“Cough, cough…”
A few raspy coughs echoed inside the rental room, accompanied by one or two low, dejected kitten meows.
By now, an entire day had passed since the blizzard arrived. In these past 24 hours, the residents of Ningcheng’s old city had not fared well.
Because the wind and snow had toppled a series of long-neglected utility poles, power to a quarter of the old district had been cut for over five hours. Within the residential buildings, room after unheated room sat as cold as suspended ice coffins.
After settling Mia in the living room, Yan Xu pushed open the door to the bedroom.
He walked to the bedside. Wei Changli was buried under two layers of blankets, his entire face a sickly, feverish red.
Yan Xu reached under the covers to check. Even after taking medicine, Wei Changli had barely broken a sweat; he was still in a state of “dry burning,” his skin scalding to the touch. He tossed and turned restlessly, his eyes so swollen he could barely open them.
“Changli… Changli?”
Yan Xu called out to him. Hearing no response, he leaned closer and called again.
Wei Changli’s brow furrowed in pain. He curled into a ball under the blankets, but the heavy weight of the bedding made it hard to breathe, forcing him to stick one arm out.
Yan Xu reached out to catch the hand, patted it reassuringly, and tucked it back in, pulling the blankets tighter.
“Stifling…” Wei Changli struggled but couldn’t break free. He let out an uncomfortable groan and asked, “Where’s the towel?”
He was referring to the cold compress on his forehead, which Yan Xu had removed at some point.
“You can’t use cold compresses indefinitely,” Yan Xu said, lightly stroking the space between the other’s brows. “The temperature in the room is too low, and the generator in the car trunk isn’t powerful enough to run the air conditioning. It’s dangerous if your fever won’t break. You need to stay under the blankets to sweat it out. Just endure it for a bit… okay?”
Wei Changli couldn’t find a comfortable position. His body felt as heavy as if a mountain were pressing down on him. He mumbled something like, “Useless, there isn’t even an AC here,” before turning his head away and ignoring him.
Yan Xu patiently adjusted the pillow and asked, “Do you want some noodles?”
With half his face buried in the pillow, Wei Changli gave a very negative response.
Yan Xu guessed he was hungry. After instructing him “not to lift the blankets,” he got up and went to the kitchen to cook.
Wei Changli vaguely heard the sound of the door closing. The last trace of his lucid consciousness blurred and scattered. He felt himself sinking weakly, pulled by the sedative effect of the medicine into a deeper state of dreaming and memory retrieval—
Two days ago, they had traveled through the wind and snow, arriving safely at Heping Street West only to find an empty courtyard, the inhabitants long gone. Uncle Guo—who usually had a bit of a temper but occasionally showed a touch of warmth and kindness—hadn’t even left a footprint behind, vanishing abruptly into the chaotic old city.
At that time, the weather had become increasingly terrifying. The massive blizzard cell had almost reached the edges of Ningcheng. The world was dark and chaotic; standing alone in the center of it, Wei Changli almost felt as if he had fallen into The Truman Show.
In that moment, with the world turned entirely white, Wei Changli had a sudden, haunting premonition: perhaps his Mischief would never come back.
Just like the snow falling on his face—staying for a brief moment before melting away irrecoverably, like a line of tears.
Yan Xu had pulled him back into the car, taking him away from that perilous place, but upon returning, Wei Changli’s emotions had collapsed, and he developed a fever in the middle of the night.
His body, which hadn’t fully recovered before, couldn’t handle the strain. Combined with the emotional highs and lows and the jolting journey, his temperature shot up toward $40^{circ}text{C}$ during the first reading. That flushed face burned with a color that was almost decadent.
However, Yan Xu wasn’t overly worried about this aggressive illness. He knew Wei Changli had been suppressing a major breakdown since the fall of the Wei family; it had been brewing constantly, and keeping it bottled up was worse for his health. Now that it had broken out entirely, the stagnant gloom in his heart could finally dissipate.
