Arc 2: Chapter 20
Fu Cheng silently looked at Lin Yuan. Time seemed to be stretched out, and everything was still. Fu Cheng’s brain, which had always been clear, turned upside down.
Something seemed to block his chest, and the sourness in his heart that turned into pain were all foreign to Fu Cheng.
The bright sky of the month of May shone outside, but there was a tide of darkness surging in the living room that silently surrounded them.
Fu Cheng’s throat felt painful and dry. He tried to swallow a few times, but he could only make a hoarse and struggling sound of a dying beast.
“Lin Yuan……”
The teenager’s eyes were wet and crystal tears hung on the corners of his red eyes and eyelashes. Fu Cheng could only stare at him, and the hands by his sides shook.
Lin Yuan waited for a long time but he didn’t get a response from Fu Cheng. His voice was small as he asked: “Fu Cheng, you’re ignoring me. Do you not like us being family?”
Fu Cheng shook his head with difficulty. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it, he liked it too much.
But he was scared that history would repeat if he agreed. His family and his heart would break again, and he could be abandoned again.
He was actually such a coward. He was too afraid of losing, so he would rather not have it in the first place, then he would not be afraid and not suffer.
When he had nothing, he would not be afraid to lose anything.
Parents or family.
He wouldn’t lose anything ever again.
Lin Yuan didn’t understand Fu Cheng’s complex thoughts, and only thought that Fu Cheng didn’t want to be family with him. What should he do? What a headache.
After thinking hard for a long time, Lin Yuan finally came up with another method. His eyes were filled with light again: “It’s ok, Fu Cheng, if you don’t want to be a family, I can buy you a separate house. I have a lot, a lot of money. I can buy you any kind of house you want.” t/n house and family are the same character in Chinese, so it was kind of confusing for me to decide which term to use, but i hope it makes sense
When Fu Cheng heard him, his heart seemed to be stabbed even more painfully.
Inside the slender and beautiful teenager’s body, Fu Cheng was like decaying garbage. He was the trash discarded by his parents and left out of their families.
If one peeled off his mask of a model student, peeled off his layers of malicious, scheming thoughts, then at the end, one would find a crying and scared child.
The young Fu Cheng watched at a loss as his parent’s quarreled increasingly fiercer and more unrestrained. He saw their disgust for one another, saw their disgust for him, and how the road connecting them collapsed at both ends.
He wanted to run over to both sides, or one of the two was also fine. But neither wanted him. He was pushed away again and again.
Fu Cheng had always thought that the only place he could stay, the only place that was willing to have him, was this dilapidated residential building. They were similar, both with a fake good appearance yet rotten insides.
He thought he would rot along with this building, day after day, year after year.
One day, he would die and become a pile of bones or ashes, and this building would gradually crumble and collapse into ruins.
His fate was supposed to be like this……
But…
Fu Cheng hugged a warm and clean Lin Yuan, and for the first time, he birthed a feeling called hope. Perhaps, he could really walk out of this building, and he could belong elsewhere. Perhaps… Lin Yuan could really grow old with him.
Perhaps, he could have a family again.
【Di! Congrats host, the villain’s blackening value has decreased to 15%.】
Fu Cheng closed his eyes and his breathing was unstable. He repeatedly told himself that because of Lin Yuan, because of the Lin Yuan he liked, he shouldn’t stop at 18 years old, he should have a 19th year and have a lifetime.
He hesitantly stretched out his hand, and took the phone from Lin Yuan and pressed it close to his heart. It was the first time he realized that a machine could also be warm.
Lin Yuan’s hands were suddenly empty and he blinked doubtfully before registering that Fu Cheng had taken his phone.
“You took it? You took it!” Lin Yuan was so happy he wriggled around in Fu Cheng’s embrace and encircled the teenager’s neck. He rubbed the other happily and said in a soft voice: “Fu Cheng~I’m so happy~ You agreed with me! You finally agreed with me!!”
Fu Cheng almost fell down as Lin Yuan rubbed against him like an excited puppy.
“En.”
The teenager hummed in response. But then it struck him that he might’ve seemed too perfunctory.
He nervously tightened his grip and said in Lin Yuan’s eyes seriously and solemnly: “Lin Yuan, I’m also very happy. I’ve never been this happy before.”
Lin Yuan excitedly nodded and repeated: “Happy! I am happy and you are happy!!”
The corners of Fu Cheng’s mouth hooked slightly and his eyebrows were also gently curved.
Fu Cheng was stunned by himself and reached out and touched the corners of his mouth. He wondered to himself, did he just… smile?
