– CP | Chapter 7

I washed my face.

A Korean drama was still playing on my computer, paused halfway through an episode.

I switched tabs and searched for ED.

After reading the encyclopedia entry, I smacked myself on the forehead.

What am I even thinking?

Even if it were true, what did it have to do with me?

Was I planning to become some kind of charity worker?

That’s what I told myself, anyway.

Still, I didn’t sleep well.

Before falling asleep, my mind kept replaying the way he’d laughed so hard he wiped tears from the corners of his eyes while leaning against the steering wheel.

Then he’d shrugged and said with a bitter smile:

“What kind of man would joke about something like that?”

He had a point.

Men who couldn’t perform usually insisted they could.

Someone like him—good-looking and successful—had no reason to tell such a low-level lie just to pick up women.

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I felt down for a while.

Socializing didn’t help.

The internet didn’t help.

Nothing could restore that rush of adrenaline.

There was a coworker pursuing me.

We went out for a meal together.

He was an honest man, but he had a faint greasy body odor that I didn’t find pleasant.

I gradually increased the time it took me to reply to his messages and politely distanced myself.

Then one day, it suddenly hit me.

Wasn’t I doing exactly the same thing Han 澈¹ —no, Han 彻² —had done to me?

As for Han Che himself, I treated the whole experience as a lesson.

Not everyone escapes a player unscathed.

Still, humans are emotional creatures.

I’d wasted so many days and nights on him.

Poured so much enthusiasm into him.

Naturally, it felt a little like heartbreak.

Sometimes I’d be walking home at night and pass a certain street or streetlight.

For a brief moment, I’d think of him.

Then I’d shake my head, laugh at myself, and throw myself back into real life.

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I wanted a relationship.

A serious one.

In the past, I wasn’t mature enough.

My tolerance for flaws was low.

Students were broke.

I couldn’t stand watching boys count every last penny.

It made me feel both sorry for them and embarrassed.

After only a few dates, I’d usually lose interest.

My cousin once told me:

“Someone like you would never stick around while a potential stock grows. You can’t handle hardship or poverty. A snob like you can only date blue-chip stocks.”

I completely agreed.

What I didn’t know was that finding a blue-chip stock was like climbing a mountain of knives and crossing a sea of fire.

Worse than investing in a P2P lending platform.

One disaster after another.

I downloaded dating apps.

The quality varied wildly.

I’d swipe through a hundred profiles before finding one decent-looking guy.

Then after a few messages, he’d either be boringly earnest or blatantly sexual.

And if I somehow encountered a one-in-ten-thousand interesting man?

I’d spend the whole time worrying he might turn out to be another Han Che.

When I finally met them in person, I discovered I’d been overthinking.

Men used deceptive photos too.

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The next time Han Che contacted me was three months later.

On Douban.

During those months, I’d followed his Zhihu account.

He was incredibly active there.

I assumed he’d stopped using Douban altogether.

I never expected him to reply to me.

One night I marked a movie as something I planned to watch.

The update appeared on my activity feed.

Half an hour later, he commented:

〚Watching alone?〛

I didn’t answer.

That evening, while watching the movie, a private Douban message arrived.

Fine.

I admit it.

I’d been waiting.

Maintaining contact with someone wealthy and interesting wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Yes, he was a player.

But not the kind without boundaries.

I’d already found where his boundary was.

I’d drawn my own defensive line.

No problem.

No problem at all.

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I was a little too confident.

Too proud of my appearance.

I genuinely believed I had complete control over relationships and attraction.

At twenty-two, the age when you know nothing but think you know everything, I met the strangest man imaginable.

I thought those three months of online romance had been a detour in my love life.

Later, I realized he had been a shortcut.

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He invited me to a bar.

I put on airs and replied:

〚I don’t drink with men. It’s dangerous.〛

He sent me a question mark.

〚Me? A man? I didn’t realize you thought so highly of me.〛

How powerful is it when a handsome man makes fun of himself?

Powerful enough to destroy all my pretentious resistance.

Loneliness pushed me into saying yes.

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He was standing in the evening breeze when I arrived.

A long white shirt fluttered around him.

A cigarette hung from his lips.

He looked like some stylish gangster from an old Hong Kong drama.

His gaze drifted lazily through the crowd.

Completely ignoring me.

Fine.

He looked like a leading male lead.

His fashion choices, however, were baffling.

I stopped in front of him and waved a hand before his unfocused eyes.

Only then did he seem to notice me.

His gaze sharpened.

“You got work done?”

I rolled my eyes.

“If that’s your opening line for flirting, it’s no wonder you have ED.”

Knowing he preferred innocent-looking women, I’d deliberately chosen a glamorous makeup look.

He held the cigarette toward me.

“Want a puff?”

“I don’t smoke.”

I hated cigarette smoke.

“Deep down, you’re still a pure little good girl.”

He wrapped an arm around my waist and guided me into the chaos of the bar.

