In his dream, He Yun transformed into a tough-to-crack lobster claw.
Si Yu held him, biting, gnawing, crunching… Mhm, so fragrant.
Hm? So fragrant?
Dizzy and groggy, Si Yu grabbed a jacket at random and slowly walked downstairs.
“He Yun?”
Seeing the clay pot still bubbling away, Si Yu was startled for just a second before immediately beginning to search the villa.
“He Yun?! He Yun?! He… Nie Shuang?”
Nie Shuang, who had just pushed the door open, was clearly stunned as well. He stood frozen in place, staring at Si Yu, who was draped in a black jacket that didn’t quite fit him.
Nie Shuang: “Brother Si Yu, why, why did you wake up so early?”
Not in the mood to deal with him, Si Yu continued searching the other rooms on the first floor, flinging doors open while calling out He Yun’s name.
“He Yun, if you don’t come out right now, that pot of seafood porridge is going to burn!”
“Brother Si Yu, I cooked that porridge!”
“What?”
Si Yu’s foot, which had just stepped toward the basement stairs, froze. He turned his head to glare at Nie Shuang, who was hurriedly trying to block his way down.
Half-convinced, Si Yu withdrew his step, sat down at the dining table, and stared blankly at the open Western kitchen opposite him.
Nie Shuang let out a sigh of relief, glanced at his phone, and hurriedly fetched the hangover soup from the kitchen.
“You made this, too?”
“Yep, sure did!”
Si Yu took a sip, not believing a single word of Nie Shuang’s answer.
“Did you add honey or rock sugar?”
“Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh…” Nie Shuang glanced sideways at his phone screen. “Added both. Rock sugar went in after it boiled, and honey right before taking it off the heat.”
The fingers holding Si Yu’s spoon paused. Lowering his eyes, he took a long moment before speaking.
“He really taught you everything, didn’t he?”
“Ha, ha… Bro, drink up and go lie back down. I’ll call you when the porridge is ready.”
Si Yu didn’t reply. He finished it in one gulp, stood up, and headed upstairs.
Before Nie Shuang’s hanging heart could drop back into place, the front door was pushed open again.
“Huh? Brother Shuang, Yun also sent you…”
Nie Shuang lunged forward, clapping a hand over Ou Xiaofeng’s mouth: “Don’t you dare say it!”
Ou Xiaofeng pointed a finger upstairs, and upon receiving a nod from Nie Shuang, blinked rapidly.
“You’re lugging so many bags, what did you buy?”
“Oh, Yun… he said Brother Si Yu ran out of some daily necessities and medicine at home, so I went to buy some.”
Nie Shuang sighed, waving his hand to tell Ou Xiaofeng to hurry up and unpack the items.
As for himself, he retreated back into the kitchen to stare in mutual dismay at a pot of steaming, fragrant seafood porridge.
“Brother Shuang, is it done?”
“I don’t know.”
Just as the two of them were hesitating over whether to taste-test it, the front door stirred again.
“Si Yu, you…” Shen Que, holding a brown paper bag of pastries, stood outside the door. “Why is it you guys?”
“Director Shen, you also received Yun…”
Ou Xiaofeng was manually muted by Nie Shuang’s hand.
Watching Shen Que’s gaze sweep from the shoe cabinet all the way across the house, Nie Shuang blurted out, “Director Shen, Brother Si Yu just drank some hangover soup and went upstairs to rest.”
“Is he home alone?”
Under Shen Que’s glare, Nie Shuang gave a dazed nod while his eyes darted unnaturally to the side.
Shen Que narrowed his eyes, placed the mochi down on the dining table, and strode toward the basement.
“Are the three of you holding a meeting in my house?”
Si Yu was leaning against the third-floor railing with a toothbrush jammed in his mouth.
“All of you, get out.”
Shen Que watched Si Yu leave, then once again cast a chilling gaze toward the dim hallway.
“If you have the guts, hide for the rest of your life.”
The heavy click of the front door locking echoed through the house. A tall figure emerged from the mouth of the hallway.
Turn off the stove, dish out the porridge; open the dining table’s warming tray, arrange the bowls, chopsticks, and chopped parsley, and finally, gaze toward the bedroom door on the third floor.
