A Broken Mirror Never Mends - Chapter 8

As the door was locked from the inside, Cheng Xi stood on his tiptoes and slowly wrapped his arms around Ji Yuanlin’s neck. Dropping his usual shy and innocent act, he pushed the tall man forward until the man’s back hit the wall.

He used his small, white teeth to bite Ji Yuanlin’s Adam’s apple gently, leaving no mark. Then, moving upward, he planted light kisses on Ji Yuanlin’s chin, the tip of his nose, and his tightly pressed lips.

Ji Yuanlin clearly couldn’t relax yet. He didn’t sink into the moment as quickly as usual to give Cheng Xi the response he wanted. Instead, he leaned against the wall, his body stiff and motionless. Only his increasingly heavy breathing betrayed his true feelings.

Seeing the man holding back, Cheng Xi brushed his lips against Ji Yuanlin’s ear, his warm breath hitting the shell of the ear. “Don’t worry. These walls are soundproof. He can’t hear a thing.”

At Cheng Xi’s words, Ji Yuanlin’s entire body tensed up. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, he remained silent, letting Cheng Xi continue to act as he pleased.

After a long kiss, Cheng Xi leaned against his chest, his arms tightly hugging the man’s waist. Under the light and shadows, the corners of his eyes flushed a faint red.

Under the dim floor lamp, he heard Cheng Xi speak softly. “A-Lin, you must never lie to me.”

When he first met Ji Yuanlin, Cheng Xi was just a struggling, unknown model who was constantly rejected at auditions. He met the successful young businessman by chance at a dinner party, and they ended up sleeping together for the first time after drinking too much.

Afterward, Ji Yuanlin gave him a large sum of money as “hush money,” telling him not to bother him or show up in front of him again.

Cheng Xi obeyed and didn’t cause trouble. He used that money to settle down in the big city and made connections with a few directors. Gradually, he began to get more modeling and audition opportunities.

He never expected that Ji Yuanlin would be the one to eventually come looking for him.

That night, a drunk Ji Yuanlin cried in his arms, asking why he wasn’t as good as that person.

Cheng Xi didn’t know who that person was, but he gently stroked Ji Yuanlin’s hair and comforted him all night.

Once there was a first time, there was a second and a third. Ji Yuanlin kept saying their relationship was just a transaction, but in the end, he fell for it anyway.

Cheng Xi knew Ji Yuanlin had a partner—the co-founder of his company and the “white moonlight” he had worked so hard to pursue.

The person Ji Yuanlin used to cherish so much that he was afraid they would break eventually couldn’t compare to Cheng Xi, the “cinnabar mole” etched into his heart.

Slowly, Cheng Xi began to want more, including everything that the white moonlight had.

If it weren’t for the promise Ji Yuanlin made to him, he would never have stood by and watched him get married.

But during today’s wedding ceremony, he saw the man hold that person’s hand with almost religious devotion and place a ring on their finger. The man’s eyes were filled with a tenderness Cheng Xi had never seen before.

Suddenly, he felt unsure.

Without waiting for Ji Yuanlin to respond, Cheng Xi continued to mutter to himself. “…Didn’t we agree? Once you handle everything, we’ll go abroad together. You can take the money and start over, and I’ll switch to a new agency and walk the big shows in Paris.”

Sensing Cheng Xi trembling slightly in his arms, Ji Yuanlin’s heart softened. He reached out to pat the boy’s thin shoulder and said slowly, “Xiao Xi, just wait a little longer. It’s almost time.”

“How much longer?” Cheng Xi’s eyes were watery, looking aggrieved. “A-Lin, now that you’re married, do you not want to leave anymore?”

“…”

Seeing the change in Ji Yuanlin’s expression, Cheng Xi knew his guess was likely correct.

He didn’t know what that person had done to make Ji Yuanlin hesitate about their plan again.

He looked up and stared straight into Ji Yuanlin’s eyes. “A-Lin, this is our only way now.”

“We are in the same boat,” he said. “If we don’t use him, neither of us will get away.”

They were tied together by interest; they would fall or rise together. Ji Yuanlin was a smart man and surely understood this.

Cheng Xi’s final words seemed to hit a nerve in Ji Yuanlin. With strange emotions swirling in his eyes, he closed them and opened them again. His chest stopped heaving as he calmed down. “Come here.”

Turning him around and pinning him against the wall, Ji Yuanlin leaned down and kissed Cheng Xi’s forehead.

“Take off your clothes,” Ji Yuanlin commanded in a low voice near his ear. “Get in position and wait for me on the bed.”

Just then, Ji Yuanlin realized that from the moment he took that first step, there was no turning back.

Not for him, and not for Cheng Xi.

The curtains were tightly closed, and everything fell into darkness. Inside the room, there was no sound except for the intermingled breathing and the rustle of fabric.

Shi Tian might never know that on his wedding night, separated by only a wall, his husband and his lover were in bed in the room next door.

Economic Development Zone, Danofe Group Asia-Pacific Headquarters.

As the secretary entered the CEO’s office, he saw his boss sitting at his desk, drinking coffee while listening to the sales director’s daily report over the phone.

Although everything seemed normal, the secretary noticed a few details that were different from usual.

