CH 70

Guns are prohibited in Country Z and Jihua was not a military hospital. Even in the department, they rarely encountered cases related to gunshot injuries so the gossiping colleagues in the department had lingering fears from the life-or-death crisis involving Zhang Cheng and Shen Fangyu.

After Jiang Xu completed the surgery, he didn’t pay much attention to their discussions and went straight to the hotel without delay.

However, when he arrived at the hotel and the front desk receptionist led him to the meeting room, he realized that Shen Fangyu was not there.

“Did you not receive him?” Jiang Xu asked, worried that the information he provided was not clear enough and the driver didn’t recognize Shen Fangyu.

“Our driver said he received the guest…” The front desk receptionist hesitated to speak, “Your friend was quite noticeable. It was….hard to miss.”

Tall with long legs, wearing a distinctive pair of tattered army green wide-leg pants, but with a slim white shirt on the upper body and a loosely tied tie, as if he had just returned from the battlefield. However, his temperament was good, and he managed to pull off this mismatched outfit.

—Shen Fangyu didn’t really want to dress like this, but he was embarrassed to borrow money from the red-haired driver again.

In the sea of people, the driver quickly spotted Shen Fangyu, and after seeing that he was carrying a yellow suitcase, he approached and gave the signal: “Jiang Xu?”

The other side quickly responded, “You know Jiang Xu?”

The driver dutifully informed Shen Fangyu of Jiang Xu’s instructions, but unexpectedly, Shen Fangyu paused and didn’t get into the car.

After listening to the front desk receptionist’s summary, Jiang Xu’s voice was low, “You mentioned me to him, and he still left?”

The front desk receptionist noticed that Jiang Xu seemed unhappy and quickly added, “But Mr. Shen asked our driver for the hotel address. He said he had something to attend to, and he will be here soon.”

“You can have a seat for a while.” She poured a cup of tea for Jiang Xu and handed him a remote control, “This is the design we have prepared for your room, and the instructions are on the meeting table. The projector has already been turned on for you. If you have any questions, you can call the front desk anytime.”

Jiang Xu looked down at the remote control in his hand and suddenly asked, “Can a bed be added to the meeting room?”

The front desk receptionist was taken aback by the unusual request, “A bed?”

Jiang Xu’s gaze fell on the empty space next to the conference table, “A camp bed will do.”

Although the receptionist was surprised, she quickly responded, “We have a spare folding bed that’s 90cm wide, would that be alright?”

“It’s fine.”

The front desk receptionist promptly arranged for a folding bed to be placed in the spot Jiang Xu pointed out. White sheets were neatly spread on top, making it look like an examination room in a hospital.

After the person who laid the bed left, Jiang Xu turned on the air conditioning, sat down at the conference table, and flipped through the instructions for setting up the meeting room as he quietly took a sip of the tea on the table.

For some reason, the lights in the meeting room were dim, even gloomy, making one feel uneasy. The dark-colored curtains were also unusually heavy, so thick that not even a gust of wind could lift their corners.

Jiang Xu waited for two hours, reading the instructions over a hundred times. The tea had already gone cold by the time the door of the meeting room finally opened.

Shen Fangyu pushed open the door, politely thanked the staff who had led him here, and then closed it with a click. He looked at Jiang Xu’s back.

Jiang Xu lowered his eyelashes and glanced at his watch.

“Sorry for being late.” Shen Fangyu had changed into a new suit, holding a transparent file folder in his hand. Despite the winter weather, sweat glistened on his forehead. “I went home and got stuck in traffic on the way. Were you anxious waiting for me?”

The two looked at each other from opposite sides of a conference table, looking formal and as if they were about to negotiate. However, just as Shen Fangyu was about to sit down, Jiang Xu suddenly said while looking at him, “Take off your clothes.”

Shen Fangyu was stunned.

Jiang Xu lifted his head slightly, his gaze falling on Shen Fangyu’s face with a hint of indisputability. “Take them off.”

