A President’s Out-of-Body Experience

Gu Xiaoshan was late to work today, and Xu Yunyun was a little astonished. Old Mister Gu then made his grand entrance, and everyone was discussing animatedly, wondering if something major had happened.

But no one dared to ask.

Even though Gu Xiaoshan was always smiling, but everyone was afraid of him. The phrase, laughing as he released the viper, was clearly about him.

No one also dared to hand Gu Xiaoshan their documents directly, all passing them over to Xu Yunyun, pleading with her to deliver them on their behalf. Xu Yunyun had followed Gu Xiaoshan for many years. Although she could not say that she was very familiar with his temper, she still got along pretty well with Gu Xiaoshan, and had mutual respect for each other. As Gu Xiaoshan also had many things that relied on her, he also treated her very politely.

Xu Yunyun entered the office. When she handed the documents over, she sighed in relief. According to her understanding of Gu Xiaoshan, he currently was not in an explosive temper, but instead, his mood was fairly good, and it was a good opportunity for her to discuss her salary package.

As Gu Xiaoshan was born stingy, he was not very generous, and to discuss such matters with him, the timing had to be right. Xu Yunyun took this chance to request an increment in her salary as well as applying for leave, and Gu Xiaoshan gave her a satisfactory response. He even smiled, “It’s been tough on you recently.”

Half an hour later, Xu Yunyun knocked on the door and entered again. Gu Xiaoshan cocked his brow, asking laughingly, “Why? Something else about your salary package that needs to be discussed?”

“Haha, am I that greedy?” Xu Yunyun laughed. “It’s President Ren.”

Unconsciously, Gu Xiaoshan straightened his back and put down his pen. “He’s here?”

Xu Yunyun smiled. “President Ren is very entertaining. He remembered the last time he came to the office, and you said that an appointment had to be made to see you during the office hours, so he asked if he could make an appointment to see you.”

Gu Xiaoshan laughed. “It is very entertaining.”

He then continued, “Tell him that he can come see me anytime, there’s no need to make an appointment.”

There seemed to be no problem for such words to come out from Gu Xiaoshan’s mouth. Xu Yunyun did not notice anything inappropriate, probably because to outsiders, Gu Xiaoshan and Renzi had always been very close to each other, to the point where there was no need to draw a line between them.

If it was like usual, Renzi would probably have directly messaged Gu Xiaoshan. But now when he was about to tap on Gu Xiaoshan’s contact profile on the screen of his phone, his finger would tremble, and be unable to calm down. So, he gave Xu Yunyun a call, and said that he would like to make an appointment to see Gu Xiaoshan.

When Xu Yunyun left Gu Xiaoshan’ office, she called Renzi back, laughing. “I’ve already said it, would you need to make an appointment to see President Gu? You’re trying to make me suffer, right?”

“Huh?” Renzi was a little blank. “But didn’t he say…”

“That was all a joke.” Xu Yunyun smiled and replied, “President Gu has said that you can come see him anytime, there’s no need to make an appointment.”

Renzi’s tongue knotted up, and he did not know what to say.

Xu Yunyun continued, filling in the silence. “Although that’s the case, but if President Ren decides to drop by, it’ll be best that you let me know first. It’s nothing, I’m just afraid that President Gu would happen to be out of the office or in an important meeting, and you’ll end up wasting your time.”

Renzi nodded. “Is 6pm ok?”

Xu Yunyun laughed, “Work would have been over.”

“Mn, but doesn’t he always work overtime anyway?”

“If you do come, President Gu might not work overtime.”

Xu Yunyun only said that casually, she did not expect to hit the nail on the spot.

“Cancel the 5.45pm meeting.” Gu Xiaoshan said, “It’s only some routine matters. If the meeting drags on, everyone won’t be able to leave work on time.”

Xu Yunyun looked at Gu Xiaoshan with wide eyes, then suppressed her curving lips. “Sure.”

Renzi had planned to go to Tony to perm his hair before going to Gu Xiaoshan’s office. However, when he thought about the appearances of He Jun and the rest of Gu Xiaoshan’s exes, none of them had a perm. In fact, many of them had soft, silky hair. Although few were like He Jun with long hair, but in his memories, there were some whose hair went to their shoulders. When Renzi was still a heterosexual, he had jabbed at Gu Xiaoshan, “Why do you look for men with this sort of hairstyle? It’s very girly!”

“What does girly have to do with hairstyles? Also, it only reaches the shoulder, it’s not considered long.”

“But I feel that for hair to reach the shoulder it’s already very girly.”

Gu Xiaoshan smiled, “Do you think that Brother Haonan is very girly?”

Renzi thought about it, then shut his eyes. Ekin Cheng and his long hair, not only was he the Brother Haonan who “willing ran into trials and hardship that everyone looked up to”, he was also the Hero Hua whom “even the rain does not dare to cling to him, always going through life aggressively”, and Senior Feng who “spent the rest of his life alone, preferring to have others hating him”. He was not girly, but very cool.

