KC | Chapter 38

Sunlight passed through the gaps in the leaves, leaving dappled light and shadow on the two of them. The lake surface glittered, and the colleagues’ joking and laughter in the distance broke the quiet.

Lin Yiran pulled away the hand that had been covering Chen Xi’s eyes. Chen Xi blinked desperately, not letting the tear on his eyelashes fall. The breeze moved through his hair and gently brushed his snow-white face, the redness around his eyes becoming even more obvious, impossible to hide even if he wanted to.

He suddenly thought of Christmas two years ago. The silent tears in the snowy night overlapped with the restrained figure before his eyes, and Lin Yiran’s heart seemed to be twisted once. He thought, Chen Xi had always been hiding, deliberately creating the illusion that “he doesn’t like me.”

Chen Xi had been hiding carefully, afraid of being discovered by me, constantly backing away, deliberately growing distant and intentionally keeping his distance, making me mistakenly think my judgment was wrong.

He knew I was filthy through and through, and still liked me.

I had never given him any response, and had trampled on his liking with frivolity, so he was very sad.

He tried hard to disguise himself, just like that snowy Christmas, pretending the ice cream cone was delicious, pretending he wasn’t sad.

It must have been tiring.

Chen Xi liked me, he liked me with great difficulty, and I could not let him cry again.

These past few days, every time he thought of Chen Xi, his chest would feel stuffy and swollen. The emotion that Lin Yiran had previously been uncertain about was finally understood now, this feeling was heartache.

To ease the atmosphere, Lin Yiran threw out a seemingly unrelated topic: “Have you heard of a ‘hexagon warrior’?”

“Uh, yeah.” Chen Xi had never been able to keep up with his jumps in thought. He had just been moved to the point of tears, and now it suddenly turned to a game term, so the tears dried up in an instant.

“If you compare personal ability to the area of a hexagon, KA people who stand out in a certain field are usually ‘early-stage heroes’. Their total area is not very large, but in the early stage they take on an important role in the team; KA people who can do everything and have extremely strong overall qualities are called ‘late-stage heroes’. They are very adaptable and play a decisive role in winning or losing team fights in the later stage.”

“But, they also have to be able to grow into the late stage…” I didn’t dare think too far into the future, and didn’t know whether the so-called “late stage” would arrive as promised. Most likely, the match would end by the middle stage.

Chen Xi said gloomily, “Brother Zhang said I can do everything, but I know I don’t do anything well enough. It’s precisely because I learn everything that I don’t have a specialty, not focused enough. I also want to study the areas I’m good at, but I don’t know what I’m suited to do.”

“That’s why you need a team.” The steady voice smoothed away Chen Xi’s unease. “KA’s recruitment has hard requirements. Zhang Yuanji didn’t even meet them, but I took him in, because KA needed connections. I let him sit next to you, you taught him product knowledge, and he provided you with connections. The two of you signed more than a million together in this one year, that’s the role of a team.”

“I’ve been in sales for 13 years and still have clients I can’t win over, deals I can’t close,” Lin Yiran said. “No one could stand alone the moment they entered the industry. Everyone needed to grow. There was no shortcut in sales, the so-called shortcut was nothing more than experience piled up from countless failures, just not falling in the same place and taking fewer wrong turns.”

“I read all the closing reports you submit to the client. Every closing report of yours has improved. In terms of professionalism, you’re definitely no worse than Liu Xueying. You’ve grown a lot this year.”

“I…” Chen Xi’s voice trembled slightly. He had not expected Lin Yiran to have been paying attention to him all along.

Most likely, he was paying attention to all the KA people, and he was just using talk to brainwash me so I’d have confidence.

But even knowing this was Lin Yiran’s line, Chen Xi was still very happy.

Seeing Chen Xi recover his state, Lin Yiran continued the topic from before. Without mentioning his past with Chen Xi, he changed to another way of explaining “memory point”.

“When you first came to KA, Li Hua and the others all called you ‘little kid’. You knew you looked young, and you were afraid clients wouldn’t take you seriously, so you often dressed more maturely. But ‘looking young’ is your memory point. It’s not a bad thing to let others remember you through your appearance.”

