Sunset Boulevard - Chap 7

Chen Boqiao did not continue to tease Zhang Jue and said, “Don’t force it if you’re not sleepy. I don’t feel like sleeping yet either.”

Zhang Jue gave a dejected, “Okay,” lay on his side for a while, sat up, and looked up at Chen Boqiao.

Chen Boqiao, a man who never felt embarrassed by direct eye contact, calmly said, “It’s still early. It’s normal to not be sleepy yet. You don’t need to pretend here.”

Chen Boqiao had taken off the disguise and changed back to the refreshing person they both knew.

Zhang Jue thought that he probably used the disposable razor placed by the basin in the bathroom. Maybe because the blade was dull, or Chen Boqiao was not used to using it, there were two faint lines on his chin that were not there when he was applying makeup yesterday afternoon; several shallow scratches.

Perceiving Zhang Jue’s gaze, Chen Boqiao raised his hand to touch his chin, smiled and said, “I wasn’t looking too closely. By the way,” he jumped to the next topic smoothly, “is the kitten’s surgery finished?”

Zhang Jue processed it for a few seconds, and remembered, “Oh, yes.” He got out of bed again, walked to the foot of the bed, and leaned over to find his personal mobile phone in his large bag.

After switching his phone on, Ai Jiaxi’s new message popped out first, followed by a bunch of messages from Receptionist Wen.

Since Chen Boqiao was beside him, Zhang Jue put off listening to Ai Jiaxi’s message. He directly opened the text message page, sat back in the bed with his mobile phone, and looked at it together with Chen Boqiao.

Only a few hours had passed since Zhang Jue responded “Thank you” to receptionist Wen, and he had sent a lot of new videos and texts.

He sent Zhang Jue the bill for the day, saying that the kitten will be operated on tomorrow and had adapted well to the hospital, and then asked Zhang Jue if he could take the kitten back to his house after the kitten is better, saying he was willing to regularly send videos to Zhang Jue.

Chen Boqiao seemed curious about the cat’s situation, he moved closer to Zhang Jue, reached out and clicked on a video in the chat log, watching the cat play with a little toy with his paws.

After seeing all the videos and pictures, Zhang Jue scrolled the chat history to the bottom and typed “Yes” in the dialog box. Just after sending it out, Chen Boqiao suddenly started:

“He…”

After only one word, Chen Boqiao stopped. He paused before continuing to say, “Are all pet hospital receptionists in the TIS this enthusiastic?”

Zhang Jue considered his question for a bit, and told Chen Boqiao the amount of money he had paid to the hospital.

“……”

Chen Boqiao gave Zhang Jue an incredulous look.

Zhang Jue felt misunderstood, and he feebly argued, “There is a lot of news about animal abuse in pet hospitals.”

“Yeah,” Chen Boqiao nodded in agreement, “Sure.”

Zhang Jue was very sure that Chen Boqiao was laughing at him. He wanted to emphasize the necessity of depositing that amount in the pet hospital to let Chen Boqiao understand his good intentions, but his mobile phone vibrated again. It was Ai Jiaxi’s call.

Chen Boqiao and Zhang Jue were very close, and he must have seen the name of the caller. Zhang Jue glanced at Chen Boqiao subconsciously, and Chen Boqiao immediately asked considerately, “Do you need me to leave?”

Zhang Jue shook his head and picked it up without avoiding him.

“Jiaxi.” Zhang Jue said.

Ai Jiaxi was taken aback, and asked a little suspiciously, “A Jue?”

“What’s wrong?” Zhang Jue asked him.

“You’re answering the phone?” Ai Jiaxi confirmed to him.

Zhang Jue said yes, Ai Jiaxi asked again,”Did you listen to the voice message I left you yet?”

“I haven’t had time to listen.” Zhang Jue said.

“I know you opened the safe,” Ai Jiaxi said, with obvious concerns in his tone, “Did something go wrong? Are you still in Bangkok?”

“I’m fine,” Zhang Jue said, “Don’t worry.”

“I can’t not worry about it,” Ai Jiaxi said anxiously, “the news is everywhere, I don’t think I could avoid it if I tried. The key from the bank wasn’t supposed to be needed.” He paused for a few seconds, then said, “I’m in Bangkok now. I arrived in the afternoon.”

