CFHE Chapter 96

When he opened his eyes again, Fu Yuhan was dazed for a while.

 

Since moving in to live with Wen Yu, Fu Yuhan had gradually gotten used to sleeping in a pitch-black room. Honestly, this habit was indeed good. At least now he slept much more deeply than before. He just often couldn’t tell what time it was when he woke up.

 

He spaced out for a while before remembering to look for his phone. Fortunately, Wen Yu was quite thoughtful—before leaving, he’d brought Fu Yuhan’s phone from the living room to the bedside.

 

He’d never had this kind of treatment before.

 

How to put it—people with boyfriends really were different.

 

It was now 17:58, almost 6 PM. The house was very quiet.

 

Fu Yuhan was somewhat surprised by the time—he’d slept longer than expected, and with no sounds in the house, could it be that Wen Yu still hadn’t returned?

 

He’d never been a top scorer before, but he knew that once scores came out, many good schools would scramble for students. But Wen Yu had clearly already decided where to go… or had his dad come to bother him again?

 

While his thoughts were wandering, there was suddenly some movement at the front door. Fu Yuhan sat up abruptly, threw off the blanket, and tried to get out of bed.

 

Who knew his body would be so uncooperative—his thigh immediately cramped up.

 

“Tss…” He frowned in pain and cursed under his breath. “Wen Yu, I’m going to kill you…”

 

Wen Yu happened to walk in from outside. Seeing his state, his expression changed immediately: “Why do you want to kill me again… What’s wrong?”

 

“Cramp…”

 

“…” Wen Yu was both amused and exasperated. He sat down beside him to massage the sore spot. “Not to criticize, but you really should work out with me.”

 

“When have you ever worked out?”

 

“Every time you can’t hold on and fall asleep.”

 

“…”

 

“This…” Wen Yu lowered his head and touched his nose, somewhat embarrassed. “Usually when you’re awake, I don’t want to be apart from you, so I don’t have time to go downstairs… After we… do that, when you’re asleep, I can’t still be touching you… With that excess energy I can’t vent, I figured I’d go to the gym and work out for an hour.”

 

The cramped thigh gradually recovered. Fu Yuhan pulled away Wen Yu’s hand and said coolly: “So you do know you have excess energy.”

 

“Don’t you want to?” Wen Yu glanced at him. “Then I can take care of it myself from now on.”

 

“…” Fu Yuhan pressed his lips together and lowered his eyes. “Now that we’re dating, there’s no need to take care of it yourself.”

 

Wen Yu laughed, leaned over, and kissed him: “So are you going or not?”

 

Fu Yuhan was stunned for a moment before realizing he was talking about the gym. People who didn’t exercise had an instinctive resistance to such things. His face showed hesitation: “The gym around here… where is it…”

 

“Downstairs, just turn two corners. I’ll take you another day.” Wen Yu smiled.

 

“Do you have other things to do today?” Fu Yuhan was somewhat surprised.

 

“Mm,” Wen Yu thought about it. “I need to contact my dad—oh right, I need to charge my phone.”

 

When Wen Yu went out, his phone was dead, but he was now pulling it out of his pocket. Fu Yuhan found it a bit strange: “Didn’t you borrow a charging cable from Teacher Zhou?”

 

What was the point of bringing out a dead phone and bringing it back the same way?

 

Wen Yu plugged his phone into the charging cable, his expression somewhat subtle: “I did borrow one.”

 

“Then how did…”

 

“Just charged for five minutes, took calls for two hours.” Wen Yu said. “Died.”

 

“…Worthy of being the top scorer.”

 

Wen Yu shook his head: “I made it clear to Teacher Zhou that he’d try to deflect recruitment office calls for me… I’m just afraid my dad agreed to something, so I called him then…”

 

“You talked to your dad for two hours? And you still need to call him now?”

 

“No, I’d just finished telling him not to make decisions for me when another call came in.” Speaking of this, Wen Yu was also a bit helpless. “Relatives from home and such… plus Grandpa and Grandma. I don’t want to drag my conflict with Wen Ziming into the family—it’d be more troublesome if they knew, so I still have to put on an act.” He rubbed his temples. “Headache.”

