DPPM Chapter 63.1 – Banquet (1)

|| “This is your Grandfather Xia’s grandson, Xia Zhiye.”

Song Yan was changing his clothes when Xia Zhiye returned inside. He walked over to turn over the collar of his coat for him. “Yan-ge, I have something to discuss with you.” 

“Hmm.”

“I need to go out during evening self-study. I may not be back until about eleven o’clock. “

“Mn, I see.” 

“Just that?” 

Xia Zhiye asked.

Song Yan looked back. “Or else?” 

“As my boyfriend, shouldn’t you interrogate me to see if I planned to rendezvous with someone else?” Xia Zhiye asked in a righteous tone.

Song Yan replied, his expression blank, as so with his tone. “Did you watch too many dog-blooded family dramas with Grandma?” 

Xia Zhiye: “…”

Alright, then. 

He originally thought that Song Yan would be unhappy with this arrangement, since they agreed to spend Xia Zhiye’s birthday together. However, Song Yan’s reply was just… flat. 

Meanwhile, Song Yan thought: ‘Good, I have to go out during that time also, and I can come back before eleven. With this, I don’t need to explain myself to Xia Zhiye.’ 

After all, if Xia Zhiye knew that he had gone to accompany Song Minghai in a staged performance just to buy a new air conditioner for his grandmother, he would probably feel uncomfortable. So, if he could avoid mentioning it, he would let Xia Zhiye enjoy his birthday happily.

So this topic came to an abrupt end, and no one said anything more.

Song Yan lowered his head to straighten the sleeves of his coat, and as he did so, he suddenly felt a darkness before his eyes. His neck instantly felt warmer, and when he raised his gaze, he found himself looking at the red coarse-knit fabric in front of the other person’s chest and a pair of long, fair hands.

That pair of hands were grabbing the two ends of a dark blue coarse-knitted scarf, skillfully tying a beautiful knot on Song Yan’s neck. Then, he tucked the hem into the collar of Song Yan’s coat. 

Same style of scarf, same way of tying the scarf — this was a blatant display of a “couple outfit”. 

Song Yan had just thought of asking if Xia Zhiye wanted to die quickly, fearing that Liu Deqing would notice their budding puppy love. However, as soon as he looked up, his lips were gently touched.

Then he saw Xia Zhiye’s frown bloomed into a big smile. He spoke tenderly, “Good morning, Boyfriend.”

 “…”

After a brief pause, Song Yan felt that this “couple’s outfit” didn’t look that obvious at all. 

This was the first – or was it second? – day of their relationship. It’s only right to flaunt it a bit. 

There’s a subtle taste of ceremony in it. 

—But this is only for today, not tomorrow. 

He couldn’t let their IQ degenerate due to love. 

Song Yan walked out of the yard with a straight face.

Xia Zhiye looked at a certain someone who was dazed by a good morning kiss, and chuckled lightly. He pushed out his bicycle, straddled it with his long legs, rode up next to Song Yan, stopped, tilted his head, and smiled, “This is the exclusive throne for my boyfriend. Why bother walking? Come up.”

It has been a long time since he enjoyed Xia Zhiye’s exclusive pick-up and drop-off benefits. He… actually missed it a little. 

As he sat on the back seat and felt the familiar soft and sturdy touch of the pink bicycle, Song Yan truly realized that Xia Zhiye had returned from Beijing. Now, he could sleep for an extra ten minutes every morning.

Suddenly this small satisfaction made Song Yan feel better. He let out a happy sigh, and lowered his head and hid his chin in the scarf. Just as his hands were about to be inserted into his own coat pocket, Xia Zhiye dragged his wrist and put them in his pocket instead. 

Song Yan: “?”

“I see other boyfriends carrying their girlfriends like this, so their hands won’t freeze,” Xia Zhiye said as he held Song Yan’s hand and rubbed it, trying to warm up Song Yan’s cold and stiff fingers with his own body heat.