Did that mean Brother Xiaoshan want to fuck Ekin Cheng?

Renzi drove his luxury car to the carpark of Gu Xiaoshan’s office. Thinking about all these, he could not help but look into the rearview mirror, looking to see if he had any resemblance to Ekin Cheng. However, with his fair skin and round cheeks, rather than Chen Haonan, he looked more like Little Stammer

“Shit!” Renzi was unhappy, “Am I actually the girly one?”

His car had been parked for about ten minutes, and he did not get off the car. Staring at the mirror for five minutes, he felt that his hairstyle was too improper, and he found that it was due to a little cowlick at the back of his head. The cowlick was as stubborn as Brother Chicken, no matter what he did, it would not go down.

“Damn it.” Renzi was very particular about it. Looking through his car for hair gel, he naturally did not find any, but instead found a bottle of mineral water in the built-in refrigerator. He wanted to pour a little water to wet his hair, smoothing the cowlick down. However, his hand slipped unexpectedly, and the water spilt on his shirt. His hair was not done, but his shirt was now wet.

He could not be any more wretched looking.

Renzi hurriedly replaced the cap of the bottle, and started worrying about how to deal with this problem. Unable to think of a solution, he turned the air conditioning of the car all the way up, trying to use this method to dry his shirt.

As he sat there anxiously, his phone flashed at him. Gu Xiaoshan had sent him a message.

Renzi was already feeling ill at ease. Seeing the notification for Gu Xiaoshan’s message, his heart pounded even harder. However, he still quickly picked up his phone to take a look — “Husband-to-be: Why aren’t you coming up yet?”

Renzi was taken aback, replying instantly. “You know that I’m here?”

“You entered the carpark with my backup card.”

“…” Renzi replied, “I opened a bottle of mineral water just now, and my shirt got wet.”

Renzi was speechless about his mishap, but Gu Xiaoshan was not very surprised, probably because he felt that this was normal to happen to Renzi. “But it’s useless for you to stay in the car anyway. You have a shirt in the car?”

“No, no. I plan to use the AC to blow it dry.”

“Are you a fool?” Gu Xiaoshan asked. “Come up, you can wear mine.”

Renzi then went upstairs. He naturally used the president’s lift, and naturally swiped Gu Xiaoshan’s backup card.

When the lift announced “Welcome back, Mr Gu Xiaoshan”, Renzi was in a trance. He thought about how the car that he drove here was a gift from Gu Xiaoshan, the cards for the carpark and the lift were Gu Xiaoshan’s, the blanket he was using this morning was another gift from Gu Xiaoshan, and even Ha-cube, his buddy, was a present from Gu Xiaoshan.

These made it seem like… they had always been so close that “suspicious behaviour” could be used to describe them.

This “suspicious behaviour” had dragged on for too many years, and their relationship had become unsuspicious.

When he appeared at the president’s office with Gu Xiaoshan’s card, and Gu Xiaoshan’s permission to “see him anytime”, even a sensitive lady like Xu Yunyun did not detect any trace of ambiguity.

When Xu Yunyun saw Renzi, she welcomed him with a smile. “What bad timing. The system just had a malfunction, and President Gu had just hurried down to take a look.”

“Mn, it’s alright.” The reception in the lift was not good, when Renzi looked at his phone now, it showed, “Husband-to-be: Entertain yourself first, I’ll be back soon.”

Xu Yunyun led Renzi into the lounge of the president’s office very naturally, opening the door for him.

“Hmm?” Renzi was a little surprised. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes, President Gu said that the office is the office, and this lounge is his personal space. Unless someone died or if the building is collapsing, even I’m not allowed inside.” Xu Yunyun replied.

However, for Renzi to be allowed inside, Xu Yunyun did not feel that it was inappropriate. After Renzi went in, she returned to her desk and waited for President Gu to announce that she was off work.

Over the years, the hardworking Gu Xiaoshan had spent the most number of nights in this lounge. This was truly Gu Xiaoshan’s “personal space”. Not only his trusted subordinate, Xu Yunyun, but even Old Mister Gu and Gu Xiaowu had never stepped a foot inside here before.

This was also Renzi’s first time here. He knew that there was a lounge, but had never been inside before. In truth, if not for the fact that he wanted to woo Gu Xiaoshan, he would even rarely come to his office. When they were friends, most of the time they would just meet in entertainment venues outside.

Gu Xiaoshan was an exquisite looking man — whether it was his appearance or dressing, even the cuffs of his suits had to be printed with patterns.

Thinking about how Gu Xiaoshan would only drive expensive cars, wear luxury watches and dress in patterned clothes, that dissolute style could not relate with the decoration of this lounge.

