Chapter 30: I’m Sick
With one hand supporting An Yi and the other holding the ugly doll, Huo Beixing looked like a family of three—happy and complete.
Who would have thought that in the span of a single day, they already had a child.
Huo Beixing looked at the ugly doll with smug delight, grinning foolishly. His bad temper and earlier unhappiness had all been swept away. “Wife, its eyes really look like mine.”
An Yi: ……
He looked at the ugly doll’s lopsided mismatched eyes, then looked at Huo Beixing’s pair of peach blossom eyes that seemed to gaze affectionately at everyone.
The fatherly-love filter had arrived just like that.
Without caring whether the child was actually his or not, he had already begun brainwashing himself.
After carefully examining his precious eldest son, Huo Beixing said, “Wife, its mouth looks like yours.”
An Yi lowered his head and looked at the ugly doll’s two huge front teeth.
If his mouth looked like that ugly doll’s, then this level of slander was frankly criminal.
Huo Beixing smiled as he looked at him and asked expectantly, “Wife, don’t you think so?”
An Yi: “…Yes.”
A hole he had dug himself—he had no choice but to grit his teeth and acknowledge it.
At the moment, An Yi still found their posture rather awkward. The other man’s body heat, combined with the alcohol now kicking in, had made a thin layer of sweat rise over his skin. It wasn’t quite sticky, but it still made him uncomfortable.
An Yi liked being clean.
Back in the mountains, water was scarce. Most of the family’s water was used for cooking and drinking, but he would still walk several li every day to fetch water from a creek in the mountains. After heating it, he would wet a cloth and wipe himself down.
He had been busy outside all day today. The first thing he wanted after getting home was to take a bath. Who knew that Huo Beixing hadn’t slept at all late into the night and had instead waited for him to return and then started demanding answers.
Huo Beixing exercised a great deal every day. Even on days without swim class or fighting lessons, he still insisted on running and doing large amounts of exercise daily.
His energy was astonishingly abundant, as if it could never be used up.
So after An Yi once sneaked Summer Sweetheart and Princess Lili out, the two Dobermans no longer wanted to go on walks with Huo Beixing.
That lazy man—truly love him, love him.
Actually, An Yi considered his own stamina pretty good too. After all, he had grown up doing farm work, spending whole days in the fields. But compared to Huo Beixing, he was still far behind. The other man seemed never to get tired.
Every time Huo Beixing took the dogs out, the Dobermans showed obvious resistance.
That wasn’t a walk. That was an attempt to wear adorable little dogs to death!
After An Yi arrived, it was the first time the two dogs had experienced such leisurely walks. Once one had seen the light, how could one face the darkness again? Especially when one was an adorable little dog.
So afterward, whenever Huo Beixing tried taking them for walks, he practically had to drag them out the door.
An Yi sat with his backside on Huo Beixing’s always-trained, powerfully muscled thigh. Their upper bodies were pressed far too tightly together; even breathing meant rising and falling against him. Huo Beixing’s large hand still rested on his butt.
Just now he hadn’t been able to pry it off. But now Huo Beixing’s whole heart and mind were occupied by his precious eldest son—this was an excellent opportunity.
Just as An Yi was planning to carry out a rescue operation, he suddenly felt that large palm on his rear give him a hard knead.
An Yi: !
Pervert!!!
Although he had only just gained a beloved son, that son hadn’t called him Dad even once after all this time. Huo Beixing had realized it.
The boy was a rebellious son!
How could he be his son if he didn’t even call him Dad?
Very quickly, his attention shifted away from the ugly doll and back to An Yi.
So his wife hadn’t come home late because he didn’t want him anymore, but because she had gone to bear him a child. For a moment, Huo Beixing felt deeply moved. But at the same time, a wave of guilt shot through him.
Just now, he had thought his wife was afraid of him, and he had even laid hands on him.
Feeling the hand continuously kneading him, An Yi blushed and struggled with all his might. “You! What are you doing! What is your hand doing!!”
He was a grown man, and now another man was kneading his butt!!
