Evil Love Appears chapter 16

“Hey!”

Fu Xiaoyu stood in the cold night wind, suddenly hearing a voice from behind him: “Fu Xiaoyu, what are you doing standing there?”

He was startled for a moment and turned around to see Xu Jiale holding a folder.

Xu Jiale’s position seemed a bit strange; he was actually looking up at Fu Xiaoyu.

Then he realized that it wasn’t Xu Jiale who was strange, but rather himself. He had just come downstairs and found a long line of people waiting for rides on the ride-hailing app, so he had become frustrated and jumped onto a flower bed near Wen Ke’s house, where he stood lost in thought.

“Come on, I’ll treat you to a few drinks.”

Seeing that Fu Xiaoyu didn’t respond, Xu Jiale didn’t mind and continued to speak.

Fu Xiaoyu just stood on the tall flower bed, looking at Xu Jiale. After a while, he turned his head and said, “Xu Jiale, I don’t need consolation.”

He said this very bluntly.

But for some reason, when Xu Jiale looked at him, he actually smiled slightly. “Fu Xiaoyu, I’ve been friends with the stubborn Han Jiangque since high school, and I’ve known him longer than you have. So, arguing with him doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. No need for consolation.”

“It’s about work.” Xu Jiale held up the folder in his hand. “I’ve organized the complete questionnaire into a checkpoint-style unlock mode with six modules, made some deletions and adjustments. Now, I have the complete paper version of the questionnaire in my hand. Isn’t this the progress you wanted to see yesterday? You can do it now and give some feedback.”

“Also, Fu Xiaoyu, you won’t be able to get a ride for several hours on New Year’s Eve. What’s the point of going back alone? I know there’s a famous sake bar not far from here, even though it’s quite expensive. Tonight, I’m willing to treat you, don’t miss this opportunity.”

Fu Xiaoyu didn’t say anything; he wasn’t that naive. But even though he understood, he was actually tempted when Xu Jiale said, “What’s the point of going back home alone?”

On New Year’s Eve, Fu Jing and Tang Ning should be happily enjoying seafood. He had booked a rooftop restaurant by the sea for them, where they could watch beautiful fireworks at night.

And he was alone, still not having eaten enough. If he went home, he would only have some frozen shrimp.

However, he had just spoken so forcefully that he didn’t know how to back down. Standing in the cold wind, he felt as if he were a “cat that accidentally got stuck in a tree and had the fire department come to rescue it” in a social news story.

“I won’t ask you why you and Han Jiangque had a fight, don’t worry.”

When Fu Xiaoyu didn’t speak, he lazily continued, “Come down, Fu Xiaoyu. Are you a cat? Do you climb up high when you’re angry?”

“…”

Fu Xiaoyu was glad it was late at night because he felt his face flushing.

After a moment of silence, he held onto the railing and jumped down nimbly.

“Let’s go.”

……………………

The Japanese sake bar that Xu Jiale chose was called “bespoke” and was located in a small commercial area at the corner of Wen Ke’s neighborhood.

Although the storefront looked low-key, the interior was well-decorated. The redwood wine cabinet and leather sofas looked warm under the warm lighting. As soon as they entered, a server took their coats.

Even though it was New Year’s Eve, there were only seven or eight customers sitting at the bar counter, drinking and chatting.

They chose a quiet corner booth, and as soon as they sat down, a server brought hot towels and hot green tea. Fu Xiaoyu had been feeling a bit cold from the wind, so this service made him feel comfortable.

When it came time to order, Xu Jiale recommended the Blue Label “Best of the Best” sake. Fu Xiaoyu usually only drank the common types of alcohol, so he wasn’t familiar with sake. He chose it simply because the name sounded elegant and decided to go with the “Best of the Best” like Xu Jiale.

Xu Jiale didn’t bother to look at the menu and, after ordering the sake, casually asked, “Do you have beef tongue and sandfish prepared in the kitchen?”

Fu Xiaoyu was surprised and couldn’t help but give Xu Jiale a glance.

It seemed a bit excessive to order such dishes in the middle of the night.

“Of course.” The server didn’t seem to mind and smiled. “You look like a regular here. Yes, this type of rich, dry sake pairs well with grilled dishes. I’ll call the kitchen to prepare them for you.”

“Great.” Xu Jiale leaned back on the sofa and said lazily, “By the way, bring us a pen and a couple more candles.”

He actually took a stack of thick questionnaires from his folder and placed them on the table, along with a ballpoint pen, pushing them in front of Fu Xiaoyu.

“Come on, let’s get started.” Xu Jiale poured a cup of warm sake for Fu Xiaoyu. “Six modules, over four hundred questions. It might take a while.”

“…”

Fu Xiaoyu definitely didn’t expect that there would come a day when Xu Jiale would voluntarily take out work documents in front of him.

He didn’t actually want to do it.

