If he wasn’t an idiot, how could he say such things to him on such a cold day, wearing so little?
Gu Jiqing just looked at Zhou Cibai quietly.
Zhou Cibai also looked at him quietly.
It seemed like a very long time had passed, but it also seemed like only the time it took for a snowflake to fall to the ground.
Gu Jiqing said softly, “Zhou Cibai, can you buy me a baked sweet potato?”
“Ah?” Zhou Cibai was stunned for a moment, then he reacted and immediately said, “Okay.”
Then he quickly ran to the old man’s stall and said, “Please pick me the biggest and sweetest sweet potato.”
“Okay!”
When Zhou Cibai ran back with the hot, baked sweet potatoes, Gu Jiqing once again said, “I don’t want to peel it.”
“I’ll peel it for you. Just put your hands in your pockets so you don’t get cold.”
Zhou Cibai said these words as if they were a natural thing. He lowered his head to peel the sweet potato. The scalding hot skin burned him so much that he pinched his earlobes unconsciously, and his fingers were stained by the ash.
But he looked so serious while peeling the sweet potato, as if it were a very important thing.
Only after the warm yellow, sweet, and soft sweet potato core was mostly exposed did Zhou Cibai wrap the small part of the outer skin in a plastic bag and hand it to Gu Jiqing: “You eat first, and I’ll help you peel the rest after you’re done.”
“En.” Gu Jiqing took it without even saying thank you. He put one hand in his pocket, held the roasted sweet potato in the other hand, lowered his head and ate it in small bites, then turned and walked towards home.
Zhou Cibai followed nervously and asked carefully, “Is it sweet?”
Gu Jiqing said, “Sweet.”
Zhou Cibai finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Gu Jiqing didn’t say anything along the way. He just ate the sweet potato in small bites, carefully put away the bag, changed his clothes as usual, calmly packed up the materials he needed for tutoring, then raised his head and asked Zhou Cibai, who was standing stupidly at the door of his room, “Can you take me to the place where I will be a tutor?”
Zhou Cibai nodded quickly and said, “Oh, okay.”
Then he turned around and got the car keys.
Gu Jiqing called him: “Remember to put on more clothes.”
Zhou Cibai finally reacted and went back to his room to put on more clothes.
As usual, he fastened Gu Jiqing’s seat belt; as usual, he played Gu Jiqing’s favorite music; and as usual, he couldn’t help but sneak a peek at Gu Jiqing’s sleeping face while leaning against the car window while waiting for the red light.
Gu Jiqing finished his tutoring seriously as usual, and then left the villa. Zhou Cibai stayed at the door, and when he saw him come out, he immediately handed him a cup of heated strawberry milk that he had just bought from the convenience store.
Gu Jiqing took the milk and got in the car.
The two of them go all the way back home. Zhou Cibai made Gu Jiqing’s favorite sweet and sour pork ribs and picked out some vegetables that Gu Jiqing didn’t like.
Nothing is different from before.
It’s as if nothing happened.
Zhou Cibai was even in a daze for a moment, wondering whether Gu Jiqing could see through his thoughts or understand what he said.
After dinner, Gu Jiqing sat cross-legged on the sofa, watching Xiao Xin on the screen carrying a small backpack and preparing to run away from home, and casually said, “Zhou Cibai, I will move out tomorrow.”
Zhou Cibai, who was washing dishes, suddenly turned around and asked, “Why?”
At that moment, Zhou Cibai’s eyes were wide opened in confusion, like a puppy who was afraid of being abandoned by his owner.
Gu Jiqing felt so painful in his heart, but he still lowered his eyelashes and said softly, “Because we both crossed the line.”
What does crossing the line mean?
He knew that he had crossed the line. He liked Gu Jiqing from the beginning and did not just want to be Gu Jiqing’s bed partner, but why “both”?
Why did Gu Jiqing still want to leave even though they both had crossed the line?
Zhou Cibai had a lot of questions to ask, but he had said that he didn’t want to force Gu Jiqing, nor did he want to ask Gu Jiqing too much. He could only anxiously ask, “But you still have to stay in Beijing as a tutor. If you move away, where will you live? What about Zhou Zhou?”
