TL: Hua

Chapter 116: Sneaking off to the playground to date

The private hospital had very few people, and the hallways were nearly empty.

Gu Siye and Qiao Ye walked one after the other after leaving the room, not sparing each other another glance.

They hadn’t discussed where to talk, but both instinctively headed toward the deserted green space outside.

Several medical staff members on the road saw them, and their eyes widened in shock.

A top-tier star and a top-tier idol from the entertainment industry appearing in a hospital together, and even in the same frame…

Their incredulous gazes flickered back and forth between the two, but seeing that neither man looked interested in interacting, no one dared to go up and ask for an autograph or a photo.

Upon reaching a secluded area of the green space, Gu Siye came to a halt.

Qiao Ye also stopped, standing about two meters away from him.

Gu Siye raised his eyes and looked at Qiao Ye.

The young man’s expression was cold and stern, but the look in the depths of his eyes was extremely complex.

Gu Siye actually knew exactly why the other had called him out.

As far back as the Super Idol competition, he had already sensed this person’s admiration for Lin Yanran.

However, he hadn’t taken the matter to heart back then.

For Gu Siye, this was actually quite normal.

Lin Yanran was so dazzling. It wasn’t surprising that people would be attracted to him and fall in love with him.

So, when Qiao Ye called him out today, he could actually guess the younger man’s thoughts, but he also wanted to hear what he had to say to him.

However, Qiao Ye remained silent and did not take the lead in bringing up the topic.

If Qiao Ye was patient, Gu Siye was even more so.

At this moment, Gu Siye’s expression was even much more relaxed than Qiao Ye’s.

The silence was perhaps another form of mutual testing between them.

After a long time, seeing that Gu Siye said nothing, Qiao Ye finally spoke first.

“Congratulations.”

These two simple words took all the strength Qiao Ye had.

“Thank you.”

Gu Siye, fully understanding the meaning, accepted the sentiment politely and like a gentleman.

Having a suspicion and hearing the answer with your own ears were two different things.

Suppressing the thick bitterness in his heart, Qiao Ye met Gu Siye’s gaze.

This was the first time he had looked the other man directly in the eye since that time Gu Siye had snatched Lin Yanran from his arms.

Qiao Ye raised his volume slightly to speak, but the words that came out were just three simple syllables.

“Gu Siye.”

Gu Siye held a very high status in the industry; it had been a long time since anyone had called him by his name so directly.

But Gu Siye did not feel angry.

He knew why Qiao Ye had deliberately changed the form of address.

At this moment, the two of them were not senior and junior in the entertainment industry, nor were they mentor and trainee from Super Idol.

Instead, they were communicating as equals from the standpoint of two adult men.

Gu Siye hummed in response, acknowledging the name in a low voice.

His peach blossom eyes curved as he raised an eyebrow, a slight smile appearing at the corners of his mouth.

This kid, just like his name suggests[1], had a certain edge to him.

The edge of someone who treated him as a romantic rival.

Gu Siye actually admired this drive in Qiao Ye; if someone wanted to reach the very top of the entertainment industry, they had to have that spirit of refusing to admit defeat.

But admiration was just admiration; in terms of feelings, he didn’t go so far as to view the other as a threatening rival.

He, Gu Siye, was not that insecure.

Clearly, Qiao Ye also realized that he was simply no match for Gu Siye.

From the moment he discovered the hickey on Lin Yanran’s body, he knew he had lost the right to confess his feelings to him.

It wasn’t the dejection of being kicked out of the game.

Rather, he was afraid that if he confessed, it would only add to Lin Yanran’s troubles.

Liking someone was one thing, but compared to his own emotions, Lin Yanran’s feelings were more important to him.

After a brief pause, Qiao Ye lowered his eyes.

When he thought of the person he liked, the expression in his eyes unconsciously grew a bit more tender.

“He is a very good person,” Qiao Ye said plainly.

He did not pour out his love for Lin Yanran to Gu Siye, nor did he question why he wasn’t as good as the other man, and he didn’t resort to childish threats.

Originally, Qiao Ye felt he should have many things to say to Gu Siye.

But on the way here, after thousands of words flashed through his mind, he felt that this one sentence was enough.

He is a very good person, and he deserves to have the best of everything.

After they parted ways, Qiao Ye did not return to the hospital room. Instead, he went to the Super Idol training facility.

Because they were preparing for the second season of Super Idol, everything here remained exactly as it was, neither leased out nor renovated.

Qiao Ye went straight back to that practice room.

