Hu Xiu never imagined that at twenty-seven, her life could take such a fortunate turn—being pursued and confessed to by two exceptionally handsome men simultaneously.
One possessed a unique aura and top-tier beauty, as if he’d stepped right out of a manga, radiating protagonist energy wherever he went. The other could charm patients into a trance just by showing his face in the operating room, adored by everyone from young girls to elderly aunties, a true treasure in their eyes.
A sharp toothache made her slap herself hard in front of the mirror. The pain, both internal and external, confirmed it wasn’t a dream.
After finishing her preparations, Hu Xiu sighed gloomily at the black down jacket lying on the stool.
The young, impulsive boy had tossed his coat aside and run home in just a sweater.
Was it possible that the kiss had sent his blood racing and body temperature soaring, making him immune to the cold?
Checking her phone, she saw messages from both Pei Zhen and Diao Zhiyu and felt disaster looming. One asked if she wanted to have pan-fried buns for breakfast, while the other said he was already waiting downstairs.
Peering down from the balcony, she indeed spotted Diao Zhiyu, dressed neatly and waving from his bicycle. Even from a distance, he looked impossibly handsome, the dark green vintage bike’s rear seat glinting in the sunlight.
His call came through, brief and to the point: "Waiting for you downstairs…"
"What’s going on? You just left at 4:30 a.m. and you’re back already? Did you even sleep?"
"Not tired…"
His urgency threw off her rhythm. Mondays inevitably meant meetings, and formal occasions demanded a suit. But the suit pants were too thin, leaving her legs chilly. The newly bought black stockings and knee-length wool pencil skirt might actually be warmer. Her black mid-heel shoes were a bit worn, so she quickly polished them with a cloth. Before heading out, she reconsidered—this outfit would look too mature and create a generational gap riding with Diao Zhiyu. She pulled a rubber-pink down jacket from the closet. Her ears might get cold, so she added a berry-red knitted hat for good measure.
Feeling uneasy about her outfit, she hurried downstairs. Diao Zhiyu’s face flushed the moment he saw her.
Was her outfit unflattering? A fashion disaster? Oh, right—he had confessed to her just last night.
The boy who’d been so cocky in the evening now avoided eye contact entirely, taking a deep breath before speaking: "Get on…"
"What, do you dislike my bike because it isn’t as fancy as a four-wheeled vehicle?""
"Of course not!" It was three degrees above zero—enduring the cold wasn’t a competition. Hu Xiu glanced at his hands. "Diao Zhiyu, you’ll get frostbite like this."
"I’ve ridden in minus twenty degrees before. Get on." After a few words, he seemed less tense and muttered softly, "Why are you dressed like a raspberry ice cream?"
Riding a bicycle to work felt distinctly nostalgic, reminiscent of 1990s Beijing. Diao Zhiyu’s bike had a classic tan leather seat, and he wore a light blue denim jacket with a lamb’s wool collar and a cream-colored beanie—clearly a carefully coordinated look.
In the sunlight, the boy in light-colored clothes seemed much more approachable. She realized she seldom saw him in daylight.
Breakfast shops along the street had queues forming, most commuters heading to the subway with eyes half-closed. E-bikes and motorcycles zipped past them, but Hu Xiu felt utterly relaxed.
The bike ride would take at least forty minutes. Diao Zhiyu’s leisurely effort to escort her to work was exactly the kind of thing only young people would do.
Stopped at a traffic light, he spread his hands, clenched them into fists, and even pressed them against his neck—anything but talk to Hu Xiu.Her ears were either frozen or blushing, glowing red the entire way. Hu Xiu had been sitting ramrod straight for twenty minutes, her back aching. Thinking how uncomfortable bicycle rear seats were after prolonged use, she asked the rider who was bent over pedaling: "Should I find a shared bike myself..."
"No..."
"Bro, you'll need to pedal for at least another twenty minutes. I can ride one myself, can't you just accompany me?"
