On his way home, Ming Rao passed by a row of shabby brick houses when he heard a chorus of voices: “Who is it?” “Must be here to propose.” “Quite the spectacle.”
He stopped and looked up. The red brick walls along the street were covered in pure white roses, with the occasional pale pink bud scattered among them. From a distance, they formed a giant heart shape in the center of the wall.
Ming Rao watched with mild interest for a while and was about to leave when a middle-aged woman carrying a grocery basket and holding a phone called out to him, asking if he could take a photo of her in front of the flower wall.
As it happened, he had a Polaroid camera on him, so he took it out and snapped the photo for her. The woman took the picture, beaming with delight. “Oh my, young man, you take such good photos! You’ve made me look twenty years younger!”
“Not at all you were already young to begin with.”
Ming Rao said with a smile, about to put the camera away, when he heard the woman let out an “Oh no.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It looks like someone got in the shot,” she said, then a look of embarrassment crossed her face as she quickly added, “Oh, it’s fine, no trouble at all.”
Ming Rao said casually, “No problem, I’ll just retake”
His gaze inadvertently swept across the photo, and when he recognized who the person was, his mind seemed to freeze, the tips of his fingers gripping the photo paper turning white.
The man was standing under a large elm tree in front of Ming Rao’s house. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t the focal point of the image, but his posture was upright, his bearing distinguished, and he held a bouquet of flowers in his hands. Even appearing only in a corner of the background, he could easily draw everyone’s attention.
By the time Ming Rao snapped back to his senses, the woman had vanished, and the spot under the plane tree was empty. The man from the photo had walked up to him.
It was a face carved like a blade sharp jawline, straight nose bridge, high brow bones, and a pair of slender, willow-leaf-shaped eyes set in deep sockets.
A faint scar ran from the edge of his brow down to the bridge of his nose, making him look as though he were perpetually frowning. Every time Ming Rao accidentally touched that spot, he would immediately tense up and look at him with wary, guarded eyes.
Autumn in the outskirts arrived more intensely than in the big city. A cold wind rustled through, sweeping up fallen leaves, and grit blew into one’s eyes, stinging like fire.
Ming Rao endured the pain, looked up to meet his gaze, and saw a hint of confusion flicker in those deep, unfathomable black eyes.
“Ming Rao?”
He still didn’t recognize him, just like the last time they met five years ago, saying his name in a completely unfamiliar tone, looking at him with neither love nor hate in his eyes, as if the year they’d spent together had all been a figment of Ming Rao’s imagination.
“I’m Yan Yuchuan. A pleasure.”
When that hand reached out to him, Ming Rao instinctively stepped back half a pace. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, as if his throat were being squeezed.
“What are you doing?”
“You said you wanted a romantic proposal.”
It dawned on Ming Rao belatedly: Oh, so that wasn’t a dream this morning.
He’d been woken by the doorbell before eight o’clock. The visitor had announced himself as Chen Le. Half-asleep, Ming Rao vaguely heard the man saying something about “wedding,” “arrangements,” and “meeting.”
Every late autumn, Ming Rao made a habit of staying at this suburban house to sketch and paint, ignoring his mother’s messages. He figured this time she’d sent someone specifically to track him down and push him into attending some important arranged marriage.
Yawning, Ming Rao asked whose wedding it was. Chen Le smiled with utmost deference. “It’s yours and Mr. Yan Yuchuan’s wedding.”
Ming Rao’s face turned ashen in an instant. He took it as a bad, tactless joke, and slammed the door with force but Chen Le was quick enough to block it, handing him a document to look over.
Ming Rao glanced at the bold black heading “Prenuptial Agreement” and said darkly, “Where is he?”
Chen Le paused, then smiled. “You mean President Yan? He has urgent matters and can’t get away at the moment, but rest assured, he’s entrusted this matter entirely to me. If there’s anything you’d like to relay to him, telling me is just the same.”
Ming Rao forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and squeezed out, “Then is marrying you just the same too?”
“Ah, well. I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
After that, Ming Rao cursed and ranted for a long while, but he couldn’t remember any of it. He’d always had a habit of talking nonsense when sleepy a quirk he’d had since childhood. But judging from the situation at hand, he guessed it was something along the lines of “If you want to propose, come here yourself” or “Don’t come looking for me without ten miles of flower-lined streets.”
When he realized this wasn’t all a dream, Ming Rao actually felt relieved. Rather than believing he was still so hung up on Yan Yuchuan after five years that he’d conjured up such a pathetic dream out of thin air, he’d rather believe Yan Yuchuan hated him so deeply that even having forgotten him, he could still, by some twisted fate, rub salt into his wounds.
“May I come in?” Yan Yuchuan asked.
“No,” Ming Rao said coldly. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I was only objectively pointing out that your proposal was terrible. If you want to improve it, use it on whoever you actually want to propose to, rather than practicing on me. Please leave now.”
He was about to open the door when Yan Yuchuan shifted, blocking his path. “I just want to propose to you.”
“Move aside.”
“Can I come in?” Yan Yuchuan repeated, then lowered his voice, “It’s not very convenient here.”
His voice carried a magnetic quality that made Ming Rao’s stomach churn. Glaring at him, Ming Rao said, “Then do as you please. I’m going home.”
Ming Rao pushed him aside and pulled out his keys.
Yan Yuchuan let out a soft sigh and said, “Fine.”
Ming Rao had just stepped one foot through the door when he heard an exaggerated commotion behind him. Turning around, he saw that Yan Yuchuan had, as if by magic, produced a silk box tied with a bow in his hands.
The commotion came from near the red brick wall the crowd of onlookers had finally found the protagonists of this romantic drama and were buzzing with excitement.