“But I…” Shen Fangyu paused. “I’m not injured, really.”

However, Jiang Xu had no intention of discussing with him at all, staring straight at him with his eyes.

Shen Fangyu hesitated in confrontation for a while, but finally compromised and took off his coat in front of Jiang Xu. Then, he began to unbutton his shirt one by one.

Seeing that he had taken off most of his clothes, Jiang Xu took out a pair of white latex gloves from his briefcase, tore open the sterile packaging skillfully, and put them on his hands. He gestured with his eyes towards the small bed beside him. “Lie down.”

The white latex gloves tightly wrapped around Jiang Xu’s hands, making his slender fingers look particularly attractive.

Shen Fangyu looked at his hands and his Adam’s apple rolled lightly.

Seeing him in a daze, Jiang Xu impatiently started counting down, “Three, two…”

Shen Fangyu took a deep breath just before he said “one”, and slowly lay down on the bed as Jiang Xu indicated.

Jiang Xu’s hands touched his skin through the layer of latex gloves. Shen Fangyu turned his face slightly, and the flame of their reunion, which had already been ignited, burned even brighter.

Jiang Xu’s gaze swept over the man’s body, and his gloved hands carefully examined Shen Fangyu’s physical condition, inch by inch, from his neck to his waist, from his ankles to his knees.

He couldn’t figure out why Shen Fangyu insisted on going home before coming to the hotel and making him wait for so long.

So he guessed… Shen Fangyu was probably injured, and was afraid that he would find out, so he went home to change clothes and dress the wound.

The smooth gloves caused faint goosebumps to arise on the skin. Shen Fangyu bit his lip and finally couldn’t bear it any longer, grabbing Jiang Xu’s hand firmly. “I’m really fine, Jiang Xu… Don’t worry, I’m not injured. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Zhang Cheng, or take me to the hospital for a check-up.”

Shen Fangyu’s resistant attitude made Jiang Xu even more suspicious.

“If you’re fine, then let go of my hand so I can check.”

Shen Fangyu held Jiang Xu’s hand tightly, showing a resolute stance of not letting him touch further.

Jiang Xu frowned. “What are you guilty of?”

“It’s not guilt… Jiang Xu,” Shen Fangyu hesitated to speak for a moment, then finally looked up at the ceiling in self-defeat, his voice hoarse. “You being like this… I can’t take it.”

Because the perception of temperature is slightly dull through the layer of gloves, and Jiang Xu was full of nervousness and worry, he didn’t notice the change in Shen Fangyu’s body.

It wasn’t until he spoke up that Jiang Xu realized that the temperature of Shen Fangyu’s skin seemed a little high.

The sudden increase in body temperature, accompanied by his obviously hoarse voice, made Jiang Xu understand his meaning at once.

He suddenly let go of his hand, subconsciously glanced at a certain area that should not be looked at, turned his back, and threw Shen Fangyu’s clothes at him.

“You—”

He understood that every man has normal physiological needs, but he didn’t understand why Shen Fangyu would get so excited about something as serious as a physical examination.

Shen Fangyu quickly put on his clothes and drank most of the mineral water on the meeting table, feeling a bit embarrassed. “Sorry…”

Jiang Xu turned his face away, his face also a little flushed.

He didn’t think there was anything wrong at first, and was even worried and angry, but then Shen Fangyu reacted like that and directly left him bewildered.

Desire is contagious, especially between two people who have feelings for each other.

The atmosphere suddenly became somewhat silent. Jiang Xu sat back and coughed twice before asking, “You’re not injured, so why did you go back home?”

“I…” Shen Fangyu touched his nose. “I thought you asked me to come to the meeting room to talk about something, so I went back home to get some files and change my clothes.”

Jiang Xu took off his gloves and looked at him.

“I did want to talk to you about something.” Jiang Xu asked, “Do you also have something you want to talk to me about?”

