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Lin Hui laid on his sofa and called Luo Ting.
“I might not be able to wait until that day.”
Luo Ting was a little confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying I might’ve overestimated myself. I won’t be able to wait around until his wedding day.” Lin Hui looked at the hanging light in his living room. “Luo Ting, I want to resign.”
This was the third time Lin Hui had thought of resigning. The first time was when he realized that he liked He Jianshan.
Lin Hui’s life had always been simple since he was child. When he was in middle and high school, he was busy studying and helping his grandmother, like a pearl covered in dust. Once he started college, he was like the sky after a storm. He had been brimming with a clean and bright brilliance. He didn’t just attract the attention of the girls. There were also a lot of boys who wanted to be friends with him. His roommates often teased him, but he really didn’t meet anyone that he liked within those four years of college. He never even developed a crush on anyone, much less a relationship.
In fact, He Jianshan was pretty much the first and only person Lin Hui had ever had a wet dream about.
As a grown man, Lin Hui had obviously had wet dreams before, but none of those dreams had been as vivid and concrete as his dream of He Jianshan. It was ambiguous, anxious, eager. Those eyes of his were piercing, his strong arms wrapped around him…
Once Lin Hui managed to calm down, he started thinking. He recalled just how much attention he placed on He Jianshan and realized that his feelings for his boss seemed to be a little out of the ordinary. “I like He Jianshan. I like men.” To be honest, this was a little outside his realm of understanding. Still, Lin Hui wasn’t the best of his class for nothing. He calmly asked for a day off and started looking up information. Then, he saw an article reading, “The biggest obstacle for the LGBT community in China isn’t right-wing politics or conservative religions. Rather, the biggest obstacle is the family.”
The largest source of pressure for gay people came from their own family. Lin Hui thought to himself, “But I don’t have any family.”
He immediately felt relieved.
Like a tiny spark in a field of withered grass, Lin Hui’s love started to burn, growing stronger and stronger every day. When Lin Hui was faced with these strange new feelings, he was like a child who had just learned how to walk, stumbling yet eager. He suddenly discovered that the happiness he gained from his work could not compare to a single compliment, a single smile, or even a single touch from He Jianshan. He carried himself cautiously, but he couldn’t help but notice each and every one of He Jianshan’s expressions, movements, and words. His feelings were earnest and enthusiastic. His heart was entirely out of balance. It had been completely taken up by He Jianshan.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Lin Hui had lost his head.
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Lin Hui blushed with shame.
After the meeting, Lin Hui stood in front of He Jianshan’s desk, his head bowed, and said nothing.
He Jianshan didn’t scold him. He just stared at him for a while and asked, “What do you think of your report just now?”
Lin Hui pursed his lips and remorsefully replied, “Very bad.”
He Jianshan asked another seemingly irrelevant question. “Lin Hui, what do you think of Wanzhu?”
Lin Hui raised his head with a firm look in his eyes. “Very strong. It’s the best in its field.”
“Still, even for a company as strong as Wanzhu, it usually only has one chance to get things right.” He Jianshan turned around and picked out a few books from the bookshelf. Then, he placed them in front of Lin Hui. “You should look over some of the topics that were mentioned at the meeting today.”
Wanzhu had dipped its toes into many fields over the years. All of which were fields that Lin Hui didn’t know much about, so he often read books in order to make up for it. As an assistant, this was what he needed to do in order to keep up with He Jianshan. From the moment he entered Wanzhu, he never stopped learning. He Jianshan had taken note of all of this.
“I don’t know why you’ve been so absent-minded lately, but I’m willing to give you another chance.”
From that day forward, Lin Hui became much calmer. An Ni would occasionally tease him about it, saying that he sometimes looked a little bit like He Jianshan. She was right. Lin Hui learned his self-discipline from He Jianshan. He buried his sour feelings at the bottom of his heart. He sorrowfully discovered that the more professional, the more competent, and the more sensible he behaved, the more He Jianshan would acknowledge him.
If he wanted to get closer to He Jianshan, he must first keep his distance. That was what Lin Hui thought.
