AND ANOTHER THING
Ok so the fun thing about Lu Chen and his name Evan is yes Evan is his English name that he does go by, kind of no matter what language you’re listening to when you play. That’s the name he used in London, and it distances him from the Lu family just a little bit.
Because while his given surname is “Chen” it’s taboo in China to call someone by a one syllable name, which is why there’s so many short terms of affection that you tack on as a prefix. This keeps the bad spiritual associations away and also just shows your differing levels of affection. There’s some interesting info on this, you can research on your own time.
TL;DR - You cannot just call him “Chen” in your speaking (or your fics) because that’s a no-no and you can’t do it no matter how close you are to him, even if you’re his ever-loving spouse it’s still a no-no.
BECAUSE OF ALL THAT THOUGH, often you just tack on the family name to the front, and that’s just how everyone refers to you. That or, some equivalent of title, English equivalents being “Mr. Lu” but it’s really more like ‘CEO Lu’ or whatever is appropriate to call him.
SO HIS WHOLE LIFE he’s been associated by his last name, and if you’ve dove into him you can feel his contempt for it. So “Evan” really is a freedom, especially moving to a country that prioritizes surnames or ‘first’ names, to friends, teachers, even often in business, people’s first inclination is “Hello, Evan, nice to meet you.” Or “Hey, Evan.” It’s Evan Evan Evan, not Lu Lu Lu.
Until he meets you.
And he meets you where you’re referring to him like everyone else around you, culturally, because in the spoken language of his first encounter with you, he meets you as a “local” and doesn’t give his English name - hence your confusion when you realize he’s the CEO later on.
And then gradually the beauty of it will become, “Lu is the name of my family that I despise” to “I am the Lu Chen belonging to my lover” in other words, the Lu that belongs to YOU and that’s the association and he can’t help but love the way it sounds falling off your lips and the way he says “You can call on me anytime” speaks to that. First love, and first to make him think that maybe being called a Lu isn’t so bad.