The weather tonight is just as hot as yesterday. Sitting in a room facing east to west, it was scorching due to the sun’s exposure all day. After opening the door, it felt stuffy and suffocating, making it hard to catch one’s breath.
“Turn on the air conditioning,” An Wuyang found the remote control for the air conditioner and had his younger brother close the door.
“Bro, why are you suddenly willing to use the air conditioning?” An Wují asked.
He found this question strange.
“It’s too hot,” An Wuyang said as he walked to the wardrobe to get clothes for a shower. “Do you want something to eat?” He also took out some snacks and handed them to his brother.
“Yes,” An Wují said, “Sis is back, and I’ll get some for her.”
The young boy took the snacks and went out on his own.
An Wuyang felt a slight pang in his heart but didn’t say anything.
On such a hot day, he wanted to take a cold shower like before, but he dared not now. In case he developed any problems from the cold shower, Mr. Huo might really kill him.
“Sis, do you want something to eat? Bro bought it,” An Wují poked his head out and asked his sister.
“What is it?” An Wuyu wasn’t very interested, but she reached out to take it. When she saw the packaging, her eyes lit up. “Hey, aren’t these snacks from Australia? Coconut rolls and candies from a Nordic country, as well as nuts and cookies. Where did these come from?” She took a bite, and it was indeed the real deal, delicious.
“Bro bought them,” An Wují, despite his good academic performance, was still young. “Are they very expensive?” He just thought that his brother’s part-time job wouldn’t earn much money, so buying such expensive things seemed extravagant.
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An Wuyu thought the same as her brother and frowned. “They are quite expensive. I don’t even feel like buying them.”
But it was An Wuyang who had earned the money to buy them, so she couldn’t say much.
“Don’t tell Mom,” An Wují still had lingering fears from the last time when their mom scolded their brother.
“Am I that kind of person?” An Wuyu said, taking a package of coconut rolls and a few pieces of toffee. “Take them back. Since he bought them, let him eat more.”
Before going to bed that night, Mr. Huo called again.
An Wuyang glanced at his little brother who was studying seriously and casually answered the phone, “Good evening.”
On the other end, there was a pause, probably feeling puzzled.
The first words the young man spoke when answering the phone were not the gentle “Mr. Huo,” but a casual “good evening.” This surprised Huo Yunchuan, who raised an eyebrow. “It’s me.”
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An Wuyang said, “I know.” There was a note, wasn’t there?
Huo Yunchuan asked, “What are you doing?”
It turned out he had called to get real-time updates. “I just took a shower and I’m lying in bed, getting ready to sleep. How about you?”
He asked, responding with a mouthed question to his younger brother, waving him off, asking him not to bother.
“Just got back home,” Huo Yunchuan looked at his apartment, empty and deserted, but for now, it counted as home. “I’m getting ready to shower and rest,” he said, as he unfastened his tie and cufflinks with one hand.
An Wuyang said, “Okay, you’re busy, I’m going to sleep.”
Huo Yunchuan responded with a low, mature, and pleasing voice, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow. Good night.”
The deep, mature male voice was pleasant to the ears, and the young boy felt a bit itchy ears and envied it. “Mm, good night,” he said.
He wished he could be as accomplished himself.
“Is it the girl who likes you?” An Wují looked at him and asked.
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“What?” An Wuyang’s face stiffened, and he regretted lying to his younger brother. The kid was digging too deep. “Uh, yeah…”
His younger brother might be entering puberty and was slightly interested in matters of the opposite sex. “So when are you going to accept her?”
“…Let’s talk about it after school starts,” An Wuyang evaded the question, closing his eyes. “I’m going to sleep now, so hurry up and study.”
The next day, just like the previous day, he woke up at around 6 AM.
When he was brushing his teeth, he vomited. An Wuyang had a mouthful of toothpaste taste, which made him nauseous.
He didn’t want to wake up the people in the house, so he tried his best to suppress the morning sickness reaction, which was very difficult.
“…” Living at home was inconvenient for this reason, and with his sister back, he had to be even more careful with his words and actions, or she would nitpick.
Huo Yunchuan saw the old clothes An Wuyang was wearing and frowned, “I remember I bought you the current season’s clothing.”
Why wasn’t he wearing them?
