LCP Ch 8

The next morning, Chi An woke up wrapped in a mess of blankets. Dazedly, he saw that Liang Ce had already finished washing up and was standing before the closet, slipping on a dress shirt, his back muscles forming a deep, defined crevice under the tension.

“Let me touch it before you button up…” Chi An’s voice sounded thick and sleepy as his arm, sticking out of the blanket, swayed in the air.

He hadn’t used much force, nor had he even included a subject in his request, but Liang Ce actually walked over. Leaving his shirt unbuttoned, he leaned down to let Chi An touch his bare abdominal muscles.

Chi An raised his arm, but instead of touching his abs, he hooked his arm around Liang Ce’s neck to touch his face. The pad of Chi An’s thumb traced over Liang Ce’s brow bone, then lightly brushed down the bridge of his nose: “So handsome. Come back early,” he mumbled, and drifted back to sleep.

Liang Ce ended up misaligning his shirt buttons—he didn’t even notice until he arrived at the company.

Standing in the restroom, he rebuttoned them one by one. He thought about how many people had complimented his looks before, yet he had never felt this giddy. How on earth did he misalign his buttons? In the past, when they were short on hands, he had helped Lu Xi—who was doing a random outfit challenge—lace up a zipperless corset. With twenty tiny eyelets, he had held both ends of the long cord, never making a single mistake.

And now, as his two hands pushed the buttons back through the buttonholes, he remembered that one of them had been bitten open by Chi An yesterday. Liang Ce’s heart was in complete disarray.

Liang Ce knew with absolute clarity: Chi An liked his physical body. Being good-looking was the sole reason he had managed to pursue Chi An. In the eyes of many, this was practically counter to true love: “If you love someone, you should love their soul! Loving their skin and bones isn’t love at all—it’s superficiality, it’s desire, it’s letting lower instincts rule your head.”—The influencers at their company would even use this as a debate point when appearing on talk shows. But Liang Ce could never figure out: where exactly was a person’s physical body inferior to their soul?

If someone were to drill into Liang Ce’s soul right now, they would find it completely hollow. There were no attractive beliefs inside, only a void filled with air, so plain that no one would ever care to look. When he was little and wanted his mother’s love, he turned himself into the best student possible; in college, when he had to survive, he turned himself into the person most capable of staying afloat. Liang Ce’s soul was like the Magic Mirror in fairy tales: when the Queen asked who was the fairest in the land, it would always answer that it was her—not because it was the truth, but simply because it was best for everyone that way. His soul was like a meek, exhausted gravedigger—what was there to love about it? It wasn’t endearing. It wasn’t as endearing as Liang Ce’s body. It wasn’t as clean as Liang Ce’s body. Even when Liang Ce pressed his hand against Chi An’s lower abdomen, the scent behind his ears remained Kilian’s Roses on Ice. He smelled like a rose-flavored ice cube, silently begging Chi An to watch him melt. Wasn’t this far more worthy of being fallen in love with than his soul?

Liang Ce felt immensely fortunate and honored that he could win Chi An over relying on his face. Not only was he good-looking, but he even resembled the person Chi An used to like—what an absolute blessing. As for his soul, since it was empty anyway, he could shape it into whatever form necessary. Just like when he occasionally went back to see his mother alone after growing up, he would smile showing his teeth and ask about the names of female leads in TV dramas, simply because that made him look more like Liang Chen.

Yesterday, after returning from his phone call, he had seen Chi An pick up a photograph. Later, he asked Lu Xi, who had been standing closer: Do I look like the person in that photo? Lu Xi had hesitated before admitting that there indeed was a resemblance. Liang Ce had kept typing on his keyboard, not even lifting his head as he said: Then that’s good.

Lu Xi had tried to speak up for Chi An, using his usual rough-around-the-edges logic: “That photo… I don’t think it’s quite what you think. Don’t you have a mouth and know how to talk? Why not just ask him directly?”

Liang Ce opened his video conferencing software, pulling down the corners of his mouth in a huff: “I won’t ask. I plan to buy him a new phone without a transparent case—no photos of anyone will be allowed inside.”

The moment the last word left his mouth, Pei Jin’s manager joined the video meeting. Liang Ce instantly switched his tone, warmly greeting: “Hello, hello! Is everyone here?”

Lu Xi thought Liang Ce was truly a walking contradiction: one moment he acted magnanimous, playing the body double with gusto; the next moment, he acted like he minded it to death. Before he could dwell on it, he saw Jiang Qi jog in—she had likely been called in by Liang Ce at the last minute to listen in. Lu Xi gestured for her to close the door.

