Wen Yue looked as though someone had seized him by the throat. For a long while, he couldn’t make another sound.
Lan Xi was originally a little dissatisfied with his reaction, but after thinking about it, every seraph was different… There was no need to rush.
He had suffered at the beginning precisely because he hadn’t understood seraphs well enough.
Lan Xi lowered his head, picked up his chopsticks, and began eating.
He acted as though nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t said those words at all.
By the end of the meal, Wen Yue had barely taken two bites and hadn’t said a single word.
The entire dining room sank into deathly silence.
Finally, Lan Xi set down his chopsticks. The crisp sound of them striking the porcelain plate seemed to finally straighten out Wen Yue’s thoughts.
“For all those years before, you were never close to Wen Ming or me. It wasn’t that we deliberately excluded you. You were the one who never had a kind word for anyone in this family, and you didn’t even respect your own mother. Then one day, out of nowhere, you tell me you want me to like you…”
Wen Yue set down his chopsticks as well. “How could I possibly do that all at once?”
Lan Xi opened his mouth.
Before he could say, “I’m not Wen Lan,” Wen Yue spoke first. “But we can start over from the beginning.”
Lan Xi’s interest was piqued. “Start over from the beginning? How?”
“First of all, make me angry less often.” Wen Yue seized the opportunity to state his demand.
Silence answered him.
Wen Yue looked at Lan Xi.
Lan Xi looked back at him.
Wen Yue’s face stiffened. “Don’t tell me you can’t even manage that?”
Lan Xi didn’t answer. He only accused him, “You make me angry too.” Then he added for emphasis, “All the time.”
Wen Yue: “…”
The two of them failed to reach an agreement and went upstairs separately.
But Wen Yue wasn’t the only person being tormented at the moment.
After hearing everything through the surveillance feed, Wen Ming couldn’t eat dinner that night either.
“I want… you to like me.”
Those words seemed to have been set on replay, repeating over and over in Wen Ming’s mind.
One moment, he was wondering why Wen Lan had never said anything like that to him. He had only been away from home for two days—how had Wen Lan’s relationship with Big Brother suddenly advanced by leaps and bounds?
The next moment, he wondered whether Wen Lan simply didn’t care about having his affection. That made sense too. After all, he had forgiven all the things Wen Lan had done in the past far too easily.
Then he wondered again whether what Big Brother had said last time was true—had Wen Lan really tried to seduce him in the hallway? And what exactly did Wen Lan mean by “like” now?
…
Countless thoughts came and went.
Wen Ming desperately wanted to go home, yet he didn’t dare.
He couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep.
In the end, he simply called Wen Yue.
Wen Yue was standing by the bed, smoothing out the wrinkles Lan Xi had left behind. He had his head lowered, brow furrowed, and was still straightening the sheets when the door was pushed open from outside.
At the same time, Wen Ming’s voice came through the phone. “Big Brother, nothing’s happened at home these past two days, right?”
Wen Yue turned around and came face-to-face with Lan Xi swaggering into the room.
Wen Yue: “…No.”
Wen Ming fell silent for a moment on the other end before asking, “Wen Lan hasn’t caused any trouble?”
Wanting to put his mind at ease, Wen Yue still answered, “No.”
“Oh. Then never mind.” Wen Ming hung up. As he leaned back against the sofa again, he somehow felt worse for having made the call.
Wen Yue had no idea what his younger brother was thinking. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You…”
Lan Xi slapped the textbook in his hand against Wen Yue’s chest. “You read.”
“What?”
“Read it to me.”
Wen Yue couldn’t understand what new stunt this was supposed to be.
Lan Xi gave him a sidelong look.
From his eyes, Wen Yue clearly read: You really are an idiot.
Wen Yue: “…”
Lan Xi matter-of-factly walked over to the bed, sat down, and leaned back, bunching up all the wrinkles Wen Yue had only just smoothed out.
Lying there, he said, “This is how you improve a relationship.”
Wen Yue’s first reaction was, “Where did you learn that?”
Lan Xi lied. “Television.”
