Because too much occurred the night before, Liang Muqiu didn’t wake up until noon the next day. Cen Nan’s sleep schedule had always been very systematic, but he stayed in bed with him.
When Liang Muqiu woke up, he was still in a daze, forgetting that this wasn’t his bedroom. Staring at the ceiling, he was still wondering why the colour didn’t seem right. When he turned his head to see Cen Nan lying beside him, he finally remembered what had happened yesterday.
He touched his forehead, blinked his eyelashes, and hoarsely said to Cen Nan, “Good morning.”
Cen Nan had been waiting for him to wake up, lying on his side, half propped up and looking at him. The quilt had mostly slipped from his body, leaving only his pale skin and flawless muscles on show and his dark eyes had turned into a warm amber under the sunlight.
“Morning.” Cen Nan lowered his head and kissed him on the forehead. “Mon amour.”
Liang Muqiu understood and smiled, “So corny.”
Cen Nan kissed his forehead again. “A French classmate taught me, saying that I was too silent and awkward at first look, so I ended up being single for so long.”
Liang Muqiu burst out laughing.
He raised his head and asked curiously, “Then what did you say?”
Cen Nan twisted his fingers around the ends of Liang Muqiu’s hair, “I said I don’t need to please a woman, I only want to please a boy. My classmate was stunned for a moment and said it was cool. After a week, the whole class knew that I was keeping my virginity for a distant fiancé.”
Cen Nan was a bit speechless when he thought about this matter. He didn’t know how his French classmate had added fuel to the fire and the kind of imagination he had used, causing his classmates to look at him with strange expressions. Some girls even sympathetically patted his back and said, “I support you.”
“The French are quite gossipy.” Cen Nan declared.
Liang Muqiu couldn’t stop laughing.
He rubbed his head into Cen Nan’s palm, like a rolling cat and asked again, “Did you get along well with them abroad? Do your classmates or alumni go out often?”
He had always been reluctant to listen to Cen Nan’s events abroad, but now he felt that it was no big deal.
He guessed that Cen Nan’s life abroad wouldn’t be too colourful. This person was very indifferent to things he wasn’t interested in, especially when he had to take care of his grandmother, complete his studies, and endure all the hardships after being separated from him. He probably didn’t have much intention to socialise and have fun.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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He also won a hundred dollars, which he donated to a charity shop when he left.
He had departed early. It was winter and snowing in Chicago. Due to the holiday, the entire campus was quiet and blank, like another world.
He walked on the road to school and only after some distance did he realize that it was the winter solstice in China.
Finally, he went to buy a bag of glutinous rice balls. Liang Muqiu was a southerner and he liked to eat glutinous rice balls during the winter solstice. He bought the sesame and red bean paste fillings that Liang Muqiu loved. The white and fat glutinous rice balls were boiled in milk and one bite could make people dizzy with sweetness.
He never liked sweets, but he ate a whole bowl that day.
He lowered his head and glanced at Liang Muqiu, who was now lying obediently in his arms, like a kitten exposing its belly to him. Even his claws were harmless.
He took Liang Muqiu’s hand and kissed it, then suddenly asked, “Do you still eat glutinous rice balls on the winter solstice?”
Liang Muqiu was confused. “Huh?” He didn’t follow Cen Nan’s train of thought but replied after a moment, “I don’t eat much anymore and I can’t remember the solstice dates when I’m alone outside. My mother used to cook them for me.”
He glanced at Cen Nan and continued, “And you’re the one who cooked them for me afterwards.”
During his freshman and sophomore years, Cen Nan cooked glutinous rice balls for him. He still remembered Cen Nan buying the wrong ones with peanut filling and he was so upset that he scrunched his face and unwillingly ate two pieces.
Thinking of this, he looked at Cen Nan bitterly.
Cen Nan obviously remembered, stroking his forehead and coaxing, “I’ll cook you rice balls with red bean this year.”
Liang Muqiu was coaxed within a second, clearly showing no progress in this aspect after several years.
The two of them slept until one in the afternoon and Cen Nan casually cooked a steak for lunch.
After dinner, Cen Nan emptied several cabinets of gifts that weren’t taken out yesterday and they directly occupied the living room. They covered the whole carpet, making Liang Muqiu raise his eyebrows frequently.
The items varied from east to west, from supplements to sneakers, from earrings to old game consoles and other quirky trinkets.
Liang Muqiu picked up a Venetian mask and observed it for a while. Although the mask was very pretty with its gold and silver inlays, who would use something like this to confess?
“Are you going to give me all this?” He covered his face with the mask, revealing only two eyes, blinking and saying, “Do I look good?”
“Looks nice.” Cen Nan praised sincerely.
He picked up a random rock and flipped it over. On the bottom was written: “March 2017”.
“It’s nothing special. I just saw it and thought you’d like it, so I bought it on the fly,” he said. “I didn’t realize how much I’d bought until I got back home and saw two full suitcases.”
He picked up a pair of diamond earrings and held them against Liang Muqiu’s ears. He smiled. “They suit you.”
Liang Muqiu had already put down the mask, revealing a handsome and beautiful face.
He looked at the gifts spread out on the floor and suddenly remembered something.
He questioned, “One Christmas, I suddenly received a gift from overseas, a Nutcracker music box. It was sent from abroad anonymously.”
He was still in graduate school at the time and when he went down, he saw that it was an unfamiliar courier and was hesitant to receive it. The courier said that someone had paid extra to speed up the delivery and there was also a card included.
He shook it for a while, only accepting it after confirming that it wasn’t a dangerous item. He then took a look at the greeting card, only to find a single sentence on it – “Merry Christmas.”
The printed font made it impossible to distinguish the handwriting. Song Wei later commented that it must be one of his admirers. This kind of situation wasn’t uncommon. Anyway, there had never been a shortage of people chasing Liang Muqiu.
But when he looked at the exquisite Nutcracker music box, he inexplicably felt that it might be a gift from Cen Nan.
They had once gone to see the ‘The Nutcracker’ musical, and he had loved it so much that he’d even bought a collector’s edition of the illustrated book.
“Was that from you?” He asked.
Cen Nan didn’t deny it, “Yes, I sent it.” It was indeed a gift from him, just in time for Christmas.
“Why did you give me this specifically?” Liang Muqiu stared at him, not understanding the reason behind it. “You didn’t send the others back and only gave me this one as a Christmas gift. Is there anything special about it?”
“No, it’s just an ordinary gift.” Cen Nan clasped a bracelet embedded with a sapphire gem on Liang Muqiu’s wrist. “It’s just that the day I bought it, I missed you very much.”
He missed him so much, but he couldn’t come back, couldn’t even sign the gift.
He didn’t dare to send a gift every year because it was too conspicuous and easy to guess, so he could only pretend to be an unknown suitor who decided to send a surprise.
When he sent it to Liang Muqiu, he guessed that it might be thrown away, but Liang Muqiu accepted it, which was beyond his expectations.
Liang Muqiu pursed his lower lip.
He had left the Nutcracker music box in his hometown and carefully kept it under a glass cover for safekeeping.
He looked at the gifts all over the floor. It seemed that Cen Nan’s seven years had been placed in this apartment along with these gifts.
For seven whole years, even if they never met, Cen Nan’s life was full of his traces.
He thought to himself, ‘The French don’t have a very good eye, what kind of silent and clumsy show of love is this? It was obviously still pleasing to the eye.’
Sorry for the late update! I was busy and had no time to open my computer 
Thank You for the new chapter (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡
Thanks for the chapter