KC | Chapter 8

Lin Yiran was sitting at his desk, opened his MacBook, and was browsing KA system’s sales data for the previous quarter.

His office could not really be called luxurious. Near the wall stood a spacious desk, and office supplies were neatly arranged on it. Directly facing the desk was a rectangular meeting table, with tea set on top, and three chairs on each side under the table, used for receiving clients. Beside the desk was a simple brown storage cabinet, with marketing journals and all kinds of certificates Lin Yiran had won placed inside. Other than that, there were no other decorative items.

Lin Yiran’s office environment was just like Chen Xi’s, simple, businesslike, professional. Chen Xi did not buy other office supplies because he was afraid of wasting money, while Lin Yiran was used to simplicity. The two of them had different reasons, but the result was the same. Just like last night, although their starting points were different, in the end they really did sleep together.

Lin Yiran twirled the ballpoint pen in his hand, staring at the sales data on the computer screen, his gaze unfocused.

No matter how late he drank with the client, on workdays his alarm always went off at 6:30 without fail. This morning when the alarm rang, Lin Yiran opened his eyes and saw someone beside him, and only after being dazed for a while did he get out of bed. After washing up, he saw that Chen Xi still had not woken up, so he left.

Because he had not prepared his inauguration speech yet, and if he did not leave now, he would be late. In Lin Yiran’s eyes, nothing was more important than work.

He had originally thought that this matter was mutually willing, they were all adults, and they could just move past it as drunken recklessness. But this morning at the meeting, seeing Chen Xi sitting in the corner with his little face pale white, Lin Yiran felt a bit sorry for him again.

The first time he met Chen Xi, Lin Yiran had already felt compassion for him and treated him to a bowl of beef noodles; the next time he saw Chen Xi, Lin Yiran was afraid he would be bullied, so he took the initiative to explain face-to-face interview techniques to him; afterward, every time they ran into each other, they could always say a sentence or two… Chen Xi’s thin, small, dazed look always stirred Lin Yiran’s protective instinct.

Lin Yiran had still been thinking about moving past it a moment ago, but in this moment he could not help but approach Chen Xi. He had not expected Chen Xi to be like a rabbit with its fur blown up, glaring at him with red eyes, and after cursing him as a “beast,” he ran off.

I am a beast?

Last night you were the one who took the initiative to seduce me first. After I finished exerting myself, you still wanted to curse me?

Lin Yiran could not figure out what kind of problem Chen Xi was having, but compared with that, he could not figure out even more why he had slept with Chen Xi.

He remembered that half a year ago, once he went to a club, the client had called in an all-male lineup of escorts, each more effeminate than the last. The moment a young man leaned in, Lin Yiran quickly pushed the person away, wishing he could run eight meters away. He did not want to embarrass the client, but there was no helping it, he really could not do it with a man.

The client told him to try it and play around, and he had to harden himself and drink more than half a bottle of brandy, desperately apologizing to the client, before he was finally able to leave.

He did not understand why some people liked messing around with same-sex relationships, just like two mutually repelling magnets, how much effort would it take to force them together? He did not like opposite-pole magnets and did not want to put in the effort either, much less when it was also easy to get sick.

Lin Yiran’s principle for finding a bed partner had all changed when it came to Chen Xi.

Chen Xi had his contact information; Chen Xi was a man; he had not taken protective measures, and had ended up inside Chen Xi…

Lin Yiran felt that last night, he probably had not sobered up, which was why he had been out of it and fallen into the trap, abandoning so many of his principles.

In his impression, Chen Xi usually always looked half-asleep. Only at the end of the quarter when he was pushing for performance, or when he encountered key clients, would he become as energized as if he had been injected with chicken blood.

Most of the time, Chen Xi was gloomy. When other KA colleagues were out on visits and signing contracts, he was clocking in and out on schedule at his workstation. Lin Yiran did not often come back to the company, but every time he did, he would see Chen Xi at his workstation, his eyes empty and dazed, and only after seeing him would he come back to himself and greet him. The kid’s reactions were a little slow. Several times it had been Lin Yiran, as the boss, who took the initiative to greet him, and only then would Chen Xi open his mouth and answer with an “ah.”

