There are many good places to drink in Ning City, but none of them can compare to Luozhou. This is a long island in the middle of the river surrounded by the Xijiang River, connected to the shore by a pure white walking stone embankment. In addition to the island trail, there are more than 30 bars and discos of all sizes, and the bustling city center is directly opposite. The scenery and atmosphere are first-class, and people who want to party, date, or relax will choose this place. Lucas came to Ning City for the first time, and it was also the first time he asked Ye Kai to drink at night. He carefully selected a forest restaurant and bar opened by a British, which has a large outdoor garden facing the street.

Seeing Ye Kai walking towards him from afar, it was hard for him not to be moved.

Ye Kai is the kind of person who stands out in any situation. Their first meeting was in the Alps. He was attracted by Ye Kai's graceful snowboarding and followed his back three times. Finally, he dared to ride in the same cabin with him on the cable car. Ye Kai put on his sunglasses, pulled down the magic scarf covering most of his face, and asked him in English with a smile, "How long will you stay with me?"

At that moment, Lucas felt like he was struck for the first time in his 32 years of life. Yes, he fell in love at first sight.

The week in the Alps is the most romantic and profound memory in Lucas' skiing career, which is more worth remembering for a lifetime than his skiing at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour in the mountains.

Objectively speaking, he was not a worldly-wise man. He graduated from Cambridge and had a background in Wall Street. He reached the pinnacle of his career at the age of 30. He had been slept with many women, and he had been playing half-serious and half-playful games for many years. However, none of those beautiful men and women could compare to the amazement he received when Ye Kai took off her veil.

According to his plan, he should have won Ye Kai over in the week in Megève, France - sleep enough with him, separate them, reminisce about this affair from time to time in the next year, and then gradually forget him during the longer period of hunting for love.

What he didn't expect was that more than a year later, not only did he not get the hang of it, he didn't even have the confidence to ask the other person out for a drink.

Ye Kai came directly from the banquet, and he didn't have time to change his clothes. The tuxedo was too formal, so he took off his coat and put it on his shoulders, untied his tie, and undid three buttons. He had a calm demeanor as he walked along the neon signs. No matter how fascinated Lucas was with him, it didn't make him feel awkward. He didn't seem to blush, nor did he feel uneasy because of other people's desire for him. A natural star.

Lucas had already drunk half a bottle of craft beer. When he saw Ye Kai, he stood up and walked a few steps towards him like a gentleman. "I thought you wouldn't agree."

Ye Kai smiled and said, "I should thank you for saving me from this boring party."

Lucas pulled out a chair for him: "When will you be able to stop being so distant with me?"

When he first met Ye Kai, he remembered his drinking preferences - Lost Cost, Lost Coast, triple IPA craft beer, the most intense characteristic is bitterness, very, very bitter. Only after the bitterness explodes can you slowly feel the sweetness. When he tried it for the first time, his whole face was wrinkled with bitterness, and he had no face in front of Ye Kai.

The waiter came over with a half-dozen bottles of wine and opened them neatly.

"I called every store to check if they had lost cost, and luckily I found this one."

Ye Kai tapped the tabletop with his fingers and expressed his gratitude politely: "Thank you for your trouble, but it's not necessary."

The scent of pine needles, citrus and hops was strong right after opening the bottle. He looked up in the night and saw that Huangtian was across the street. All gays in Ning City regarded this place as a place for hookups. Chen Youhan had said that he was tired of exclusive relationships, so he must have visited here a lot in the past two years. He calmly withdrew his gaze, and the emotion in his eyes became even deeper.

Lucas saw this and slid the lighter to him on the table: "Look at me."

Ye Kai lit a cigarette and looked back at him quietly through the smoke.

"Leslie, I'm not bad either." He smiled. His narrow, upturned eyebrows, thin single eyelids, and facial features were not outstanding, but he was tall and thin, and his temperament had a kind of fragile beauty that seemed alienated.

Ye Kai brushed off the cigarette ash, his black eyes were very calm, and after a long while, he curled his lips politely, "I know."

