“Must you go?”
Yan Xu’s voice sounded in Wei Changli’s ear. The airflow from the man’s words brushed against his skin, causing a slight physiological shiver.
They were far too close.
Wei Changli stopped looking at him. After a moment, he gave a light nod.
Yan Xu’s eyes darkened, but his voice was very gentle—gentle to the point of near-indulgence. He said, “Then I will accompany you.”
Wei Changli paused, his brow furrowing suspiciously, a look of disbelief crossing his face.
“I’ll accompany you,” Yan Xu reached out to stroke Wei Changli’s brow, trying to smooth the frown away. “I have experience driving in extreme environments abroad, and I have a four-wheel drive in the garage right now with winter tires. The safety factor is higher.”
Startled, Wei Changli moved his lips to speak, but Yan Xu softly cut him off: “Residential buildings in Ningcheng generally don’t provide heating, and the possibility of us being able to drive back from the old city is small. We need to pack enough food, medicine, and warm gear. We have all of that at home.”
Yan Xu frowned slightly and added, “Mia is too small; she has to come with us.”
Wei Changli’s brow remained knit.
Yan Xu looked down, and seeing that he couldn’t smooth that narrow point between the other’s brows, he resorted to cupping Wei Changli’s face loosely with both hands, asking, “Is there anything else, Young Master?”
My business doesn’t require your interference, Wei Changli had originally intended to say.
He had expressed this sentiment in various ways many times since their reunion; it was a symbol of drawing a line, a restrained, exclusionary alienation.
But at this moment, he couldn’t say anything. His body moved faster than his brain—he opened his arms and silently leaned forward to hug the man.
This was the first time in three years that Wei Changli had initiated a move to close the distance between them while both were sober. Even Yan Xu, being held, didn’t react immediately; the air felt thick and silent.
A warmth entangled with the scent of Epiphyllum wrapped around the young man, invading his nerves strand by strand. Wei Changli lowered his head, saying nothing, and simply let himself go, burying his face into the other’s palms.
After a moment, Yan Xu used his thumb to tenderly rub Wei Changli’s cheek: “You’ve lost so much weight.”
Wei Changli lowered his lashes and gave a soft “Mm.”
But he didn’t allow his emotions to continue fermenting. He quickly raised his head: “We should go as soon as possible.”
Yan Xu didn’t say more. He glanced out the window, his expression calmer than ever.
To extract this thorn that had been maliciously planted in Wei Changli’s heart by others, he had decided to go through this fruitless snow.
The unfinished porridge in the kitchen wouldn’t be eaten. Yan Xu turned off the stove, mixed some glucose with warm water for Wei Changli, and went upstairs to the storage room to pack.
When he was abroad, he worked in a biological laboratory in a high-latitude region for a while. His cold-weather gear was still there. Although he didn’t dig it out often, fortunately, he kept all his things organized in specific zones, so he wasn’t without a clue.
About fifteen minutes later, Yan Xu moved the packed luggage into the underground garage to load it. Wei Changli walked over carrying the cat carrier.
Although the garage used the same climate control system as the villa, cold air continuously seeped in near the exit.
Wei Changli had changed into a set of cold-weather gear that Yan Xu had dug out from the bottom of a trunk. Their sizes weren’t the same, so the clothes felt a bit baggy on him. He wasn’t resistant to the cold; as soon as he entered the garage, he couldn’t help but press his palms together and rub his fingers.
Yan Xu noticed the movement, walked to the side of the car, and reached out to tighten his scarf.
Wei Changli wanted to take a step back, but for some reason, he stopped himself, looking almost obediently at the man before him as he tucked the scarf into his collar and snapped the hidden buttons of the front lapel.
“I’m not very good at wearing this,” the young man’s voice was muffled by the thick scarf, sounding a bit nasal.
Yan Xu opened the passenger door for him: “It’s fine. Just wear it like this for now. You can take it off once it’s warm inside the car.”
The vehicle carrying them was a modified Mercedes-Benz G65. This type of four-wheel-drive off-roader performed excellently in icy and snowy weather. The engine gave a low, rumbling roar. As the garage door slid upward, the entire vehicle charged into the swirling wind and snow like a steel beast, howling as it traversed the roads.
Before Yan Xu’s eyes was a sheet of white; in his ears was the sound of the howling wind striking the glass. Visibility on the road was lower than expected. He focused on the steering wheel, remaining extremely calm.
Wei Changli watched his operations from the passenger seat. This man was usually an intensely reserved and dignified person, but when he drove, his movements were decisive, almost fierce.
To prevent the phone from losing power or signal, Wei Changli had downloaded the travel route onto a handheld GPS device in advance. He looked at the road while watching the map, acting as a human navigator.
“45-degree left turn after the upcoming downhill, followed by continuous curves in 300 meters.”
This was a mountain road connecting the villa area and the city ring road. After several consecutive sharp downhill turns, the wheels kicked up a spray of white snow foam that fell along the jagged rocks.
Wei Changli silently braced himself against the seatbelt while casting a glance at the cat carrier in the backseat. Fortunately, Mia, being a kitten who had seen the world since birth, was peacefully biting a toy inside the secured carrier.
