Only the top half of Chen Yufeng’s hair was tied up, while the rest was still quite long, resting softly against his neck.
“Your hair.” Xie Qing scanned the area and lowered his eyes to remind him, “It’s too long. You can’t see.”
“Forget it, I’ll deal with it when I get back.” Chen Yufeng turned his head back and waved the package in his hand. “I’ll just take this with me directly. Do you need to take a picture and report to Xie Wang?”
“Get in the car,” Xie Qing said, “I’ll drive you.”
Chen Yufeng stopped with the package raised in the air, his expression tightening as he asked warily, “Why?”
“No particular reason. If you won’t take the money, I have to use other methods.” Xie Qing opened the car door for him, looking entirely determined not to stop until he got in.
“What if I hadn’t shown up here today?” Chen Yufeng stood his ground. “What were you planning to do?”
Resting a hand on the door frame, Xie Qing narrowed his eyes slightly against the sunlight filtering through the treetops. “Deliver the suppressants to Xie Wang, and look for you along the way.”
“We could get food or go out. Anyone I can handle bringing along with Xie Wang, I can handle bringing along with you.”
Chen Yufeng relaxed, the more he listened, the more he felt like the other person must have some kind of misunderstanding about him.
“I thought you were treating me like one of your Omegas, but it turns out you’re treating me like your younger brother?”
He muttered helplessly as he slid into the car. “This air conditioning is so refreshing!”
The moment Chen Yufeng stretched his legs inside and felt the chill, he couldn’t help but sigh in appreciation.
Xie Qing smiled silently and closed the car door for him.
“Let’s drop off the suppressants at the auditorium for Xie Wang first.” Xie Qing began to turn the steering wheel. “I’ll have him come out and get them.”
The front entrance of the auditorium was about two hundred meters away from the courier station, just a quick drive.
In about a minute, Chen Yufeng spotted Xie Wang stretching his neck awkwardly as he peered around the entrance.
The moment he saw the car, his eyes lit up like a dog spotting a meat bun.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Chen Yufeng thought to himself, he and Xie Wang would never be on the same level in this lifetime, so why on earth was he inexplicably being treated like a younger brother?
“Bro, I want…”
Too deep in his thoughts, Chen Yufeng blurted out the exact same term of address Xie Wang had used.
Realizing his mistake in the nick of time, he corrected himself instantly.
“Bah! Senior!”
The car, which had been slowing down smoothly, suddenly surged forward.
Before Chen Yufeng even had a chance to feel embarrassed about his slip of the tongue, the intense G-force scared him into gripping his seatbelt tightly.
“I said, can you drive a bit more steadily? Other people’s lives matter too, you know!”
As soon as he finished shouting, Xie Qing executed another sharp turn followed by a sudden, hard brake.
Chen Yufeng gritted his teeth on the verge of an outburst, but upon closer inspection, he noticed something.
With that completely absurd maneuver, Xie Qing had somehow managed to park right into a temporary parking space on the side of the auditorium.
“Sorry.” Instead of arguing, Xie Qing lowered his voice and apologized.
He picked up the suppressants and got straight out of the car.
The reprimand that had been sitting on the tip of Chen Yufeng’s tongue was blocked right back in.
When the car had sped past Xie Wang earlier, the kid had already been jogging over while mumbling to himself.
Xie Qing hadn’t walked more than two steps out of the car before the two of them met.
Whatever Xie Wang was saying, Chen Yufeng could only watch from the passenger seat as he smiled in a weird way.
He tried to run over toward the car, but Xie Qing grabbed him by the collar and spun him around in a circle.
Only then did Xie Wang reluctantly head back toward the auditorium.
By the time Xie Qing returned to the car, Chen Yufeng had completely forgotten what he had wanted to ask when he accidentally called him senior.
“Destination?” Xie Qing turned on the navigation system.
“Chengyang Residential Area on Jinwan Road.”
Xie Qing asked, “Near Wanda?”
Chen Yufeng gave him a look that clearly said you’re so smart.
“Then why did you go to the subway station yesterday?” Xie Qing turned the steering wheel. “Went to the hospital?”
