Break-up

Gu Yanting was still holding the back of his head in pain, frowning and hissing for a long time.
Only after his vision slowly adjusted to the light in the room did he see Tang Yi standing by the bed, looking extremely angry.

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One of them was bewildered and the other was furious.
Tang Yi stared at Gu Yanting for a while but finally realised that the whole situation looked as if he was in the wrong.

He closed his eyes, then took off his glasses and threw them on the cabinet to the side, pinching his brow, not even bothering to look at Gu Yanting, “Didn’t you say you’d leave this afternoon? It’s already half past twelve.”

Gu Yanting blinked and let out an “oh”.

“…… ” Tang Yi: “Oh what? I’m asking you a question!”

“I asked for leave,” Gu Yanting wrinkled his nose, “I said I was sick, too sick to get up.”

Tang Yi: “……”

Gu Yanting looked up at him for a long time with a somewhat aggrieved expression, “I’m hungry.
You left this morning and you didn’t come back even though you promised to eat with me.
I didn’t even eat lunch or dinner.
Now I’m hungry, my belly is stuck to my back, you can feel it, I’m starving into 2D.”

Tang Yi had really forgotten about this.
He gave Gu Yanting a suspicious look and frowned, “…I didn’t promise you, did I?”

“You promised,” Gu Yanting said, “You acquiesced.”

“……” Tang Yi was a bit speechless, looking at the messy bed, and suddenly remembering something, “So you haven’t gotten out of bed?”

“I’m sick…” Gu Yanting justified, “I need to rest in bed.”

“You…”

“I’m really sick…” Gu Yanting sighed and moved towards Tang Yi’s side, raising his own face and saying, “If you don’t believe me, you can touch it.”

Gu Yanting was really sick, and when Tang Yi half-heartedly put his hand on his forehead, he felt that the skin under his palm was hot.

Fall and winter were the seasons of cold and flu.
This year’s flu was very serious.
Last time after the rain Tang Yi had a fever for a week.
When he went to the hospital, he couldn’t even get an infusion.
Many people in the company coughed and sneezed.
The administrative department put a lot of cold medicine in the pantry and basically new ones had to be added every three days.

When Tang Yi looked at Gu Yanting’s flushed face, he just thought the guy was lying under the covers, but now he tested his body temperature and was shocked.
He also saw Gu Yanting’s whole body was flushed.

The man with a cold saw Tang Yi’s face soften and his eyes brightened as he wrinkled his nose and muttered again, “I’m hungry…”

Tang Yi slapped him back into the blanket, rewarded him with a “deserve it” sentence, and then gritted his teeth and went to the kitchen.

The kitchen of the small apartment was actually a small space with an induction stove installed, usually separated by a glass sliding door.
Tang Yi himself didn’t like to cook, and later seeing that the induction stove didn’t even have a large enough fire for proper cooking, he simply forgot about that piece.
He was just too lazy to throw it away when cleaning the house.

The flower he had just thrown to the corner had its head tilted downwards miserably, and Tang Yi paused as he walked past the living room, turned around and threw it back onto the TV stand.
As he thought about what was in the fridge, he pulled open the sliding door to the kitchen.

Then he froze.

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The kitchen was freshly scrubbed.
A shiny microwave was placed on the counter and a few small bowls were placed next to it, carefully covered.

Gu Yanting quickly wrapped himself in a blanket and followed him.
Seeing Tang Yi stunned, he faked a cough and pretended not to care, “So what, I just cooked a couple of dishes.
Hey, I have lived alone for the past two years.
The level is definitely not comparable to before.
The roasted meat with mushrooms is a little bit salty.
According to the scientists, it is best for a person to eat 5 grams of salt a day.
I have about exceeded the standard a little bit.
A total of 5.5g?”

“…… ” Tang Yi was suddenly speechless.

If he couldn’t hear the meaning of Gu Yanting’s words, it would be a waste of time for the two of them to spend so much time together.
Gu Yanting wanted to be modest and wanted to be praised, and even a fool could hear his complacency when his final words were said.
This kind of Gu Yanting made Tang Yi feel a little helpless and a little funny.
He couldn’t help but hook the corners of his mouth, silently digesting it for a while before turning his face expressionlessly.

“So, scientists also said that people with colds and fevers can wander around naked?” Tang Yi looked at Gu Yanting coldly and raised his eyebrows, “Should I open the door for you to go out for a walk and come back after a while?”

