CFHE Chapter 71.3

“No problem.” At this distance, all the surrounding barbecue smells were faint, but Fu Yuhan’s scent was clearer. Wen Yu sniffed and caught a whiff of lemon.

 

Although it smelled good, it wasn’t the scent of Wen Yu’s body wash. He figured he’d have to find a way to lure this person to stay overnight at his place again.

 

Scents could satisfy his small, secret, and somewhat pathological possessiveness—a secret he had never spoken aloud.

 

“This afternoon I went out to take a look. If you walk straight up this main road for about twenty minutes, you can reach an open area with a very broad view.” Wen Yu kept his voice low, “It’s not the summit but feels close enough, very suitable for… strolling around.”

 

Fu Yuhan’s hands didn’t stop moving, but his eyes glanced over.

 

Wen Yu stared at him: “Want to go up the mountain to look around later?”

 

“Not going up in the afternoon, but going up the mountain now when it’s pitch black and you can’t see anything?” Fu Yuhan said softly, “Tell me the truth.”

 

“…” Wen Yu was helpless, “Can’t you play dumb just once?”

 

Fu Yuhan lowered his eyes and chuckled twice: “Fine, then I won’t ask. We’ll go up together after we finish eating.”

 

Before they knew it, they had grilled more than half of the prepared ingredients.

 

“Alright, alright, stop grilling for now,” Yang Fan called to them, “come eat first, you must be hungry. We can make more later if it’s not enough.”

 

The mountain wind was fierce at night. Before it got dark, Fu Yuhan had temporarily stepped away to help light a fire, which he left to Chu Lei and Yang Fan to tend. Now they brought the grilled food over, and the group gathered around the campfire to eat.

 

There was meat, vegetables, and alcohol, plus the camaraderie from working together all afternoon. These young people, whether familiar with each other or not, quickly grew closer through laughter and conversation.

 

After finishing the first round, Yang Fan wiped his hands and suddenly ran into the house.

 

Fu Yuhan turned his head to glance.

 

“Don’t look,” Wen Yu reached out with two fingers to pinch the back of his neck, making him turn his face back, saying quietly, “Look at the food, don’t look at him.”

 

Fu Yuhan looked at him for a while and said helplessly: “You’re almost more sensitive than I am.”

 

“Consider it so.” Wen Yu let him say whatever he wanted.

 

After all, “the revolution has not yet succeeded”—

 

But his preventing Fu Yuhan from looking wasn’t entirely due to jealousy. After a few minutes, Yang Fan came back out of the house, holding an eight-inch birthday cake in his hands.

 

Large “1” and “8” number candles flickered with candlelight on the exquisitely designed cake.

 

“Happy birthday to you—” He walked to Fu Yuhan’s side with a smile, singing as he approached, the candlelight reflected in his eyes.

 

Everyone around stood up and joined the chorus. Fu Yuhan was stunned.

 

In front of him, Yang Fan was smiling at him.

 

In his memory, Yang Fan had celebrated many birthdays with him, and this one didn’t seem particularly special either.

 

He used to love watching Yang Fan approach him carrying a cake, those gentle eyes illuminated by candlelight like a deep ocean he was willing to drown in.

 

But today…

 

“Happy birthday to you—” After the terrible voice finished the last note, Yang Fan looked back at Fu Yuhan and laughed loudly, “Xiao Han, happy coming of age!”

 

Fu Yuhan: “…”

 

“What’s wrong, did you forget it’s your birthday today?” Yang Fan said, bending down slightly. After seeing Fu Yuhan’s face clearly, his eyes widened, “—are you crying?”

 

Wen Yu, sitting beside him, pulled him over.

 

“No,” Fu Yuhan blinked, his voice as cold and indifferent as always, “what’s there to cry about over a birthday?”

 

“That’s what I thought too.” Yang Fan nodded, “Come on, make a wish and blow out the candles.”

 

Only Wen Yu was still staring at him.

 

“It’s fine.” Fu Yuhan smiled at him and closed his eyes.

 

After a moment, he opened his eyes and blew out the candles in one breath.

 

“Oh!! Cake time cake time!!”

 

Chu Lei was particularly enthusiastic about cutting the cake, being the first to stuff the cake knife into Fu Yuhan’s palm: “Birthday boy gets the first cut! Quick, Fu-ge, I’ve been craving this cake all afternoon! I love this bakery!”