Ming Rao’s head was spinning. He wished he could dash headfirst into the flower wall.
Although the suburbs weren’t as gossip-ridden as the city, he couldn’t afford to let his guard down entirely. The last thing he wanted was to see a headline in tomorrow’s tabloids like “Tech Company CEO Proposes to Real Estate Tycoon’s Son on the Street Uncovering the Hidden Secrets of a Wealthy Family.” Suppressing his fury, he gritted his teeth and dragged Yan Yuchuan inside.
This house had been passed down to Ming Rao from his father’s friend, and the furniture was quite old, but since he only stayed here briefly during vacations, he hadn’t bothered to renovate.
Ming Rao poured a glass of water and slammed it onto the wooden coffee table in the center of the living room, splashing a few droplets.
A gray, curly-haired cat was curled up in front of the unused fireplace. Hearing the sound of someone settling onto the sofa, it shook its fur, perked up, and hopped onto Ming Rao’s lap.
“Is this your cat?” Yan Yuchuan sat across from him, taking a leisurely sip of water.
Ming Rao replied irritably, “What, you think it’s yours?”
“What’s its name?”
Ming Rao ignored him, scratching the cat’s head. Yan Yuchuan continued, “It looks a lot like a retired breeding cat from Cappuccino Cattery, named Mie Mie.”
Yan Yuchuan pulled out his phone, swiped a few times, and handed it to him.
On the screen was the Xiaohongshu homepage of Cappuccino Cattery. Ming Rao scrolled down and noticed that Yan Yuchuan had liked every single post from the cattery.
He couldn’t help but sneer, “CEO Yan is so busy that he has to have his secretary handle proposals, yet still finds time to scroll through Xiaohongshu?”
“Sorry, I was held up by something,” Yan Yuchuan’s apology lasted only a symbolic moment before he cut straight to the point, “I hope you’ll reconsider my proposal.”
“Fine,” Ming Rao pretended to strike a thoughtful pose, then less than a second later said, “Done thinking. I politely decline.”
Yan Yuchuan brushed off his words like they were nothing, persisting like a tenacious businessman. “In the past six months, there’s been no sign of you being in a relationship. A month ago was your birthday, and you spent it with friends from the art center. You have no ongoing romantic entanglements or potential prospects developing. If possible, I hope you’ll consider marrying me. I’ll be a qualified husband.”
Ming Rao couldn’t believe it. “You investigated me?”
“Sorry, I just didn’t want my proposal to lead to any morally questionable consequences.”
Ming Rao found it laughable. Was someone holding a knife to his throat, forcing him to propose?!
Yan Yuchuan continued, “Likewise, I have no romantic entanglements. Over the past few years, I’ve been through three blind dates, all ending after the first meeting with no further development. My private life is simple and clean. You can hire an agency to investigate me from every angle.”
“No need. I’m really not interested.”
After a moment of silence, Yan Yuchuan asked, “Can you tell me why?”
“Why what?”
“Why you won’t accept the proposal.”
“…”
Are you serious?
Ming Rao didn’t even know where to begin.
Because I begged you desperately back then, and you still refused to stay?
Because you once loathed me so much that you erased every memory of me?
Or the most obvious one.
Because to you now, I’m nothing but a complete stranger?
In the end, Ming Rao didn’t want to say anything that would make him sound pitiful. He simply said, “Maybe for people like you, business marriages are just routine. But I only want to marry someone I love.”
“Same here.”
Ming Rao let out a cold snort. “Then why are you still here? Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“…”
At that, Ming Rao’s mind went blank for a moment, followed by an endless desolation.
He never expected that the word he’d failed to hear from Yan Yuchuan’s mouth five years ago, right up until the very end, would be spoken now, in a tone so flippant it bordered on insulting.
Perhaps hurting Ming Rao had become an instinct for Yan Yuchuan like riding a bicycle. Once learned, never forgotten.
Ming Rao couldn’t be bothered to maintain even a veneer of civility anymore; he just wanted to kick this jinx out of his house. But just then, Yan Yuchuan opened his briefcase, pulled out a capsule-shaped object, and set it gently on the coffee table.
The capsule had a polished finish, its entire surface gleaming with a metallic silver sheen. On one side, the words “TIME CAPSULE” were printed in ornate script, and on the other, a year composed of four digits.
The time was five years ago no date, but he knew at a glance which day it was.
It was the second birthday Ming Rao and Yan Yuchuan had spent together. Yan Yuchuan had taken him to the city where he’d grown up. As the two wandered through a scenic area, they were stopped by a female college student working on her graduation project at a small roadside shop.
“Gentlemen, come fill out a time capsule! Write down the wishes you want to fulfill in the next five years, and we’ll mail it to the address you specify then you can see if you’ve become the person you wanted to be!”
By then, Ming Rao had already nearly given up on Yan Yuchuan, yet he couldn’t help stealing a glance at his list.
Investments, P/E ratios, milestones, business expansion… No surprise there. Yan Yuchuan’s mind was consumed by nothing but his company; he’d never once thought to include Ming Rao in his future.
With a gentle twist at the middle, the capsule opened with a soft click. The handwriting on the list had blurred somewhat with the passage of time, but the red checkmarks at the end of each line were crisp and clear, clearly drawn recently.
Yan Yuchuan’s wishes were no different from what Ming Rao remembered. Every single one had been checked off undoubtedly a perfect score.
How Xina Technology had grown and expanded over the years to become the hottest unicorn in the brain science field. all those dazzling achievements under the spotlight didn’t need this list to be known. You could learn all of it by picking up any financial weekly at a street corner.
On the entire list, only one wish remained unchecked.
Whether intentionally or not, this wish was set far apart from the others, written alone at the bottom of the page
“To marry Ming Rao and give him happiness.”