Gu Yanting was startled for a moment and went back inside, flashing his long white legs.

Ten minutes later he put on a set of pyjamas that Tang Yi had found for him and sneezed on the sofa with ginger soup in his hands.
Tang Yi glanced at him several times in disgust and moved the warmed-up meal aside.

“Eating ginger at night is like arsenic,” Gu Yanting hissed as he took a sip of the spicy ginger soup, and when he saw Tang Yi sitting slowly on the low stool eating the porridge, he protested in a small voice, “Why don’t I wait for it to cool down before drinking it?”

Gu Yanting hated ginger with passion.
From the three brothers of onion, ginger and garlic, only garlic had a chance to enter his mouth.
He also disliked coriander, which he stubbornly believed was a big oddity in the vegetable world and was awful to look at.
He was particularly fond of crab, but no matter how many times Tang Yi mixed the crab vinegar sauce, the slightest bit of ginger juice would be surreptitiously poured away by him.
In the end, Tang Yi had no choice but to buy a lot of shiso specifically to keep on hand.

Gu Yanting tried to bargain, talked about theories of Chinese medicine, said two proverbs and took a little sip.
Tang Yi was so frustrated by his noise that he finally threw him a sentence, “Drink it if you like, get out if you don’t.” Gu Yanting protested for a long time with his mouth closed, and finally drank the cup of ginger soup with the expression of a revolutionary martyr.

After the two of them finished eating, Tang Yi took their things to be washed.
By the time Gu Yanting finished the ginger soup, he almost worked himself up into crying.
Then he tsked, raising his legs on the sofa to show Tang Yi, “When did you buy these pyjamas? Why are they so short? Look, the ankles are exposed, they’ve become nine-quarter pants.”

He was red-faced, with a chicken’s nest hair, and he turned his head to look at Tang Yi with shiny eyes.
The two of them hadn’t been able to get along so peacefully since they broke up, and after Tang Yi rolled up his sleeves and rinsed his hands clean, he leaned against the sliding door frame of the kitchen and looked at Gu Yanting, somewhat unable to suppress the slightest quirk of his lips, “What do you want to say?”

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Gu Yanting’s face heated up at his faint smile, and his heart instantly felt like it had short-circuited, crackling with electricity all the way from his chest to his limbs.
He was busy turning his head away from looking at Tang Yi, and his voice couldn’t help but drop two points lower, “Come over and see if I’ve grown up.”

This set of pyjamas was a fluffy chinchilla outfit.
When Tang Yi bought it back then, Gu Yanting had always felt it was too childish and didn’t fit his majestic and handsome image.
After trying it on with disgust he didn’t wear it, so it was put aside in the apartment.
This time when he stretched his legs and really showed his ankles, Tang Yi was surprised and walked over.

Gu Yanting waited for him to come closer, pulling the leg of the pants up with his hand.
Tang Yi was about to bend down to look when he was caught by the shoulders and pulled down unexpectedly.

Gu Yanting’s arms were surprisingly strong, and Tang Yi was completely unprepared.
He didn’t react until he was pinned down on the carpet.
Gu Yanting’s body heat quickly passed through their clothes, and Tang Yi returned to his senses, trying to say something when his mouth was eagerly blocked.

Tang Yi’s arm that he knocked down when he was toppled over in surprise slowly began to tingle.
Gu Yanting’s hand was on the back of his head, which prevented him from knocking the back of his head, but also didn’t let him turn his face away.
The warm, familiar scent surrounded him and in a trance his lips were sucked, then his teeth were pried open and his mouth was suddenly invaded frantically like never before.

Gu Yanting’s eyes were closed as he slowly pulled his arms out from under Tang Yi’s body, then covered the latter’s somewhat helpless hands, then clasped their fingers together, interlocking them one by one as his lips and tongue continued their work.

This was a very possessive move.
Tang Yi’s mind went blank from the moment Gu Yanting kissed him without warning.
His arms and legs were pressed so tightly by Gu Yanting that he could feel his opponent’s tense muscles when he moved.
Gu Yanting was like a beast that was taut and ready to leap, but after overpowering Tang Yi, he used the gentlest movements to slowly please him.

