Chapter 33: A Quiet Snowy Night
It was absolutely a terrible excuse. Zhu Zhixi knew that, but in that instant, he lost the ability to think. Only one thought floated through his mind.
Would Fu Rangyi look at other people with those eyes too?
Eyes transparent like water, soft like silk, like a little dog’s.
Thinking of this, he kissed him before he could stop himself. Action had surpassed reason. Afterward, of course Zhu Zhixi felt deeply vexed. He felt as though he had turned into a cat or a dog, trying to mark territory with his own tiny little method.
But I’m clearly a Beta. How did I end up having thoughts like this too?
He thought of how he had once told Fu Rangyi that he could tell when others liked someone, relying on feeling, relying on their eyes. How arrogant. It turned out that this kind of sensitivity could also become disordered and fail because of one particular person.
Just as he was at a loss, he suddenly heard Fu Rangyi’s voice, lower than usual.
“Is holding hands no longer enough?”
Zhu Zhixi’s hand, which had been clutching the corner of his scarf, loosened slightly. He raised his eyes to look at him. “Hm?”
He suddenly regained some reason and hurriedly nodded. “Right. Just now, I saw it jumping very fast. We were clearly together the whole time, but it was still very fast, so I suddenly felt a little uneasy. Then I thought of last time, when you kissed me during your susceptible period, the countdown reversed a lot. You should remember, right? It was very useful.”
What a chaotic lie.
“Anyway, my brain just heated up, sor—”
Before he could finish, very suddenly, a hand pressed against the back of his neck, and the distance between them was yanked close. His heartbeat instantly soared. In a daze, Zhu Zhixi even had the illusion that the small patch of skin held in Fu Rangyi’s palm had grown a gland too, burning intensely.
Their foreheads touched. His skin was so hot. His glasses were hard and cold. Their breaths intertwined in pale white clouds, with nowhere to hide in the snowy night.
Fu Rangyi’s gaze had become very hot too. The snow on his eyelashes melted.
He lowered his head slightly, about to kiss him.
Music from the cultural festival drifted over from afar. Zhu Zhixi snapped awake and quickly reached out, covering Fu Rangyi’s lips. His hand barely squeezed between their two pairs of lips, and the light in his palm also stilled.
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Why are you cooperating with me so much?
Zhu Zhixi caught his breath, lowered his eyes, and said softly, “You’re a teacher. This is school…”
Fu Rangyi did not immediately move away. When he spoke, his soft lips still pressed against Zhu Zhixi’s fingers. “Everyone knows I’m married.”
“That’s still not good. What if a student sees…” Zhu Zhixi broke free. His fingers had been rubbed until they itched, so he clenched them and stuffed them into his pocket.
He had thought that someone with such strong boundaries as Fu Rangyi would be a little unhappy after being kissed on the cheek out of nowhere. Unexpectedly, Fu Rangyi’s mind was actually full of the life-extension task.
He had indeed commanded him to cooperate unconditionally with physical contact, but this was too…
“Fu Rangyi.”
Fu Rangyi seemed to exhale for a long time, then replied in a low voice, “Mm?”
“Hug me.” Zhu Zhixi stretched out both hands. “This is enough.”
The command executor who granted every request did as told, despite having said before that he hated hugs the most.
Zhu Zhixi buried his burning face in Fu Rangyi’s scarf, but it did not ease anything. Instead, it made everything worse.
After a while, he felt Fu Rangyi lift one arm and half-wrap it around him in response. He seemed very calm, not panicked at all.
“Is this enough?” Fu Rangyi asked.
“Mm.” Zhu Zhixi kept his head buried, but stretched out his left hand and held it in front of Fu Rangyi, shaking it. “It’s very effective.”
A lie. He did not even know what minutes and seconds it was at right now.
“Are you happy?” Fu Rangyi asked again.
“Mm, of course.” Very happy.
“Because the countdown reversed?”
