KN | Chapter 28

In truth, Zhao Shengge had already been standing upstairs for quite a while. Chen Wan was standing there all alone amid the glittering, glamorous crowd. Although Zhao Shengge knew Chen Wan would probably be more inclined to go find Tan Youming and the others, Chen Wan had been standing there for rather too long, so in the end Zhao Shengge still spoke.

The lanterns blazed brilliantly. One lowered his eyes, one raised his. Their gazes met, and neither of them looked away.

Zhao Shengge’s features seemed gentle, but with the light behind him, Chen Wan could not be sure. He was more inclined to think that even that small beckoning motion had only been his own imagination.

Not until Zhao Shengge silently mouthed the words again, “Come up.”

Chen Wan jolted awake as if from a dream and immediately stepped onto the spiral staircase.

Zhao Shengge introduced him to Felipe. “This is Chen Wan.” He did not mention his profession, nor his status, only, this is Chen Wan.

Fortunately, foreigners often had rather unusual ways of thinking as well. Felipe had none of a royal’s hauteur. He warmly extended a hand to Chen Wan and praised the East for producing beauties.

Chen Wan’s looks did indeed fit foreigners’ image of a traditional Eastern beauty very well, gentle and refined, elegant, with a touch of scholarly grace.

Although Chen Wan did not quite understand why Zhao Shengge was introducing the man to him, he still responded with a proper smile.

Before long, Tan Youming came up in a grand procession with a whole crowd behind him, all old friends from their years studying abroad. Chen Wan took the initiative to give up his place for them.

Zhao Shengge had not come on this trip to attend some wine party. His main purpose was to meet Felipe.

Back when they had been studying abroad, the other man had entertained them with great warmth. Zhao Shengge also thought highly of the Nordic energy market and the shipping-route transport sector.

Haishi had always been swept up in the trend of studying abroad, and even among students from the same study-abroad cohort there were divisions, factions, and ranks.

At that time, Zhao Shengge was not yet the sort of figure who kept so deeply out of sight that people only heard his name. When one was away from home, there was a natural cohesion and solidarity among compatriots. Zhao Shengge was the most prestigious heaven-favored son among the Chinese students, and also the dependable pillar everyone could rely on. His relationships with the others were far more familiar and close than they were now.

But time changed many things.

The young masters who had studied abroad together back then were now gathered around one another exchanging pleasantries, talking about rowing in the spring regatta on the Rhine, going skiing in the Greater Caucasus during gap year, choosing the coldest month to head to the Baltic for adventure, fishing, and watching the aurora…

Standing half-hidden at the very outer edge of the crowd, Chen Wan listened with a trace of envy.

His university years had been dull and exhausting. He had raced against the clock to finish his credits, started a business from nothing with his bare hands, and taken the market’s and society’s harsh lashings earlier than others his age.

He had spent the best years of his life, the years when he should most have been enjoying and squandering his youth, drifting from one drinking table and business engagement to another, drinking himself into gastroenteritis and high fevers.

He did not think it had been bitter, nor did he regret it. He only felt a little regretful, regretful over that top-two offer edged in gilded floral borders, regretful that he had never gotten to see Zhao Shengge as that high-spirited male university student, rowing and skiing in his prime.

Everyone was in high spirits, reminiscing about the old days. Yao Jianan said, “Back then, during the ski competition, those white students from King’s College looked down on us. But in the final event, when the captain led us in sweeping the field and taking the medals, their faces twisted on the spot.”

The captain he was talking about was naturally Zhao Shengge.

Everyone burst into laughter. Thinking back to those bold, high-spirited years of youth, the atmosphere instantly warmed.

Yao Jianan had been the youngest in that batch of students who went abroad. Everyone had treated him like a younger brother. Even this year, he had only just finished his master’s degree. He had a baby face and peach-blossom eyes. He had been doted on at home and had plenty of nerve.

He had not seen Zhao Shengge for years. Times had changed, people had changed, and many relationships, ties, and that tiny, barely worth mentioning bit of camaraderie from belonging to the same cohort would all shift with time, interests, experience, and choices.

After returning to the country this year upon finishing his studies, the visiting cards he had sent had never received a reply, whether sent in his own name or under the Yao family’s name.

He had even suspected that the cards had never reached Zhao Shengge’s eyes at all.

Tonight’s wine party was rain from heaven, timely rain indeed. From the moment Zhao Shengge entered, Yao Jianan’s gaze had drifted toward him without drawing attention, but Zhao Shengge seemed no longer to remember him.

“But after that spring regatta, the captain rarely took everyone out to have fun anymore.”

Once he said that, everyone felt a little wistful and chimed in. That truly had been a good time, when they were young and full of spirit. Unlike now, scrambling and striving, so busy their feet barely touched the ground.

Zhao Shengge smiled very faintly and did not respond. Instead, he turned to speak to Felipe in English.

Felipe had none of the old aristocracy’s airs. Back then, he had often mixed with this group of overseas students, so naturally the conversation did not go cold around him.

