Love Delusion: Chapter 7

Lin Anran had sneakily joined an online group of illustrators before.

He never talked or chatted in the group. There were a lot of people in the group and they were very active. As a result, every time Lin Anran forgot to look at his phone for a long time, the message count would reach 99+.

Lin Anran never turned off message notifications, so he would even receive large quantities of irrelevant message notifications one by one.

Although he was the most untalkative person in the group, this person himself always had a sense of participation in the group, pretending that he was also one of them.

He didn’t speak, but in the eyes of others, he was just an ordinary cold character. Just like a big brother.

It was originally an idle chat group. But some sharp-eyed people caught Lin Anran’s change of personal information in the morning, which triggered a wave of discussions in the group.

Lin Anran only saw the 99+ pieces of news after he finished his meeting with Peng Peng and returned home alone.

He flipped through the news and was surprised to find that the topic everyone was discussing today was himself.

Because of this, Lin Anran looked at the news as if he was doing reading comprehension. He swiped his finger to read the words in the small bubbles one by one.

There were some people eating dog food and some people eating lemons. Some people suspected that Lin Anran’s hand may have slipped, and there were also people who wanted to fish in troubled water, suggesting that Lin Anran send out red envelopes.

Lin Anran read the entire chat log and was very confused. Moving his fingers, he followed up with a red envelope.

This topic of conversation had grown cold some time ago since the party concerned didn’t come out to respond. Now that Lin Anran suddenly made a move, it seemed out of place.

But fortunately, red envelopes were red envelopes, and no one had any opinions on red envelopes.

There were more than one red envelope. When people saw that the big guy, who usually doesn’t talk easily, had sent out red envelopes faster than they could grab, they swished their finger across the screen like windshield wipers to brush red envelopes.

Anyway, Lin Anran only saw that everyone had a lot of words, and he didn’t know if this number of envelopes was enough.

The group was quiet for a few seconds, and then swarms of blessings were offered. Lin Anran’s unread messages became 99+ again in the blink of an eye.

Lin Anran was surrounded by countless enthusiastic blessings in an instant, which made him put down the phone shyly. Because he was communicating through a screen, he felt a little more relaxed this time.

His social circle was just one acre of land, and the information that he was in love had already covered most of it.

Lin Anran held the phone and thought for a second. He clicked on Shang Hao’s personal homepage and found the column that displayed his relationship status.

Lin Anran was already mentally prepared when he read the unsentimental Chinese character “single” that publicly hung there.

He comforted himself that Shang Hao just hadn’t bothered to change it.

In fact, when people first fill in the information, they would be single by default. Many users who frequently don’t come online were often “single” by default.

He comforted himself that Shang Hao’s “single” status was just there by default.

Putting down the phone, Lin Anran went into a daze again.

He was thinking that maybe he also had a guilty conscience, so he didn’t want to show others the photos he had specifically proposed to take in the morning.

After all, since Lin Anran made that decision, he purposefully chose to believe that everything was true.

It didn’t matter if someone recognized Shang Hao’s identity.

Lin Anran knew that, in fact, there was a huge difference between himself and Shang Hao.

How big was the difference? Even if Lin Anran went to the front desk of the Tianneng Group headquarter and said that he was looking for Shang Hao, the lady at the front desk would stop him with a smile.

Don’t ask why Lin Anran was so certain.

Because he went there last month.

Lin Anran also saw many people sitting in the waiting area. Some wore suits, some wore ordinary shoes. They were either there to propose an investment or a project, or to take a photo with Shang Hao. Lin Anran was dumbfounded.

In short, he and them were classified as one group of people.

When Lin Anran thought about this, he rubbed his face with both hands and decided not to think about it anymore.

——

That night, Shang Hao saw the picture Lin Anran said he wanted to draw.

In fact, Lin Anran didn’t draw today. He just didn’t expect that Shang Hao would remember better than him, and he would go and look for the drawing as soon as he walked in. Therefore, Lin Anran had no choice but to show him the picture he drew yesterday.

Shang Hao held up the picture and looked at it.

How should he put it? This person in the drawing looked different from how he looked this morning, and the hairstyle obviously wasn’t the same. Forget it. But…Shang Hao looked at it for a long time and finally raised his head doubtfully. “I have a bean sprout on my head.”

Lin Anran said weakly, “That’s me.”

The person in the drawing was so vivid, but the double photo of this morning suddenly became a single person photo. Shang Hao frowned and reluctantly looked at it again.

He finally decided not to comment.