Song Yan moved his fingertips slightly, but he didn’t break free, and instead replied, “I’m not your girlfriend.”

“Boyfriends also need their fingers to be warmed.” Xia Zhiye said, turning around and lifting the scarf for him, “Later, stick on my back, so the wind won’t freeze our Princess Yanyan’s cute face.” 

After saying that, before Song Yan could react, he stepped on the pedal hard, and with a smile, he drove Song Yan out of the white alley, covered in snow. 

And behind him, Song Yan hugged Xia Zhiye’s waist tightly because of his instinctive reaction to inertia. He didn’t have time to beat him.

The biting cold wind was blowing head-on, but it never reached Song Yan’s exposed skin at all.

With both hands tucked into Xia Zhiye’s pockets, arms wrapped around his waist, face against his back, Song Yan smelled the comforting scent and felt the soothing warmth of Xia Zhiye, thinking that this must be the feeling of having a boyfriend.

It’s… actually not bad. 

He much preferred sitting behind Xia Zhiye’s bicycle than sharing a seat inside Song Minghai’s Maybach.

Song Yan closed his eyes in satisfaction and relaxation, and even wanted to take the opportunity to catch up on some sleep.

As a result, not long after he closed his eyes, the mountain shook and the earth opened. “Xia Zhiye! Stop in your place! How dare you be so bold, dating openly like this!” 

Song Yan’s heart tightened and he opened his eyes.

And as soon as he opened it, he was greeted by Liu Deqing’s mung bean eyes. It was originally filled with anger, but it then turned into confusion. 

So Song Yan blinked.

Liu Deqing also blinked in return.

 “…”

After this silent confrontation, Liu Deqing sent out a piercing question, that definitely came from his soul: “Why is it you?!” 

After asking, he turned his head and looked at Xia Zhiye, saying, “Why are you still smiling so radiantly while carrying a boy?”

Xia Zhiye said with a grievance, “Director, I was clearly smiling so happily because I’ve been away from school for so long, and today I finally returned to the embrace of my alma mater. Can’t you feel my love for this school?”

Liu Deqing: “…”

Is that really the case? 

Xia Zhiye was rather notorious for his lies, so Liu Deqing didn’t believe him at all. He looked at Song Yan, who he thought of as an honest student. “Tell me, why do the two of you go to school together? Why are you sitting on the back of his bike?” 

Song Yan directly responded to the question with a blank, indifferent face: “I lived in the dorm. I’m going to be late, so I rode a bike with Xia Zhiye, as I can’t ride one myself.” 

Liu Deqing: “…”

Sounds plausible. 

Seeing Liu Deqing’s shaken expression, Song Yan added, with an equally inexpressive face, “Laoshi, morning self-study is about to start, although Xia Zhiye won the Olympiad gold medal, and I won the first place in the Youth Talent Cup, but we both feel that our usual study cannot be left behind. I haven’t finished memorizing poems today, so can you let us go to the classroom this time?” 

As soon as Song Yan left Xia Zhiye’s wisdom debuff domain, his standard taciturn-and-cold-academician status returned – he is now just a worriless top-grade student. 

When Liu Deqing heard this claim, he immediately thought that these two boys were this school’s Qingbei hopefuls – they were quickly let go. 

However, after the two of them drove away, he couldn’t help but scratch his own shiny bald head.

Even when he was watching from a distance just now, he felt certain that it was a girl holding onto Xia Zhiye’s waist. This atmosphere, this emotions—after all these years of catching the student’s puppy love, he shouldn’t have made a mistake, right?

But in reality, those two were just boys. 

Was this a sign of him getting too old for his job? His eyes and intuition weren’t working properly? 

Under the afterglow of the morning sun, Liu Deqing felt the weight of his age, weighing his back. 

As soon as he left Liu Deqing’s field of vision, Song Yan jumped off the bicycle, put his hands in his pockets, and quickly walked towards the classroom.

