Afternoon at Beijing University. Sunlight filtered through the tall louvers of the laboratory, slicing the cold, precision instruments into geometric blocks of light and shadow. Tiny dust motes danced silently in the beams, like a chemical reaction frozen in time.
Silas Shen stood before the clean bench, his fingertips as steady as a perfectly calibrated centrifuge.
"Professor Shen! Professor Shen! Great news!"
Accompanied by a flurry of light footsteps, Assistant Lin burst in, clutching a stack of items so red they looked like they were dripping blood. He looked like a sparrow that had tumbled into a honey pot. His face, usually wearing a simple, honest smile, was flushed bright red, and even the tip of his nose glistened with perspiration from his excitement.
"The eighth of next month—I'm getting married! Everyone from the Life Sciences Department has to come. Not a single person can be missing!"
He crowed as he distributed the items like a festive messenger to the graduate students buried in their reports. The perpetual gloom of the lab—the oppressive scent of reagents and disinfectant—was instantly thinned by this sudden eruption of crimson.
Lin finally shuffled over to Silas's side. Holding an invitation with both hands, he presented it respectfully.
It was a grand, red, gold-stamped invitation. The edges were embossed with intricate twin lotus patterns, and in the center was a massive, shimmering gold character for "Happiness" (Xi), looking as if it might leap off the paper.
Silas peeled off his latex gloves, his slender fingers taking the red card. As his tips brushed the slightly raised gold foil, he felt a faint, flickering warmth.
"Congratulations," he spoke, his voice remaining like shards of ice clinking against porcelain—cool, elegant, and refined.
Silas had always loathed noisy occasions. The banquets full of clinking glasses and the dinners heavy with forced socialization were nothing short of a physiological ordeal for him. But Lin had been with him for three years; he was diligent and observant, one of the few in the lab who could truly keep up with Silas's pace. No matter how aloof Silas was, he could not decline this gesture of joy.
"Professor Shen, if you show up, the prestige of my wedding will go through the roof," Lin chuckled, his expression suddenly turning somewhat mysterious.
He leaned in half a step, deliberately lowering his voice into a tone of poorly hidden mischief. "Professor Shen, these two invitations are yours. I specifically left a blank space on this one. You are... more than welcome to bring a companion."
Bring a companion.
Those words were like an unknown reagent dropped into a pool of stagnant water, sending a sudden, jarring ripple through Silas's usually logical and airtight heart.
At Beijing University, everyone defaulted to the assumption that Silas Shen was single. He was a "Flower of the High Peaks" blooming on an ice field—noble, cold, and seemingly devoid of human desire. If this suggestion had been made half a month ago, it would have been met with a chilling rejection.
But now, Silas's fingers instinctively curled as he held the card.
Because of the close proximity, he could smell a hint of cheap, festive candy scent clinging to the invitation. Under a strange sort of spell, he subconsciously turned his body, lifting his cool eyes to let his gaze travel past the stacks of flasks and microscopes toward the other end of the lab bench.
Next to the expensive electrophoresis unit, Hunter Huo was leaning over, a red marker in his hand.
That brilliant blonde hair shimmered in the afternoon sun like a restless flame. His white lab coat was thrown open carelessly, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows to reveal firm, long forearms.
Silas's gaze lingered for half a second on one particular stretch of skin.
The wound that had once been soaked in blood in that Haicheng alley had since had its stitches removed. On that healthy, bronze, life-filled skin, a faint pink crescent-shaped scar remained. It was a brand left for him—a memory that Silas could not entirely erase, no matter how many blockers he used.
As if sensing something, Hunter's eyes shifted away from the Petri dish, acutely catching the gaze fixed upon him.
He looked up, and a smile instantly spread across his handsome, almost reckless face.
It was a smile unique to Hunter Huo—like the blazing sun of a midsummer afternoon, arrogant and predatory. He didn't know what Lin had said, but the moment he saw the splash of red in Silas's hand, he guessed the meaning behind that golden "Happiness."
Hunter didn't say a word. Against the background noise of busy graduate students, he silently mouthed words to Silas.
His lip movements were slow and exaggerated.
Silas understood them perfectly.
He said: Take me with you.
The fingertips gripping the invitation suddenly tightened, the golden foil nearly burning Silas's skin red. He shifted his gaze away with cold, rapid precision, his Adam's apple bobbing as he shoved the invitation into the right pocket of his lab coat with haste.
"Get back to your experiment," he whispered to Lin, his tone carrying a hint of blustering sternness that even he didn't realize was there.
Lin stuck his tongue out playfully and scurried off, delighted.
The lab returned to its quiet state, but beneath the silence, something had changed.
Silas picked up his micropipette again, but as he stared down at the clear liquid, he couldn't shake the image of Hunter's provocative, yearning mouth. The red invitation pressed against the inner lining of his lab coat, separated from his skin only by a thin shirt, clinging tightly to his heart.
There, because of a wedding card that didn't even belong to him, a tiny, inextinguishable flame had been kindled.
In the bitter scent of disinfectant, that emotion called "private desire" slowly fermented into a forbidden sweetness.
Silas forced himself to stare at the complex molecular formulas in front of him, but the black ink dots began to rearrange themselves before his eyes. Finally, they all transformed into that splash of arrogant blonde hair and that unvoiced yet deafening plea—
Take me with you.