chapter two

"Baobao, you came back so late yesterday, I even asked Aunt Wu to save some soup for you."

Li Yuechen, who didn't get up until noon, heard Qi Xinyue's sweet voice just after washing up, and Li Yuechen felt helpless for a while. Although he had told his mother countless times that he was already too old to call himself baobao, Qi Xinyue still couldn't change the habit she had insisted on for so many years.

(t/n: 宝宝 (baobao) is an affectionate term, usually directed to children? which is why li yuechen said that he was too old to be called that)

Qi Xinyue sat on the sofa with a small, delicate teacup in her hand, a fashion magazine spread out in front of her, then she saw Li Yue Chen's face, raising his hand as though he was about to cover her mouth while saying, "No more, no more, no, don’t call me ‘baobao’ anymore.”

So many years had passed, Li Yuechen had grown up and all, but time had hardly left any traces on Qi Xinyue's face, the smile on her face still ever-youthful like that of a young woman’s.

"I'm going to travel to Europe with Lili and the others this week. Let Auntie Wu make you anything you want to eat.” Qi Xinyue took a small sip from her tea cup and informed her son of the news.

"I know," Li Yuechen hurriedly put on his shoes. "I'll go out to play ball, and I won't come back to eat at noon."

"You're not coming back to eat again… Mom is leaving tomorrow, so you have to come back tonight," Qi Xinyue complained, a tinge of a mother’s demand in her tone.

"Okay, okay, I'll be back to eat with you tonight.” It wasn't like he was going to stay away for a long time. Li Yuechen felt as though his mother was exaggerating, and he quickly went out of the door and closed it along the way.

Listening to the sound of the door closing, Qi Xinyue muttered: “He’s no longer as cute as he was before when he was younger.”

The City A High School Basketball League Tournament was approaching. When Li Yuechen arrived at the gymnasium after having dinner with his friends, almost everyone was there already.

He apologized for being late and greeted the coach, and they soon went back to their original conversation after his arrival.

The afternoon went by rather quickly, accompanied by the sound of dribbling basketballs, the squeaks of their rubber shoes against the floor, and the timely blow of the whistle with each match and foul.

Li Yuechen was sweating in no time, and as soon as training was over, the coach called him over to talk to him alone again. When he was finally able to check what time it was by then, it was already so late. He went to the locker room to take out his cell phone only to be greeted by a missed call from Qi Xinyue. Li Yuechen texted her through WeChat, saying that he was now going back immediately.

He was in a hurry but his surroundings seemed to be mocking him. In addition to that sudden conversation with the coach in the gymnasium, the sky was already dark and overcast, indicating that it was going to rain, and he happened to be seen by a few team members. They approached him and called him over. “Li Yuechen, let’s go find a restaurant for a drink and something to eat. It’s going to rain, don’t go yet!”

Li Yuechen smiled and politely refused. “No thanks, I still have something to do.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, it’s fine if you can’t go.”

Li Yuechen waved his hand to bid them goodbye, turned around, and walked towards the gate in big strides.

One of the team members muttered discontentedly, “What’s he being so arrogant for?”

The team member who invited Li Yuechen raised his hand and flicked his disgruntled teammate’s forehead. “If you can be as good as him, then you can go ahead and walk away so easily like that without anyone asking you why.”

The boy grunted in annoyance and didn’t answer back anymore.

As soon as Li Yuechen came out of the gate, it started to rain. The sky was getting darker and the rain came by so suddenly. It was also really inconvenient to try calling a taxi over at his current location, too.

He stood under the eaves of a store building and waited for almost 20 minutes before he saw a cab with lights coming through the foggy rain and mist. Li Yuechen hurriedly raised his hand and got into the car. After getting wet from standing outside, the air conditioner that was set to a low temperature made him feel a bit chilly. When he pulled open the sliding window to the driver’s seat inside the cab to tell the driver his address, Li Yuechen saw an unexpected figure appear in his sight. His body was under the eaves of the building he had just been standing under, while his hand was outstretched, as though he wanted to stop the car that had already been occupied by Li Yuechen. He wasn’t near the cab and it was dim all around, so it was understandable that he wasn’t able to see that the cab was already carrying a passenger.