Huo Beixing thought he had used too much force just now and that his wife had gotten angry, so he hugged An Yi and kept rubbing him. “Wife, I didn’t mean to hurt you just now. I’ll rub it for you.”
Blushing furiously, An Yi shoved at him. If anyone saw this, he’d be laughed to death. “I don’t need rubbing, I don’t need you to rub it!”
Huo Beixing frowned. “How can that be? It must hurt a lot.”
An Yi grabbed hold of the man’s hand. “It doesn’t hurt. It really doesn’t hurt at all.”
Huo Beixing looked at him blankly. How could it not hurt? Even he felt he had used force.
At the time, Huo Beixing had practically been mad with rage, his whole mind filled with the photo Zhao Ningzhuo had sent him earlier that day—An Yi standing together with someone else, arms linked.
On top of that, An Yi had promised to come back in time for dinner, yet had broken that promise. With his usual brain full of melodramatic romance dramas, Huo Beixing had instantly imagined himself being ruthlessly abandoned.
He had wanted his wife to fear him. That way, the other man wouldn’t dare not want him.
But now his wife was saying it didn’t hurt.
Huo Beixing fell silent for a moment and said nothing more. An Yi thought that meant the matter was over.
Who knew that in the very next moment, Huo Beixing grabbed his hand and slapped it hard against his own face.
An Yi was instantly dumbfounded.
What kind of new-style domestic violence was this?!
He hurried to yank his hand back, but Huo Beixing held on tightly and once again brought it down against his own face.
After a few slaps, An Yi panicked and called for him to stop. “D-don’t hit anymore, what are you doing?!”
An Yi: “Stop hitting, it hurts.”
Huo Beixing said, “It doesn’t hurt.”
An Yi replied, “I’m saying my hand hurts.”
Huo Beixing: ……
When the other man finally let his hand drop, An Yi breathed out in relief.
Huo Beixing pulled him into his arms again, pressing his nose beside his ear. He was heartbroken. He had just hit his wife—didn’t that make him a scumbag?!
He hugged An Yi and rubbed against him a few times. “Wife, I’m sorry. I won’t ever do that again next time.”
As he spoke, that big hand rubbed his butt a few more times. Huo Beixing was strong, so even being “rubbed” by him still made An Yi feel humiliated. He caught hold of that hand.
“It’s okay. I forgive you.”
Please, absolutely no more hitting.
Hitting fools was against the law.
Just now, the other man had been wildly testing the edges of legality with him.
As a good young member of society, Little Frog could not knowingly break the law.
But Huo Beixing still felt guilty. He buried his head against An Yi’s chest and wouldn’t lift it, like a heartbroken large dog. He had no face to see his wife.
Looking at the man’s sorrowful appearance, one might have thought he was the one whose butt had been kneaded.
Then suddenly, inspiration struck Huo Beixing. He took An Yi’s hand and placed it behind himself. “Wife, how about you knead me back?”
He had kneaded his wife, so if his wife kneaded him back now, then things would be fair.
An Yi’s scalp went numb. How could he possibly do that? He hurriedly snatched his hand back and practically used every ounce of strength he had to jump out of Huo Beixing’s embrace.
Little Frog had regained freedom.
“No need. I’ve already forgiven you.” With that, he immediately turned around, picked up a change of clothes, and said, “I’m going to bathe.”
Without stopping for even a moment—and not giving the other man another chance to catch him—An Yi rushed into the bathroom.
Left with empty arms, Huo Beixing sat on the bed, pouting in slight dissatisfaction.
They’d been hugging so nicely.
Huo Beixing loved physical contact with An Yi. He thought An Yi smelled good. Even though the two of them used the same body wash and thus had the same scent, Huo Beixing still felt An Yi smelled especially good.
His wife was smaller than him, fair-skinned, and good-looking. He especially liked seeing An Yi blush while looking at him. Several times when An Yi had tried to push him away and he hadn’t let go, it had all been on purpose.
Thinking about how, when he had just told his wife to hit him and knead him, An Yi’s face had been full of refusal, Huo Beixing’s mood inexplicably brightened again.
