Bai Shu was happily spinning around while hugging the flowers. Although this wasn’t the first time he had ever received flowers, it was the very first time they had come from his boyfriend.
Burying his face in the bouquet, he took a deep breath, feeling as though these flowers smelled even sweeter than any he had received before.
Right at that moment, a small hand reached out from the side and pulled a card free.
Staring at the little love heart printed on the card, Doudou was absolutely furious. Puffing out his cheeks, he demanded accusingly, “Who is dis from?!”
In his blind rage, his tongue tripped right over his own words.
Bai Shu felt like his soul was about to be scared right out of his body again. Exactly how many times had his younger brother startled him today? His poor little heart truly couldn’t take much more of this.
Cracking under the stress, Bai Shu cried out, “Weren’t you just upstairs sleeping?!”
Doudou slanted his little eyes to glare at him. So older brother really had intentionally coaxed him to sleep on purpose.
Making Bai Shu feel rather guilty under that piercing gaze, he hugged the flowers tighter and snapped defensively, “What are you trying to do now?”
If the kid started talking about breaking up again, he might not be able to stop himself from spanking his little brother.
He was just a three-year-old brat who hadn’t even held hands with any other kids yet, yet here he was trying to police his romantic life.
Lifting the card high, Doudou suddenly switched to an adorable tone and asked, “Did older brother buy dis for Doudou?”
Bai Shu answered decisively, “No.”
“Oh~”
Drawing out the syllable, Doudou scrambled onto the sofa and plopped himself down right beside his older brother, burrowing straight into his arms to peer at the bouquet before them.
“So fragrant!” Changing the subject in a flash, Doudou sensed his older brother was on the verge of blowing a gasket, so he wisely decided not to push his luck too far.
Seeing that his younger brother hadn’t brought up the breakup talk again, Bai Shu relaxed his guard a fraction.
“They just got delivered. They’re still very fresh.”
Inhaling the scent of the blossoms, Bai Shu felt his mood brighten considerably.
Tucking the card away into his pocket, Doudou deployed both hands at once and ruthlessly ripped off a whole handful of petals.
Bai Shu: !!!
His flowers! He hadn’t even taken any pictures of them yet!
“Doudou “
Bai Shu felt as though a wall of raging flames was blazing up right behind his back.
He should have known this little rascal was still scheming something evil.
It was entirely his own fault for letting his guard down.
Startled nearly off balance by his older brother, Doudou stubbornly refused to show any fear, roaring right back with full momentum: “You scared Doudou!”
Losing his footing for a split second, Doudou toppled sideways straight into Bai Shu’s arms, showering them both from head to toe in a cascade of loose rose petals.
Squishing his little face against his older brother’s chest, Bai Shu had no choice but to reach out and catch him first.
Once he was propped back up, Doudou immediately threw his arms around his older brother’s neck and put on an expression of utter righteousness, acting purely in his best interest: “Doudou saw buggies on it just now, that’s why I had to pluck the petals! Besides, flowers are so pretty, why would anyone pick them? They don’t have a single ounce of love in their heart!”
“Love our plants and flowers” was written on signs all over the lawn!
Doudou was throwing shade and taking subtle jabs at the person who sent the flowers.
Lowering his gaze, Bai Shu stared at the remnant petals clutched in the child’s fists.
With a dramatic flick of both hands, Doudou tossed all the petals away and continued standing proudly on the moral high ground to condemn the flower-sender.
“Doing things like that is simply wrong.”
Bai Shu: …
Just as Bai Shu was debating whether to give his younger brother a thorough thrashing, Doudou triggered his emergency survival protocol by lunging forward to rub his face furiously against Bai Shu.
“Since they’re already sent, we shouldn’t waste them, right? Zhushu older brother”
Hearing the little fellow’s soft, sweet voice, Bai Shu gave his little bottom a light pat. “Don’t call me older brother, you’re genuinely going to drive me to an early grave.”
“Eh, alrighty then, Zhushu”
To ensure his older brother would break up, the child had truly thrown all shame to the wind and thickened his skin.
Pinching his younger brother’s chubby little cheek, Bai Shu asked, “Let me see just how thick this skin really is.”
Cupping his own cheeks, Doudou giggled happily away.
Unable to do anything with him, Bai Shu grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and set him down on the floor. “Get down, go back to bed and sleep.”
Instead, Doudou immediately clamped his arms around Bai Shu’s thigh, dangling like a dead weight: “No, no, no! Doudou didn’t take a bath before going to sleep tonight! Doudou wants to take a bath with rose petals and smell all nice and pretty”
Bai Shu: “Don’t tell me this was your plan all along?”
Looking up with an expression of pure, wounded innocence, Doudou blinked at him: “How could Zhushu think of Doudou like that Doudou was just scared.”
With that, he released his grip on Zhushu’s leg, shuffled over to stand by himself with his head bowed, and started nervously twisting the hem of his shirt.
He looked the spitting image of a fragile, innocent little white lotus flower.
Considering his younger brother’s age, Bai Shu figured that kids in this developmental bracket tended to have sudden, erratic whims.