The teenager sitting in the back seat blinked and pursed his lips slightly. “I forgot to wash them, and they’re still not wearable now.”
In reality, he had bought them and left them in the closet, and hadn’t touched them at all.
“Are you going to wash them yourself?” Huo Yunchuan asked.
“Yeah,” An Wuyang patted his chest, fearing he might vomit in the car, “My parents have to go to work, so they don’t have time to help me wash them.” Of course, there was a washing machine at home, but he didn’t want to use it.
“Hurry and move in,” Huo Yunchuan thought it over and blurted out.
As soon as this topic came up, An Wuyang fell silent.
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Like Jiang Shaofei had said, he didn’t feel comfortable in his heart because once he moved out and lived with Huo Yunchuan, it meant there was no turning back. Only home felt safe.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Huo Yunchuan noticed the situation and cast a slightly worried glance in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t know what to say,” An Wuyang sighed. “We agreed to move a few days before school starts, so I will definitely move…”
Huo Yunchuan said, “Then it’s up to you.”
His earlier words were just an impulsive outburst, although he really wanted An Wuyang to cooperate and live under his watchful eye.
Having rejected Huo Yunchuan, An Wuyang also felt somewhat uneasy.
During dinner, he casually asked, “Mr. Huo, is it troublesome for you to pick me up so early every day?”
Huo Yunchuan, well-mannered and elegant, set his cutlery aside and took a sip of warm water. “Do you want to hear the truth or a lie?”
This made An Wuyang hesitate a bit, but he forced a smile and said, “Tell me the truth.”
Huo Yunchuan glanced in his direction and didn’t say anything.
This imposing presence was not to be trifled with.
Feeling like a troublemaker, An Wuyang behaved well throughout the day. He ate what was given to him, went to sleep when told, stayed in Huo Yunchuan’s office, playing on a notebook computer, but for a maximum of two hours a day.
Even these two hours were split into morning and afternoon sessions.
To be honest, there was a desktop computer in his sister’s room that his parents had bought a long time ago.
An Wuyang rarely used it, hardly touching it more than a couple of times a year.
Two months ago, when he didn’t have exams yet, his dad had mentioned buying a laptop for him once he entered university.
Given the current situation at home, there’s no way they would buy a computer.
An Wuyang thought to himself that since he was going to take a leave from school anyway, whether they bought a computer or not didn’t matter. He could use it to pay a part of his tuition later, as long as it didn’t raise any suspicions.
“How much did this notebook cost?” Reminded by the time, he closed the new notebook and asked while walking over.
Huo Yunchuan glanced at the notebook and said, “I remember it was just over 10,000.”
An Wuyang was shocked and quickly went back to the couch, hugging his arms and sitting quietly.
Huo Yunchuan couldn’t help but smile when he saw this and how expressive the young man was with his emotions. He realized that this teenager wore his heart on his sleeve, displaying his thoughts on his face.
Involuntarily, Huo Yunchuan remembered the two bottles of Louis XIII that An Wuyang had swindled from him.
Once he thought of the past, it was inevitable that his mind would be filled with those glaring memories.
But considering that the other was just eighteen, a sense of guilt also welled up in him.
An Wuyang, of course, was oblivious to the complexity of human emotions. He used the cup given by Mr. Huo with an innocent look on his face and looked at the books on Mr. Huo’s bookshelf.
He had heard that successful people often had pretentious books on their shelves that the average person couldn’t understand.
If it weren’t for his own boredom, he wouldn’t have bothered to check. But after checking, he realized that Mr. Huo wasn’t pretentious at all. His bookshelf was full of popular novels and comics.
“Have you read all of these books?” An Wuyang couldn’t quite believe it. He couldn’t imagine a middle-aged man having a taste similar to his.
“Not yet,” Huo Yunchuan replied, after all, these books had been on the shelf for less than twenty-four hours.
“Okay,” An Wuyang said as he picked one up and became engrossed in it.
His little brother had said he didn’t like to read books, and it was true, he didn’t like reading textbooks. But when it came to manga and novels, the more, the merrier.
Due to his family’s financial situation, An Wuyang didn’t buy any extracurricular books during his junior high and high school years. He read books and comics borrowed from his classmates.
A significant portion of these books was borrowed from his chubby classmate. An Wuyang frequently borrowed books from him, and over time, they became close friends.