Lin Yiran gave a few examples of drinks, explaining patiently: “For example, in a certain coffee livestream room, a big-mouthed host sold coffee, and big mouth was the memory point; netizens jokingly called a Shanghai auntie ‘Haishi married woman’, the place name plus the identity was the memory point; Sweet Honey milk tea, with only blended drinks and no fresh juice, used the lowest price to seize the market, and the low price was the memory point…”

“Relying on your face to make a living isn’t embarrassing either. How many people want to rely on it but don’t even have that capital!”

“Haha.” Chen Xi laughed out loud. “Brother Lin, are you trying to say that you could obviously make a living off your looks but insist on making a living off your talent.” I’d rather know, with that face of yours, why did you still go whoring? Going to sell would have been much better, you could have had fun and made money, killing two birds with one stone.

Lin Yiran nodded and said with a careless smile, “Back then, in order to make Xu Dongxu remember me, I put on a whole custom-made outfit. The first time he saw me, he said, ‘Didn’t expect someone who looks like this to be a sales rep.’ The second time, he said, ‘You kid has a little something.’ Later, after he got familiar with me, he said, ‘Your face is wasted on sales, going down the waters and putting a price tag on yourself would be at least over ten thousand.'”

“So, be more confident, don’t hide, but amplify your memory point instead,” Lin Yiran said. “The North China advertising circle is full of experts, all eyeing the fat meat of Gulin. They will be more professional, better connected, and better at negotiation than the KA you know, but none of them are as good-looking as you.”

Lin Yiran spoke to Chen Xi about strategy with complete seriousness, but the words he said somehow made him want to laugh.

Being able to say “relying on your face to make a living” so righteously, and fool me into following in his footsteps, what kind of crappy strategy was that; being able to say something so mushy like “none of them are as good-looking as you” in such a serious way, what kind of iron-straight-man line was that.

“Mm-hmm, got it. I’ll dress more childish, the more childish the better, until Xu Dongxu sees me and develops a father’s protective instinct, then keeps getting ‘坑爹’.” The more Chen Xi spoke, the more off track he went.

Unconsciously, Lin Yiran raised his hand and pinched the snow-white cheek until it flushed red. Chen Xi frowned and glared at him. Lin Yiran leaned forward instinctively, his nose nearly touching Chen Xi’s forehead, and Chen Xi hurriedly stood up from the bench in panic.

Chen Xi turned around, politely and somewhat distantly, “Brother Lin, I’ll go take a few more photos.” After saying that, he walked toward the lake, and his thin back was swallowed up by the noisy crowd.

The faint choking sob was blown away in the wind, and the moisture on Lin Yiran’s arm was burning hot.

Extreme perfectionists only had “do the best” or “give up decisively” in life or work, no middle option. He had completed his work goals perfectly in an almost cruel way, and after deviating from his life goals again and again, he chose to give up.

Now the emotional issue with Chen Xi was facing a choice, only “accept” or “give up.”

Should I accept it?

No.

Chen Xi didn’t meet the conditions.

First of all, he couldn’t even get past the gender hurdle. Besides, my work nature wasn’t suitable for dating. The failed marriage was a lesson from the past, I wouldn’t stumble twice.

So I should reject it.

Tell him directly, make the rejection clear?

No.

Lin Yiran immediately denied it, shaking his head and saying, “That would be too cruel to him.”

I couldn’t afford his liking, didn’t want to make him sad.

But I also couldn’t trample on his liking, and toy with the person who carefully hid his crush in the palm of my hand.

The way Lin Yiran was used to handling problems didn’t work on Chen Xi.

So, he didn’t know how to make him not sad.

Since that immoral snatching of a deal, Lin Yiran had let Chen Xi come to KA because he wanted to bring him comfort through some actions. So he paid a little more attention to Chen Xi than to the other employees. At first this attention was only for work, but at some point it spread into life.