He stayed there alone for a long time looking at the drawing. Once Shang Hao went to take a shower, Lin Anran took the drawing from the table and was taken aback.

The drawing was changed.

In the drawing, the little dummy standing on top of Shang Hao’s head blowing the air was gone. It was erased. But looking down, a little dummy that was drawn in a completely different style was put in Shang Hao’s suit pocket, with two helpless little hands gripping Shang Hao’s pocket tightly.

Lin Anran: …

He picked up the drawing and looked at it again, and couldn’t help but smile.

Changing other people’s drawing so unreasonably, this was something Shang Hao would do.

When Shang Hao returned to the room after his shower, he saw Lin Anran sitting on the bedside, staring intently at the screen of his tablet.

He only heard his own voice when he approached.

Shang Hao listened for a while and recognized it. Wasn’t this the economic exchange he had participated in last month? Because it was organized abroad, this exchange wasn’t considered a big hit in China, and there were very few reports on it. But Lin Anran still managed to find a video.

He didn’t bother the serious Lin Anran, which was rare. Instead, he sat down beside him and watched himself with Lin Anran.

There was no other movement in the room except for Shang Hao’s voice coming from the video.

Frankly speaking, the official video released was very boring, and most of the time, he was speaking formulaically. Even Shang Hao himself quickly lost patience.

He couldn’t calm down beside Lin Anran. Sometimes sniffing his falling hair, and sometimes holding his hand, he quickly became dishonest again. Finally, the tip of his nose went all the way into the soft flesh of Lin Anran’s neck.

He was very obsessed with every part of Lin Anran’s body. When holding his hand, he could kiss every tip of his fingers one by one.

However, Lin Anran seemed to be more interested in the flat Shang Hao in the tablet than the three-dimensional Shang Hao in front of him, His pair of eyes was stuck to the screen all the time.

He would also show a smile of support for the boring and awkward questions the host would occasionally throw out.

This wasn’t normal. Shang Hao turned his head to face Ranran, and his gaze fell on his eyelashes and on his soft lips.

Feeling hot breath hit his neck, Lin Anran shrank back his itchy neck.

The progress bar had reached the point where Shang Hao was being interviewed after the end of the exchange.

The reporter asked very officially, “Many people think you are very forward-looking. In your opinion, what is the most important thing in your career?”

Shang Hao, whose face was pressed to Lin Anran’s neck, and the other Shang Hao on the screen, both answered the question at the same time.

“It is teamwork. Team spirit is the soul of an enterprise. My team has followed me for more than ten years and has very strong collaboration. We understand each other and have the same pace and goals…”

The perfectly coordinated words from the two Shang Haos completely overlapped, creating a two-channel sound effect. One voice came from the video, and the other was said into his ear. Lin Anran, who was caught in it, immediately felt bewildered, as if he was sitting on the edge of reality and illusion.

He froze for a moment. Shang Hao raised his hand and turned his head to face him. He said with some dissatisfaction, “It’s all about memorizing a script. What is there to see?”

Lin Anran didn’t know what to say. He didn’t care about the content of the interview, he just wanted to see Shang Hao.

The warm touch on his face had become unreal. He thought about turning his head to look at the “real” Shang Hao on the screen, but the hand on his face became slightly more firm, preventing him from turning back.

“Whatever you want to hear, I will tell you.”

Lin Anran didn’t speak, but opened his lips slightly. Seeing his dull look, Shang Hao couldn’t help but smile. He put his head on Lin Anran’s chest, indiscriminately blocking half of the screen in a domineering manner.

“It’s all a lie, you fool.”

Shang Hao’s mouth raised an inexplicable smile, the kind that wasn’t so friendly.

“These kinds of interviews are all the same. Do you know what they like to ask? They like to ask me what advice I have for those people.”

The real person had more impact than the one on the screen. When this face smiled, the impact of this face was very strong.

“My suggestion?” he said slowly, and then revealed bad things. “My real suggestion is to watch less chicken soup(1). There are some things that some people are born without, and these people won’t have them in their entire life.”

“So, this kind of show, there’s nothing to see.”

He had a natural arrogance deep in his bones, and sometimes he would expose this kind of bad arrogance.

Lin Anran’s mood became complicated again.

Shang Hao was obviously close to him, but at this moment, Lin Anran felt that there was a great distance between them.

————–
Translation Notes:
(1) Chicken soup — Chicken soup probably refers to published inspirational stories (Chicken Soup for the Soul, etc.) about real life people. The point is that they are inspirational, positive, and uplifting.

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