Today, they needed to finalize several details regarding the day of the livestream. Pei Jin’s manager took the initiative to raise demands, insisting that every sentence spoken by the artist in the stream be counted by word and sent over in advance for review. Outside the camera’s view, Lu Xi rolled his eyes, while Liang Ce smoothly picked up the conversation, already bargaining over word counts and terms.

“No wonder so many internet personalities want to break into the entertainment industry,” Jiang Qi couldn’t help muttering softly after the meeting ended. “Counting words—how do they even come up with this? We’ve worked with several other artists before and never heard of anything this extreme. Is his manager going to stand by with a stopwatch to time him?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on these details. Setting strict terms now actually works in our favor,” Liang Ce reassured her, letting Jiang Qi get back to work first. Once only he and Lu Xi were left in the office, he quietly shifted the topic: “The payouts for several December business campaigns have cleared. Is your sister’s final debt cleared?”

“Cleared it at the end of last year.” Lu Xi lay flat across the desk, head turned to the side, arms stretched out, letting out a silly chuckle. “I feel so relieved right now.”

When Liang Ce arrived home at around nine in the evening, Chi An happened to be out walking the dog. He showered, blew his hair until it was half-dry, changed into black silk pajamas, and sank into the sofa. Just then, the door opened, and the Border Collie rushed over first, nudging him with its head, grinning as if smiling at him, and wagging its tail for pets. After completing the dog’s welcome routine, Chi An emerged from washing his hands, shooed the dog away, and walked barefoot to sit on the rug nearby. Resting his hands on Liang Ce’s knee, he laid his head on Liang Ce’s lap.

What is he trying to do! Looking at Chi An lying across his lap with bright eyes, alarm bells blared in Liang Ce’s mind—his self-control was seduced long before his reason could react. Chi An was wearing a green V-neck sweater, revealing the outline of his collarbone and chest muscles from Liang Ce’s angle: “I changed to a new phone case.” Chi An handed over an iPhone with a clear case, inside of which lay a rectangular slip of paper, roughly the size of the back of a photo: “Take it out and look.”

Here it goes again. Ups and downs. Liang Ce’s heart felt tightly bound by a hemp rope; he really didn’t want to take it out.

Liang Ce wondered, What does Chi An mean by this? Does he want me to face the existence of his crush right now? He didn’t want to face it right now. He was truly exhausted today. He wanted to immerse himself for one more night in the memory of Chi An’s voice saying “He’s my boyfriend now.” Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow? He only had eight things on his schedule tomorrow. Tomorrow he could handle everything professionally. Tomorrow he would be better at enduring pain.

Yet Liang Ce took it out anyway, because Chi An asked him to. He didn’t want to look like he was dodging pain—what if Chi An stopped wanting to try with him?

He pulled out the slip of paper and flipped it over.

The front of the paper was blank, save for two words written right in the center with a black marker: Want to? followed by a drawn heart.

In sheer disbelief, Liang Ce looked back at the phone case—there was nothing else inside.

Chi An burst into laughter seeing Liang Ce’s stunned expression. Climbing up to sit astride Liang Ce’s lap, he took the paper and pointed to emphasize: “No matter what a note says, you have to draw a heart at the end. Even for ‘Breakfast is in the microwave.'”

Was this the first rule he was establishing? For a split second, Chi An flashed back to some unpleasant memories, but he wanted so desperately to stay in this present moment that he blinked rapidly to shake off the self-loathing. Chi An held the paper with the invitation up to Liang Ce’s lips, silently demanding he bite it: “No staying silent—hurry up and agree.”

Liang Ce nudged the paper away with the tip of his tongue. He asked earnestly: “Can I not bite it? I really want to kiss you.”

Chi An fell against him, nodding.

As the livestream date approached, Liang Ce became extremely busy over the next two weeks. Almost all of Lu Xi’s energy went into content warm-ups, while Liang Ce had to personally review everything else—traffic promotion, product sequencing, price negotiations, and even stage setup. At Lu Xi’s level, the profit for each livestream could be calculated in advance. As for whether the results could exceed expectations, it relied on a bit of exceptional performance from the host, a bit of luck, and a lot of traffic promotion techniques. Liang Ce excelled at the latter most of all.

However, the issue with this session was somewhat more unique due to the variable that was Pei Jin. Pei Jin’s assistant was his younger sister, his manager was his unannounced wife, his commercial deals were handled by his cousin, and the legal representative of his studio was his father. “Guess who among these people is most united with him?” At midnight, after finishing three warm-up videos, Lu Xi sat on the floor of the company’s small shooting room, slipping back into his pajamas while taking the opportunity to gossip.

