Winter has arrived, and the first snow falls as if in a dream.
Qin Qin had said that grocery shopping was a great activity for bonding.
But in the first twenty years of his life, Huo Kairan had never set foot in a supermarket. Everything at home was managed by the housekeeper he lacked for nothing.
He guessed Huo Lin was the same. With an assistant handling everything, he surely didn’t need to shop in person either.
So, the seemingly simple phrase “grocery shopping” held entirely different meanings for them!
Inspired by her words, Huo Kairan devised a new plan:
First: He must use this outing to leave a deep impression on Huo Lin, so that every time Huo Lin saw a supermarket in the future, he would think of him.
Second: At the same time, he needed to showcase his strengths, making Huo Lin see him in a new light and no longer view him as a burden!
Thus, that afternoon while Huo Lin was working, Huo Kairan proudly dragged a chair over and sat beside him, meticulously drafting a shopping list.
Huo Lin didn’t understand why his brother, who was accustomed to custom-made goods, insisted on going to the supermarket with such a flimsy excuse instead of simply having new bedding fetched from the old mansion.
But seeing how enthusiastic he was, Huo Lin let him be.
His gaze, however, kept drifting involuntarily to the strand of hair that fell beside Huo Kairan’s hand.
Huo Kairan’s hair was jet-black, straight, and carried a faint scent of orchids.
Sitting close together, as Huo Kairan leaned over the desk to write, his hair would occasionally brush against Huo Lin’s jacket with his movements sticking, separating, sticking again, separating again.
In the quiet, stagnant pond that was Huo Lin’s life, these fleeting touches stirred a tiny ripple.
“Big brother! It’s time to leave work!!” Huo Kairan stared intently at the wall clock, jumping up the moment it struck six.
After sending his last email, Huo Lin remembered what Huo Kairan had said in the car earlier. He opened the rarely-used company-wide group chat and sent a formal message:
@Huo Lin: 【Effective immediately, work ends promptly at 6 PM. All subsidiaries are to follow suit. Please notify and supervise each other. Any instances of forced overtime can be reported to the Secretary Department’s email.】
As the group’s CEO, Huo Lin had never advocated for overtime. But with his heavy workload and no other hobbies besides work, he often stayed late into the night.
Department heads, seeing the boss still at his desk, would stay to show loyalty or demonstrate diligence. If the heads didn’t leave, the employees dared not either, creating a vicious cycle that turned the Huo Group into a brightly lit “overtime sanctuary.”
As soon as the message went out, even through the best soundproofing walls, a wave of cheers could be heard from outside.
Huo Kairan tucked his little notebook away and pushed open the door to the CEO’s office, only to be met with admiring glances from countless employees removing their badges and preparing to leave.
Their eyes seemed to say: Hero!
Bewildered, he touched his face: Had he gotten ink on it earlier?
But the moment the man behind him appeared, all those gazes instantly vanished.
Huo Lin walked silently past him, tossing out a remark: “Weren’t you in a hurry?”
Huo Kairan immediately followed behind him. “It’s because I checked supermarkets get really crowded during the after-work rush!”
He emphasized, “I wasn’t rushing you, you know!”
Watching the two figures walk away, the employees exchanged glances, sharing knowing smiles.
Just as Huo Kairan had predicted, when they arrived at the large supermarket near Huo Lin’s home, it was peak hours.
Unaccustomed to such crowded places, Huo Kairan instinctively used his jacket to cover his right leg and shuffled slowly through the revolving door.
Just as he was about to catch up to Huo Lin, he noticed the man ahead had already slowed his pace.
After that, their paces fell almost perfectly in sync, allowing others to pass them from behind.
Due to his leg condition, Huo Kairan always made a conscious effort to walk slowly the smaller his steps, the less noticeable the abnormality.
This also meant he always appeared to stroll leisurely. Even if someone was willing to wait for him, they would lose patience after a few times.
After realizing this during his school years, he stopped walking with his classmates.
But now, for the first time, he was walking side by side with someone for so long, and their rhythms matched so well.
Curiously, he tilted his head to look at Huo Lin, whose expression remained calm. This man was taller and had longer legs than him, yet he was now taking extremely small steps to match Huo Kairan’s pace, standing out starkly amidst the hurried crowd.
“Big brother, so you’re actually a warm guy?”
“What’s a warm guy?”
“It means… I’m praising you for being a gentleman,” Huo Kairan explained while mimicking others to scan and unlock a shopping cart.
Huo Lin behind him paused for a moment, a faint blush creeping up to the tips of his ears. “Thank you.”
Huo Kairan smiled again, but this time it was strained.
Before this, he and Huo Lin had been practically strangers under the same roof, exchanging fewer than two sentences a year.
For so many years, their estrangement had been almost laughable.
He shook his head, trying to shake off the inexplicably oppressive thoughts.
Although the supermarket was crowded, its vast space prevented it from feeling cramped.
The two first headed to the home goods section, where a sales assistant quickly approached them.
At first glance from behind, they looked like a married couple, but upon closer inspection, they were two handsome men.
The sharp-eyed sales assistant judged from their clothing that they were well-off and immediately began enthusiastically recommending products.
Huo Lin frowned, cutting off her sales pitch. “We want fabrics that won’t irritate the skin.”
His tone was sharp and imposing. The sales assistant awkwardly put down the product with the highest commission and led them to the fabric section.
Huo Kairan’s eyes quickly scanned the area, soon locking onto his target. He immediately pointed at the price tags. “Brother, look these two fabrics are the same, but this bedsheet costs 3,880, while this one is only 880. If we buy the cheaper one, we’ll save a lot, right?”