The place where he had fallen for Lin Yanran at first sight.

He still remembered that sunny afternoon.

The sunlight outside the window quietly spilled onto that person.

Beautiful and clean, he played the guitar while a light melody echoed, unknowingly plucking at Qiao Ye’s heartstrings.

That person was gentle and wonderful, like the most moving love poem in the world.

Qiao Ye dragged a chair that someone had forgotten to put away to the spot where Lin Yanran had played the guitar.

By some chance, someone had left a guitar in the corner.

He picked up the guitar and sat in Lin Yanran’s former position.

Qiao Ye lowered his head and slowly played the melody that had appeared in his mind countless times.

Some people are destined to be stars that one can only look at from afar but never reach.

You cannot pluck them, yet you want to protect them.

Since the star already has his moon…

Then he would just be another star quietly guarding him from the periphery.

That way, if there ever came a day when he was needed, the other person would only have to turn around to find him at any time.

—

Gu Siye did not tell Lin Yanran about what happened between him and Qiao Ye.

After everyone else had left, he stayed behind alone to look after him.

Lin Yanran’s fall looked serious, but luckily, there was no major damage.

After staying in the hospital for a day to observe, he was discharged the next day.

Because of this accident, the crew didn’t dare let Lin Yanran film immediately.

Even though Lin Yanran felt he was perfectly fine, the director insisted he rest for two days and had the entire crew check every piece of equipment and prop from top to bottom, confirming everything repeatedly to prevent another safety accident.

Since the director had put it that way, Lin Yanran didn’t persist further.

Gu Siye had traveled a long way to visit the set, so it was a good chance for Lin Yanran to spend more time with him.

Since almost no one in the industry had high expectations for this shabby little production, and because they flatly refused media visits, there were basically no people lurking around to spy.

Lin Yanran and Gu Siye spent the whole afternoon in the hotel without a care.

In fact, they didn’t do much besides playing some games and then held each other while they napped.

Filming on set was more exhausting than usual, and for some reason, Lin Yanran had been experiencing mild acclimatization issues since arriving here and hadn’t been sleeping well at night.

But today, after Gu Siye arrived, leaning into the other’s arms, Lin Yanran slept soundly and peacefully for the first time.

By the time he woke up, it was almost dark.

The crew had just finished filming for the day, so Gu Siye treated the entire team to a barbecue.

The meal was very lively; everyone chatted, laughed, and drank beer, and before they knew it, it was 9:30 PM.

Lin Yanran felt a bit full, so he didn’t go straight back to the hotel. Instead, he went with Gu Siye to the school sports field they were renting for the film to take a walk and digest.

The school had just built a new campus and moved away, so there were no students there at night.

Tonight’s moon was very bright, hanging round and high in the sky.

Under the moonlight, Gu Siye and Lin Yanran were like many campus couples, holding hands as they walked circles around the track.

“What were you like in high school?”

Lin Yanran rarely asked Gu Siye about his past, but walking in the school tonight, he vaguely remembered some things from his own high school days and suddenly really wanted to know about the other’s past.

Gu Siye thought for a moment but shook his head. “Nothing very special. Just going to class and going home as scheduled. It was quite boring.”

Lin Yanran found it strange. “Wouldn’t a big handsome guy like you be very popular and have a very colorful life?”

He didn’t mean anything else by this; he just felt that with the kind of high emotional intelligence and popularity Gu Siye had in the entertainment industry, his school days couldn’t have been as he described. He must have been a legendary figure regardless.

Hearing this, Gu Siye stopped walking.

He pulled Lin Yanran’s hand, drawing the other into his arms, and chuckled low. “What kind of ‘colorful’ are you talking about?”

Lin Yanran couldn’t think of how to describe the word for a moment and began to search for the right vocabulary.

Before Lin Yanran could speak, Gu Siye led him backward, pinning him against the perimeter wall in the corner of the field, and spoke languidly.

“I kept myself clean; my romantic history is a total blank. It was neither rich nor colorful. I never once dated during my school years.”

After finishing his honest confession, Gu Siye pressed his forehead against Lin Yanran’s.

He felt his description wasn’t accurate enough, so he added softly, “Before meeting you, I had never felt my heart beat for anyone. You are my first love.”

He was clearly explaining his romantic history, yet Gu Siye’s tone carried a seriousness beneath the playful air.

In his subconsciously lowered voice, every word he uttered sounded like a love confession, both sweet and alluring.