Tang Yi’s body felt like it was being pushed over a huge wave that was undulating up and down, a tingling sensation of electricity running from the sky directly down his root chakra.
His whole body felt like it was going to catch fire.
The first kiss was very domineering and savage, but later on Gu Yanting slowed down the rhythm, even breathing cautiously, as if he was dealing with a rare treasure, first holding Tang Yi’s lower lip and gently sucking it, then slowly backing away.
When Tang Yi just took a gasp of air, he returned, covering Tang Yi’s mouth completely with his, until the latter was a bit suffocated, and then slowly breathing in.

Their bodies quickly reacted to this action, and after a long time Gu Yanting finally slowly backed away a little, but the distance between their noses was still very close, and Tang Yi was in a daze, his eyes misty.
After a while he blinked, only to find that a tear had seeped out of the corner of his eye.

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Gu Yanting’s gaze was dark as he stared at him, a smear of moisture on his lips and some redness at the corners of his eyes.

“Gu Yanting… what do you want?” Tang Yi closed his eyes, his breathing slowly calming down.
When he spoke again, he opened his eyes and the expression on his face was cold, “What do you want to do?”

“You,” Gu Yanting’s breathing was a little heavy, and as he spoke he moved his body, deliberately rubbing their manly reactions against each other.
“Okay?”

“Okay,” Tang Yi closed his eyes, “feel free.
If you want me to hate you for the rest of my life.”

Gu Yanting: “……”

Gu Yanting fell on Tang Yi’s body and was silent for a long time.
Finally he propped himself up on the floor and stood up.
When he reached out to pull Tang Yi up, the latter avoided his hand and didn’t even give him a glance when he got up.
Then Tang Yi turned around, suddenly raised his foot and kicked over the glass coffee table.

When the coffee table was turned over, the things on it fell to the ground.
Fortunately, there was a carpet under it.
Only one corner of the coffee table was broken.
When the crack appeared, Gu Yanting exhaled silently.
He stood in the living room for a long time, waiting for his body to cool down before silently going to the bedroom.

Tang Yi wrapped himself up tightly in the quilt and shrank to the side of the bed, as if avoiding a plague.
Gu Yanting knew that if he hadn’t had a fever, he would probably have been knocked off his feet long ago.
He felt uncomfortable but he couldn’t blame Tang Yi.
From a different perspective, even if Tang Yi had a fight with Zhou Whatever, as long as they hadn’t broken up, Gu Yanting’s position was very awkward and even sinister.

He kept his eyes open and found it impossible to sleep, but he didn’t regret his impulse just now.
The moment the mouths of the two of them were linked and Tang Yi responded slightly, Gu Yanting cursed in his heart, “Fuck, it’s worth dying for!”

It was just that the moment now felt a bit worse than death.

The next day Tang Yi woke up very early.
He hadn’t taken off his clothes and when he got up in the morning his shirt was wrinkled beyond recognition.
Gu Yanting hadn’t slept all night, and when he noticed Tang Yi getting up he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.
Then he heard the wardrobe being opened and the bedroom door slamming – Tang Yi took his clothes to the bathroom.

Gu Yanting hesitated for a long time before finally turning over and getting out of bed, and when Tang Yi came out, he coughed lightly.

Tang Yi ignored him and turned to get his briefcase.
Gu Yanting finally couldn’t help but block his way and said in a low voice, “I’m sorry, I was too impulsive yesterday.”

When Tang Yi’s eyes dropped and he didn’t move, Gu Yanting paused and said, “Just think of it as a bad dream, or a dog bite, okay? To be honest, I don’t feel good either, I’ve been more miserable than a monk these past two years.
People sometimes recruit a girl to eat pork ribs and rice.
I’ve been living like an ascetic every day and now I feel like a sow has double eyelids(1).”

Initially he was wearing thin clothes and was chilled by the cold wind.
Then yesterday he took medicine and sweated.
Then he had a tumble in the living room and wasn’t able to sleep all night.
So his voice was extra hoarse at this moment.

Tang Yi’s eyelids twitched and he finally walked around Gu Yanting to get his coat and bag.
He suddenly stopped when he reached the door, and Gu Yanting froze for a moment, hurriedly perking up his ears.

“Go back to your own home, Gu Yanting, you should have had enough fun.”

Tang Yi’s face was expressionless all morning at the company, which made him work much more efficiently, finishing in one morning the documents that would normally take him three days to read.
Xiao Yang was busy running back and forth, and in the midst of his business he had warmed up a cup of milk and brought it over to Tang Yi, only to realise later that he had taken a pack of expired milk.
By the time Xiao Yang rushed to the office in shock, Tang Yi had drunk the cup of milk in one gulp.

