TF01 88

When Ying Ming first mentioned working with Dong Xiao and the others, his tone had already made it clear he was saying yes.

So it didn’t surprise Shi Yi that, in the weeks that followed, Ying Ming was constantly busy. He was out early and back late. It gave him space to think through a lot of things about the future. Having Ying Ming disappear into work for a while didn’t feel like a bad thing at all.

As for their relationship, Shi Yi had never intended to hide it from the world.

And realistically, it wasn’t something that could be hidden for long anyway.

But while he didn’t plan to lie, he also wasn’t ready to go public. After coming clean to his uncle, Shi Yi didn’t feel lighter, but it forced him to confront something he had been avoiding. He was standing at a crossroads he had never meant to face, and now he had no choice but to move forward.

They had gotten together because they couldn’t help it. The idea of letting go had hurt too much, so instead, they chose a path that felt like it had no tomorrow. Neither of them had any idea how far it would go.

Maybe one day they would both wake up, look each other in the face, and realize that it had all been a mistake. Maybe they would get dressed, go back to who they were before, and pick up the friendship like nothing had ever happened. It would be like waking from a dream, vivid in the moment, but leaving no real trace behind.

That kind of thinking was undeniably pessimistic, but Shi Yi was sure that Ying Ming had felt the same in the beginning.

That was why, in the beginning, they had chosen not to tell anyone. Not even Kou Jing or Ou Yang, the friends closest to them. Saying it out loud would have made it real. It would have created expectations. Once the beginning was acknowledged, the end would eventually have to be accounted for. Neither of them had wanted to carry that weight.

This relationship felt like walking along the edge of a cliff. No one could say how far they would go, or what they would find at the end. All they could do was keep walking, one step at a time, and see how far they could last.

What Shi Yi hadn’t expected was that time didn’t cool things down between them. If anything, it only made everything burn hotter. What started as a spark had become a wildfire, and all the rationality they had once tried to hold on to had been reduced to ash.

Later, when he came clean to his friends, when he even started thinking about bringing Ying Ming home to meet his family, those were all subconscious signs of the commitment Shi Yi was making to this relationship.

There were moments when he had secretly hoped someone would notice. If their relationship were discovered, if the vague tension lingering in his chest became an objective problem that had to be faced, then maybe things would shift. Once something was out in the open, the way a person prepared and responded was different. In some ways, being forced into that situation might have made it easier to move forward.

When he invited Ying Ming to spend New Year at his place, that had been his way of revealing his intentions.

He hadn’t been trying to come out, not exactly. What he wanted was to establish Ying Ming’s presence in his home, to let his family slowly begin to notice that something was different between them. Bit by bit, someone would figure it out. Someone else would be the one to break the silence.

That had been his original plan.

But plans never kept up with reality. Before he could act on anything, the worst-case scenario from every possible outcome had already arrived.

Still, if someone had to find out, it was probably better that it had been Chen Cheng. It was bad, but not as bad as it could have been. His uncle was more open-minded than his parents, at least.

Even if, judging from his reaction, things had still gone far worse than Shi Yi expected.

The days all looked the same on the surface, nothing especially new, but each one still seemed to begin a little differently. Ying Ming had been tied up with film work and hadn’t sat down to talk with Shi Yi in detail, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed something was off.

Shi Yi wasn’t exactly hard to read.

When he was anxious, he got up earlier than usual. When the pressure got to him, he smoked more. He might keep up appearances and pretend nothing was wrong, but once he was alone, he always drifted into a daze. And the worst-case scenario, the one that truly meant trouble, was if Shi Yi suggested a walk after dinner. That was the kind of sign that meant things had gone off the rails.

At the moment, he was still in the smoking phase.

After nearly two straight weeks of work, Ying Ming finally reached for him one evening, just as he was about to head out. The ashtray was full to the brim with crushed butts. He tugged Shi Yi back and asked plainly what had happened.

