Chapter 22: Dirty Magazine
With his face being pinched, An Yi tried to break free from the restraint, struggling as he shook his head left and right. Huo Beixing lowered his eyes to look at him, blinked those peach blossom eyes, and let go.
Escaping the clutches, An Yi let out a sigh of relief. Sure enough, as long as your mind did not slip, there would always be more solutions than difficulties. When facing hardship, you still had to rely on your own unremitting efforts. He straightened his head, preparing to reason things out properly.
Reading books was meant to enrich one’s knowledge and broaden one’s horizons. Just because it was a hunky men’s magazine, did that mean it was not a book?
The literary world did not discriminate like that.
An Yi parted his lips slightly, but before even a single word could come out, Huo Beixing raised his large hand once more and pinched his mouth into a little chick beak again.
An Yi: ……
Do you think you’re very impressive? 🙂
Huo Beixing narrowed his peach blossom eyes halfway, a wicked smile appearing on his face. The silver chain around his neck hung down as his long fingers pinched the soft flesh of An Yi’s cheeks, like a child who had discovered a new toy.
“Wife, you’re feeling guilty.”
An Yi: !
Little Frog stood upright and acted properly. What was wrong with reading a hunky men’s magazine?! How was that guilt?!
Pouting with his little chick mouth, An Yi began defending himself. “I’m not.”
Huo Beixing bent closer, his magnetic voice drawing out the word. “You are.”
Even though he was currently having fun pinching his wife’s face, at heart he was still unhappy. His wife was looking at other men. No one would be happy if they discovered that. After all, who wanted their wife staring at other men, especially when they were wearing nothing but a scrap of cloth?
Huo Beixing kept him pinned down thoroughly. Although he saw that An Yi’s face was getting a little flushed from being pressed like that and knew to ease up slightly, that did not mean An Yi could escape.
Because he was being pinned, his breathing was not as smooth as usual. It was not to the point where he could not breathe, but he still had to exert a little more effort when taking in air.
An Yi’s chest rose and fell very distinctly. His whole upper body moved, and as it did, it pressed up against Huo Beixing’s chest.
Huo Beixing worked out year-round. Even after turning stupid, he still swam and fought in matches every week. When he was not wearing clothes, his physique—built through years of exercise—was even more obvious.
Now that he was pressing down on An Yi, his broad shoulders and neck, as well as the half of his chest visible from An Yi’s perspective, were all full of strength.
But An Yi had no mood at all to appreciate any of that. Instead, he stared eagerly at the hunky men’s magazine in Huo Beixing’s hand.
Back when he was trying to collect every single issue of the magazine, An Yi had searched for a long time, both in physical stores and online, before finally gathering the entire set. It was part of Little Frog’s dowry, practically his lifeblood now being held in someone else’s hand.
This particular issue was even the limited edition that Chen Lin had painfully parted with and transferred to him. It had a price but no market—nobody was selling it. If Chen Lin had not given it to him back then, it would have remained a lifelong regret.
Now, seeing the collector’s edition hunky men’s magazine in Huo Beixing’s hands, his heart hung in the air. He was terrified that if Huo Beixing got upset, he would tear the book apart.
After all, doing something like that was absolutely not beyond him.
An Yi twisted one arm free and reached for it, but the moment he tried to grab it, Huo Beixing deliberately moved the book out of the way.
Huo Beixing stared at An Yi’s face. Seeing that his little face was getting anxious and red, he raised a hand and rubbed it once, finding the feel of it rather nice, then pinched it again.
Just like that, Little Frog was kneaded, flattened, and rolled in the other man’s hands with no dignity whatsoever.
A gentleman could endure many things, but there were limits. Whoever could endure this, he could not anymore!
An Yi pressed both hands against Huo Beixing’s shoulders and tried to shove him away, but the more he pushed, the more unhappy Huo Beixing became.
He directly grabbed both of An Yi’s hands.
At that moment, Little Frog completely lost his freedom.
Huo Beixing pressed closer, his charmingly handsome face reflected in An Yi’s eyes, his breath falling against An Yi’s face. “Because you’re looking at these, I’m very angry right now.”
An Yi: ……
Mm-hmm.
