Ying Qiuman was full of doubt and only spoke after a long pause. “I’m just helping Teacher Wei out. As for Lanxi…”
He trailed off for a long moment. Ye Li seemed to sense his hesitation and finally said, “It’s fine. It’s just that I submitted my resume a long time ago, so I wanted to ask if you had any inside information.”
Submitted his resume a long time ago? Was Ye Li still planning to go to Lanxi after graduation?
Ying Qiuman had assumed Ye Li was pursuing graduate school to avoid the plot. The part-time jobs he usually took had nothing to do with the main storyline. He didn’t expect that, in the end, Ye Li would still be going to Lanxi.
“Want me to ask for you?” He still, selfishly, hoped Ye Li could join. Even though Ye Li and Li Tian’s relationship seemed even more complicated than his own with Xu Shuyuan, he had once accidentally discovered that Li Tian had specially followed Ye Li’s video account, and the two even followed each other back.
Since he wouldn’t be following the original storyline anyway, why not help two people who had feelings for each other end up together?
“Thanks! Want to go out and have fun together over the break?” Ye Li’s voice turned a little sweet. The cold feeling that had lingered in Ying Qiuman’s heart from the night before softened slightly. Maybe Ye Li just hadn’t figured out how to explain things to him yet… or maybe he really had been too harsh last night?
“Mm, okay.” His tone was naturally flat, but now it softened a little under Ye Li’s influence.
After he hung up, there was no further message on his phone. Ying Kangcheng still made no move at all.
Since the surveillance didn’t seem as tight as he had imagined, could he afford to plan a longer-term response?
The three-day break ended quickly. When Xu Shuyuan drove him to work at Lanxi, Ying Qiuman hesitated the entire way. In the end, he still calmly told him that Lanxi was far from the school and that he was renting a place nearby.
“I’ll try my best to finish things before your susceptibility period and come back.” He took the initiative to hold Xu Shuyuan’s hand, using it as a lead-in to what he was about to say.
Xu Shuyuan tilted his head to look at him and tightened his grip. “But my birthday is on the sixth.”
His tone carried a hint of grievance. When Ying Qiuman looked up, he even caught a trace of slyness in the man’s expression.
Ying Qiuman didn’t really care about birthdays himself, but since Xu Shuyuan had brought it up specifically, he didn’t know how to respond.
Should he prepare a birthday gift? Was there still enough time now?
“Can I come see you on the sixth?”
The night before, Ying Qiuman had hesitated several times, and Xu Shuyuan had already understood that he meant he wouldn’t be coming home for the whole week.
Once a project got busy, no one could predict which days would require overtime and which wouldn’t. Ying Qiuman couldn’t make any promises, so he could only say honestly, “I… I might have to work overtime.”
“Then I’ll come keep you company at work,” Xu Shuyuan replied immediately.
Who ever heard of someone keeping you company while you worked overtime?
Ying Qiuman thought of how Ying Yelin occasionally stayed with him at the company until very late. He always felt a little reluctant about it, but his mother rarely went out, seemed full of energy, and only came to accompany him a few times, so he accepted it calmly.
But about the sixth… Xu Shuyuan would still have to work during the day, wouldn’t he?
“Or should I just take the day off?” he said it aloud, then immediately felt like he was being even more foolish than an emperor neglecting state affairs for the sake of his harem. He turned his face away and breathed in the cold air from outside the car window, a little afraid Xu Shuyuan might actually agree.
But Xu Shuyuan didn’t put him in a difficult position. Instead, he answered quite sensibly, “I’ll come over then. What if something goes wrong with the project? What if President Li gets angry?”
Hearing that tone made Ying Qiuman feel like he’d seen a ghostit was deeply unnatural and oddly uncomfortable.
He rummaged through his bag and took out a key ring that looked a little childish. He removed one key from it and handed it to Xu Shuyuan, then sent him the address of his rented apartment.
“Then you can wait at my place.”