Xiao Yang looked at Tang Yi incredulously but didn’t dare to say anything, silently took the cup and went to wash it.
In the end he still couldn’t help himself and ran to Tang Yi to confess anxiously, “Mr.
Tang, there’s something wrong with the milk you drank this morning.”

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Tang Yi raised his eyes from the paperwork and looked at him for a moment, “What milk?”

“The cup you drank, ah!”

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“I didn’t drink anything,” Tang Yi replied in surprise while handing over a stack of papers, “Send this to the finance department.”

Xiao Yang took the papers with a dumbfounded look, thinking to himself that Mr.
Tang had been out of sorts all morning, had something happened? But he didn’t dare ask, he could only silently return again and leave a box of anti-diarrhea medicine.

After Tang Yi waited for everyone to get off work for lunch, he locked his office and threw himself down on the sofa.

The events of last night made him irritable, but he alone knew the reason for his irritability.
He had made up his mind not to communicate with Gu Yanting until they died of old age, and at one point he had secretly applauded himself for being so cold-hearted.
However, that had proved to be self-deception.
Gu Yanting had almost thrown him off his game with a single forced kiss.
Tang Yi was not an abstainer; late at night when he was alone there would be moments to relieve the desire.
But in the past two years the release had never been as good as one-tenth of yesterday’s… cool.

Tang Yi sighed heavily and couldn’t help but curse in his heart when he thought of what happened yesterday.
In the afternoon he was in a much more normal state.
The competitor’s company boss sent someone to connect with Ning Zeyu, and Yan Ke’s side also made a small move.
What was even more rare was that Shen Fan gave him good news.
Zhou Dongchuan previously lured people to set up a trap for Shen Fan.
Shen Fan had secretly studied the old Zhou family for years.
At a critical juncture, he noticed an abnormality and stopped, escaping a disaster.

Shen Fan was in a happy mood and scolded the Zhou family for a long time.
Finally, after he’d had enough, he viciously said that the family was a fox’s lair.

This sentence wasn’t at all unjust.

In fact, in just two days’ time, Tang Yi’s personnel department had received quite a few “leave requests”, and many people had already started looking for their next home on the pretext of taking leave, while many more were still waiting to see what would happen.
To the outside world, the company seemed to be heading in the direction the Zhou family wanted, and since Tang Yi rejected the condescending phone call, more companies came to pressure him.

Tang Yi couldn’t help but smile as he listened to Shen Fan’s vigorous cursing, “Finished? I’m going to give gifts to the bank people when I’m done talking.”

Shen Fan tsked and reminded him, “Is the bank still providing you with a loan? Let’s dream and see how long you can drag it.
As long as you get through this month, my side should be able to cover it.”

“I don’t expect them to,” Tang Yi said, “just making a show of it.
It’s just, did you find out what happened to Huayuan? Who took the helm at the time?”

The order from Huayuan was big, and the other party did have the need, but the trap was obvious, and what Tang Yi still doubted was Huayuan’s motives.
All this seemed to make sense.
Huayuan dug a trap for him to jump, and then the Zhou family benefited from it.
Unfortunately, after thinking about it carefully, what benefits could Huayuan get from it? Where did their small company get the power to make Zhou Dongchuan go to so much trouble?

Tang Yi had been thinking about it, but Huayuan was far away, and the people who were in contact with them now were specialists from the legal department, so he asked Shen Fan to start from the beginning to see if he could find any clues.

Shen Fan sighed after hearing his question, “This matter went wrong on the stage of the last paper contract and the blame can’t be traced to Lao Lian and the others.
I also had people pay attention, there was nothing unusual about the people involved at that time.”

Tang Yi’s lips moved and finally he couldn’t help but ask, “Nothing unusual about Lin Rui either?”

“No! At least not right now.”

“Oh.”

“Tang Yi, do you, by any chance, still have a problem with Lin Rui?”

Shen Fan paused for a moment and asked, “It’s been so many years since that private matter passed.
Lin Rui is also doing well at the head office.
He didn’t say anything even when he was kicked to the head office as a salesman by Zhou Hao.
In fact, this year he negotiated with a lot of customers.
You know that the investment business is more complicated than selling software.
I originally wanted to promote him to the top at the beginning of the year, but then I took you into account and gave up.”

