Cosmic Love Affair

Chapter 3: The Kuiper Belt III

The cold buffet was held in the banquet hall on the second floor of the hotel.

As soon as Shen Zhichuan entered, he was detained by several leaders from the department, and he had no choice but to instruct his young apprentice to wait somewhere first.

Xie Li was not used to such occasions and felt dizzy seeing a room full of people. He wanted to find a quiet place to wait for Shen Zhichuan, but as soon as he went out, he got lost in the corridor and stumbled into the hotel's sunroom.

The sunroom was filled with lush plants, so lush that it was suffocating.

Xie Li went in and walked around, but couldn't find a door leading outside the hotel, and ended up sweating.

Just as he was about to turn around and leave, someone came in through the door.

He saw the person's face and almost fainted - wasn't this the adulterer Bai Mingyue from yesterday?

Xie Li roared in his heart, it's already like this, can't he stay away from Song Yi's mess?

This Bai Mingyue was holding a phone and standing at the door, not noticing that there was someone inside. He was wearing a shirt and waistcoat today, with a waist-cinching design that made him look handsome, tall, and broad-shouldered with a narrow waist, and his buttocks were protruding, making the legs wrapped in trousers look particularly long.

That's right, this buttocks, it must be zero. Xie Li cursed in his heart, Song Yi, you dog, you like this taste.

Before Xie Li finished cursing, another person pushed the door in and walked straight towards Bai Mingyue as soon as he came in.

Xie Li stretched his head to take a look and was completely broken - because this time the person who came in was the dog himself.

Song Yi seemed to be fine now. Whether intentionally or coincidentally, he was wearing the same style of shirt and waistcoat as Bai Mingyue. One dark and one light, the two stood side by side, and they seemed to match a bit.

Xie Li looked down at himself, T-shirt, shorts, and sports shoes. He sighed quietly, unable to tell whether the sourness in his heart was acetic acid or citric acid.

When Song Yi asked him if he liked himself, he still felt that everything was as beautiful as a dream, but in fact, it was a dream.

Now the dream is over, and others are going to chase their moonlight, while he is just a cosmic dust that doesn't even reflect light.

Xie Li stood gloomily among a group of plants. He knew he should leave immediately, but he just couldn't move his feet.

The voices of the two people on the other side crossed the suffocating green plants in the sunroom and fell into Xie Li's ears, clearly audible.

"Dad said you guys are going to Tianhua Mountain on the weekend, it would be great if I could go too," Song Yi's tone was gentle and very intimate.

"The organizer will welcome it." Bai Mingyue just finished the call, put away his phone, and added with a hint, "But I thought you still needed a few days to rest."

Song Yi heard the implication, his face darkened. He was silent for a moment, then said, "Brother Tan Ke, the person yesterday, I just couldn't bear to refuse him. I know it's not right, but when I see him, it's like seeing myself. I also like you, I am very happy when you look at me, and I am very sad when you reject me. I just don't want anyone to be sad because of me..."

His words were interrupted by a series of clattering sounds.

The two people at the door turned around in amazement and saw the shrubs and flower pots in the depths of the sunroom being knocked over, and Xie Li was lying on a green jade plant in a mess.

Xie Li was originally going to come out.

The more he listened to what Song Yi said, the more angry he became, so angry that his head was dizzy and he was sweating all over, just wanting to get out of here as soon as possible, and passing by Song Yi, he wanted to scold him with a "stinky i***t".

But as soon as he lifted his foot, he was tripped by the flower pot.

Oh, this is great. Xie Li lay on the ground, thinking in despair, this must be the worst way to meet with an ex-boyfriend and his new love. Murphy's Law, the truth of the universe.

Song Yi came over, his face was extremely ugly: "Xie Li, why are you here... Are you following me?"

He stepped over the fallen flower pots, looking down, with no intention of helping Xie Li up.

Xie Li heard his nonsense, and was so angry that he was about to explode.

He got up by himself, staring at Song Yi, like a chestnut full of thorns: "Follow you, open your eyes and see, it's your Xie Dad who came in first."

He was extremely heartbroken, so angry that he didn't even want to be polite and educated, and dirty words naturally blurted out.

Song Yi was speechless by his scolding.

Tan Ke, who was standing at the door and didn't want to get involved in the young people's emotional relationship, finally came over. He looked at the green jade plant that was crushed on the ground and then at Xie Li.

The young boy seemed very young, with a slender figure, not yet out of his teenage appearance, and he was puffed up and clawing, like a fierce cat-like animal. On his clean and delicate face, two red spots were particularly noticeable, I don't know if it was because he was angry or hot.

The young boy turned and walked out, unconsciously scratching his exposed arm.

"Wait a minute," Tan Ke called to the young boy.

In fact, he couldn't quite explain his mentality, maybe it was the kind of psychology that he couldn't help but touch a cat when he saw one on the road.

Tan Ke walked over: "This flower pot is poisonous..."

But the young boy didn't wait for him to finish, and ran out, shouting without looking back: "I will compensate! I will go to find the waiter now!"

Tan Ke felt a little helpless and wanted to laugh, didn't expect Song Yi to know this kind of little... wild cat.

He simply called the hotel manager and asked someone to come and deal with it. Before he hung up the phone, he also instructed the manager that if someone came to the front desk to talk about compensation, tell the other party that it is not necessary to compensate, and also ask the other party to wash their hands.

Song Yi stood by, looking at Tan Ke to make this call suspiciously, and couldn't help but try: "Brother Tan Ke, what are you doing... It's just a person you don't know."

