TLSOTMTKOGAYWHTDI Chapter 58

Chapter 56: Preparation

The morning at Santa Monica Beach found Zhuo Huaimo barefoot on the soft sand.

The sea breeze lifted his loose white shirt, revealing the faint scars around his waist.

“Careful of the shells!”

Shao Fan handed him an iced Americano. “You always said you wanted to surf here.”

Zhuo Huaimo took the coffee, his gaze following the figures of the surfers in the distance.

“In the end, we never came!”

Shao Fan took his hand, his warm palm brushing across his face.

“Now, do you still want to try?”

His deep gaze met Zhuo Huaimo’s eyes. “After accompanying you back to China that time, you never returned. The promise to teach you how to surf has never been fulfilled. Can you give me another chance?”

Zhuo Huaimo looked at him, naturally understanding the implication of his words.

Seeing that he didn’t speak, Shao Fan continued,

“Since you’ve decided to start over, why not make up for the regrets of your youth?”

Zhuo Huaimo raised an eyebrow; he liked this reason very much.

He was, after all, someone unwilling to leave regrets behind, otherwise he wouldn’t have been so resolute towards Qi Yanwang in the first place.

He smiled. “Okay, let’s try!”

In the morning light of Santa Monica Beach, Zhuo Huaimo, standing on a surfboard, was overturned by a wave. As the salty seawater flooded his nostrils, he heard Shao Fan’s unrestrained laughter.

“Beginners should choose smaller waves!”

Shao Fan swam over to support his waist. “Relax, follow the rhythm of the waves.”

On the fifth try, Zhuo Huaimo finally stood steadily on the crest of a wave.

The sea breeze lifted his soaked shirt, the lines of his waist and abdomen gilded with a layer of gold in the sunlight.

Shao Fan whistled, but the hand holding the GoPro was trembling—Zhuo Huaimo in the lens was as beautiful as a statue of a sea god.

“How was it?” Zhuo Huaimo asked, collapsing onto a beach towel to catch his breath.

Shao Fan handed him an ice-cold coconut.

“You learned faster than I did back then.”

He deliberately bit the straw, leaving teeth marks. “Indirect kiss, do you mind?”

Zhuo Huaimo raised an eyebrow and took it. “How is it that after so many years, you’re still using the same trick?”

Shao Fan smiled. “If it works, it works!”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he tilted his head back to drink, making Shao Fan’s throat tighten.

Zhuo Huaimo wiped the water stains from the corner of his mouth.

“Why did you dye your hair back? The last time I saw you in an interview, you still had silver highlights!”

Shao Fan’s gaze swept over the coconut in his hand, then he looked up at him.

“Because someone once said that black hair suits me better.”

Actually, Shao Fan standing there was already an unparalleled sight.

It had to be said that God had given him a sculpted physique, whether it was his face or his body.

The key was that he had been constantly radiating charm around Zhuo Huaimo these past few days.

Zhuo Huaimo was really suffering in silence.

Damn it, he was gay, born gay!

And next to him was a natural beauty like Shao Fan.

He turned his head to look deeply at Shao Fan, and joked,

“Peter, I think you should stop for a moment!”

“Hmm?”

Zhuo Huaimo’s sudden words startled Shao Fan, who didn’t react.

Zhuo Huaimo smiled and forced back the words of advice, “Stop releasing your charm!”

Because he knew that once those words were spoken, it would be like releasing a signal, equivalent to “I’m attracted to you!”

The following events would be like lighting a fire, spreading like wildfire, and would definitely be unstoppable!

Zhuo Huaimo retracted his gaze, got up and patted the sand off his butt.

“I mean, stop dwelling on the past, it’ll make us look old!”

“Is that so?”

Shao Fan then stood up, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I was originally planning to take you back to school to take a look, but it seems like you wouldn’t be interested!”

Zhuo Huaimo’s eyes lit up and he smiled.

“Then… let’s stop after we go back to school!”

The wooden floor of the USC’s drama department still bore the initials they had carved back then.

Zhuo Huaimo stroked the engraving “M&F 2018”.

Shao Fan suddenly appeared behind him.

“Back then, when we rehearsed ‘Fallen Dust’ here, there was a line after you kissed me…”

“You have the nerve to say that,”

Zhuo Huaimo laughed and struggled free. “You deliberately changed my script, deleted that line, I even argued with the instructor about it, and almost failed!”

Shao Fan smiled mischievously. “I did it on purpose! As long as there was a mistake there, we’d have to do it again, I just wanted you to kiss me a few more times!”

He pulled out a crumpled script as if by magic, with a large blank space circled in red on page 47.

“You owe me a line.”

“Do you want me to make it up now?”

Zhuo Huaimo took the script, which clearly showed the line from that year –

“I want to start over with you!”

Shao Fan’s fingertips gently pinched his earlobe, and without waiting for Zhuo Huaimo to read the line, he gave his answer directly.

“Okay!”

He looked at Zhuo Huaimo tenderly, his gaze deep and gentle.

“Mo, this is what I want to say to you, whenever you ask, my answer will always be – okay!”

Zhuo Huaimo smiled, “Peter, I thought you should understand my situation better than anyone else!”

“I know, you’re worried about the curse on you!”

Shao Fan looked at him. “Mo, I really regret leaving back then. I was too young back then, I didn’t have the experience, and I didn’t know how to face you, how to face our feelings!”

