Chapter 2: 2

2 – Understanding men and leveling up

Translator: Xena
Editor: meowmiao

 

Zou Shun on the other end of the phone immediately sighed in disappointment.

“I suspect this person is deliberately making up stories to disgust people,” he said.

“It’s possible.” Fang Mo agreed loudly. “Don’t take it to heart and just forget it okay!”

“Alright.” Zou Shun replied before suddenly remembering something. “By the way, let’s not discuss that stupid × anymore. Do you remember what I said to you in the afternoon?”

After he finished speaking, he hehe-d twice, his tone turning into that of a very rare, shy manner of speech.

Fang Mo had already forgotten, but now that the other mentioned it, he remembered. He had agreed to listen to his emotional troubles.

This guy, Zou Shun, has been a little bewitched recently. He has always been unrestrained, ruthless and unreasonable in men-men relationships, and has done a lot of things that broke people’s hearts and hurt the kidneys. It was right to say that he was an old driver1, but recently, because of awakening to love, it was not an exaggeration to say that he was now just like a young maiden yearning for spring.

Fang Mo hadn’t met the person who hooked him into delirium yet, but had heard a lot about him from Zou Shun. Half out of curiosity and half out of concern, Fang Mo was very willing to hear Zou Shun talk about the details.

The private message conversation window on the computer screen flickered.

“Cough,” Fang Mo lowered his head and cleared his throat very artificially, “I… suddenly remembered something urgent. Can I call you later?”

“Huh? What happened?” Zou Shun asked.

“Anyway, uhm… I’ll hang up first.” After he finished speaking, he cut off the call straight away before Zou Shun could make a sound.

After hurriedly closing the enlargement of the picture, he found that the other party had sent three new messages during this time.

[“Can you see it?”]

[“Uh……”]

[“You still there?”]

Fang Mo quickly replied.

[“Here here here here here! I got a call earlier!”]

After sending, he realized that he seemed too excited. Unfortunately, the private message did not have a retract function and his blunder could not be saved.

Luckily, the other side didn’t realize anything wrong.

[“I thought I looked too passerby that you thought I was talking nonsense hahaha.”]

Fang Mo shouted in his heart, utter nonsense! In his 20 years of living, he traveled so many roads yet has never seen such a passerby. He then clicked on the picture again, resized it and moved it to the edge of the dialog box. Fang Mo replied while admiring it.

“How could that be, you are really too modest.”

He couldn’t say anything special about this man’s face, expression, or body, but the corners of his eyes and tips of his brows were all sexy. Fang Mo bet that if the photo really exploded in that comment thread, the little gays who were furious would all line up the next second and shout ‘I can do it’.

Fortunately, it was not posted.

Thinking about it this way, this person’s series of seemingly disgusting behaviors, all of which became excusable, even became full of charisma.

Obviously, every sentence of his was true, but he had been extremely criticized in the comment area. He had an unbelievably saintly temper to not retaliate verbally from the beginning to the end, and not impulsively slap everyone in the face with photos. What a sensible, gentle, earnest, and very, very, very, very, very handsome man.

The strings of Fang Mo’s heart were rippling.

[“Let’s stop flattering each other, we really don’t look alike, do we?”]

The other party replied.

This was true. Fang Mo was not at all feminine, but he was considered quite the delicate type among men. His double eyelids were distinctly layered and long, his lips were thin and the corners of his lips were slightly raised, while the bridge of his nose was high but not wide. On the other hand, the other party was obviously rougher than him, with sword eyebrows, starry eyes, and slightly pointed chin.

Fang Mo pondered for a while, and thought that although they didn’t look alike, they were a good match.

It was a pity the other party’s thinking was completely different from his.

[“It seems that the aesthetics of the gay world are quite diverse. I used to think they were interested in me because they had some special preferences that were different from the norm, but it looks like the mainstream aesthetics of human beings are still universal. It’s inevitable to like a handsome guy like you.”]

Fang Mo keenly extracted the information he wanted from it.

This man must have thought from the bottom of his heart that he was very handsome! Fang Mo suppressed his distorted smile, frantically rummaged through his photo album, picked out his recent, most satisfying photo, and sent it over.

This photo wasn’t a selfie. He saw it from the school’s confession wall. A girl secretly submitted it, saying she fell in love with him at first sight and wanted to ask if anyone knew his contact information.

But this photo was also not a candid shot. Because when the girl, who had peeked at him many times, carefully raised her phone, the long well-aware Fang Mo had turned his head and smiled at her.