 

“So after this, are you still going to…” Fu Yuhan looked at him.

 

“Mm,” Wen Yu nodded. “Probably need to go back to the old estate.”

 

The name “old estate” sounded a bit chuunibyou, but it wasn’t really a big deal—just the Wen family’s old house.

 

The Wen family started rising to prosperity from Wen Yu’s grandparents’ generation, probably among the first batch in the country to live in Western-style houses. By the sons’ generation, Wen Ziming had a strange obsession with “excellence.” He was very strict with himself, not only expanding the family business through his career, but later marrying Wen Yu’s mother was a power couple union. He’d never lacked money his whole life.

 

The old folks were nostalgic. Although they could afford to move to better housing, they never moved out of that first house—except for when it was demolished and rebuilt once.

 

After the demolition, they moved back. Every year when the Wen family had major events, the whole family would gather in that house.

 

Family gatherings, in Wen Yu’s words, were “pretty meaningless.” His grandfather was a rigid old man who’d worked diligently his whole life. Under his influence, his uncles, aunts, and the like all had a rather “serious and unsmiling” air. At every family dinner, the family would sit together and tell their parents about developments in their careers and achievements their children had made during the time they hadn’t met, in the tone of presenting reports.

 

Among all the siblings, only Wen Ziming had the best business talent. He inherited the old man’s business and expanded it, making him the child who “most resembled Dad.” Wen Yu also had the best grades among his pile of cousins, so Wen Ziming was very keen on “showing off achievements” at the dinner table.

 

This was why he was willing to compromise to get Wen Yu’s cooperation—he cared about family gatherings and couldn’t afford any slip-ups.

 

This was also one of Wen Yu’s bargaining chips.

 

“It’s just,” Wen Yu’s gaze dropped, gently pinching Fu Yuhan’s hand. “I can’t take you there, temporarily.”

 

He emphasized the word “temporarily.”

 

As time grew later bit by bit, even the open door couldn’t make the room much brighter. Fu Yuhan turned on the bedside lamp and through the warm yellow light saw Wen Yu’s slightly dejected profile.

 

He grasped the other’s hand in return and said softly: “What does it matter? I haven’t told my parents about you either, and you didn’t object, did you?”

 

“I don’t mind…”

 

“I mind even less.”

 

Fu Yuhan squeezed his fingertips: “I’ve always felt that convincing others is very difficult and a pure waste of time… I don’t need either set of parents to accept us. As long as we ourselves know we won’t separate because of these things, that’s enough.”

 

“Mm.” Wen Yu nodded, then lifted his eyelids. “So it seems like you’ve wasted a lot of time on me?”

 

Trying to make him change.

 

Trying to make him believe.

 

Once, Fu Yuhan had said so much to him in one breath that his voice became hoarse by the end. Only then did Wen Yu realize the other wasn’t actually good at long speeches.

 

All for him.

 

Wen Yu understood this, but he wanted to hear Fu Yuhan say it out loud.

 

Fortunately, Fu Yuhan understood him well. A faint smile appeared on his face as he said word by word: “Time spent on you doesn’t count as wasted.”

 

Wen Yu reached out to hug him and nuzzled into his neck hollow.

 

“Then eat by yourself tomorrow and wait for me… wait for me to come back.”

 

“Okay.”

 

–

 

The next evening, the Rolls-Royce that hadn’t been seen in who knows how long drove into the residential complex and stopped at the bottom of the apartment building.

 

Fu Yuhan watched Wen Yu get in the car. Only after the car drove away did he go upstairs.

 

After the car got on the elevated highway, the driver hesitantly glanced at the rearview mirror and asked in a low voice: “Young Master, your home… why is there someone else there?”

 

“Does it have anything to do with you?” Wen Yu lifted his eyelids coolly.

 

Ever since defying Wen Ziming, his mentality had a “throw caution to the wind” feeling—even in front of the driver, he no longer pretended to be “gentle, good, respectful, frugal, and modest.” The indifference and mockery in his bones were displayed bluntly on his face.

 

This driver was Wen Ziming’s man and would report his movements to his dad in private. Although taking someone’s salary to work for them was correct, Wen Yu didn’t want to give him any pleasant looks.

