Luo Jin took Lan Xi out for Japanese food.
Lan Xi wasn’t accustomed to eating ice-cold raw meat, and one mouthful of wasabi left him choking for ages.
When he lifted his head again, his eyes were brimming with tears.
Luo Jin was so frightened his soul nearly flew out of his body. He hurriedly grabbed tissues to wipe Lan Xi’s face. “Hey, why are you acting like you’ve never eaten this before…?”
Then he quickly gave Lan Xi some warm tea to rinse his mouth.
Lan Xi spent ages spitting and rinsing. “I haven’t.”
Luo Jin laughed. “Come on, you’re joking with me. How could Young Master Wen possibly never have eaten Japanese food? Before I went abroad, Fourth Young Master Feng treated us once. Didn’t we all go together?”
“I’m not Wen Lan.”
Luo Jin laughed three times. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”
After that awkward laugh, he looked at Lan Xi’s expression again. Seeing that Lan Xi didn’t look remotely as though he were joking, Luo Jin instinctively shrank his neck, and his smile faded. “Y-you’re joking, right?”
Lan Xi had already lost his appetite. He frowned. “Why does nobody believe me?”
Luo Jin stared blankly as Lan Xi stood, then hurried after him.
Only then did he carefully look Lan Xi over again from head to toe.
“Well, if you put it that way, you really have changed quite a lot compared with before… But that’s normal, right? I came back after spending a few years abroad, and a bunch of people told me I’d gotten more fashionable too…”
As Luo Jin spoke, he started to sling an arm around Lan Xi’s neck. But halfway through the motion, he suddenly remembered Fu Hui, so his arm awkwardly changed direction in midair.
“So you really are just messing with me, right?” Luo Jin repeatedly sought confirmation.
Lan Xi couldn’t be bothered to speak.
After failing to get anything tasty to eat, Luo Jin had already fallen to last place in Lan Xi’s friend ranking.
Even though Lan Xi only had one friend.
Luo Jin was terrified of offending Lan Xi now and tried to summon some gentleness from him. “Those clothes you bought that day, um… how were they? Were you satisfied with them?”
Only then did Lan Xi pay attention to him. “Wen Yue confiscated them.”
Luo Jin thought bitterly that he really had managed to bring up exactly the wrong subject. He hurriedly joined in the criticism. “Your big brother went way too far…”
Lan Xi didn’t particularly care. “Buy more.”
Luo Jin was only afraid Lan Xi wouldn’t give him another chance to spend money. Hearing that, he immediately clapped his hands. “Sure, sure. We’ll buy more.”
Five minutes later, they entered another store.
When Luo Jin came back out with both hands full, he suddenly thought of a problem. “But if you take these home, won’t they just get confiscated again?”
Lan Xi said, “Mm-hm.”
He turned to Luo Jin. “You take them home.”
Luo Jin started stammering. “M-me…?”
“You can try them too,” Lan Xi sincerely suggested.
Luo Jin waved his hands frantically. “N-no thanks.” At that point, it would no longer be a question of whether he could conquer his big brother. His father might actually hang him up and beat him.
“What else do you want to eat? Want to go get something?” Luo Jin tried to ingratiate himself again.
Lan Xi stopped in the mall and looked up at a sign.
He pointed. “Is that the toilet?”
Luo Jin said, “Yeah.” After answering, he couldn’t help muttering to himself that the current Wen Lan possessed a peculiar sort of beauty untouched by even the most basic knowledge of society.
Lan Xi walked ahead and crooked a finger at him. “Come here.”
Luo Jin followed without thinking.
He regretted it very quickly.
Inside the cramped stall, he held up the phone with trembling hands. “Th-this… Is this really something I’m allowed to see?”
Lan Xi bent one leg, leaned down, and hooked a finger beneath the thigh garter.
This was also his first time seeing an accessory like this.
Who would’ve thought? Heaven had even more tricks than Hell… No wonder everyone said angels were all repressed perverts.
Lan Xi adjusted the thigh garter. The red ornaments hanging from it cascaded down his leg with a faint clatter.
