead in the weekly drama Chi Jixia was filming.

Author's Note:

Honestly, little E is the 'unintentionally savage' type—he's not trying to be mean, he just can't help it (lol)

Turns out little Ding's already got a full set of debuffs you'd expect on a seme: hemorrhoids, rumored kidney problems—so unbecoming of a top (lol)

The final ship isn't within the group—you'll get a hint when the real ship shows up! Though people in the group will have an arrow pointed at E. And no, the ship isn't this potted plant either (lol)