To be fair, that face really was handsome. His idiot husband might be foolish, but he was undeniably beautiful.
An Yi felt a headache coming on. He thought back to the first few days after the two of them met. Whenever Huo Beixing’s awful temper flared up, almost no one could rein him in. He just did not know where this man’s possessiveness came from.
Looking at the obedient An Yi beneath him, Huo Beixing then brought the magazine closer. He wanted to see exactly what was so attractive about it. Frowning, he glanced through a few pages. The more he looked, the more shameless he found the men inside.
He had never expected his wife to like this kind of thing.
An Yi’s breathing grew a little heavier. Sensing the tighter pressure against his chest, Huo Beixing lowered his head to look, pouted slightly, then rolled over so that An Yi was lying on top of him instead.
His wife was small. When they had first returned to the Huo family home, his mother had privately told him that his wife was built small, and that he should use him sparingly.
Actually, An Yi was not really short. It was just that his frame was small, which made him look thin and weak. But standing next to Huo Beixing, he did indeed seem somewhat smaller.
Little Frog caught the scent of freedom and tried to get up. But Huo Beixing exerted force with his hand, and An Yi toppled straight back down.
Huo Beixing’s arm wrapped around An Yi’s waist. Because of An Yi’s struggling just now, his loose white T-shirt had ridden up a little, and Huo Beixing’s palm ended up pressed directly against the skin at An Yi’s waist.
Once again subdued, An Yi gave up struggling altogether.
An Yi: ……
Fine then. A human mattress was a mattress. Might as well use it.
But Huo Beixing was still frowning at the hunky men’s magazine. An Yi cautiously asked, “What are you planning to do with that book?”
He wanted to ask what fate awaited the magazine and whether he could still save it.
Huo Beixing answered bluntly, “Throw it in the trash.”
Things like this could not stay in the house.
An Yi let out a breath of relief.
That meant he could still go rummage through the trash for it. A real man knew when to bend and when to stretch.
Huo Beixing added, “Then burn it in one fire.”
An Yi: ……
Man, I advise you not to be too mischievous. You’re playing with fire.
Lying on top of him, An Yi asked pitifully, “Could you maybe not burn it?”
His hair was a little messy from all the head-shaking on the bed just now, and because he was worried about the magazine, even his voice trembled a little.
If it got burned, how was he supposed to live?
Hunkies, take me away, please take me away.
He truly could not keep being a wealthy family’s pampered wife for even one more day.
Looking at the drooping brows and eyes of his little wife, Huo Beixing pressed his lips together. His wife had red lips and white teeth, and this was the first time he had ever begged him like this. Huo Beixing felt itchy inside, but he still refused to relent.
He just did not like his wife looking at these men!
Turning his face away, he said, “No. Because when you look at them, I feel a little unhappy.”
An Yi fell silent for a moment, then said, “Actually, there’s a reason I look at them.”
Huo Beixing was drawn in. Could it be that his wife was being forced to look at these things?
“What reason?”
An Yi reached out and poked Huo Beixing’s face, using it as revenge for having his own face pinched earlier. “Because of you.”
Huo Beixing froze. “Me?”
His wife read dirty magazines because of him?
Why? Huo Beixing’s not-so-sharp brain simply could not connect dirty magazines with himself.
An Yi nodded, speaking with great confidence. “Have you ever seen me reading this kind of thing before?”
Huo Beixing shook his head. “No.”
Previously, An Yi had mostly read hunky men’s magazines in the study. But today, because he was feeling lazy, he had read one lying in bed and gotten caught. What did that prove?
That laziness was unacceptable.
But fortunately, this was the first time Huo Beixing had caught him, so An Yi still had room to make excuses.
“I wasn’t reading these on purpose. I knew that if you found out, you’d get angry. But I just couldn’t help it. When you’re not here, I miss you too much, so I can only look at these to ease my longing.”
As he spoke, An Yi took advantage of Huo Beixing not paying attention and snatched the magazine back in one swift move. Using all four limbs, he scrambled upright and sat down squarely on Huo Beixing’s waist, flipping open to his favorite page and showing it to him.