Luo Jin was already at his limit. He half-tilted his head back and began silently invoking the Virgin Mary… yet his eyes still uncontrollably stole glances downward.
The red ornaments had been made into uneven layers of teardrop shapes.
They were completely plastic.
But paired with Lan Xi’s snow-white skin, they looked as gorgeous as genuine gemstones.
Luo Jin screamed despairingly inside, I can’t do this. I might actually get killed…
Lan Xi kicked him on the butt in dissatisfaction. “Take the picture.”
Why was he just standing there like an idiot?
“Oh, oh, right.” Luo Jin barely recovered some sense. He didn’t dare look directly at Lan Xi and could only stare at him through the phone’s viewfinder.
The restroom lighting was dim, but Lan Xi lost none of his destructive power after being translated through the camera lens.
Luo Jin had absolutely no memory of how he finished taking the picture.
When Lan Xi started rustling around and taking off his clothes again, Luo Jin finally snapped back to himself and shot out of the stall, afraid one more glance might make him die on the spot.
Lan Xi, on the other hand, was very pleased with the photograph.
He couldn’t resist admiring it over and over for ten whole minutes before finally walking out.
“Buy ice cream,” Lan Xi said to Luo Jin after washing his hands.
By now, Luo Jin didn’t dare stay with him any longer. He hurriedly invented an excuse. “My dad just called. He wants me to go back.”
Lan Xi was disappointed. “Oh.”
Although Luo Jin said he had to leave, he still bought Lan Xi ice cream first.
Lan Xi sat alone in the rest area, biting into his ice cream as he updated his work log.
He recorded Wen Yue and Wen Ming’s reactions.
In his eyes, those two seraphs were almost transparent now. They were extremely easy to figure out.
There was only one exception.
Lan Xi fiercely wrote down Fu Hui’s name.
Because he couldn’t see Fu Hui’s expression or feel his body temperature, it was difficult to judge his reactions and changes.
Lan Xi opened his mouth wide and bit off half the ice cream in one go, exposing the tip of one sharp tooth.
—
Lan Xi went to school every day but never entered the classroom, so his name was never present during roll call. Eventually, the school finally called Wen Yue.
“We remember that you previously asked us to pay particular attention to Wen Lan’s movements.”
“Yes.” Wen Yue paused. “What did he do this time?”
The school immediately tattled that they hadn’t seen him in class for days.
Wen Yue froze.
Then what had he been going to school for every day?
Purely to meet up with Luo Jin?
The headache that still hadn’t recovered from the previous day came charging back at Wen Yue.
After hanging up, Wen Yue immediately told Assistant Liu to go pick Lan Xi up and take him home.
What was he supposed to do with Wen Lan?
Scolding him was useless, hitting him would turn into a mutual brawl, and cutting off his card would make him run away… For a moment, Wen Yue genuinely felt as though his lifespan were being shortened by ten years.
He stood there thinking for a long time. In the end, he called the school back and requested several days of leave for Wen Lan.
When he got home that evening, Wen Yue didn’t lose his temper. He merely said at the dinner table, “Since you aren’t studying even when you go to school, you might as well stop going for now.”
That would at least keep him from running around with Luo Jin again.
Lan Xi had no objection to that.
Perfect. He wanted to watch television again anyway.
Since he didn’t have to get up the next day, Lan Xi simply watched television all night and became so engrossed that he even forgot to send his photograph.
Wen Yue, on the other hand, still had work and got up early as usual.
Sitting alone at the empty dining table, he asked a servant, “Where’s the young master?”
The servant replied, “Still asleep.”
Wen Yue ate breakfast alone, and the driver and assistant arrived right on schedule to pick him up.
Everything seemed to have returned to normal, but Wen Yue still felt uncomfortable.
He sat in the car thinking for ages before finally realizing why—he and Wen Ming worked themselves to the bone from morning till night to support one infuriating little thing.
And that little thing was happily sleeping in.
Just who exactly was being punished here?