Shao Fan’s fingertips gently brushed against the pulse on the inside of Zhuo Huaimo’s wrist. “I ran away back then, and I’ve regretted it for so many years. Heaven has allowed you to come back to me again, and I really don’t want to let you go!”

He looked at Zhuo Huaimo with burning eyes. “Rather than worrying about things that haven’t happened yet, I’m more afraid of never truly having you.”

Looking at Shao Fan’s passionate confession, Zhuo Huaimo’s heart remained unmoved.

Because he had loved Shao Fan, he understood him even better. He had a gentle smile on his lips as he asked the question that they both knew the answer to.

“What about after we have each other?”

Shao Fan’s smile faltered, and he tightly rubbed Zhuo Huaimo’s shoulders.

“Mo, believe me, even if it’s only for three months, we’ll be the happiest couple in the world!”

His lips were close to his ear, his voice bewitching.

“But at least we’ll have had three months, ninety days, two thousand one hundred and sixty hours…”

He pulled out his phone and brought up a countdown app. “Enough to make a movie, go to fifteen countries, or—”

Zhuo Huaimo looked at him, imagining their future together, but he couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore!

The face of the person in front of him slowly overlapped with the person in his memory, and he suddenly regretted not telling Qi Yanwang everything about the curse. He was suddenly curious what kind of answer Qi Yanwang would give.

And Qi Yanwang, on the other side of the ocean, had completely changed after he left.

As the electronic screen at Y International Airport flashed red, Gu Chen Zhou was checking in with a fake passport.

The Sanskrit tattoo on his neck was soaked in cold sweat, a good luck charm he had tattooed by a Thai wizard three years ago—

At this moment, it was being circled into a blood-red target by the laser sight of an Interpol agent.

“Mr. Gu, the Chinese police invite you to admire the night view of Jiang City.”

The agent shoved a tablet in front of him, the live broadcast showing the century-old Gu family mansion being sealed off, the Ming dynasty blue-and-white porcelain on the antique shelf shattered like the death knell of his bankruptcy.

Qi Yanwang stood behind the glass curtain wall on the highest floor of Jiang City, his fingers caressing the meteorite cufflink that Zhuo Huaimo had left behind.

He watched the Gu Group’s stock price plummet to zero. “Expedite the extradition process. Daring to touch underage children, you will always pay the price for what you’ve done!”

He turned to look at his assistant. “How is Che Ye? Is he doing well inside?”

The assistant reported truthfully, “We’ve arranged for ‘special care’. He’s being ‘greeted’ by other prisoners every day, and he’s constantly injured. He’s almost at the point of mental collapse.”

Qi Yanwang took a sip of coffee from his cup. “How is that enough? It’s not nearly enough!”

“I will make more arrangements!”

The assistant handed him the photos that the private investigator sent back from M Country every month.

Qi Yanwang looked at the familiar yet unfamiliar face in the photo.

Finally…

He finally smiled, but this smile did not belong to him.

Qi Yanwang’s slender fingers slid across his cheek on the tablet.

“Wait for me a bit longer, I’ll come find you after I’ve taken care of everything!”

In the six months after Zhuo Huaimo left, Qi Yanwang gradually faded from public view after completing the contracts he had on hand.

Although Yu Fengran still disliked him, he had to admit that their collaboration had been surprisingly smooth in the past six months.

Moreover, they were both men who kept their personal and professional lives separate!

Every step of their business plan revolved around the stock price and listing of “Xingyue Media”.

Qi Yanwang’s style of doing things became increasingly ruthless and decisive. Anyone who stood in the way of Xingyue would be ruthlessly eliminated by him.

Rumors about him in the industry also grew.

Some said that he had the support of mysterious capital tycoons behind him, and had swallowed up all of Gu’s assets overnight.

Some said that in order to get “Xingyue” listed, he didn’t hesitate to collude with the underworld, and some even saw him in secret talks with a big shot late at night.

Others said that he had completely transformed into a capital player, no longer taking on roles, but focusing on investment and mergers and acquisitions.

Qi Yanwang’s silence and mystery made his image increasingly complex.

He was no longer the elegant and composed movie emperor in front of the camera, but an unfathomable capital magnate.

His every move caused a stir in the industry.

Under his control, Xingyue’s stock price soared all the way, even ahead of the listing plan that Yu Fengran and Zhuo Huaimo had planned for six months.

On the day Xingyue was successfully listed, Qi Yanwang stood on the top floor of the stock exchange, overlooking the entire city.

There was no expression on his face, and his eyes were as cold as ice.

The Wall Street Journal published Qi Yanwang’s profile on an entire page.

The black suit was tailored like armor, and behind the gold-rimmed glasses was a gaze that was as sharp as an icy blade.

The headline was sensational—”Xingyue Media Listing: A Textbook Example of a Bloody Merger.”

Yu Fengran stood beside him, still disliking him, but still admiring him.

“You did it, even faster than we planned.”

Only Yu Fengran knew that Qi Yanwang’s every step was for one person—Zhuo Huaimo.

Naturally, his private life also became a topic that people enjoyed talking about.

Apart from the bits and pieces of memories of him and Zhuo Huaimo that remained on the Internet, it was almost impossible to find any emotional news about him.

Of course, because of those memories, everyone in the industry agreed that he liked men, and there were many people who eagerly sent young boys to his side, but the only one the media had actually photographed was the young boy, Xiao Zhu, who he had rescued at the Liu Jinchen Clubhouse!