Sorry I scared you.

Jiang Songhe didn't remember when he fell asleep. The next morning, around six o'clock, during his usual morning run, he woke up naturally, though he still felt tired.

He was awake, but he remained motionless with his back to the other side of the bed.

Based on the location of Jonathan's last words last night, and considering that he only woke up at noon, Jiang Songhe judged that Jonathan should still be sleeping not far behind him at this time.

That's embarrassing.

Jiang Songhe couldn't define what happened last night. He hadn't gone anywhere after finishing half of the task, so he didn't need to take responsibility for Jonathan.

First, it is necessary.

How should one repay? If one gives money, the other party has no shortage of it and would consider it vulgar; if one gives something else, the other party has nothing to give.

Second, it's not necessary.

The other party is a "veteran player," and will most likely think this is just a trivial matter, not to mention that no one is there. If they hear that someone is in charge, they might laugh at him for being old-fashioned, or for being... no way.

For the first time ever, Jiang Songhe was grumpy when she woke up, angry at herself for having "nothing to give," and even angrier at the other person's "daily routine."

Since the other party has served many men, he naturally wouldn't miss out on this old, boring, and abstinent one.

Jiang Songhe made up her mind to play dumb.

So he tiptoed out of bed, sat up almost silently from one side of the bed, first found the location of his slippers with his eyes, then used his tailbone as a fulcrum, rotated his whole body, landed precisely, and finally got up.

"First, I'll take a shower in the bathroom, then change clothes in the dressing room, then go downstairs to the garage, drive straight to the company, and calmly and rationally think about the countermeasures against Ciyi in 'Yan Ge Xing'. As for whether to order takeout for the old players at noon and have it delivered to their homes, I'll see how I feel then."

This was Jiang Songhe's plan before turning around.

Turning around, he saw the other side of the bed was empty, along with a ring and jewelry box on the bedside table, and he was stunned.

Stepping out of his room, he touched the pocket of his pajamas, glanced at the still-locked, unremarkable doorknob next door, pursed his lips to suppress the urge to tentatively call Jonathan's name, and slipped on his slippers to go downstairs.

The first floor was almost exactly the same as it was before he went upstairs last night. The snacks he bought were still in their original places, only the takeout containers were nowhere to be found. He went to the restaurant, opened the refrigerator, and found that the leftover homemade dishes that he hadn't finished were in the crisper drawer.

Everything that was eaten and should have been thrown in the trash has disappeared.

Along with it, the lively atmosphere inside the villa also disappeared.

Jiang Songhe wanted to smoke, but he couldn't because of his doctor's orders. So he settled for the next best thing and washed his face at the sink in the restaurant. After washing, he wiped the water droplets off his face with his wet hands and ran them over his hairline.

He then strolled to the guest room.

There is no one.

No suitcase.

There was no trace of it, as if a top Mandarin singer had never been invited into the villa.

There was no trace of Jonathan's bodyguard and assistant in the basement maid's room either. After confirming this, Jiang Songhe smiled inexplicably, feeling a sense of relief welling up inside her.

It's a game, and sooner or later everyone will get tired of it, which is perfectly reasonable.

At least the veteran players aren't lost in a dream, that's good, haha.

-

"What, Jiang Songhe is actually a fake CEO, and his family actually lives in a slum?"

Wu Fangsi joked as she pushed a steaming cup of coffee toward Jonathan, then propped herself up on the table with one arm, squinted one eye, and pointed, saying, "Such big dark circles under your eyes, and the environment where he lives is so bad, that's why you've been forced to come to my temporary hideout?"

"Don't worry, I won't squeeze in with you." Jonathan took the coffee, sipped it, and changed the subject, "Aren't we supposed to be getting a fitting today? I was thinking of stopping by here to take care of some important business before I go to Hodor."

Wu Fangsi raised an eyebrow, glanced at Jonathan's dazed face, tapped the table with her fingers, smiled and stood up: "Then wait a moment, I'll have my assistant prepare it."