Scooping the child up with one arm while holding the remains of the bouquet in the other, he conceded, “Since it’s come to this, we might as well use them.”
The flowers were already ruined anyway.
Before long, Doudou was stripped down and plopped right into the bathtub. Sticking to his usual routine, he wouldn’t normally take a second bath at night if he’d already washed during the day.
Tonight’s circumstances were simply too unique.
Sitting stark naked in the basin with rose petals floating all across the surface of the water, the bathroom lighting made him look exceptionally precious and cute.
However, looking down at his own clothes drenched down the front, Bai Shu didn’t feel an ounce of that cuteness.
With a deadpan expression, he felt a strong urge to haul the little fellow straight out of the tub by his collar.
“Are you going to get out or not?” He had already been sitting in there for over ten minutes; he was done playing, and the water was practically going cold.
Wiping the water from his face, Doudou finally put forward his ultimate demand: “Need to take pictures of Doudou Post them on Bo”
He meant that platform used for gaining fans.
For a moment, Doudou couldn’t quite remember what it was called.
Anyway, lots of fans would leave comments there.
Gazing at him helplessly, Bai Shu flatly refused: “No way. If you go posting pictures of yourself bare like this, you’ll get flagged and censored. It won’t go through.”
Clawing at the rim of the tub with both hands, Doudou widened his eyes: “Why would they censor Doudou!”
With that, he let go of the rim, cupped his own face, and squished his cheeks together.
How do they even censor people anyway?
Amused to the point of nearly laughing out loud at his silly younger brother, Bai Shu relented: “Fine, fine, I’ll take them for you. Goodness knows who you pick these things up from.”
Looking thoroughly dissatisfied, Doudou muttered, “Gotta give the fans… some perks to come see Doudou”
He had to remind them to keep coming back to watch Doudou tomorrow.
And by the way, ruthlessly antagonize Xie Xiran.
Hehehe, Doudou emitted a sinister little chuckle.
He wanted to make Xie Xiran see whether those petals in the tub looked familiar. Let that teach him to anger Doudou he was going to make his older brother see through the man’s true colors and cast him aside once and for all.
Doudou’s abacus beads were clacking away brilliantly in his head.
Achieving this was his primary objective all along.
Destroying the flowers wasn’t what mattered; what mattered was making that scumbag lay eyes on the freshly delivered flowers shredded to pieces.
A light rap with a knuckle landed on Doudou’s head, causing him to cover his crown with his hands and glare accusingly at Bai Shu through gathering tears.
Standing up and drying his hands, Bai Shu instructed, “If you’re going to smile, smile properly. Stop making weird faces.”
Pouting his lips, Doudou immediately plastered on a radiant, beaming smile the second he saw Zhushu pull out his phone.
Aside from his shoulders and head, the rest of the child was completely concealed beneath a blanket of floating petals.
Bai Shu snapped two or three shots and felt quite satisfied with all of them.
Confirming one last time, he asked, “Are you sure you want me to post these?”
Sighing like a miniature adult, Doudou shook his head: “Sigh, Zhushu, we’ve got to hustle for those fans!”
How else was he supposed to get his older brother to blow up in popularity?
Hesitating over a simple social media post it was enough to drive Doudou to despair.
This time, Bai Shu was genuinely caught between laughter and tears: “Did you eavesdrop on my phone call?”
Gaining fans was something only Agent Hua had ever mentioned to him.
Doudou instantly averted his gaze, pouting his lower lip as he picked at the engraved patterns on the edge of the bathtub.
Lifting his younger brother out, drying him off, zapping his hair dry with a hair dryer, Bai Shu asked, “Have you decided which pictures to pick?”
Gazing at all three photos, Doudou was thoroughly pleased with every single one of them.
He found it practically impossible to choose: “Doudou wants to post all of them.”
They looked so good leaving them hidden from the fans would be an absolute tragedy!
Doudou had been working tirelessly toward the great cause of gathering fans.
Pausing in thought, Bai Shu realized oh right, I can just post all of them.
Usually, he rarely engaged with social media; whenever he posted on Weibo, it was only because Agent Hua badgered him into doing it.
“Then let’s post all of them.” Editing the post quickly, Bai Shu published it after showing Doudou to get his approval.
Only then did Doudou let out a contented yawn and obediently tuck himself into bed.
Wiping away a stray tear welling up in the corner of his younger brother’s eye, Bai Shu whispered, “Go on, get some sleep.”
It was already way past the little fellow’s bedtime, and on top of that, he had stayed up making a fuss for ages.
Sure enough, within a single minute, the little guy was fast asleep.
Meanwhile, the photos published by Bai Shu were rapidly accumulating a wave of comments.
Waah, so these are Doudou’s bathtub pictures Blushing, shy emoji jpg
Doudou is so incredibly bewitching, even taking a bath in rose petals. Such a high-maintenance, refined little baby
Sending kisses to my little darling, goodnight
Hold on a second, why are all three photos of Doudou? Where is Zhushu? Why aren’t you sharing Zhushu’s bathtub photos with us? We can totally handle that little bit of mobile data traffic.