Zhu Zhixi took a deep breath, but he could not smell even the faintest trace of Fu Rangyi’s pheromones. There was only the light, clean scent of laundry detergent on him. He could only imagine that complex yet pleasant scent in his mind.
“Not entirely,” he answered honestly.
Fu Rangyi was quiet for a while, then asked, “Because someone finally understands you?”
The snow quietly sank, landing on the tip of Zhu Zhixi’s ear. It was cool and a little itchy, so he tilted his head along with it and rubbed the snowmelt away against Fu Rangyi’s shoulder.
“To be honest, I used to be really worried you’d think I was lying to you. Of course, I did tell you a few small lies…”
“A few?”
He did not need to lift his head to see Fu Rangyi’s raised-brow questioning expression.
“Those were jokes, just teasing you a little.” Zhu Zhixi cleared his throat. “But about the countdown, I really worked up the courage to confess it to you. Every word was true. And… ever since I discovered that no one except me could see it, and everyone treated me like a lunatic, I never told anyone again. You were the first.”
He felt Fu Rangyi’s tense shoulders seem to loosen a little.
“Although today was messy and absurd, now that you finally believe I wasn’t lying, of course I’d be… a little happy.”
More like carried away, Zhu Zhixi thought.
The broad palm pressed against his back moved up a little, almost touching the back of his neck, but it did not. He heard Fu Rangyi’s inhale before he spoke, very slight.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before.”
“How can that be blamed on you? If it were me, I would also think this person had something wrong with his head.”
Fu Rangyi’s voice was extremely calm, and that made Zhu Zhixi feel even more that the kiss just now had not been impulsive, at least not mixed with too much emotion. It had only been to help him.
“Actually, you could have chosen not to tell me at all. Confessing the countdown is equivalent to confessing the real purpose of getting married. You couldn’t have predicted how I would react after hearing it. I might have resisted getting closer to you even more.”
Zhu Zhixi nodded inwardly.
But I still didn’t want to use you while keeping you in the dark.
Fu Rangyi continued, “The safest way would have been to say nothing and find opportunities for more contact.”
For some reason, Zhu Zhixi suddenly did not want to keep listening. A sour liquid slowly accumulated in his chest, surging more and more, uncontrollably.
“I didn’t want to do that,” he said directly.
“I know. It was only a hypothesis.” Fu Rangyi was silent for a few seconds, and there was even a bit more encouragement in his tone. “You could also do that. There’s nothing more important than life. I wouldn’t mind.”
That overwhelming sourness instantly swallowed Zhu Zhixi’s reason. He stiffly replied.
“Then mind it.”
“Hm?”
Zhu Zhixi abruptly pushed him away. “Mind it, okay?”
At last, they were face-to-face. At last, he could see Fu Rangyi’s face. He actually looked stunned, rendered speechless by this sudden outburst.
Zhu Zhixi even left the bench. A small clean circle was left on it.
“When I first met you, I thought you were really annoying. Cold, serious, and wasn’t it just that I found the wrong table? What was there to be angry about? This wouldn’t do, that wouldn’t do, and you were unhappy at the drop of a hat. You were gentle with everyone else, but spoke so harshly to me. Of course, I’m not saying I speak very nicely either. Anyway, back then, I just thought you were troublesome and had such double standards.”
Fu Rangyi quietly listened to him without refuting a single word.
“But I saw through you very quickly. All the badness you show is just a paper tiger that breaks with one poke. Actually, you leave the light on for me every day. You clearly have a stable schedule, but you always wait until I come home before going back to your room to sleep. You go all that way to pick me up. You wash strawberries for me. And I know the strawberries at your place were all washed by you. Do you think you’re very good at acting?”
The more Zhu Zhixi spoke, the angrier he became. But once his anger reached a certain point, it suddenly deflated. He turned his face away and sniffed. “You especially like acting cold, as if you don’t care about anyone, but actually anyone can bully you.”