Wen Yue couldn’t argue with that.
But most of those scenes involved parents reading bedtime stories to their children, using that kind of parent-child interaction to strengthen their bond.
What exactly did that make him and Wen Lan…?
“Hurry up.” Lan Xi patted the bed.
Wen Yue instinctively felt that this was dangerous.
But as soon as the thought arose, he suppressed it.
He hadn’t developed the same thoughts Wen Ming had. His conscience was perfectly clear, so what could possibly be dangerous about it?
Wen Yue walked over and sat beside the bed, then opened the book.
What is this? Why is it junior-high Chinese again?
“You’re sure you want to listen to this?”
Lan Xi glared at him. He was already too lazy to speak and simply conveyed everything with his expression: Why do you talk so much?
Speechless, Wen Yue opened the textbook.
“Here.” Lan Xi pressed his hand against the page.
Wen Yue darkened his expression and did his best to assume the dignity of an authoritative older brother. Lowering his head, he began to read, “Walk one hundred and twenty paces west from the little hill…”
Elio’s Notes: The line is from Liu Zongyuan’s classical prose piece Record of the Little Stone Pond (《小石潭记》), a text commonly taught in Chinese middle school.
He read a passage.
Lan Xi asked, “What does it mean?”
Wen Yue: ?
He had to explain it too?
Lan Xi looked up at him. “Tell me.”
Wen Yue couldn’t. He had gone to high school abroad and had never studied any of this.
Without changing his expression, he casually flipped forward several pages until he reached a prose piece and decided to read that to Lan Xi instead.
Lan Xi looked at him with profound disappointment.
His gaze was so intense that even Wen Yue started feeling as though this really was his own fault.
“Are you still listening or not?” Wen Yue asked, pursing his lips.
Lan Xi took advantage of the moment to slide downward, trying to burrow beneath the covers.
Wen Yue grabbed the back of his robe. “Get up. If you want to sleep, go sleep in your own room.”
As if I care.
Lan Xi pursed his lips, got off the bed, and deliberately stepped on Wen Yue’s leg as he jumped down.
Wen Yue’s face twisted in pain. “Wen. Lan!”
By the time he managed to stand, Lan Xi had already fled.
The room fell silent again, and Wen Yue finally regained the ability to walk freely. He paced around the room once, then realized how utterly inexplicable his behavior was. All he had accomplished was measuring just how empty and spacious the room was.
Nothing more.
Wen Yue exhaled heavily, took off his outer clothes, and lay down on the bed.
A thought surfaced in his mind—if Wen Lan had reached out to them like this when he was little… that would have been the perfect age to read him bedtime stories.
Wen Zixiong was hardly ever home back then anyway, and Xu Yueqiang had had to care for three children by herself. It had been far too exhausting.
Wen Yue frowned and closed his eyes.
＊
Back in his own room, Lan Xi took out his phone and glanced at it.
There was a missed call from two hours earlier.
Caller: [Malatang Seller]
Lan Xi swallowed.
He had only tried malatang once. It had been numbing and spicy and smelled wonderful. But demons weren’t used to eating such intensely spicy food, so he hadn’t adapted to it right away.
But as long as he ate it enough times, he would definitely conquer it.
Satisfied, Lan Xi put down his phone and closed his eyes to sleep.
“Sir, are you having trouble reaching someone?” the secretary accompanying Fu Hui asked cautiously at that very moment.
Fu Hui smiled faintly. “It’s nothing.”
He put away his phone, and the crease that had just formed between his brows instantly smoothed away.
As though he had already found a solution.
Early the next morning, Cheng Yiran unexpectedly saw Fu Hui at the villa again.
The bodyguard reported to Fu Hui, “Lan Xi hasn’t been attending class. The school called Wen Yue, and now Lan Xi isn’t going to school at all.”
Lan Xi…
A completely unfamiliar name.
Cheng Yiran pondered it.
Fu Hui suddenly looked at him. “Didn’t you say Wen Lan seemed very different from before?”
Cheng Yiran nodded blankly twice.