As the pages turned, Huo Beixing, afraid he might not sit steadily, placed a hand on An Yi’s waist. Deliberately or not, his palm landed right on that same soft patch of skin at An Yi’s waist that he had touched earlier. He thought it felt nice to touch. The secondary reason was to keep him from bolting with the magazine.
An Yi held the book right in front of Huo Beixing’s face. “Look at this man. Doesn’t he have chest muscles, abs, and that V-line?”
Huo Beixing said, “He does.”
Full, tight muscles were the trademark of hunky men’s magazines. That was the whole point of the style. Every man in this issue followed that same aesthetic. There was not a single weakling inside. Pull any random one out and he looked like he could punch someone to death with one blow. Hunky men’s magazine had not gotten its name for nothing.
An Yi lifted a hand and patted Huo Beixing’s chest. “You have all of those too, and yours are even more perfect than his. But when I got home today, I found that you weren’t here. I waited and waited. Even after I finished lunch, you still hadn’t come back. And because I missed you too much, that’s why I took this book out to look at.”
As the saying went, gazing at something similar could make one think of the person it resembled.
In a small voice beside him, An Yi added, “They’re all your stand-ins.”
Huo Beixing was so taken in by the nonsense that he went blank. “Really?”
His wife was looking at these because he missed him too much!
An Yi nodded hard. “Of course. Look, when you’re here, have I ever looked at these?”
Huo Beixing became so happy that he sat up abruptly and suddenly pulled An Yi into a tight hug, giggling foolishly all the while.
He knew it. His wife liked him the most.
An Yi, happy too, cupped his face with both hands. “Hehe, right?”
He suddenly felt that having a silly husband was actually not bad. After all, he was quite easy to fool. If he had even the mind of a ten-year-old, this would not have worked so easily.
Still grinning happily, Huo Beixing got to his feet and carried An Yi around the room in circles. Knowing that he was simply happy, An Yi cooperatively spread his arms and enjoyed being spun through the air.
Wheee~
Huo Beixing looked up at An Yi, his arms firmly supporting his waist, his eyes full of nothing but him. “Wife, I like you the most. You’re my favorite person.”
Seeing Huo Beixing’s smiling face, An Yi’s heart trembled.
Simply put, An Yi was extremely shy about this kind of direct, bold emotional expression. Back in the mountain ravines, even married couples did not hold hands, and feelings were always expressed very subtly. As for actually saying you liked someone out loud, that was even rarer.
No one had ever said such words to him so plainly before.
But after marrying into the Huo family, Huo Beixing had said them to him over and over again, never tiring of it.
At first, An Yi had only treated it as a passing whim born from Huo Beixing’s childlike mentality. After all, children thought of things on impulse. But today, seeing Huo Beixing get angry because he was looking at the magazine, An Yi finally felt that Huo Beixing genuinely liked him as a person, not because An Yi had helped him with something and he was expressing a grateful kind of liking.
It was simply because he was An Yi.
And that made him like him.
An Yi nodded in satisfaction, feeling that this was a major step forward in the two of them getting along well. He decided that from now on, the two of them would be good friends.
After all, with a child’s mentality, this sort of liking was better categorized as friendship. What did a child know about romantic love?
An Yi smiled. “I like you the most too.”
When Uncle Zhong woke from his afternoon nap, he had originally planned to go upstairs and call the two of them down for tea. But when he reached the room, he found no one there. Just as he was about to leave, laughter and playful noise floated in through the open floor-to-ceiling window.
Curious, Uncle Zhong walked over to the window and looked down from the third floor.
There he saw Huo Beixing, shirtless, carrying An Yi around and “flying” wildly all over the yard.
Oh-ho~~~
Uncle Zhong: ……
After living with the Huo family for so long, An Yi’s whole style had become more and more aligned with Huo Beixing’s. But seeing the two of them getting along so happily, Uncle Zhong only smiled and shook his head.
As long as young people were happy, that was enough.
Only when the two of them had played themselves tired did Huo Beixing finally set An Yi down, intending to take him on another “airplane ride” next time.
After fooling around outside for quite a while, both of them had worked up a bit of sweat, and An Yi wanted to go back to the room and change clothes.
As he passed the study, he heard his phone ringing.