He spent most of his time at Wanzhu with He Jianshan. On the one hand, the close working quarters made it so that Lin Hui’s thoughts were always running wild. On the other hand, he needed to constantly restrain himself and hold back. He needed to disguise himself as a hardworking and motivated workaholic.
The cognitive dissonance was torturous for Lin Hui. He considered leaving.
In the blink of an eye, it was time for the Mid-Autumn Festival. That year, the Mid-Autumn Festival happened to overlap with National Day. The upcoming eight-day holiday filled the entire company building with a sense of happiness. However, on the first day of vacation, Lin Hui ended up working overtime with He Jianshan until the sky fell dark. It was getting late. Lin Hui still had an appointment with a friend, so he let He Jianshan know and clocked out. Before leaving, he helped buy some dinner for He Jianshan. Two dishes, one soup, and one bowl of rice were neatly placed on the coffee table. He Jianshan waved his hand at him, telling him to hurry up and go.
The Mid-Autumn Festival was a day for reunion. While he was in the elevator, Lin Hui figured that He Jianshan urged him to go because he thought Lin Hui was rushing to see his family.
Unfortunately, he no longer had a family.
After having dinner with his friend, Lin Hui discovered that he had left his keys at the office, so he ended up having to take a taxi back to the company building. At that time, Wanzhu was still located in the old office building on the southern side of the city. It was a twenty-two-story office building. He Jianshan’s office was located on the eighteenth floor. The taxi stopped in front of Wanzhu. Lin Hui looked up. Night had already fallen. The dimly lit office building looked like a giant, silently staring at the earth.
Lin Hui arrived at the office, and, unsurprisingly, He Jianshan had yet to leave. Not only did he not leave, he didn’t even eat dinner. The takeout box looked exactly the same as Lin Hui had left it. There wasn’t any trace of it having been touched. He Jianshan wasn’t working on anything. Rather, he was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows and looking out at the night. It was hard to tell what he was thinking.
The city lights were mottled and multicolored. They would occasionally reflect onto He Jianshan’s face through the glass, flickering and ephemeral.
Lin Hui felt his heart squeeze.
He was as if he had returned to the day when he received the phone call informing him of his grandmother’s sudden death. He had been sitting on a bench beside the school sports field. There was constant shouting coming from the soccer field. It was clearly very noisy, but his heart seemed to have locked away by itself. It had been very quiet and very empty.
Lin Hui wondered to himself, “Why was this person alone as well?”
Lin Hui figured that he couldn’t leave.
He walked in and said in a loud voice, “President He, you still haven’t got off work?”
He Jianshan turned his head.
Lin Hui continued, “Has the moon come out yet?”
He Jianshan hesitated for a moment. After a while, he finally responded, “…Not yet, it seems.”
“That’s perfect.” Lin Hui pulled up a chair and put it in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. Then, he brought out the persimmons and mooncakes that the administrative department sent him yesterday. He arranged them neatly on a plate. He also steeped a cup of tea. Finally, he placed all of these things on the chair. The plate was on the inside while the cup was on the outside.
He Jianshan watched him busy about and asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m making a toast to the moon.” Lin Hui smiled softly. “I’m worried that the moon will already be out by the time I get home, so I’m just going to make do with what I can. This is a custom of my hometown. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, you have to invite the moon to a cup of tea. No Mid-Autumn Festival is complete unless you drink a cup of tea with the moon.”
He Jianshan was completely stunned.
Lin Hui’s voice was light and brisk. It sounded like he was coaxing a child, but his expression was indescribably earnest.
“No Mid-Autumn Festival … is complete without it?” He Jianshan stared out at the night sky. It seemed as if he was looking for the moon.
Lin Hui looked out at the city ablaze with lights and said earnestly, “Yes, no Mid-Autumn Festival is complete without it.”
Neither of them said anything after that.
One of them stood one on the left of the chair, and the other on the right. The lights silently streamed onto the image of their backs. After a while, the moon came out, and, just like that, these two unrelated people spent a Mid-Autumn Festival together.