Lucas raised his eyebrows and defused the awkwardness very skillfully: "I'm transferred to China and will be based in Ning City for the next three years. It takes less than four hours to fly to Beijing. Promise me that I can travel thousands of miles for you every week."

Ye Kai finally couldn't help but smiled and said, "Your Chinese is improving very fast."

Ye Kai was very easy to talk tonight.

Seeing that he was not disgusted, Lucas pulled the chair towards him. Their sitting postures changed subtly, and the two of them were almost shoulder to shoulder. He raised the bottle and clinked it with his: "More than a year, there are not many suitors as patient as me these days."

Ye Kai thought for a moment and said, "It's not your problem." He exhaled a puff of cigarette, "It's me. I'm not sure if I like the same sex."

"You are not—"

"He's different." Ye Kai pursed his lips in self-mockery, "My only emotional experience was not falling in love with the same or opposite sex, I just fell in love with him."

This sentence structure was too complicated for Lucas. He sorted it out in his mind for a while, put one hand on the back of Ye Kai's chair, tilted his head, put his lips almost on his ear, and whispered: "I can help you try." Okay. Ye Kai answered in his mind that after drinking two bottles of wine, if he felt drunk, he would try. If he was still sober, he would wait.

As the night deepened, the lights in the distant buildings gradually went out, and only more and more people were coming to Luozhou. The band was performing at its climax, and the lights on the white awnings facing the street were blinking. The wind blew through the vanilla forest, and the scent of lemon leaves and rosemary was faint. The voices were getting lower and lower, and the frequency of conversations decreased. The moments of silence were unprecedentedly highlighted in the low drumbeats, alternating with the rising water vapor of the night dew on the riverside in summer, ambiguously enveloping every hot breath and gaze.

Lucas squeezed his palm: "Leslie, let me see your love line."

Ye Kai laughed softly, propping up his cheek with his other hand, his eyes dim for a moment: "You are so old-fashioned."

"Look, it's broken in the middle." Lucas said half seriously and half jokingly, sighing softly, "Life is long. No matter how unforgettable the beginning is, it's broken and that's it. The rest is what's real and right."

Ye Kai lowered his eyes and looked at the lines on his palm. He couldn't tell which was love, which was life, and which was career. Alcohol paralyzed his thoughts. Lucas said this, probably it was God's will.

Lucas is from Vancouver. They met in France and met again on a direct flight to Vancouver. It was fate. They have the same hobbies and temperaments, and even his place of residence is only two blocks away from his grandmother's house. During the months when he was recuperating in Vancouver, Lucas even took a leave from Wall Street to accompany him for a few days.

At that time, Lan Man invited him to drink tea, in the sunny spring weather, in the fragrant flower garden, using her most beautiful and expensive tableware. Cherry blossoms fell into the porcelain cup, and Lucas and Lan Man were chatting and laughing. And how pathetic he was, at that moment he actually felt wronged in his heart, why was the person sitting in this seat not Chen Youhan.

It was no longer him who was skiing with me in the Alps.

It wouldn't be him who would have tea with grandma.

The spring, summer, autumn and winter that we had agreed on before, all have different faces in the three seasons.

Even Lan Man had let it go. When she first received the flowers, she would talk about them while arranging them in the vase, but she liked the bouquet of Edith roses from Chen Youhan the best. But after seeing so many pink pearl snow mountains, she gradually got used to it. Ye Kai was very taciturn when he first arrived in Vancouver, and she didn't ask him a single question. It was not until half a month later, on a sunny afternoon, when he was sitting in the garden wrapped in a blanket reading a book, that he suddenly took off his glasses and said in a calm voice that was about to break: "Grandma, can you talk to me about Brother Youhan?" At that moment, Lan Man understood everything.

Ye Kai did not pull his hand back. Lucas' fingers were slightly cold, as thin and pale as his others. His slender fingertips gently slid across his palm.

It feels good. Ye Kaizui thought deeply. He raised his eyes from his palm and fell into Lucas' eyes. Their breaths met, and in this position, Lucas finally kissed the man he had dreamed of.

There were whistles and applause all around.

There was also the sound of a wine bottle falling to the ground from somewhere.

