KC | Chapter 34

The bus stopped downstairs from Lihua Building. Chen Xi stood at the bus door, a half-eaten grilled sausage clenched in his mouth. The wide sleeve of his hoodie made his arm look long and slender, and below his shorts, two clean, straight calves were exposed, youthful and bright.

A Cadillac passed the bus and drove toward the underground parking lot. Chen Xi stared hard at the license plate, forgot to close his mouth, and the grilled sausage fell to the ground.

“MD, breakfast is gone,” Chen Xi said, and the words that came out were very different from his appearance, not youthful or bright at all.

Chen Xi picked up the grilled sausage that had rolled into the dirt, threw it into the trash can, and got onto the bus.

The first-row seat was empty, obviously left for Lin Yiran. Chen Xi walked straight to the last row, sat in the innermost seat, plugged earphones into his phone and played music, pulled the hoodie over his head, and prepared to sleep.

Less than two minutes later, there was movement from the front. Several coworkers greeted Lin Yiran, and Wang Shuang told him that everyone had arrived. At Lin Yiran’s command, the driver started the bus, and the one-day trip to Glacier Gully began.

The bus got onto the highway, and green rice fields flashed past outside the window. Laughter and chatter came from the front seats from time to time. Chen Xi squinted for a while and still could not fall asleep, so he turned the earphone volume up and tried to shut out everything inside the bus.

An hour later, the bus drove to a rest stop, the men got off to smoke, and the women got off to use the restroom. Chen Xi also wanted to smoke a cigarette, but seeing no movement in the front row, he had no choice but to give up.

To get off the bus, he had to pass Lin Yiran’s seat, and Chen Xi did not want any more contact with him.

What about saying that “Gu Lin already had someone internally picked,” wasn’t it just because I “didn’t invite him upstairs”!

His wife was pregnant and he went out messing around, and when he messed around with someone unwilling, he wanted to use underhanded pressure. He looked polite and proper on the outside, but inside he was such a dog that even dogs would be scared to tears.

“Xiao Chen, hey, I just looked for you on the bus, why are you sitting so far back!” Zhang Yuanji walked over from the front row, “Come on, get off and smoke.”

With someone covering for him, Chen Xi took off his earphones and got off the bus with Zhang Yuanji. The two of them sat under a big tree in the rest area and puffed smoke.

Zhang Yuanji had gone straight to the client after participating in the recruitment yesterday and had not chatted in detail with Chen Xi. Today, seeing that he looked listless, he felt he should give him a proper pep talk. “Xiao Chen, don’t think about the recruitment anymore. Brother Lin will announce the result on Monday, maybe it’ll really be you. Besides, even if it’s not you, the others who go probably won’t be able to sign either.”

“Hm?” Chen Xi raised his eyebrows.

Zhang Yuanji hooked an arm over and very casually draped it on Chen Xi’s shoulder, his tone cheap and annoying. “I heard from a friend in the circle that there should be some problem with the Gu Lin project. Otherwise, with how sharp Brother Lin is, he would’ve signed it himself long ago, and it wouldn’t be our turn…”

“Mm, did Brother Zhang find out the specific problem with Gu Lin?”

“The smokers, hurry up, get ready to get back on the bus!” Lin Yiran stood at the bus door and shouted. His gaze seemed as if it was looking at the two of them, yet also as if it wasn’t. Because when Chen Xi turned toward the sound, Lin Yiran had already turned his head away.

Zhang Yuanji pulled his arm off Chen Xi’s shoulder, took a few hard drags, and stubbed out the cigarette. The look the leader had just given him was so cold it seemed ready to freeze into ice, and Zhang Yuanji suspected that the bad things he had said about him had been heard.

The two got on the bus. Zhang Yuanji did not dare sit in the front row again and rolled straight to the back seat with Chen Xi.

Lin Yiran still had a faint expression, only in the latter half of the trip, Chen Xi no longer heard the laughter and chatter from the front seats.

The bus got off the highway and drove for more than ten minutes before Glacier Gully was reached.

Everyone got off the bus, and Lin Yiran negotiated with the scenic area leaders. Wang Shuang directed everyone to stand in two rows at the entrance, shook out the red banner in the backpack, and had the people standing on both sides pull it taut. The banner had a red background with gold characters, and printed on it were the words: Yucheng KA Makes Great Strides!

Lin Yiran asked the client to help them take a photo. He ran over to Chen Xi with his long legs, inserted himself between him and Zhang Yuanji, and joined the line.

