Chapter 3191

After that, Jin Chen began a strange three-track life.

On one side he was preparing again for the college entrance exam. He bought a full set of textbooks and past papers, and every night he relentlessly did practice questions; math and science were fine, but liberal arts had been neglected for a while, so he needed to pick them up again. Jin Chen made himself a strict schedule, specifying how much content to finish and how many exercises to do each day, checking them off one by one.

On another side he studied the super-difficult algorithm problems given by Professor Jin Feng. Those materials and the contents on the hard drive were harder than the college entrance exam by more than one level, involving many cutting-edge research directions. Jin Chen set aside one or two hours each day to tackle them; sometimes a single problem required a long time to think, and he would fill several pages of scratch paper before finding a breakthrough.

He also took on paid difficult problems from forums, which was one of Jin Chen's ways to maintain income—the harder the problem, the higher the price. After taking a few orders, he started using the various supplements Professor Jin Feng gave him, wearing cool ear studs and drinking nourishing goji berry tea.

Chenshu was also motivated by his boyfriend's efforts, and he began to pick up his pursuit of art again, preparing to open a sculpture gallery. This was something he had not intended to give up when he moved from Lingcheng to Didu.

A piece of good news worth mentioning is that the Xiang family's struggle over the heir has temporarily come to an end.

The estranged elder and second brothers, even his own father, ultimately could not beat the young uncle. The three of them, dejected, no longer had the leisure to occasionally cause trouble for this illegitimate child, and no one noticed his cooperation with the young Xiang uncle. After all, they had lost the contest—what did it have to do with him, who was far away in Lingcheng at the time?

And Xiang Shu also honored their agreement, giving the Chenshu Group only three percent of its shares as annual dividends, on the condition that Chenshu not interfere in any Xiang family affairs; Chenshu happily agreed.

But to open a gallery, he still had to build his own studio team, find a venue, handle paperwork, and connect various resources—there were truly many things for Chenshu to be busy with. He left early and returned late every day; sometimes he came back with plaster dust on his clothes, sometimes with a thick stack of contract samples, sitting on the sofa flipping through them until midnight. Looking back, he would murmur… his boyfriend was flipping through the "Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Mock Tests".

That day, upon returning home, Chenshu had just stepped inside when he drew out his call in a languid tone, "Xiao Chen…" His voice was lazy and very weary.

Jin Chen was reading a book on the coffee table in the living room when he heard the voice and looked up: "Brother?"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Chenshu had already taken off his coat, walked over, and sat directly in his lap, wrapping his arms around his neck and rubbing against him in a frenzy, as if he needed to suck up cat-like energy to recharge: "So tired, so tired, so tired…"

Jin Chen leaned back against the sofa, happily indulging his brother's coquettishness; one hand supported Chenshu's waist, while the other still held a pen he hadn't had time to put down, so he kept it suspended in midair to avoid the tip poking Chenshu's clothes.

Chenshu drew a deep breath in his embrace, then began to mumble about where he had gone that day, whom he had seen, and what troubles he had encountered; it took a while before he lifted his head.

After recharging, he lazily curled up in Jin Chen's arms, lowered his head to look at the book Jin Chen had just been reading, flipped two pages—it was all academic material on the summit's discussion topics, with dense professional jargon; he recognized each character individually, but put together they were incomprehensible.

The art student Chenshu decisively gave up reading, turned his head aside, and kissed Jin Chen.

After a while of intimacy, Jin Chen lifted his head, glanced at the clock on the wall, cupped Chenshu's face, and paused the kiss: "I'm going to go prepare dinner for Brother."

Chenshu gave a lazy double hum, but didn't get up right away; he lingered a few more seconds before slumping sideways onto the sofa, watching Jin Chen tie on his apron and walk into the kitchen.

He picked up the cushion Jin Chen had just leaned against, pressed it to his face, listened to the sound of water flowing from the kitchen faucet, the soft sizzle as the oil pan heated up, dozed off in a daze, and slept for half an hour before Jin Chen scooped him up to eat dinner.

After dinner, Chenshu continued to look at the gallery space design drawings on the living-room coffee table, sketching with the pen tip on the paper.

Jin Chen came out of the bathroom after a shower, leaned sideways against Chenshu's shoulder, his wet hair brushing the side of his neck, and Chenshu shivered from the chill: "Ouch…"

He casually handed Jin Chen a dry towel; after wiping twice he found that Jin Chen disliked his long hair being hard to dry, so he gave it a perfunctory rub twice and stopped. Instead, he snatched the towel and gave it a vigorous ruffle, producing a limited-edition "explosive-hair Chen." Jin Chen quickly grabbed a mirror to rescue his hair, while Chenshu laughed behind him, his shoulders shaking nonstop.

That evening, the suit Jin Chen had ordered arrived.

This was the suit Chenshu had picked for him, since he was about to attend the summit; Professor Jin Feng also transferred him some money to buy a better set of formal attire.

After thinking it over, Jin Chen decided to still ask Chenshu for reference.

As soon as Chenshu heard, he became interested, imagining Xiao Chen in a suit—meticulous but wearing an ear stud—and immediately put down the drawings in his hand, then began earnestly helping him choose.

Thus, when the suit was delivered, Chenshu was even more proactive than Jin Chen; he immediately unpacked it, took the suit out of the dust cover, gave it a shake, examined it from top to bottom, and pushed Jin Chen into the bedroom to try it on.

Knowing Chenshu was looking forward to it, Jin Chen put on the black suit, stood before the mirror to have a look, then opened a drawer and put on the single-sided red ear stud Chenshu had recently bought—a small pendant that swayed slightly in the light.

He returned to the living room, and Chenshu's gaze was drawn to him, unable to look away.

The suit tightened at the waist, narrow and snug; the black set off his skin to appear paler, his shoulder line was sharply outlined, making him look tall and slender.

The red ear stud hung on the left, swaying gently with his tilt of the head, his eyes half-lidded, giving a faint, teasing allure.

The increasingly spirited Jin Chen was simply too dazzling; the suit fit him perfectly, wrapping his slim yet strong frame, a hint of crimson showing on his cheek, turning his originally cool and calm demeanor into something mortal and lustful, rich and striking enough to take one's breath away.

Jin Chen walked to the edge of the sofa, drew up his long legs, spread his knees apart to part Chenshu's legs, leaned in, tilted his head, and the ear stud swayed again: "Brother, do I look good?"

What a beautiful treasure, Chenshu thought, how could it be this beautiful?

He was dazed, his head spinning and heart itching, unable to resist reaching out to toy with Jin Chen's cuff, he picked up the tie to glance at it, then went on to play with his earlobe.

Chenshu suddenly didn't want him to go out wearing this suit.

"Very handsome." He pecked Jin Chen's neck, hummed twice, "Or maybe we should change into something else."

Jin Chen naturally agreed.

He lowered his eyelashes, looked at Chenshu, and whispered, "Brother, how about I wear this tonight?"

Chenshu's waist went soft for a moment, he instinctively clamped Jin Chen's knee, as if sitting on an unbalanced fulcrum, his back slid down against the sofa backrest, his breathing grew slightly ragged, he exhaled a hot breath, "Xiao Chen..."

Jin Chen bent down, his forehead lightly touching his, the two of them separated by that narrow sliver of distance, their breaths intertwined.

The red earring swayed gently and slowly beside their faces.