Renzi observed his surroundings, and saw the new shirt that had been prepared for him on the round white table. Next to it was also a new towel to wipe himself dry.

The shirt on the table still had its tags on, showing that this was really a new shirt that Gu Xiaoshan had never worn before — which made Renzi a little disappointed.

Gu Xiaoshan did want Renzi to put on something that he had worn before, but felt that it did not seem very proper, afraid that Renzi would feel that he had been slighted. He went down to the department to take a look, confirming the details with the person-in-charge, and his eyes kept drifting to his watch. The person-in-charge broke out in sweat, knowing that the president had something urgent to attend to.

Finally, the things were confirmed.

Gu Xiaoshan then returned to the highest floor. Xu Yunyun smiled, “President Ren is in the lounge already.”

“Mn.” Gu Xiaohsan nodded, and just as Xu Yunyun hoped, he said, “You’ve worked hard. You should go back first.”

Xu Yunyun left work happily.

Gu Xiaoshan opened the door to the lounge, and the setting sun was shining in through the glass walls. Next to the wall, Renzi was standing there admiring the scenery, and the loose white shirt on him had turned translucent with the sun’s ray, revealing his silhouette.

Gu Xiaoshan’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Hearing the door open, Renzi turned his head around, his eyes meeting Gu Xiaoshan’s sharp gaze that was due to the narrowing of his eyes. He was shocked. “Eh? You, you’re back?”

Gu Xiaoshan smiled. “Yes, I’m back.”

Renzi seemed to hear another meaning to this “I’m back”, and froze where he stood.

“You’re very surprised?” Gu Xiaoshan said. “I did text you.”

Renzi must have staring at the scenery in a daze, and did not notice his phone that he had left on the leather chair. As though to prove his words, Gu Xiaoshan picked his phone up and swiped at the screen. The screen automatically lit up, showing, “Husband-to-be: I’m coming up, you should have put on the shirt already, right?”

Renzi suddenly blushed — oh god, “Husband-to-be” had been seen by “Husband-to-be!”

Gu Xiaoshan seemed to also be a little surprised, staring at the screen for a second.

As though a bucket of red paint had been poured over him, Renzi’s blush travelled from his face, to his ears and down to his neck.

Gu Xiaoshan was the first to react. With his understanding of Renzi, he entered the password and unlocked the phone, then saw his contact details labelled with “Husband-to-be”.

Renzi wanted to try explaining it, but found that his tongue had fully knotted.

Gu Xiaoshan first placed the phone back in Renzi’s hand, then spoke, “This is the address that you thought was better than “Brother Xiaoshan”, “Xiaoshan”, “Shanzi”, and “Shan”?”

“Uhh… Can, can I use it?” Renzi had to face the truth that he had long wished for Gu Xiaoshan to be his husband.

Gu Xiaoshan smiled. “I’ll still say the same thing, you can call me whatever you like.”

When Renzi was led outside by Gu Xiaoshan, he was still giddily immersed in the joy of victory.

It was that simple?

Renzi could not believe it.

Gu Xiaoshan had said that he was going to bring him out for a meal, and asked what did he want to eat. Renzi could not decide, and Gu Xiaoshan straight drove off, making the decision himself. Renzi lay in his seat, thinking over it, then unlocking his phone again. He then discovered that the label he gave Gu Xiaoshan had been changed from “Husband-to-be” to “Husband”.

“Eh?” Renzi widened his eyes in disbelief. Was this a miracle?

Gu Xiaoshan asked, “What did you actually want to do when you came here today?”

Renzi shook his head blankly. “I, I wanted to ask, are we really going to start dating?”

“Aren’t we? Your father and my father already know about it.” Gu Xiaoshan spoke with a straight face. “It’s too late for you to regret it! You’ve already signed your promise letter, remember?”

“Ah…” Renzi looked at the label on his phone, and thought about it. “But, but this seems a little too fast.”

“What’s too fast?” Gu Xiaoshan asked, not understanding.

“T-that, h-husband. It’s still the first day we’re d-dating.”

“Mn, we can also take it step by step.” Gu Xiaoshan agreed.

“Then, can I call you my boyfriend?” Renzi asked cautiously.

Gu Xiaoshan still had the same answer. “You can call me anything you like.”

If Yu Yuntao was there, he would definitely suggest for Renzi to call him “bastard”, “asshole”, etc.

However, Renzi still cautiously, reverently said, “Mn, then it’ll be… boyfriend.”

Boy-friend. Renzi paused at every syllable, treasuring it. When Gu Xiaoshan heard him, his heart also pounded, feeling as though it had skipped a beat.

Gu Xiaoshan actually felt a little shy too, and this was a bashfulness that he was unfamiliar with. Like that hard-to-obtain animal biscuits, shattering under Renzi’s impact, and revealing a honey center.