"Doubting my stamina?"
"I'm worried you'll get tired..." After all, you showed up at my doorstep at 4 AM yesterday saying you wanted to pursue me.
"Hard work is a man's responsibility. A man never says he can't."
What nonsense! Hu Xiu simply leaned against him, wrapping one arm around his waist - if you're not tired, I am.
The body she was holding noticeably stiffened for a second before he pedaled even more vigorously. Hu Xiu thought to herself, the deficiencies from youth aren't necessarily regrets.
Like never having ridden on the back of a handsome boy's bicycle in middle school or high school - now not only was she riding but holding onto one, and the boy was devastatingly handsome, most importantly he was pursuing her!
The scent emanating from him carried the floral fragrance of laundry pods, as fresh as sunlight. The young man's cycling speed surpassed other bicycles, his standing pedaling radiating vibrant energy like a long-lost youth film.
Wait, how did he know she'd be leaving at 7:30?
When they reached the hospital vicinity, Diao Zhiyu parked the bike outside a breakfast shop: "What do you usually eat?"
"Pan-fried buns..."
"Let's go..."
"You—" Before she could finish, Hu Xiu spotted Pei Zhen. Lowering her head, she cursed inwardly - why did this battlefield never end!
Of course, Pei Zhen was equally taken aback. Wearing a thin jacket over the black shirt Hu Xiu had gifted him for Christmas, he carried two large boxes of pan-fried buns, clearly intended for Hu Xiu. Seeing the two appear side by side, his expression turned distinctly uncomfortable.
Spotting an empty table in the back, Diao Zhiyu suggested, "Don't leave, let's eat together. It's been a while since I had pan-fried buns too."
Pei Zhen smiled: "Then let's eat together. I have enough for three people anyway. Doctor Jin's portion can go to Diao Zhiyu."
Diao Zhiyu immediately responded that he wouldn't stand on ceremony.
Hu Xiu wished she could disappear into the ground.
Even handsome guys didn't look graceful eating pan-fried buns - opening their mouths wide like caverns, slurping the scalding soup while revealing white teeth. The food containers emptied quickly.
One was starving after night shift and morning meeting, the other exhausted after forty minutes of strenuous cycling. Watching the two men reenact the legend of hungry wolves, Hu Xiu felt trapped between two equally awkward multiple-choice questions that left her restless—
Asking someone who's been hungry half their life to choose between lavish feasts and exquisite delicacies would make anyone suspect they were being served their last meal.
Sweltering in her down jacket while eating the buns, she had barely put down her chopsticks when Diao Zhiyu slid a tissue toward her: "Where are you going tonight? Need me to pick you up?"
Pei Zhen pierced a straw into soy milk and handed it over: "There's that healthcare inspection draft to write. The vice president was just looking for you to meet with the secretary and administrators."Before Hu Xiu could respond, her senior colleague spotted her keenly from the entrance carrying steamed buns: 'Oh, Xiao Hu, having breakfast with Doctor Pei so early?" And this young man is quite handsome, who is he?"
"Boyfriend..." Diao Zhiyu turned to shake hands with the senior: "Hello, I'm Diao Zhiyu."The senior sister blinked her eyelashes so rapidly they could have played a pipa: "Xiao Hu, this is incredible—are you a heartthrob collector? But playing two fields at once won't do. Our Xiao Pei doesn't deserve such treatment."
Pei Zhen smiled and checked the time: "Teacher Hu, we should head back to the hospital. Diao Zhiyu must have other matters to attend to as well, right?"
As long as they weren't embarrassed, the embarrassment was all hers. The senior sister lingered to watch the drama unfold, and Hu Xiu internally regretted everything. Why did she have to eat there? She should've just bought a sandwich and gone to the office. Having breakfast with handsome men would spread throughout the hospital in less than a morning.
When the three of them stepped outside together, Diao Zhiyu froze. Hu Xiu followed his gaze—Damn, where's the bike?
