The next family gathering was held at Li Yang and Ran Fan’s home. Jiang Minyu went anyway.
It was his first time setting foot in this place, though he had long heard about it. Guests who had attended their wedding had once retold, in vivid detail, how Li Yang spoke at the ceremony about the many small stories of the two of them dating and spending time together in this very house.
Jiang Minyu had no interest in touring a home filled with traces of their shared life. His gaze moved only to search for Ran Fan.
He finally found him in an entertainment room.
The room had once seemed to be meant for cards and billiards. Now all the tables had been pushed into the corners and in the very center stood a sewing machine.
Ran Fan, dressed in a simple light colored shirt for home, sat before it with his head lowered, carefully stitching something together.
Jiang Minyu stood there, staring blankly at his back for a long while. Gradually his eyes dropped to the table.
“It looks like something a little girl would wear,” he said.
It was a pink dress.
Hearing the sound of his voice, Ran Fan paused and turned his head, smiling as he replied, “Mm. It’s exactly for a little girl.”
“Where did a little girl come from?” Jiang Minyu asked.
“There isn’t one yet” Ran Fan answered gently. “But there will be soon.”
Jiang Minyu’s eyelid twitched. For a fleeting second, he could not even describe the feeling in his chest. “You’re pregnant again?”
Anger rose uncontrollably within him, a rush of heat that made his vision darken. He thought viciously: Would it kill Li Yang to take precautions?
But Ran Fan continued, “Not yet. We’re planning to have another. Sir says I’m being impatient. The earliest would be next year. Still, I thought, even if it’s not right away, there’s nothing wrong with preparing in advance when I have time.”
Jiang Minyu was silent for several seconds, brows drawn together. “Isn’t one enough? Why have so many?”
“Not for any particular reason.” Ran Fan struggled to put it into words and finally gave up, offering only a mild, gentle smile.
When he was young, his parents had divorced. His mother later formed a new family and had new children. His father never remarried yet he had never had the time to stay by his side for long.
Now, because Ran Fan had a child of his own, the once scattered family members had begun to visit again, tentatively mending what had long been fractured.
Each time he saw his parents come to the house, Ran Fan felt a strange sense of unreality.
Having and raising a child was undoubtedly exhausting work and yet, at an age long past childhood, he found himself re-experienced the kind of home he had yearned for but never truly possessed in his youth. The presence of a child, the happiness the child brought him, these were things he had never imagined before. From it, he had gained more than he could measure.
In loving a child and in loving together with Li Yang, he discovered a new form of fulfillment. It was as though he were loving his younger self all over again.
“I really like children,” Ran Fan said with a smile. “If you must, just think of me as someone who’s afraid of being lonely.”
Yes. Both he and Ran Fan were people who feared loneliness. That was why, in their youth, they had clung to each other so desperately.
Jiang Minyu said nothing more. He remained quiet through the entire meal. Only when he was about to leave did he call Li Yang aside to speak privately.
“At least don’t have another for two years, all right? Ran Fan’s a man, not made of iron. A C section isn’t something you recover from that easily.”
Li Yang had thought the same. He smiled faintly.
The older man’s gaze was as sharp as ever, capable of seeing through a person at a glance. Under that look, Jiang Minyu felt a wave of humiliation. After finishing his words, he turned to leave.
But he had barely taken a step when he was called back.
“Minyu.”
Li Yang said, “Yangyang likes you. When you have time, you could play with him more.”
Yangyang was the child’s nickname. His full nickname was Little Sun, his formal name Li Tian.
Jiang Minyu laughed too, though it was a laugh edged with anger. “President Li, I may share blood with you but the fact that I’m Ran Fan’s ex boyfriend will never change. You want me to babysit for the two of you? Are you out of your mind?”
With that, Jiang Minyu left.
Ran Fan, holding the child in his arms, walked slowly to Li Yang’s side. Together they watched Jiang Minyu’s retreating figure.
Restless. Desolate. As though fleeing.
Suddenly, Ran Fan spoke softly. “Sir, I’m truly a very fortunate person.”
Jiang Minyu’s healing had taken far longer than he had imagined. If he were honest, Jiang Minyu had always possessed a somewhat extreme temperament but Ran Fan’s stubbornness in matters of love was no less than his.
If he had not met Li Yang, perhaps his own suffering would have lasted even longer than Jiang Minyu’s did now.
Thinking this, he could not help but feel fortunate, even as he sighed.