He was a wine fanatic. During their school days, he had often taken Tan Youming and that bunch of rich young wastrels into the royal wine cellar to drink. He asked Zhao Shengge, “Two rounds of wine have already been served. Which one do you like best?”

Everyone looked over. Zhao Shengge said, “The wines haven’t all been served yet. I can’t make a judgment ahead of time.”

“Haha, you’re still as watertight as ever.” Felipe picked up a dry red whose bottleneck was tied with a concentric knot and said, “This one tastes like butterflies dancing on the tip of the tongue. I never imagined Chinese winemaking had already reached such a peak.”

Zhao Shengge’s gaze swept over the knot tied at the neck of the bottle, and he agreed, “It really is excellent. I like it very much.”

He very rarely revealed his likes and dislikes so directly in public. The guests’ gazes instantly turned subtle, full of envy and curiosity, wondering which guest’s wine had been lucky enough to win Zhao Shengge’s favor.

Until someone said, “Jianan, excellent choice of wine!”

Chen Wan looked over, his gaze blank with confusion. The bottle of Mulan Duo he had gone to such trouble to find had, at some point, been openly marked with Yao Jianan’s wine tag.

Zhao Shengge also seemed to pause for a moment, then looked at that bottle again, a faint trace of puzzlement surfacing in his eyes.

Chen Wan drew his brows together slightly and quietly called over a passing wine server at his side, asking whether he could check where the two bottles of wine he had brought were at the moment.

The server quickly pulled up the registration in the system. Mulan Duo had been placed among the blind boxes for anyone to choose from, while the Chardonnay had been put on the wine rack for guests to sample.

They had been switched.

Once it was placed in the blind box, whoever drew it, it belonged to them.

Whether the server had mixed them up carelessly, or whether someone had deliberately pulled a civet for the prince, there was no way of knowing for the time being. Chen Wan only blamed himself for not personally seeing to it that his wine had been sent where it was supposed to go.

He should not have left it in someone else’s hands.

For several long seconds, Chen Wan’s mind went blank, and his heart seemed to be soaked through by the ice in the wine trough.

Everyone was loudly discussing and praising that bottle of rare, hard-to-find fine wine, praising it for its warm exuberance, praising it for its rich fragrance and mellow body.

Red berries, black plums, red fruits, full and fermented, like Chen Wan’s own softened, bruised heart, tart to the point of bitterness.

Yao Jianan had never expected that the blind box he had picked on a whim would win Zhao Shengge’s favor. He was overjoyed. It was as if even heaven itself were helping him. He curved his eyes as he said, “Back then, at the celebration party after we beat Polytech to win the championship, the captain brought a dry red with blackcurrant notes.”

Put that way, it sounded as though he had deliberately prepared this wine as a carefully chosen gift for Zhao Shengge, and it also stirred up everyone’s memory of those years when they had been spirited, blazing, and gloriously carefree.

Chen Wan stood hidden behind the crowd, head lowered, unaware of the veiled gaze pressing toward him from the center of the group.

The carefully prepared gift had ended up bearing someone else’s name. Chen Wan felt a little regretful.

To find this bottle of Mulan Duo, he had run all over Haishi, through wine cellars large and small, and personally tasted no fewer than a hundred wines of similar kind. For several days, the tip of his tongue had gone numb and he could not taste anything at all. Even his skin seemed to have been steeped in the scent of wine.

But Yao Jianan’s going along with the situation could not really be called wrong. Those were the rules of the party. Whoever drew the blind box became its owner.

That was already Yao Jianan’s wine.

In business circles, tea, wine, and cigarettes that suit a person’s tastes are all first-rate stepping stones.

Yao Jianan had no reason to refuse this wedding dress that had fallen from the sky.

Chen Wan had no evidence that the server had intentionally switched the intended uses of the two bottles. It might well have been a simple mistake. Nor could he possibly step forward and say that this had actually been the wine he brought, such a graceless thing to do.

He could only blame himself for not being careful enough.

But then he thought, if Zhao Shengge truly liked it, then it had not been in vain. His original intention had only ever been to let Zhao Shengge drink a good glass of wine. It was a very simple thing.

When you like someone, you want to give them every good thing. Chen Wan was no exception.

As for who had given it, that no longer seemed so important. In the end, he had not wanted anything from it anyway.

Felipe asked, “Zhao, are you thinking of putting your label on it?”

Every guest at the party had an event label. When they came across the wine they liked best, they could stick it on. Then the wine’s owner would choose in return from among those labels. The gifting of wine was about fate, a two-way choice.

Zhao Shengge glanced toward the corner and repeated the same thing, “The wines haven’t all been served yet. I won’t draw a conclusion in advance.”

When he said that, Yao Jianan was somewhat disappointed, and Chen Wan also felt a little regretful. It seemed that even the rare treasure he had searched so hard for could not completely capture Zhao Shengge.