Chapter 63: Hold-Up
Huo Beixing fell silent for a few seconds.
If it were anyone else, the reason might have sounded ridiculous, but put on him, it wasn’t strange at all. After all, he was someone even his own mother couldn’t name a single strength for. Using his body to obtain love—perfectly logical.
Otherwise, what was the other person supposed to want from him? His bad temper? His lack of compassion?
Yan Guancang said, “You don’t need to come to the wedding. Since you’re divorced, it’s inauspicious.”
Grinding his teeth, Huo Beixing snapped, “I’m not fucking divorced yet.”
Yan Guancang looked straight ahead, deaf to it, already taking a loan out on his divorce. “The fortune-teller said that if someone recently divorced attends a wedding, it’s bad luck.”
Huo Beixing: ……
Dog bastard, I said I’m not divorced!!
Forget it. Huo Beixing tipped his head back against the sofa, still feeling sour that An Yi hadn’t chased after him.
But when he thought about it carefully, he felt it was fucking melodramatic. He had just watched too many TV dramas over the past year and ended up wanting those mushy clichés.
Just then, there was a light knock on the office door.
He thought it must be the assistant with something urgent to report, otherwise they wouldn’t come in and disturb them.
Huo Beixing and Yan Guancang turned their heads at the same time.
The door slowly opened, and the next second An Yi’s round little head peeked out from behind it.
Your wife suddenly appears.
Huo Beixing was still holding a cigarette. He froze on the sofa the moment he saw An Yi appear, his heart giving a violent jump. His crossed legs instantly switched to a prim sitting posture.
“Wife.”
Seeing there was someone else inside, An Yi walked in with a bit of hesitation. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”
Then he noticed Yan Guancang and paused.
Oh ho, this one looks kind of bad-bad.
Bad-bad in the most literal sense.
Really bad. Anyone who didn’t know better would think he was some street thug.
Yan Guancang politely greeted An Yi and said he was Huo Beixing’s friend, just there to discuss something.
An Yi started to back out. “Then I’ll let you finish first—”
Huo Beixing grabbed him. “We’re done already.”
As he said it, he shot Yan Guancang a look.
Get lost already.
Yan Guancang: ……
An Yi turned his gaze to Huo Beixing. “Huo Beixing.”
“Hm? What is it, Wife?”
An Yi’s expression was a little awkward. After blinking twice, he pointed at his hand. “Um… the cigarette…”
Huo Beixing: !
Huo Beixing immediately stuffed the cigarette into Yan Guancang’s hand. “It’s this bad guy’s. He smokes. I snatched it away from him. Cigarettes aren’t a good thing at all. Wife, I don’t touch them.”
As he spoke, he even waved his hands expressively.
It had absolutely nothing to do with him.
Then he took the cigarette back from Yan Guancang’s hand and crushed it out in the ashtray. “You shouldn’t smoke either.”
“You’ve already smoked this much.” Huo Beixing pointed at the cigarette butts in the ashtray. “You’ll die early.”
Yan Guancang: ……
A truly unique maneuver: cursing himself through another man’s mouth.
An Yi looked at Huo Beixing with approval.
Huo Beixing declared, “Helping others is a joy. It’s what I should do.”
Yan Guancang’s face went numb. After saying goodbye, he didn’t stay any longer. He left the company, leaving the space to the two of them.
When he got down to the underground parking lot and opened the car door, he found a refined, elegant man sitting in the back seat.
The man wore silver-rimmed glasses. Seeing him return, his magnetic voice rang out. “Let’s go. We’re heading home.”
Yan Guancang got into the car.
Su Zhe asked, “Did you smoke?”
Yan Guancang explained, “He smoked it. It had nothing to do with me. If you don’t believe me, smell it.”
—
An Yi stood in Huo Beixing’s office, mouth hanging open in amazement at the scenery outside. Looking down, people had become tiny dots. Amazing~~
He had never expected Huo Beixing’s office to be an entire floor.
But he hadn’t forgotten the important matter at hand.
Huo Beixing was quietly and sneakily hiding all the cigarettes and cigars in the office.
“Huo Beixing?”
Huo Beixing lifted his head. “What is it, Wife?”
Now that An Yi had come to find him, Huo Beixing’s anger had already vanished, and his mood had gone from cloudy to sunny.
An Yi pulled him over to sit on the sofa. “I’m sorry about what happened today. I didn’t notice how you were feeling.”
Looking at An Yi’s fair, tender little face, Huo Beixing didn’t want him blaming himself. “I was wrong too.”
“It was my fault.”
“My fault.”
“Fine then, your fault.”
Huo Beixing: ……
An Yi reached out toward him. Before he could do anything, Huo Beixing had already pulled him into his arms.
“A hug means we’ve made up.”
Holding him, Huo Beixing naturally no longer had the mind to stay angry.
An Yi didn’t feel good inside either. What Huo Beixing had said had actually touched him deeply. He said he loved him, said he liked him—and precisely because An Yi’s heart had stirred, this marriage was something that had to end.
An Yi patted his back, coaxing him like a child. “I’ve already reflected on it. Suddenly telling you I wanted a divorce—you definitely couldn’t accept that all at once.”
Huo Beixing nodded.
What a devastating injury that had been to him.
He had almost become a second-marriage man.
An Yi promised him, “I won’t do it like that again in the future.”
A satisfied smile appeared on Huo Beixing’s face.
That was more like it.
An Yi continued, “Saying it all at once was too sudden, so from now on I’ll talk a little bit every day about our divorce plan. If I do it over time, you’ll be able to accept it.”
