Chapter 64: Candy
Faced with Huo Beixing’s utter willingness to hand himself over, An Yi was left speechless, as though he could already see the scene of Huo Beixing getting kidnapped back then.
What part of this was educational knowledge?
This was plainly a reenactment of the crime itself.
He clearly had not understood the importance of this lesson at all.
An importance great enough to save his damned life.
An Yi’s expression changed, turning serious. “You absolutely can’t do that.”
He reached out and pulled Huo Beixing up from the sofa. “Huo Beixing, this isn’t something to joke around about. The way you’re treating this is making me very angry.”
He had to make the other man understand how dangerous these situations really were.
“If you go off with a bad person, there’s a chance you might never come back again. They could haul you off to some mountain ravine to farm, dig wild vegetables, and work day and night without stopping. You’d leave behind concrete high-rises and end up living in some broken-down house that leaks wind on blustery days and leaks rain on rainy ones. You might even have to carry water from the river yourself, bathe in freezing water in winter, and never get to eat your fill. Do you understand?”
He was clearly angry—angry that Huo Beixing could treat something this serious like nothing at all.
It wasn’t that An Yi wanted to force suffering onto Huo Beixing.
He wanted to keep him far away from suffering.
The more terrible he made it sound, the more seriously the other man would take it and the better he’d learn to protect himself.
Huo Beixing looked at him. “Wife, why do you know all that so clearly?”
An Yi didn’t linger on those hardships. What he’d said was only meant to frighten him into taking things seriously. “That’s not the point.”
Suddenly, Huo Beixing thought back to An Yi’s background. The memory was a little blurry, but he knew An Yi had been taken back by the An family, his biological family, while publicly being referred to as their adopted son.
Huo Beixing asked, “Wife, have you lived like that before?”
An Yi didn’t answer. Instead, he asked in return, “Do you think it’s scary?”
Whether or not he had lived through that sort of life was beside the point.
All he wanted to know was whether Huo Beixing had realized the seriousness of the issue.
Huo Beixing slowly mapped that description one by one onto An Yi’s body—his thin shoulders, slender back, and narrow arms.
A house that leaked wind on blustery days and leaked rain on rainy ones.
Water that had to be carried with those thin shoulders.
A body washed in biting cold winter water.
These were things far outside his imagination.
So people could actually live like that.
So people could still survive like that.
He fell silent for a few seconds, then answered hoarsely, “Scary.”
An Yi lowered his head and flipped through the little stick-figure booklet he had drawn, not seeing the struggle and heartache in the other man’s eyes.
“That’s why you need to understand even more how to protect yourself.”
That way, after they divorced in the future, he would also be able to rest easy.
Huo Beixing said, “Wife, I’m sorry.”
An Yi shook his head. “It’s fine. You just need to listen carefully from here on.”
“Wife…”
An Yi looked up at him. “Hm?”
Huo Beixing wanted to say something, but for the first time, he felt utterly powerless. After all, the other man’s past had already solidified with time into something that could not be changed.
His heart felt as though it were being struck over and over with a rain of needles.
From then on, Huo Beixing was obviously much more serious than before, which left An Yi extremely satisfied. After teaching him everything, he reviewed it all once with him, and Huo Beixing answered every question fluently.
Inside, Little Frog felt the same sense of achievement as a parent whose child had gotten into Tsinghua.
“With you learning it this well, I can finally feel at ease.”
Huo Beixing asked, “At ease about what?”
An Yi answered bluntly, “At ease about getting divorced.”
Huo Beixing: ……
If he’d known, he wouldn’t have learned anything at all.
An Yi did not avoid bringing up the word divorce in front of Huo Beixing. After that, he even mentioned it from time to time in daily life, subtly brainwashing him and making him slowly accept it.
Next, An Yi felt he should gradually reduce the amount of time he and Huo Beixing spent together each day.
A little shorter every day.
That way, when the divorce finally came, the other man wouldn’t sulk just because he wasn’t by his side.
Little Frog nodded in satisfaction.
How considerate.
That evening after dinner, An Yi accompanied Huo Beixing in watching Where Does the Runaway Bride Escape To.
He sent a WeChat message to Uncle Zhong, asking him to bring over two pieces of candy on a small plate.
“Uncle Zhong, just two pieces.”
Uncle Zhong looked at his phone, then looked at An Yi, who was less than two meters away from him.
“……”
Acting this mysterious in your own house?
Kind of exciting.
Following An Yi’s instructions, Uncle Zhong placed exactly two candies on a plate and brought them over.
This candy used to be Huo Beixing’s favorite when he was still foolish. Every time he ate it, he wanted several at once. If you didn’t give them to him, he’d throw a dog temper tantrum.
Seeing Huo Beixing watching the television intently, An Yi picked up one piece of candy, peeled off the wrapper, and put it to his mouth.
“Eat.”
Huo Beixing opened his mouth.
Uncle Zhong: !
So their young master was voice-controlled after all.
The fruit-flavored candy ball melted in his mouth, and Huo Beixing found the taste pretty good.
An Yi asked, “Is it tasty?”
Huo Beixing nodded.
“Do you still want one?”
Looking at the anticipation in An Yi’s eyes, Huo Beixing humored him. “Yes.”
An Yi let out an “Aiya,” then said, “But there’s only one piece of candy left now, and this one is mine. What do you think we should do?”
Without even thinking, Huo Beixing said, “Then wife should eat it.”
It was just one piece of candy.
Still, because of the role he was playing, Huo Beixing deliberately showed a little reluctance.
An Yi continued, “But you want to eat it too.”
Huo Beixing said, “I’ll hold myself back.”
Then An Yi leaned close to his ear and murmured, “This is the downside of being married. If you have two candies, you have to share one with me. But if we get divorced, then you get to eat both candies yourself.”
