CH 59.2

In the simply decorated restaurant, Shen Fangyu handed the menu to Zhong Lan and said, “Order whatever you want, it’s on me.”

“Senior Brother is so generous,” Zhong Lan laughed, “if you’re not chasing me, then you’re asking me for something, right?”

Shen Fangyu gave an “mm,” “sort of.”

Zhong Lan called the waiter over, ordered the most expensive dishes, and with her chin on her hand, she teased Shen Fangyu, “So I don’t have to be polite, right?”

Shen Fangyu raised his hand and said with a smile, “Be my guest.”

The two of them chatted about hospital matters, and it was only after they had eaten for a while that Zhong Lan realized, “Why aren’t you moving your chopsticks, senior?”

He had to eat with Jiang Xu later, so Shen Fangyu excused himself, “I’m not hungry.”

Zhong Lan gave him a meaningful look and said, “It seems there’s a big problem, you can’t even eat.”

She sped up her eating, and when she had almost finished, Zhong Lan took a sip of soup, wiped her mouth with a tissue, and said, “Speak up, senior brother, if there’s anything I can do to help you, I’ll do my best.”

“I just want to ask about an emotional issue,” Shen Fangyu said. “It may involve your privacy, so if you don’t want to talk about it, you can always refuse.”

Zhong Lan smiled and sat up straighter, “Emotional question? Me?” She said, “We may not have the same sexual orientation, so I may not be able to help you.” The more she talked, the more curious she became: “You have a sweetheart, Senior?”

“There’s a man,” Shen Fangyu said, half-heartedly, “I might ……I think I like him.”

Zhong Lan’s eyes widened as she waited for Shen Fangyu’s next words.

“I just want to ask you, when you found out that you like the same sex, how did you confirm your feelings?” Shen Fangyu took a deep breath, “I just …… want to confirm that it wasn’t because of a momentary novelty, curiosity, or the impulse born from looking for excitement, nor that it was the possessiveness and attachment due to our friendship that led to this confusion…Do I really…like him?”

Shen Fangyu’s closest friends were quite straight. One, because homosexuality was originally a minority group, and two because the vast majority of gay men with clear self-awareness will maintain a certain social distance from straight men to avoid developing feelings beyond friendship. Shen Fangyu himself was a testament to how straight men who tease their bases would get struck by lightning.

So now that he thinks about it, he realizes that there’s only one person he could talk to about his sexuality: Zhong Lan.

Zhong Lan was glad that she had asked Shen Fangyu after she had finished her meal, otherwise, she would have been full just from eating melons.

She struggled to sort out the information from Shen Fangyu’s somewhat obscure words, then took two difficult sips of tea and asked in the most understandable words: “Do you want to kiss him or hug him?”

“Do you want to kiss and hug him?”

“Kiss him and hug him?” Shen Fangyu repeated Zhong Lan’s words in a low voice.

He hadn’t kissed Jiang Xu.

Even in those absurd dreams that were somehow based on reality, he had no memory of kissing Jiang Xu.

Did he want to?

He hadn’t thought about it before, but now …… Shen Fangyu was a little afraid to answer.

Zhong Lan looked at his expression and tentatively continued, “Are you happy at the thought of him, like to see him happy, care about his feelings, want to make him laugh, want to share everything with him, want to live a long life with him, want to protect him for the rest of his life, want him to have no troubles, want him to have a happy life, put him first in everything, feel that everything about him is good for no reason? “

“And… do you want to share his bed and do the most intimate things with him?”

Shen Fangyu lowered his eyes and looked at his phone screen, not denying any of those statements.

“Fuck!” Zhong Lan exploded with shock, and then covered her mouth, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m just too surprised.”

She had known Shen Fangyu for several years; from the time she started interning, Shen Fangyu was the senior brother who took her through the experiments hand in hand, and later, although she had gone to Jiang Xu’s group after entering the hospital, she was still close to Shen Fangyu.

Although she had always been attracted to the same sex, she never thought that one day Shen Fangyu would come out in front of her.

Zhong Lan’s first reaction was, “Does senior brother Jiang know?”

First, he found out that the girl he had been chasing for months was a lesbian, and now, his nemesis was actually gay …… Zhong Lan thought that Jiang Xu would die of shock if he found out.

