Chapter 43
At that thought, Jiang Mi found it amusing and shook his head inwardly.
Liang Jinyi’s possessiveness toward him had already shown itself when they first met, back when Jinyi was six years old. Even then, he had disliked seeing Jiang Mi hug other children. Now, his refusal to let Jiang Mi share a bed with another man was essentially no different from how, as a child, he had disliked and resisted Jiang Mi hugging anyone else.
So what on earth was he imagining?
Surely he could not suspect that a six-year-old boy had harbored some strange kind of feelings for him.
“Brother, can you promise me?” Liang Jinyi pressed when Jiang Mi remained silent for so long.
“We’ll talk about it later. I’m tired. I’m going to take a shower first.”
Jiang Mi could tell that Liang Jinyi would not let the matter go without an answer. But whenever Jiang Mi made Liang Jinyi a promise, unless circumstances beyond his control prevented it, he would always do his best to keep it. So he did not want to casually brush him off with an empty yes.
He vaguely deflected the subject, then hurried toward the bathroom.
Seeing this, Liang Jinyi stood behind Jiang Mi and watched him go. He did not continue forcing Jiang Mi to agree to his perfectly reasonable and normal demand—one that belonged to a future boyfriend.
Early the next morning, Jiang Mi went to work, Liang Jinyi went to school for his exams, and after Liang Xuping woke up, he returned to his own apartment.
After that afternoon’s exam ended, little Liang Jinyi officially began his winter break and went straight back to the Liang residence.
That evening, Jiang Mi returned home and stood in the entryway, looking at the silent living room.
After taking off his coat and walking farther inside, he found no beautiful young man bustling around the kitchen either. The stove was cold and untouched.
Jiang Mi sat down on the sofa, surrounded by the silence of the apartment, and unexpectedly found himself a little unaccustomed to it.
He clicked his tongue, picked up his phone, scrolled for a while, and chose a takeout meal that looked relatively nutritious.
Wednesday morning passed in the blink of an eye.
Just as lunchtime was approaching, Gu Yuan knocked on Jiang Mi’s office door and asked him to go downstairs for lunch together.
Jiang Mi’s eyes were dry from staring at the computer for too long. He closed them for a moment, and just as he opened them and was about to agree, the receptionist suddenly appeared at his office door.
“Lawyer Jiang, Jinyi is here.”
Liang Jinyi had been to the firm before, and they had even gone to the hot spring resort together just over ten days ago, so the receptionist was already quite familiar with him.
“Jinyi?” Jiang Mi froze, then stood up. “Where is he?”
“At the front desk,” the receptionist said.
Jiang Mi hurried over.
The moment he reached the reception area, he saw Liang Jinyi chatting and laughing with the firm’s employees.
“Jinyi.”
Jiang Mi called his name and asked, “Why are you here?”
Hearing him, Liang Jinyi smiled and lifted the insulated lunchbox in his hand.
“I came to bring Brother lunch.”
“Little brother doesn’t have school today?” Gu Yuan asked in confusion.
“Winter break started,” Liang Jinyi said.
Gu Yuan patted Jiang Mi on the shoulder enviously.
“Lawyer Jiang, then I’ll go downstairs and eat with the others.”
With that, Gu Yuan asked who else wanted to go downstairs for lunch and left with several employees.
At that moment, Liang Jinyi held up the sky-blue insulated lunchbox and asked Jiang Mi, “Brother, where do you eat lunch?”
Although Jiang Mi’s firm was still a startup, because of the kind of clients they served, neither Jiang Mi nor Gu Yuan had tried to save money on the office location. Naturally, they had not cut corners on necessary facilities either.
The company had a room of around twenty square meters specifically for employees to eat in.
When Jiang Mi ordered takeout, he sometimes ate directly in his office and sometimes used the dining room, depending entirely on his mood.
“My office,” Jiang Mi said.
“Okay.”
Liang Jinyi carried the lunchbox and walked back to Jiang Mi’s office with him. Whenever they passed one of Jiang Mi’s employees along the way, Liang Jinyi greeted them warmly.