Click.
Si Yu halted his hand, slowly tracing the black jacket he was wearing—He Yun’s jacket.
He bolted out of the bathroom.
“He Yun!”
However, only total silence answered him.
In the deep, silent sea, even the waves kept their counsel.
He Yun had zoned out for a long time. By the time he finished transplanting the sweet peas and covering their roots with leaves to keep the soil moist, the sky had turned pitch black.
Sweet peas were easy to grow, but no matter the flower, He Yun treated them all with delicate care.
Planting flowers felt like raising a fussy child, much like Si Yu; if he wasn’t given what he wanted, he would…
Why am I thinking of him again?
He Yun looked down at the pale purple hyacinth in his hand, not daring to gaze any longer at the courtyard gate the tenant hadn’t graced in two weeks.
April rains were always lingering, much like the look in Si Yu’s eyes when he broke into his dreams.
“I’m so cold,” Si Yu said, catching his hand and pressing it against his own cheek. “Touch me.”
Beneath his palm, there was clearly not a hint of chill or softness, yet He Yun still felt as though he were touching him.
Si Yu lifted his chin slightly, strands of golden hair falling to the sides. Right beside his fingertips were those damp eyes and rosy lips.
He Yun looked at him, acting as he should have throughout the past year, playing the gentle, perfect lover in a dream.
Yet now, having actually met Si Yu in reality, he didn’t dare move anymore.
He was afraid of seeing Si Yu cry again.
The twitch of Si Yu’s nose, the trembling of his eyelashes, the tears falling down…
He Yun was powerless to resist any of it, wishing instead that those tears were merely sharp blades Si Yu held, willing to let them slash him to bloody pieces rather than witness them turn into tears.
“Don’t cry.”
He Yun sat up, gazing out the window at the moonlight and the sea.
He didn’t know whether those words were meant for the Si Yu in his dreams, or for himself.
The rain grew heavier.
In the flowerbed, He Yun stood stooped in a black raincoat, clearing out a small drainage ditch leading toward the sea.
Once he finished the garden work, He Yun found himself walking once again, irresistibly drawn to the neighboring courtyard.
He stepped on the slippery mud in the rainwater, gazing toward the stone slabs in his own garden prepared for the seedbeds.
He Yun had no idea what he was doing.
By the time he took a garden hoe and dug out stone grooves a few centimeters deep, he still didn’t know what he was doing.
After all, a rainy night was hardly the time to lay stone slabs.
One, and another, and another…
Having hammered the stone pathway into place, He Yun stood up and walked back to the front gate of the small courtyard.
Mimicking the steps of a returning homeowner, he walked step by step by step until he stopped in front of the blue door.
Using the rainwater to wash the mud off his hands, he flicked the switch for the incandescent lightbulb overhead.
He’ll trip, it’s too dark.
Remembering there was a spare lightbulb in the house, He Yun pulled out the black flashlight from his pocket and stepped forward.
The moment the flashlight beam clicked on, He Yun froze in the rain.
At the end of the bright, straight beam of light stood Si Yu, holding a transparent umbrella.
Pouring rain and sweeping wind, everything bowed its head, leaving only He Yun standing frozen, staring at the distant visitor, the returning master of the house.
“What are you doing?” Si Yu tilted his face away to avoid the harsh glare. “Showing up at my house in the middle of the night, cosplaying a rainy-night slasher?”
As if jolted awake from a profound dream, He Yun instantly clicked off the flashlight.
Yet this was undoubtedly the wrong decision, whether plunging this northwestern island in the Pacific into instant darkness, or—
“Were you waiting for me?”
Si Yu’s breath and his soft voice drifted over together.
—letting Si Yu walk right up to him like this.
He Yun tried to turn his face away, but Si Yu’s fingertips blocked him.
“Look at me.”
He Yun didn’t budge.
“I’m ordering you.”
The fierce wind had gentled, yet He Yun lowered his head.
“Such a good boy.”
Si Yu tapped the tip of his nose.
It was so light, yet He Yun remembered it for a long, long time.