Now, that chubby friend had aced a competitive exam and got into an excellent school. Whether they would drift apart in the future or stay in touch, An Wuyang genuinely wished him well, hoping he would succeed in losing weight and find a beautiful girlfriend.
As for himself… he looked at his flat abdomen and thought, “I’ll deal with having a child first.”
Huo Yunchuan occasionally glanced at him and noticed that the young man was intently focusing on his own stomach, with a serious and somewhat unenthusiastic expression.
Huo Yunchuan raised an eyebrow, wondering what this meant. What was An Wuyang thinking about? Did he not want the child? Or did he not love the child?
Huo Yunchuan pressed his lips and gazed deeply. If An Wuyang truly despised the child, lacking any affection, he would be disappointed and wouldn’t find such a person appealing. But when he looked at the youth’s innocent face, he couldn’t bring himself to be angry.
This question weighed heavily on his mind, and Huo Yunchuan set aside his work, pouring a glass of water and walking over to sit beside the young man. He asked directly, “What were you thinking about just now?”
“Huh?” An Wuyang, who had been engrossed in his reading, was suddenly puzzled by the question.
“You were staring at your stomach. What were you thinking about?” Huo Yunchuan asked.
“Oh, I was thinking about when he’ll grow up,” An Wuyang pursed his lips and smiled, calculating in his mind, “Do you really only want one child? Won’t that make him an only child?”
“Yeah,” Huo Yunchuan felt like he couldn’t take his eyes off the young man, as if he saw an angel. “I’m an only child myself.”
The “little angel” said, “Well, that’s nice.”
“Do you have any siblings?” Huo Yunchuan asked.
“Yes,” An Wuyang closed the book and said, “One sister and one brother.” He didn’t want to mention any more and lay down to the side. “I’m going to take a nap.”
Then he felt the other person getting up, and he guessed that there was a 99% chance he was going to get a blanket.
“Cover your stomach, don’t catch a chill,” Huo Yunchuan instructed him before going back to work.
This Mr. Huo was quite hard to figure out. He appeared intimidating on the surface, but his actions and words seemed to be quite the opposite… A particularly unusual individual.
1
The weather tonight is just as hot as yesterday. Sitting in a room facing east to west, it was scorching due to the sun’s exposure all day. After opening the door, it felt stuffy and suffocating, making it hard to catch one’s breath.
“Turn on the air conditioning,” An Wuyang found the remote control for the air conditioner and had his younger brother close the door.
“Bro, why are you suddenly willing to use the air conditioning?” An Wují asked.
He found this question strange.
“It’s too hot,” An Wuyang said as he walked to the wardrobe to get clothes for a shower. “Do you want something to eat?” He also took out some snacks and handed them to his brother.
“Yes,” An Wují said, “Sis is back, and I’ll get some for her.”
The young boy took the snacks and went out on his own.
An Wuyang felt a slight pang in his heart but didn’t say anything.
On such a hot day, he wanted to take a cold shower like before, but he dared not now. In case he developed any problems from the cold shower, Mr. Huo might really kill him.
“Sis, do you want something to eat? Bro bought it,” An Wují poked his head out and asked his sister.
“What is it?” An Wuyu wasn’t very interested, but she reached out to take it. When she saw the packaging, her eyes lit up. “Hey, aren’t these snacks from Australia? Coconut rolls and candies from a Nordic country, as well as nuts and cookies. Where did these come from?” She took a bite, and it was indeed the real deal, delicious.
“Bro bought them,” An Wují, despite his good academic performance, was still young. “Are they very expensive?” He just thought that his brother’s part-time job wouldn’t earn much money, so buying such expensive things seemed extravagant.
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An Wuyu thought the same as her brother and frowned. “They are quite expensive. I don’t even feel like buying them.”
But it was An Wuyang who had earned the money to buy them, so she couldn’t say much.
“Don’t tell Mom,” An Wují still had lingering fears from the last time when their mom scolded their brother.
“Am I that kind of person?” An Wuyu said, taking a package of coconut rolls and a few pieces of toffee. “Take them back. Since he bought them, let him eat more.”
Before going to bed that night, Mr. Huo called again.
An Wuyang glanced at his little brother who was studying seriously and casually answered the phone, “Good evening.”
On the other end, there was a pause, probably feeling puzzled.