Two minutes later, Liang Jinyi opened the lunchbox, revealing a generous spread of three dishes and one soup. He then handed Jiang Mi a pair of sky-blue ceramic chopsticks and gestured for him to start eating.
Jiang Mi had been eating Liang Jinyi’s cooking for nearly three or four months by now and knew his culinary skills inside out. The moment the lunchbox was opened, he knew the food had been made by Liang Jinyi himself.
Taking the chopsticks, he asked, “Did you cook all this at the Liang house and bring it over?”
“No. The Liang house is too far away. I made it at Shimao Tingfang.”
After saying that, Liang Jinyi propped his head on one hand and smiled brightly at Jiang Mi.
“Brother, now that I’m on winter break, how about I bring you lunch every day from now on? Fast food definitely isn’t as nutritious or healthy as the food I make.”
The lotus root meatballs Liang Jinyi had made were light, fresh, and sweet. Jiang Mi chewed and swallowed before smiling.
“Bring me lunch every day? Little brother, now that you’re on winter break, don’t you want to go have some fun? You won’t even have a proper winter break next year.”
Next year, Liang Jinyi would be in his final year of high school, and students in their senior year generally had extra classes during winter break.
“Since I won’t have a winter break next year, shouldn’t I take advantage of the one I have this year to take good care of Brother?” Liang Jinyi said as though it were only natural.
Jiang Mi sighed inwardly with emotion.
He really had not doted on this younger brother for nothing.
“Sure. As long as you don’t find it troublesome,” Jiang Mi said.
“I’ll never find it troublesome,” Liang Jinyi replied.
After Jiang Mi finished eating, Liang Jinyi packed up the dishes and stayed in his office until the lunch break ended. Only after asking what Jiang Mi wanted for dinner that evening did he finally leave with the lunchbox.
Over the following week, on every workday that Jiang Mi was at the office for lunch, Liang Jinyi came to deliver food to him.
One afternoon, Jiang Mi finished drafting a document and felt a little thirsty. He picked up his cup and got up to refill it in the pantry.
Just as he reached the doorway, he heard several female employees chatting inside.
Jiang Mi pushed open the half-closed door and walked in.
The moment they saw that it was him, their voices abruptly fell silent.
Jiang Mi walked over to the water dispenser and asked mildly, “Am I not allowed to hear today’s gossip?”
Their team was young and the management structure was flat, with little sense of hierarchy between superiors and subordinates. Jiang Mi got along well with everyone. Whenever there was gossip about clients or anything else, his coworkers were usually more than happy to share it with him.
Wang Hong said, “It’s not really gossip. We were just marveling at something.”
“Marveling at what?” Jiang Mi pressed the hot-water button on the dispenser, looking curious.
Zhang Jinling eagerly blurted out, “We were marveling at how you have an absolute angel of a younger brother, Lawyer Jiang! He finally gets winter break, but instead of playing games with his friends every day, he comes all the way here to bring you lunch, rain or shine!”
“Exactly! Lawyer Jiang, you have no idea how rare a younger brother like that is. Even a boyfriend or husband might not go as far as your brother does!” Lin Kexin said excitedly in a rapid stream.
Jiang Mi paused slightly and turned to look at the women.
“Even a boyfriend or husband wouldn’t go that far?”
Lin Kexin said, “Isn’t my sister’s husband a middle school teacher? He’s on vacation at home right now. Forget cooking lunch and delivering it to my sister—he even waits for her to come home from work and make dinner!”
The other female coworkers immediately began lamenting that husbands were useless. In the end, they were apparently still less reliable than a younger brother related by blood.
Jiang Mi listened to their discussion.
Because he and Liang Jinyi had different surnames, and because Jiang Mi was an only child, most of the employees assumed Liang Jinyi was a younger cousin related to him by blood.
They did not know that Jinyi was his younger brother with no blood relation to him.
A younger brother with no blood relation.
“Lawyer Jiang, your cup is overflowing.”
Seeing hot water spill over the rim of the cup beneath the dispenser, Wang Hong hurriedly reminded him.
Jiang Mi snapped back to his senses and thanked her.
Carrying his cup back to his office, Jiang Mi sat in a daze for several minutes before turning his attention back to work.
