When Wei Jinlin found Fang Fengqin in the alley behind the bar, he was immediately hit by an overbearing and aggressive wave of white pine resin that left him dizzy the moment he drew near.
He abruptly clapped a hand over his nose, casting a shocked look at the person leaning against the wall not far away.
Fang Fengqin kept his head lowered so that his expression remained hidden. His fluffy, soft black hair swayed gently in the breeze, and one half of his body was swallowed by the dim shadows.
“You. You.” Wei Jinlin stuttered for a long time without managing to finish a sentence, his gaze toward Fang Fengqin a bizarre mix of strangeness and astonishment.
Fang Fengqin raised his eyes. The flush on his fair cheeks had yet to fade, and the entire person was quiet to an eerie degree.
“Let’s go.” He pressed his lips together, his voice still carrying an inexplicable huskiness.
He walked with unsteady, heavy steps to the back seat, tossed the keys to Wei Jinlin, and as if too exhausted to stay awake a moment longer, buried his face in the crook of his arm and closed his eyes.
Wei Jinlin’s emotions were a tangled mess.
He had searched the Black Wind Bar for ages, terrified that Fang Fengqin might run into some sort of accident.
Instead, this guy had somehow snuck out and been fooling around with someone.
“What on earth is your relationship with Shen Jiyun?” Wei Jinlin sneered.
He remembered that scent of white pine resin all too well; it belonged to that lunatic Shen Jiyun.
“Nothing much,” Fang Fengqin muttered quietly.
“Nothing much, and you let him bite you?” Wei Jinlin suddenly slapped the steering wheel, the horn blaring sharply in the empty street and giving Fang Fengqin a violent start.
Fang Fengqin opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. Thinking it over, he really didn’t have much of a relationship with that man.
Their past relations had been so abysmal that they had practically wanted to kill each other, yet now, having been bitten a few times by the guy for reasons unknown, his aversion toward Shen Jiyun had, perhaps due to the temporary mark, eerily vanished by a large margin.
Unable to come up with an answer, Fang Fengqin simply shut his mouth.
Wei Jinlin shot him a look of utter exasperation.
Before he truly understood Fang Fengqin, Wei Jinlin had assumed the other man was some kind of ferocious, tyrannical menace.
Only after getting to know him did he realize that all that bark was just a front.
Like a cat, he looked fierce, and when he actually scratched it hurt, but most of the time he was just puffing out his chest and hissing at people as a bluff.
Arriving at the lakeside apartment, Fang Fengqin pushed open the car door and, remembering something, turned back to tell Wei Jinlin, “Keep this car.”
“What do you mean?” Wei Jinlin raised a single eyebrow.
“I’s giving it to you.” He adjusted his coat, waved a hand dismissively, and walked toward the elevator with his head bowed.
The mark Shen Jiyun had left on him ran deep. Even after several days, his scent gland was still slightly swollen. Fang Fengqin hadn’t experienced much pain over the past few days, nearly causing him to forget the fact that he was still sick.
Several days later, Zhong Lu called to say she had returned to the country and asked Fang Fengqin to come back to the Fang residence for dinner.
“Xiao Chengzi, with something as major as an engagement, why didn’t you mention it to your mother?”
Zhong Lu’s voice was gentle, carrying a faint smile that contrasted sharply with the hysterical way she behaved when facing Fang Fengqin alone.
Hearing this, Fang Fengqin chuckled. Crossing his legs, he gave a casual sway of his foot. “Give the phone to my brother.”
Zhong Lu’s voice paused. There was a brief two-second rustle on the other end as the phone was presumably handed over.
“Hello? Chengzi, are you coming back for dinner tonight?” Fang Rongxi’s warm, even voice came through the receiver.
Fang Fengqin refused flat out. “Not coming. Gu Song invited me out.”
Before the other side could reply, he added, “I discussed it with Wei Jinlin. The engagement banquet will be held next March.”
“Alright, whatever the two of you want.” Fang Rongxi had always been indulgent toward Fang Fengqin.
“Oh, right.” A second before hanging up, Fang Fengqin said, “Wei Jinlin says that when it comes to the wedding arrangements, you’ll have to go talk to Ji Binglv.”
