BL - One Night In Pingjing 69 The Man Who Thinks Too Much About Every Step He Takes Will Always Stay On One Leg

"Packing. Xuan Chaya is coming to pick me up. I told you about this before." Cheng Jian replied without sparing Lan Haiyang a glance.

"You don't mean it." Lan Haiyang blinked in disbelief as he spoke.

Cheng Jian looked up at him for a moment and continued packing. "Don't mean what?"

Picking up Cheng Jian's toothbrush from the suitcase, he glanced at it thoughtlessly and said, "Come on. I know all of your mental faculties aren't in order, but even you can't be that stupid."

Cheng Jian sighed, collected the toothbrush from Lan Haiyang and returned it to the suitcase. "I don't understand half the things you say sometimes."

"I'm saying you can't pack up your bags and go live with a stranger. It doesn't make any sense."

"He's not a stranger. I've met him before."

"It doesn't make a difference. You can't be that trusting."

Cheng Jian shook his head. "I know you're worried. But think about it this way. Would you still worry if he was my real boyfriend?"

Lan Haiyang nodded. "If you've gone on just one date, yes, I would be worried. Perhaps even worse."

Just turn, the doorbell rang. Cheng Jian said, "Trust me, Lan Haiyang. He's a great guy." He tilted his face towards the bedroom door. Lan Haiyang immediately understood he was to go see who was at the door.

"You're not going anywhere, Cheng Jian." He said, then left the room.

"It's so nice of you to worry about me." Cheng Jian screamed at him.

"You're not going anywhere." Lan Haiyang screamed back.

Opening the door, Lan Haiyang was stunned by the face on the other end of it. He immediately recognized him as Xuan Chaya from Cheng Jian's description, but was surprised by how much more handsome he was.

"Good afternoon," Xuan Chaya greeted with a smile. Stretching out his hand, he said, "You must be Lan Haiyang."

Wearing a deep frown on his face, Lan Haiyang replied, "Cheng Jian isn't going with you."

Confused, Xuan Chaya withdrew his handshake. "Excuse me?"

"Cheng Jian isn't going with you." Lan Haiyang said and closed the door in Xuan Chaya's face.

Xuan Chaya rang the doorbell again.

"Lan Haiyang, who's there?" Cheng Jian shook had come out of his room asked.

"No one." Lan Haiyang said and walked towards the refrigerator for a gla.s.s of water.

"Then, why does the person keep ringing the doorbell?"

"Ignore it." Lan Haiyang said.

Shaking his head, Cheng Jian walked towards the door and opened it. Seeing Xuan Chaya on the other side, he smiled and said, "Oh! It's you."

"What's going on?" Xuan Chaya asked, frowning.

"Where? Why don't you come in?" Cheng Jian opened the door wider to let him in.

"I don't want to come in. If you changed your mind about the deal, why didn't you tell me yourself?"

"I didn't change my mind. What are you talking about?"

"Your friend said you aren't leaving with me."

Cheng Jian relaxed and shook his head. "He's just joking around."

"I'm not joking. Am I the only person who sees the madness in this arrangement?" Lan Haiyang who had joined Cheng Jian at the door asked.

"I need help. He's offering it to me, what is crazy about that?" Xuan Chaya shot at me.

"Cheng Jian is an idiot. That is what is crazy about it. You're a straight man uninterested in a real relations.h.i.+p with a man. He's a gay man who's into you. He's setting himself up for a heartbreak and you're holding his hand, leading him to it."

"Why are you talking about me like that?"

"Shut up." Lan Haiyang replied.

"He's not going to fall for me. He understands that this is a job and nothing more." Turning his attention to Cheng Jian, he asked. "Don't you?"

"Of course, I do." Cheng Jian nodded.

"I don't think you do. He's the only G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing you talk about these days." Lan Haiyang said.

"He's the only interesting in my life right now. What else should I talk about?"

"And the way you smile when you talk about him. Do you think that's normal?"

"I don't smile when I talk about him."

"Look, why don't you let him make his own decisions? He knows what's best for him and what isn't." Xuan Chaya interrupted their back and forth.

"No, he doesn't."

"My dad always says the man who thinks too much about every step he takes will always stay on one leg. You can't pa.s.s up opportunities because of the fear of the unknown."

"You think you're smart, aren't you?"

"Lan Haiyang." Cheng Jian called, disliking the tone of Lan Haiyang's voice.

"Go get your bag." Lan Haiyang said.

"Haiyang!" He called again.

"I can't stop you from leaving, right? Go get your bag. I won't do anything, I promise."

Nodding, Cheng Jian returned to the room to get his bag.

Turning his undivided attention to Xuan Chaya, Lan Haiyang said. "If you hurt my friend, then don't let me catch you. Otherwise, I'll beat you to a pulp. I promise."