The first words the young man spoke when answering the phone were not the gentle “Mr. Huo,” but a casual “good evening.” This surprised Huo Yunchuan, who raised an eyebrow. “It’s me.”
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An Wuyang said, “I know.” There was a note, wasn’t there?
Huo Yunchuan asked, “What are you doing?”
It turned out he had called to get real-time updates. “I just took a shower and I’m lying in bed, getting ready to sleep. How about you?”
He asked, responding with a mouthed question to his younger brother, waving him off, asking him not to bother.
“Just got back home,” Huo Yunchuan looked at his apartment, empty and deserted, but for now, it counted as home. “I’m getting ready to shower and rest,” he said, as he unfastened his tie and cufflinks with one hand.
An Wuyang said, “Okay, you’re busy, I’m going to sleep.”
Huo Yunchuan responded with a low, mature, and pleasing voice, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow. Good night.”
The deep, mature male voice was pleasant to the ears, and the young boy felt a bit itchy ears and envied it. “Mm, good night,” he said.
He wished he could be as accomplished himself.
“Is it the girl who likes you?” An Wují looked at him and asked.
Advertisement
“What?” An Wuyang’s face stiffened, and he regretted lying to his younger brother. The kid was digging too deep. “Uh, yeah…”
His younger brother might be entering puberty and was slightly interested in matters of the opposite sex. “So when are you going to accept her?”
“…Let’s talk about it after school starts,” An Wuyang evaded the question, closing his eyes. “I’m going to sleep now, so hurry up and study.”
The next day, just like the previous day, he woke up at around 6 AM.
When he was brushing his teeth, he vomited. An Wuyang had a mouthful of toothpaste taste, which made him nauseous.
He didn’t want to wake up the people in the house, so he tried his best to suppress the morning sickness reaction, which was very difficult.
“…” Living at home was inconvenient for this reason, and with his sister back, he had to be even more careful with his words and actions, or she would nitpick.
Huo Yunchuan saw the old clothes An Wuyang was wearing and frowned, “I remember I bought you the current season’s clothing.”
Why wasn’t he wearing them?
The teenager sitting in the back seat blinked and pursed his lips slightly. “I forgot to wash them, and they’re still not wearable now.”
In reality, he had bought them and left them in the closet, and hadn’t touched them at all.
“Are you going to wash them yourself?” Huo Yunchuan asked.
“Yeah,” An Wuyang patted his chest, fearing he might vomit in the car, “My parents have to go to work, so they don’t have time to help me wash them.” Of course, there was a washing machine at home, but he didn’t want to use it.
“Hurry and move in,” Huo Yunchuan thought it over and blurted out.
As soon as this topic came up, An Wuyang fell silent.
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Like Jiang Shaofei had said, he didn’t feel comfortable in his heart because once he moved out and lived with Huo Yunchuan, it meant there was no turning back. Only home felt safe.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Huo Yunchuan noticed the situation and cast a slightly worried glance in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t know what to say,” An Wuyang sighed. “We agreed to move a few days before school starts, so I will definitely move…”
Huo Yunchuan said, “Then it’s up to you.”
His earlier words were just an impulsive outburst, although he really wanted An Wuyang to cooperate and live under his watchful eye.
Having rejected Huo Yunchuan, An Wuyang also felt somewhat uneasy.
During dinner, he casually asked, “Mr. Huo, is it troublesome for you to pick me up so early every day?”
Huo Yunchuan, well-mannered and elegant, set his cutlery aside and took a sip of warm water. “Do you want to hear the truth or a lie?”
This made An Wuyang hesitate a bit, but he forced a smile and said, “Tell me the truth.”
Huo Yunchuan glanced in his direction and didn’t say anything.
This imposing presence was not to be trifled with.
Feeling like a troublemaker, An Wuyang behaved well throughout the day. He ate what was given to him, went to sleep when told, stayed in Huo Yunchuan’s office, playing on a notebook computer, but for a maximum of two hours a day.
Even these two hours were split into morning and afternoon sessions.
To be honest, there was a desktop computer in his sister’s room that his parents had bought a long time ago.
An Wuyang rarely used it, hardly touching it more than a couple of times a year.
Two months ago, when he didn’t have exams yet, his dad had mentioned buying a laptop for him once he entered university.