This caused the final photo to look slightly blurry due to the camera shake. But also because of this, the picture came with a hazy beauty, the person in it looked fresh, natural and sunny, full of youthful cheerfulness.

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Just looking at the photo, no one would’ve expected Fang Mo’s mental activity at that time: Oh, that must’ve been handsome!

When he saw the photo later, his thought was: Ai, it’s not surprising her hands were shaking, if it was me who saw such a man, my heart would also be moved.

When he sent the photo over, he added some pretense.

[“No, no, I simply looked good in the photo earlier. In fact, I’m really average, I usually look like this.”]

He was full of anticipation as he waited for half a minute. Finally, he received a reply of only two words.

[“Very good.”]

Perfunctory air overflowed from the screen.

What a heartbreakingly unromantic straight man.

The conversation instantly turned stagnant. But if they parted ways like this, Fang Mo would not be able to reconcile himself so after mulling for a while, he took the initiative to send a question.

[“Be honest, are you a little homophobic now?”]

This time, the answer from the other side was much faster.

[“Rather than homophobia, I’d say I’m a little nervous. I’m afraid of sexual harassment.”]

Fang Mo blushed in front of the screen for some reason.

[“You’re frequently sexually harassed?”] he asked.

[“It’s not to the point of being frequent… Forget it, it’s too stupid,”] the other party replied.

Fang Mo was a little angry. Where are all these little idiots from, not knowing how to be reserved and instead being so shameless and brazen? Isn’t this beating the grass and scaring the snake?!

Just as he was thinking, another message came from the other side.

[“I’ve met two boys like this before, they were a couple and they treated me in a normal manner. Although they looked a little strange, I didn’t feel disgusted because they didn’t bother me. But chasing after me, I cannot, even if they’re polite, I cannot. It is too embarrassing. You should understand, right?”]

It was difficult for Fang Mo to put himself in the other party’s shoes. He had been favored by many girls overtly and implicitly, and he never had any resistance against it. At that time, he took the initiative to contact the girl who took his photo and posted it to the confession wall, to politely and directly express his gratitude and rejection.

Compared to being pursued by girls, he was more disgusted with men who were unprepossessing yet obscene. After all, even if girls confessed, they seldom acted aggressively, but some gay men were vulgar to the extreme and could cause serious discomfort. Although Fang Mo’s orientation was toward the same sex, he was a picky master, which was why he was not short of suitors but still single. He also encountered those who stalked and groped, and still felt chills in retrospect.

Thinking up to this, he suddenly understood the other party’s feelings.

[“I get you. Have you ever been sent a weird photo online?”] he asked.

The other side answered in seconds, feeling excited.

[“I have!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”]

Then quickly supplemented a large section of text.

[“When I was young and ignorant, I posted a photo of myself on Weibo, and somehow it was forwarded by gay guys⁠—who came out of nowhere⁠—to their circle. Hundreds of messages circulated all at once. Dang, the private messages over the next few months were like a nightmare. I deleted the photo but it was no use.”]

No wonder he insisted on firmly refusing to post photos, it was a lesson obtained through blood and tears.

[“I have also come across that…”] Fang Mo replied.

Of course his situation was different. He had downloaded a same-sex dating app, and when he registered, he chose 0.52 in good conscience with the mindset of not missing out on true love, and then uploaded more than a dozen carefully selected selfie photos in his profile.

After that, in addition to the constant stream of normal greetings, he received dozens of speechless-inducing and indecent photos one after another. There were fronts and rears, high-definition and unpixelated; he was stupefied.

The person on the opposite side seemed a little excited because it was rare to find someone with the same misery.

[“I just don’t understand. Some people are even less than half my size, why do they have the nerve to send it to strangers on the Internet? Isn’t that losing face?”]

His original intent was sarcasm and complaint.

But Fang Mo instantly turned mischievous.

Overwhelmed by emotions, he poked the keyboard with two trembling fingers and typed carefully.

“Is it true or false, how big are you, let’s see?”

After typing, he stared at the line of words, swallowed silently, and pressed his finger on the delete key. After pressing it hard, the text disappeared from the input box in an instant.

Fang Mo was stunned when he saw the line of words pop up in a dialog box. In his distracted state, he had mistaken Enter for Delete.

 

 

1

The different kind of driver, not the literal one.

2

When you register on dating sites/apps you will be asked if you’re looking for a casual or serious relationship. Sometimes they provide a gauge and this is what Fang Mo encountered. I’m just not sure if Fang Mo chose high or low, because the gauge varies.

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