He didn’t practice in front of a mirror yet he could smile like this.
Fu Cheng looked at the drunk teenager in his arms. He never expected, nor dared to expect, that someone would be willing to family with him.
He liked Lin Yuan. He really, really liked the other, but he never expected anything from him.
Until this moment, Fu Cheng began to have expectations.
He looked forward to living and the many many years they had left to be together.
⋅ ˚ ₊ ‧ ୨୧ ‧ ₊ ˚ ⋅
Lin Yuan was so drunk that he slept all the way until the next morning.
When he woke up in a daze, the situation was very familiar. Fu Cheng sat next to him, looking at his phone.
Seeing Lin Yuan wake up, Fu Cheng looked over. His dark and empty eyes were different from before, there was now something soft and warm inside.
The teenager leaned in and his exquisite features were well defined against the contrast of the shadows. He lowered his head and kissed Lin Yuan’s eyes, and asked with a smile: “Sui Sui, do you remember what happened this time?”
Lin Yuan heard Fu Cheng call himself by his nickname and his eyes lit up in an instant. He looked at Fu Cheng with dependence and attachment, and this time he remembered everything clearly.
When he glanced at the 15% of blackening value, Lin Yuan was very happy, but also still a little afraid, after all, he had seen Fu Cheng’s blackening value fluctuate too many times and there wasn’t much time left to complete the task.
“I remember.” Lin Yuan stretched out to cup Fu Cheng’s face.
Fu Cheng grabbed his hand and rubbed against it gently and asked: “What do you remember? Tell me.”
Lin Yuan said obediently: “I remember that you accepted my house, and you want to be together with me.”
Fu Cheng gently bit Lin Yuan’s fingers and then kissed him lovingly again: “Yes, I agreed. I will be with you.”
Fu Cheng couldn’t resist teasing the other: “But, I remember someone named Lin Yuan said that they couldn’t be with me now and had to wait until they were 30 years old. Sui Sui, isn’t it weird that only two months have passed by yet Lin Yuan aged from 18 to 30 years old?”
How could Lin Yuan have guessed that Fu Cheng and Huo Chen were the same soul before, turning 30 was just an excuse for his own scum behavior.
Lin Yuan was a little embarrassed and could only play dumb: “I don’t know. I’m Sui Sui, not Lin Yuan, so I don’t know what Lin Yuan said.”
Seeing him like this, Fu Cheng thought the other was too cute. The two hugged each other for a while, and Fu Cheng kneaded the back of the other’s neck. He said: “Let’s get up. You haven’t finished the test paper from yesterday. When your brother handed you to me, he particularly emphasized that we had to study hard and not flirt with each other.”
Lin Yuan didn’t expect Lin Yue to say this and he blushed: “What did my brother say to you?”
Fu Cheng stood up and carried Lin Yuan up with him: “He didn’t explicitly say not to flirt, but I could tell.”
Lin Yuan recalled how Lin Yue always called him Lin Cabbage and said he was a cabbage that sent itself into the pig’s mouth. But the other party was Fu Cheng, the person he liked the most in the world, not to mention sending himself, he could even send over all of his savings.
For the rest of the day, Lin Yuan was extremely clingy. Even when Fu Cheng went to cook, he followed the other closely, as if he was afraid the other would run away.
Fu Cheng experienced happiness that he never had before. When he thought of their future and how Lin Yuan might continue to be this clingy, he was even more excited for his life after the age of 18.
Before falling asleep, Fu Cheng didn’t need to wait until Lin Yuan slept before kissing the other. He pressed the other onto the bed, and kissed Lin Yuan until the other’s eyes were full of tears and the other’s whole body softened. Lin Yuan still encircled his neck and kissed softly.
“Fu Cheng, more. I want more kisses!”
Fu Cheng suppressed the fire in his body and kissed Lin Yuan deeply. At the same time, he thought of how he had to study something and… prepare.
After kissing, Lin Yuan’s eyes were red and he impatiently stared at the teenager with wet eyes: “Fu Cheng……”
Fu Cheng gasped heavily and looked at the teenager underneath him who was asking for more. His slender fingers rubbed the other’s waist a few times: “Good boy, we can’t do it now. Wait until the end of the college entrance exam okay? I also need to prepare for it.” t/n Fu Cheng is still the gong!
Lin Yuan wanted to say that it was not okay.
But there was nothing he could do, he had to take the college entrance exam, wuuuu. He studied so hard every day for that one exam.
“Fine.”
Lin Yuan was still a little unhappy. Why should he, an adult man, have to endure when he had a husband?