This was his home. He could tell when even Smoke Ring was having a depressive episode, just from the way the air felt off. Let alone Shi Yi, a living person.

He looked at him directly. “What happened. Just tell me the truth.”

He had hoped Shi Yi would bring it up on his own, but clearly he’d overestimated how willing this man was to talk about things.

Shi Yi frowned, then finally let out a sigh and sat back down on the couch. He had been dressed to go out in a full suit and tie, but now he pulled off the jacket, tossed it aside, loosened the tie at his neck, and said, “My uncle found out about us.”

Ying Ming had mentally prepared himself for this, but hearing it still made his brow twitch.

“He talked to me about it a while back.”

“And?”

Ying Ming gave him a sidelong glance. Shi Yi gave a half-smile and shook his head.

There wasn’t really any point in asking. They both already knew the answer.

So Ying Ming said what he was already thinking. “He didn’t take it well?”

He watched Shi Yi’s face carefully, trying to judge how bad things had gotten. But Shi Yi just pushed up his glasses and said, “I was planning to tell you. You’ve got your own things going on, so just be careful around people.”

Shi Yi had not taken Chen Cheng’s words as a joke when he said he had plenty of ways to make things difficult for them.

They were family, after all. He knew exactly what his uncle was capable of. And it was precisely because they were family that he was also fairly sure Chen Cheng wouldn’t act unless things really crossed the line. There was still some leeway. A grace period, at the very least.

He had meant to use that time to figure out what to do next, but so far, nothing he came up with felt like it would actually work.

He himself had already wrestled with it for a long time. Expecting his family to accept it with no preparation felt completely unrealistic.

Ying Ming understood that too. So none of what Shi Yi said came as a surprise.

But hearing him mention “uncle,” it took Ying Ming a moment to recall exactly who that was. “Your uncle… you mean Chen Cheng?”

“You know him?”

Shi Yi asked, and Ying Ming laughed. “With your family’s rank, even if we’ve never crossed paths, I’ve heard the name. And your uncle’s pretty well-known in this city.”

In fact, at one of the industry events Ying Ming had attended in the past, Chen Cheng had been invited as a guest.

The man carried a reputation. Everyone knew he had pull in both the business and political worlds. There were always rumors floating around about power, about connections, and of course, the occasional romantic scandal people liked to toss around over dinner. But the truth was, not many people dared to cross him.

Shi Yi wasn’t called “Young Master Shi” just for his attitude or looks. It wasn’t only because he came from a military family. The Shi family was not to be provoked. Their reach was too broad. Relatives, comrades, allies, when every path tied back to the same network, it didn’t have to be violent to be suffocating. You could survive a single confrontation, but if every road was blocked, surviving in one city became impossible.

Ying Ming lit a cigarette, took a slow drag, and asked, “So what are you planning to do now?”

Between the two of them, it always seemed like Ying Ming was the one asking that question. Shi Yi was usually the one answering it. So this time, he frowned slightly and looked at Ying Ming. “Right now, I’d rather know what you plan to do.”

“I’ll do whatever you decide.”

Ying Ming’s reply was direct. “I told you before. If you want to end it, I won’t stop you. But if you don’t, then I’m not going to be the one who walks away first.”

From the moment he got involved with Shi Yi, he had known that peace and quiet would never be an option.

Whether this man was a friend, an enemy, or a lover, he always dragged the people around him into the middle of things. It wasn’t that Shi Yi went looking for trouble. There were always people like Zhao Zicong, arrogant and clueless, full of themselves, thinking they could use him as a stepping stone. If you ended up in the same pool, it was only a matter of time before you got dragged into the mess.

He had walked into this with his eyes open. Whether it was Shi Yi’s uncle or his father, if it couldn’t be avoided, then he’d take it head-on.

No one ever died just because the road was blocked.

Those with power had their way of living. Those without had theirs too. Ying Ming had long since accepted that was the way the world worked. He didn’t take it to heart the way Shi Yi did.

