The first thing Xiao Zhan did when he returned to his room, was change his shirt. Unable to keep the smile off his face, he quickly switched the earlier beige grey to a clean white, but after sniffing his jacket, left it unchanged. Afterwards, he went to the kitchen, and just as he was retrieving some steamed buns from the fridge, his father came in. "Just in time," Xiao Zhan said. "I was going to come ask you if you wanted dinner yet?" "What were you chuckling to yourself ab

"Are you alright?" Yibo murmurs, his voice a fragile thread as he searches Xiao Zhan’s eyes. One moment, Xiao Zhan’s expression is strained, and in the next, he’s laughing softly. "What?" Yibo mouths again, severely anxious. "You should see your face," Xiao Zhan replies. "Why are you so worried?" Yibo’s lips tremble. "I don’t want to hurt you." "Am I so fragile?" Xiao Zhan reaches out affectionately, brushing Yibo’s hair away from his face. Yibo kisses Xiao Zhan on the lips,

Eight years later, as Yibo stands outside the Rosewood Hotel in complete silence, the cold night air claws at his skin. His phone is still pressed to his ear, the producer’s words hacking through him like a saw. “He made the case go away. The student had all the evidence stacked against him. There was no way he could escape imprisonment, so Xiao Zhan called the chairman.” Back then he’d simply thought he was lucky. The evidence was judged to be insufficient and inconclusive,