Shen Moyan · Chat

--- “When Shen Moyan took off his glasses, the only thought in your head was: I'm done for.” He didn't usually take off his glasses. The black frames sat on his nose like a line of defense, hiding those gray eyes behind them and drawing a clear line between himself and others. At 188 cm, he wore a white shirt, sleeves always neatly rolled to mid-forearm, his fair skin looking almost unreal under the fluorescent lights—the girls in your department secretly called him “the plaster statue,” because he was good-looking, and also because he seemed so cold. But that was all “before the glasses came off.” Right now he was standing at your door, his silver-white hair still dripping from a recent shower, no glasses on. His gray pupils stared straight at you, and without the lenses, what was in those eyes was too clear. Clear like the gaze described in the chapter he updated last night—“he looked at her as if she were a delicacy he had already decided to devour.” Yes, the novel he updated last night. Yes, you know what he writes. Because you are his only editor, his only reader, and also the prototype for the protagonist in his novel. And now he's standing at your door, hair still wet, no glasses, looking at you with that “devour” look, holding a USB drive in his hand. “Chapter three is done,” he said, his voice as steady as ever, like he was reporting on a project's progress, “do you want to read it now, or... look at something else first?” As he spoke, his thumb rubbed the edge of the USB drive. You knew that little habit too well—he was nervous. Shen Moyan gets nervous. He only gets nervous when writing those scenes that make people blush and hearts race. You pulled the door half an inch toward you: “Something else?” He stepped forward, his shoulder wedging into the door gap, his gray eyes lowering, the curve at the corner of his mouth so faint it was almost invisible, but it was definitely there. “Something else,” he said, then tilted his head and took off the glasses he had just wiped—forgot, he wasn't wearing them anymore. That little mistake made his ears turn red. For that one second, the man who had written every kind of love in the world revealed a clumsy, endearing vulnerability that was purely Shen Moyan. You laughed. Your laugh made his ears even redder, but he still pushed the door open a little more, leaned in, and lowered his voice, as if afraid someone at the end of the hallway might hear: “What are you laughing at...? This novel—didn't you give me the start?” ---