When he had come back earlier to put away the hunky men’s magazine, he had casually left his phone on the desk and forgotten to take it with him.
An Yi picked it up and saw that it was Chen Lin calling. He slid his finger across the screen and answered.
Chen Lin’s voice, gentle as water, rang out. “Yiyi.”
An Yi was still a little embarrassed by such an affectionate form of address, but Chen Lin liked calling him that, saying it made them feel closer. Back when she had first brought him home, Chen Lin had held him and cried for three whole days. The first thing she did after opening her eyes each day was cry, which made An Yi fully understand that the saying women were made of water was not false in the slightest.
Over the past year, every time Chen Lin went out—whether for lunch with rich wives or shopping—she would bring An Yi along. It was as though she wanted to tie him to her waistband.
An Yi scratched his head. “Mom.”
Chen Lin asked, “Have you been doing well lately? Are you free tomorrow?”
An Yi had no work tomorrow.
“I’ve been doing pretty well. I don’t have anything going on tomorrow. What is it?”
Chen Lin said, “I was thinking of having you come home for a meal. A-Yuan came back today too—the A-Yuan I mentioned to you before. You two can meet tomorrow as well.”
An Yi understood.
Chen Lin had mentioned An Yuan before. He was the child who had been switched with him at birth. When An Yi first returned, he had not met An Yuan because Chen Lin said he was abroad studying and therefore not at home.
“More importantly, Mom misses you too. Ever since you got married, you haven’t come back even once.”
That was not false at all. Ever since An Yi got married, Chen Lin had called him every chance she got. The frequency only decreased after one time when An Yi was busy at work, because she was afraid of disturbing him.
Chen Lin always felt guilty toward An Yi. Although he never mentioned anything about the family he had lived with in the mountains, just remembering the first time she saw him—with his dark skin and rough, dried-out hands—made her feel he must have suffered greatly.
Every time she asked about it, An Yi would always find a way to brush it off, saying, “Let’s not talk about it, let’s not talk about it.” Presumably there were painful things he did not want to relive.
An Yi did not refuse. “Alright. I’ll tell Huo Beixing, and tomorrow we’ll come together.”
Now that he was married, he certainly could not go home alone and eat secretly by himself.
Chen Lin said, “Good. Mom will wait for you tomorrow.”
Only after An Yi hung up did Chen Lin reluctantly put down her phone.
An Yuan had been sitting nearby the whole time, appearing to read the book in his hand, but in truth he had been listening intently to Chen Lin’s call.
Actually, after being informed overseas that he had been switched at birth and was not the An family’s real child, An Yuan had been so shocked that he could not recover for an entire month. Deep down, he worried constantly that An Shaofeng might stop wanting him because of it.
After all, he had never been particularly close to this father. An Shaofeng was always busy with work and rarely at home. Whenever he called, he only ever cared about Chen Lin and had never seemed especially affectionate toward him.
But things had not turned out the way he feared. The An family had still paid for his studies abroad and had not cut off his expenses. Even so, he remained deeply uneasy, his mind full of wild thoughts day after day, never able to settle.
Now that he had returned to the country, An Yuan still felt nervous inside, not knowing when he might be kicked out of the house. Even if they were not deeply bonded, they had still been father and son, mother and son, for more than twenty years.
An Yuan looked at Chen Lin. She had treated him well. After all, she had raised him as her own son for so many years. There was no way she felt nothing.
But now An Yi had suddenly appeared, and An Yuan did not know whether she might become biased.
He deliberately tested the waters. “Mom, what kind of person is An Yi?”
Seeing his curiosity, Chen Lin smiled. “Yiyi is a very kind child. You two were born on the same day, so although we don’t know which of you is older, you can still call each other brother and younger brother. He can call you big brother, and you can call him little brother.”
A smile appeared on An Yuan’s face.
Having An Yi call him big brother meant he ranked above An Yi. Sure enough, Mom still had him in her heart after all.
An Yuan was so moved by his own mental interpretation that he nearly burst into grateful tears and wanted to go in for an American-style hug.
My dear wonderful mother.
But just as he opened his arms, he heard Chen Lin continue:
“After all, Yiyi looks younger than you.”
An Yuan: ……
