Three-Way Meeting

After the wind chimes rang, a brief and dead silence enveloped the coffee shop.

Everyone recognized Ji Beichen—the top star who practically lived on the hot search charts, who was currently wrapping the slender youth in the corner into an extremely ambiguous embrace.

When he raised his eyes toward the door, his face carried a smile that was arrogant to the point of provocation.

“Oh, if it isn’t President Gu?”

Ji Beichen stood up straight, but deliberately slowed down his movements.

The hand propped on Lin Xingmian’s chair back was the last thing he retracted, his fingertips lightly scratching the wood to produce a faint sound.

Lin Xingmian’s entire body was rigid.

He wanted to stand up, but Gu Hanzhou’s gaze washed down like a bucket of ice water, pinning him to his seat.

Gu Hanzhou was wearing a dark gray suit today with no tie, his shirt collar slightly open.

He had rushed over directly from a meeting—on the monitoring screen that popped up on his phone, Lin Xingmian and a silver-gray-haired man were sitting in the coffee shop, fingers interlocked, intimacy radiating between them.

He was in the middle of signing a contract worth thirty million at the time, and his pen tip had paused on the paper for three seconds, letting the ink smudge into a small dot.

Then he threw down the pen, picked up his coat, and left.

“Ji Beichen,” Gu Hanzhou walked over, his tone as flat as reading an inconsequential document when he called out the name.

“Are you skipping your variety show recording?”

“Skipped it,” Ji Beichen shrugged.

“Why, does President Gu want to watch my show? I can give you a few VIP tickets.”

Gu Hanzhou did not reply to his words, his gaze passing over him to land directly on Lin Xingmian.

The latte in front of Lin Xingmian had already turned cold, the milk foam collapsing, and his pale face was reflected on the brown liquid surface.

He shrank his shoulders unconsciously under Gu Hanzhou’s gaze, his fingers tightly clenching the key that still carried Ji Beichen’s body heat.

“Stand up,” Gu Hanzhou said.

Lin Xingmian stood up.

“Come here.”

He took a step forward.

Ji Beichen reached out his hand, directly gripping Lin Xingmian’s wrist to yank him back.

The movement was large, causing Lin Xingmian to stumble and bump into his chest.

“Wait a minute,” Ji Beichen put away his playful expression from before, staring at Gu Hanzhou as his gaze darkened.

“You tell him to come over and he comes over? He has legs, he is not your dog.”

Gu Hanzhou looked at Ji Beichen’s hand gripping Lin Xingmian, his gaze lingering on it for two seconds.

Then he raised his eyes to meet Ji Beichen’s.

He did not burst into anger, nor did he even frown, but the atmospheric pressure around him dropped abruptly, like the dead silence before a storm.

“Release him.”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that he lives with me,” Gu Hanzhou paused, then added a sentence.

“On the grounds that he slept in my bed last night.”

Someone in the coffee shop gasped audibly.

Ji Beichen’s expression fractured for an instant.

He looked down at Lin Xingmian subconsciously, the disbelief in his eyes looking as if it had been crushed hard by something.

Then his ears—not out of shyness, but out of furious red—burned all the way from his earlobes down to his neck.

“Xingxing, is what he said true?”

Lin Xingmian opened his mouth but could not produce a sound.

He wanted to explain—it wasn’t like that, Gu Hanzhou slept in the study, and nothing happened between them.

But he could not say it out loud either because, in a certain sense, every single word Gu Hanzhou spoke was a fact.

He indeed lived at Gu Hanzhou’s house, and he indeed spent a night in Gu Hanzhou’s bed.

His hesitation was caught by Ji Beichen and interpreted as confirmation.

Ji Beichen’s grip loosened slightly, but he did not let go completely.

His thumb pad lightly brushed the thinnest patch of skin on the inner side of Lin Xingmian’s wrist—an action more complex than anger, carrying a type of stubbornness that refused to accept defeat and wanted to leave one final trace.

“So you do not want my key, you do not want to live in my apartment, and you do not reply to my messages—” He spoke one word at a time, his voice pitched so low it felt squeezed from his throat.

“—Because of him?”

Lin Xingmian finally found his voice, “It is not what you think—”

“Then what is it like?”

Ji Beichen’s voice raised suddenly.

He released Lin Xingmian’s hand, took a step back, and smiled.

The laughter wasn’t loud, yet it made everyone in the coffee shop sense that something was wrong with the atmosphere.

“Fine. Fine, you choose him.”

He grabbed his car keys from the table and turned to leave.

But he only took two steps before stopping—because Gu Hanzhou blocked his path.

The two stood face to face, with less than a step of distance between them.

One was a top star in the entertainment industry, while the other was a rising figure in the business world, both possessing unforgettable appearances and carrying sharp auras like unsheathed blades.

The staff hid behind the counter, not daring to make a sound, while a few bold customers covertly raised their phones to take pictures.

“Take that sentence back,” Gu Hanzhou said.

“What sentence?”

“‘You choose him,'” Gu Hanzhou repeated, articulating every single word clearly.

“You do not need to feel sad, nor do you need to back out, because you never entered in the first place. I do not deny your status as his childhood friend, but as for the rest, you have never owned any of it.”

Ji Beichen’s eyes turned red.

It wasn’t that he wanted to cry, but that he was furious to the extreme.

He clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking audibly.

Seeing this motion, Lin Xingmian’s heart leaped into his throat.