After saying that, Wu Fangsi called out an English name, turned around, went to the stairwell, and went downstairs.

To hold a fashion show in Jingting, Wu Fangsi rented a three-story villa in the suburbs. The first floor was used as a work area for adjusting sample garments and interviewing models, the second floor was for the living quarters of WANTON WU employees, and the entire third floor was his private space.

The Hordorf Hotel is located on Jinbao Street in the bustling Dongcheng district, which is very close by.

Jonathan hooked the handle of his coffee cup and wandered aimlessly around the third floor, trying to discern the stylistic differences between this villa and the Jiang family villa.

One building is more European in style, one is more ceramic in style, one is three stories, one is two stories, one has a room I didn't particularly want to enter, and one is a room I sneaked into but regretted entering...

Three or four hours ago, Jonathan was lying in Jiang Songhe's bedroom when he heard the sound of her breathing as she fell asleep behind him.

He quietly got out of bed, walked out of the room in the dark, and went to the room next door that had piqued his curiosity to the point of madness. He took the key that he had taken from Jiang Songhe's pajamas pocket while she was in a daze, unlocked the door, and went to find out what was going on.

I thought it was reserved for someone to live in, or that it held some unspeakable secret.

When Jonathan turned on the light and saw the room's furnishings from the doorway, he was stunned.

It was clearly a memorial room for the deceased. At the back was an altar surrounded by orange roses, on which was a black and white photograph of a middle-aged man and woman. Judging from the facial features of Jiang Songhe and Jiang Songyun, the people in the photograph should be the brothers' deceased parents.

The orange roses were a gift Jonathan had personally bought for Jiang Songhe when he was in Manel, in a playful way. Jiang Songhe's reaction to the flowers was like that of a hedgehog, which Jonathan found offensive, prompting him to retort and throw the flowers into the trash can in front of her.

The altar was decorated with only this one type of flower. A traditional person like Jiang Songhe would not have chosen to cultivate such a vibrant flower in a solemn memorial room without a reason. It must be a variety that holds special significance for his deceased father and mother.

Jonathan's intentions were good, but he did something wrong and said bad things.

Worse still, at this very moment, out of his own self-righteous curiosity and speculation, he stubbornly and deliberately barged in.

Good heavens, what has he done?

She agreed to attend the fashion show in the porcelain country because she was afraid that Jiang Songhe would suffer alone in the darkness on the anniversary of her parents' death. However, what she actually did was to disregard Jiang Songhe's refusal and disturb the peace of the deceased the day after the anniversary of her parents' death.

Jonah felt a chill run down his spine. Under the gaze of the two deceased elders' portraits, he felt like a child who had accidentally broken someone else's beloved possession and been caught red-handed. He asked himself, "How could I not even do this simple thing right?"

How can you only dwell on the old pain that February 7th brought you, while selectively forgetting that February 7th has also haunted Jiang Songhe for 18 years?

Jiang Songhe is a person who doesn't have a mouth, but whose gentleness is hidden in his actions.

A person who, fearing that his younger brother would bear the guilt of their parents' death, uses a white lie to shift the blame for their parents' death anniversary onto his own birthday.

He doesn't say "I want," as if all needs prioritizing himself have been eliminated from his world.

He has his own choices and his own standards. He keeps his vows like an ascetic, and he must have his own unspeakable difficulties.

She, however, resorted to any means to lure him into breaking his vows, in order to indulge in pleasure.

If he hadn't repeatedly provoked others, he would probably have followed his planned path, living a stable and at ease life, at least without worrying about being labeled as "homosexual" and letting down his parents in heaven.

Perhaps it's time to end this game that has drawn me so deeply into.

The door to the memorial room was closed solemnly and gently.