Huo Beixing turned to look at him.
An Yi blinked.
The next second, Huo Beixing got up, walked to the trash can, and spat the candy right out.
An Yi: ……
He had vividly and graphically demonstrated that he could simply choose not to eat it.
How could this be?
Wasn’t this the candy Huo Beixing liked most?!
Could it be that he really couldn’t get a grip on Huo Dabao after all?!
Looking at An Yi’s shocked face, Huo Beixing pulled him closer to himself.
“Wife, how many candies were on that plate just now?”
“Two. One for you and one for me.”
Huo Beixing said, “But now that we’re married, if you keep living with me, then in the future both candies will be for you.”
Holy shit.
Little Frog opened his mouth in astonishment.
He was actually smart enough to turn the trap around on him.
An Yi looked at him. “Isn’t this candy your favorite?”
Huo Beixing replied, “Because I like you much more than I like candy. Candy can’t compare to you at all. If I can’t be with you, then even if you gave me a lifetime’s worth of my favorite candy, I still wouldn’t be happy.”
No wonder he had once been the predecessor to a playboy—Huo Dabao really did have some skill in him.
An Yi was genuinely moved by those words. Even his ears had heated up, and his heart once again began beating faster. But Little Frog was not the sort to be trapped by love.
Besides, it would still be illegal.
So An Yi shook his head. “No thanks. I don’t eat candy.”
Huo Beixing asked, “Why?”
An Yi answered, “Because I’m just naturally not someone who likes sweets.”
Huo Beixing: ……
After accompanying him through the television show, An Yi quietly went into the kitchen and found Uncle Zhong leisurely brewing black tea.
He reached out and poked the little old man in the back, startling him.
Turning around and seeing that it was An Yi, Uncle Zhong patted his chest.
“So it’s Young Master An Yi. Do you need something?”
An Yi glanced behind him to make sure Huo Beixing hadn’t followed, then lowered his voice mysteriously and said, “Uncle Zhong, have you noticed Huo Beixing seems to have gotten smarter?”
Uncle Zhong replied, “Has he?”
In truth, Uncle Zhong already knew that Huo Beixing had recovered. Huo Beixing had confessed it to him on his own initiative. When he first found out, Uncle Zhong had been stricken with grief.
After all, who could take it when a good child turned into a hooligan?
No matter how old Huo Beixing grew, in Uncle Zhong’s eyes he was still one of the younger generation.
An Yi said, “I think he has.”
Uncle Zhong asked, “And how exactly did Young Master An Yi come to notice that?”
An Yi answered, “He’s not easy to fool anymore.”
Uncle Zhong: ……
That direct?
At first, it had only been An Yi’s suspicion, but through Huo Beixing’s behavior lately, he increasingly felt the man was getting harder to trick—and sometimes even turned the tables and tricked him instead.
Looking at Uncle Zhong, An Yi asked, “Do you think Huo Beixing might be almost better?”
Uncle Zhong’s heart skipped a beat. “You absolutely mustn’t talk nonsense like that. How could the young master suddenly be better?”
Then he pointed toward the dark night outside. “It’s already dark outside. You can’t go saying unlucky things like that.”
An Yi: ……
Well, that made it obvious.
The old man was very resistant to the idea of Huo Beixing recovering.
Uncle Zhong told An Yi not to let his imagination run wild, then, holding his tea, guiltily slipped away.
At his age, and still having to lie and deceive people on behalf of that little troublemaker.
What karmic sin.
Although Uncle Zhong said that, An Yi still felt something was off. But he had more important things to do, so he didn’t dwell on it.
Over the next two months, in order to shorten the amount of time he spent together with Huo Beixing each day, An Yi began working with Gu Lingling at a rented apartment.
Afraid that Huo Beixing would get bored and find the days too long, he even signed him up for a yoga class.
The man was too stiff; practicing yoga would do him good.
When Huo Beixing first learned he would have to go to yoga, his face darkened immediately. Every time he went, he only put on a show. He’d leave his things at the yoga studio and then turn right around and head to the company.
To avoid him, An Yi also began leaving early and coming home late every day.
Finally, one weekend, Huo Beixing caught him.
“Wife, let’s watch TV together this afternoon.”
A harmonious married life.
Actually, after spending so little time with Huo Beixing recently, An Yi had found himself thinking from time to time about what he might be doing, whether he had eaten, whether he had had any water, worrying about this and worrying about that.
It was a kind of longing too.
But he forcefully suppressed all of it.
When Huo Beixing suggested watching television together, An Yi looked at his face and very nearly agreed. But he pinched his own thigh hard and quickly sobered up. “No, don’t you have yoga class this afternoon?”
Huo Beixing said, “Wife, I don’t want to go.”
“Why?”
“It’s too hot.”
An Yi turned his head and looked at the snow falling outside the window. “But it’s winter now.”
“……”
Because An Yi had to take part in the competition, they hadn’t flown to South Island.
Huo Beixing explained, “The heating’s turned up too high. But nobody else thinks so, and I don’t want to make everyone else change just because of me.”
How very self-sacrificing, putting the greater good first.
An Yi truly hadn’t expected him to have such a problem.
“It’s okay. Go to class. I’ll solve it for you.”
When the time came, An Yi began helping Huo Beixing get his things together. He fastened up the bag holding the yoga mat and handed it over to him.
Huo Beixing accepted it unwillingly.
When he got to the yoga studio that was supposedly too hot, he tossed the yoga bag aside and planned to head to the company as usual.
But just as he turned around, he noticed something sticking out of the yoga bag.
What should have been a yoga mat was, at this moment, a rolled-up bamboo cooling mat.
