DP Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Xiang Yiye immediately grabbed Xu Chuo’s wrist, “Don’t go in, someone’s been here, they might not have left yet!”

Xu Chuo’s expression changed, “My paintings are still inside.” Saying that, he ignored Xiang Yiye’s obstruction and stepped inside.

Xiang Yiye followed closely behind. The motion sensor light outside the door couldn’t illuminate the entire room, but one could still vaguely see the general situation inside. He heard Xu Chuo take a deep breath before turning on the light in the room.

The sight swept unhindered through the open-plan, bare-bones apartment. The first thing that caught the eye was the shocking array of colors. Paint buckets were overturned, and the paint inside was splattered everywhere. All the easels were lying on the ground in disarray, and the paintings on them were unrecognizable. Even the brushes were broken into pieces.

Xu Chuo stood motionless at the entrance. Xiang Yiye walked around the room, which had hardly any space to step, pulled open the curtains, and saw an easel covered with soft cloth standing in the corner. It was probably spared because it was blocked by the curtains.

Xiang Yiye was about to lift the soft cloth to check if the painting was intact, but Xu Chuo stopped him, “That one isn’t finished yet, don’t look.”

Xiang Yiye withdrew his hand. Xu Chuo had a serious tendency towards perfectionism, and he usually didn’t show unfinished paintings to others.

After confirming that there was no one else in the room, Xiang Yiye cautiously turned back and said, “Do you want to call the police? See if anything else is missing.”

Xu Chuo shook his head firmly, “Calling the police is useless, it wasn’t a thief.” He took a few steps closer and picked up an easel at his feet.

“I’ll help you.” Xiang Yiye stepped forward and said.

Xu Chuo glanced at the appalling painting and put the easel back on the ground, saying, “No need, you should go back first, the paint is hard to wash off. I’ll find someone to come and clean it up tomorrow.”

“Then where are you going to stay tonight?” Xiang Yiye glanced at the fabric sofa in the room, which was covered in colorful paint.

“Find a hotel, or just go home,” Xu Chuo said. “Tonight has been exciting enough, there shouldn’t be anything else, you can go back with peace of mind.”

Xiang Yiye was still worried. Xu Chuo was behaving too calmly. Based on what he knew, this was often a disguise.

In his previous life, he had sensed that Xu Chuo had a bit of a people-pleasing personality at his core. He often suppressed his emotions at the time for the sake of superficial harmony, and this personality was hidden very deeply. People who didn’t know him very well would only think he had a good temper and knew how to be tolerant.

“Are you really okay?” Xiang Yiye asked.

“Of course. Go back to school quickly, you can still make it before curfew, or you’ll get scolded by the dorm manager. I used to get scolded all the time when I was an undergraduate.” Xu Chuo smiled, then thought of something, and took something out of his jacket pocket, “I have a painting exhibition in a few days, you can come if you’re interested, this is an admission ticket, the time and address are on it.”

“Okay.” Xiang Yiye took it and glanced at it quickly, put the admission ticket into his inside jacket pocket, looked at the smiling face of the other person, and frowned, “Xu Chuo, you don’t have to smile when you’re not happy, no one will think there’s anything wrong with that.”

Xu Chuo didn’t restrain himself, but instead smiled more wantonly, “What’s your relationship with me? You even want to control my smile?”

Xiang Yiye pinched his cheek, “I feel uncomfortable looking at it, aren’t you tired?”

Xu Chuo gently removed his hand, his smile frozen on his face, the corners of his mouth sinking little by little.

Xiang Yiye’s words were like a pair of hands, tearing a hole in Xu Chuo’s disguise.

Xu Chuo turned around with a sullen face, lifted his leg and kicked a dismembered easel, then he picked up a bucket of paint and poured out the remaining paint, making the already mottled wall even worse.

Xiang Yiye waited quietly, watching Xu Chuo re-creating on the wall, half venting and half destroying, covering up the traces left by others.

This was the second time Xiang Yiye had seen Xu Chuo so blatantly sowing anger. The last time was on the day they broke up completely in his previous life, after Xu Chuo found out about his previous relationship with Xie Zhimin.

In the end, Xu Chuo exhausted his strength and tripped over the debris at his feet. Xiang Yiye ran over to support him and gave him a solid hug.

“Fuck it.” Xu Chuo cursed in a low voice.

Nothing could make Xiang Yiye feel more heartbroken than this sentence. He gently patted Xu Chuo’s back.

The two leaned against each other in the paint-filled room for a long time. Suddenly, Xiang Yiye’s phone rang, breaking the rare tranquility. He took it out and looked at the caller, feeling a pain in his teeth.

Xu Chuo had calmed down a bit, turned his head and glanced at the phone screen, and said, “Du Luocheng is calling you, aren’t you going to answer it?”

“I’m wondering how to reply,” Xiang Yiye said. He not only ran out in a fit of pique, but also simply disappeared completely. Du Luocheng sent several messages asking, without showing whether he was angry or not, but he was probably already blacklisted in his heart.

Xu Chuo snatched Xiang Yiye’s phone, pressed answer, and put it to his ear, “Hello, is this Du Luocheng, President Du? This is Xu Chuo. Xiang Yiye is with me, but it’s not convenient for him to answer the phone right now… Yes, I asked him to help me with something tonight, sorry, didn’t mean to cause you any trouble…”

He quickly dealt with Du Luocheng on the other end of the line, saving Xiang Yiye a lot of trouble.

After hanging up, Xu Chuo asked, “Aren’t you a workaholic? This doesn’t seem like the attitude a workaholic should have towards a superior’s call.”

“Uh,” Xiang Yiye tactfully changed the subject, “I heard some rumors before that President Du is a deep closet, is that true?”

“Is… did he harass you?” Xu Chuo keenly grasped the key point.