All the KA staff stood under the blue sky and white clouds, with the huge stone gate of Glacier Gully as the backdrop, pulling open the bright red banner. The client shouted “1, 2, 3,” and the KA staff shouted “Cheese!”

Lin Yiran smiled wildly and beautifully, Chen Xi smiled brightly and warmly, and the photo froze. They were all smiling.

The summer sky was bright, the forest was lush, and the KA group moved forward along the winding mountain road. They passed streams from time to time, with water gurgling along, and birds and frogs happened to be calling in the woods, making everything comfortable and pleasant.

Zhang Yuanji had a black leg sleeve tied on his leg to prevent varicose veins. He wore a tactical jacket and carried a hiking backpack, looking quite like an athletic ace. Twenty minutes later, the full set of hiking gear could no longer carry his fat body, and the athletic ace was sweating all over, complaining nonstop.

“Slow, slower…” Zhang Yuanji shouted at the top of his lungs.

Chen Xi stopped walking. Li Hua stood beside him and mocked him, “You can barely climb after just a few steps? Your big frame is no good, obviously just fat for nothing!”

“I’m fat, but I’m not for nothing!” Zhang Yuanji wiped the sweat from his forehead and did not forget to argue back.

“Then why aren’t Xiao Chen and I sweating?” Li Hua rolled his eyes and teased him, “Look at Brother Lin, he just chatted a lot with the client, came into the scenic area more than ten minutes later than us, and now he has caught up without even panting.”

Zhang Yuanji moved over and grabbed Li Hua by the tank top. “Brother Lin is awesome, fine? I can’t compare. Brother, carry me along.”

Li Hua stepped uphill, Zhang Yuanji grabbed his shirt and followed behind, the two of them one in front and one behind, looking rather funny. Li Hua was like a donkey grinding a mill, and Zhang Yuanji was the dead-heavy millstone. After a few steps, Li Hua could not drag him along and said unhappily, “Fuck, are you treating me like a donkey?”

“Xiao Chen, save me, bro, I can’t carry this thing, it’s too heavy.”

Chen Xi put on his earphones and listened to music, pretending not to hear, his calves moving quickly as he fled from those two troublemakers at once.

Because of Zhang Yuanji, the “weight stone,” the three of them had always been at the very back of the KA group. Chen Xi leaped to the middle of the team, and just by coincidence Lin Yiran had just returned from the front to the middle, holding up his phone and taking photos by the stream.

Chen Xi lowered his head and hid behind the crowd, trying as hard as he could to reduce his presence, but Lin Yiran suddenly turned around and said, “Come and look at this multicolored water, it’s really strange! Whoever wants to take photos can come here, this angle is good, the pictures will definitely come out nice!”

The stream refracted colorful light under the sunlight. The blazing sun stabbed at Chen Xi’s eyes, and he walked away into the distance with his back to the light. Along the way, the stream was clear like a mirror, reflecting the blue sky and pure white clouds. Sunlight passed through the water and refracted golden light. Although it was not as colorful as the place just now, it was quiet and pure.

Chen Xi liked clean scenery more, and did not like complicated people.

The middle section had the most KA staff. A large crowd swarmed toward the stream in response to the leader’s call, taking photos, looking at the water, each doing their own thing. In Lin Yiran’s eyes was Chen Xi’s retreating back, thin and lonely.

“Leader, take a photo for me and Dabao, okay!” Liu Xueying had brought her child. The little girl wore her hair in two braids, lively and cute.

“Alright.” Lin Yiran took Liu Xueying’s phone and fished out a lollipop from his backpack for the little girl.

He liked children and had once planned to have several, but because his ex-wife did not want to give birth, he gave up. Thinking about it now, it was fortunate he had not had children, otherwise after the divorce, with no time to raise them, the child would probably have become a second him.

Chen Xi quickly walked to the front section of the team as if escaping, and Ma Longfei and Wang Shuang were standing by the road drinking water.

“Xiao Chen, where are the people behind? Why can’t I see them at all.” Ma Longfei asked.

“President Lin is taking photos for them.” Just as Chen Xi finished speaking, his phone buzzed. Lin Yiran had sent many photos in the work group, and almost everyone had been photographed by him.

Lin Yiran was always this broad-minded, seeming to care about everyone, but in truth caring about no one. Taking photos for people was only him carrying out a leader’s duty to pay attention to employees, starting the Gu Lin recruitment was him wanting to achieve his own goal while also not leaving anyone room to criticize him, and coming here for the trip was to ask the client for money. Everything he did had a purpose, and he was always thinking about interests.