Yan Xu had plenty of medicine in the car, including injections that could fix him up in one go, but he didn’t intend to use them on Wei Changli. The effects were too harsh and could easily lead to drug resistance.
Thus, Wei Changli could only break the fever the old-fashioned way. He was dragged into layer upon layer of a nightmare-filled subconscious; his tightly closed eyelashes flickered like the wings of a struggling butterfly.
Those blurred images flashed endlessly in his dreams: a nursery shrouded in a halo, white wall tiles, a heart-shaped conch… he didn’t know the meaning of these scenes, yet they were inexplicably familiar, as if he had fallen into a parallel dimension from a past life.
Until he murmured a person’s name.
Wei Changli suddenly snapped his eyes open, frantically trying to grasp something, but that strange name was like a grain of sand in a vast ocean, instantly scattered by the wind.
Yan Xu pushed open the door just then, carrying a steaming bowl of clear soup noodles.
Wei Changli hadn’t fully emerged from his dream, but he could feel that he had started to sweat. Damp strands of hair clung to his forehead, and the flush on his face had faded slightly.
Yan Xu came over and pressed the back of his hand to Wei Changli’s forehead. His gaze relaxed slightly. He propped the pillow up for Wei Changli to lean against and began feeding him the noodles.
Wei Changli felt a bit of strength returning. People are always more fragile when they are sick. He muttered a “thank you” and took the bowl.
Holding the bowl, he looked it over and suddenly felt that the white-and-gold bordered ceramic was familiar. If he remembered correctly, it was a luxury French brand with a beautiful price tag. He asked, “You even brought dishes?”
Yan Xu simply said there happened to be an unopened set in the trunk intended as a gift.
Wei Changli whispered, “Money to burn,” then took a bite of the noodles.
The noodles were the perfect texture, coated in a light, fresh broth. A few drops of sesame oil and a tiny bit of vinegar neutralized the ginger flavor he disliked. The greens were sweet and crisp; after a few bites, his empty stomach felt much better.
His attitude was rare and peaceful. His voice was very raspy from the fever as he chatted one sentence at a time: “Actually, this kitchen was renovated once last month.”
Yan Xu’s gaze stayed on him.
“I wasn’t here that day though,” Wei Changli said slowly, leaning back. “Supposedly, the neighbor upstairs, Old Huai, always had a broken kitchen and called someone to fix it. The repairman ended up punching right through the sewer pipe and flooded this apartment downstairs. My landlord heard about it and rushed over to have a huge fight with the guy upstairs. His attitude probably wasn’t great. The guy upstairs lost his temper, came down, and trashed this kitchen.”
The old city—especially the intersection of Changping Road and Heping Street—was poorly managed with terrible feng shui. All sorts of people lived here, and Wei Changli had grown used to the chaos.
His eyelashes drooped tiredly. Being sick had made him more talkative: “Normally, a dispute like that could take six months to argue over. But the owner upstairs is a gambler. Just during those few days, he won 800,000 on a scratch-off… I guess when people are in high spirits, they are more generous. He spent 30,000 to renovate both his kitchen and the one down here, even replacing the kitchenware.”
Yan Xu gave soft hums of affirmation, acting the part of a perfect listener.
Wei Changli leaned back against the pillow, his voice dropping low: “I want to win 800,000 too.”
Yan Xu coaxed him: “I’ll buy you some when you’re better.”
“It’s snowing outside.” Wei Changli nodded and then shook his head, burying his face in the blankets as his energy flagged.
“Wait until the snow stops.” Yan Xu couldn’t resist ruffling the top of his hair.
Wei Changli didn’t refuse; he even leaned toward the palm of the man’s hand, his voice sounding a bit thick due to the illness: “Then can I win 800,000?”
Yan Xu answered indulgently: “Win a million.”
