Chapter 47
Did he still remember Little Bear?
Shi Ye knelt on one knee beside Xia Fengsheng’s bed, his fingers gently lifting the loose hair covering Xia Fengsheng’s eyes.
The fever had left Xia Fengsheng muddle-headed. Just how high had it gotten, for an unconscious Xia Fengsheng to remember that old hug bear from before?
After what happened back then, Xia Fengsheng had gone through a stretch where he slept badly all the time. But ever since he got that hug bear, he had never suffered from insomnia again.
Every time Shi Ye went to Xia Fengsheng’s dorm, he would see that hug bear sitting at the head of Xia Fengsheng’s bed. In winter, Xia Fengsheng would even cover it with a blanket before leaving the dorm, as though the little bear were a living creature just like anyone else.
Though Xia Fengsheng looked cold on the outside, he treasured it dearly. Every couple of months he would wash the hug bear, not wanting it to get dirty, and he would regularly change its stuffing and put it out in the sun.
Sometimes Shi Ye had even seen the little bear wearing Xia Fengsheng’s clothes. Since the clothes were too big, Xia Fengsheng had deliberately cut them shorter with scissors and clipped them in place on the bear’s body.
But only in winter.
In summer, he didn’t dress it. He would just place it somewhere cool and shaded.
Back then, Xia Fengsheng had cherished that little bear so much. After the two of them broke up, what had he done with it in the end?
Xia Fengsheng was not the kind of person who dragged things out. He was decisive in everything he did. Shi Ye had no idea where the bear had ended up. But when it was hard to bear and even harder to fall asleep, would Xia Fengsheng think of that little bear?
Like right now.
“I want Little Bear.”
His voice was weak and powerless, his breathing light and empty. Since they had met again, it was rare for Shi Ye to see him not acting deranged.
Xia Fengsheng had changed a lot from before.
Though coldness still ran through his bones, the false smiles on his face had not existed back then.
Now he smiled more than he used to, the curve at the corners of his lips perfectly measured, as though he had practiced it in front of a mirror. But it was obvious none of it came from the heart. Xia Fengsheng was too smart—no one could ever tell what those sly fox eyes of his were really thinking.
But right now, feverish Xia Fengsheng was more like his old self.
His face had two vivid patches of red like a child’s high-altitude flush, hanging there on that cool, pale face in an oddly adorable way.
Without realizing it, Shi Ye softened his voice a great deal. “But there’s no Little Bear right now. What are we supposed to do?”
The moment Xia Fengsheng heard that, it was as though he had collapsed. He buried his face into the pillow, sounding aggrieved and fierce at once as he muttered angrily, “How am I supposed to sleep without Little Bear?”
A mixture of twenty-four-year-old mature elegance and teenage softness.
It hit Shi Ye square in the chest like a bullet. His heart started pounding wildly in self-defense.
Looking at Xia Fengsheng with his face buried in the pillow, tenderness spilled into Shi Ye’s eyes. His fingers lightly traced the edge of Xia Fengsheng’s ear.
“Does it really feel that awful?”
Xia Fengsheng nodded into the pillow.
Shi Ye remembered that night he had given him the bear. He had kissed Xia Fengsheng too, and after that, Xia Fengsheng had felt less miserable and fallen asleep.
Should he kiss Xia Fengsheng again?
Maybe if he did, the other person would feel safe enough to sleep.
Shi Ye hesitated in place over whether or not to kiss him.
After all, it was the only thing he could think of right now that might make Xia Fengsheng feel better. The fever medicine had already been taken. He had just touched Xia Fengsheng’s ear—his temperature had come down, but the discomfort in his body had not eased at all. Xia Fengsheng was lying in bed drenched in sweat.
Shi Ye swallowed.
He’d only be kissing him because he looked pitiful.
His chest was shaking like there was an 8.0 earthquake inside it. Then suddenly, as if remembering something, he dug through his backpack, pulled out a moisturizing lip balm, and rolled it over his lips twice.
