When You Shulang received Lu Zhen's call, he was in a stalemate with someone.
Lu Zhen was a little sticky on the phone tonight. He expressed his deepest feelings three times in less than two minutes of talk time.
"I love you so much, Uncle You."
You Shulang smiled. Lu Zhen's confession of love diluted the slight irritability in his heart. With his back to the wind, he said in a gentle tone, "Yes, I know."
After talking for a few more words, You Shulang put down the phone, turned the corner, and saw Fan Xiao leaning against the wall, still holding the cup of milk tea in his hand.
"I told you I don't drink it." He tried his best to suppress his impatient expression, "I don't like sweet things."
The man opposite him groaned and complained, "I worked so hard to buy this, and it's being despised like this."
You Shulang took a few steps closer and hooked his slender fingers: "Give me a stick of rouge."
Fan Xiao suddenly smiled, a little flattering: "Okay, are you addicted to smoking?"
"I'm not addicted. I didn't bring my cigarettes down." Biting the cigarette and lighting it with the flame drawn by Fan Xiao, You Shulang narrowed his eyes slightly. The rouge tasted very strange when you first put it in your mouth, but when you get used to it, you will feel that it is like a feather, light and soft, but it keeps teasing the piece of flesh at the tip of your heart, which is very tempting.
"Mr. Fan, do you have something to talk to me about so late at night?" You Shulang raised the hand holding the cigarette and rubbed his temple with his thumb. He had worked overtime all night and now had a headache. He didn't want to argue with Fan Xiao.
Puff, a thick straw was inserted into the plastic seal of the milk tea, Fan Xiao lowered his head and took a sip, inhaling a mouthful of sweet fruit particles that he didn't know what they were.
"I heard that your company is working overtime to finish the plan for me. I feel bad for you, so I brought some refreshments to express my condolences."
He opened the back door of the car, and there were two large bags of drinks and snacks on the seat. The man shook the milk tea in his hand: "Your cup is a grand slam, but you flattered the horse but ended up hitting its leg."
You Shulang, with his head bowed and smoking, chuckled: "How could I deserve to be flattered by Mr. Fan?"
"You are my only friend in this city." Fan Xiao leaned against the wall of the office building and took another sip of milk tea, then tilted his head to look at You Shulang beside him, "You are also my only pleasure here."
This sounded awkward, and You Shulang frowned slightly: "Can I understand this sentence as a mistake in your expression?"
Fan Xiao's milk tea was almost gone. He sucked it with a straw, making a whirring sound. Then he chewed the tea in his mouth and nodded: "You can understand it this way from now on."
"You are my only one, but I am not your only one." The man threw the empty cup into the trash can and said, "This seems a bit unfair."
You Shulang was so angry that he laughed. He held a cigarette in his mouth and squinted at Fan Xiao: "If you can't speak, then don't fucking say anything. You can't express your meaning with words."
Hearing the foul language, Fan Xiao's eyes showed surprise and interest. He bowed slightly and looked at You Shulang, speaking jokingly: "Director You, am I hallucinating? Where are your principles in dealing with people? Where are your gentleness, courtesy, frugality and modesty?"
"You know how to be gentle, kind, respectful, frugal and modest, but you still can't make sense?" Even though he was joking, You Shulang did not lose face. "Did you hear it this time? It's not hallucination."
There was a back-and-forth of banter, and You Shulang waited for Fan Xiao's reply, but it was nowhere to be found. He raised his eyes and looked over, and saw in the man's deep eyes the scorching heat and coldness that were pulling, converging, and conflicting with each other.
The curve of the corners of his lips gradually narrowed, and You Shulang examined himself as to why he had "lost control". Logically, he and Fan Xiao were not close friends, so he was not the person who could be joked with like that.
He took a step back and threw away his cigarette: "I would like to thank Mr. Fan on behalf of the project team. I will take the things upstairs."
Fan Xiao straightened up, as if he had just come to his senses. He did not open the car door to take out his things, but said: "I have expressed it very clearly, you are my only one, but I am not yours." He pointed at You Shulang's cell phone, which he had put away, through his clothes, "It's so late and someone is still looking for you to chat."
You Shulang pursed his lips and thought seriously about whether children who grew up in tropical countries have different brains than Chinese people, or whether the mature and steady Fan Xiao was actually lacking in some aspect, which was why he said such a thing.
"They are different, how can we compare them?"
Fan Xiao pressed forward: "Why can't we compete?"
"Object." You Shulang looked at Fan Xiao coldly, "How do we compare?"
The two were very close, one looking up and the other looking down, with a sense of stalemate. But after a moment, someone withdrew his gaze and moved away, it was Fan Xiao.
He turned back into his gentle and polite self, and said with a smile, "Girlfriend, that's really incomparable." He threw a cigarette into his mouth, and when he held his hands together to light the cigarette, he joked vaguely, "Director You, aren't you afraid that your girlfriend will be lonely and cheated by others when you work overtime at night?"
He took off his cigarette and exhaled white mist: "Or is it that Director You is extremely confident and thinks that no one can steal your girl?"
Although he said it in a joking way, You Shulang could also hear the other party's dissatisfaction and the faint sourness hidden in his voice. He cast his eyes on Fan Xiao's face and once again assessed the possibility that he was gay.
Not like... well... not really.
You Shulang was born gay and had his own ability to judge people, but now he is a little unsure.