Li Yuechen looked at the person’s figure, standing motionlessly like a statue in the heavy and dense rain, nearly half of his body already soaked wet because of it.

The driver, meanwhile, looked back at Li Yuechen in confusion, as he didn’t state where he wanted to go when he entered. Instead, Li Yuechen pointed to the thin figure standing in the rain and said, “Take him with us.”

The driver said, “You seem willing enough to let him sit in. It’s not very easy to get a taxi in these circumstances.”

The car drove to Gu Zhen’s side. When he entered the door to the car's back seat, he didn’t expect that there would already be a passenger inside. He paused for a moment, and then quickly sat down.

It was silent. Li Yuechen wanted to say hello, but Gu Zhen didn’t even spare him a single look in the eye from the moment he got in the car, so he decided to not say anything anymore. After all, he wasn’t a person who loved to stick to people’s cold asses with enthusiasm.

No one spoke. The driver turned his head back to look at the two people in the back seat, so Li Yuechen gave him his address.

The driver drove against the heavy storm that rained down on them until the street gradually became less and less crowded. After a turn, Gu Zhen suddenly fell to his side, sliding across the back seats, and then he fell over on Li Yuechen, all the way from his shoulders, to his chest near where his heart was, and then finally met a landing point: Li Yuechen’s lap.

Gu Zhen’s almost sickly pale face was abnormally flushed red, and his rain-dampened black hair was stuck to his forehead and his nape. Li Yuechen felt the heat that Gu Zhen’s head emitted from his legs. He raised his hand, at a loss, and finally called out tentatively, “Gu Zhen?”

No response. Li Yuechen finally put his hesitant hand on the other boy’s forehead, and was shocked at how hot the other boy felt beneath his touch. He saw Gu Zhen’s half-squinting eyes, afraid that the sick boy was already on the brink of total unconsciousness.

“Mister, change the adress, let’s go to the hospital first.” Li Yuechen didn’t know why he felt a little nervous until they reached the entrance to the hospital. He didn’t move Gu Zhen from his lap, and he also put his arm around Gu Zhen for fear that the car would be unstable and would worsen his condition by shaking him down. It looked as though he was hugging him. None of them said anything, but it was clear that they looked rather intimate at this moment.

When they got off, Li Yuechen half-dragged, half-carried Gu Zhen into the hospital. He registered Gu Zhen as a patient and watched as an IV drip was injected into him. He sat next to him and watched Gu Zhen, whose body seemed as though it was sinking into the hospital bed, eyes closed beneath his long eyelashes where the bags under his eyes nearly turned blue, lips cracked and dry. Even so, Gu Zhen still looked beautiful, with his black hair pliantly sitting on the sides of his face, showing a nearly ghostly attractiveness despite his sickly appearance, which was present in the way he behaved as he slept on the bed.

Li Yuechen observed him for a while before he remembered that he had to contact Gu Zhen’s family, and he couldn’t stay here with him all night. However, in his current condition, he needed someone to look over him.

Li Yuechen stood up to look for his phone in his pockets, but suddenly, a weight fell on top of his hand, pressing it down. Li Yuechen’s heart was shocked. He raised his head to meet Gu Zhen’s cold gaze. There was no emotion in it; he could clearly see his own figure in them, as though they were a mirror.

“You’re awake,” Li Yuechen retracted his hand calmly and frankly said: “You have a high fever, so I brought you here in this hospital. Hurry up and contact your family, let them come to accompany you or pick you up.”

He was greeted with silence. Li Yuechen’s heart began to spring up some restlessness when he came to a realization. “You can’t talk… then how do we…” Upon realizing this, he wanted to slap his mouth shut before he could continue talking, but the words have been uttered, he couldn’t talk any more or less. How come he keeps not knowing what to do or say whenever he was in front of this person?

Li Yuechen raised his eyes to take a look at Gu Zhen’s face, wanting to say sorry. However, seeing the other’s indifferent, lukewarm expression, he felt a little bit at ease.

Finally, Li Yuechen stood beside Gu Zhen’s bed and said stiffly, “I’ll be going now first, you can go ahead and contact your family.”

After Li Yuechen turned around, Gu Zhen watched his back until his figure disappeared out the doorway, and only then did he slowly close his eyes again.