Three newly lit incense sticks cast wisps of soft white smoke, and a dried flower petal fell onto the table. Among the many orange roses, this one was a special bunch, with a ribbon of the same color on the stem fluttering up and down...

"Janus?! Your clothes are ready, come down!"

Wu Fangsi's voice came up, and Jonathan came to his senses, replied "Gotcha (I heard you)," and then went down from the third floor.

The first floor was empty at the moment, except for the mannequin next to the pattern-making table, where the founder of WANTON WU was standing, along with a sleepy-eyed girl, who was presumably Wu Fangsi's assistant.

"Did I arrive too early and disturb your rest?" Jonathan walked over and asked in a low voice.

The assistant, who was just about to yawn, suddenly brightened up when she saw Janus: "Not at all... no, not at all, Janus~~~"

The clothes Wu Fangsi prepared for Jonathan were an oversized white shirt with lantern sleeves and a satin black scarf, and a pair of loose-fitting black trousers with a fitted waist.

The scarf and trousers are relatively simple in style, and the shirt seems to be the same, but it actually has a hidden secret: the pleats on the lantern sleeves are made by many transparent hidden buttons fastened in a staggered manner.

Perhaps because it had just been unfolded and ironed, all the snap buttons on the shirt were undone.

Wu Fangsi was bending over, personally adjusting and restoring each one: "The others just stayed up all night last night. I thought that since you're here today, it would be good for them to rest, so they wouldn't be watching and screaming on the sidelines, which would annoy me to death."

The workload looked quite heavy. Wu Fangsi, being impatient, patiently tied a few more beads, but probably finding it too slow, she snapped her fingers twice at her assistant, who was swooning over the figure by the stage: "Hey, wake up! Go do the other side instead of this one! What a pain..."

"Oh, oh." The assistant was much shorter than Wu Fangsi and didn't need to bend over, so he took advantage of his height to move to the back of the mannequin, while sneaking glances at Jonathan, and slowly followed the instructions from the back.

Fearing that her assistant would be distracted and scolded by Wu Fang again, Jonathan used the excuse of admiring the scenery to walk with his coffee cup to the nearest floor-to-ceiling window. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the window had been converted into a side door leading to the outside.

The gauze curtains by the window were similar in style to those in the penthouse suites of the Tang Dynasty Hotel—white and semi-transparent…

A gust of wind swept into the room through the opening, causing the gauze curtains to flutter. Behind the white haze, a dark figure suddenly appeared.

*Snap*

Jonathan's back stiffened, his hand jerked violently, and the coffee cup slipped from his grasp, crashing straight to the floor, its shards scattering at his feet.

Judging from the shadow alone, the other person was clearly startled and then stepped into the room through the window.

Upon catching a glimpse of a pair of high heels at the bottom of the sheer curtain, Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sorry, I startled you."

Hearing that the voice belonged to a woman, Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief.

The woman raised her hand and parted the veil, finally revealing her true face—

Her long, wavy, jet-black hair framed a delicate face, with red lips, arched eyebrows, and captivating eyes. She was alluring and radiant yet sharp-tongued. Her other hand remained outside, her fingertips elegantly holding a freshly lit cigarette.

Jonathan took another breath and looked straight at the tall figure opposite him, dressed in a fitted black women's suit. He was amazed and thought to himself, "She is simply a gender-swapped version of Jiang Songhe."

The woman was taken aback when she saw Jonathan, but her red lips quickly curved into a polite and professional smile as she switched to English and asked with concern, "Sorry, I thought it was Wanton. Are you okay?"

Jonathan blinked, not immediately responding to the other person's concern, but instead asking a question that piqued his curiosity: "Excuse me, who are you...?"

“Oh, excuse me.” The woman naturally switched back to Ciwen, stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the exterior wall by the window, and then stepped fully inside, extending her hand to Jonathan and formally introducing herself.

“I am Yuan Xiao, Fang Si’s college classmate, and also his stylist for Jing Ting Xiu.”