There were only three people in the front section of the team. Chen Xi and Wang Shuang were not on good terms, so he could only chat with Ma Longfei.

“Brother Ma, what did President Lin talk to you about yesterday?”

Before Ma Longfei could answer, Wang Shuang cut in from the side, “Xiao Chen, Gu Lin is an open recruitment. President Lin already has his own judgment in mind, and the result will be announced on Monday. It’s not very good for you to ask around about other people’s privacy,”

“What, I can’t even chat with Brother Ma?” Chen Xi did not want to waste words with her, and also did not want to make it hard for Ma Longfei to be caught in the middle, so he had no choice but to turn the earphone volume up and charge forward with his head down.

The plank road in Glacier Gully was built flat, but mountain roads were not the same as flat ground. Chen Xi had been walking quickly for less than five minutes before he got tired.

Not far away by the stream stood a pavilion, with red tiles and orange walls, its colors quite vivid. Chen Xi entered the pavilion. A light breeze was blowing, and a hint of coolness came from inside his sweat-soaked sportswear.

In the distance, layered peaks rose one after another, trees and shrubs were lush, and the noon sun dyed the stream golden. The stream fell down along the rocks, and the bustle and splendor at the foot of the mountain were beautiful beyond measure, like a finely drawn gongbi painting.

The seats in the pavilion had obvious signs of being lacquered, and should have been newly built, made to look old. The pavilion’s ancient and elegant appearance blended into the natural scenery, making it an excellent viewing spot.

Chen Xi listened to the sound of the water and felt the birdsong and floral fragrance in the mountains and forests, his mind and body pleasantly relaxed.

The tired soul was able to rest in this haven, and Chen Xi temporarily put down his heavy burden and enjoyed nature’s gift.

This was the escape he longed for.

The heavy workload had already made him unable to find the meaning of life, and the entanglements of feelings gradually made him lose himself.

The pressure of life could make a person become distorted, but I cannot go with the flow. I cannot be the water at the foot of the mountain, mixed with sand and stones until it becomes dirty; I want to be the spring on the mountain, staying clean and clear.

Chen Xi sat in the pavilion and looked into the distance, sighing at nature’s marvelous craftsmanship. He pressed the shutter and froze this scene.

He took photos of mountains and water in the pavilion, and Lin Yiran took photos of him from afar.

Among the lush green mountains and forests, the pavilion stood beside the stream. Inside the pavilion, a tall, slender figure held up a phone. Chen Xi’s arms were clean and slender, his black broken hair fluttered in the wind, his neat hoodie had no wrinkles, and his two calves exposed beneath his sweatpants were straight and slender.

Chen Xi sat quietly in the pavilion, his body leaning slightly forward, as if listening to nature’s breathing, perfectly blending into the surrounding scenery,

The person in the picture was so beautiful it was beyond comparison.

Lin Yiran did not send this photo into the group.

The dark and selfish man quietly hid that stunning back view and that gorgeous scenery, not allowing anyone to covet it.

Chen Xi looked back and saw Lin Yiran standing far away.

The tall, straight man stood in the forest, dressed as always in black and white, a white T-shirt with black sports pants, and his gray-white sneakers had not a speck of dust on them, simple and unshowy. In summer he often ran around outside, so his skin was a little darker than Chen Xi’s, and his build was also slightly more solid.

No matter how many times it was, as long as he met Lin Yiran’s eyes, Chen Xi’s heartbeat would unconsciously speed up.

Lin Yiran put away his dark thoughts, donned a calm and elegant outer shell, and slowly walked toward the pavilion.

Chen Xi tilted his head to look into the distance, his voice cold. “President Lin wants to take a photo for me? Just stand there, it’s not good for the composition if you come too close.” You’ve taken photos of everyone else, and once I let you finish taking mine, your work will be done.

Lin Yiran stopped and stood outside the pavilion, smiling a little bitterly.

“Then turn your head toward me.”

Chen Xi turned his head and forced out a smile that was no better than his.

The shutter clicked. The person in the photo was stiff and dull, like a puppet doll without a soul.

Lin Yiran walked into the pavilion and wanted to say something to Chen Xi, but he did not know how to start.

Chen Xi leaned back against the pavilion pillar, his gaze blank and unfocused.

Were you going to talk to me about Gu Lin, or something else?

I’m so tired, every time I talk to you I get even more tired.

So, can you not talk to me?

If I could talk to you normally like everyone else, that would be nice.

If only I didn’t like you.