The bicycle in front of them had vanished. The spot where it had been parked was now empty. Pedestrians hurried back and forth on the narrow road, blocking the view before dispersing, but the British green bicycle was indeed gone.
After searching the street for fifteen minutes, Pei Zhen remarked without a hint of schadenfreude: "Parking a bike like this in front of the hospital was just asking for it to be stolen. With all sorts of people coming and going, you really should've been more cautious..."
Diao Zhiyu grumbled darkly: "You two go ahead..."
The first step of his plan to win Hu Xiu over—escorting her to work—had failed on day one. Sitting at her desk with a headache, Hu Xiu asked Li Ai about the bike's brand, then searched online for SAVORELLO. She sighed and asked Li Ai, "It's this expensive?"
"His was a limited edition to begin with. Why, you want one too?"
"It's a long story..." Hu Xiu checked her bank balance and gave up. Anyway, Diao Zhiyu had quit Snowpiercer. She could just consider it money spent on a few Live Action Role Playing Games for his sake—anything involving Diao Zhiyu inevitably turned her into a spendthrift.
Just as she sat down, a message from Chen Yang popped up, its gossipy tone practically leaping off the screen from two offices away: "Hu Xiu, is your boyfriend a total hottie?"
"No. Focus on work during office hours."
"The senior sister saw you and said you secretly snagged a male lead from a TV drama. Snagged—that's quite the word. So what's really going on with you and Dr. Pei?"
"Just friends! Friends!" Hu Xiu rolled her eyes internally, sitting behind the vice president and urgently proofreading documents. Exhaustion weighed on her, and the words shot into her eyes like bullets.
The senior sister must be well-rested—seeing two men sitting across from her in the morning had sparked this whole dramatic narrative. Was she the neighborhood committee, meddling this much?
Confessed to at four o'clock, then a forty-minute bike ride at seven-thirty—Hu Xiu felt her soul leaving her body.
After attending a meeting with the party secretary and returning, her phone was flooded with screenshots: two handsome, well-built men sitting across from the Shengjian beauty, the hospital's latest hot gossip.
Well, that wasn't entirely wrong. Handsome men were rare specimens, and Diao Zhiyu was practically a once-in-a-lifetime sight—usually confined to Live Action Role Playing Games, but now unleashed upon the world in all his brilliance. An utterly ordinary girl like Hu Xiu was simply out of her league.
"Xiao Hu, is the report ready? Let's go..."
Hu Xiu took a deep breath, removed her down jacket, straightened her posture, and followed the vice president to the meeting. The inter-provincial medical insurance service had achieved remarkable results, and the report was for television broadcast. Formal occasions required a presentable interpreter.
The senior sister, with her plump face and fleshy cheeks, wasn't suited for major events as an intern interpreter, so Hu Xiu was unhesitatingly pushed forward.
Underneath the rubber-pink down jacket, she wore a gray suit—utterly drab, paired with black-framed glasses.Yet her professional skills were exceptionally strong. After proofreading the vice dean’s manuscript and sitting behind him, she stepped out of the simultaneous interpretation booth as the English-speaking ambassador of the hospital’s image, with a standard British accent—unmatched by anyone else in the entire hospital.
The large conference room was filled with media personnel, clicking their shutters incessantly at the vice dean’s report. Hu Xiu kept her head down, ears perked, fully focused. Her voice was soft yet steady—strangely enough, it was as if confidence had filled her to the brim.
It wasn’t until this occasion that she realized she was a competitive performer—the more tense the situation, the better she performed. The vice dean didn’t even need to pause; she could smoothly translate even when he spoke continuously.
During a brief break, she quietly took a sip of water and recalled a training course on conference interpretation during her second year of graduate school. It involved interpreting seven or eight minutes of dialogue without taking notes, requiring rapid mental reorganization and translation into Chinese. The course was taught by two instructors who would occasionally pull them into real government meetings for practical training.