Chen Xi was just like a preschool kid, able to eat and sleep well as usual, unable to keep anything bottled up inside, and when he ran into client problems, he would definitely blow up, running all over the office to call for help from all the KA experts. Once when a client compared competitors, Chen Xi could not hold it in and went around the KA desks, nagging whoever came back to the company, grinding the various experts until they complained bitterly to Lin Yiran. Lin Yiran called Chen Xi into the office to analyze the pros and cons of the competitor with him. Chen Xi did not say a word the entire time and was obedient as hell. Lin Yiran thought he understood and let him out. Unexpectedly, right after Chen Xi went out, he went around pestering people again.

Lin Yiran felt that there was a generation gap in the way he and Chen Xi communicated. When Chen Xi spoke to him, he often zoned out. When analyzing clients, after he finished laying out the strategy, Chen Xi would only give him perfunctory “mm-hmm, yes, yes, okay, okay, okay” responses. Once he left the office, he would do whatever he should do, making it seem like Lin Yiran was force-feeding him strategy.

After several rounds of his “warm face pressing against a cold butt,” Lin Yiran reached a conclusion: the gap between us is very deep, so deep that even several Mount Everests could not fill it.

The two of them, one born in the 80s and one in the 90s, were ten years apart, so a generation gap was perfectly normal. What Lin Yiran did not understand was this: when communicating with clients ten years younger than him at the execution level, he did not have a generation gap at all, and the other party even kept asking him to play ball together. Communication with outsiders was smooth, so why was it so hard to communicate with his own people inside KA?

After thirteen years at Lanhai, Lin Yiran had gotten used to controlling things no matter what position he was in. He had to keep track of key clients’ progress and employees’ work problems at any time in order to make sure performance plans were smoothly achieved.

But he could not control Chen Xi.

After Lin Yiran finished speaking at the morning meeting, he had already ordered fever medicine and anti-inflammatory medicine. He thought, Chen Xi looked like he was not feeling too well, maybe what had happened yesterday had been a little too rough. Lin Yiran asked himself honestly, his technique could not be called great, but it was not so bad that it would make someone get out of bed and throw a face at him.

Messing around with a man was already more troublesome than with a woman. Lin Yiran had always had no patience for this kind of thing, and being able to patiently use a lighter on him first was already, to him, “showing him utmost mercy.” At the KA morning meeting, Lin Yiran glanced at the hard wooden seat and told everyone to stand up. Chen Xi met his eyes and did not interact with him.

Lin Yiran thought to himself: looks like I got disliked. But I have never messed around with a man before, and he was the one who was so proactive but did not teach me how to do it. After I finished, he still came to complain about me. That was really unreasonable!

Before, Lin Yiran had always gone along with mutual willingness, and he felt that with Chen Xi, it could also be counted as “mutual willingness,” only he had not paid.

But even if there were payment involved, it should not be me paying him. It was his need, and I did the work, so he should be paying me instead.

Lin Yiran’s line of thinking completely did not work with Chen Xi. He felt they should not have been like this, but he did not know where the problem had arisen.

Last night, after Lin Yiran finished showering, he saw Chen Xi wrap himself up like a rice dumpling and occupy half the bed. Lin Yiran felt that two men sleeping in one bed was nothing, so he did not think much and turned off the light to get on the bed.

Just as he was about to sleep, the little thing beside him swept away all the blankets. The standard room in the KTV did not have spare bedding, so the two of them could only cover themselves with this one blanket. Lin Yiran could not be bothered to indulge his bad habits, so he reached out to tug at the blanket. Chen Xi did not even look at him, and as soon as he opened his mouth he cursed, “Don’t fucking bother me, get the hell to the side!”

Lin Yiran had originally wanted to pull some blanket over himself and sleep. If he really could not get any, then turning up the air conditioner a bit could also make do. But hearing Chen Xi curse at him, he was inexplicably furious, and thought: you stole the blanket and still have the nerve?

“Get up.” Lin Yiran pushed him and forcefully tugged away more than half the blanket.

Chen Xi hugged the blanket and rolled half a circle in a daze, then rolled the blanket that Lin Yiran had just pulled away back again.

Lin Yiran: …

A strong arm lifted Chen Xi up. Afraid he would turn over and snatch the blanket, Lin Yiran quickly burrowed into the blankets.