He suppressed the urge to smile, lifting his chin slightly with a hint of pride at having discovered this detail. Eager to showcase his “virtue” of frugality, he placed the cheapest set of bedding in the same category into the cart.
Just as Huo Kairan was about to push the cart forward, Huo Lin held the handle firmly with one hand, stopping it. “Why do we need to save?”
Huo Kairan, unable to push the cart, stumbled slightly from the counterforce.
Huo Lin steadied him in time, letting go once he regained his balance.
Huo Kairan stared at the quickly withdrawn hand, convinced it was a sign of disdain. He pursed his lips and finally couldn’t help but whisper:
“I’m easy to take care of I won’t cost much… Please don’t send me away.”
Huo Lin’s footsteps halted, his brows deeply furrowed.
No wonder.
Huo Kairan had grown up with custom-made clothes, food, and accommodations, never setting foot in a place like this before.
He was worried about this.
He was actually worried about this?
Huo Lin’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed the words that had risen to his lips.
Huo Kairan immediately regretted his words. He had meant to showcase his strengths, how had it turned into complaining again? Damn it, he’d said the wrong thing again.
“It’s my fault,” Huo Lin said gravely. “My emotions affected you. You can stay as long as you want. Don’t worry about me sending you back.”
Huo Lin put the cheap bedding set back on the shelf and picked up the one Huo Kairan had been eyeing from the start the one he clearly liked. Still, worried that Huo Kairan might not adjust well, he planned to return to the old house that evening to fetch the set he usually used.
“Ranran, it’s good that you have a sense of frugality and avoiding waste, but there’s nothing shameful about enjoying life. Settling for less is a greater disservice to yourself.”
“I don’t want you to settle for anyone or anything.”
Huo Kairan lowered his head. “But can I really live like this forever?”
Under the cold fluorescent lights of the supermarket, the man’s tall figure almost enveloped him entirely. “Don’t you want to live like this forever?”
“I do,” Huo Kairan blurted out.
Of course, he wanted to live forever in a wealthy family, forever indulging in a luxurious, carefree life.
But now he couldn’t, and perhaps he never would again.
“I do, and I don’t,” Huo Kairan said softly, pulling out his small notebook as he pushed the cart. “Like today, when I was planning all this, I looked up a lot of blogs and guides. I read that milk in the refrigerated section often has buy-one-get-one deals, that supermarkets usually discount cooked food in the evenings, that when buying clothes, you just need to check the fabric and basic styles you can even search online with a picture, since many prices are inflated. For fruit, you can take your time picking the ones priced at three-fifty per pound aren’t necessarily worse than the ones at eight-eighty. For vegetables, you should weigh them in your hand first, then check if the roots are firm. These are all things I’ve never experienced before, but I think I could try them.”
“But if I had to live like this all the time, I don’t think I could do it,” Huo Kairan added, forcing a slight smile.
Huo Lin looked puzzled. “Then why try at all?”
Huo Kairan gently kicked the cart’s wheel. “Because I want you to see that I’m not the same person I used to be. I can do these impressive things too.”
Huo Lin watched him, recalling his mother’s comment about him “maturing,” and felt an inexplicable pang in his heart.
In the end, Huo Lin accompanied him through all the “impressive” shopping tasks. But as he watched the young man’s satisfied smile and carried the shopping bags out of the supermarket, his heart grew heavier.
Looking back, his brother’s unusual behavior seemed to have started after the auction right around the time he met Qin Qin.
And today, when he saw Qin Qin again, his behavior was even more out of the ordinary.
Huo Lin couldn’t help but connect the two. Suddenly, as if everything clicked into place, he stopped walking.
“You don’t have to do this,” Huo Lin said softly.
Huo Kairan, who was unwrapping a marshmallow, looked up. “What?”
Huo Lin’s expression turned serious. “If you’re doing all this for Qin Qin, trying to get me to agree to you two dating…”
Huo Kairan was stunned and quickly interrupted, “Wait! What’s going on between me and her?”
Huo Lin continued analyzing on his own. “You’re still young. I don’t recommend getting into a relationship now…”
“What are you thinking?!” Huo Kairan exclaimed, his face instantly flushing red. “Don’t spread rumors! Qin Qin and I have only met twice. We’re not even friends.”
So all his efforts to prove himself tonight, in Huo Lin’s eyes, were just an attempt to bribe a parent for permission to date?
Huo Kairan was furious.
Huo Lin’s stern expression faltered, replaced by a look of confusion. “No? Then why… come to me and keep me company all this time?”
The words sounded almost like the lament of a lonely old man. Huo Kairan suddenly felt a pang of guilt he had never cared about this brother before.
“It’s just…” Huo Kairan met Huo Lin’s eyes and noticed for the first time that his irises were a deep blue.
Like a tranquil galaxy, like an embracing sea.
He, who had initially only intended to exploit the other’s power, suddenly felt a flicker of genuine sincerity.
“I want to get to know you,” Huo Kairan said.
Huo Lin’s eyelashes trembled slightly. “Wh…what?”
“Brother, let’s start over.” Huo Kairan faced him and extended a hand
“Hello, my name is Huo Kairan.”
The night sky over the West Sea began to drift with fine snowflakes, one by one, landing on the shoulders of hurried passersby.
And on the shoulders of the person before him.
Huo Lin’s heart seemed to slow for a few beats, as if frozen by the snow. After a long moment of stunned silence, he reached out and shook the hand with earnest solemnity:
“Huo Lin.”
The snow fell heavier and heavier, as if the world had been paused.
Winter had arrived, and the first snow felt like a dream.