Ying Qiuman felt extremely relieved that, when he’d rented the place, he hadn’t gone with the more cost-effective option just because the lease was short, but had instead chosen a small studio apartment. Otherwise, he really wouldn’t have been able to let Xu Shuyuan wait there for him.
Xu Shuyuan took the key and asked thoughtfully, “Aren’t you going to stay at the Li family home?”
He had assumed that during this stint at Lanxi, Ying Qiuman would be living and eating together with Li Tian. That was why, when he’d come to pick him up that day, he had dressed himself up carefully for a long time, afraid of losing favor. Now it seemed he had been overthinking things.
Hearing the misunderstanding, Ying Qiuman immediately explained, “Teacher Wei originally arranged a hotel for everyone, but I wasn’t used to it, so I rented a place myself.”
From the very beginning, he had no intention of going to the Li family home.
Xu Shuyuan’s mood visibly improved. He pulled Ying Qiuman over and kissed him, then tucked the key into his pocket, ready to let him go to work.
After Ying Qiuman left, though, Xu Shuyuan thought it over and still took half a day off to go check out the apartment.
It was an older residential building. Hot water had to be boiled with a kettle. There was no central heating, so the air conditioner had to be used instead, but there was only one unit, in the bedroom, and it groaned loudly whenever it ran. The solar water supply was also limited and couldn’t be used continuously.
After looking around, Xu Shuyuan silently stuffed a large bag of snacks and fruit into the apartment, like an overworked parent, and sighed for a long time before finally leaving.
Ying Qiuman knew none of this. On the walk from the roadside to the company building, he was simply trying his best not to look back.
He walked with his head down and nearly bumped into a trash can coming from the opposite direction.
“Hey, why aren’t you watching where you’re going today?” the cleaner greeted Ying Qiuman with a smile. “Did someone from your family drop you off?”
Hearing that, Ying Qiuman felt a warmth in his chest. In the end, he couldn’t help himself and followed the cleaner’s gaze, glancing back toward where Xu Shuyuan had parked.
The car was still there.
He smiled without thinking and replied, “Mm. Good morning, Uncle Yan.”
Uncle Yan was someone he’d met while feeding stray dogs in the neighborhood. The man knew he worked at Lanxi, and over time they had grown familiar with each other.
After greeting Uncle Yan, Ying Qiuman ran into Li Tian inside the company.
Li Tian had driven to work and wasn’t dressed very warmly. Seeing that Ying Qiuman also wasn’t wearing much, he immediately clicked his tongue and started nagging on Ying Yelin’s behalf: “It’s below zero outside, and you’re not even wearing a padded coat?”
Ying Qiuman glanced at him. “Aren’t you not wearing one either?”
In reality, Ying Yelin wasn’t very attentive about whether the children were cold in winter. She believed they would figure it out after freezing a couple of times themselves. Because of this, Li Tian usually had to explain things himself how the company was well-heated, or how he drove to work and never felt the wind at all while Ying Yelin would just smile gently and nod.
But Li Tian seemed to have developed a fixation on this. So when he saw Ying Qiuman without a thick coat, he immediately started in again: “I don’t feel any wind on the way here, so of course I don’t need a padded coat. You came in from outside, aren’t you cold?”
“I’m fine,” Ying Qiuman said. He didn’t feel cold at all, from getting out of the car to walking into the company, he still felt a bit warm.
Not understanding why Li Tian had this side to him, he glanced at him and quickly changed the subject. “Aren’t you supposed to be checking the resumes the company received?”
“Am I supposed to do HR’s job too?” Li Tian paused, caught off guard by the question. “The company isn’t planning to hire anyone before the New Year anyway. We’ll see after the holiday.”
In fact, Li Tian not only wasn’t planning to hire anyone he was even thinking about layoffs.
When Ying Qiuman got off the elevator on the third floor, Li Tian waited until the doors closed before suddenly shouting after him, “Wear something thicker! Don’t make Mom worry!”
There weren’t many employees at the company yet, but that shout still reached a few colleagues, who quietly laughed among themselves.
