After this meal, Ran Fan didn’t tidy up much before going to take a nap.
At that hour, the sunlight was at its strongest, so bright it made his eyes ache faintly. He pulled the thick velvet curtains shut and, lying down on the soft pillow, caught the pleasant scent of fabric that had been dried in the sun.
He hadn’t been asleep long when Li Yang arrived.
Just like that morning after that night long ago, the two of them moved with unspoken understanding, one person slipping onto the bed, the other shifting aside, lying down together.
No one knew how long they slept. When Ran Fan woke, he was still in the same position as before falling asleep, his back pressed against Li Yang’s chest, resting within his embrace.
He stared into space for a moment, then turned over. Li Yang was looking at him, already awake.
“Mr. Li,” Ran Fan said, “I want to keep this child.”
Since confirming the pregnancy, this was the first time the two of them had formally spoken about the matter.
Li Yang asked, “Have you thought it through?”
“I have.” There was no particular reason, he simply wanted to give birth to the child.
“Alright,” Li Yang replied. Then he added, “After we go back, we’ll move to the seaside villa and live there together. The two of us will form a family and raise this child together.”
Ran Fan paused for a very brief moment. It was so fleeting it was almost as if there had been no pause at all. Then he said softly, “Okay.”
Quietly.
In the small room of this foreign land, only the sound of air from the air conditioner rolling on could be heard.
Li Yang’s brow furrowed slightly, not in anger but in a subtle, difficult to describe expression, the inner ends lifting while the outer ends drooped.
He spoke. “Ran Fan, you really are an extraordinary person.”
One day, Ran Fan would be moved, Li Yang had never doubted this.
Because he was a born pursuer. Whatever he set out to do, he always accomplished. Like water dripping through stone, bit by bit, carefully carving away. He believed that one day, he would surely reach Ran Fan’s heart.
He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
So soon, was it because he himself was impressive?
No. It was because Ran Fan, because Ran Fan, even after his heart had been riddled with countless wounds, could still summon the courage to hand over his sincerity, to love once again.
Wasn’t he afraid? Li Yang himself, back then, had ended things in a way far more decent than Ran Fan ever had yet he had still carried his own disappointment for over a decade.
Li Yang reached out and pulled Ran Fan closer. He vaguely heard Ran Fan ask, “Sir, am I really that extraordinary?”
“You are.”
“Then… Can I receive some kind of reward?”
“What do you want?”
“I want… ” Ran Fan said, “love that can be taken endlessly, never exhausted, love not so overwhelming that it makes me suffocate and cry.”
His voice trembled slightly but it was firm.
A soft sound followed.
The pillow sank down.
In the dim light, Ran Fan felt Li Yang grip his neck, cup his face and kiss him deeply again and again.
This lag of the journey lasted two days.
Previously, Ran Fan had been traveling alone, dragging both luggage and a cat behind him. Security abroad was not as good as back home and he often found himself flustered and overwhelmed while sightseeing. With Li Yang around, there was nothing to worry about.
They went together to see the Trevi Fountain and took photos, then returned to the country side by side.
On the plane, the two of them held hands calmly.
After returning home, they moved.
Strictly speaking, Ran Fan’s belongings had long since been here already. All that was needed was proper arrangement. Li Yang usually lived more often in the city center and this time, he took the opportunity to relocate and settle down. For both of them, it was a tremendous change yet it concluded quietly, without any dramatic waves, in an entirely ordinary manner.
Adjusting to their new life was not difficult. Ran Fan did not go looking for a new job. Instead, he picked up his books again.
In his early years, he had once thought about pursuing further studies and taking postgraduate exams to properly deepen his education in veterinary medicine. Now that pregnancy made it inconvenient to go out, it became the perfect opportunity.
Day by day, time slipped past in the blink of an eye.
Around the third month of pregnancy, one day during a meal, Li Yang brought something up.
That evening, he wanted to invite two people over to the house and introduce Ran Fan to them. It wasn’t anything important, just a simple meal before they left.
He spoke casually, all the while fiddling with Ran Fan’s fingers. On them were the matching rings that Li Yang had recently slipped onto Ran Fan’s finger as casually as if he’d brought home two potatoes from the market.
Ran Fan guessed they were probably Li Yang’s friends. He felt a little nervous but it was still within what he could accept. However, when evening came and they sat down at the dining table, he realized he had only guessed half right.
Li Yang led in two men. One looked to be in his forties or fifties, fitting perfectly the stereotypical image of a corporate executive. The other was an elderly man sitting in a wheelchair, holding a single crutch.
“This is my father,” Li Yang said, pointing to them one by one. Then he added, “Fan Fan, this is my friend. His surname is Wang.”
The friend surnamed Wang had been Li Yang’s close companion for many years. They had known each other since they were children in split-crotch pants and not long ago he had even joked that the person Li Yang was having a “spiritual romance” with was none other than himself.
The moment he saw Ran Fan, to be honest, he felt a pang of pity.
Before receiving Li Yang’s invitation, he had already had a vague sense that something was going on in Li Yang’s life recently.
Why?
Someone who was clearly stepping one foot into his forties, who usually did nothing more than go for a run, had suddenly started sneaking off to the gym to work out and lift weights. He had even hired several trainers to help him plan muscle shaping and maintain a youthful physique. Anyone who saw that would think something was up.
To make “old tree Li” bloom again, what kind of partner would it take? The friend wondered. Even if not someone with top-tier looks and top-tier temperament, surely it had to be a supermodel or a celebrity, right?
But when he finally saw Ran Fan, plain, light, like a small, clean cabbage, the friend found it hard not to widen his eyes.