“I can go to Shen Zhao’s house.”
“I don’t agree.” Zhou Cibai rarely disagreed with Gu Jiqing’s request. “It’s clearly stated in the agreement that you have to move into my house. How can you deceive me?”
He spoke anxiously and with a sense of grievance.
Gu Jiqing wanted to pat his head with a smile like before, but he couldn’t. He whispered, “The agreement is no longer valid.”
Zhou Cibai: “Why?”
“Because the agreement states that we are just bed partners.”
“But there’s nothing in the agreement that says I can’t like you!”
“But I dare not like you.”
A moment of silence.
Gu Jiqing gently said, “Zhou Cibai, you may like me just because of the hormones of this age, and I may like you just because I am used to your good temper, so I think I may need to quit a little bit; please let me go, okay.”
There was a kind of helpless sadness in his gentleness.
Zhou Cibai felt so distressed when he heard it.
He felt that Gu Jiqing was like a tiny snail, carrying his own tiny shell and living cautiously in this world, until he found a large and safe leaf. He lived under the leaf, he liked the leaf, he wanted to stay with the leaf, he was used to the leaf helping him block the scorching sun, wind, and rain.
But a naughty child suddenly appeared and lifted the leaf. Then the little snail realized that he could hardly live without the leaf.
But the little snail grew up as a snail, and he felt that everyone would leave him. He didn’t dare to fall in love with a leaf, so he wanted to retract his little tentacles and return to his safe shell.
Zhou Cibai couldn’t blame this kind of little snail for not being brave enough.
He just felt pain in his heart.
He suddenly wondered: if he had not left Nanwu when he was in junior high school, if he was a better, more courageous, and more mature at that time, if he had always been with Gu Jiqing at that time, would Gu Jiqing be able to live a happier life?
Would he be willing to be a little orange cat waiting lazily to be fed by him rather than a cautious, sensible, gentle but afraid of relying on others and a hurt little gray cat?
But there is no if, so at least he doesn’t want to make Gu Jiqing sad anymore.
Zhou Cibai turned off the faucet, wiped his hands, walked over, squatted in front of Gu Jiqing, touched his head, and said, “Okay, if you want to be alone, then be alone, but you said that you are a man of your words, so you can’t break the agreement. You and Zhou Zhou have to live in my house. It happens to be the end of the year these days, and my family is very busy. I will go home and stay for a while, okay?”
When Gu Jiqing smelled the scent of Zhou Cibai, he wanted to hug him.
He wanted to bury his head in Zhou Cibai’s neck, hang on him like a koala, and be carried from the sofa to the bed, and then from the bed to the sofa, just because he didn’t like to wear shoes and socks properly at home, and Zhou Cibai was afraid that he would catch a cold.
But he can’t.
He didn’t even dare to look at Zhou Cibai again or say another word to him. He could only lower his eyelashes and say, “Okay.”
Zhou Cibai said, “Can I hug you again?”
Gu Jiqing said, “Okay.”
He was carefully taken into his arms and placed on the bed.
That hug was just like every other hug before—warm and powerful—except that the previous hugs were like those of a naive and reckless puppy, full of fearless enthusiasm, while this hug was gentle and firm from a mature man.
When Gu Jiqing buried his head in Zhou Cibai’s shoulder, he smelled the familiar scent of sage and sea salt and felt something wet gently spreading across Zhou Cibai’s sweater.
Fortunately, the sweater was very thick, so the little wetness there was just his secret.
When Zhou Cibai moved out, Zhou Zhou seemed to sense something and paced back and forth in the room anxiously, biting Zhou Cibai’s trouser legs and then Gu Jiqing’s trouser legs, as if it wanted to pull the two of them together.
Gu Jiqing was so annoyed by it that he lowered his head and tried to coax it with canned meat, but Zhou Zhou, who was always greedy for food, didn’t even look at it. It just circled around Zhou Cibai anxiously.
In the end, Zhou Cibai hugged Zhou Zhou at the door, rubbed his head twice, and whispered to him in the language of his kind: “You should be more aggressive, work harder, and think of a way to get your father to be able to move back home earlier, okay?”