Shen Fangyu sat down in front of him and picked up the transparent file bag.

“Yes.” He gradually calmed down from his emotional state and asked softly, “Jiang Xu, can I speak first?”

Jiang Xu squeezed the USB flash drive in his hand and asked, “Why?”

Shen Fangyu paused for a moment and explained, “I know you might be angry or not want to deal with me anymore because I went to retrieve the documents. You might think that I always put myself in danger because of you, and that my feelings are a burden to you.”

After explaining why he had chased after the car during the phone call, Jiang Xu directly hung up on him.

At the airport, when the driver stopped him and told him that Jiang Xu had booked a meeting room and was waiting for him, Shen Fangyu felt like a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head.

He has been feeling uneasy ever since the phone call was hung up and during the two hours he spent driving back home and then driving over, Shen Fangyu imagined countless reasons why Jiang Xu insisted on having a meeting with him in a conference room.

He pursed his lips and smiled bitterly with a hint of helplessness. “I don’t know what you want to talk to me about, but I think it might be another ‘good person’ card, telling me not to be emotional anymore, or maybe…”

He glanced at Jiang Xu, who was dressed very formally, and looked around the conference room. “You’re being so serious… it might be something bigger, like… asking me to move out.”

“But I know that if you speak first, I might never be able to say what I want to.”

Jiang Xu didn’t know why Shen Fangyu would come up with these guesses, but he suddenly noticed that Shen Fangyu’s eyelashes were trembling, and he didn’t seem as calm as he was on the phone.

So Jiang Xu decided to listen to what he had to say first.

Then Shen Fangyu opened his transparent file folder.

“Jiang Xu.” He took out several documents from the folder.

“These are copies of my birth certificate, ID card, and household registration booklet.”

After that, he took out several certificates with different colored covers one by one. “Elementary school, middle school, and high school graduation certificates.”

“Undergraduate degree certificate and graduation certificate, doctorate degree certificate and graduation certificate, physician qualification certificate, physician practicing certificate.”

As Shen Fangyu spoke, the certificates were spread out in front of Jiang Xu one by one, occupying the conference table and displaying Shen Fangyu’s entire life from birth to now.

He said, “These are the same as yours… they are my accumulations over the years and also my livelihood.”

“This is a copy of my property certificate and the purchase contract,” he pulled out several thicker documents, “the original is in the bank, I can get it out as soon as the loan is paid off.”

“These are my health examination reports from the past three years, all done at Jihua,” Shen Fangyu turned to the last page of the physician’s diagnosis report and said to Jiang xu, “there are no health problems, you don’t have to worry.”

Finally, Shen Fangyu took out a bank card and slowly pushed it in front of Jiang Xu, “this is my salary card, the password is the day I received my college entrance examination results.”

He scanned the various documents on the conference table and said to Jiang Xu, “I just went home to get these, sorry for keeping you waiting.”

“Jiang Xu, I really, really like you, and I truly want to be in a relationship with you,” he said, “this is a judgment I made after careful consideration, a result confirmed repeatedly and I believe it won’t change.”

Jiang Su, who had missed the chance to confess due to the interruption, looked at Shen Fangyu with a dazed expression.

Shen Fangyu continued, “You said you’re worried about practical issues, worried that if we break up someday, it will be difficult to get along… I promise you, that won’t happen, at least… I will always love you.”

He said, “If you’re willing to trust me, I will hand all of these over to you to keep, as a promise to you.”

He glanced at the bed he had just been laid on, took a deep breath, and added, “If you’re resistant to homosexuality, to two men being in a relationship, and don’t want to do those things,” Shen Fangyu said, “we don’t have to do them, I can accept being with you… in a platonic way.”

“You might think that what I’m saying today is quite sudden, but…”

He paused and looked at Jiang Xu’s face, “I’ve grown up without ever seeing a real gun, and I’ve never imagined that one day someone would point a gun at my head.”

Recalling that night, Shen Fangyu’s heart was not calm.