Feeling slightly relieved, he suddenly said, “I never understood why developers like building houses on mountains.”
Yan Xu lightly tapped the brakes and made a beautiful turn, replying without taking his eyes off the road: “Do you understand now?”
Wei Changli gave a light snort: “I understand. It helps every brake pad achieve its great dream of being a daily disposable.”
A nearly imperceptible curve touched the corner of Yan Xu’s lips. He said, “The mountain tunnel is ahead; the road will level out a bit.”
Hearing this, Wei Changli relaxed his shoulders slightly against the seatback. Given the G-Class’s excellent comfort system, he looked down to unbutton his cold-weather coat.
The two-kilometer tunnel arrived as scheduled, like a warm nest enveloping the frost and a black insect carrying flying snow. The warm yellow lights inside the tunnel created a fleeting illusion of peace—immediately followed by the car exiting the mountain pass. Suddenly, the view opened up as brilliant daylight and even more blinding wind and snow rushed toward them.
In the front seat, Wei Changli’s hand, which had just pulled down his jacket, suddenly stopped.
Outside, the snowflakes that had failed to penetrate the mountain struck the vehicle with redoubled force. Visibility dropped another level.
“What’s going on…”
Born and raised in the gentle embrace of Ningcheng, Wei Changli, who had never felt the oppressive power of a blizzard, felt a sense of bewilderment facing the scene before him.
“Don’t worry, it’s just the wind at the mountain pass whipping up the snow.” By comparison, Yan Xu was more experienced. He narrowed his eyes and carefully applied the brakes.
However, accompanied by a cacophony of shrieking noises in the wind, a section of a tree trunk snapped by the wind suddenly charged straight at the windshield—
In the flash of a second, there was almost no time for anyone to react!
Yan Xu’s pupils were constricted. He jerked the wheel, making the vehicle veer sharply. The G-Class’s right window dangerously brushed past the broken branches still clinging with leaves, and the tires from the emergency turn inevitably hit a rock on the side. The car body jolted with a near-jump, heading straight for the guardrail!
Wei Changli’s heart rate skyrocketed like a roller coaster. He scrambled to grab the overhead handle, his heart in his throat, only to see a worse situation.
The severe weather limited Wei Changli’s perspective to the extreme, but the veering car still showed him the Ningcheng River waves through the side window mist. The blizzard was raging over the river, and the entire old city district was buried under the gloom of the storm, with dark clouds hanging low.
A moment later, Yan Xu straightened the car. The excellent grip of the winter tires kept the vehicle from drifting out, but both were still slammed hard against their seatbacks by inertia.
Mia, who had come along to suffer with them, was also dazed by the impact. Although she was fine, she clearly felt unsafe and began letting out constant “meow meow” cries in her carrier.
Any fantasy Wei Changli had about northern snow was completely shattered.
What made him feel even more hollow was the situation itself. Being in danger, he finally caught a faint glimpse of the absurdity in the entire chain of events.
Wei Changli gritted his teeth and suddenly spoke: “Should I not have—”
Yan Xu, as if anticipating his words, brushed them aside with a gentle yet troubled sentence: “My hair is blocking my view a bit.”
Wei Changli was stunned, only then noticing that Yan Xu’s long hair, which had been simply tied back, had slipped loose at some point. After the recent jolt, the hair on his temples blocked most of his profile. From his angle, he could only see a hint of cinnabar-red lips and a slightly raised chin.
Beautiful as a ghost.
Wei Changli was inexplicably dazzled. While self-loathingly distracted by stray thoughts, he nimbly leaned over to pick up Yan Xu’s hair tie, gathered the black hair in his hand, and tied it into a messy knot.
Yan Xu whispered “Thank you,” his voice so calm it was as if he weren’t driving in a blizzard at all, but simply simulating an ice rally in a holographic game at home.
But anyone who knew he was fully aware of the travel risks and the ultimate outcome of the situation, yet still decided to drive Wei Changli to the old city, would think he was a madman.
Yan Xu said nothing, focusing solely on driving.
Since entering the boundaries of the old city, the things flying in the sky became varied: aged wires, construction barriers, tenants’ shed roofs, and even tangled clothes racks were dancing wildly and recklessly in the storm.
Facing objects falling from all directions, Yan Xu’s well-maintained G65 had been scratched countless times. Not long ago, they had been bumped by a driverless, drifting “elderly mobility scooter” with a sticker that read “Old man drives however he wants,” which ended up taking off the right side-mirror.
Wei Changli’s heart rate remained faster than the car’s speed. Since entering these spiderweb-like, twisting alleys, he had thought of at least 108 ways for the car to be totaled. Beside him, Yan Xu seemed to have given up the struggle as he suddenly pulled the car over in a triangular space formed by a wall corner.
Wei Changli’s suspended heart finally died in his chest. He spoke hesitantly: “Did the car stall?”
Yan Xu turned to look at him for a few seconds with an indefinable gaze, then leaned over to unbuckle his seatbelt.
He said, “We’re here.”
Wei Changli was stunned. He looked up in realization just as a pile of snow fell from the windshield due to gravity, revealing a road sign weathered by the years.
Heping Street West.