Wei Changli was satisfied. The Epiphyllum scent on the man had a calming, sleep-inducing effect, so he pillowed his head on Yan Xu’s hand and lightly closed his eyes.
Yan Xu didn’t withdraw his hand. He sat very quietly by the bed, his gaze naturally falling, silently tracing the lines of Wei Changli’s features.
Inside the power-less room, the two were coexisting in near-perfect peace. This was the most harmonious moment they had shared since their reunion.
Wei Changli curled under the blankets. After a long time, he murmured, “Am I…”
“Hm?” The last few words were almost a breath; Yan Xu didn’t hear them clearly.
Wei Changli struggled to open his eyes to look at him, hesitated, then moved his lips softly: “Just… too willful, this time.”
Yan Xu leaned down closer to understand, then used his free hand to tuck the blanket in again, using the tone a doctor might use to coax a patient: “You’re being good. You didn’t sneak the covers off.”
“But I’m hot.” Wei Changli’s thoughts were momentarily diverted.
Yan Xu: “You’ll feel better once the fever breaks.”
Wei Changli fell silent.
Just when he thought the other wouldn’t answer him again, Yan Xu spoke: “It wouldn’t be you if you didn’t come.”
Silence suddenly filled the room. The sound of falling snow outside became exceptionally distinct.
Wei Changli didn’t speak for a long time—so long that Yan Xu almost thought he had fallen asleep again. He slowly withdrew his hand, but the former’s brow furrowed restlessly.
Yan Xu stopped moving, yet Wei Changli didn’t open his eyes.
Yan Xu could only stroke his hair soothingly before turning to leave, closing the door quietly behind him.
The house was indeed cold enough. The water from the kitchen pipe was like ice water. By the time Yan Xu finished washing the bowl and pot, his hands had turned bright red, the veins standing out on the backs of his hands, though the lines remained quite beautiful.
He looked silently at the kitchen Wei Changli had described as being “fully renovated.” In the small space, the positions of the stove, sink, and cabinets had all been changed, and the kitchenware was brand new.
But he still felt it wasn’t clean.
Yan Xu stayed in the kitchen for a few minutes before coming out into the small living room attached to this one-bedroom apartment. There was no sofa; only a simple table was set up, with a plastic stool beside it—the kind that was almost obsolete even at roadside stalls.
The stool looked like it hadn’t been sat on in a long time; the plastic was likely brittle. Yan Xu glanced at it and felt that the possibility of it collapsing under him was definitely not zero, so he simply leaned against the wall and closed his eyes to rest.
Actually, he could have gone to the car downstairs to spend the night, but he was worried Wei Changli’s fever would spike again in the middle of the night.
The bedroom door suddenly moved. Yan Xu looked over at the sound and saw that Wei Changli had gotten out of bed at some point. Wearing only his thin pajamas, he leaned against the doorframe with one hand, staring directly at him.
“Why are you out?” Yan Xu walked toward Wei Changli, grabbing his hand to lead him back to the bedroom. Wei Changli stood by the door and didn’t move.
Yan Xu asked: “Where does it hurt?”
Wei Changli’s gaze wasn’t quite focused, but he instinctively followed the man’s face. He didn’t speak, just stood there silently, lost in thought.
“If you keep standing there, you’ll start burning up again,” Yan Xu said, pressing the back of his hand to the other’s forehead. He sighed helplessly, “Little radiator.”
When feverish, Wei Changli was rarely lucid and mostly dazed. Right now, he just stood there, and it was unclear if he even understood.
Yan Xu lowered his gaze, preparing to lift the man back to bed, but the moment he touched his arm, Wei Changli suddenly followed the momentum and collapsed softly into his embrace. Yan Xu caught him immediately, feeling Wei Changli’s arms loosely circle his waist.
“Why won’t you come back yet?”
Wei Changli’s voice was muffled in the intimate space between them, his tone sounding pathetically weak from the illness: “I can’t sleep.”