He knew Ji Beichen too well—this person had been famous for his explosive temper since childhood, chasing people down three blocks just for a slap on the shoulder.

He hadn’t learned to restrain himself after so many years in the entertainment industry, and his last conflict with someone had landed directly on the front page of the social news.

He rushed over almost out of instinct, positioning himself between the two while stretching his hand to press against Ji Beichen’s chest.

“Do not—”

His words were not finished.

Because Gu Hanzhou reached his arm from behind, wrapping around his waist to pull him back.

The movement wasn’t fast, yet it carried an absolute, unrejectable control.

Lin Xingmian’s back bumped against Gu Hanzhou’s chest, and through the suit and shirt, he could feel that broad, warm torso.

Then Gu Hanzhou lowered his head, his lips pressing against the tip of his ear, his voice neither light nor heavy, just enough for all three of them to hear.

“Let him leave, let him see.”

—Let everyone see whom you stand in front of, and who protects you from behind.

Ji Beichen widened his eyes as he watched the scene before him.

He watched Lin Xingmian lean in Gu Hanzhou’s embrace, watched Gu Hanzhou’s hand possessively encircle his waist, and watched their bodies fit together like two puzzle pieces.

His fists loosened and tightened, tightened and loosened.

Ultimately, he did not throw a punch.

But he did not leave either.

He pulled out his phone, opened the camera, and snapped a picture of Lin Xingmian and Gu Hanzhou.

Then, right in front of both of them, he sent the photo into a group chat.

“A screenshot for memory,” he said, his voice recovering its usual lightheartedness, yet it felt cold like a knife.

“And to let the other few see—who exactly has taken away the star we carefully protected for over a decade.”

He stored his phone away and took one final look at Lin Xingmian.

That gaze carried anger, grievance, unwillingness, and a heartbreaking type of sorrow belonging to a youth.

“The Starry Night is coming up, remember to watch the live broadcast.”

After saying that, he turned and strode out of the coffee shop.

This time, no one stopped him.

The roar of an engine came from outside, and the limited-edition sports car disappeared around the corner like a flash of silver lightning.

The coffee shop became quiet once more.

Lin Xingmian was still leaning in Gu Hanzhou’s embrace, his entire body feeling a bit drained of strength.

The emotional fluctuations experienced in those brief minutes were too massive, leaving his mind buzzing and his fingers trembling slightly.

Gu Hanzhou did not release him.

He lowered his head, his chin resting against the top of Lin Xingmian’s head, giving it a gentle rub.

“He will come back in the future,” he said, not as comfort, but simply stating a fact.

“…”

“And Lu Shiyan, and Shen Moting, and that Rong Du who sent you the text message,” Gu Hanzhou’s voice lowered, his lips pressing against the hair strands as he spoke word by word.

“They will appear one by one, and every single one will feel they are more qualified than me to stand by your side.”

He turned Lin Xingmian around to make him face himself.

His fingers lifted his chin, his thumb wiping across the lower lip—the exact same movement as last night, as if wanting to overwrite someone’s traces.

“But in the end, it is me.”

When he said this, his tone wasn’t making a declaration, but stating a fact he had already determined.

Lin Xingmian looked into his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

He wanted to say something, but the moment his lips parted, they were pressed down by Gu Hanzhou’s thumb.

“You rushed over just now, blocking the space between me and Ji Beichen.”

Gu Hanzhou looked down at him, his thumb moving from the lower lip to the corner of the mouth, stopping there to apply a gentle pressure.

“Were you afraid he would hit me—or afraid I would hit him?”

Lin Xingmian did not answer, because he did not know the answer himself.

Gu Hanzhou did not need his answer either.

He retracted his hand, picked up the phone from the table, and dialed a number.

Once connected, he only spoke a single sentence:

“Check that group chat where Ji Beichen just sent the photo, I want to know who is inside.”

Hanging up the phone, he glanced at the key still clenched in Lin Xingmian’s palm.

The silver star pendant flashed under the lights, looking piercingly bright.

Gu Hanzhou reached out his hand, took the key from Lin Xingmian’s hand, and placed it on the table.

Then he held Lin Xingmian’s hand in his own, interlocking their fingers.

“Let us go, let us go home.”

He led Lin Xingmian out of the coffee shop.

Before getting into the car, Lin Xingmian could not help but look back once.

The key remained there quietly on the table, the star pendant still flashing with light.

Meanwhile, in Ji Beichen’s group chat—the chat that did not include Lin Xingmian—the photo had already caused an explosion.

The first person to reply was Shen Moting, who only sent five words.

Shen Moting: [Address, I want the address.]

Then it was Fu Xici, who sent a voice message directly.

Clicking it revealed only three seconds.

The background noise was the sound of keyboard typing, and his voice sounded lazy, yet it carried an indescribable trace of ruthlessness, “Ji Beichen, sending this kind of photo out, are you intentionally making things hard for us?”

The final message came from Lu Shiyan.

He did not type words, nor did he send a voice message.

He simply sent a photo—it was taken of his medical record book, where Lin Xingmian’s name, age, blood type, and a line of small words were written neatly:

“Past medical history: Psychogenic asthma. Trigger: Emotional fluctuations.”

Then he wrote:

Lu Shiyan: [He cannot take stimulation, if any of you stimulate him again, I will write you into the medical records.]

The group chat went silent.

After a long time, a number that wasn’t in the group chat sent a text message, the recipient being a string of unfamiliar numbers:

“I changed my flight, five days left.”

Sender: Rong Du.