 

Fu Yuhan speechlessly made one cut and threw the cake knife to Chu Lei, turning his head to look at Yang Fan: “When did you prepare the cake?”

 

“I was planning to celebrate your birthday today anyway, plus with…” Yang Fan glanced at Wen Yu, his expression somewhat strange for some reason, “Yu-ge’s sponsorship, we pooled money to buy a better one.”

 

Fu Yuhan turned his head, and Wen Yu raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“What about birthday presents?” Fu Yuhan asked.

 

“…”

 

The scene fell silent for a moment.

 

Yang Fan had prepared something—he and Chu Lei, Pi Qiu, and Ma Gan had pooled money to buy a new gaming console, which he brought today.

 

“But you have to study hard!” Yang Fan said when giving him the gift, “We promised to be classmates in college.”

 

“Okay.” Fu Yuhan smiled lightly.

 

But the rest of the people hadn’t prepared anything. Fu Yuhan usually didn’t mention his birthday much, so they didn’t know it was today.

 

Fang Jiayuan and Sun Wenrui banged their heads on the ground apologizing: “Fu-ge! We were wrong!! We’ll definitely make up gifts when we get back!!”

 

The three girls from Third High also said they’d make it up to him, but Fu Yuhan refused.

 

“No need, I was just saying,” he really didn’t mind, “don’t spend money on it.”

 

Ever since his parents’ relationship soured, he stopped looking forward to birthdays, because knowing his birth wasn’t anticipated, even this day lost its joyful meaning.

 

Almost every year, Yang Fan celebrated his birthday for him.

 

Birthdays were a small comfort in his year-long painful unrequited love—whether he received gifts or not made no difference to him.

 

However, Fu Yuhan thought for a moment, and while everyone was sharing the cake, he turned his head and specifically asked Wen Yu: “Where’s my present?”

 

“Would you believe me if I said I don’t have one?”

 

Fu Yuhan shook his head.

 

Wen Yu raised an eyebrow somewhat surprisingly and smiled: “You’re quite thick-skinned—I prepared one, come up the mountain with me later to see it.”

 

See?

 

Fu Yuhan couldn’t guess what it was, so he just nodded.

 

The birthday boy wasn’t enthusiastic about sweets, only eating a small piece of cake before letting others finish the rest. Barbecue paired with Wen Yu’s low-alcohol cocktails noisily filled the entire evening.

 

“Ah… so full…”

 

“Should we clean up the table?”

 

“Is the fire out?”

 

“Not yet.”

 

“We should put it out.”

 

“You go.”

 

“Later.”

 

…

 

Full and satisfied, no one wanted to clean up. The group sat around the campfire, slumped in chairs like corpses.

 

Campfires had a mesmerizing quality that made people focus. The surroundings quickly quieted down, leaving only the “crackling” sound of sparks.

 

But it was very cold.

 

Zhao Tong shrank into her blanket and poked Yang Fan, looking at him pleadingly.

 

“Get up!” Yang Fan suddenly jumped up, “Put out the grills, clean up what needs cleaning, then let’s go inside to play. It’s too cold here, stop sitting around.”

 

“What about the campfire?”

 

“Leave the campfire burning. The boss said when the fuel burns out, it’ll automatically go out and won’t cause any problems.”

 

A group of lazy bones were forcibly pulled from their chairs by Yang Fan. The girls went inside first, while the boys fumbled around cleaning up outside.

 

By the time they finished, it was close to midnight. Wen Yu washed his hands clean and prepared to find Fu Yuhan.

 

He wanted to take him up the mountain to see the fireworks he had prepared—

 

Fireworks were banned in the city center, and you couldn’t even hear firecrackers during Spring Festival in the downtown area. When they were watching movies at his house on the second day of New Year, Fu Yuhan had casually complained about this.

 

Wen Yu felt he was indeed a bit crazy. Originally, he had prepared other gifts for Fu Yuhan, but after hearing this, he searched through his contacts and mobilized all the connections he could, finally managing to buy fireworks before the seventh day. This afternoon, while Fu Yuhan was sleeping, he had Chu Lei help him go up the mountain to set them up.

 

Chu Lei didn’t know about his ulterior motives and even mocked Wen Yu for having such a romantic gift, like he was pursuing a girl.

 

Chu Lei wasn’t wrong about one thing.