At the time, everyone was on the verge of breaking down, but after completing the course, they were no longer afraid of prolonged interpretation.
She had been impressive once, but she had forgotten. Suddenly, a surge of pride welled up—was it because a handsome guy was pursuing her?
Standing outside the door was Pei Zhen, perhaps just passing by. She noticed his appreciative gaze.
Being pursued by a handsome guy wasn’t entirely without merit.
After work, Hu Xiu contemplated going home to catch up on sleep as soon as possible when Pei Zhen sent her a message: “Would you like to have dinner tonight? I just got off surgery, so time might be a bit tight. But I won’t have much time before I go abroad.”
Before Hu Xiu could reply, a tall, slender figure stood at the entrance—Diao Zhiyu was here again!
He spotted her and casually greeted her, “I’m here to take you to REGARD.”
“I’m tired… I want to go home and sleep.”
“Then I’ll take you home. Your stamina is a bit lacking—you need to catch up on sleep after just one all-nighter.”
“Well, you’re full of vigor and astonishing stamina, running to my building at 4 a.m. with eyes wide open like copper bells.”
“My stamina isn’t just limited to that. If you try, there are things that would scare you.”
Hu Xiu stood there stunned, her mouth agape. Diao Zhiyu hadn’t expected her to be so easily flustered and scratched his head sheepishly, deliberately changing the subject: “Don’t bother buying a bicycle. If it’s lost, it’s lost—it’s not a big deal. Don’t add to your mental burden.”
“Since you came to pick me up, I can afford this much.”
“I’m a man—it’s not right to let a woman pay. You’ve been to Snowpiercer seventeen times, spending 8,500 yuan. You’ve spent enough on me.” There was even a hint of apology in his eyes.
“What’s this? Gender opposition? Let’s keep things separate. Don’t use ‘man’ and ‘woman’ to gloss over things.”
Her phone buzzed in her palm. Pei Zhen, who had just rushed out, saw Diao Zhiyu and immediately understood the situation—
The young man across from him was seriously competing with him as a rival in love. He had never dealt with such a situation before and had no idea how to react. Turning around and leaving would be impolite...
But Pei Zhen suddenly smiled and checked the time: “There’s a Cantonese restaurant nearby. Let’s have dinner together.”
Diao Zhiyu remained silent the entire time, wearing the same expression Qin Xiao used when dealing with Ning Zechen—proud, composed, and never underestimating his opponent, making others instinctively wary.This guy probably plays as a guard in basketball too—never attacking, only defending, spotting every weakness in the opponent. He conserves energy to strike unexpectedly in the second half, every move hitting where it hurts most, leaving a faint sense of unease.
Claypot rice, roasted meats, curry beef, and pineapple bun with butter were laid out on the table. Hu Xiu could barely keep her eyes open, yet her nerves were stretched taut.
Two large leather sofa seats faced two empty spots across. Diao Zhiyu and Pei Zhen flanked her on either side—
Originally, Pei Zhen had sat down first when they entered, but when a group of guests vacated the opposite table, she moved beside Pei Zhen to clear the aisle. Diao Zhiyu, who had stepped aside, took two steps and settled next to Hu Xiu. How childish!
Before she could even lift a bite to her mouth, her plain rice had transformed into a lavish topped rice bowl. The two men piled on dishes like dealers handing out playing cards, neither yielding an inch. Diao Zhiyu was one thing, but Pei Zhen—a dignified thirty-two-year-old on the verge of becoming an associate professor—was he really stooping to this pettiness?
Men remain boys until they die.
"Hu Xiu, do you prefer roasted meats or braised pork?"
Why not just ask me if I like Dad or Mom better?
"This beef might be a bit hot; I’ll blow on it for you."
"Hu Xiu, the pineapple bun with butter is great. Let me feed you."
I have hands and a mouth of my own...
"Is the drink too cold? I recall you might have menstrual cramps."
"The fish balls are getting cold and fishy; better eat the hot beef tendon from the pot."