“Fu Rangyi, I know you feel guilty toward me because of what happened during your susceptible period, so you unconditionally agree to all my excessive requests. Actually, I’m the one with the least standing to say these things. But I just can’t hold it in. You’re a person too. Your heart is made of flesh too. Why are you always ignoring your own needs and putting others before yourself?”
The temperature was getting lower and lower. He spoke very quickly, and his voice even trembled a little. “Why are you always thinking, ‘Ah, as long as you think it’s useful,’ ‘as long as it paused,’ ‘as long as I can help you,’ why?”
He knew he was speaking very chaotically and emotionally, but even so, Fu Rangyi did not leave.
Faced with this barrage of questions that was almost a scolding, he did not seem angry at all. He only quietly looked at him, slowly blinked, and when he spoke again, his tone was lighter than snow.
“Because this is how I grew up.”
Because from the moment I was born, I never had priority. Being chosen at all was already lucky, and I should be grateful.
Because this way, it doesn’t hurt.
Zhu Zhixi looked at him and suddenly felt very sad. This reason was one he had not expected, and it also did not sound like the whole reason.
His voice weakened. “I want you to mind. I want you to say it when you’re uncomfortable.”
Was it really such a selfless thought? Zhu Zhixi asked himself.
In one moment, what he was actually thinking was: Do you really not mind? Being kissed, being asked to do the hug you hate most, being used to extend someone’s life—are all of these okay?
What if it were someone else?
“I understand what you want to express. Thank you.”
Zhu Zhixi’s little temper flared again. “You don’t understand at all. I don’t want to hear thank you.”
“Then I’ll take back the thank you.” Fu Rangyi tolerated his willfulness and continued, “From now on, I’ll try, as you said, to face my own needs directly. But there is one point where I think our understanding differs, and I need to clarify it.”
Zhu Zhixi lifted his eyelids and looked at him.
“Before you told me to mind, every hypothesis I mentioned was based on the premise that the person was you.”
Zhu Zhixi froze.
That question that had circled and circled still slipped out uncontrollably. “What if it were someone else?”
Fu Rangyi did not answer immediately.
And Zhu Zhixi could not actually think of anyone especially important to Fu Rangyi. Family? Forget it. What did those family members of his count for? If Fu Rangyi regarded them as important, Zhu Zhixi would be angry enough for his liver to hurt.
What about a good friend, then?
Zhu Zhixi immediately pressed, “For example, Li Qiao. What if it were him?”
Fu Rangyi’s brows suddenly furrowed especially deeply. “Do you have to make me imagine this?”
“Mm.” Zhu Zhixi nodded heavily.
Fu Rangyi was very good at saying cruel things in an indifferent tone. “Then I can only say that life and death are decreed by fate.”
Zhu Zhixi could not hold back and burst out laughing. He did not understand what he was laughing at, and only belatedly realized that it seemed rather impolite. His outburst earlier had been even more so.
So stupid. What exactly was he doing?
His cheeks burned, and Zhu Zhixi raised his hand to touch them.
Usually quick-witted, he clumsily changed the subject, pointing upward. “Ah, it’s snowing.”
Fu Rangyi looked at him and almost laughed too, as if he was about to mock him with a few lines.
But he did not. He only raised his eyes, looked at the snowflakes filling the sky, and said softly, “Mm. It’s snowing.”
His heart suddenly beat so, so fast.
“I…” Zhu Zhixi became even more at a loss. He wanted to turn around and leave by himself, but then remembered something. He turned back, spun halfway in place, and pulled Fu Rangyi’s arm. “So cold, so cold. Let’s hurry home.”
“Mm.” Fu Rangyi stood up, a very faint smile on his face.
Zhu Zhixi did not look back as he dragged him along the snow-covered, tree-lined path on campus. Only when he realized he could no longer pull him along did he turn around. Fu Rangyi patted his tightly clenched hand, pulled free, then removed the thick, soft scarf around his neck, unfolded it, and wrapped it around Zhu Zhixi’s shoulders.
“Let’s go home.”