As Zhang Jue wanted to start speaking, he met Chen Boqiao’s probing eyes, paused again, lowered his eyes, and persuaded Ai Jiaxi “Bangkok won’t be fun for you. Be good and just go back tomorrow.”

“No,” Ai Jiaxi refused, “I want to enjoy the sensual vibes in Bangkok more. My dad is such a controlling freak at home, and I finally left the house, I don’t want to go back immediately.”

“Jiaxi…” Zhang Jue wanted to convince Ai Jiaxi again and get him to go back, but before he could say anything, he was interrupted by Ai Jiaxi, “A Jue, are you with that guy now?”

Zhang Jue did not look at Chen Boqiao, and whispered, “Yes.”

“… Then… Are you very happy?” Ai Jiaxi asked slowly.

Zhang Jue couldn’t hear Ai Jiaxi’s tone, but he felt that Ai Jiaxi was hesitant to ask.

And Zhang Jue did not know how to answer this question, so he fell silent.

Ai Jiaxi waited for a while, and probably realised that he would have to wait longer for Zhang Jue’s answer, so he didn’t wait, and said directly, “Anyway, you have to be careful. After you bring him back, you should also remember about the differentiation agent”

From the day Ai Jiaxi was born, Zhang Jue had been playing the role of the elder brother and protector. Being talked down to by Ai Jiaxi for the first time, Zhang Jue was still a little weirded out.

“Do you understand?” Ai Jiaxi asked persistently.

“I know what I’m doing.” Zhang Jue said.

“Well good. I’m hanging up, bye.” Ai Jiaxi cut off the line.

Zhang Jue put away his phone.

Chen Boqiao did not speak, nor did he want to probe. Zhang Jue explained.

“It’s a friend of mine.”

“Your fiance?” Chen Boqiao asked.

Zhang Jue was a little surprised when he heard Chen Boqiao say “fiance”. He thought Chen Boqiao didn’t know anything about him.

However, what Chen Boqiao said was not particularly accurate. Zhang Jue corrected him,”Ex-fiance.”

Chen Boqiao raised his eyebrows lightly, and said, “You’re on good terms.”

Zhang Jue privately thought that Chen Boqiao probably was not interested in his personal affairs. He might just be making small talk. Zhang Jue still replied, “We had a marriage set up in childhood. After he differentiated at the age of fourteen, we got engaged. As we grew up, we found that we were not suitable for marriage and called it off.”

Chen Boqiao nodded. “You definitely don’t look like a boyfriend. You’re more like his elder.” He mimicked, “Be good and just go back tomorrow.”

Zhang Jue felt that Chen Boqiao wasn’t even close. When Chen Boqiao said “be good”, it was full of Chen Boqiao’s own style, but Zhang Jue still chuckled.

Zhang Jue seldom laughed. He didn’t know if he looked worse when smiling, so he quickly put away his smile.

Chen Boqiao didn’t seem to notice, and smiled and asked Zhang Jue “How was that?”

Zhang Jue watched Chen Boqiao silently, and Chen Boqiao knew Zhang Jue’s answer. He pondered for a while and tried again. “Be good and just go back tomorrow.” Zhang Jue couldn’t help but want to laugh, turning his back to hide his face. Chen Boqiao grabbed Zhang Jue’s wrist naturally, stopping him from moving, and said, “Don’t even think about running away.”

Colonel Chen’s hands were big and warm, and he was very strong. If he didn’t let Zhang Jue go, Zhang Jue couldn’t hide anything.

Zhang Jue thought that Chen Boqiao will always be the type of person who could easily make others fall in love.

They hadn’t seen each other for so many years that Zhang Jue was starting to suspect that he liked a Chen Boqiao that he invented himself. He thought that maybe Chen Boqiao was not that amazing of a person, or maybe Zhang Jue won’t feel all these emotions after seeing him again and get closure for his teenage crush.

Now all of that just looked like wishful thinking.

Zhang Jue’s infatuation with Chen Boqiao strictly followed the Ebbinghaus method of memory, repeating and repeating a meaningless and hopeless thing, making it impossible to forget.