By this point, Ying Qiuman had already been through this kind of thing plenty of times over the past week, so he didn’t really react. He simply kept his head down and focused on his own work.
Around noon, Li Tian finally couldn’t hold back his curiosity and went to look through the submitted resumes. He had only meant to browse casually, but unexpectedly, he immediately spotted something significant.
【!!!】
【Mom’s making sweet and sour pork ribs today. I’ll split half of my portion for you!】
Ying Qiuman had just received a message from Xu Shuyuan and hadn’t even finished replying when he glanced up and saw Li Tian’s message. With such an excited reaction, it was probably because he’d already seen Ye Li’s resume.
【No need.】
This “no need” was because Xu Shuyuan had already ordered him food. He’d originally planned to cook it himself, but the small apartment only had a kitchen in case there wasn’t even a pot. Without ingredients, even the best cook could do nothing. As it happened, something suddenly came up at the company, so he had no choice but to order takeout for Ying Qiuman and rush back to work himself.
【Why so polite with your brother? After work tonight, I’ll treat you to a big meal!】
Normally, Ying Qiuman helped out with this sort of thing quite a lot, but sending flowers or food, or inviting someone out, wasn’t a big deal. Coming to work at Lanxi, however, meant they could see each other every day.
Li Tian was completely absorbed in this, insisting on giving the “matchmaker” a big gift.
【I didn’t tell anyone to submit that resume, and I wasn’t the one who came to remind you about it either.】
【I can’t finish my lunch today. Mom already packed the extra portion into your bowl.】
Ying Qiuman made it clear that the resume had been submitted by Ye Li of his own accord, and that it wasn’t even something Li Tian had spotted first and then come to remind him about. He hoped Li Tian would understand and stop dragging him into it.
He was still planning to refuse the dinner invitation for the evening when Ye Li had already gotten word of the interview and come over to thank him.
A strange sense of satisfaction rose from the depths of Ying Qiuman’s heart.
He carried this warm mood through the entire lunch break. But when he saw the pile of dishes Xu Shuyuan had ordered, and then the lunch box delivered by Ying Yelin already reduced in quantity yet still very generous he began to suspect that everyone might have seriously misunderstood how much he could eat.
“I can’t finish all of this,” Ying Qiuman said, frowning as he looked at Ying Yelin. After glancing at the large package from Xu Shuyuan, she went on with a gentle smile, “It’s fine. Tian Tian is in his susceptibility period, so he has a big appetite. I was even thinking of preparing some extra afternoon tea, but it seems there’s no need now.”
Hearing this, Ying Qiuman paused in confusion. “He’s still working during his susceptibility period?”
For some people, a susceptibility or heat period meant they had to go home early and work remotely.
A faint trace of sadness flickered across Ying Yelin’s face for some reason. She brushed the hair at his forehead and said softly, “I’m here with him. Once he reached the fever stage, he was sent to the hospital.”
Although Li Tian was not her biological child, he had grown up surrounded by her pheromones, which was one of the key reasons they felt so much like mother and son.
If Ying Qiuman had not lacked that kind of pheromone support and comfort, he would not have degraded, and he would not be so distant from Ying Yelin now.
Thinking about this, he remembered Ying Kangcheng again, but he didn’t mention it to Ying Yelin, afraid it would upset her.
“I heard you went to Lihe the day before yesterday?” Ying Yelin already knew about it.
Ying Qiuman looked up at her reaction. The smile on her lips didn’t fade, but he still caught a trace of chill in her eyes an indifference that didn’t match her usually gentle image.
“It was a friend’s matter,” Ying Qiuman said, lowering his head to eat without looking at her anymore.
Ying Yelin adjusted his lunch box, her tone slightly reproachful: “That place has a lot of strangers, and you can’t really hold your drink. It was fortunate your grandfather noticed in time this time.”
Setting aside how Ying Yelin knew he couldn’t drink well, that line”your grandfather noticed in time”was also quite telling.