BFILWY CH 21

Chapter 21: Spring Breeze

After finishing the steamed cake and settling the bill, they took the takeaway fried milk cake the waiter handed over. He Zhifan led Ye Qinghe to the roadside to wait for the car. As he watched Ye Qinghe standing quietly and neatly, holding a white cane, the more he looked, the more something felt off. Finally, he remembered what seemed strange.

“Ye Zi, you quit smoking? Normally, after a meal like this, you would always want a cigarette, right?” He Zhifan asked.

Ye Qinghe had a strong smoking habit. Every time they met, He Zhifan would nag him about quitting, but Ye Qinghe would always ignore it. This time, after spending most of the day with him, he didn’t even take out a cigarette, which surprised He Zhifan.

“I was in a coma for two months after the car accident. Then I stayed in the hospital for another two months. That’s a total of four months without smoking, so naturally, I quit.” Ye Qinghe explained.

“Good job quitting!” He Zhifan clapped his old friend’s arm, satisfied. Then, in a seemingly casual but actually stiff manner, he changed the subject, “Well, since there’s nothing going on between you and Teacher An, I’m going to announce that I’ll be staying at your place for a few days.”

Ye Qinghe clicked his tongue. “What’s going on with you now? Didn’t you just get off the plane this morning? How did you get kicked out by your mom and end up with nowhere to go?”

“…It’s not my mom,” He Zhifan muttered softly, then loudly protested, “Just say if you’ll let me stay or not.”

“I’d like to, but there are only two rooms at my place, one for me and one for An Yue. Where are you going to sleep?” Ye Qinghe responded.

“You have such a big bed, Super King size, just let me sleep on half of it. We’ve shared a bed before.” After saying that, He Zhifan realized how awkward it sounded. A couple walking by even looked back at them. He quickly added, “I mean we’ve shared the same bed before, not… you know, slept together.” Still, it sounded strange.

Ye Qinghe said, “We were kids back then, just two little boys sleeping together, no big deal. But now, two gays sharing a bed? Can it be the same?”

He Zhifan frowned as well. “With the frequency we don’t vibe, even if we slept naked, it wouldn’t matter, right?”

Ye Qinghe raised an eyebrow. “If we’re talking about not vibing, do you think your man would let you sleep on my bed?”

“My man…” He Zhifan was stunned. He muttered a curse under his breath, “What wild man do I have?” His eyes suddenly reddened, but luckily, Ye Qinghe couldn’t see it.

“You think I don’t know?” Ye Qinghe adjusted his coat, “You didn’t even go home after getting off the plane, just grabbed your guitar and luggage and ran to me for shelter. Clearly, you’re avoiding someone. Who? The young master? Did he break up with his girlfriend?”

“He didn’t break up. He’s just messing with me!” He Zhifan said bitterly, then suddenly realized Ye Qinghe had tricked him into revealing too much. Feeling both embarrassed and angry, he added, “Forget it, I’ll stay in a hotel. I’ll take you home first, grab my luggage, and leave.”

“Hey, I was just joking. I didn’t say you couldn’t stay. Are you really mad?” Ye Qinghe laughed, pulling He Zhifan’s arm to calm him. “You can sleep on the small sofa in my room. If you pull it out, it turns into a sofa bed. Or if you insist on sleeping in a bed, I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“That’s not necessary.” He Zhifan sulked, then cursed, “Why didn’t you pull it out for me this afternoon, then? I was all cramped up, my neck almost got stiff.”

“Hey, I thought you were just taking a nap. Didn’t want to bother with it…” Ye Qinghe said innocently.

“How lazy can you be?” He Zhi Fan scolded in a bad mood. The two of them continued to bicker playfully in childish tones as they walked down the street.

The car arrived. They got in, and then went home.

Once they entered the community, He Zhifan still refused to go upstairs immediately. He claimed he was too full and needed to walk around a little more to digest. The two of them wandered in the garden for another 20 minutes before finally heading inside.

By the time they finally entered the house, An Yue was nearly starving. He sat in the dining room, torn between whether he should ignore the host and sneak a bowl of longevity noodles. As soon as he saw them come back, he jumped up in excitement, but moved too quickly and felt a little dizzy.

“Mr. Ye, Mr. He, have you eaten dinner?” An Yue greeted them, steadying himself against the table, then glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 9:45, so they must have already eaten. He then asked, “Do you want a late-night snack?” He was so hungry that he didn’t care about being polite anymore. He just wanted to quickly eat his noodles and get the task Aunt Chen had given him done before going to bed.

He Zhifan replied, “We’ve eaten already, no need for more.”

“…Did I ask you?”

Ye Qinghe took off his shoes at the door and said, “An Yue, I brought you some snacks. Come eat.” He waved inside the house, “It’s fried milk cake. I know you’ll like it.”

An Yue stood there, slightly dumbfounded, not knowing what fried milk cake was. But just as Ye Qinghe had observed, An Yue loved all dairy products. He liked anything milk-colored or with the word “milk” in the name of the snack; it was hard for him to resist, especially when he was so hungry that his vision was blurry.

But now wasn’t the time for fried milk cake. Now was the time to get Ye Qinghe to eat longevity noodles.

Ye Qinghe entered the room with the fried milk cake in hand and placed the paper bag on the table. “Try it. Although it’s cold, it should still taste pretty good.”