Time passed in the blink of an eye, and soon it was time to get off work. Jiang Mi put on his coat, picked up his laptop bag, and headed home.
After changing his shoes in the entryway, Jiang Mi took off his coat as he walked toward the living room. He had barely reached it when Liang Jinyi came out of the kitchen.
He was wearing a black lightweight sweater and the apron Jiang Mi often saw him in, clearly in a good mood.
“Brother, you’re home. I still have one more dish to stir-fry. Dinner will be ready in a little while.”
“What are we having tonight?” Jiang Mi asked as he carried his coat toward the kitchen.
“Sweet and sour pork tenderloin, soy sauce chicken, stir-fried mushrooms, and crucian carp with tofu…”
As Liang Jinyi spoke, Jiang Mi walked past him.
Liang Jinyi’s brows immediately furrowed. He grabbed Jiang Mi before he could continue into the kitchen, leaned closer, and sniffed him.
Jiang Mi froze and instinctively leaned backward.
“Jinyi, what are you doing?”
Liang Jinyi lifted his head and narrowed his eyes.
“Brother, you smell like perfume. And I think it’s women’s perfume.”
Jiang Mi paused and lifted his sleeve to sniff it himself.
But perhaps because he was standing by the sliding doors between the kitchen and dining area, he could not smell any perfume at all. All he could smell was the fragrant fish soup simmering in the clay pot.
“Brother, you didn’t secretly go on a date with…” Liang Jinyi’s breathing suddenly quickened. He lowered his lashes, concealing the darkness in his eyes, and asked the remaining words in a seemingly calm voice, “…some woman, did you?”
“What are you thinking?”
Jiang Mi thought back.
“It probably rubbed off on me in the elevator after work today. The elevator was full of women, and every single one of them smelled more fragrant than the last. That must be when the perfume got on me.”
That was the only situation today in which he could have picked up the scent of perfume.
After hearing this, Liang Jinyi immediately relaxed.
He curved his lips at Jiang Mi, revealing the dimple in his right cheek.
“So that’s what happened, Brother.”
Looking at Liang Jinyi’s expression, Jiang Mi’s heart gave an uneasy thump.
What his employees had said in the pantry today had made him lose focus for a few minutes, but that was all it had been—a few minutes of distraction.
There were plenty of younger brothers in the world who were more dependable than spouses.
That only proved that Jinyi was an exceptionally good younger brother.
Still, no matter how good his younger brother was, he ought to rein in his possessiveness a little.
Jiang Mi relaxed and said casually, “Jinyi, I’m already at this age. Forget smelling a little like a woman’s perfume—even if I had a girlfriend, that wouldn’t be strange, would it?”
Liang Jinyi had been about to return to the kitchen to stir-fry the mushrooms.
At those words, his footsteps stopped instantly.
He looked at Jiang Mi, his eyes narrowing slightly.
“A girlfriend? Brother, is there a girl you like?”
Jiang Mi only wanted Liang Jinyi to accept the fact that he would have an intimate relationship someday. He had no intention of dropping some huge bombshell on him right away.
Besides, there was currently no woman he had feelings for.
Jiang Mi smiled.
“No.”
Then, with a relaxed expression, he said, “But just because there isn’t anyone now doesn’t mean there won’t be in a year or two. You know Aunt Liu is hoping I’ll date, get married, and have children.”
“There won’t be.”
Liang Jinyi abruptly cut him off.
“There won’t be what?” Jiang Mi asked, puzzled.
Liang Jinyi lowered his gaze and stared at him, enunciating each word.
“There won’t be a girlfriend.”
As though afraid Jiang Mi had not heard him clearly, Liang Jinyi repeated himself with perfect clarity.
“Brother, you won’t have a girlfriend.”
Jiang Mi laughed.
“Don’t talk nonsense, kid. Are you expecting Brother to stay single for the rest of his life?”
“Of course Brother won’t stay single for the rest of his life.”
Liang Jinyi’s tone was calm—so calm that he might as well have been stating that they were having crucian carp and tofu soup for dinner.
“Because Brother will have a boyfriend.”
