Chapter 11
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When Liu Cheng woke up that morning, he immediately sensed something was off. He was used to having someone else in his bed, but he was certain that now he wouldn’t just let anyone in—and as for the only person he would allow, it seemed unlikely they would end up there. Yet, he was wrong.
For several minutes, Liu Cheng simply stared at Sun Chen, who was sleeping beside him. Sun Chen wasn’t a particularly neat sleeper; he curled up, taking up most of the bed, with his face buried in Liu Cheng’s arm. The warm breath on Liu Cheng’s arm made it hard to tell whether it was heating up or tingling.
Liu Cheng double-checked to make sure this was his room and that he hadn’t somehow ended up in Sun Chen’s bed after a night of confusion.
They had both had too much to drink last night, so if he had crawled into the wrong bed, it would be understandable. Then again, if Sun Chen had gotten into the wrong bed, it would also be understandable—though it wouldn’t necessarily mean Sun Chen actually wanted to sleep with him.
Not knowing when he would get another chance to be this close to Sun Chen, Liu Cheng carefully adjusted his position, lying back down and pressing his nose into Sun Chen’s hair, which, despite not being washed the night before, still carried a faint, clean scent.
They lay together like this for who knows how long before Sun Chen groggily woke up. He turned over onto his back and, likely due to a hangover, held his head and groaned.
Liu Cheng couldn’t keep pretending to be asleep, so he sat up in bed. He didn’t have the acting skills to feign surprise at finding Sun Chen there, so he started massaging Sun Chen’s temples instead. “Are you okay?”
Sun Chen shook his head while lying on his back, his eyes closed, and then he said something unexpected: “I dreamt about our past.”
Liu Cheng froze.
Objectively speaking, he couldn’t help but wonder how Sun Chen had managed not to punch him after remembering everything.
Sun Chen opened his eyes, propping himself up on one elbow and turning to look at Liu Cheng. “We were once together on a rock in a rushing stream, weren’t we?”
Liu Cheng couldn’t find his voice, so he silently nodded.
Sun Chen continued in a soft tone, “I remember now. You pushed me off that rock, and that was the moment I fell in love with you.”
This time, Liu Cheng was even more speechless, faced with a truth he never could have anticipated.
Too many thoughts swirled in Liu Cheng’s mind all at once, making it impossible to process them. He thought about how, at that time, he had been having fun with Gu Qingqiu in Sun Chen’s tent.
He thought about what might have been if he had cherished that moment.
He thought about the scene in the conference room when Sun Chen left after being forced to resign, without even looking back at him. And then there was the fact that Sun Chen had used the word “love.”
Sun Chen never spoke with any sort of technique; every word he used was precise.
After finally remembering to breathe, Liu Cheng darkly joked to himself: If remembering the fall into the water made Sun Chen come to him in the middle of the night and fall asleep here, then what would happen if Sun Chen remembered something else? Would he come find him in the middle of the night and smash him with a lamp?
“I’m sorry…” Liu Cheng blurted out without thinking.
Sun Chen shook his head, speaking earnestly, “I know you pushed me into the water to save me. You didn’t have to risk jumping into that suddenly rushing stream.”
The regret in Liu Cheng’s mind became more and more clear. The more he wanted to tell the truth, the more afraid he was to do so.
Liu Cheng lay back down, wrapping his arms around the person beside him without saying a word. Sun Chen’s body instinctively tensed up, but soon he relaxed, letting Liu Cheng hold him from behind, his head resting against Liu Cheng’s chest.
Liu Cheng had never experienced such an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction. If he could, he would stop time at this very moment, knowing that time would inevitably bring him to the conclusion he dreaded most.”
Sun Chen’s attitude toward Liu Cheng changed noticeably after recalling how Liu Cheng had saved him. Previously, Sun Chen had been somewhat uncertain and more independent, but now, while he might not fully trust Liu Cheng, he was willing to put himself in a position where, even if Liu Cheng hurt him, he would accept it. He had become practically an open book with Liu Cheng.
Their dates completely diverged from Sun Chen’s planned schedule; whatever Liu Cheng wanted to do, Sun Chen would go along with it without hesitation. Occasionally, Sun Chen would recall fragments of his past, which he always shared with Liu Cheng right away. For example, he remembered being confined to a laboratory as a child, constantly subjected to tests, lessons, or problem-solving exercises. Liu Cheng couldn’t help but think back to Sun Chen’s satisfaction with the guest room, where he had used phrases like, ‘It has a door, a window, and a TV.’ For a young Sun Chen, such things had indeed been a luxury.