Once he was done with the lip balm, Shi Ye returned and dug Xia Fengsheng out of the pillow. Xia Fengsheng’s eyes were half-open, his cheeks flushed red. His unfocused gaze made those normally crafty eyes of his look a little dazed.
Shi Ye didn’t dare look him in the eyes.
After a fierce internal struggle, he bent down and moved to kiss Xia Fengsheng’s cheek.
But just as his lips were about to land, Xia Fengsheng—thanks to the cockroach-like resilience of his willpower—stomped all over the illness, slowly regained consciousness, and seized control of his body again.
The pounding pain in his head made him curse out loud.
“Fuck.”
Shi Ye: ?
You want to fuck me?
Xia Fengsheng’s head felt like it was splitting open. Seeing the position they were in, his eyes snapped open in alarm, like some prison chief judge. His voice was hoarse as he scolded, “Why are you holding me?”
Then he saw the lip balm on Shi Ye’s mouth.
“What’s that on your lips? Plumping gloss?”
“Who’s holding you?” Shi Ye flushed red and tossed Xia Fengsheng back into bed. “I wasn’t holding you. Just now your head was buried in the pillow and you were trying to kill yourself, so I flipped you over.”
Xia Fengsheng looked utterly incredulous. “I was trying to kill myself by burying my face in the pillow?”
“Yeah. Who knows why you were feeling that suicidal.”
Shi Ye turned his back and wiped off the lip balm from his mouth.
Now that he was awake, Xia Fengsheng felt a lot better. Sweating under the blanket and the fever medicine finally taking effect had taken away that awful burning misery.
Though his throat and head still ached faintly, impossible to ignore.
Xia Fengsheng lay spread out under the blanket, staring at the ceiling overhead. Then suddenly he seemed to think of something and tilted his head to call out, “Shi Ye.”
Shi Ye had just finished wiping the lip balm off to make sure there was no trace left. Hearing his name, he replied, “What is it?”
Xia Fengsheng said, “Shouldn’t a person like you have a friend who studied medicine?”
Weren’t all those novels written that way?
Ever since he had successfully helped Miss Zhao break up, Miss Zhao had added him on WeChat when he went with the team to Zhao Boss’s company to talk business.
She said he had a sharp eye and could tell at a glance whether someone was good or bad, so that if she fell in love again in the future, she would send a photo to Xia Fengsheng immediately so he could help check the person.
Since adding each other, she hadn’t actually sent him any new romance photos, but she had shared plenty of novels.
Miss Zhao liked domineering CEO types—the kind who were handsome, rich, and terrifyingly overbearing—or other wealthy playboy types. Different character settings, but all with one identical feature:
There was always a doctor friend around them, some medical genius who never slept at night and did nothing but wait for that late-night phone call asking him to come treat someone.
Once Xia Fengsheng said it, Shi Ye thought about it carefully.
He really did have a friend studying medicine.
“There is one.” His tone turned awkward, and there was a trace of guilt in his expression.
Xia Fengsheng tilted his head. “Then why didn’t you ask him to come check me?”
Shi Ye said, “But the mountain’s snowed shut now. Cars can’t get up.”
“Excuses!”
Once awake, Xia Fengsheng had started acting up again, determined to torment Shi Ye until he broke up with him. “If you really cared about me, then even if your friend had to climb mountains of blades and cross seas of fire, he would still come here to treat me.”
Shi Ye’s expression turned severe. “Even if he crossed mountains of blades and seas of fire to come here, I still wouldn’t let him treat you.”
Xia Fengsheng lay there making a fuss. “Why? Don’t you love me enough?”
Shi Ye said, “The one studying medicine is Ding Qizhen.”
Xia Fengsheng: ……
Those six words instantly made Xia Fengsheng obedient.
Forget treatment—he might just get treated to death.
The name Ding Qizhen sapped all strength and tactics out of Xia Fengsheng. Ding Qizhen would have trouble saving himself in medicine, let alone anyone else.