Wen Yue irritably rubbed his forehead and felt that life was becoming increasingly impossible.
Lan Xi slept until one in the afternoon before getting up.
He didn’t like the breakfast food, so he had a servant go buy something he preferred.
After eating and drinking his fill, he turned on the television for background noise while flipping through a ninth-grade Chinese textbook. Every so often, he compared it against a reference book beside him.
Ugh. Learning this is still so hard.
The reading made Lan Xi sleepy.
He stood and went upstairs. Seeing a servant making his bed, he suddenly had an idea and asked, “Where is Wen Yue’s room?”
The servant, confused, pointed it out to him.
Lan Xi walked over and pressed down on the handle, only to discover that the door was locked.
Why?! Why did his door get to lock when mine doesn’t?!
“I want to go in,” Lan Xi said, turning toward the servant.
The servant hesitated. “But the eldest young master doesn’t allow anyone inside…”
Lan Xi’s eyes shimmered. He softened his voice. “But I want to go in.” His voice was light and gentle, reaching straight into the listener’s heart.
The servant dazedly found the key and opened the door.
Lan Xi swaggered inside and immediately threw himself onto the bed.
Wen Yue’s room was decorated mainly in cold grays, with few ornaments. There wasn’t even a television. Lan Xi looked around and found it incredibly boring. At last, he remembered the photograph he still hadn’t sent.
Fu Hui was sitting in a restaurant. Across from him was a foreign man with deep-set eyes and a high nose, speaking enthusiastically to him in English.
His phone screen suddenly lit up.
The foreign man very deliberately glanced toward the screen, trying to catch a glimpse of something.
Fu Hui unlocked it.
At last, the third photograph arrived.
The foreign man’s nonstop talking abruptly cut off the moment his gaze landed on the picture.
Fu Hui noticed him looking and was already about to turn the phone facedown.
But in that instant, Fu Hui suddenly realized something was different—
It wasn’t because Lan Xi was wearing a red dress this time, nor because of its unusual asymmetric design that exposed the thigh garter on one leg.
Fu Hui’s gaze swept past all that and stopped on the background of the photograph.
Without question, the first two pictures had been mirror selfies.
But this one… had been taken by someone else.
The patterned tiles in the background showed that the location was a restroom.
Inside such a cramped stall, who had held the phone and taken a picture like this of him…?
Lan Xi wasn’t smiling in the photograph. He merely raised his eyes slightly toward the camera—or perhaps toward the person behind it. The dim yellow lighting gave his gaze a lingering intimacy.
It was an effortless, completely natural seduction.
It utterly shattered the impression left behind by the “mute girl” waiting outside the little Western-style house, replacing it with something far more forceful.
Who had taken it for him?
Could it have been Luo Jin?
Inside such a tiny stall, just how crowded would it have been with two people squeezed into it?
Those thoughts burst out almost instinctively, impossible to suppress.
The associations behind them churned into towering waves, entirely beyond the control of the person whose mind had produced them.
“Did I say something wrong?” The foreign man across from him had already begun to look helpless.
Fu Hui’s throat tightened.
He enlarged the photograph, then shrank it again. Finally, he turned off the screen and rose with impeccable courtesy. “Something suddenly came up.”
The foreign man could only stand to see him off. “All right. Perhaps we can meet again on Wednesday?”
Just then, Fu Hui’s phone screen suddenly lit up brightly.
The unfamiliar number belonging to Lan Xi abruptly called him.
Fu Hui tightened his grip on the phone slightly before answering.
“…”
There was only the faintest sound of breathing from the other end.
Lan Xi didn’t speak.
Neither did Fu Hui.
That strange silence crawled through the phone signal and spread toward both of them.
It made the sound of breathing even clearer.
Almost as though it were brushing across the eardrum.
In the end, the silence was broken by sudden thump, thump sounds as Lan Xi smacked at the phone on the other end.
Lan Xi muttered in confusion, “…Why can’t I see your face? How do I make your face show up?”
Fu Hui seemed to thaw instantly and finally spoke. “You mean a video call.”