He had seen a simplified version of the questionnaire before, and everyone else in the company had tried it, but he hadn’t even touched it. Moreover, today’s version was much more complex.

However, given the situation tonight, he felt he couldn’t refuse, or else his decision to come out for drinks with Xu Jiale would seem strange.

Fu Xiaoyu clenched his teeth and brought the ballpoint pen over, then immediately lowered his head to start working on the first module.

He had actually seen the initial version of the questionnaire before, but when it came to doing it himself, he had to carefully read each question and then select an answer, so it wasn’t as quick as he thought.

Since he had decided to do it, he started working on it diligently, one question at a time.

The first module was about emotions, and he made good progress. After finishing it, he took a sip of the sake.

But when he flipped to the second module and saw the heading “Family Background,” Fu Xiaoyu subconsciously tightened his grip on the pen.

He glanced at Xu Jiale, who was leaning back on the sofa, sipping sake, and it didn’t seem like he was watching him.

Fu Xiaoyu breathed a sigh of relief, then lowered his head and started rapidly checking the boxes.

After completing over 400 questions, nearly an hour had passed unnoticed.

When Fu Xiaoyu pushed the stack of questionnaires towards Xu Jiale, he suddenly felt a nervousness similar to turning in a student’s exam paper during his school days.

He finished his sake and cleared his throat, “I think…”

“Wait.”

Xu Jiale took the questionnaires back but lazily raised his hand to interrupt him.

Fu Xiaoyu was a bit confused. Wasn’t he supposed to share his thoughts?

“These two modules,” Xu Jiale opened the folder again, skimmed through it, and then handed a few sheets of paper to Fu Xiaoyu separately, “Answer these two sections again.”

Fu Xiaoyu looked down at the questionnaires Xu Jiale handed him and froze.

The questionnaires for the family background and sexual psychology sections had been singled out for him to answer again.

“Why?” He stammered.

“Fu Xiaoyu, do you know how many people in my field I see do questionnaires every semester?” Xu Jiale said calmly. “Apart from these two modules, you spend an average of 10-12 seconds on each question. This is the speed at which you genuinely read and think. But for these two sections, you hardly spend more than 7 seconds on any question—you’re answering randomly.”

“I’m not…”

Fu Xiaoyu felt sweat forming on his nose and instinctively wanted to explain.

“Then answer them again.”

Xu Jiale suddenly put down his sake glass, leaned forward, and looked straight at him. “Answer them again and provide the exact same answers. Prove me wrong, Fu Xiaoyu. If you’ve honestly answered based on your intuition and thoughts, this shouldn’t be difficult, right?”

Fu Xiaoyu’s fingers trembled slightly.

Throughout his life, he had never considered cheating on any exam, yet here he was, not being honest while answering a questionnaire. And when this deception was swiftly uncovered, he felt deeply embarrassed.

“I…” Fu Xiaoyu looked down at the questionnaires in front of him. He knew he couldn’t do it. There were places where he hadn’t even finished reading the questions.

“Never mind, it doesn’t really matter,” Xu Jiale suddenly took back the questionnaires and placed them back in the folder. His expression remained calm, but the playful glint had disappeared from his narrow eyes.

Fu Xiaoyu stared at Xu Jiale blankly.

Xu Jiale was angry with him for not being honest.

As he thought about this, he felt a sense of emptiness but didn’t know how to explain himself.

“Fu Xiaoyu,” Xu Jiale said, opening the glass cover of a candle, and lighting a cigarette. After a while, he glanced at him and said calmly, “For you, I don’t need questionnaires to form my judgments.”

“Of course, it’s a rough judgment, not academically rigorous. But my intuition tells me that my judgments are correct. If you honestly complete the entire questionnaire, I believe you will reach the same conclusion—you are an upholder of order and a perfectionist.”

“Fu Xiaoyu, ask yourself, do you often feel an inner compulsion to do the right thing? The standards of rightness are so strict that you even blame yourself every moment? You control yourself, every detail, and sometimes can’t help but control others to meet your standards of ‘correctness,’ even if it makes you unlikeable. This is what you enforce.”

“Why don’t you want to answer the part about your family? I believe it’s because you already have the answers within you.”

Xu Jiale said word by word, “Because in your family, there was never a real protector. Your father was not a protector; physical punishment, reprimands, insults—in an abusive family environment, a child grows into a flawed perfectionist because they were forced to obey the behavior standards of adults from a young age.”

“Fear will create an internal supervisory mechanism in you, monitoring your every move, forcing you to be perfect. Damocles’ sword, from childhood to adulthood, always hangs above your head, ready to fall—it makes you the Fu Xiaoyu you are today, an emotionally repressed perfectionist.”

At that moment, Fu Xiaoyu felt like something had pierced straight through his heart through Xu Jiale’s eyes.

He just wanted to escape immediately.