Shen Fangyu thought that Zhong Lan had guessed something, and he shook his head sheepishly and said, “I don’t think he knows.”

“That’s good,” Zhong Lan calmed down, but then she noticed something, “Why do you look so nervous, senior brother?”

At the mention of Jiang Xu, Shen Fangyu seemed to be even more nervous than when he had confessed to her.

“I ……” Shen Fangyu was looking for a way to explain when his phone suddenly rang. “Sorry, I have to take this call.” He let out a sigh of relief at having avoided Zhong Lan’s cross-examination, only to find that the caller was Jiang Xu.

The breath of relief was swallowed back, and Shen Fangyu’s hand shook, almost dropping the phone.

“You’re not home?” Jiang Xu asked.

Shen Fangyu’s stiff fingers rested on the phone that had nearly perished.

He had sent Jiang Xu a text message before he left work today, saying that he would go back early in the evening to prepare dinner and make him tiger skin green peppers, so he wouldn’t go with him. He knew that according to Jiang Xu’s habit, he would usually work overtime until around eight thirty, so that’s why he had made an appointment with Zhong Lan, thinking that he should be able to make It in time. Unexpectedly, it was only seven o’clock, and Jiang Xu was already home.

“I went out to buy food.” Shen Fangyu wiped the sweat from the corner of his forehead.

“You left at six o’clock.” Timer Jiang Xu said.

“The nearby vegetable market didn’t have any green peppers,” Shen Fangyu made up, “I took a detour.”

The other side was silent for a long time and said to him, “I’m at the vegetable market down the block right now, and the peppers are three yuan for two catty.”

Then, with a click, he hung up the phone.

Shen Fangyu called back anxiously, but the call was hung up three times in a row. He raised his eyes anxiously, only to meet Zhong Lan’s stunned gaze.

She reached out and pointed at Shen Fangyu’s phone, “You ……and that ambiguous friend?” She didn’t hear the voice on the other side, but from what Shen Fangyu said alone, she slowly deduced, “He’s living with you and checking your whereabouts?”

Just as she finished speaking, and before Shen Fangyu had time to reply, a high-ponytailed woman with exquisite makeup sitting at the table next to the two of them suddenly stood up, walked over in her high heels, and stood before to Shen Fangyu. She raised a pair of delicate eyebrows, cocked her head, and started to reprimand him: “Is he waiting for you at home?”

“He is waiting for you at home for dinner, but you have the leisure to eat here?”

Shen Fangyu looked at the woman who had suddenly appeared and was a little confused.

The woman didn’t give him time to remain confused, as she opened her mouth like a machine gun and said without even taking a breath:

“When you were chasing after my girlfriend, you were so enthusiastic, polite, and blunt  But now you’re squirming and don’t know whether you like him or not? If you didn’t like him, you wouldn’t have taken the trouble to ask Lan Lan out for a chat.”

“Lanlan speaks tactfully, but I’m different. I’ll just tell you directly. If you’re like this, then you have feelings for him. You like him. Be a man; don’t be cowardly. There’s nothing you can’t admit or fail to face. Chase those who you should chase, and don’t waste time here.”

“If you want me to say that what Lan Lan just said is false, and you still want to confirm whether you like him or not, the easiest way to know is to ask yourself if you want to be in love with him and have him as your lover, give your relationship a title to tie you two together, do what only lovers do for life, where you are his and he is yours, and no one can interfere. “

From its inception, love comes with the desire to have each other; no matter how selfless and unrequited it may seem on the surface, one cannot hide this.

“Lin Qian ……” Zhong Lan tugged at the pretty woman with bright red lips and smiled apologetically at Shen Fangyu, “Sorry, senior brother, my girlfriend heard you were asking me to dinner and was afraid you were still trying to chase me, so she came over to keep an eye on you.”

Shen Fangyu didn’t have the heart to respond to Zhong Lan’s words; he looked at Zhong Lan’s girlfriend in a daze. Every word Lin Qian said struck his mind like a brick, and after a dizzying moment, the mountain of heavy water in front of him suddenly went up in smoke, revealing the village behind it.

Then the ruins landed with a bang and the dust cleared, leaving Shen Fangyu with the words:

“I understand now.”