What is this? A rap battle? Competing to see who’s more rhyme-savvy?
Nearby diners were casting glances their way. An elderly auntie’s loud Shanghainese commentary was unmistakable: "Oh my, girls these days are something else—flanked by two men."
"Doesn’t look like much, but she’s got tricks. Two boys, impressive."
The pineapple bun in Hu Xiu’s mouth lacked its promised "ice and fire," but her heart was already a battlefield of extremes. She swallowed it whole, too flustered to speak, and after a moment, began hiccupping uncontrollably.
The two men—one patting her back, the other stroking her head—only made the hiccups persist, leaving her lightheaded from lack of oxygen.
Pei Zhen frowned, "This is bad; she might need to see a gastroenterologist." Diao Zhiyu countered, "She probably just needs to go home and sleep immediately—she’s been staying up too late."
Pei Zhen’s brow furrowed deeper, "How do you know she stays up late?" Diao Zhiyu shot back swiftly, "I was outside her apartment at 4 a.m."
"Enough!"
Hu Xiu slammed the table, certain she’d seen this cliché scene in some TV drama before. Back then, she’d scoffed at its absurdity, but now, living it, she felt like sitting on pins and needles.
The two men froze as if paralyzed, one holding chopsticks and the other a spoon like her left and right arms.
"Diao Zhiyu, move aside," Hu Xiu commanded. She stood up, forcefully nudging his shoulder aside with her hip, and plopped down squarely across from them. Shedding her down jacket and the disguise of a raspberry ice cream girl, she now sat upright in a fitted blazer, white shirt, and pencil skirt, glaring coldly with imposing authority. Picking up a clean chopstick, she pointed at the two men: "You two, combined, are almost as tall as the Yan'an Elevated Road—how is your emotional intelligence lower than kindergarteners?
Pei Zhen, a respectable Reconstructive Surgery resident—aren’t you supposed to be on night duty?
Diao Zhiyu, stop chasing me to the hospital from now on. Even if you’ve quit your job, focus on your own path—whether directing or working for others. During work hours, you are not to appear before me!"
"This is after work hours...""Shut up!" Hu Xiu fumed, glaring with such intensity her beard might have bristled. "I have a job too—working seriously as a translator, planning to rely on my skills to make a living."
"What does that have to do with the two of us?"
"Of course it matters! Societal prejudice is so rigid. For an ordinary-looking girl like me to be spoon-fed by you two—what kind of image does that create? With so many eyes watching, being surrounded by handsome men like you just makes everyone think I'm some brainless idol drama heroine."
"Oh..." Diao Zhiyu stifled a laugh and glanced meaningfully at Pei Zhen.
"What are you laughing at!"
"It does somewhat resemble a heroine..." Pei Zhen immediately caught on, chuckling along while restraining himself.
"Huh?"
"Never mind, don't say it." Diao Zhiyu stopped Pei Zhen.
Hu Xiu, flushed with anger, snapped: "Spit it out!"
Pei Zhen's voice was soft, hesitant: "Well... like those explosively curvaceous female teachers in black stockings and high heels, giving seductive lessons while disciplining students with a pointer, about to... about to..."
"About to what?" What seduction? What lessons?
"S&M..." Surprisingly, it was Pei Zhen who uttered this.
Hu Xiu grabbed her clothes and bag, turning to leave. Her steps quickened—what filthy thoughts filled these men's minds! An AV heroine? Shameless, vulgar, hormone-driven! Within two minutes, she heard footsteps behind her—more than one set. The tall men would catch up in seconds.
Though pretending to be angry now, a smile tugged at her lips. In love, business, or battle, she feared neither fierce warriors charging through adversity nor divine obstacles—but despised half-hearted opponents who retreated at minor setbacks. Encountering such a situation in her lifetime was like winning the lottery; how could she flee at the critical moment? Only—she swore she'd never wear black stockings again in this life!
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