Lan Xi said, “Oh.”
He hung up with a click.
Fu Hui lowered the phone.
The device was burning hot.
A few seconds later, Lan Xi called again.
Fu Hui answered once more.
Lan Xi’s voice came from the other end again. He pressed things at random and smacked the phone another couple of times. Thump, thump. “…Still wrong.”
Then, without waiting for Fu Hui to react, Lan Xi hung up again.
Fu Hui was speechless.
The phone lit up for the third time.
Before Lan Xi could speak, Fu Hui said first, “I’ll teach you.”
Lan Xi paused on the other end. This time, he didn’t hang up.
Fu Hui and the foreign man walked outside together while the secretary beside them chatted enthusiastically with the foreign man. As they walked, Fu Hui used Lan Xi’s phone number to find his WeChat account.
He added Lan Xi on WeChat.
Then he initiated a video call himself.
“Press the green button to answer,” Fu Hui instructed.
Lan Xi said, “Oh.”
The image on the screen wobbled, and Lan Xi, lying on the bed, quickly appeared before Fu Hui’s eyes.
At the same time, Fu Hui’s appearance entered Lan Xi’s view.
Lan Xi saw Fu Hui dressed neatly in a suit. He saw the tall, brilliantly illuminated building behind him. He saw the shifting lights blur Fu Hui’s expression, making it difficult to distinguish his reaction.
Fu Hui saw the headboard behind Lan Xi. The leather upholstery complemented Lan Xi’s snow-white skin, lending the image a decadent sort of beauty.
They stared fixedly at each other.
One was trying to find a crack in the other’s expression.
The other seemed intent on completely taking him apart with his gaze.
A burst of footsteps suddenly approached.
Someone strode angrily into the room. “Wen Lan, who told you that you could come into my room?”
The angry voice quickly rose.
Even Fu Hui heard it with perfect clarity.
“Why are you on my bed?!”
Fu Hui’s brow twitched.
Light and shadow slid across his face. This time, even when he stepped into darkness, it couldn’t conceal the change in his expression.
That instant of cold viciousness was caught clearly by Lan Xi.
The image suddenly jolted. Lan Xi ended the video call, turned around, and smilingly faced the furious Wen Yue.
Lan Xi looked innocent. “I was waiting for you to come home.”
Wen Yue choked. “Is this how you wait?”
Lan Xi had his own perfectly reasonable explanation. “I read this afternoon. I got tired. My bed was being made. So I came here to sleep. When I woke up, I could wait for you.”
“You’re not a three-year-old child anymore, Wen Lan.” Wen Yue’s hand clenched tightly as he forced the words out. “You can’t keep climbing into your older brother’s bed.”
Lan Xi slowly wriggled his way off the bed like a little fish.
Of course, since he was this beautiful, he ought to be a mermaid.
He blinked and repeated that same sentence. “I’m not Wen Lan.”
Wen Yue didn’t snap at him to stop talking nonsense the way Wen Ming would have.
Instead, he suddenly asked, “Do you actually get happy when you see me angry?”
Lan Xi looked exceptionally innocent. “No.”
Wen Yue turned around. “Downstairs.”
Lan Xi put on his slippers and obediently followed.
The servants scarcely dared breathe as they carefully brought out the dishes one by one.
Sitting at the table, Wen Yue felt that this couldn’t continue. Locking Wen Lan inside the house apparently didn’t help either. He could still wreak havoc perfectly well from home.
It gave Wen Yue the terrifying sensation that something dangerous was swallowing him one step at a time while he steadily lost control.
When the third or fourth dish had been served, Wen Yue suddenly asked, “What exactly do you want?”
For us to sleep together.
The words reached Lan Xi’s lips before he swallowed them back down. Such pure and conservative seraphs… What a pain.
Lan Xi propped his chin on his hand and smiled like a kitten teasing someone with the tip of its tail. He said lightly, “I want…”
All of you to like me.
Lan Xi hesitated and mentally removed the “all of you.” Angels seemed to prefer pure love.
“…I want you to like me.”
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