Apart from Lu Zhen, You Shulang has never been thought of by other men. He behaves very straight, not like a gay. Lu Zhen came here by accident with the idea of turning straight into gay.
"If the corner of the wall can be pried open, it means there is something wrong with the construction of the house itself. I still have work to do, so I should go back." After saying that, You Shulang walked into the office building.
"Where are these things?" Fan Xiao opened the car door.
You Shulang turned around with a formal expression on his face: "Since President Fan is here to thank everyone for their hard work, it would be more thoughtful of you to take it up personally."
Fan Xiao looked at the slowly receding figure, raised his lips and said, "Fuck."
The latest version of the project plan of Bohai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. is placed on the desk of the general manager of Pinfeng Venture Capital.
Fan Xiao flipped through it casually and saw You Shulang's name in the introduction of the project team members.
Department of Clinical Medicine, Changling Medical University, undergraduate degree.
Fan Xiao checked on the computer and found that the school was in the same city. It was a second-rate institution and not considered a good university.
After closing the page, Fan Xiao threw the plan aside. He wanted to leave this pharmaceutical company alone so that You Shulang would come to him on his own initiative.
If I refuse to invest at that time, then will You Shulang's high value be shattered to nothing?
"แกงจืดจึงรู้คุณเกือ (The higher you hold it, the harder it will fall)."
Soft Thai voices rang out in the room. Fan Xiao stroked the four-faced Buddha on his chest and smiled very handsomely...
There is one strange thing.
If Fan Xiao didn't see the man named You Shulang for a long time, he would never think of him, as if he had never met him. But if Fan Xiao received any information about him, he would never forget him, and would always think of him before eating or going to bed.
For example, now, what keeps replaying in Fan Xiao's mind is a young face in a photo.
"Mr. Fan, the above is our introduction to the honeysuckle drink project. Is there anything else you would like to know?" Turning to the last page of the PPT, the young project presenter felt a little nervous. The person in charge of the investment side listened too seriously, and his posture hardly changed from the beginning to the end. He didn't know what tricky questions he would ask.
The man sitting with his back to the light had an elegant look on his face, with a nice curve at the corner of his mouth: "I don't understand professional matters, but I know that if you want to understand a product, you have to dig into its roots. You have to understand the development history of its manufacturer and the entrepreneurial story of the company's founder. For example, that photo looks very informative. How about Mr. Huang tell me about it?"
The man called Mr. Huang was fat and old. He wiped the sweat off his head with a handkerchief in the air-conditioned room and turned to look at the photos hanging on the wall behind him.
"That one? Oh, that was six or seven years ago. I was leading my research team to tackle a project. Mr. Fan, have you heard of Changling Liver Protection Tablets? It was developed by my team." The white-haired man sighed, "But the results of scientific research transformation are not good. It is difficult to see Changling Liver Protection Tablets in pharmacies now."
"There are some of your students in Mr. Huang's research team, right? Some of them look very young."
The obese old man stood up, walked to the photo and said with a smile: "At that time, Changling University had not yet established a pharmaceutical R&D company. There was only a R&D center, and the scientific research projects were all done by professors and their students. The people in the photo are basically my students. They were the best and most outstanding people at that time."
Fan Xiao also stood up and walked around the oval conference table to the photo.
The photo is very ordinary. Mr. Huang, who was thinner and younger than he is now, and a group of energetic young people stood in front of the laboratory table. Perhaps they had completed a certain stage of the task, and everyone's expression was very relaxed. They looked at the camera, some smiled or made funny faces, and some even raised two fingers to the fat Mr. Huang's head.
Fan Xiao's gaze was fixed on the upper right corner of the photo, where a young man was leaning against an operating table.
The window was on the left, and the sunlight penetrated the glass and hit his profile, blurring half of the lines on his face; although he was standing in the corner, one could still tell that he was of superior height, with his long legs elegantly crossed, one hand resting on the operating table and the other hanging by his side, looking relaxed; his skin was very white, which reminded Fan Xiao of the coconut-flavored milk tea he drank that day; the young man was very thin, the kind of thinness that was full of hope, his back was still a little thin, but he had also begun to take on a tall and majestic outline; he smiled like everyone else, with his head slightly tilted, his eyes filled with clear joy, a smile that Fan Xiao had never seen on the face of the man he knew.
Suddenly, Fan Xiao felt a little depressed. He calculated that he had been ignoring Bohai Pharmaceutical for almost a month, and You Shulang had also been ignoring him for a month.
"Mr. Fan... Mr. Fan, is there anything else you want to know?" the fat old man asked while wiping his sweat.
Fan Xiao came back to his senses and smiled: "Boss Huang, do you mind if I retake this photo? Looking at it makes me more confident about the project we are going to promote now."
The old man was a little surprised and said hurriedly: "Don't mind, don't mind, Mr. Fan, how about I print one more for you?"
The phone's flashlight flashed twice, and the friendly Mr. Fan said, "Thank you very much."
He went on to say: "Let's talk about the advantages of honeysuckle drink among similar products. We can use channels to amplify our advantages, expand the spectrum first and then make profits, so as to bring economic benefits."
Two days later, the cut photo papers were found in the trash can beside Fan Xiao's desk. The fat old man, the cheerful students, the sunshine that filled the room, and the scissor hand were all not spared.
Only the young man with a faint smile in the upper right corner was sandwiched between a thick Buddhist scripture.
(Many sins begin with a smile.)