His brother seemed to be paying more and more attention to Wen Lan lately?
Cheng Yiran was still puzzling over it when Fu Hui calmly dropped a bombshell. “That’s because he isn’t Wen Lan.”
“What… what do you mean?”
“Didn’t Wen Lan disappear before?”
“Yes.”
“The person the Wen family brought back afterward was someone else who looks like Wen Lan. His name is Lan Xi.”
Cheng Yiran was deeply shocked, but he didn’t doubt Fu Hui’s words.
As far as he was concerned, Fu Hui was never wrong.
Cheng Yiran absentmindedly drank his soy milk for a while before suddenly remembering something. “Then—the person who came over to apologize before…”
“That was Lan Xi, not Wen Lan.”
Cheng Yiran tightened his grip awkwardly around his cup. “Then everything before… we got it all wrong.”
“Mm.”
Cheng Yiran started breaking into a nervous sweat. “Then… then what do we do?”
“Apologize.”
“Oh. Right, okay, then I… I’ll go find him at school…”
“He isn’t at school.”
Fu Hui looked thoughtful.
Lan Xi hadn’t answered his call again… He was wondering why Lan Xi had stopped going to school.
Other people might not know, but Fu Hui understood him very well. Lan Xi had an intense thirst for any knowledge that was unfamiliar to him.
Unless… the Wen brothers weren’t letting him go.
“I’ll have someone arrange a gathering for you.” Fu Hui stood as soon as he finished speaking.
Naturally, invitations were sent to the Wen family in the Song family’s name. Wen Zixiong and both Wen brothers each received one.
When Wen Yue received his invitation, he was somewhat puzzled. “The Song family? Which Song family?”
He couldn’t remember having any dealings with them.
But Wen Zixiong soon came to clear up his confusion.
At dinnertime, Wen Zixiong walked into the villa’s dining room.
The Wen brothers had always been rather cold toward their biological father. In the past, Wen Lan had been the only one who liked spending time around him. But the person sitting there now was Lan Xi, who naturally had no interest in paying him much attention either.
Wen Zixiong rubbed his nose, pulled out a chair for himself, and started with some small talk. “Where’s Wen Ming?”
Wen Yue said, “On a business trip.”
Wen Zixiong looked confused. “That’s not right. I went to the company yesterday and saw him there.”
Wen Yue’s heart gave a thump, and he immediately turned to check Lan Xi’s expression.
But Lan Xi was busy battling a crab.
He hadn’t become suspicious at all.
Wen Yue breathed a sigh of relief, yet some inexplicable gloom stirred inside him.
It was almost as though all that talk about “liking” and “not liking” people had never been sincere in the first place.
Wen Lan didn’t care about Wen Ming… and perhaps he didn’t care about him either.
Wen Yue suppressed the strange feeling and immediately heard Wen Zixiong ask, “Did you get the Song family’s invitation? Now I can finally relax. Looks like what happened last time really has been written off… Mr. Fu is still a man of principle. He wouldn’t go after us to the bitter end over something so minor…”
Wen Yue hurriedly interrupted his father. “What does this have to do with Mr. Fu?”
As soon as he said it, Wen Yue keenly noticed that the person sitting opposite him had stopped battling the crab and pricked up his ears to listen intently.
“Hmph. They say an old man has eaten more salt than you youngsters have walked roads. You and Wen Ming are still green. Neither of you knows, do you? The Song family is Fu Hui’s maternal uncle’s family.”
“The Song family keeps an extremely low profile in Jing City’s social circles. Plenty of people have never even heard their name. The people their family produces either become scientists or chief engineers at research institutes, or they join the navy…”
Wen Yue was more cautious and cut Wen Zixiong off. “If they’re that kind of family and we have absolutely nothing to do with them, doesn’t it make it even stranger that they suddenly invited us?”
Wen Zixiong was very displeased by his son contradicting him like this. He turned directly to Lan Xi. “Wen Lan, tell me. Are you coming with Dad or not?”
Lan Xi bit down on the crab leg with a loud crunch. “Mm.”