Somehow, Lin Yanran’s ears began to feel hot.

Seeing that Gu Siye mistakenly thought he was fishing for information about past relationships, he instinctively explained, “That’s not what I meant.”

As he finished speaking, Lin Yanran caught a glimpse of the smile curling at the corners of Gu Siye’s lips in the faint moonlight.

Hearing the muffled chuckle vibrating in the other man’s chest, he realized those words just now had been intentional, so he immediately changed his tune.

“Fine then. Since you’ve been so honest, I’ll tell you something too.”

“Mm…” Gu Siye intentionally drew out the end of the sound, a bit frivolous yet exceptionally sexy.

“I also never dated anyone during my school years.”

Lin Yanran reached out to hook his arms around Gu Siye’s neck and said softly, “You are my first love, too.”

Having said that, he looked up and kissed Gu Siye’s lips.

The young couple, who hadn’t seen each other for a long time, kissed each other recklessly and intensely, using the most direct sensation to pour out their longing for one another.

The sound of soft, wet splashes rose as the two were lost in the passion of the kiss, when suddenly, a voice rang out from across the playground.

“Who’s there?”

Immediately, the beam of a flashlight began swinging around the playground as if trying to find the people hiding there.

Lin Yanran and Gu Siye broke apart, the kiss forced to a stop.

“Who?”

Lin Yanran recognized the voice; it was the security guard hired by the crew.

He had wanted to greet the older man at the gate when he came in, but the uncle had gone on his rounds at the time and didn’t know he was walking here.

So he quickly shouted out, “Uncle Zhang, it’s me, Yanran.”

Hearing this, the uncle pointed the light toward Lin Yanran’s direction.

Once he saw clearly, he finally relaxed.

“Teacher Yanran, why are you here?”

“I ate too much tonight, so I came here for a stroll to digest.”

Learning that the person on the playground wasn’t any suspicious character, the security uncle soon left.

Watching that figure walk away, Lin Yanran let out a long sigh of relief and returned to the corner where they had just been kissing.

Then he saw Gu Siye, leaning in the shadows of the wall, chuckling low.

“What are you laughing at?”

Gu Siye pointed toward the direction the uncle had left and then scanned the dark playground.

“Don’t we seem like students who skipped evening self-study to sneak off to the playground to date, only to be caught red-handed by the dean?”

Gu Siye’s description was so spot-on that Lin Yanran felt it really was a bit like that.

He remembered a time when he was skipping class at night with his friends; Brother Ye seemed to have made a joke then too.

The other party had said they were only missing the experience of skipping class at night for puppy love and getting caught wandering the playground. Now he was making up for it with a nearly identical experience?

After the kiss was interrupted, the two didn’t intend to continue and walked straight back toward the hotel.

After leaving the school gates, they passed a shop.

A poster had fallen by the entrance, and Gu Siye’s foot accidentally stepped on the edge of it.

He stopped, looking down at the poster by the light of the streetlamp, his brow furrowing slightly.

Seeing Gu Siye’s expression, Lin Yanran followed his gaze and found that the person on the poster was Xuan Yihan.

This was likely an advertisement Xuan Yihan had filmed right after his debut last year. In it, he was wearing a school uniform and smiling sweetly.

Xuan Yihan had long since been blacklisted and fled, and his fans had mostly dispersed; news of him was rarely seen now.

No one knew who had dug up this old poster and left it here.

Seeing Gu Siye looking at it so intently, Lin Yanran asked, “What’s wrong?”

Gu Siye looked at the person on it carefully for a few more moments before saying, “Nothing, it’s just that he looks a bit familiar.”

“That person is Xuan Yihan.”

Having said that, Lin Yanran elaborated a bit more, “He also participated in Super Idol. He was the biological son of my foster parents; you’ve met him.”

After explaining this, Lin Yanran felt that with Gu Siye’s memory, no matter how forgetful he might be, it was impossible for him to forget someone like Xuan Yihan so quickly.

Sensing that things weren’t that simple, a trace of doubt rose in his heart, and he looked down at Xuan Yihan’s poster once more.

As Lin Yanran looked down, Gu Siye said to him, “I feel like the way he looks in a school uniform is familiar, like I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

Lin Yanran looked up at him. “Seen him before?”

Gu Siye originally wanted to give a more neutral answer, but a strong intuition in his memory made him nod nonetheless, “Yes.”

“But I can’t remember where.”

[1] The 野 (yě) in Qiao Ye’s name means “unrestrained” or “unruly.”

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