“I.” Fang Rongxi fell silent for two seconds before asking, “Me?”
Fang Fengqin couldn’t figure it out either. Clearly it was a wedding on the Wei family’s side, so why on earth was Ji Binglv, an uncle, stepping out of nowhere?
“I understand,” Fang Rongxi agreed. “The day after tomorrow is New Year’s Day. Are you coming back for dinner?”
“We’ll see.” Fobbing him off with a few perfunctory words, Fang Fengqin hung up the phone.
Temperatures at the end of December were bitterly cold. Being averse to the cold, Fang Fengqin avoided going outdoors whenever possible, holing up in his apartment day in and day out.
He still didn’t return to the Fang residence on New Year’s Day. Fang Long and Zhong Lu called him back-to-back, and eventually, even Fang Rongxi called twice.
Wrapped in a blanket, Fang Fengqin curled up on the sofa by the floor-to-ceiling window to look outside. The indoor heating was running full blast, and within a short while, a layer of mist had formed on the glass pane.
He watched for a bit, ignoring the phone that kept buzzing with incoming calls, and with a rare touch of childishness, traced a crying little stick figure onto the foggy condensation.
The doorbell suddenly rang, immediately followed by the sound of a code being punched in.
When Fang Fengqin turned his head, the door was pushed open and Wei Jinlin walked in carrying bags upon bags of groceries. He was dressed heavily, fully decked out in gloves and a scarf.
“Are you growing mushrooms in here?” Wei Jinlin set down the ingredients, stripped off his scarf and gloves, and started lecturing Fang Fengqin right off the bat.
“My dad calls you and you don’t answer, Professor Gu sends messages and you don’t reply. Anyone who didn’t know better would think you were trying to off yourself.”
Fang Fengqin blinked, pulled out his phone to check it, and offered an explanation. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
Ignoring him, Wei Jinlin hauled the ingredients into the kitchen, only to freeze the moment he stepped inside.
The kitchen was so clean there wasn’t a single speck of grease, let alone any cooking utensils or seasonings.
Wei Jinlin was suddenly struck with a laugh out of sheer exasperation. He turned back toward the living room, stared straight at Fang Fengqin, and bluntly asked, “Are you waiting to die?”
Fang Fengqin’s body stiffened slightly. He turned his face away. “No.”
“Then why aren’t you going for your follow-up checkups?”
Wei Jinlin pulled out the medical report forwarded by Professor Gu and gave it a shake. “Professor Gu studied your case files again very carefully. He said conservative treatment doesn’t mean there’s zero chance of a cure.”
“As it happens, Shen Jiyun is an alpha and loves biting you so much anyway. Isn’t that the best of both worlds?”
Annoyed, Fang Fengqin furrowed his brows slightly. “You guys don’t need to meddle in this.”
Wei Jinlin strode forward right up to him, grabbed him by the collar, and snapped, “You coward! There’s a path to life and you refuse to take it? Then go ahead and wait to die!”
Fang Fengqin’s expression turned cold as well. Using a clever leverage technique, he pressed Wei Jinlin down, and just as he was about to curse him out, the sound of a door lock turning came from the entryway.
“Chengzi! Happy New Year!” The moment the door cracked open, Gu Song’s voice rang out.
Fang Fengqin and Wei Jinlin whipped their heads around toward the foyer in unison. Gu Song’s expression froze at the sight, and he awkwardly offered, “Ah, Wei shao is here too.”
Song Jiangyan and Song Zhang walked in carrying things, arriving just in time to catch the scene of Fang Fengqin hurriedly getting up off from on top of Wei Jinlin.
The group sat facing one another on the sofa, enveloped in an awkwardly silent atmosphere.
Sitting right in the middle with a collapsed expression, Fang Fengqin scratched his head. “Why did you guys come over?”
“To spend the holiday with you.” Gu Song cast a gloomy look at Fang Fengqin, then glanced at the meek-looking Wei Jinlin sitting beside him, finding it a bit hard to digest.
Just as Fang Fengqin opened his mouth to say something to smooth things over, he heard Gu Song let out a resentful sigh:
“I never expected that you already had company.”