Only then did Wen Zixiong feel his temper settle. “Good! That’s my son!”
Lan Xi tilted his head.
Angels really were fickle.
The time before last when they met, Wen Zixiong had been beside himself with rage, shouting, “Unfilial son! I should never have had you!”
In truth, Wen Zixiong had always favored Wen Lan somewhat. It was only last time, when a friend mentioned Fu Hui’s name, that he had been frightened enough to hurriedly hand his son over.
But now, since everything had already blown over…
Wen Zixiong rarely rediscovered his fatherly affection and said with a smile, “Why keep wearing out your two older brothers lately? Why don’t you come stay with me for a while?”
After all, Wen Zixiong was getting on in years. He had a whole string of lovers, but only three sons.
Wen Yue and Wen Ming had never gotten along with him.
Now that he suddenly wanted to satisfy his urge to play the loving father, Wen Lan was the only person he could turn to.
Wen Yue thought about it for a moment. “Fine.”
He needed room to breathe too.
Lan Xi, however, scrunched up his face and cast Wen Yue a sidelong glance.
For some reason, Wen Yue actually felt a little guilty beneath that look.
“Fine,” Lan Xi agreed.
He could play with Luo Jin again, and while Wen Yue wasn’t paying attention, he could find some time to go see Wen Ming.
Wen Ming was the easiest one to handle.
Wen Zixiong happily took Lan Xi away.
The villa became completely quiet.
Wen Yue lowered his head and poured himself a glass of wine, forcibly suppressing that strange feeling of emptiness.
Then his phone rang.
It was Wen Ming.
“How could you let him take Wen Lan away? He was always taking Wen Lan out when he was little. That’s how Wen Lan got spoiled in the first place,” Wen Ming complained.
Wen Yue set down his wineglass and sensed something was wrong. “You installed surveillance cameras at home?”
“…”
Wen Yue instantly realized exactly how much Wen Ming must have heard.
And Wen Ming could no longer continue questioning him.
For once, the brothers fell into a mutual silence that lasted until the call ended.
＊
No wonder Wen Lan had liked following Wen Zixiong around before.
Wen Zixiong was the classic kind of father who remembered to lavish fatherly affection on his children whenever the mood struck him and washed his hands of them completely whenever it didn’t.
For Wen Lan, that had meant incredible freedom.
For the current Lan Xi, it meant the same thing.
Wen Zixiong took him to another villa, where he kept two of his lovers.
“This is my favorite son,” Wen Zixiong introduced Lan Xi to them.
One of the two lovers was a male university student in his early twenties. The other was a woman in her forties.
Wen Zixiong didn’t show even the slightest embarrassment in front of his son. Once the introductions were over, he immediately sent the two of them off to cook.
“Show my son what you can do.”
The old Wen Lan would inevitably have been wary of the female lover, worried that she might give Wen Zixiong another child.
Lan Xi couldn’t have cared less.
He asked Wen Zixiong, “What are they making?”
Wen Zixiong froze. He hadn’t expected that to be the first thing Lan Xi cared about.
“Hmm, sea bass, Eight-Treasure Gourd Duck…” Wen Zixiong loved Huaiyang cuisine, so naturally his lovers catered to his tastes.
The Wen brothers ate Western food more often, and Lan Xi had never tried Huaiyang cuisine before, so he nodded and began looking forward to it.
Seeing that the atmosphere was good, Wen Zixiong hurriedly resumed playing the loving father. “Come here, let Dad have a look. Have those injuries from the beating last time healed?”
He pulled Lan Xi’s arm over, only to discover smooth skin without the slightest trace left behind.
Wen Zixiong breathed a huge sigh of relief. The last shred of guilt he felt as a father disappeared completely, and he smiled broadly. “As long as you’re fine, Dad can finally relax. You have no idea—ah, I was so worried before…”
“Worried?” Lan Xi repeated the word.
“Yes, yes.”
Lan Xi immediately held out his hand. “Then give me money.”
Wen Zixiong choked.
Then again, this was how he had always raised Wen Lan in the past: giving him money at the drop of a hat.