Exactly! Zhushu, open the door! We know you’re reading this! Hurry up and drop those bathtub pics Just matching Doudou’s standard will do nicely
No worries, sisters. Let’s make a mental note that Zhushu currently owes us one set of bathtub pictures
Scrolling through the comments, Bai Shu felt his face growing warm and flush with heat.
These people actually had the audacity to demand his bathtub pictures he had never once soaked in a bath filled with rose petals in his life.
Nor would he ever post bathtub photos.
Seeing the mobile notification light up, Agent Hua was so shocked she immediately dialed Bai Shu’s number: “You actually took the initiative to engage with your audience?! Heavens above, I could cry my eyes out.”
Agent Hua understood his temperament better than anyone. If left to his own devices, Bai Shu wouldn’t touch Weibo once in a blue moon.
Today, he had actually taken the initiative to post photos even though they were of Doudou, it still marked a monumental shift in behavior.
Bai Shu felt rather awkward. Was it really that exaggerated?
Right at that moment, his notification feed refreshed, displaying both Xie Xiran’s name and his own side by side on the search results page.
His heart skipped a beat, and the color drained right out of his face.
Tapping into the tag, he let out a breath of relief oh, phew, it was just a like.
Wait a minute… why on earth did Xie Xiran go out of his way to like content related to him?
Could it have been a slip of the finger?
That was the very first thought flashing through Bai Shu’s mind.
Clutching his head, Bai Shu rolled flat onto his back across the bed. There’s no way he did that on purpose, right?
He had never even begun to mentally prepare himself for a public announcement.
“Ah “ Bai Shu groaned, thrashing back and forth across the mattress.
Dring-ling-ling Dring-ling-ling A WeChat notification chimed through.
Sitting straight up with his phone in hand, he didn’t even need to look to know the message came from Xie Xiran.
It looks like Doudou really loved those flowers. I’ll order an extra batch for tomorrow.
Bai Shu: !!
Xie Xiran had seen his Weibo post and instantly deduced that the petals floating in the bathtub came from the exact bouquet he had sent!
Panic set in. What was he supposed to do now that his boyfriend had discovered his freshly delivered flowers had been shredded into a petal bath by his younger brother?
Online, urgent help needed!
Bai Shu suddenly felt his vocabulary and organizational skills completely desert him. Help, this is so intensely awkward, so mortifying!
Bai Shu’s toes curled so hard inside his socks they practically built two entire castles.
One castle for him to live in, and one castle to lock Doudou away inside.
The little brat was only ever good for creating chaos for him.
Pondering for ages, Bai Shu had no earthly idea how to reply.
Right at that moment, his phone rang. Jolting in surprise, Bai Shu flung the phone straight toward the middle of the mattress.
Then, crawling back over to pick it up, he accepted the call: “Hello…”
A low, gentle chuckle drifted through his ear: “Are you overthinking things again?”
Scratching his head, Bai Shu muttered, “Ah… I’m sorry, I…”
“Mm-huh, do you really think a single ‘sorry’ makes everything okay?”
Standing by his bedroom window with the night breeze drifting across his face, Xie Xiran wore a wide smile as he deliberately teased the person on the other end of the line.
Flattened facedown on the bed, Bai Shu felt like he was about to burst into tears.
What did that remark even mean?
He nearly squeezed the corner of his pillow clean out of shape.
Xie Xiran continued, “During today’s test broadcast, were those delicious dishes on the table made by you?”
Bai Shu: “Huh?”
He was still preoccupied with figuring out how to apologize, so the question caught him completely off guard.
“Then how about you cook a delicious meal and send it over to me tomorrow? Nobody cooks at my place.” A palpable trace of grievance laced Xie Xiran’s tone.
An immediate wave of heartache washed over Bai Shu. A dignified reigning film emperor had lowered himself to suffer through a parenting variety show right alongside him; forget about compensation or the lack thereof, cooking him a proper meal was the absolute least he could do.
“Alright, I’ll have someone deliver it to you around noon.”
“Then I’ll have to trouble you, Zhushu.”
“It’s no trouble at all.”
After ending the call, the corners of Xie Xiran’s lips curled upward. Hmm, earlier he had felt that Zhushu cared just a tiny bit too much about external public opinions.
Keeping him hidden away like this wasn’t ideal; tomorrow might just present the perfect opening to let everyone catch their first subtle glimpses of the truth.
He was far too eager to go public and let the entire world know that Zhushu belonged to him.
Meanwhile, back at the Bai residence, Bai Shu let out a long, heavy sigh of relief. Thank goodness Xie Xiran didn’t bring up the flowers.
Even so, what should he cook tomorrow?
Staying up late into the night, Bai Shu began flipping frantically through digital recipe books, laying down the culinary groundwork for the next day.
Deep in dreamland, Doudou was currently dreaming of Zhushu and Xie Xiran having a bitter, screaming match over the flower incident.
Standing right beside them to fan the flames, he was making sure Zhushu clearly understood what a petty, narrow-minded person Xie Xiran truly was.
Before they even had a chance to announce their relationship, the two of them broke up in secret!
Doudou: Hehehehe