Xia Fengsheng seemed oddly hung up on the idea that no doctor friend had come to see him. Shi Ye took out his phone. “Then should I video call him right now and let him do a remote consult?”
Since Ding Qizhen was overseas and couldn’t fly back—and even if he did, he wouldn’t get up the mountain—then maybe online diagnosis still worked.
Xia Fengsheng would describe the symptoms, and Ding Qizhen would analyze them.
Xia Fengsheng yanked the blanket higher and decided to rely on his own self-strengthening. “No need. I will heal myself.”
Then he tilted his head and went back to sleep.
Because he was sick, Xia Fengsheng slept especially long this time.
Normally, when busy with work and rising early and returning late, his body clock was fixed. He usually woke up before seven in the morning, and never later than eight.
But when Xia Fengsheng opened his eyes this time, it was already eleven in the morning.
Even Xia Fengsheng was startled.
He felt like some bear in hibernation. He hadn’t expected to sleep that long.
But after getting up, he found that his head no longer hurt, his throat was no longer hoarse, and his whole body felt fresh and clear, with no trace of illness left.
It hadn’t been for nothing that he had spent so many years as a workhorse. His body’s recovery ability was astonishingly strong.
After one night, other than a slightly stuffy nose, Xia Fengsheng felt as if he had never had a cold at all, full of strength from head to toe. But because he had sweated so much during the night, his body felt sticky, and he frowned in disgust.
Shi Ye wasn’t in the room. Xia Fengsheng didn’t bother wondering where he had gone and went straight into the bathroom to shower.
By the time he came out, toweling his hair dry, Shi Ye was already sitting in the room, with two red cords in his hands.
Both sides of the cords were edged with auspicious cloud patterns in gold. They were about half a meter long, roughly two fingers wide—long red strips.
The towel hung around Xia Fengsheng’s neck. “Where did those red cords come from?”
Shi Ye had gone out early specifically to get them.
After Xia Fengsheng fell asleep the previous night, Shi Ye had stayed awake, worried that Xia Fengsheng might spike another fever in the middle of the night.
Besides, he had drunk a lot of tea that afternoon and was wide awake, not sleepy in the slightest.
Out of boredom, he picked up the hot spring resort handbook and started flipping through it.
That was when he learned that behind the resort stood an ancient thousand-year-old tree. It was enormous, towering into the sky, so big that it would take over twenty people linking arms to wrap around its trunk.
Anything that had lived for a thousand years carried spiritual energy. Most people who came to the hot spring resort would go to the place where the tree stood and tie red cords to it, making wishes and praying for blessings.
And those cords had to be sought from a small mountain temple.
The temple wasn’t far from the resort. On the day they arrived, when he had been sprinting back through the wild like he was in some survival show, he had happened to pass it and remember the location.
He had only fallen asleep around dawn, and after sleeping three hours, woke again. Once up, he found that Xia Fengsheng seemed in good condition and was no longer feverish. So Shi Ye got dressed, did a quick bit of styling, and went out to seek the red cords.
He had assumed that after the snow, there wouldn’t be many people coming for them.
Instead, when he got there, the line was huge.
He had waited from morning until now just to get these two.
Still, he had gotten them in the end.
Shi Ye shook the red cords in his hand. “There’s a thousand-year-old tree behind the resort where people go make wishes. Let’s go take a look in a bit.”
He had quite a few wishes, actually. Shi Ye believed in these things too.
Before the divine, sincerity brought spiritual power.
Truthfully, he hadn’t really believed in this sort of thing when he was younger. It was only after being influenced by his teacher, He Yu, that he began to.
Though strictly speaking, He Yu hadn’t believed in it at first either. It was only after returning home to recuperate that he suddenly became superstitious.
Shi Ye remembered an old man who frequently came and went from He Yu’s apartment building.
He came about once a month.
Generally, people didn’t see fortune tellers that often. One reading should be enough to know your fate. But He Yu entertained the old man every single month.