He stood up and patted Shi Yi on the shoulder. “You should have a little more faith in your family. No matter what, they’re not going to kill anyone over you coming out. Power doesn’t have to be used to crush people. In a forest that big, there’s bound to be all kinds of birds.”

Shi Yi’s expression had finally started to ease a little during the earlier part of that speech. But the last two sentences made his brow knit again.

“Do you ever stop running your mouth? One day without taking a jab at someone and you’d probably break out in hives.”

And it didn’t matter what time or place it was.

Ying Ming just bit down lightly on his cigarette and gave a slow, squinting grin. “Can’t help it.”

Shi Yi stared at him for a long time, then finally cursed under his breath and lunged, dragging him down onto the edge of the couch. Ying Ming still had a cigarette in his mouth, and with that sudden pull, it nearly jabbed straight into Shi Yi’s forehead. Even though Ying Ming reacted fast and blew the smoke out, it still singed a few strands of Shi Yi’s hair. The faint smell of burning reached his nose, and Ying Ming immediately raised a leg and kicked him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Got a death wish or something?”

Shi Yi pinned him down on the couch and glared at him from above. His grin was infuriating. “Exactly. That. Fucking. Problem.”

Ying Ming didn’t bother replying.

They tumbled together like two maniacs. The punches weren’t serious, and none of them really hurt. What they wanted was to vent, to flush out the irritation and pressure that had been building for days. They kept at it, half-serious, half-playing around, until the chaos blurred into kisses. Eventually one of them would come to his senses, curse, and throw another swing. But not long after, they would be kissing again, tangled up with no end in sight.

By the time they came up for air, most of their clothes were already off, and whatever punches they had thrown had long since turned useless.

During one of the breaks, Shi Yi slipped a hand under Ying Ming’s T-shirt and leaned down to press his mouth to the small birthmark on his neck. As his tongue circled the spot, he asked casually, “So, how’s the film coming along?”

Ying Ming turned his head and gasped out, “Going smoothly. On schedule.”

“You really decided to move behind the camera?”

“Not exactly—fuck!” Shi Yi bit down suddenly, and Ying Ming grabbed a fistful of his hair. “You son of a bitch. Even Smoke Ring doesn’t bite as much as you do.”

Shi Yi had this damn habit of biting wherever it would show. It wasn’t even a kink. It was marking territory. Anywhere obvious, he would go for it, like he was afraid no one would know Ying Ming had a lunatic at home who liked to bite.

Shi Yi swatted his hand away and forced his chin back up for another kiss. He didn’t let go until he was satisfied, then licked his lips and said, “If you’re going to stay behind the camera, then quit acting altogether. It suits you better.”

Especially if it meant not taking on those shitty roles anymore. Just watching them was unbearable.

Ying Ming just rolled his eyes. “You think switching to directing is as easy as flipping a switch? It doesn’t work like that.”

Plenty of people had tried, but only a handful had actually made it.

It wasn’t like switching from Western food to Chinese after three days. Crossing that line was like climbing a wall. From the outside, everything looked easy. From inside the industry, it was a different story.

But none of that really registered with Shi Yi. He shrugged, completely unbothered, and without warning, yanked open Ying Ming’s pants. “You were already impossible to find when you were acting. Now you’re directing and still vanishing day and night.”

That finally sounded more like him. Before Ying Ming could even laugh, Shi Yi shoved a finger in.

“Fuck!” Ying Ming swore and tried to protest, “You—”

Shi Yi didn’t let him finish.

He silenced him with a kiss, all gentle eyes and ad-worthy tenderness, but his hand didn’t slow down for a second. Ying Ming had never liked being turned around. He hated not being able to see the other person’s face. Every time they did it, they looked each other in the eye from beginning to end. They stared through the heat, the tension, the flashes of madness, and that stubborn will that neither of them knew how to let go of. In those eyes, they saw themselves. Every part of them was tangled together, so close it felt impossible to pull apart.

That was what kept them going. That was why they hadn’t let go.