His first reaction was to think that Li Yang must be playing around. After all, although Li Yang was steady and composed now that he was older, he had been quite the troublemaker in his youth but the moment he saw the way Li Yang looked at Ran Fan, the words automatically slid back down his throat.
At his core, Li Yang was a rather cold, emotionally distant person.
Because the friend had known Li Yang for so long, growing up causing trouble together, when he was younger and heard others say that Li Yang was cold-blooded and thin in feeling, he had always thought they were talking nonsense but as the years went by, as he found himself increasingly at a loss for words in front of Li Yang, stumbling mid-sentence for no clear reason, he gradually came to understand.
Li Yang really was a cold person. He had feelings, yes but they were sparse, fragmented, carefully apportioned.
To spare a few shares for the handful of people around him was already generous enough. Let alone looking at someone the way he was now, so deeply, so tenderly. Whether or not there was any need to pretend, Li Yang probably couldn’t fake such an expression even if he wanted to.
This Ran Fan must have something truly extraordinary about him.
The friend was so profoundly shaken that even when he heard Li Yang introduce Ran Fan as being pregnant and announce that he himself was about to become a father, it took quite a while for the words to fully register in his brain.
And then,
Even more shocking.
A man… pregnant?
With a mix of alarm and morbid anticipation, he secretly glanced toward the old man in the wheelchair, worrying about and yet looking forward to what would happen next. He still vividly remembered, years ago, the iconic scene where the old man had swung his cane in anger, only for Li Yang to snatch it away and toss it five or six meters, leaving the old man so furious his eyes nearly rolled back.
Unexpectedly, the old man’s chest heaved and rose for a while, breath swelling and falling but in the end, he said nothing at all about this so-called “pregnant male spouse.” He simply took his seat at the table.
The few of them ate an unusually quiet dinner.
During the meal, Ran Fan looked a little uncomfortable. Li Yang even smiled and joked with him, “Does it feel a bit like three old men holding a meeting?”
After dinner, they saw the old man off.
Li Yang said to the still-dazed Ran Fan, “Unexpected, right? You didn’t think he’d react like that.”
Ran Fan thought for a moment, then nodded.
“I thought so,” Li Yang said. “For him, only tangible interests matter. He never actually cared whether I liked men or women. He just wants to have descendants. Now that you’re pregnant, of course he won’t say anything.”
Ran Fan looked at Li Yang, staring blankly, speechless.
At that moment, his cheek was suddenly brushed lightly by a hand.
Li Yang said, “Jiang Minyu and I aren’t close because we never lived together. My father and I live together every day and we’re not close either. I don’t hate him and I don’t love him. He doesn’t love me and he doesn’t hate me. None of these are normal relationships.”
“But our child, I’ll give them everything. My wealth, my power, my experience. Whatever they want, I’ll give it to them. Wherever they want to go, I’ll hold them up and take them there.”
“Ran Fan, I want love. I want a family filled with love.”
“And all of that, if I have you, then I have everything.”
The two of them looked at each other in silence. Ran Fan turned his head aside, because in the corner of his vision he saw that the friend surnamed Wang hadn’t left yet.
The friend wore the outward expression of a mature adult, something like, “Oh dear, I’m still here being a light bulb, how inconsiderate, I should leave at once” but in truth, the moment he turned around, his mind went completely blank.
He thought, damn it, this is unreal. I’ve really seen it all.
Then, in a daze, another thought surfaced: everyone has their own fate and fate itself is truly bizarre.
Not long ago, Jiang Minyu had been acknowledged and brought back. Many people in their circle had already begun to regard him as the future successor of the Li family, sparing no effort to curry favor with him.
Sure enough, Jiang Minyu had first started dating a mixed-race young actor. Not long after, it turned into a cycle of breakups and reconciliations, with actors and models coming and going around him, several of them clinging at the same time, people who had clearly received hints and rushed forward eagerly.
Even without paying much attention, the friend had heard about Jiang Minyu’s scandals. In private, he had sighed that the kid really knew how to stir things up, perhaps he had suffered too much in his earlier, harder days.
And now, Li Yang had another child and not only that, he even looked as though he had developed genuine feelings for the child’s “mother.”
In wealthy families, children often gain status through their mothers but rich households were still made of people and human nature was universal. Once the news got out, could Jiang Minyu’s so-called position as heir still be secured?
Maybe not. No, whether it held or not would depend entirely on Li Yang.
As it happened, just as the friend was thinking about Jiang Minyu and preparing to take his leave, Li Yang received a phone call. After listening to just a couple of sentences, his brows knitted slightly.
Whoever he wanted to give it to, then it would definitely be theirs.
“What’s wrong?” Ran Fan asked.
Li Yang put down his phone and said, “It’s Jiang Minyu. He was in a car accident.”
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
A wild translator appears! Their weakness: coffee. ☕
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 1 · Let’s break upChapter 2 · A hand landed on Ran Fan’s backChapter 3 · Jiang Wenyu’s biological fatherChapter 4 · Li Yang kissed him againChapter 5 · Could you come to the hospital?Chapter 6 · I hope you can give birthChapter 7 · Are you bothered by the fact that I am Jiang Wenyu’s biological father?Chapter 8 · Don’t you think I’m ordinary?Chapter 9 · Don’t consider it me going back on my wordChapter 10 · You are a truly remarkable personChapter 11 · Would you say you’re cold-hearted towards Ran Fan?Chapter 12 · Dr. Ran resigned several months ago.Chapter 13 · Can we meet up?Chapter 14 · You also know the child’s fatherChapter 15 · You are the most important to meChapter 16 · Extra 1Chapter 17 · Extra 2Chapter 18 · Extra 3