“No need to guess, it’s his cousin.” Liang Ce casually helped the newly hired assistant return the shot samples to their places, answering simply before two pairs of curious eyes: “In an artist team centered around a manager, what the manager wants to control most is the artist’s commercial resources. Yet in Pei Jin’s team, not only do they have a commercial AE, but they specifically brought in his cousin as the commercial director. That says a lot.”

“Makes sense,” Lu Xi threw a down jacket directly over his pajamas, revealing only his handsome face. “Back when we didn’t have other influencers to manage, you handled all the commercial stuff too, with two execution assistants at most.”

Only partners with zero friction could talk so casually about such matters. But Lu Xi didn’t say this primarily for Liang Ce; he wanted the new assistant to realize who held authority in this company. Unlike typical corporations, new-media startups easily defaulted to flat organizational structures. Given that both were shareholders, Lu Xi held fame as the host, while Liang Ce’s title sounded less prominent—so Lu Xi needed to empower Liang Ce from time to time. They had a clear division of labor: Lu Xi managed external affairs, while Liang Ce managed internal ones. Only when everyone on the team listened to Liang Ce could Lu Xi comfortably act as a hands-off boss in those areas.

Liang Ce caught his underlying meaning and cooperatively left a pause for the assistant to digest it, waiting a moment before continuing: “So this time, for anything requiring Pei Jin’s cooperation, try to ensure both the manager and his cousin are present. Once his cousin hears it, Pei Jin hears it.”

The assistant nodded. Though fresh out of college, her mind worked exceptionally fast. The next day at noon, when she went to confirm the time for the artist to film a joint promo video with Pei Jin’s manager, the manager interrupted her before she could even finish: “Our schedule is way too tight right now. We’re running a gala shoot in Ganzhou tonight, so drop this joint shoot.”

After getting hung up on, the young girl froze for two minutes holding her phone, then decisively opened WeChat to message Pei Jin’s commercial director: Brother, I’m so sorry to bother you—would it be convenient to have a quick voice call?

Twenty minutes later, the assistant held her phone high and ran excitedly up to Liang Ce: “He said we can shoot in Ganzhou tonight! They can provide two staff passes so we can head backstage during the gala break. I estimate we’ll get about ten minutes of shooting time!”

“Awesome! You’re the best.” Lu Xi exaggeratedly pushed a newly delivered box of sliced strawberries toward the girl. “Calling him ‘brother’ must have been hard work—from today on, you’re our big sister.”

The assistant’s surname was Fan, and everyone usually called her Xiao Fan. Hearing this title, she couldn’t help feeling a bit bashful. Luckily, Liang Ce brought the topic back on track in time: “What’s the use of you calling her that? You call everyone ‘sister.’ I see there’s only one flight to Ganzhou tonight—hurry home to grab your luggage and the clothes for the joint shoot.” As Liang Ce spoke, he glanced at airfares on his phone, then turned back with a smile to Xiao Fan: “Sister Fan, quickly book the tickets for your two younger brothers.”

Liang Ce had been sleeping at the company for the past few days, leaving his car for Chi An to drive, so he caught a taxi home to pack his bags. Before leaving, he pulled an unopened pack of face masks from the office, covering the lower half of his face. By the time he was dropped off at his doorstep, the straps had already rubbed the backs of his ears red, yet he didn’t take it off. He felt a bit afraid that Chi An might be home right now—he really didn’t look very good at the moment.

As everyone could likely tell—Liang Ce suffered from severe appearance anxiety. He had been busy these past two days, but certainly not to the point where he couldn’t go home to sleep; he had voluntarily chosen not to return. In fact, just a few days after his workload started piling up, dark circles had formed under his eyes. At first, just like in American TV shows, he would wake up an hour early every day to freshen up, curl his eyelashes, conceal his dark circles, and put on the exact outfit Chi An had stared at longest during their dates before waking Chi An up. In the evening, after returning home, he would wait until Chi An fell asleep before going to the bathroom to remove his makeup. When he returned, he would carefully retrieve his pillow from Chi An’s embrace, kiss his hair, and go to sleep.

However, over the last two days, Liang Ce was truly too exhausted, able only to groom himself to the barest minimum—making him even less willing to appear before Chi An. After all, Chi An was drawn to his looks…before he would be willing to try with him. So, an unhandsome Liang Ce was not worthy of being seen by Chi An.