Every time the old man came, Shi Ye was made to keep out of the way. His teacher didn’t want him hearing any of it.
But after the master left, his teacher’s illness would worsen each time. It was as if his spirit had been drained dry. He would sit alone in a chair on the balcony for a long time.
Xia Fengsheng came over and hooked a finger through one of the red cords.
He didn’t believe in this stuff.
But if praying and tying red cords actually worked, then he was willing to believe.
If it was free to tie, why not tie one?
People were always lucky in their thinking. What if the wish really did come true?
After getting dressed, the two of them bundled up tightly and headed outside.
It was deep winter. Even through their thick down jackets, they could still feel the biting cold.
The sun was bright today, glaring off the snow so fiercely it almost blinded them.
Xia Fengsheng stepped on the snow underfoot. It squeaked and creaked beneath him like walking over foam boards.
After walking for ten minutes, they saw the thousand-year-old tree looming in the distance, vast and towering, impossible to describe in words. It was so grand it left people stunned.
Xia Fengsheng stared at it. To think that a single tree could be so imposing—it was enough to leave anyone speechless.
There were plenty of people under the tree, tying red cords and praying.
A good snowfall boded a good harvest year. Today’s almanac marked it as an auspicious day, so despite the freezing weather, many people still came to seek a good omen, hoping the coming year would be safe and smooth.
The wind stirred the thousands of red cords hanging in the branches. This old tree only allowed red cords to be tied during the start of winter and the new year. The rest of the year, it had to sprout leaves, flourish, and let them fall.
Only for this one month of the year did red cords replace its leaves.
A rare chance.
Xia Fengsheng and Shi Ye found a quieter spot with fewer people around.
Shi Ye clearly knew the routine. He tied his red cord neatly and with familiarity. Xia Fengsheng copied his motions and knots, fastening his own to the tree.
Only after the red cord was tied could one make a wish.
Shi Ye clasped his hands together and sincerely prayed in his heart:
May the contrary wind understand my meaning, and not lay waste to me so easily.
Compared to Shi Ye’s wish, Xia Fengsheng’s was far simpler and far more direct.
Xia Fengsheng: “May the God of Wealth know my heart, and let a great wind blow RMB my way.”
.
After relaxing for several days at the hot spring resort, the day to leave finally arrived.
Happiness was always brief.
The happier you were while playing at the resort, the harder the road down the mountain felt.
The snow on the road had not fully melted under the blazing sun. Instead, it had frozen into ice, making the path slippery as hell.
Cars from the foot of the mountain could only drive up to the halfway point.
If guests wanted to leave, they had to drag their own luggage down to that halfway point themselves.
There were especially many people checking out over the past few days. But the resort had limited staff, and no matter how rushed off their feet they were, working like they were flying, they still couldn’t help carry every single guest’s luggage down.
Which meant that most people had to carry their luggage themselves and rely on their own strength to get down.
Among them were elderly people tugging heavy suitcases down toward the halfway point.
The elderly man was steady enough on his feet, but though the suitcase was young, it was treacherously slippery. When it rolled over an icy patch, the wheels skidded, and it slammed onto the ground.
The suitcase was packed with all kinds of things. It hit with a huge thud that startled even the old man himself.
With the wheels, pushing it downhill wasn’t too hard.
But once it had fallen over, getting it upright again was another matter entirely.
The suitcase was large, packed tight, and shockingly heavy.
The old man simply couldn’t lift it.
Just when he was at a loss over what to do, a young figure stepped forward and hoisted the suitcase upright.
“Sir, are you okay?”
Looking at the suddenly appearing Shi Ye, the old man said gratefully, “Thank you, young man.”
Shi Ye was wearing white furry earmuffs, his handsome face bright with a sunny smile. “It’s nothing. This stretch is slippery. I’ll help you carry it down.”
He just happened to have one hand free anyway.
The old man thanked him again and again, then chatted as they walked. “Young people these days really do have loving hearts. And those two ahead of us too.”
He raised a hand and pointed.