For example, the boss was wearing the same dark gray tie as yesterday. Wearing the same tie two days in a row was something that never happened.

Also, the black coffee the boss was drinking didn’t seem to have any sugar added.

The reason he could tell was that every time the boss drank coffee, he would frown as if he were drinking deadly poison. But even so, the boss always insisted on pouring in two packets of sugar.

Today, the boss’s expression while drinking black coffee was much more natural. He finished the cup in a few gulps, as if this was the level of sweetness he preferred.

Hearing footsteps, the boss looked up from his desk. “Something wrong?”

He was the boss’s private secretary. Unlike the board secretary, he handled the boss’s social and personal affairs. Usually, he wouldn’t come upstairs to disturb the boss during the morning meeting.

The secretary handed over a hard drive. “President Zhou, these are the video files I found from the Marriott. Please take a look.”

While the boss was finishing his meeting, the secretary set up the video on a laptop and got him a fresh cup of coffee. This time, he didn’t dare add as much sugar as usual.

Ten minutes later, the conference call ended. Zhou Sifu put down the phone and took a sip of coffee. “Play it.”

Perhaps because his schedule had been so full lately, the secretary noticed that Zhou Sifu hadn’t used hair gel today. Strands of hair partially covered his eyes, revealing a handsome profile. His usual sharp and stern aura had softened, making him seem strangely approachable.

Approachable??

As that word popped into his head, the secretary felt a jolt of alarm.

What was wrong with him? How could he find his boss “approachable”?

After a few seconds of zoning out, the secretary quickly placed the laptop on the desk and double-clicked the video. “This is the surveillance footage from the control room on the morning of June 11th, provided by the Marriott. Thanks to your call to their President Qi, we got the copy very quickly.”

A while ago, the boss had told him to lead a team to contact the Marriott Hotel to find out who stole the video of the Fengyu boss and his lover to leak it via email.

The boss said that parking lot surveillance could only be accessed by Marriott staff, so the person was likely an internal employee.

Following this lead, they quickly contacted the Marriott. The hotel was shocked to hear their surveillance had been leaked and helped pull the records from those few days.

The results were startling. That morning, an employee in a hotel uniform had indeed snuck into the control room using a staff card while the security guards were changing shifts.

In the video, a hotel waiter scanned into the elevator to the basement level and showed his ID card to the guard at the control room door. The secretary pointed at the screen. “That’s the person who stole the footage.”

Zhou Sifu said, “Pause it.”

The secretary clicked pause.

Staring at the figure in the video, Zhou Sifu raised an eyebrow.

The Marriott uniform was a standard black-and-red suit. The suit on the person looked a bit too large for their frame, with the sleeves almost covering the wrists.

Zhou Sifu moved the mouse and double-clicked to zoom in on the waiter’s extended right wrist.

In the shadow cast by the sleeve, a tiny speck of bright yellow was visible around the wrist.

It was a cute little rubber duck bracelet.

The secretary asked uncertainly, “…What is that?”

Zhou Sifu leaned back in his chair. “No need to look further. It’s Cheng Xi.”

The secretary: “???”

“I don’t know where he borrowed the clothes and ID card,” Zhou Sifu said. “Check again; he might have been the one who sent that email too.”

The secretary was confused. “President Zhou, are you saying… Cheng Xi sent the evidence of his own affair with Mr. Ji to all of their company’s executives?”

“But since it’s a secret relationship, this exposure does more harm than good. What is he after?”

At this point, the secretary thought of a possibility. “…Could it be to stop Mr. Ji from getting married?”

He immediately imagined a dramatic soap opera plot. Since Mr. Ji’s wedding was coming up, maybe the “little lover” wanted to force a showdown to protect his status.

“Quite the opposite,” Zhou Sifu said. “He did it to make sure Ji Yuanlin got married as soon as possible.”

The secretary was stunned. He was completely lost now.

“The man named Ji only handles technical products at Fengyu, not financing. More than half of the company’s operating capital, investment returns, and cash equivalents are in Shi Tian’s hands. Ji Yuanlin would never give up his career and marriage for an outsider,” Zhou Sifu explained.

“You missed the most important point.” Seeing the secretary listening intently, Zhou Sifu pulled a document from a file rack and signaled for him to continue. “Fengyu just signed a 100-million-yuan deal. To ensure the contract isn’t interrupted, they would definitely bury the scandal at any cost.”

The secretary noticed that the boss had already printed out the news about Fengyu’s deal, as if he had been watching the situation closely.

The secretary began to understand. “…So, Cheng Xi did this to make Mr. Ji realize the risk of the relationship being exposed, so he would move the wedding up? But what if Mr. Shi found out?”

This time, it was Zhou Sifu’s turn to fall silent.

After a long time, he spoke as if to himself. “…That idiot.”

Looking away from the computer, Zhou Sifu glanced at the secretary. “If you were an ambitious ‘third person’ and you couldn’t stop Ji Yuanlin from getting married, what would you do to maximize your own benefits?”

“In other words, what do you think exists or what plan can only be successfully obtained or carried out after Ji Yuanlin gets married?”

The secretary asked blankly, “What?”

Zhou Sifu said, “Joint marital property.”

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