I tried to pull away.

I’d barely slipped free when the host suddenly shouted into a microphone:

“Miss Zhang at Table Eight just opened a bottle of Royal Salute!”

Startled, I immediately retreated back into Han Che’s arms.

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This was the closest physical contact we’d ever had.

That tiny kiss on my cheek before felt childish by comparison.

Thankfully, his hands behaved themselves.

He carried me along almost like a sack of potatoes.

Straight inside.

The place was luxurious.

Like a high-end restaurant overflowing with moving bodies.

Every man seemed to have at least a third of a bottle of hair gel on his head.

More than half the women had dyed hair.

I’d been to bars a few times in college.

Mostly for dancing.

Always with classmates.

We looked after one another.

Honestly, we mostly just messed around.

I’d always been fascinated by the sophisticated adult world.

But after spending five minutes in this place, I started feeling nervous.

Going to a bar with a player I met online?

Is this the prologue to a cautionary tale about a college girl making terrible decisions?

Question marks appeared all over my head.

In the dim lights, people’s faces transformed into demons and monsters.

Like special effects from a movie.

I sent my cousin a message.

Told her where I was.

Promised to text her every hour.

If I failed to do so, she should call me.

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Half a mojito later, the anxiety eased.

Warmth spread through me.

My body relaxed.

I even started swaying slightly to the music.

After bringing me to the booth, Han Che exchanged a few words with his friends.

Noticing how awkwardly I was staring at the table, he came over.

“Don’t drink anything somebody else hands you.”

I wanted to tell him I wasn’t a child.

Instead, I obediently nodded.

Just as I’d begun trusting him by about ten percent, he handed me a mojito.

Then he plucked the mint leaf from the ice, popped it into his own mouth, smacked his lips, and said:

“I tested it. No poison.”

I accepted the drink.

Just as I was about to take a sip, he stopped me.

Then he rolled his eyes and took the glass away.

I watched him finish my entire mojito.

Completely dumbfounded.

What kind of person does that?

Wasn’t this supposed to be an apology drink?

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A moment later, he brought me another one.

I forced a smile and waved it away.

He nodded approvingly.

“Good. You’ve learned.”

Then he handed it to me again.

“Now drink.”

“Oh.”

I wasn’t stupid.

I knew he meant well.

I reached for the glass.

Even showed off my freshly painted cherry-red nails.

Smack.

He slapped my hand again.

“You still haven’t learned.”

Once again, I watched him shake his head in disappointment and drink the entire thing himself.

By the third mojito, I finally got it.

I kept refusing everything.

Only accepting a drink when the bartender personally delivered it on a tray.

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I’m from the north.

My alcohol tolerance is pretty good.

Half a mojito wasn’t enough to make me tipsy.

What really relaxed me was his ridiculous lesson.

For the first time, I started enjoying this strange adult world.

Only then did I learn the reason for his outfit.

Earlier he’d lost a drinking game and ended up spilling alcohol all over his own shirt.

The jacket belonged to a friend.

No wonder his style looked completely different.

He introduced me to two men at the table.

One was bald and nicknamed Fatty.

He’d brought several female friends.

Three of them had already left.

The other was married.

Didn’t drink at all.

A model husband.

Also the fashionable guy who’d lent Han Che the jacket.

At that moment, he was literally trying to strip the jacket off Han Che before heading home.

Han Che tried to stop him.

The man waved dismissively.

“You know how it is.”

“If I don’t go home now, I’m dead.”

I glanced at the time.

9:00 PM.

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After seeing him off, Han Che returned looking slightly disappointed.

The moment he saw me, though, he smiled again.

“Having fun?”

I glared at him.

“So the part about going to bed at nine was fake too.”

He burst out laughing.

Apparently he hadn’t expected me to still remember all his lies.

Then he immediately came up with a game.

“How about this?”

“We compete with drinks.”

“Every lie of mine you correctly identify, I drink a glass.”

“If you’re wrong, you drink.”

I puffed my cheeks.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You decide what’s true and what’s false.”

“How am I supposed to verify anything?”

“You think I’m stupid?”

Even as I complained, I was dying of curiosity.

“Unless there’s a witness.”

“There is.”

He threw an arm around Fatty.

“My high school classmate.”

“He knows everything about me.”

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He was in an exceptionally good mood.

Partly because of the alcohol.

Partly because of the music.

His narrow waist moved lazily with the beat.

His tank top perfectly displayed the results of all those hours in the gym.

Thankfully, I hadn’t completely lost my mind over his looks.

“What if I get drunk?”

I asked.

Perhaps my caution showed on my face.

He looked genuinely surprised.

Then he spread his hands innocently.

“If you get drunk, I’ll book you a hotel room.”

“Or I’ll put you in a taxi and send you home.”

“What else would I do?”

A grin appeared on his face.

“It’s not like I can do anything to you anyway.”