Li Yang lowered his head slightly to look at him and shook it. “Fan Fan, I think I’m the fortunate one. The greatest fortune was having Yangyang with you. If not for that twist of fate that gave us this child, we probably wouldn’t have made it to where we are today.”
At the sound of his name, the child nestled against Ran Fan’s chest, his expression innocent and obedient, fair and lovely, more precious than anything in the world.
They had had him for only half a year and already they could not imagine what direction their lives would take without him.
Ran Fan’s gaze softened. Whenever Li Yang looked at him like this, something at the tip of his heart trembled again and again. He understood the unspoken meaning behind Li Yang’s words. If there had been no Yangyang, if not for that night, he might not have accepted Li Yang’s closeness at all.
His breathing grew lighter.
Ran Fan called Li Yang’s name earnestly.
“In fact, I’ve thought about it myself. If I hadn’t met you and one day Minyu had turned back to look for me, what would I have done?”
“Would I have forgiven him? Would I have accepted him again? I think… I probably would have. Even if I had been hurt, even if the depth of feeling was no longer what it once was, I would have accepted him.”
“Because I can’t bear to see him unhappy.”
“But I know this: no matter how he might love me again, no matter how we might walk through an entire lifetime together, I would never be happier than I am now.”
“I know just that much, Sir. I-”
Ran Fan smiled faintly.
“Being with you, being with Yangyang, every morning when I open my eyes, I feel so happy I could drown in it.”
Li Yang leaned in and kissed him, sealing off the rest of his words.
When the kiss ended, he said softly, “I will love you more deeply than I love anyone else.”
Ran Fan laughed. “How can you steal my line?”
Li Yang’s eyes were like the sea. “Mm, stealing lines isn’t good. I’ll punish myself by giving the baby a bath tonight. Yangyang’s got the temper of a little donkey, I’ll let him vent your anger for you.”
Ran Fan laughed again as Li Yang took the child from his arms.
The two husbands held hands and went together into the living room.
That night, Li Yang did indeed bathe Yangyang. From the bathroom came bursts of noise, splashes, small protests, a father’s low coaxing voice tangled with a child’s indignant squeals.
Meanwhile, Ran Fan sat in the bedroom listening to an online class. Last year he had successfully been admitted to graduate school, though it was a non full time program. According to his plans, once he obtained his degree, he would most likely open a small pet clinic of his own.
When Li Yang finally brought the child back, he placed the drowsy little body between them on the bed. The two men lay facing each other in the quiet, simply looking at one another.
Just that, just this, was enough to make them happy. They kept breaking into smiles for no reason at all.
Li Yang, gentle as water, the decisive president who commanded authority in the outside world, now lowered his voice to a faint hum like a mosquito. “What are you thinking about that’s so funny?”
“I was thinking about a few days ago,” Ran Fan said, “when Mr. Wang told me that someone’s been secretly drinking herbal medicine.”
Li Yang frowned. “He must be planning early retirement, so idle he has nothing better to do than gossip about other people all day.”
First it had been talk about him lifting weights; now it was about him drinking traditional medicine. Every little trace of dignity he had left in love was being shaken loose.
But he was far from truly angry. After speaking, Li Yang himself suddenly laughed.
Ran Fan asked him, “Good sir, what are you laughing at?”
“I remembered when I was younger,” Li Yang said, “seeing older men marry much younger wives. I used to call them shameless. Now the boomerang’s come back and hit me squarely on the head.”
Ran Fan said nothing and only laughed harder.
Li Yang asked again, “And what are you laughing at?”
Ran Fan replied, “I remembered watching dramas where the characters say older men are wonderful, older men know how to cherish and care for people.”
“Oh? So now you don’t even bother to coax me, you just agree that I’m old.”
“I was just about to coax you, Sir. A husband shouldn’t have such a temper.”
One laughed for a while, then the other, back and forth in an endless loop. They chatted and teased, talked and joked, until neither of them knew how long had passed. Their hands rested together on their child’s small body. Then, with their eyes closed, they fell asleep.
The baby, with an angelic face and a fiery temperament, could hardly endure the oppressive weight of his two fathers pressing in from either side. With a sudden roll and a dramatic flop, he tumbled onto the pillow, grunted twice in complaint and went right back to sleep.
The night was cool as water.
For now, there were three of them.
Three years later, there would be four.
The number would change; the laughter would not.
Only a large, round civet cat crouched at the doorway, paws tucked neatly beneath its belly, watching once again as the little chubby one grew plumper by the day.
The End
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Fleurveil
[Translator]
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← Previous
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