“I thought Little Corn was here to buy flowers! Turns out he’s just here on vacation?”
Aunt Jiang at the grocery store called “Little Corn” none other than Si Yu, whose head of blond hair made him look just like a freshly sprouted ear of corn in a field.
Si Yu, who had just learned how to crack melon seeds with his back teeth, awkwardly spat out both the shells and the kernels together.
He replied, “The city has too much pressure, coming back to Qingshui Village feels just like coming home! Especially Aunt Jiang’s pumpkin seeds and Aunt Zhou’s pickled fish, they charm me so much I want to come back every other day!”
With just a few words, he had everyone at the table laughing from ear to ear.
Tossing those words out, Si Yu began searching through the courtyard banquet…
“Little Uncle isn’t coming.”
“Hm?”
Si Yu lowered his head to look at Peach, who was straddling a bicycle, and smiled. “How did you know I was looking for your little uncle?”
Peach held out her hand to him. After being rewarded with a handful of pumpkin seeds, she munched on them while replying, “Because the village chief’s birthday banquet invited the whole village, except they didn’t invite my little uncle.”
Si Yu froze in place.
Just as I thought.
“A-Yun’s grandfather and my grandfather were brothers, so Peach calls him uncle too.”
He Feiyi took off her apron and sat down beside Si Yu.
Seeing the handsome man turn to look at her with surprise, she realized her opening line had been far too direct.
He Feiyi smiled and continued, “I know you and A-Yun are friends. When you two first met, A-Yun was practically picking the skin off his fingernails.”
The sea breeze blew toward the rock where they sat.
Watching Si Yu lift his blond hair and the corners of his mouth, He Feiyi couldn’t help staring for a moment.
She said, “A-Yun didn’t do anything wrong; it was his grandfather, my second grandfather. He wasn’t the first of us to leave the island, but he went the farthest. Because he went too far, A-Yun was ostracized and ignored in the village, and across the entire island.”
“Why?” Si Yu asked. “Because of money?”
“Pretty much. His grandfather was highly educated, sharp-witted, and understood business. Even before the reform and opening up, he…”
He Feiyi leaned close to Si Yu’s ear and whispered something.
Hearing this, Si Yu’s eyes widened.
“Really? That impressive!”
“Yeah, his grandfather never talked about it, but everyone on the island knew he was Huai City’s very first ten-thousand-yuan household.”
Si Yu’s interest was piqued. After all, He Yun rarely brought up his past.
He didn’t want to ask He Yun either, about his mental journey from once being rated by the media as Election Year: Most Sexy Quasi-First Son to earning a twelve-pound hourly wage on the streets of London and working three jobs a day.
“Information on the island was closed off, so Second Grandfather bought what the islanders viewed as trifles at low prices and sold them high abroad, making a fortune. The islanders made money alongside him and were deeply grateful to Second Grandfather, until…”
“Things came to light.”
Si Yu smoothly supplied the ending.
“Yeah, by the time authorities were sent to exploit the resources, there was nothing left on the island,” He Feiyi said, picking up a stone and tossing it into the water. “And Second Grandfather had already gone abroad.”
“He certainly had a sharp mind, but he did things quite ruthlessly. He Yun’s dad was just like his old man, and even He…”
The smile on Si Yu’s face faded.
Even He Yun could be pretty ruthless in how he did things, vanishing without a trace, leaving not a single shadow behind.
Until he saw the letter paper the cleaning lady had casually picked up—
“Hello Brother Si Yu,
I am Qi Ye. Perhaps we don’t know each other yet, but we were once close, lifelong friends in a certain parallel universe.
I come from the distant thirteen years in the future, and my letter is simply to tell you that He Yun is in Qingshui Village, North Island.
He’s alive and well, nothing happened to him. You must find him and stop leaving regrets behind.
PS: Bro, go see a psychologist, I’m begging you.”
An inexplicable letter written by a high schooler had somehow become the very last straw he could grasp.
So he came. He came to find He Yun.
“Why are you here?”
He Yun stood on the hillside, looking in astonishment at Si Yu.
His hands, holding something, were hurriedly hidden behind his back.