 

He was indeed pursuing someone.

 

Although the target wasn’t female.

 

Yang Fan went into the movie screening room with Zhao Tong in his arms, even asking Wen Yu if he wanted to watch together. Wen Yu shook his head and refused, then went into the KTV room and found Chu Lei passionately singing to Xu Qianyi and Ge Ran.

 

In the pool room were Fang Jiayuan, Sun Wenrui, and Chen Mengxian.

 

After searching around without seeing anyone, he went back to their room to try his luck.

 

The door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open and found Fu Yuhan had just tied up a plastic bag.

 

His usual black backpack was open on the bed, revealing a corner of a sketchbook. Beside the backpack, an empty plastic jar lay upside down, its plastic lid carelessly thrown aside.

 

And the plastic bag in Fu Yuhan’s hand contained a bunch of folded paper of various sizes.

 

It looked like he had specifically folded a jar of lucky stars to give to someone.

 

Wen Yu slowly furrowed his brow.

 

“You came up? I was just about to go down.” Fu Yuhan said, “Let’s go.”

 

Wen Yu didn’t move.

 

“Let’s go?” Fu Yuhan asked puzzledly, “What’s wrong?”

 

“So you really… were crying just now.” Wen Yu looked into his eyes, “Your eyes are red.”

 

Fu Yuhan instinctively rubbed them.

 

All expectation and excitement instantly dissipated. Wen Yu thought heavily, “He’s only crying because Yang Fan brought him a cake.”

 

But he… had really spent so much time preparing.

 

The fireworks, the gift, and that one “Happy Birthday” he had prepared to say the moment those huge, brilliant fireworks exploded against the pitch-black night sky backdrop.

 

He had even practiced the tone for saying the blessing—ridiculously stupid.

 

Perhaps his expression was too ugly, because Fu Yuhan suddenly became flustered and tried to explain: “I’m not because of…”

 

“You don’t need to say anything.” Wen Yu interrupted him, “I understand. Forgetting is hard, it’s okay. I… let’s go, up the mountain.”

 

“…Mm.”

 

“What’s that in your bag?”

 

“This?” Fu Yuhan held up the plastic bag, and under Wen Yu’s affirmative gaze, he smiled and shook his head, “Just some trash.”

 

What trash was worth carrying all the way from home to the mountain?

 

Probably just something he wanted to give Yang Fan but couldn’t bring himself to.

 

Wen Yu pursed his lips and turned to leave with his hands in his pockets.

 

The atmosphere suddenly dropped to freezing point. Noisy singing and movie dialogue came from various parts of the townhouse… only the hallway they walked through was quiet.

 

Fu Yuhan didn’t know which of his words had upset Wen Yu. He felt like Wen Yu had misunderstood something, but since the other person wasn’t speaking, he couldn’t be sure.

 

Finally, when they reached the door, he remembered to call out to Wen Yu: “Wait.”

 

Wen Yu turned back.

 

Fu Yuhan walked to the campfire, looked back at the lit townhouse, and took a deep breath.

 

Then he untied the plastic bag and dumped everything inside into the fire.

 

The flames immediately rose two inches higher. Wen Yu vaguely saw it was a pile of eight-pointed lucky stars and ordinary folded paper stars.

 

A large scattered bag full.

 

This was what Fu Yuhan had carried all the way—exquisitely made, clearly meant as gifts.

 

…Previously, he had only given him one.

 

One.

 

Wen Yu unconsciously touched the scarf around his neck.

 

But what he had prepared for Yang Fan was indeed a whole jar like this.

 

Truly double standards.

 

“I’m just a petty person,” he thought silently, “I’m completely sour now.”

 

Fu Yuhan watched those paper stars turn to ash in the campfire, casually threw the plastic bag into the nearby trash can, and finally walked toward Wen Yu.

 

“Let’s go,” he said.

 

Wen Yu reached out with his fingertip and gently wiped across his eye corner, cold from the wind, touching warmth.

 

Really completely sour, so sour that the next second he wanted to explode and blow up this whole house together.

 

“You’re crying again.” Wen Yu looked at him with heavy eyes.

 

Fu Yuhan took out a pack of tissues from his pocket, casually wiped his eyes, and blew his nose: “There, it’s gone.”

 

Wen Yu was amused by his anger and turned to leave.

 

“Yu-ge!” Fu Yuhan reached out to grab him.

 

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