 

The driver hadn’t expected that after not seeing him for so long, Wen Yu’s attitude had done a complete 180-degree turn. His neck stiffened, and for a moment he couldn’t speak.

 

Wen Yu curved the corners of his lips, his smile mocking: “You must be thinking now whether you should report this to the Chairman—it’s fine, you don’t need to consider it. I’ll tell him myself tonight.”

 

“After all, who I live with has nothing to do with him.”

 

—The same went for his sexual orientation.

 

The youth’s features as he glanced out the window vaguely had the cold hardness of an adult. The driver, who wasn’t actually that old and had driven for Wen Ziming for several years without experiencing much of society’s harsh lessons, actually felt his heart tremble.

 

After that, there was no conversation the rest of the way.

 

Wen Ziming had originally wanted to call Wen Yu home and then go to the old estate together, but the day before, Wen Yu had cleanly and decisively refused this suggestion. When the car arrived at the familiar apartment building, Wen Yu jumped out and looked up.

 

The apartment building was already very old. Although the children were each richer than the next, the old folks still stubbornly guarded this ordinary house.

 

But Wen Yu thought that even if he grew up in the future and had the ability to buy more and better houses, he probably wouldn’t sell the house he lived in now.

 

After all, that was where his angel first descended.

 

The place where a story begins always has a common name, called “memories.”

 

“Xiao Yu?” A female voice sounded, followed by the “tap tap tap” of high heels. “Why are you here alone… what are you smiling about?”

 

Wen Yu came back to his senses. His nerves instinctively adjusted the angle of his smile to something more gentlemanly: “Auntie, Sister.”

 

“Why are you here alone?” The middle-aged woman with exquisite makeup, accompanied by her daughter, scrutinized him carefully. “Where’s your dad?”

 

“He should be coming, right?” Wen Yu said with a smile. “I don’t know. Scores came out today. I went to school and just came from there.”

 

“Oh, I see.” The woman wasn’t too surprised. “Then let’s go up together.”

 

This building had no elevator. They had to walk up to the fourth floor themselves. The woman walked in front, followed by her daughter. As she walked, she asked: “How did you do?”

 

“Not bad.” Wen Yu said briefly.

 

“Which school are you planning to apply to?”

 

“T University.”

 

Her nephew had always had good grades. The woman wasn’t too surprised. Instead, her daughter paused in her steps and looked back at Wen Yu.

 

That gaze was a bit strange—like excitement, yet also not. This cousin had always had a bold personality. Although Wen Yu didn’t play much with her, his impression of her was okay. He couldn’t help looking at her a couple more times, his face showing confusion.

 

“I have an underclass mate at Third High.” The cousin suddenly said. “Yuyu, did you get top science scorer this year?”

 

Wen Yu made an “ah” sound.

 

Yesterday afternoon when he went back to school, he’d run into reporter interviews. The news had been out for a whole day—even if he wanted to hide it, he couldn’t.

 

“Oh my.” His aunt exclaimed. “That’s quite good.”

 

Wen Yu smiled but didn’t speak. But what made him feel strange was that the cousin was still looking at him.

 

As they spoke, they quickly reached the fourth floor. The woman knocked on the door and was greeted by her sister-in-law who had arrived early. As Wen Yu bent down to look for slippers in the entryway, the cousin who’d been changing her shoes for ten thousand years looked around, then suddenly turned back and asked him: “Yuyu, let me ask you something.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Are you gay?”

 

Wen Yu froze and looked up.

 

The white light from the living room passed through her silhouette, somehow appearing somewhat tragic.

 

“Yes.” Wen Yu looked at her expressionlessly. “What are you going to do about it?”

 

“Don’t look at me like that.” The cousin, who was usually serious and stoic, actually smiled. She thought about it, and while no one else was at the door, pulled back her collar and turned her back.

 

On the skin below her collar that had been concealed, she actually had a rainbow flag tattooed. Wen Yu was stunned.

 

The cousin turned back around: “I was just asking… and congratulating you.”

 

“…Thank you.” Wen Yu said.

 

***

 

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