“When the gun was pointed at my head, do you know what I was thinking?”

Without waiting for Jiang Xu to answer, he continued, “I was thinking that I hadn’t properly confessed to you yet, I hadn’t told you how much I really love you.”

“I’ve never liked someone this much before, I was too nervous, my heart was too chaotic, I didn’t know how to act, how to strike the right balance, I didn’t know how much to hide, how much to reveal. I even chose the most inappropriate way to express myself, I kissed you without permission, and even my confession was not done properly, I even asked you why you didn’t accept me, I really behaved inappropriately.”

“So when you think I don’t make you feel at ease or you think I’m immature… I understand.”

“When I gave the money to the robber at that time, I kept thinking… if I can survive, I will try again no matter what.”

He raised his right hand, “I swear to you, if I ever do something that hurts you in the future, the next bullet will go straight-“

“Shut up.”

Jiang Su directly interrupted Shen Fangyu’s curse.

Shen Fangyu clemched his cold hands and said, “So are you willing to give it a try with me, Jiang Xu?” He lowered his head. “I’m not forcing you by saying all this. I just want… I want you to feel at ease, to put aside your worries, and look at our relationship again.”

Jiang Xu lowered his head and carefully put the scattered documents on the table back into the folder, then glanced up at Shen Fangyu.

As soon as he entered the room, he asked Shen Fangyu to take off his clothes and only now did he notice that Shen Fangyu was wearing a simple white shirt, black trousers, and a black tie, looking fresh and clean.

He suddenly remembered that Shen Fangyu said that he had gone home; it seemed that he just wanted to get documents and change clothes.

He obviously doesn’t like black suits… He even got robbed while wearing such a suit.

Was there no psychological shadow? Why go back and change into such clothes on purpose?

Before he could ask, Shen Fangyu noticed his gaze.

He looked down and smiled somewhat embarrassedly, saying, “I remember that when you pursued Zhong Lan, you wore this outfit on the day she invited you to dinner. I thought… you might consider this attire more formal and suitable for a confession.”

Jiang Xu’s mood suddenly became subtle.

He didn’t know if Shen Fangyu didn’t remember or hadn’t realized it yet, but he subconsciously remembered – the day he and Shen Fangyu first slept together, he was wearing a white shirt, black trousers, and a navy blue tie.

Platonic…?

Jiang Xu didn’t expect that the man who had slept with him when he was drunk would now say the word “Platonic”.

… Even though Shen Fangyu clearly wanted it, and maybe even more than before.

But Shen Fangyu was more afraid of offending him.

“Are you done talking? Is it my turn now?” Jiang Xu suddenly asked.

Shen Fangyu swallowed nervously, his heart pounding like a drum.

Jiang Xu glanced at him, put away the USB drive with the confession PPT, turned off the projector, picked up the remote control from the table and pressed the buttons one by one.

The hotel had décorated the conference room carefully. The main lights suddenly went off, colorful lights with music lit up, balloons flew out from hidden compartments, golden powder filled their vision, and then rose petals fell from above. Jiang Xu stood up and walked to Shen Fangyu’s side.

“What is this?” Shen Fangyu looked up at him, dazed.

“Who told you to confess before me?” Jiang Xu asked.

Shen Fangyu, shocked to the point of being soulless, stared at him blankly as the petals fell on Jiang Xu’s head.

Then Jiang Xu leaned down, pulled him by the tie and unexpectedly kissed him.

He almost perfectly replicated all the techniques Shen Fangyu had used before, exploring, seizing, and being gentle yet irrefutable. It wasn’t until the soft petals brushed against their cheeks and fell down, that he let go of the man in front of him, breathing heavily.

Renowned psychologist Sternberg said that perfect love needs to include three elements: passion, intimacy, and commitment.

And Jiang Xu, deputy chief physician of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Jihua Hospital, said, “Don’t ‘try it out’, let’s be serious about being together.”