If he wanted money, then just give it to him.
“Fine. Dad will give you some.” Wen Zixiong agreed readily.
Lan Xi held out his hand again. “I want a teacher.”
“What kind of teacher?”
“To teach me junior-high Chinese.”
Wen Zixiong looked him up and down in confusion. “…Did you just start junior high? No, that can’t be right! There’s no way I could’ve forgotten how old you are!”
Uncertain, Wen Zixiong called his assistant. The answer he received was that Wen Lan was a first-year university student who would soon be entering his second year.
Wen Zixiong relaxed. Good. At least he hadn’t gotten his son’s age wrong.
“You want a junior-high teacher, right? Fine. I’ll get you one tomorrow.” Wen Zixiong couldn’t even be bothered to ask why. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t afford one.
Lan Xi spent a night at Wen Zixiong’s place, and sure enough, he could have anything he wanted. There were no restrictions whatsoever.
When he woke the next day, a bank card was already lying on his bedside table.
Wen Zixiong had already gone to the company, but he still remembered to call and tell him, “There’s two million yuan in there. Spend it however you like.” His fatherly “love” was on full display.
Lan Xi naturally pocketed the card and immediately called Luo Jin.
Luo Jin sounded half-dead. “Please, Young Master, no. I can’t even get out of bed today.”
“What happened to you?”
“My dad hasn’t even hit me yet, and my brother already beat me up, all because I brought those two bags of your clothes home.” Luo Jin sounded like he wanted to cry. “I fucking hate him! I’m gonna kill him!”
Lan Xi asked, “Did you try my method?”
Lan Xi still occasionally dropped words when he spoke.
But that didn’t matter. Luo Jin could understand him.
Luo Jin cried, “He said one look at me like that proved I’d picked up bad habits abroad, so he wanted to hit me even more.”
Lan Xi could only hang up regretfully. If he had known staying with Wen Zixiong would mean having no restrictions at all, he never would have needed Luo Jin to take his clothes home and get beaten over them.
Bored, Lan Xi went shopping by himself and came back with another mountain of clothes.
This time, he left the door wide open and changed from one outfit to another in front of the mirror without anyone interfering.
After fussing around for the entire afternoon, he had filled his phone with photographs.
Satisfied, Lan Xi never even considered whether he should save some for later. He selected every single one and sent the entire batch to Fu Hui at once.
Whether Fu Hui could handle it was Fu Hui’s problem.
For once, Fu Hui’s phone wasn’t on silent.
His phone began chiming incessantly, and the Song family had never seen anything like it before. They all looked at him in surprise.
Under countless pairs of eyes, Fu Hui picked up his phone. The instant the screen lit up, Fu Hui: “…”
He decisively turned the screen off again.
Fu Hui hadn’t expected Lan Xi to send him this many photographs either.
If someone else happened to stare long enough to see them, his reputation would more or less be ruined…
Just a small matter.
The explanation reached his lips, only for Fu Hui to swallow it again.
Explaining would only make him look even more suspicious.
Fortunately, Fu Hui didn’t interact much with his maternal grandfather’s family in ordinary life, and everyone understood personal boundaries. Even if they had their suspicions, no one dared ask.
They were more concerned about something else now. “It makes sense for the Song family to hold this birthday party, but you…”
Fu Hui’s own birthday had been two days earlier and had passed without the slightest fanfare.
He never accepted birthday gifts either, leaving the Song family wanting to make things up to him and treat him well, yet unable to find any way to do it.
“You don’t need to worry about me.” Fu Hui gave them his usual answer. “I’m already an adult.”
“Then you’ll come on the day we hold Cheng Yiran’s birthday party too?” The Song family looked at him expectantly.
Fu Hui nodded. The bones of the hand gripping his phone tightened slightly. “I’m looking forward to it.”
＊
On the day of the birthday party, Wen Zixiong took Lan Xi out early.
He dressed Lan Xi in a small suit and, following his own aesthetic preferences, combed all of Lan Xi’s hair back.