When Tan Ke hung up the phone, there was still a smile on his face, but when he put away his phone and turned around, the smile on his face was gone.

"I should not comment on other people's emotional life," he said coldly and politely, "but constantly rejecting you is a very troubling thing for me. I hope that if possible, we will no longer have any private meetings."

Song Yi was like being hit on the head, almost unable to stand.

"Brother Tan Ke, what do you mean... Eight years, I have liked you for eight years, do you not have any feelings at all? Even a stray dog, feeding for eight years should also have feelings, how many eight years do I have? Or are you angry because of that person just now? I have said that I..."

He was holding the wall, speaking incoherently, his voice was shaking, but this appearance did not arouse the slightest pity from the other party.

Tan Ke was tired of listening, raised his hand to interrupt him: "First, I am not a dog, and you are not a dog. Second, Song Yi, I have made it clear a long time ago. If you don't know how to stop the loss in time, then you should learn."

After he finished speaking, he no longer looked at Song Yi, and walked away.

Tan Ke was not originally a very patient person, and the reason he has not completely blocked Song Yi until now is simply because he has a good relationship with Song Yi's parents and brothers.

But he didn't expect that this tolerance out of human feelings would instead make Song Yi more and more aggressive - calling his work phone in the middle of the night, the assistant who was forced to answer the call transfer complained a lot, and deliberately pretending to be drunk at the business banquet, saying some ambiguous words that caused misunderstandings, causing him to leave early and take people away.

Since he returned to the country, Song Yi has been omnipresent, trying every means to find out his itinerary, trying to appear at every place he would appear.

Tan Ke touched the phone in the inner pocket of his suit, thinking that he should talk to Song Yi's brother and say that his brother should go to see a psychiatrist.

Xie Li came out of the sunroom in a panic, walking around with his head covered, and happened to meet Shen Zhichuan who was looking for him everywhere.

Shen Zhichuan was furious: "What are you wandering for? Doing Brownian motion?"

Xie Li was so sad that he was about to die, and as soon as he saw a familiar person, the tears that had been held for a long time couldn't help but burst out. He ran over with a cry and shouted "teacher" with a crying tone.

As soon as Shen Zhichuan saw his apprentice like this, he couldn't scold him anymore.

He had seen Xie Li hanging around Song Yi from the next group all day before. With swollen eyes and a look of a little aggrieved wife, what happened, Professor Shen didn't need to ask, he could guess with his toes, and it was probably rejected by others.

But Professor Shen was a knife mouth, comforting students was impossible, at most he could bear the pain and take out the silk handkerchief in his suit pocket, which was a four-digit price, and hand it over to his apprentice to wipe his nose, and he still didn't let go: "Don't cry like this in front of me. If others see it, they will think I am molesting you. My taste is not so low."

Xie Li is usually very tolerant of Shen Zhichuan's venomous tongue. After all, what kind of virtue his teacher has, the students also have a number in their hearts.

But today is special - he just suffered a blow from Song Yi, and then heard Shen Zhichuan say this, and the whole person was almost hammered into the mantle.

Xie Li cried out, blowing his nose bubbles, tears streaming down his face, grabbing Shen Zhichuan and asking, "Teacher, does it really have a low taste to like me?"

Shen Zhichuan looked at his apprentice's moist big eyes and sighed: "Apprentice, you should be more careful in the future."

When Tan Ke came over accompanied by the dean of Lan Da Physics, he happened to see this scene.

The dean thought that Professor Shen was scolding students again, and saw the little classmate crying so pitifully from a distance, and his kindness suddenly surged, coming to help: "Ah, Professor Shen is scolding students."

As soon as Shen Zhichuan turned his head, his expression immediately froze.

The person next to the dean, Shen Zhichuan knew.

When Shen Zhichuan was studying for a doctorate at Princeton, he had a boyfriend. The boyfriend was doing high-energy physics next door, and Tan Ke was his boyfriend's damn junior, who often called in the middle of the night for some trivial matters, hindering other people's evening exercises.

At that time, Shen Zhichuan and his boyfriend had a very good relationship, and the two had even planned to get a license in the Netherlands.

Those years, the field of astrophysics at Princeton was severely saturated, and there was no position for new postdocs, and Shen Zhichuan didn't want to have a long-distance relationship.

He thought about it and finally decided to give up academia and find a job on Wall Street. This way, he could find a place to live between New York and Princeton with his boyfriend and go home every day.

At that time, when Shen Zhichuan's mentor heard about his plan, he leaned on a crutch, topped with the goose feather snow in January in the eastern United States, and came to persuade him in person.

Shen Zhichuan was still very young at that time, he believed in love, and also believed in dedication and giving.

He said to his mentor, a person can do many professions in a lifetime, there are many choices. He can give up astrophysics at the age of twenty, and he can also come back to do astrophysics at the age of forty. But a lover, maybe only one in a lifetime. If he doesn't grasp the person he loves at the age of twenty, then when he is forty, maybe he won't have this person anymore. Science is always there, but his love won't.

The old professor sighed and had nothing to say, turned around and left.

Three months later, on the eve of the graduation defense, Shen Zhichuan suddenly learned from a friend that his boyfriend had developed a casual lover half a year ago while doing scientific research in Antarctica.

After ten years, Shen Zhichuan thought he had long forgotten.

Now he is thirty years old, money, reputation, status, he has it all.

He is invincible and immune to all toxins.

But at this moment, the pain, anger, despair, and unwillingness of that year, suddenly, layer by layer like a tide, gushed out from his heart of steel and iron.

Damn it, Shen Zhichuan thought.