Sure enough, Chen Xi really came to grab the blanket, his head drooping as he unconsciously rolled toward his side. Luckily the blanket was covering him, otherwise it would have been snatched away again.

Lin Yiran thought to himself: Chen Xi must have been the most disobedient kid in kindergarten, only knowing how to grab the blanket!

This time the little kid did not roll into the blanket, but rolled into Lin Yiran’s arms, treating him like a pillow and dazedly rubbing upward.

Lin Yiran disliked how hot and bothersome he was, pushed him away several times, but after a moment he was stuck to him again.

The moonlight outside the window gilded the frail body with silver light. The snow-white skin seemed to become transparent, and Chen Xi looked like a sacred sculpture, his whole person glowing.

Lin Yiran froze.

Chen Xi’s eyes had remained closed the whole time. His small body, not wrapped by the blanket, was shivering from the cold, and his rosy lips opened and closed as if he were saying some sleep-talk.

Afraid that he would catch cold, Lin Yiran pulled him back and covered him with the blanket, then put on his coat and prepared to go next door to find Li Hua.

A sound suddenly came from behind him, too soft, like a kitten that had not yet been fully weaned meowing.

Lin Yiran turned back, and his mind went “boom,” with all kinds of brightly colored fireworks exploding in his head.

The kitten’s claws scratched restlessly at the blanket, scratching right at Lin Yiran’s chest, and the fire in his heart suddenly shot up 8 meters.

…

Lin Yiran felt that he definitely had not sobered up, otherwise how could his body have gone uncontrollably forward and held Chen Xi?

Snow-white skin, a clear voice, a delicate face, Chen Xi was too clean, and Lin Yiran always could not help but bully him.

No one was as inexperienced as Chen Xi, and no one was as clear as him.

Negotiation experts were used to using dialectical ways of thinking to test whether their own logic had loopholes. This morning, after calming down, Lin Yiran began to analyze that chaotic night.

I subjectively thought that Chen Xi seduced me, that Chen Xi took the initiative, but if he had really been blackout drunk afterward, and the later rejections were from his true feelings rather than some kind of baiting me into the act and then refusing me?

If that was the case, then everything made sense.

Because I subjectively judged that he was seducing me, I thought he had done it, thought he should teach me, instead of just lying there like a dead fish only knowing how to enjoy it. But there was also a very great possibility that when he said it hurt, it really hurt, and when he said no, he really meant no.

With such an inexperienced body, how could he possibly have done it before.

Why did I, without regard for his wishes, and without carefully analyzing his thoughts, insist on forcing the person all the way to the end?

Because I had not sobered up?

No, I could remember everything from last night, I was conscious.

Because he seduced me?

Right, but if he did not want to do it, why would he seduce me? I clearly heard him call my name, I could not possibly have remembered wrong.

Why did Chen Xi seduce me when he was drunk?

Lin Yiran could not figure it out.

Up above, according to the logic that Chen Xi did not want to, all the deductive logic chains were clear and reasonable. But then it turned into a dead knot here, and he could not figure out Chen Xi’s purpose.

The reason Lin Yiran was able to sign contracts for million-yuan projects and had an endless stream of client resources was because he often stood in the client’s position to think about problems. Clients chose to cooperate with Lin Yiran not only for ad placement, but more because they trusted Lin Yiran and recognized his creative strategy. Many years of working in key account sales had made Lin Yiran used to thinking in terms of “altruism.”

From Chen Xi’s perspective, I have a family, I am straight, and I am also his superior. I am not a suitable choice for a one-night stand, and he had absolutely no purpose in seducing me.

So, Chen Xi simply had no purpose. What he did was just an unconscious action after drinking.

It was his unconscious action, or rather, his habitual action.

Only the person who liked me would, after getting drunk, call my name for self-defense.

Chen Xi liked me.

If that was the case, then it was even harder to deal with.

Lin Yiran pressed a hand to his forehead and carefully recalled his past with Chen Xi, not finding the slightest trace that Chen Xi liked him.

That was hidden way too deep!

There were a lot of meetings at the beginning of the quarter, and Lin Yiran had just been promoted, with countless emails waiting for his approval, so he had no time to waste.

He thought: later tonight, I’ll find Chen Xi and talk. If the other party could let go, then we’ll move past it; if he can’t let go, then I’ll apologize and first stabilize him before talking about anything else.