Given the current situation at home, there’s no way they would buy a computer.
An Wuyang thought to himself that since he was going to take a leave from school anyway, whether they bought a computer or not didn’t matter. He could use it to pay a part of his tuition later, as long as it didn’t raise any suspicions.
“How much did this notebook cost?” Reminded by the time, he closed the new notebook and asked while walking over.
Huo Yunchuan glanced at the notebook and said, “I remember it was just over 10,000.”
An Wuyang was shocked and quickly went back to the couch, hugging his arms and sitting quietly.
Huo Yunchuan couldn’t help but smile when he saw this and how expressive the young man was with his emotions. He realized that this teenager wore his heart on his sleeve, displaying his thoughts on his face.
Involuntarily, Huo Yunchuan remembered the two bottles of Louis XIII that An Wuyang had swindled from him.
Once he thought of the past, it was inevitable that his mind would be filled with those glaring memories.
But considering that the other was just eighteen, a sense of guilt also welled up in him.
An Wuyang, of course, was oblivious to the complexity of human emotions. He used the cup given by Mr. Huo with an innocent look on his face and looked at the books on Mr. Huo’s bookshelf.
He had heard that successful people often had pretentious books on their shelves that the average person couldn’t understand.
If it weren’t for his own boredom, he wouldn’t have bothered to check. But after checking, he realized that Mr. Huo wasn’t pretentious at all. His bookshelf was full of popular novels and comics.
“Have you read all of these books?” An Wuyang couldn’t quite believe it. He couldn’t imagine a middle-aged man having a taste similar to his.
“Not yet,” Huo Yunchuan replied, after all, these books had been on the shelf for less than twenty-four hours.
“Okay,” An Wuyang said as he picked one up and became engrossed in it.
His little brother had said he didn’t like to read books, and it was true, he didn’t like reading textbooks. But when it came to manga and novels, the more, the merrier.
Due to his family’s financial situation, An Wuyang didn’t buy any extracurricular books during his junior high and high school years. He read books and comics borrowed from his classmates.
A significant portion of these books was borrowed from his chubby classmate. An Wuyang frequently borrowed books from him, and over time, they became close friends.
Now, that chubby friend had aced a competitive exam and got into an excellent school. Whether they would drift apart in the future or stay in touch, An Wuyang genuinely wished him well, hoping he would succeed in losing weight and find a beautiful girlfriend.
As for himself… he looked at his flat abdomen and thought, “I’ll deal with having a child first.”
Huo Yunchuan occasionally glanced at him and noticed that the young man was intently focusing on his own stomach, with a serious and somewhat unenthusiastic expression.
Huo Yunchuan raised an eyebrow, wondering what this meant. What was An Wuyang thinking about? Did he not want the child? Or did he not love the child?
Huo Yunchuan pressed his lips and gazed deeply. If An Wuyang truly despised the child, lacking any affection, he would be disappointed and wouldn’t find such a person appealing. But when he looked at the youth’s innocent face, he couldn’t bring himself to be angry.
This question weighed heavily on his mind, and Huo Yunchuan set aside his work, pouring a glass of water and walking over to sit beside the young man. He asked directly, “What were you thinking about just now?”
“Huh?” An Wuyang, who had been engrossed in his reading, was suddenly puzzled by the question.
“You were staring at your stomach. What were you thinking about?” Huo Yunchuan asked.
“Oh, I was thinking about when he’ll grow up,” An Wuyang pursed his lips and smiled, calculating in his mind, “Do you really only want one child? Won’t that make him an only child?”
“Yeah,” Huo Yunchuan felt like he couldn’t take his eyes off the young man, as if he saw an angel. “I’m an only child myself.”
The “little angel” said, “Well, that’s nice.”
“Do you have any siblings?” Huo Yunchuan asked.
“Yes,” An Wuyang closed the book and said, “One sister and one brother.” He didn’t want to mention any more and lay down to the side. “I’m going to take a nap.”
Then he felt the other person getting up, and he guessed that there was a 99% chance he was going to get a blanket.
“Cover your stomach, don’t catch a chill,” Huo Yunchuan instructed him before going back to work.
This Mr. Huo was quite hard to figure out. He appeared intimidating on the surface, but his actions and words seemed to be quite the opposite… A particularly unusual individual.
1