“No,” Xiang Yiye said, then felt it wasn’t quite accurate, and added, “At most, it can be considered attempted.”

“What did he do to you?” Xu Chuo remembered the smell of alcohol on Xiang Yiye.

Xiang Yiye was about to deny it, but seeing Xu Chuo’s reaction, he had a mischievous thought and deliberately pursed his lips, “I just came from him, and then came to find you, at most an hour apart, what do you think?”

Xu Chuo: “…” Heavens, he wouldn’t have indirectly kissed that old guy Du Luocheng, would he? And it was still fresh and warm.

Seeing his thunderstruck expression, Xiang Yiye held back for a while, but couldn’t help bursting into laughter, “I said it was attempted, he just touched me. Who told you to take advantage of me casually, scaring you is a good way to teach you a lesson.”

Xu Chuo took out his phone and found Du Luocheng in his contacts in front of Xiang Yiye.

Xiang Yiye immediately snatched it over to stop him, begging for mercy, “Don’t, Brother Chuo, the few words you said for me just now were enough, I still have to work in the company in the future, don’t make it end up uncontrollable…”

“Du Luocheng generally doesn’t target people within Xinghui, unless someone makes him really reluctant to let go. Little Yiye, you’re really something.” Xu Chuo asked in Xiang Yiye’s ear, “Tell me where he touched you?”

The question was low and magnetic, as if it had the effect of hypnosis, making Xiang Yiye involuntarily tell the truth, “The right cheek.”

Before the words fell, Xu Chuo’s hand had already covered Xiang Yiye’s right cheek, and there was a tendency to wander arbitrarily to other places.

Cool palms cupped the back of his neck, Xiang Yiye subconsciously shrugged his shoulders, letting the hands seize the heat from his body, greedy for the feeling of slowly losing temperature and then gradually heating up, wanting to escape but not wanting to stop.

Xu Chuo touched the bruise on his back—where he had been hit with sticks by those thugs a few hours ago. Xiang Yiye flinched and stopped his hand.

Noticing Xiang Yiye’s reaction, Xu Chuo withdrew his hand, rummaged through the overturned boxes, found the still-strong safflower oil from the broken medicine box, and reached into his clothes to apply it to his back.

His hands were very dishonest, but his mouth was like a doctor diagnosing a patient, with a gentlemanly tone, “Is there anything else, does it hurt here?”

Xiang Yiye couldn’t breathe smoothly, feeling that if this continued, he would catch fire, and quickly called a stop, “That’s it, no one has taken more advantage of me than you.”

Xu Chuo held his face and looked at it carefully, like playing with a sculpture, and said, “It’s good that his face wasn’t hurt, he should get insurance.”

As expected, he was interested in his face. The smell of safflower oil stung his eyes and nose, and Xiang Yiye’s rationality quickly took over, and he took the initiative to create some distance.

When it was almost dawn, Xiang Yiye rejected Xu Chuo’s invitation to spend the weekend together and left the studio.

Xu Chuo didn’t try to persuade him too much. Shortly after Xiang Yiye left, he uncovered the cloth on the easel in the corner.

The only surviving painting revealed its true face. It was an oil painting with a distinct impressionist style, mainly in blue. It was difficult to identify what was being painted. From the first impression, it looked like a starry sky, like a wilderness, or like the ocean.

The morning light gradually brightened, illuminating the ruins of paint around him. Xu Chuo closed his eyes, and the night that lingered in his mind like a mark last night emerged.

At noon, assistant Xiao Hu sent a message. After the campus drama wrapped up, Xinghui considered that Xiang Yiye had not received non-academic training, so they were not in a hurry to have him take on new work, but arranged some courses for him, and found a special teacher to give him one-on-one training.

Although most of the courses were like reheating leftovers for Xiang Yiye, he didn’t refuse. Xinghui had Xinghui’s rules.

Xiao Hu also asked Xiang Yiye if he had a Weibo account, and if so, to tidy it up in advance to facilitate the smooth development of various publicity work in the later stage.

Xiang Yiye took some time to clean up Weibo, leaving behind traces of living people that didn’t reveal real-world information, to protect his friends in the three-dimensional world.

Finally, Xiao Hu sent a photo, saying, “Brother Xiang, this is the invitation letter for Gu Wenyu’s lecture. I’ll bring it to you next time you come to the company~”

Du Luocheng hadn’t gone back on his word, which was beyond Xiang Yiye’s expectations. He thought again, could it be that Xu Chuo called Du Luocheng again after he left?

If so, what would Xu Chuo say? Say that he was his person, and warn Du Luocheng not to touch him?

No, that wasn’t like Xu Chuo. He had a smooth personality and didn’t offend anyone easily, distributing emotional value as equally as possible to almost everyone around him, and he deserved so many people’s praise and love.

A kiss didn’t mean anything, nor did those touches. Too many people liked Xu Chuo, too many people loved him, and he only occupied a speck of dust in it. Xu Chuo raised his eyes and couldn’t even see where he was.

Even if he hadn’t been there last night, Xu Chuo could probably have handled everything as he said he could.

There was a huge chasm between them. Xiang Yiye let out a long breath, put down his fantasies, sorted out his thoughts, and turned on work mode. He planned to find Gu Wenyu’s representative works and interviews and re-watch them to prepare for the upcoming lecture.

A few days later, in Hall 302 of the S City Cultural Center, the venue was packed.

Gu Wenyu’s temples were already gray, but he was energetic and radiant. Combining his decades of acting career, he elaborated on his understanding of acting. During the nearly hour and a half long speech, Xiang Yiye didn’t lose focus at all.

At the final question and answer session, Xiang Yiye seized the opportunity to raise his hand. Perhaps the expectation and sincerity in his actions were too obvious, and the host called on him first.