An Yue gently touched the paper bag, resisting the urge to open it. He said, “I… I made some noodles, and I bought some pork trotter. Would you like to have some?” He was a bit frustrated as he tried to coax Ye Qinghe into eating the noodles. “It’s a custom to eat pork trottert noodles to drive away bad luck. You didn’t eat them when you left the hospital, so let’s just consider it a supplement for today.”

“I really can’t eat anymore. I’m stuffed from dinner, I just ate too much with Zhifan,” Ye Qinghe said with a smile, slowly walking back to the living room and sitting down on the sofa. “He was just walking around downstairs for nearly half an hour before coming up. The milk cake got cold because of him.”

“Unfair, my lord,” He Zhifan said innocently. “I clearly told you to go upstairs first, but you insisted on walking with me.”

“It’s because I was worried you’d get lost in the neighborhood and not find your way back.”

“Hmm, if I got lost, would you know how to lead me back? I think you wouldn’t even dare take the elevator alone. You said you wanted Teacher An to come down to meet us, but you refused. You had to follow me…”

An Yue listened to their playful banter, feeling annoyed. Low blood sugar made him irritable. He turned and walked into the kitchen, dumping the noodles no one had touched into the trash. He washed the plate, dried it, packed the pork trotter into a storage container, and put it in the fridge. When he came back out, He Zhifan belatedly asked, “Didn’t you say you made pork trotter noodles?”

“I’m going to bed first,” An Yu didn’t answer the question, his tone a little sharp as he called out a quick “goodnight” to the living room, not waiting for a reply before heading to his room.

“You’re in trouble,” He Zhifan looked at An Yue’s retreating figure as he disappeared into the guest room. He seriously warned Ye Qinghe, “Teacher An’s angry.”

Ye Qinghe sat there, puzzled. “What did I do? Why is he mad?”

He Zhifan walked into the kitchen, took a look at the noodles in the trash, and shook his head. “Teacher An made those noodles for you all night,” he sighed as he walked out of the kitchen and said to Ye Qinghe, “Do you think he’s a fool? Noodles like that can’t just be cooked ahead and left to sit. They’ve all turned into a lump of dough.”

Ye Qinghe smiled, feeling touched. He had indeed smelled the fragrance of sesame oil as soon as he entered, but he hadn’t thought much about it. After all, Aunt Chen wasn’t around, so no one would be preparing these things. He hadn’t expected An Yu to make him the longevity noodles.

“He… knows today is… how would he know?” Ye Qinghe asked.

“Someone with a heart would know,” He Zhi Fan patted his shoulder. “You keep saying nothing’s going on, but I see a lot going on here. Close to the water, the platform’s first to get the moon^[1].”

“Hey, stop saying things like that. It’s just a bowl of noodles,” Ye Qinghe said, though He Zhifan’s words about “a person with a heart” made a little seed stir inside him, and it was making his lips twitch.

He Zhifan looked at him, disgusted. “You’re a thirty-year-old man, and here you are, smiling shyly with your head lowered. Gross!”

“I’m going to take a shower, I’m exhausted,” He Zhifan said. “I’m going to bed. You should think about how to make it up to Teacher An.” With that, he left Ye Qinghe in the living room and went back to his room.

Ye Qinghe sat on the sofa, thinking carefully. He did have a strong liking for An Yue.

It had been years since he had been this close to anyone, in any sense.

Physically, he hadn’t been with anyone. The last time he had been physically close with someone was with Little Blind, but that didn’t work out. After that, he entered a phase of indifference, sometimes just taking care of things with his own hands. As for emotionally, there weren’t many people he felt close to. Probably just He Zhifan, and maybe Uncle Jin Chun, someone he respected, but those were people he had known since childhood, so he could trust them.

An Yue, a person he hadn’t truly known, someone the silly app said was a young and handsome guy, had gained his trust in just a few months, or perhaps it was more accurate to say he had become someone he relied on. Relying on someone was a reasonable explanation, since it was because he had lost his sight and needed assistance that he met An Yue. An Yue came into his life as his guide, and Ye Qinghe paid for his services.

Ye Qinghe relied on An Yue, and An Yue had to bear him.

But relying on someone—did that mean you started caring about their likes and dislikes too? What was that all about? It wasn’t just about taking from An Yue; he also wanted to give something back.

He remembered He Zhifan’s words and Uncle Jin Chun’s constant advice. They floated back into his mind, shaking his will to punish himself. Thoughts he hadn’t paid attention to, hadn’t thought much about, became clear as day, like mist being blown away by the wind. And now, that was a bit troubling.

He realized that he indeed had developed some not-so-good feelings toward An Yue.

But if An Yue had the same feelings, then it wouldn’t be so bad.

With this thought, Ye Qinghe smiled again. He was always a person of action. The reason he hadn’t been in a relationship before wasn’t because he couldn’t, but because he hadn’t met anyone who made his heart stir. Now that An Yue had done that, why not try?

He Zhifan had said that he wasn’t the same person he used to be. Over the past few years, he had been redeeming himself—changing his words, his heart, and his attitude. Was it possible that Heaven had decided that after taking his sight away, making him repay his last debts, it was now giving him a reward? A reward that even if he couldn’t see the peach blossoms from afar, at least he could feel their fragrance filling his chest?

Was An Yue that spring breeze that brought the fragrance? His spring breeze?

(To be continued…)