The snow did not stop the whole way. It fell slowly and quietly, as if they were still on that stage covered in drifting feathers. The night was a black velvet curtain, and the streetlights receded one by one, casting soft, threadlike spotlights that intermittently illuminated their two hands, almost but not quite touching.
Until they got into the car.
On the way home, Zhu Zhixi felt inexplicably unsettled and nervous, unusually sensitive even to Fu Rangyi’s breathing. He noticed the phone clipped to the navigation mount vibrate several times. Calls kept coming in and were all declined by Fu Rangyi. Then there were text messages. In the end, Fu Rangyi simply silenced the phone and put it into his pocket.
“Is it work?”
Fu Rangyi said no, his voice calm. “Sales calls.”
When they got home, they ate together and bickered as usual. Zhu Zhixi took out the cultural relic collection he had been saving for a long time and consulted Great Professor Fu about it. While Fu Rangyi patiently explained things, Zhu Zhixi casually removed the suppression bracelet he was still wearing and placed it on the table.
Everything seemed ordinary. Zhu Zhixi casually said good night, returned to his own room, put away the two postcards, then burrowed into the tent Fu Rangyi had once lain in.
The moment he pulled the curtain shut, all his pretense collapsed with a crash.
The countdown had made huge progress, yet his heart was a tangled mess. He tossed and turned, his mind full of Fu Rangyi’s gaze, and the things Fu Rangyi had said. Those words that could make him misunderstand, yet were spoken so calmly.
The more he tried to analyze everything clearly, the more chaotic it became. His thoughts grew increasingly restrained and dull, until in the end, he tangled himself up completely.
He had stubbornly demanded specialness. And then what? What was the next step—chasing after Fu Rangyi and demanding something else from him?
Fu Rangyi did not have much.
A fragile heart, hidden wounds, so many painful secrets he was unwilling to reveal.
Zhu Zhixi even began to feel afraid. In this area, he was completely blank.
He was worried that it was all a misunderstanding, and even more worried that he had mistaken his own feelings. What if he only found teasing Fu Rangyi interesting? What if his dependence had only arisen because of the countdown? What if, through dependence and spending time together, pity, compassion, and some fondness had surged up, mixed together, and deceived even himself? When he woke up one day, what was he supposed to do then?
He was so afraid Fu Rangyi would be hurt because of him, yet he was also addicted to the intense emotional turbulence brought by every moment of intimacy.
After lying in the tent for a very, very long time, Zhu Zhixi was pressed down by his cautious heart until he could hardly breathe. Listlessly, he crawled out, rolled around on the carpet, got up, climbed into bed, and tried to sleep.
The day had already been exhausting. He had matched wits with an angel and gone around the market. Zhu Zhixi, you need rest.
Hypnosis failed.
Tick-tock, tick-tock. He remembered Fu Rangyi imitating Little Yu, and then that ticking sound surrounded him, refusing to stop for even a moment.
In the darkness, Zhu Zhixi got up again, walked to the window, pulled open the curtains, and looked down.
“Wow.” He let out a soft, quiet exclamation.
So at one-thirty in the morning, he put a thick light-blue down jacket over his pajamas, took the big scarf Fu Rangyi had given him, went to the kitchen to find a few things, and crept downstairs to an empty spot in the shared garden. It was already covered in a layer of snow, soft beneath his feet.
He grabbed a few handfuls of snow from the tops of the shrubs and packed them for a long time, but they were still rough. In the end, he simply took off his gloves and rubbed the snow with his palms.
A somewhat irregular head was born.
Zhu Zhixi placed it in his palm and examined it for a while, then crouched down and set it in place. He scooped up another handful of fresh snow.
“One more snowball.”
The moment he blurted this out to himself, he suddenly froze. Snowball? A strange sense of familiarity surged up, then quickly disappeared.
The countdown in his palm brightened for an instant, like a candle flame blown stronger by the wind, but soon returned to normal.
By the time he finished packing the second ball too, his legs were almost numb from squatting. He stacked the two together and admired the snowman’s rough shape. Who knew that, suddenly, the sound of a branch breaking came from behind him.
