Ji Shileng blinked slowly, unable to understand why Qin Si was here.
Surely Stegala had no important business dealings with the Empire?
And even if it did, tonight’s banquet was centered on the Federation, wasn’t it?
Why would Qin Si be here?
Then he remembered.
After several seconds in which his mind seemed to freeze, Ji Shileng suddenly recalled something his eldest sister had told him not long ago.
Ji Shiyun had said that Qin Si had signed a cooperation agreement with the Federation and would be working there for quite some time.
“A… coincidence?”
He drew the words apart.
“Actually, it isn’t”
Qin Si walked over and crouched before him, letting Ji Shileng look down at him.
“Hmm?”
Ji Shileng caught the faint scent of tobacco on Qin Si.
“I came here specifically”
Qin Si lowered his head, frowning at his bandaged ankle.
“Does it hurt?”
Feeling at a loss, Ji Shileng sidestepped the question.
“Specifically? Is there more business you need to discuss with the Empire?”
“No. I was thinking about that meal you owe me. If I didn’t come to collect, I was afraid I might never get it”
Noticing his evasion, Qin Si asked again:
“Does it hurt?”
“Why wouldn’t you get your meal?”
Ji Shileng laughed it off. Qin Si’s unwavering attention made the skin along his back prickle.
“Of course it doesn’t hurt anymore”
Qin Si reached out as though to touch his trouser leg, only to withdraw his hand.
He looked up, and their gazes held in a brief impasse.
“Then could you try not to fall again?”
Ji Shileng frowned, unexpectedly cautious. He did not answer immediately.
After a few seconds, he said:
“What if there’s an accident…? No one can predict these things”
“What about Shang Jianli, then?”
Tonight, Qin Si was different from his usual gentle self.
“Could you avoid falling for him a second time?”
The question was quiet, but his gaze was intensely assertive. Though he was looking up from below, he seemed to seize the upper hand, holding Ji Shileng entirely within his eyes.
Ji Shileng paused, then smiled.
“No. That second kind of fall won’t happen again”
He might be softhearted, but he understood that actions had consequences, and reckoning always came.
He could not betray himself.
“Good”
Qin Si said no more. He stood and settled his hands on the wheelchair handles with easy familiarity.
“Is there anywhere you’d like to go?”
Ji Shileng did not stop him.
“Don’t you have anything else to say to me?”
Qin Si murmured an affirmative, then seemed to reconsider.
“If there’s anything you want to know, just ask me”
Ji Shileng wrinkled his nose.
“But I don’t have any questions”
He had inexplicably appeared at the banquet, asked a string of bewildering questions, and was now inexplicably “kidnapping” him.
What was he trying to do?
Sensing Ji Shileng’s displeasure, Qin Si said:
“I thought it over, and I still like you very much. I decided I couldn’t give up just like that”
Ji Shileng: “…”
Every time, Qin Si was so direct that he left him at a loss for words.
“Perhaps… you just haven’t met anyone else yet”
“With a precious jewel before me, how could I take an interest in rubble?”
Qin Si smiled faintly and changed the subject.
“My transfer to the Federation came with a demotion”
Ji Shileng was surprised.
“Why?”
Stegala was no worse off than the Federation. In recent years especially, it had developed rapidly, even showing signs of overtaking the Federation.
“No particular reason. You’re in the Federation, so I came”
Afraid Ji Shileng might think he was trying to make him feel obligated, Qin Si added:
“I’m not saying this to guilt you. I only want you to understand that my feelings for you aren’t a passing whim”
Ji Shileng still found it hard to believe, but this time he did not evade Qin Si.
“Perhaps you should… spend some time getting to know me?”
Somewhat awkwardly, he explained:
“My temper is usually terrible. A lot of things about me aren’t as nice as they might look from the outside”
Once they spent time together and Qin Si understood his character and temper, perhaps he would stop liking him.
Qin Si accepted it all.
“All right. I’ll prove myself”
In truth, he had spent several nights considering the transfer to the Federation.
Qin Si knew perfectly well that Shang Jianli had come before him, and that Shang Jianli had never given up on Ji Shileng.
For all his easy confidence at their first meeting, fear had gradually gained the upper hand.
He feared Ji Shileng would find him presumptuous, too blunt.
Originally, Qin Si had never bothered with the pointless trending stories on the interstellar network. He considered them a waste of time.
Yet during their time apart, he had to restrain himself from investigating everything about Ji Shileng.
After all, an investigation could never capture a whole, living person. Besides, he did not want to intrude on Ji Shileng’s privacy, even unwittingly.
He wanted to become Ji Shileng’s friend openly and honestly, to learn his story through friendship.
He did not want to be a rat in the gutter, getting to know someone through a dossier.
As missing him became harder to endure, he began following the trending stories he had once scorned.
Seeing Shang Jianli in the news, aloof yet relentlessly persistent, infuriated him.
He almost wanted to secretly hire someone to beat him up. To borrow the words of the interstellar netizens, he wanted to fold Shang Jianli in half like a communicator’s folding screen.
But he had no right.
He knew very well that it was not his place to act on Ji Shileng’s behalf.
Qin Si told himself he could not keep being a coward. If he liked someone, he had to make an effort himself.
Even if Ji Shileng someday got back together with Shang Jianli, or ended up with someone else, at least he would not regret his own cowardice.
Ji Shileng lowered his eyes and said:
“Let’s go over to my eldest sister. Have you met everyone yet?”
Qin Si adapted remarkably well to his role as wheelchair attendant. He turned smoothly and headed toward Ji Shiyun.
“Not yet”
Ji Shileng was the only person he had wanted to see first upon arriving in the Empire.
“It’s not too late to meet them now”
Ji Shileng missed the implication. In many ways, he could be rather slow on the uptake.
“All right”
Unexpectedly, Shang Jianli was standing with Ji Shiyun. The gentle smile on Ji Shileng’s face vanished the instant he saw him.
Shang Jianli’s gaze shifted from Ji Shileng to Qin Si.
His eyes narrowed. He recognized Qin Si.
Qin Si recognized Shang Jianli as well.
“Hello, Mr. Qin”
“Hello, Admiral Shang”
Qin Si exchanged a brief handshake with him, and an invisible tension filled the air.
Ji Shiyun stepped in, equally surprised to see Qin Si.
“Mr. Qin, what brings you here?”
She had indeed received word of his transfer to the Federation not long ago, but she had not expected to encounter him at a banquet in the Empire.
“I’m here to assist your delegation”
Qin Si took an envelope from his jacket pocket.
It was an official letter of appointment from the Federation.
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