He sighed and finally said, “The matter of you and Gu Yanting is between the two of you.
If we’re talking about provoking, it’s on Gu Yanting’s head.
Lin Rui has suffered a lot over the years and in the end it’s mostly because you don’t like him.
Let’s just let this matter go.
You shouldn’t be so unforgiving.”

Tang Yi was silent for a while.
Shen Fan didn’t treat him as an outsider, so he didn’t mince his words, but the word “unforgiving” still made Tang Yi’s chest feel congested.

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He finally let out a low “en”.

—

Gu Yanting received a text message from Tang Yi while he was out, asking him to have dinner at a western restaurant.

When he arrived, Tang Yi was already waiting inside, sitting alone at a large western table, his back straight and his eyes downcast, one hand propping his forehead as he was looking at something.
When Gu Yanting coughed softly, sitting down, Tang Yi hurriedly returned to his senses, looking somewhat embarrassed.

The two of them had a bit of grudge from the morning’s events, but when Gu Yanting saw Tang Yi alone from afar, he felt for no reason that the other party was a bit despondent.
He couldn’t keep a straight face, and he guessed that Tang Yi had something to say to him, so after calling over the waiter to order the meal, he took the initiative to ask, “Is there something wrong?”

“…yes,” Tang Yi looked at the table and said after a while, “Zhou Hao and I broke up.”

Gu Yanting froze for a moment, “Ah? What did you say?”

“Zhou Hao and I broke up.” Tang Yi frowned.

“Why did you break up? Yes, was it because of last night…” Gu Yanting opened his mouth, and before he could finish, he got an impatient “Shut up” from Tang Yi.

Gu Yanting shut up.
He could sense that Tang Yi was upset right now, and after his impulse yesterday that brought the relationship between the two back to the freezing point, he didn’t dare to make a move and could only follow Tang Yi’s example and stare at the table.

After another moment, he saw Tang Yi’s brow wrinkling more and more, and finally couldn’t help but say, “So we, can we get back together?”

“……” Tang Yi was silent for a moment and sighed softly, “That’s why I asked you to come here.”

“That’s…”

“We can’t.” Tang Yi lowered his eyes and whispered, “I’m touched by what you’ve done for me, but it’s all really unnecessary.
I’ll be troubled if you keep this up.
If it goes on, I’ll have to sell that apartment and move until you can’t find me.”

Gu Yanting drew in a cold breath.
He felt his body starting to freeze, so icy that his fingers were a little wooden.
After a long time he swallowed and said with some difficulty, “Tang Yi, you can’t do this.”

“……”

“I went through the transfer formalities in the company and it will be approved in the next two days, for no other reason than because you weren’t happy when I said I was leaving last time.
I was so jealous of that Zhou Hao that I went crazy with envy and even thought more than once of breaking you up.
But I didn’t dare, I was afraid you’d be sad.” He took a few deep breaths, wanting desperately to say something, but when he thought about it, he didn’t know which words would have the most effect.
Tang Yi kept his eyes down and didn’t look at him, which made his heart sink.
Everything went back to the scene two years ago, when Tang Yi coldly told him he was going to break up, and he could do nothing.

He clearly remembered Tang Yi’s very calm last words at that time – “Yanting, sooner or later I will accept a new relationship.
Maybe you should try too, try to accept someone else.”

Gu Yanting closed his eyes, clasped his hands under the table, and finally settled down and said slowly, “I haven’t tried to accept anyone in these two years.
I have only had you in my heart from the beginning, and now that Zhou Hao has left, why can’t you give me a chance?”

“…there’s no why,” Tang Yi was silent for a while, finally raising his eyes to look at him.
“Back then when we broke up, it wasn’t because of him.”

The two looked across the table for a moment in silence.
Tang Yi paused and said slowly, “It was Lin Rui.
I felt sick when I thought of him.
I felt sick when I thought of what you said to him.
I wanted to see him disappear forever, but he went far away, and I couldn’t forget or let go.”

“I’m being unforgiving, I’m being unreasonable, I’m being petty.” Tang Yi lowered his head and said softly, “But I just can’t get past this hurdle.
The past is stuck like a bone in my throat.” He paused and suddenly smiled bitterly, “Gu Yanting, you don’t know how much I used to hate you.”

There seems to be an expression “two taels (100g) of yellow wine and you’ll see old sows with double eyelids” meaning once you’re drunk, you find whatever attractive, so Gu Yanting kinda means he was so ascetic he’s very easy to get aroused