Zhu Zhixi was startled and whipped around. The snowman’s head also fell off.
But when he saw who had come, he was so stunned that he sat down on the ground.
The wide cashmere scarf wrapped around his frozen-red face made Zhu Zhixi look like a matryoshka doll, with only a pair of big, clear eyes exposed, staring at Fu Rangyi without blinking.
“Why are you here?” he asked in an extremely small voice.
Fu Rangyi was wearing a long snow-white down coat. He was not wearing glasses, and his hair was messy from the wind. He had lost some of his usual composure, gaining instead a bit of fresh, youthful air.
“You closed the door too loudly. I was woken up. We’re not at home right now, so I don’t have to follow the roommate rules, right?” he replied at a normal volume, then raised the bag in his hand. “I was a little hungry, so I went to the 24-hour convenience store.”
Was it that loud? I clearly closed the door super quietly.
“Do you have neurasthenia? And don’t you refuse to eat convenience store food? You said it’s all additives.”
“Mm. Occasionally supplementing myself with additives.”
Zhu Zhixi was amused by his solemn seriousness.
Fu Rangyi walked over and naturally reached out to pull Zhu Zhixi up. “I brought you this.” He took out a warm bottle of chocolate milk, unscrewed the cap, and handed it over.
“Wow, my favorite!”
After just one sip, he felt like he had come back to life. Happiness was practically steaming out of him.
“Thank you,” Zhu Zhixi said with a bright smile.
Fu Rangyi took out another bottle and was about to remove the thermal packaging when Zhu Zhixi stopped him.
“You can just drink this one. Otherwise both will get cold.” Zhu Zhixi picked up a few little branches from the ground, comparing them to choose suitable arms.
Fu Rangyi hesitated for a moment, then followed his suggestion. He took a small sip, then inexplicably found that no matter what, he could not screw the cap back on properly.
It was as though it had broken.
He simply drank the whole bottle, threw away that damned broken bottle, and when he returned, the snowman had already been built.
“Fu Rangyi, look!” Zhu Zhixi held up his masterpiece, glowing with pride. “Cute, right?”
Fu Rangyi was not looking at the snowman, but he nodded.
But when he actually looked at the snowman, his brain suddenly short-circuited, and he failed to suppress his true thoughts. “So ugly.”
“Hey! How can you be like that? Then when I asked you if it was cute, you still nodded. Were you doing that on purpose?”
That was a separate matter.
Fu Rangyi pointed at the snowman’s head. “Isn’t this nose too long?”
“It is, but I didn’t have time to carve the carrot, so I just took the whole thing. I actually brought a knife too, but my hands were freezing, so I was too lazy to carve it.”
Fu Rangyi was somewhat speechless. After a moment of silence, he said, “Actually, there’s a box of baby carrots on the side of the fridge.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier!”
“You didn’t ask me.”
Zhu Zhixi pouted and looked back at the snowman. “Long is long, then. Let’s just treat him as snowman Pinocchio.”
Fu Rangyi wanted to laugh. “Mm, too similar. Be careful of getting into a copyright lawsuit.”
Zhu Zhixi clearly believed it for one second. He sucked in a cold breath and set the snowman down on the ground.
“I was joking.” Fu Rangyi pointed at it. “It doesn’t even have eyes, so it doesn’t look like him.”
This explanation was clearly not what Zhu Zhixi wanted, and it had veered even further off course. But he did not notice. He lowered his eyes and stared at Zhu Zhixi’s hands, red as radishes.
“Is the countdown still jumping very fast right now?”
As he asked, he removed his own gloves, put them away, then looked at Zhu Zhixi. Seeing that he did not refuse, Fu Rangyi took his hand.
Fu Rangyi knew his own hands were usually cold. Before coming, he had used the bottle of chocolate milk to warm them and had worn gloves properly, so they were warm now. His palm was large and easily wrapped around that frozen hand.