The smile vanished instantly.
Sitting on his lap, An Yi looked at him with wide eyes. “What do you think?”
Huo Beixing: ……
You’re so thoughtful.
Holding him tighter, Huo Beixing’s strength increased, pinning An Yi’s hands at his sides.
Those peach-blossom eyes were unfathomably deep. “Wife, why do you insist on divorcing me?”
For a moment An Yi couldn’t think of a good answer. “Because… because that’s how it was decided when we got married.”
“Wife, are you divorcing me because I’m stupid?”
An Yi’s eyes widened. “Who said that?”
His voice jumped up by more than an octave. He looked at Huo Beixing in disbelief. “Who said that?”
There was a faint anger and worry in his tone as he asked, “Did someone call you stupid?”
Those grape-like eyes stared at him, full of unbearable pity.
Huo Beixing hadn’t expected him to react so strongly either.
Seeing that Huo Beixing wasn’t answering, An Yi took hold of the hand at his waist and asked softly, “Dabao, did someone bully you? Who said you were stupid? You’re not stupid at all.”
For a moment, Huo Beixing buried his head in An Yi’s shoulder and neck.
Thinking he was hurt, An Yi hurriedly hugged him tighter. “Who bullied you? Tell me, and I’ll go teach them a lesson.”
Little Frog’s righteous fist.
Huo Beixing shook his head. “Wife, just kiss me and it’ll be fine.”
So someone really had bullied him. An Yi froze for an instant, but didn’t hesitate. Feeling sorry for him, he pressed several loud kisses to Huo Beixing’s face.
What An Yi didn’t know was that Huo Beixing, buried against his neck, had a completely different expression on his face.
He hadn’t expected An Yi to care this much about his inner feelings.
Excellent. He loved him even more now.
An Yi hugged him. “Don’t listen to other people. You’re not stupid at all.”
Though it was true that divorcing him because he was stupid was one reason. If An Yi kept letting his heart stir like this, it really would be a straight-up crime.
As for whether he could bear to part with him, of course he couldn’t. Since coming to this big city of high-rises, Huo Beixing was the person he had spent the longest time with.
They lived together day and night, ate together, slept together. Even if it were just raising a dog, after enough time you’d grow attached.
And naturally he was unwilling to part with Lili Princess and Summer Sweetheart too.
Afraid Huo Beixing would ask again why they had to divorce, An Yi hurriedly changed the subject to make him forget about it. As long as he remembered that they were going to divorce eventually, that was enough.
After the two of them got home, the first thing Huo Beixing did was lock that book, Eighteen Steps to Make My Husband Unable to Leave Me Alone, into a drawer.
Following step two had nearly cost him his wife.
An Yi returned to the bedroom and changed clothes, then began planning for what came next.
Work had to continue, but giving Huo Beixing an understanding of the concept of divorce couldn’t stop either.
His mind was incomplete. If An Yi really divorced and left, what would happen if he ran into trouble? Sure, the Huo family would definitely solve it for him, but he would still be the one suffering the grievance.
The moment that thought came, An Yi’s heart felt uncomfortable.
He suddenly regretted having told Huo Beixing before that he mustn’t fight casually. If someone really was deliberately picking a fight, then so what if he hit them?
All An Yi wanted was for Huo Beixing to live happily.
In the more than a year they had spent together, big and small things had happened between them one after another.
An Yi suddenly remembered the kidnapping incident.
No. Before divorcing, he absolutely had to teach him some safety knowledge and escape skills.
Once he made up his mind, An Yi took out paper and started drawing up a plan.
The next morning, while Huo Beixing was watching Dora the Explorer, An Yi appeared in front of him.
“Huo Beixing, I have one very important thing to teach you.”
His tone was extremely serious, serious enough from the sound of it that Huo Beixing could feel this was not a game.
Dora: “Where is the butterfly?”
Huo Beixing: “On your head.”
An Yi instinctively looked up.
Where?
How bold. A butterfly dared to land on Little Frog’s head?
Seeing his expression, Huo Beixing laughed. “Wife, it’s on Dora’s head.”
“Oh.” Blushing, An Yi cleared his throat. “Sir, please be serious.”
Huo Beixing cooperated. “Okay.”
An Yi raised a hand and turned off the TV, then brought out the simple drawing he had made.
“Today we’re going to talk about safety knowledge for preventing kidnapping, trafficking, and robbery.”
He held up a picture of a stick figure being kidnapped and sold off to some mountain village. “See this? After you’re kidnapped and trafficked, bad people can do anything to you. They can beat you, curse you, sell you, anything is possible. And if you’re unlucky, you might never see your family again in this life.”
“Robbery is the same.” An Yi changed to another picture.
“Scary, right?”
“Scary.”
An Yi put on a serious face. “If you ever go out and run into a robbery, or if one happens at home, the first thing you do is call the police, and then run while shouting for help. Got it?”
“Got it!”
“Then let’s do a practice round.” An Yi walked over to the front entrance and then kicked the door open. “This is a robbery! Hand over the money!”
The next second, there was a bank card in his hand.
Shyly, Huo Beixing said, “Here you go.”
An Yi: ……
Wrong!
Head aching, An Yi explained the safety lesson all over again. “Again! You are not allowed to throw yourself in, understood?!”
Huo Beixing nodded.
An Yi turned fierce. “This is a hold-up! A sex robbery! Stick your butt out!”
Huo Beixing froze. Just when An Yi thought he was finally going to use the law to protect himself—
Huo Beixing said, “Then you have to be gentle with me.”
An Yi: ……