Xia Zhiye hurriedly parked the bike and quickly followed his boyfriend with his two long legs. “Yan-ge, wait for me.” 

Song Yan didn’t look back. “Stay away from me in school.”

“What, do you want to have a secret relationship? Underground love?” Xia Zhiye smiled as he hugged Song Yan’s shoulder from behind.

Song Yan threw his arm away from his shoulder. “Do you want to be caught by Liu Deqing?”

Being caught by Liu Deqing was a small matter – it’s just that after being caught, Song Minghai would definitely know. That’s the big deal. 

After all, Song Minghai can really do things like throw a check on Xia Zhiye’s face and say “I’ll give you 5 million to leave my son.” 

Then, Song Minghai would go out of his car in an arrogant manner, scoffing as he disdainfully looked at the small dilapidated house in the Wine Alley. Then, he would use money to coerce Grandma Liu and Little Mahjong…

Song Yan’s scalp felt numb. 

It’s already 2020, and he didn’t want this melodramatic plot of “wealthy elders using money to beat-up a pair of mandarin ducks” to happen to him. 

At least before he became an adult, he didn’t want Song Minghai to know that there was a person like Xia Zhiye – and he definitely didn’t want him to know that he was dating a boy. 

However, Xia Zhiye didn’t care at all. He cheekily embraced Song Yan again, full of shamelessness as he said, “If we get caught, then so be it. get caught. I’ll just drop out. I’ll steal electric bikes to support you. Hiss…”

Song Yan responded with a cold face and an elbow to Xia Zhiye’s guts, showing his firm attitude. 

Xia Zhiye stopped teasing him, hooked his neck and laughed in a low voice. “Don’t worry, I know for sure that Liu Deqing won’t catch us.” 

“Then let go of your paws first.”

“Alrighty.” 

“Don’t talk to me in class.”

“No problemo.”

“You are not allowed to speak shamelessly after class.”

“Righty-o” 

“We will eat on our own.” 

“‘kay.” 

Xia Zhiye smiled and easily agreed.

He knew that Song Yan wouldn’t last for a day, anyway. There’s no way his dependent attitude towards him – that he had worked hard to cultivate – would vanish easily. 

Thinking about Song Yan’s “21-day Cold Treatment Plan” that ended on the first day, Xia Zhiye began to feel blindly confident.

But when it really happened, he felt as if something was wrong.

When Song Yan arrived in the classroom, there was already a breakfast that Little Fatty helped bring.

Song Yan could peel the tea eggs by himself.

Song Yan picked up his hot water by himself. 

Song Yan patiently queued up in the cafeteria, and when he got his meal, he diligently picked out the things he didn’t want to eat.

Song Yan even accepted the cheapest flavored milk tea – the 3 yuan per cup one – in the school cafeteria easily. 

Xia Zhiye was shocked.

When the afternoon classes ended and Song Yan was ready to go to the cafeteria with Little Fatty and others for dinner, Xia Zhiye pressed him back to his seat and took the 3 yuan milk tea from his hand.

Song Yan looked puzzled. “What are you doing?”

Xia Zhiye looked serious. “Don’t you not know how to peel tea eggs? Don’t you find places like Mixue, Bingcheng, and Coco too cheap to drink? Besides, don’t you dislike eating in the cafeteria?”

‘What kind of messy questions are these??’

‘Is Xia Zhiye not very bright?’ 

Song Yan, feeling annoyed at the thought of the long queues in the cafeteria, grumpily said, “I bought you a watch before, now I don’t have money.”

“That watch is priced at 42,000 yuan. But you should have at least 50,000 yuan on you. How can you not even order takeout?”

“Didn’t I give you 5,000 yuan cash befor– wait.” 

“Wait.”

They both said “wait” at the same time. 

Xia Zhiye looked at Song Yan. “When did you give me 5,000 yuan in cash?” 