His wife couldn’t bear to hit him, couldn’t bear to knead him, which was why he had refused just now.
Huo Beixing looked up at the tightly shut bathroom door.
His wife loved him so much.
Inside the bathroom, An Yi turned his head to look at the red handprint on his butt and sent out a string of “telegrams.”
By the time he came out, it was already nearly one in the morning. Huo Beixing sat on the bed and didn’t get under the covers until An Yi had finally emerged.
Having just taken a hot bath, An Yi lay down on the large bed, and the exhaustion of the day finally began to loosen. It felt as though his whole body had collapsed onto a cloud.
When he casually glanced over and saw the ugly doll lying on the blanket, he picked it up naturally and tucked it into his arms.
The moment he saw that, Huo Beixing’s face changed. “Wife, why are you hugging him?!”
Seeing the man’s unhappy expression—
An Yi: ?
What fresh round of dog temper are you throwing now?
Just now, An Yi had only picked it up by habit. Ugly as the doll was, it was still nominally their precious eldest son now. What could be more normal than a father sleeping while hugging his son?
Besides, An Yi had never really slept while hugging anything before, so there was a bit of novelty in it for him.
Looking at Huo Beixing, An Yi blinked and said, “Of course children sleep together with Daddy and Mommy.”
Huo Beixing stared at the ugly doll by his wife’s pillow with deep dissatisfaction. “Then if you give birth to ten of them, are you going to hug all ten to sleep too?!”
An Yi: ……
Ten… you really dare say anything……
An Yi replied, “Of course. If there are ten, then naturally it’ll be all ten together.”
He himself had never even been hugged to sleep by his wife before. Looking at his precious eldest son, Huo Beixing suddenly found him incomparably irritating.
So having children meant they came to steal his wife from him!
Huo Beixing refused to accept it. “Then I want to sleep with you too.”
As he spoke, he lifted the blanket and tried to get into An Yi’s bed. An Yi’s eyelids twitched, recalling that last time when the man had pinned him down and bitten him. He immediately pressed the lifted corner of the blanket back down.
An Yi said, “No. Only children are allowed to sleep together with other people.”
You’re already a big child now.
Huo Beixing grew temperamental again, glaring at that ugly doll as if he wanted to throw it straight out the window.
He didn’t like it anymore.
From now on, he would never let his wife bear him children again.
—
Early the next morning, when Huo Beixing got up, he didn’t immediately hoist An Yi downstairs for breakfast. Instead, he bent down by his ear and called to him a few times.
“Wife, wife, are you awake?”
In his dream—
The Duke of Zhou said, “It sounds like someone is calling you.”
Little Frog replied, “You old coot, don’t use that as an excuse for regretting your chess move.”
The Duke of Zhou: ……
An Yi was sleeping like the dead. After all, he hadn’t gone to bed until after one last night. Seeing that there was no response, Huo Beixing reached out, took the ugly doll from An Yi’s arms, got out of bed, opened the window, and swung his arm.
The entire sequence of movements was executed in one smooth flow.
And don’t ever come back again!
Just thinking about how An Yi had hugged that ugly doll to sleep made Huo Beixing grind his teeth in anger.
A gardener trimming the shrubs in the distance happened to witness the whole scene perfectly. Assuming it had been tossed out by accident, he planned to return it later.
An Yi didn’t fully wake up until ten in the morning. When he came downstairs, Huo Beixing had just returned from walking the two Dobermans, who were panting with their tongues hanging out from exhaustion.
Uncle Zhong told someone to go to the kitchen and bring out An Yi’s meal.
After sitting down, An Yi thanked him and began eating seriously. Huo Beixing went back upstairs, rinsed off, and then came down again to accompany him.
Since he hadn’t seen An Yi all day yesterday, Uncle Zhong asked with concern, “Young Master An Yi, did your work go smoothly yesterday?”
Uncle Zhong was the eldest elder in the household. Even someone with Huo Beixing’s dog temper respected him greatly.
The moment yesterday’s work was mentioned, An Yi’s eyes lit up. It had all been so impressive. From the decoration of the show venue to the clothing, everything served the concept. The designs were exquisite beyond compare. And on top of that, their studio had gotten such a precious chance to participate in a competition.