In his heart, he has already tacitly accepted that Gu Jiqing as Zhou Zhou’s daddy and that he is Zhou Zhou’s father.
Zhou Zhou whimpered a few times, he didn’t know whether it understood or not.
Then Zhou Cibai stood up and pitifully said to Gu Jiqing, who was fiddling with the canned meat and wondering why Zhou Zhou didn’t eat, “Then I’m leaving now.”
Gu Jiqing suddenly felt like a bad owner who abandoned his dog.
He lowered his head. “En.”
On the first day Zhou Cibai left, Gu Jiqing slept in as usual, prepared lunch in an orderly manner, and then curled up in bed to play games after eating. Among the Nine Swords, a very well-behaved and cute baby divine dog appeared, it’s just that it was very rare, and he had never met one before.
After playing the game, he leisurely took the bus to do tutoring.
The child he tutored was a sophomore girl from Tsinghua High School. She was very smart, but rebellious and disobedient. She only behaved well when Gu Jiqing came to teach her.
In addition, Gu Jiqing promised that the girl could at least get a bronze medal in next year’s competition, so the compensation offered by the girl’s parents was extremely generous.
After four hours of training every day during the winter vacation, he can get nearly 50,000 yuan in salary, which is enough to cover his basic expenses after he becomes independent from the Gu family in the next semester.
When he got home, he would cook himself a bowl of sweet and sour pork ribs noodles, sit on the sofa, eat while watching Crayon Shin-chan, then wash up and go to bed.
The same thing happened the next day.
On the third day, it was still the same.
He has enough self-care and self-survival abilities. He takes good care of himself and Zhou Zhou. He doesn’t think about Zhou Cibai. He feels that maybe he is not so dependent on Zhou Cibai.
So on the third night, he bought himself a sweet potato and took it home. He peeled it himself and took the first bite. He found it bitter and not sweet at all.
He threw the sweet potatoes into the trash can.
Then he fell ill at night.
An illness without a cause.
He took good care of himself and was not cold, hungry, or injured, but still, he got sick.
He wrapped himself tightly in a blanket, hugged Zhou Zhou, and lay on the sofa, burying his head in Zhou Zhou’s warm fur, trying to get some warm comfort, but it seemed like it was never enough.
He fell into a deep sleep and dreamed about his childhood.
He was so young that he only remembers the snow-white ceiling of the hospital and Yin Lan, who had red eyes all day long. She said, “Zhi Zhi, Daddy has turned into a star in the sky.” “Zhi Zhi, be good.” “Zhi Zhi, take the medicine and it won’t hurt anymore.” “Zhi Zhi, look at the new gloves that Mom knitted for you, aren’t they beautiful?” “Zhi Zhi, as long as you get better, Mom can do anything.”
Then came the Gu family’s luxurious and spacious villa and garden. His mother hugged the little boy tiredly and said, “Zhi Zhi, this is what Mom owes the Gu family. So from now on, just call Uncle Gu daddy, okay? Let’s be a lovable child, okay?”
He remembered that he said yes at that time.
Because he had just started primary school at that time, he was very smart and learned to recognize many, many words. He secretly read the notebook that his mother treasured and hid away. It said: [Baby, this is January 1, 2001, a new year, and you have come into the belly of the most beautiful mother in the world. Daddy loves mommy very much, and Daddy also loves you very much too, so you will protect mommy together with Daddy in the future, okay?]
He thought that he must have made a promise with his father when he was still in his mother’s belly, so he must protect his mother so that there might always be a star in the sky shining for him.
But Nanwu’s sky was always cloudy all year round, and he could never see the stars.
He got first place in the grade, but his mother had to go to a parent-teacher meeting for his brother. He was very tired after finishing his homework, but his mother wanted him to make a picture magazine for his brother. He liked to learn painting, but his mother told him that he was much better than his brother. Father Gu was angry. He was sick and missed his mother very much, but his mother told him that she had to take care of Brother Gu.
He really wanted to cry and make a fuss, but he couldn’t because he loved his mother.
He thought, Maybe he has no star anymore.
Gu Jiqing felt very cold, and he wrapped himself tightly in the blanket.