“Why is Senior so fond of prying into my privacy?” Chen Yufeng closed his eyes, drawing his tone out lazily. “Could it be that you’ve also taken a fancy to this face of mine?”
“Also?”
“Yeah, I really like your face. It’s quite pleasing to the eye.” Chen Yufeng always grew lazy the moment he got into a car, keeping only one eye open even when looking at Xie Qing.
As if to emphasize his point, he spared him a few extra glances.
Only then did he turn back to keep his eyes closed.
In Xie Qing’s peripheral vision, Chen Yufeng’s eyelashes were quite long with a slight curve, and when he closed his eyes, his outer eye corners slanted upward.
He suddenly remembered someone saying that people with upward-slanting eyes tended to be rather fierce.
As for Chen Yufeng, Xie Qing tapped the steering wheel and thought to himself, he probably just looked fierce, and his territorial instincts were exceptionally strong.
Xie Qing didn’t understand why anyone would be so worried about protecting that tiny patch of territory of his from being invaded.
“Don’t fall asleep, we’ll be there in five minutes.” Xie Qing softened his tone. “Unless you want to sleep in my car and force me to hold an online meeting.”
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
The sound of steady breathing came from beside him.
Xie Qing thought, I was off by just one second, didn’t Xie Wang say he slept for hours at noon?
Before falling asleep, Chen Yufeng had still been thinking that he would just close his eyes for a moment to prevent motion sickness and definitely not sleep.
When he saw Teacher Chen, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, he realized he was dreaming.
He was back in the apartment he had lived in a week ago, and Teacher Chen was holding a cat.
She pointed to a photo beside the TV cabinet.
“Look, this is my love. If he were still here, you wouldn’t be a little cat without a daddy anymore.”
Standing in the living room, Chen Yufeng felt a stinging sensation in the bridge of his nose.
With a creak, the door opened.
“Teacher Chen, I’m back!”
The voice was childish and cheerful, and the footsteps were light, instantly bypassing Chen Yufeng as he stood in the living room.
He was very familiar with that face because it belonged to none other than himself.
Himself from middle school.
Teacher Chen turned around, holding the small cat in her arms, and smiled gently.
“This is older brother. Little Wei, say hello to older brother. You have to take good care of him from now on.”
Teacher Chen was a classic Jiangnan beauty, still gentle and elegant past the age of forty.
Even at home, she kept her hair styled neatly and wore a plain qipao, seeming to glow in the afternoon living room.
That little cat named Little Wei seemed to actually understand, letting out a soft, delicate meow.
The miniature version of Chen Yufeng happily leaped forward, taking the little cat from Teacher Chen’s hands.
The scene looked harmonious and warm.
If Chen Yufeng had known what role that little cat would play, he never would have accepted it, at least not the Chen Yufeng watching from the sidelines.
Watching this unfold in the living room, he wanted to rush over and return that little cat to Teacher Chen.
No matter what he tried, however, he couldn’t touch anything.
Deep down, Chen Yufeng understood he wanted to break through this dream, yet felt like he couldn’t move a single muscle anywhere.
The more he understood, the more anxious he grew.
He simply couldn’t wake up, and he could distinctly feel his breathing speeding up and growing more and more frantic.
“Chen Yufeng.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Chen Yufeng! Wake up!”
Suddenly, a sharp pain shot across the back of his neck, and Chen Yufeng instinctively struggled to reach out and check.
Just like that, he abruptly realized he could move again.
Drawing in a sharp gasp of air, Chen Yufeng snapped his eyes open.
He found himself staring into a pair of deep, dark eyes filled with a hint of tension.
Chen Yufeng felt a patch of warmth and finally understood the source of that pain.
Xie Qing’s hand was pressed firmly against the back of his neck.
While his own hand was gripping two of Xie Qing’s fingers, he had no idea which ones.
The lighting inside the car was dim, and Chen Yufeng’s breathing was heavy, his heart beating wildly.
It was all because of the nightmare just now.
Leaning over closely, Xie Qing was holding his laptop in his left hand while his earphones flashed with light.
Looking around the room, Chen Yufeng guiltily let go of Xie Qing’s hand, his voice raspy as he said, “I’m awake.”