This year, they really had encountered a soft-hearted god.
Uncle Zhong’s question to An Yi was much like a parent asking a child after school whether anything interesting had happened that day.
An Yi smiled and said, “Yesterday I learned a lot from work, and we also received a very valuable competition slot. In about a week, I’ll have to go participate.”
Uncle Zhong poured him a glass of juice, smiling kindly. “Will the competition be over in a day? If I happen to have time, I can take Young Master along to watch.”
An Yi shook his head. “The competition is fully closed off. No one except staff is allowed in, and the people inside aren’t allowed out either. But there will be media interviews.”
After doing the math, he added, “I’ll probably have to go for half a month.”
Huo Beixing said, “Half a month?”
An Yi nodded. “That means I’ll be away from home for fifteen days.”
Fifteen days!!!
Huo Beixing’s expression froze. He lowered his head and began counting on his fingers. “One, two, three, four, five…”
Ten days was already so many!
Seeing that he didn’t have enough fingers, An Yi quietly stretched over one hand.
Huo Beixing looked up at him.
An Yi gave a shy smile.
No need to thank me.
Little Frog is thoughtful.jpg
Huo Beixing: ……
Fifteen days—there weren’t even enough fingers on his hands to count them. Just thinking about his wife leaving for that long made him feel as though the sky had collapsed.
Yesterday, his wife had gone out for only one day and already ended up linking arms with someone. If he went out for fifteen days, wouldn’t that be even worse? What if someone kidnapped his wife away?
Dissatisfied with the work plan, Huo Beixing asked, “Wife, can’t you just not go?”
An Yi asked, “Why?”
Huo Beixing deliberately tried to scare him. “What if someone kidnaps you into some mountain ravine?”
An Yi replied, “It’s okay. I’ll just treat it like going back to my hometown.”
Uncle Zhong at the side: ……
Is that how one returns to one’s hometown?!
An Yi thought Huo Beixing was worried about him being trafficked away, so he raised a hand and patted him reassuringly. “Nothing will happen. If someone really tries to traffic me, I still have my phone.”
Huo Beixing asked, “To call me?”
An Yi replied, “To call 110.”
Huo Beixing: ……
It struck Huo Beixing like thunder from a clear sky. For the rest of the day, he drifted about in a daze, even forgetting to keep up with his melodramatic TV series.
Sitting in the living room, he took out his phone, looked around in all directions, and casually spoke into it, using voice search.
“How can I stop my wife from going out?”
A post immediately appeared. As Huo Beixing flipped through the comments below, the highest-liked answer was:
Pretend to be sick.
The comment said that if one wanted to fake an illness, it was best to choose one with a long name—something that sounded serious on first hearing, the kind where people couldn’t immediately tell what disease it was. That way, the other party would assume it was serious, worry about you, and not go out.
After reading this, Huo Beixing exited the post and quickly began searching for the disease name he was going to use.
After memorizing it, he turned off the phone and went upstairs to the third floor, arriving at the study, where An Yi was currently working.
Lying was never really a good thing.
But he truly did not want his wife to leave.
So Huo Beixing took this particular lie and classified it under “a well-intentioned one.”
He raised a hand and knocked on the door.
Hearing it, An Yi lifted his head from the book. “Come in.”
Huo Beixing entered, then deliberately sat on the sofa looking uncomfortable. “Wife, can you please not go out for half a month?”
An Yi walked over to him. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Huo Beixing said, “Because I think I’m sick and need you to take care of me.”
An Yi looked at the robust and vigorous Huo Beixing.
Who was sick?
But he still patiently asked, just in case the other man really was unwell. “Are you really sick?”
Seeing his wife worry about him, Huo Beixing nodded.
An Yi asked, “What sickness do you have?”
Huo Beixing recalled the disease name he had memorized. “I think it’s called… that Alps disease.”
An Yi: ……
Update Posting Schedule: Starting next chapter, posting schedule change from posting every day to 3 chapters every Tuesday~