Every time Lin Yiran pushed for results at the end of the quarter, he would check Chen Xi’s moments. Once Chen Xi’s client kept delaying payment, and on the last day of the month, Lin Yiran opened Chen Xi’s updates twice, checking more diligently than he watched his own client’s payment. Several times he typed in the chat box, “Is the client running into some problem?” “Do you need my help?” “Does the client need policy support?”… After typing it out, he deleted it again.

Luckily, the client paid at 4 p.m. that afternoon, and the hanging heart finally settled down.

Over this past year and more, no matter how many difficulties or obstacles Chen Xi encountered, he never said a word. His moments only had ordinary content like “Happy New Year”, “Keep going at work”, “Happy wedding” and so on. Most of them were only one line of text without pictures, simple content that hid something shocking.

Even after that chaotic night, Chen Xi still said nothing.

Lin Yiran would proactively build connections with all the decision-makers in the chain for important clients. For example: a 28-year-old middle manager at a certain factory often posted attractive photos of yoga practice with her best friend. Through the factory’s senior management’s moments, Lin Yiran discovered that this “best friend” was the wife of the factory president. So on holidays and festivals, Lin Yiran arranged gifts for the middle manager according to the standards for treating senior management, and gradually built a bridge to the president’s wife.

Lin Yiran was good at seeing the real thoughts and network circles of all kinds of people through details. He feared that someone, like him spying on others, would “monitor” him, so he never posted on moments. He wore a hypocritical skin all day long, so suppressed he could barely breathe.

The less Chen Xi said, the more interested Lin Yiran became in him. Chen Xi was too much like him. He could always find his former shadow in Chen Xi and awaken the conscience that lingered in his heart.

The survival cycle of small and medium-sized enterprises in Yucheng was generally 3 to 5 years, large enterprises 5 to 8 years, and listed companies would last longer. Over these years, the marketing expert had dealt with all kinds of people, or creatures that could barely be called people, and honed the skill of speaking human language to humans and ghost language to ghosts. Lin Yiran witnessed the process of clients rising and falling, and also verified the course of clients developing from small and medium-sized enterprises into listed companies. He was like an observer, sticking to the attitude of “not my business, keep it high up”, and mixed comfortably in different companies.

KA had no middle option, only outstanding or eliminated. In a few more years, Chen Xi would, like those companies, either rise to great success or vanish without a trace. Lin Yiran had long since willingly degenerated and fallen into the vat of glitz and glamour, and he wanted to see how long the clean and clear person could hold on.

Looking at the figure fleeing in panic, a question suddenly popped up in Lin Yiran’s mind that he had never thought about before.

Why that night did I think “he was seducing me?” instead of “I should leave him?”

Because he liked me, so he seduced me. I never refused anyone, so I didn’t leave him.

He was drunk and seduced me, I was sober, why didn’t I push him away?

Because he was too slutty, and I couldn’t hold back.

Seeing someone naked and wanting to get on him, was I really that horny, not caring whether it was men or women, taking food wherever I could get it?

Maybe, perhaps, I wanted to try with a man…

Heh.

Using such a far-fetched reason to deceive himself, and muddling through one month like that, Lin Yiran thought it was funny, but he couldn’t laugh.

That clumsy reason was like a transparent fig leaf, one poke and it broke, one lift and it opened. Now even if it was left there, it couldn’t cover anything.

I was just lying to myself.

Chen Xi got fierce, and he was really wild and intense. He almost had me reacting from his yelling.

His body was very thin, and lately he seemed to have lost weight again. I really wanted to measure his waist again, he remembered that before, two palms had been enough to completely wrap around it.

He wanted to lift open his sweatshirt, pull the person completely into his arms, and once again possess that inexperienced body.

Why was I so horny?

Because I hadn’t done it for almost a month, and I wanted to find someone.

No, that wasn’t right. I didn’t have that thought before, it was only because I had contact with Chen Xi that I wanted it.

Lin Yiran looked at the slender back that was about to disappear from view, and only then belatedly realized: “That night I didn’t leave, perhaps because he was Chen Xi.”