Then he felt someone approaching him warmly, and he called out in a hoarse voice, “Zhou Zhou.”
“I’m here.”
En?
Can Zhou Zhou speak now?
Gu Jiqing opened his eyes with great effort and saw the star.
His star.
It’s just that today’s star look a little red and very anxious.
Gu Jiqing wanted to coax the star, but then he remembered that he had no star, so he drove his star away.
Gu Jiqing closed his eyes tiredly, moved closer to the familiar smell, and fell asleep peacefully.
He vaguely heard someone anxiously and angrily say before he fell asleep, “Gu Xiaomao, you are a little bastard.”
En, he’s just a selfish, cowardly little bastard.
When Gu Jiqing woke up again, he was in the hospital.
It was probably a private hospital. He was the only one in the ward. It was clean and tidy, with sunlight shining warmly. There was a beautiful wintersweet stuck on the bedside, with a very quiet fragrance. Only the liquid in the infusion tube dripping could be heard.
Gu Jiqing recollected it briefly and roughly remembered what had happened. He sighed softly in his heart, thinking that the withdrawal reaction was indeed obvious.
He himself is someone with strong inertia.
That’s why he got the wrong bed when he just moved to a new dormitory, that’s why he is habitually nice to others and that’s why he can never get tired of eating sweet and sour pork ribs.
What’s more, what he is used to is still Zhou Cibai.
Such a good Zhou Cibai.
He clearly told Zhou Cibai not to fall in love with him because he was not worth it, but why did Zhou Cibai still like him?
Gu Jiqing remembered what Zhou Cibai said: “Dogs are naturally clingy.” He turned sideways helplessly and closed his eyes.
It really is wrong to provoke such a young, large dog.
The door of the ward soon opened, and the young, large dog walked in carrying a bag of baked sweet potatoes and chestnuts.
Zhou Cibai put the baked sweet potatoes into a thermos to keep them warm, then sat on the edge of the bed and began to peel chestnuts.
He looked at Gu Jiqing’s pale sleeping face on the hospital bed and felt that, after not seeing him for three days, Gu Jiqing’s chin had become sharper.
It must be because he’s not here anymore, and someone doesn’t eat or sleep well and still wants to walk barefoot on the carpet in the middle of winter.
Zhou Cibai thought about how, when he rushed back last night, Gu Jiqing was curled up in the corner of the sofa, his whole body was burning, and he felt a great pain in his heart.
He couldn’t help but whisper, “You chased me away. I feel so aggrieved, but I didn’t even tell you. So you should at least take care of yourself. If Zhou Zhou hadn’t been sensible and loud, and the neighbors upstairs had complained about being disturbed, you would have been burned from a little pretty to a silly little pretty. Do you know that?”
The silly little pretty had never heard Zhou Cibai speak to him in this tone when he was awake, and the fingertips under his head curled slightly.
Zhou Cibai didn’t notice, he just drooped his eyelashes, peeled the chestnuts in his hand, and whispered, “And how can you be so cruel? I said moving out was a retreat to advance, and I waited every day for you to call me home, but you didn’t send me a message for three days. I changed my profile picture to a little orange cat and a big white dog, you must not have seen it yet either.”
His voice was the deep voice of an adult.
But it reveals a childish grievance.
So much so that Gu Jiqing really wanted to tell him that he had seen it and liked it very much.
But Zhou Cibai spoke again: “And you are unreasonable. I’ve already said that I like you, not because I just want to have s*x with you, but you said that I like you because of hormones. If I hadn’t wanted to pursue you, I wouldn’t have signed a bed partner agreement with you. And are you stupid? That bed-partner agreement is clearly a marriage agreement. Don’t you see through that at all? And you’re even cheating and not giving me the reward.”
Zhou Cibai peeled a chestnut.
The tone couldn’t hide the grievance.
Gu Jiqing: “……”
So what kind of reward did he promise Zhou Cibai at that time?
“I learned some amazing ventriloquism for the reward, but you forgot about it the moment you turned around and even made fun of me using Gege-chan. You say, do you think that you are a heartless cat or not?” Zhou Cibai said as he cracked another chestnut.