Qiao Chu was holding a dozen bottles of wine and watching Chen Youhan from a distance. He was holding onto the railing facing the street, so hard that the veins on his forearms were visible. The wine glass that fell from his hand shattered completely at his feet. The entire outdoor terrace on the second floor was silent for a moment, with only the sound of the band plucking the strings and the lead singer singing an English song. The laughter continued without any hindrance a second later, leaving only Chen Youhan with his face lowered, sitting silently in the shadows.

He was mistaken. Xiao Kai doesn't drink. There won't be so many bottles of fine wine in front of him.

A deep bitter taste appeared at the root of his tongue. Baby... Baby would get drunk after two sips, and would be unconscious. How could he still smile and talk to the person opposite him, how could he still be so intimate with him? He must have seen it wrong.

It's his poor eyesight.

Anyway, it wasn't the first time that he mistook someone for Ye Kai. He even had inappropriate hallucinations in remote areas. He had absurd daydreams, thinking that one day Ye Kai would forgive him and appear in front of him. When he was on the plane, he imagined that the person sitting next to him would be Ye Kai. When he was going through security, maybe the two or three people in front of him would be Ye Kai. When he passed by his favorite trendy brand store, maybe Ye Kai would just come out after shopping with his classmates.

…There are so many chance encounters in this world, he wants one, not being greedy.

Qiao Chu approached silently and quickly glanced at the street.

Nothing much, just a same-sex couple kissing.

"Are you reminded of something sad by the scene?" Qiao Chu coughed softly and patted his back.

Chen Youhan was cold, as if he didn't hear his words. His gaze was fixed on the meaningless void. He clenched his teeth tightly, and his profile was as stiff as stone.

The heart was easily grasped, and thorns harder than thorns pierced in from all sides.

He closed his eyes. It was an illusion. It was just a person who looked like Xiao Kai. If you look closely, he is taller than Xiao Kai, thinner than Xiao Kai, and more profound and cold than him. Xiao Kai is not like that. He is his precious and gorgeous rose. He smiles like a carefree little prince. His smoking movements are definitely not so skillful. His five fingers, numb with pain, tremble as they insert into his hair. He was wrong. Ye Kai would not kiss others.

He won't confirm it.

If he looks at it again, he will die.

That's wrong. The baby wouldn't do that to him... No, no.

The applause and cheers faded away. Lucas lightly touched Ye Kai's face with his fingertips. His eyes were blurred and he called him in a low voice: "Leslie."

Ye Kai was stunned, his eyes cleared from his drunken dream. The chair made a loud friction sound on the ground. He stood up and looked at Lucas in panic.

As they were all veterans, Lucas immediately understood and said with a wry smile, "So he doesn't call you Leslie. Sorry, I woke you up from your hallucination."

Ye Kai felt a tightness in his chest: "I'm sorry."

Lucas lit a cigarette and crossed his legs leisurely. After a while, he smiled without any emotion and said, "It's okay. I'm not at a disadvantage."

Chen Youhan suddenly pushed the chair away and stood up. Qiao Chu held him back: "What's wrong with you?"

Chen Youhan seemed to have lost his soul. He didn't even look at him and broke free without a care in the world. His steps were messy, and he kept bumping into the corner of the table and tripping over the chair and knocking over the wine bottle. He walked a few steps in a disorderly manner, saying sorry mechanically all the way.

Qiao Chu followed in shock - he had never seen Chen Youhan lose his composure like this before. He saw his panicked back stumbling down the stairs, through the chaotic dance floor and neon phantoms, and rushed to the door.

"——Chen Youhan!" Qiao Chu called him.

Chen Youhan seemed to be frozen, his steps frozen. He stood in the shadows with his head down, and then turned sideways quickly and awkwardly as if he had been pricked by a needle.

That was the dim entrance of the Emperor's Bar. Outside was the brightly lit street, and inside was a chaotic and crazy life. Chen Youhan took out a cigarette with trembling hands, but the lighter didn't light up after several presses. He bit the cigarette tightly, hiding himself in the shadows in a weird posture.

Outside the door, the street lights illuminated a handsome young man walking with his friend.

He stood tall, with a calm face and a faint smile as he walked calmly through the long, dark yellow shadows.