Lan Xi used the car window as a mirror.
Because of the way he had been dressed, the Lan Xi reflected in the glass had completely lost his usual softness.
Lan Xi frowned, looking displeased.
He emptied his gaze, and immediately looked cold.
He amused himself with his own face like that for quite a while.
The car arrived at the Song family’s private residence.
Wen Zixiong immediately lowered even his breathing. He led Lan Xi out of the car and walked along a tree-lined path, slowly entering the northern-style garden ahead.
The arriving guests had likewise parked a hundred meters away and approached the banquet hall on foot.
Wen Zixiong looked around.
Some faces were familiar, though not people he was capable of befriending. Even more of them were complete strangers.
It was rare for Wen Zixiong to feel this tense. It took him ages before he finally spotted two familiar faces with whom he had at least some acquaintance.
“Chairman Qiu!” Wen Zixiong hurried over to greet him.
Chairman Qiu turned around and looked surprised to see Wen Zixiong. “How did you…” He immediately realized that sounded rather insulting and changed course. “How come you’re here alone? Where are your sons?”
“Ah, those two have minds of their own, but my youngest came with me today—where is my youngest?” Wen Zixiong stared blankly around him.
Lan Xi had already been led onto another path.
His phone screen was lit. There was a message in the chat window: [I’m waiting for you on the second floor.]
Probably because the sender understood Lan Xi’s personality, another message followed immediately beneath it: [Want sweet soup?]
A staff member led Lan Xi toward the two-story Chinese-style building at the end of the path. He stepped onto a wooden staircase that looked like an antique and climbed to the second floor amid its creak, creak.
Fu Hui was sitting beside the window reading.
If the different surroundings were ignored, at first glance it almost looked as though they had returned to some morning in that little Western-style house.
Lan Xi slowly approached and saw the familiar bodyguard again.
“A—” The bodyguard instinctively started to address him, then swallowed the sound again.
Lan Xi walked straight past him and went directly to Fu Hui.
Fu Hui had already put down his book and raised his eyes to meet Lan Xi’s gaze. When he saw how Lan Xi was dressed today, his expression shifted slightly. No one looking at Lan Xi at that moment could have found even a trace of girlishness in him.
Had Fu Hui changed back again?
Lan Xi wondered.
But the first person to speak wasn’t Fu Hui. It was another unfamiliar voice. “Uh, well… I’m sorry. We mistook you for Wen Lan before…”
Lan Xi turned his head and remembered who it was.
Cheng… Cheng Yiran?
Wen Ming had told him to take a detour whenever he saw Cheng Yiran.
But Lan Xi never listened to Wen Ming anyway, so there was no need to care.
Lan Xi turned his head back again.
Cheng Yiran was a little embarrassed and still wanted to say something. “Well, it’s just…”
Fu Hui looked at him. “Go back to the party first.”
“But the apology…”
“I’ll handle it.”
Cheng Yiran’s eyes widened in shock.
He immediately felt even worse. This was all because of him, and now his brother had to lower himself enough to apologize.
If he hadn’t meddled in the first place…
Seeing that Cheng Yiran still didn’t intend to leave, the bodyguard coughed lightly and stepped forward. “Let’s go, Young Master Cheng.”
Cheng Yiran had no choice but to head downstairs.
The wooden building did an awful job of blocking sound. He had only taken a few steps when he heard his brother ask, “You video-called me while lying on Wen Yue’s bed?”
What bed?
What video call?
Cheng Yiran nearly tumbled down the stairs from shock.
He could rack his brain forever and still wouldn’t understand why that was the first thing Fu Hui had chosen to say.
Before he had recovered from one shock, Cheng Yiran heard Lan Xi’s lazy reply. “Mm. So?”
Cheng Yiran was completely lost now.
How could Wen Lan—no, Lan Xi—sound so completely justified?
Why did his brother sound like he had caught someone cheating?
No, wait. First of all, why did the two of them sound this familiar with each other?
What the hell had happened?!
Fu Hui abruptly changed the subject. “Sweet soup first?”
“Yes!”
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