Zhu Zhixi was unusually quiet.
It was deep night. Everywhere were pines and cypresses covered in snow. The cold air was hazy, sharp enough to make one’s nose sting. Zhu Zhixi stared blankly at Fu Rangyi holding his hand, and further up, at his empty wrist without the suppression bracelet.
Are you releasing pheromones right now?
How much?
More. Press down on my shoulders and let me feel it.
Let me smell like a cold garden.
Timidity and desire pulled back and forth. In the end, the latter won. Zhu Zhixi pulled his hand out, parted his lips, and some ambiguous longing flowed silently out with the white mist. Very quickly, he shyly crossed his hands over the scarf, hiding his face, then slowly separated it again and stepped closer through the snow, almost pressing against Fu Rangyi’s chest.
“Professor Fu, there’s no one here now.”
Hearing this, Fu Rangyi raised his brows slightly. “Mm?”
“No students.” Zhu Zhixi spoke in an extremely tiny voice.
“You want me to help you?” Fu Rangyi tilted his head. His expression did not change much, and his eyes stared at the red mole on Zhu Zhixi’s eyelid.
Why say it so directly?
Zhu Zhixi hummed like a mosquito, using it as confirmation.
“Then do you… mind?”
“Mm.”
What?? Zhu Zhixi looked at him a little wounded. “Really?”
“If it were someone else.” Fu Rangyi smiled softly, lowered his head, and lifted Zhu Zhixi’s chin with his fingers.
Zhu Zhixi nervously closed his eyes. But the kiss was not what he expected. Unexpectedly, it landed on the thin eyelid of his left eye.
“Hm?” Dazed and confused, he opened his eyes. In that very instant, soft lips fell, gently pressing against his own.
His breathing stopped. His limbs and bones instantly went soft. Electricity shuttled back and forth, and even his fingertips swelled until they felt numb. His mind went blank, and Zhu Zhixi felt dizzy.
Gradually, within this extremely gentle kiss, he was surrounded by a sense of pressure, so heavy it made it difficult to breathe, as if thousands upon thousands of tons of snow had fallen onto him.
Snow scented with pomelo blossoms, he imagined.
He could not move, but he did not want Fu Rangyi to know. He was afraid Fu Rangyi would take it all back at once.
This was the only way he could perceive Fu Rangyi’s pheromones.
The soft lips left him. Fu Rangyi even helped him cross and wrap the scarf covering his head, like drawing curtains, covering Zhu Zhixi’s flushed cheeks for him.
“All right.” He lifted Zhu Zhixi’s still-stiff wrist and tapped the countdown with his finger. His lips moved, as if he silently said something, then he let go.
“Let’s go back.”
Zhu Zhixi stood there for quite a while before finally picking up the snowman and following Fu Rangyi’s footsteps. Crunch, crunch. The sound of their steps in the snow gradually overlapped.
“You’re bringing this back too?”
“Of course. Do you have an opinion?” Zhu Zhixi deliberately said wickedly, “You think it’s ugly, right? Then I insist on giving it to you. I’ll put it on the windowsill in your room.”
Fu Rangyi took the hand-freezing snowman from him and asked, “There’s heating at home. How long can your snowman live?”
Zhu Zhixi snorted. “It’ll die tomorrow.”
Fu Rangyi looked at the snowman in his palm and said seriously, “Then I’ll wear white tomorrow.”
“What for?”
“To mourn it.”
“You’re so crazy.”
Zhu Zhixi was amused, so Fu Rangyi also laughed. Their laughter overlapped, bright and clear in the snowy night.
The next day, Fu Rangyi really did wear a white coat. After sending him to work, he quietly went to the master bedroom and glanced toward the windowsill.
Sure enough, after one night, only a long carrot was left there.
The snowman had already melted.
Author’s Note:
Two delicate and sensitive babies.
First love is naturally a little timid and tangled. Relax, you two can retake and make up the subject of love together. Don’t worry, Little Fu, the author will save you both.