Gu Jiqing: “……”
That’s really bad of him.
“And……”
And what?
Gu Jiqing also wanted to hear how bad he usually was.
Then he heard Zhou Cibai lower his eyelashes and whisper, “And Gu Jiqing, I really miss you.”
It wasn’t known if it was Gu Jiqing’s illusion or not, but he seemed to hear a kind of sadness and sorrow that could not be concealed or avoided in the word “I miss you.”
His heart ached a little.
It wasn’t just a little painful, but it’s really hurt. He didn’t want Zhou Cibai to be sad. He really wanted to hug Zhou Cibai. He really wanted to touch his head with a chuckle, like he did every time Zhou Cibai felt aggrieved. He really wanted Zhou Cibai to hold him and walk around the room without him having to worry about anything.
Because he wanted to.
He wanted to be nice to Zhou Cibai, wanted to make Zhou Cibai happy, and also wanted to indulge in all his laziness in front of Zhou Cibai.
When he thinks about it this way, he also doesn’t seem so tired anymore.
He slowly opened his eyes and saw the person in front of him.
Perhaps because he was in a hurry to go out at night, he only put on a coat over his home clothes. He lowered his head and peeled chestnuts. He was still very handsome, but his eyes were red, as if he had not slept well for a long time or had been crying secretly.
Then, will Zhou Cibai cry?
Would a 1.9-meter-tall athletic male god with a cool and scumbag face cry secretly just because he doesn’t like him anymore?
Imagining Zhou Cibai’s aggrieved and sad look, Gu Jiqing wanted to laugh, but his heart ached.
This pain outweighs all the fatigue and exhaustion he puts into maintaining a relationship.
So not liking something won’t be any easier than liking it, right?
Gu Jiqing was not very sure, he just slowly said, “You fierce 1 have learned the ventriloquism very well.”
“……”
After a long silence, Zhou Cibai raised his head.
He met Gu Jiqing’s extremely beautiful eyes, which seemed to contain tenderness, heartache, longing, and some kind of answer.
After realizing that everything he said just now might have been heard, Zhou Cibai’s ears immediately turned red, and he stood up in a hurry: “Well, you’re awake, I’ll go call the nurse…”
“Zhou Cibai.”
Those three gentle and calm words stopped him from turning around.
Zhou Cibai turned around and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Gu Jiqing lay on his side on the bed, looking at him, and found that there were some small stubbles on his chin. He asked, “If I don’t want to like you, will you be sad?”
Zhou Cibai didn’t want to put pressure on Gu Jiqing, but he couldn’t seem to say anything against his will either.
He lowered his eyelashes and did not answer.
Gu Jiqing just said in a gentle voice, “Zhou Cibai, I don’t seem to be a brave person. I don’t know if the kind of love you said really exists in the world, and I’m not sure if I deserve that kind of love, but you are very good, so I don’t want you to give so much love but not receive the same love in return. You shouldn’t live this kind of life.”
Zhou Cibai’s heart felt heavy.
The fingertips felt a little cold due to the sudden disorder of blood supply.
He didn’t know how to prove to Gu Jiqing that there was such love in the world and that Gu Jiqing deserved such love.
At that moment, he panicked and felt as if he was about to lose something completely.
Then Gu Jiqing said, “But I can’t bear to see you sad.”
Zhou Cibai raised his eyelids.
Gu Jiqing looked into his eyes and said, “But Zhou Cibai, I can’t bear to see you sad, because I feel sad too, even sadder than when I was having a hard time in the Gu family. I don’t think I can give you up.”
At that moment, Zhou Cibai’s already cold blood completely stopped flowing, and even his breathing and heartbeat stopped, as if he were waiting for the verdict of life or death.
And the person he liked just looked at him like that, with a gentle yet firm look on his sick face, and said slowly and gently, “So, Zhou Cibai, are you willing to wait for me? Wait until I learn to love myself well, and then give you the same lot of complete love.”
He believed that his stars would not lie.
So the little snail gently stretched out its tentacles and tentatively touched the head of the leaf.
And the leaf stood there stupidly, like a fool.
Gu Jiqing looked at him and said, “Can you hug me? I miss you so much.”