Song Yan realized that he made a slip of the tongue, but was too lazy to hide it now. He angrily said, “Otherwise, do you think the money in your schoolbag fell from the sky?”

Money in his schoolbag?

Xia Zhiye dragged out his schoolbag from the table. He took out all the thick stacks of books, only to find that there was a thick layer at the bottom of the innermost layer – it’s a thick envelope. 

Inside the envelope, Xia Zhiye blankly looked at the stack of brand-new pink banknotes, then looked at the 3 yuan milk tea in Song Yan’s hand. He immediately thought of Song Yan, who used to only eat expensive takeaways, and now had to eat unpalatable and greasy food in the school cafeteria.

His heart felt sour. 

He had always thought that in his relationship with Song Yan, he was the one doing more. However, in places he hadn’t seen or noticed, the bad-tempered eldest young master had actually done much more than him.

And Song Yan on the other end also realized that something was off. With a slight frown, he asked, “How do you know that I have at least 50,000 on me?” 

“That, actually…”

“Wait.” As soon as Xia Zhiye was about to open his mouth to confess, Song Yan’s phone screen lit up. He signaled Xia Zhiye to keep his voice down, and then picked up the phone with an extremely cold voice. “Hm. I see. You will wait for me at the gate of the school, and I will come by myself.”

After hanging up the phone, he said to Xia Zhiye, “I’ll go out for a while. If there’s anything, we’ll talk when I get back.”

After finishing speaking, he carried his schoolbag and walked out of the classroom.

Xia Zhiye’s words were already on his lips, and he could only swallow them. Then, he bumped into Little Fatty, who forgot to take his meal card and hurried back to the classroom. He stopped him in place and asked, “Fang Can, what’s going on?”

Little Fatty rarely heard someone call him by his name, and had a premonition that something was going wrong, so he was on full alert. “What’s wrong, Lord Xia? Did you and Yan-ge have a quarrel again?” 

“No, I just wanted to ask if you’ve kept your promise to take care of Song Yan for me?”

Before leaving, Xia Zhiye used a complete set of limited edition figurines that Little Fatty had been coveting for a long time to bribe him into helping take care of Song Yan, that eldest young master. Little Fatty happily agreed, not sensing anything amiss.

“Isn’t he being taken care of well?” Little Fatty was confused, scratching his head. “I even educated Yan-ge. I told him he had too much of a young master’s temper – he’s too picky, and didn’t know how to live frugally. He needed to change. He needs to learn to be diligent, thrifty, self-reliant, or else the people around him would be exhausted in taking care of him. Look, isn’t he much better now?”

Little Fatty was quite proud of what he achieved. 

Xia Zhiye: “…”

Bullshit. 

Song Yan originally felt that his own personality was not likable – he needed to take the initiative to give to others first if he wanted to be liked by his peers. 

That’s why Xia Zhiye was willing to accommodate his bad temper and indulge his bad habits all the time. He wanted to instill within Song Yan that he was loved regardless of his flaws. He was worthy enough to be liked by others by the virtue of being himself. 

With this act now, Song Yan might really think that he could only be liked if he changed. 

However, he knew that Little Fatty was not wrong. He was educating Song Yan for his own sake. 

But whenever he thought about Song Yan, hearing others tell him what needed to be changed, then isolating himself on the bed, doubting himself, and reluctantly changing… Xia Zhiye felt distressed.

And thinking about Song Yan, this eldest young master, actually starting to cut back on expenses for himself, Xia Zhiye feels even more heartache.

Xia Zhiye felt that he must have a good chat with Song Yan after he came back.

However, before Song Yan came back, a message from Xia Yu appeared on the screen: [I’m at the school gate, come out quickly].

In the end, he could only send Song Yan a WeChat message: [Ordered Hey Tea and takeout for you. Wait for me to come back, there’s something important I want to tell you tonight.]

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