Xuan Chaya frowned. He was good at reading people and he could immediately see that Lan Haiyang was being overprotective for a reason. Quickly figuring out what the reason might be, he asked, "If you are so tough, why don't you man up and confess your feelings to your friend?"

Wordlessly, Lan Haiyang closed the door in Xuan Chaya's face again.

Xuan Chaya smiled. He had scored a victory over Lan Haiyang.

***

Xiao Maiguo walked up to Yun Peng's office door. Speaking to the secretary, he gestured at the door. "Is he in?"

"Yes, sir."

Without another word, Xiao Maiguo opened the door and entered the office.

Yun Peng looked up at him. Without a word, he returned to his work.

Xiao Maiguo leaned on the table, stretched his neck to see what Yun Peng wasn't doing, then asked. "Are you almost done for today?"

Yun Peng nodded. "I am. Do you want something?"

"No. I just thought I could ride with you. We'll stop for dinner at some restaurant, then go home together."

"I'm sorry. I have other plans." Yun Peng shook his head.

"So, you were closing early just to go meet someone else?"

"Xiao Maiguo. Don't start. Not here at least."

"Don't start what?"

"Look, if it wasn't important, I'll go anywhere with you, but it is."

"More important than me?"

Yun Peng kept silent.

Pleadingly, Xiao Maiguo said, "Come on, when was the last time you and I hung out together?"

"You were the one who decided to stop talking to me." Yun Peng said.

"And you don't care enough to get me to talk to you. Do you know how much I love you? Even after taking an oath I won't be the one to break this silence between us, Here I am, doing just that."

Yun Peng sighed. "I can drop you at home, but—"

"No, don't bother about it." Xiao Maiguo said and walked out of Yun Peng's office. Picking up his phone, he typed, "Ben, can you pick me up from work in thirty minutes?"

"Will be there in less." Ben replied.

***

"Thanks for making out time to see me." Xuan Tianmei said.

"It's okay." Yun Peng nodded.

"I... I wanted to talk. About Su Yang."

"Is anything the matter?"

"Not really..." Xuan Tianmei hesitated.

Yun Peng raised a brow at her, then took a sip from his drink.

"Yes." She said.

Yun Peng nodded. "Okay?"

"I know she can be a very cold person. But she's usually good to me. That's how I know she cares."

"But?"

"I feel like everytime I try to get closer to her, she pushes me away. The other day, under the influence of alcohol, I tried to seduce her and I woke up handcuffed. I just feel that relations.h.i.+ps are not supposed to work that way. I'm not being paranoid, am I?"

"No, you're not. When you care about someone, you usually want everything you can get and not just half of it."

"That's how I feel too."

"But I also understand Su Yang."

"Then can you help me understand her? Because I want to. And she refuses to talk to me about her obvious intimacy issues."

Yun Peng studied Xuan Tianmei and hesitated for a second. Decidedly, he said. "You should know that Su Yang didn't have a normal childhood."

"Well, big deal. Neither did I." Xuan Tianmei said snippily. I had to beg on the streets at the age of four to feed my brother and myself. Later, my brother and I were pa.s.sed from orphanage to orphanage. We barely had enough to eat."

Yun Peng immediately burst into laughter.

Xuan Tianmei frowned. "What's funny? Why are you laughing?"

After calling down, Yun Peng said. "When Su Yang was five, she was kidnapped and brought to the a.s.sa.s.sin camp. Where she was trained to fight and murder for another ten years. Like many other people at the camp, boys and girls included, at the age of thirteen, Su Yang was raped by a group of men for three days in a row. It was supposed to be a part of her training. But you... Because you didn't get enough food to eat, you thought you were living a hard life."

"I..." Xuan Tianmei muttered, guilt and pity-ridden.

"I wasn't supposed to tell you that. But it's important to know everything if you want to understand and support her."

Xuan Tianmei nodded in understanding.

"As a teenager, Su Yang was introduced to the world of intimacy. But in the most brutal way. She was also taught to use s.e.x as a weapon and nothing else. That kind of thing—it leaves a scar. And she may be strong inside and outside, but not everyone is strong enough to get over that kind of thing."

Xuan Tianmei was quiet.

"If you think that's too much baggage and you can't deal with it, then you don't have to."

Xuan Tianmei shook her head. "No, I can." In a calm tone, she asked, "What about you? Are you the same way with your boyfriend?"

"Honestly. When I first met him, I had no affection for him. He was just a way for me to get a job, so I used s.e.x as my weapon to get that. By the time I fell in love with him, I was already used to being intimate with him. So it's not the same, but it wasn't very different."

"Then, what can I do?" Xuan Tianmei said.

Yun Peng smiled. "Taming a tiger takes time and little steps. Treat her like she were a tiger and you wanted to tame her."