Ahead, two young men were moving luggage one in front of the other. If the one in front walked too fast, he would wait for the one behind to catch up. Only when they were walking side by side again would they continue together.
The old man chuckled warmly. “Look how affectionate those two are with each other.”
Shi Ye looked at the two people in front and said, with a face full of world-weary sorrow, “Yeah.”
If only one of them weren’t his boyfriend.
Today Jing Changyu was leaving. The car couldn’t come up from the halfway point, and he had a lot of luggage, so out of old-classmate duty, Xia Fengsheng and Shi Ye were helping him get his luggage down.
At last, he was finally leaving.
These past few days Jing Changyu had found excuses to come look for Xia Fengsheng constantly. The moment Shi Ye heard he was going, he nearly wanted to set off fireworks in the mountains.
He and Xia Fengsheng were still staying at the hot spring resort for another two days.
Shi Ye had been moving luggage cheerfully, but the second he turned his head and saw Xia Fengsheng walking beside Jing Changyu—
If Jing Changyu didn’t have an English name, maybe Shi Ye ought to give him one.
Steve.
The old man walked beside Shi Ye and idly asked, “Young man, do you have someone?”
Shi Ye nodded. “Yeah.”
The old man said, “Your partner has good taste. You’re kind-hearted and handsome too. They must like you terribly, and surely they’re considerate and faithful to you.”
He praised him sincerely.
But when Shi Ye didn’t answer, the old man leaned over to look at his expression.
Old man: ?
How come praising him only made the light leave his eyes?
After sending Jing Changyu off, Xia Fengsheng and Shi Ye stayed another two days at the hot spring resort, soaking in the baths.
Over those two days the temperature rose. The wind no longer carried that sharp, biting edge.
They’d originally thought their trip down the mountain would be easier than Jing Changyu’s had been.
But on the day of departure, they found the road’s snow hadn’t melted at all. Cars still could only reach halfway up.
The road had still had loose snow when Jing Changyu left. Now all that snow had melted into ice, making the mountain path even harder to walk.
Xia Fengsheng had only just recovered from that bad cold a few days before. Shi Ye wouldn’t let him carry a suitcase.
They only had two cases between them, not many, so Shi Ye rolled one in each hand as they headed down.
On the way, they passed a couple arguing.
The woman said angrily, “Why aren’t you holding my hand? Aren’t you afraid I might fall?”
The man shot back, “How am I supposed to hold your hand when I’m carrying luggage? Can you stop making trouble?”
And besides, the road was slippery with snow. Holding hands while walking could easily cause both of them to fall together.
“Making trouble?” the woman pointed at his hand. “You’ve still got your other hand free. If you won’t hold my hand, then you obviously don’t care about me.”
In truth, the two had already argued the previous day. Today was just a continuation of that fight. She had come out on the losing side yesterday, so today she was determined to pull back a win.
Couples were most likely to quarrel during travel.
Many couples broke up after a trip, each convinced they had done more than the other.
Xia Fengsheng watched the bickering couple, a sly gleam rising in his eyes.
“Shi Ye.”
Shi Ye turned. “What is it?”
Xia Fengsheng was wearing a white down jacket, and on his head sat Shi Ye’s furry hat. His hair pressed down over his forehead. The cold had turned the tip of his nose and his cheeks pink, and when he spoke, white breath drifted from his red lips.
Standing there, he looked like some wild fox out in the open, the sort that made people want to stand there and watch and record it.
With his arms folded, Xia Fengsheng complained unhappily, “The road’s so slippery. Why aren’t you holding my hand while we walk down? So this is what people mean by feelings fading, huh?”
Shi Ye, both hands full of suitcases: ……
So he was starting up again, was he?
Xia Fengsheng wore a thoroughly difficult expression, pointing fingers at Shi Ye as he spoke. “What, are you not holding my hand just because you don’t have any hands right now?”
Even the couple beside them was dumbstruck.
Next to Xia Fengsheng, the woman suddenly looked like a brand-new recruit.