One night, Sun Chen quietly climbed into Liu Cheng’s bed. The next morning, as they lay there, still not ready to get up, Sun Chen shared the nightmare he had the night before—
‘Turns out I’m a test-tube baby. My mother was a physicist, but whether due to gender discrimination or her own limitations, she could never break through in her field. So she pinned all her hopes on her offspring. She didn’t marry and didn’t believe any random man was worthy of fathering her child, so she managed to obtain sperm from a highly intelligent male colleague and successfully created an experiment. That highly intelligent male colleague had his own family and despised both my mother and the experiment she had created, while my mother only wanted an experiment that could fulfill her dreams…’
“You’re not an experiment,” Liu Cheng said, gripping Sun Chen’s hand tightly, unsure how much longer it would take before Sun Chen believed him.
“I don’t think anyone could love me,” Sun Chen confessed honestly, his puzzled expression directed at Liu Cheng. “So, do you really like me?”
“Of course I do,” Liu Cheng replied, wanting to give a more definitive answer. Yes, all of this is true, of course it’s true! But he couldn’t bring himself to say it, feeling unworthy.
Determined to understand Sun Chen better, Liu Cheng began trying to figure out what interested him.
Based on his research, Liu Cheng knew that Sun Chen’s mother had committed suicide by jumping off a building when Sun Chen was 21. He didn’t tell Sun Chen the truth, only mentioning that Sun Chen had once told him he had no family. From what Liu Cheng could gather, it seemed Sun Chen wasn’t actually interested in physics; he had only continued studying it to fulfill his mother’s wishes. After his mother’s suicide, he returned to China and worked in television… But even television work wasn’t what Sun Chen truly wanted; he only did it to find a childhood friend. Sun Chen had spent his entire life living for others, and now Liu Cheng hoped he could finally do something for himself.
But figuring out what someone with such a high IQ might enjoy took Liu Cheng several days.
“I think I like creating puzzles or something like that,” Sun Chen offered one day, just as Liu Cheng came home from work. It was as if he had been waiting at the door.
Liu Cheng couldn’t sleep that night, wondering, What kind of job is there in this world for someone who likes creating puzzles?
—The answer: there is.
The next morning, Liu Cheng was waiting by Sun Chen’s bed for him to wake up. “Why don’t you write a suspense screenplay? I’ll turn it into a movie. Then you can challenge the audience to see if they can figure out your puzzles.”
Sun Chen, still half-asleep, lazily gazed at Liu Cheng. “Are you sure you want to waste your time like that? King You of Zhou lit beacons to amuse the feudal lords, and it didn’t end well for him.”
Liu Cheng sighed helplessly. “Can’t you just be touched by my gesture instead of comparing me to a foolish king? Don’t you worry about hurting my feelings?”
“I’m more worried about you going bankrupt,” Sun Chen replied without missing a beat. But after a moment, he added, “I’m touched.”
“As long as you’re happy, who cares about going bankrupt,” Liu Cheng said with a smile he couldn’t suppress. He hadn’t thought much about it, but he vaguely felt that he wasn’t joking or trying to be romantic; this was his honest truth.
So, Sun Chen seriously began working on his screenplay. Every night at dinner, he barely ate, instead chewing on his chopsticks while sharing his ideas with Liu Cheng.
“…In short, the stories these men tell are like pieces of a puzzle. Soon, people realize that when these stories are combined, they form a complete picture—but that’s just a red herring. The stories the men tell are based on reality, but most of the plot is fictional. So, the puzzle can actually be reassembled, extracting the true fragments of the men’s stories. These pieces form a completely different narrative…”
Liu Cheng listened, feeling more and more lost. “Are you sure such a complicated story will be well-received?”
Sun Chen looked at him with disdain. “Lin Dun really likes this story, which means you have no taste.”
Liu Cheng was stunned. “How do you even keep in touch with Lin Dun?”
That day when they had unexpectedly run into their friends He Zai Feng and Lin Dun, they had all been too drunk to give Sun Chen and Lin Dun a chance to exchange numbers. Sun Chen had hardly left the house since, so Liu Cheng was surprised that he had somehow been secretly communicating with Lin Dun.
In response to his question, Sun Chen gave him a haughty look. “After we stopped using Morse code that day, Lin Dun and I kept exchanging different codes while singing. You guys just didn’t know. We exchanged contact information then.”
Liu Cheng thought back to how he had bought Sun Chen a phone that morning, only for Sun Chen to give his number to someone else that same afternoon. He couldn’t help but feel a little disheartened. “It’s fine if you get along with Lin Dun, but don’t like him too much. Remember, I’m still waiting for you to like me.”
Sun Chen’s personality had gradually become more cheerful, but perhaps because of this, he was now more in tune with human emotions and capable of feeling shy. Liu Cheng’s teasing made him lower his voice and blush slightly. “What I’m giving you is a lot more than just liking.”