Fei Bai paused for a moment, then pretended to be relaxed and said, “Grandma, what are you talking about? There’s nothing like that.”
Grandma looked at him without saying anything, and the two walked to the roadside to catch a taxi.
Perhaps because it was New Year’s Eve, there weren’t many taxis on the road, and the ride-hailing app wasn’t getting any drivers to accept their requests. Fei Bai wasn’t dressed warmly enough, and after waiting for a short while, he started shivering.
Luo Yusen hadn’t left yet, and seeing Fei Bai trembling in the cold on the street, he opened the car door, took off his coat, and draped it over Fei Bai. He then untied his scarf and wrapped it around Fei Bai’s neck, covering half of his face securely.
Being taken care of by Luo Yusen in front of his grandma, Fei Bai blushed a little. “Thank you, Shixiong.”
Luo Yusen patted his head gently. “Are you really not letting me take you?”
Fei Bai hesitated for a moment, then looked at his grandmother, unsure of what the elderly lady might think.
Grandma understood that her grandson had probably already told Luo Yusen about that matter. Although she had a good impression of Luo Yusen, she felt that today was not a good time for her son and daughter-in-law to meet him, so she coughed and said, “It’s okay, Xiao Luo. He won’t freeze to death.”
Luo Yusen smiled, stepped aside, and made a phone call quietly. After speaking a few words in a low voice, he returned to Fei Bai and Grandma to wait together.
With Grandma nearby, Fei Bai felt too embarrassed to openly show affection towards Luo Yusen. So he discreetly extended his hand from his sleeve to touch Luo Yusen’s hand. As their skins made contact, Luo Yusen enclosed Fei Bai’s hand in his palm.
Fei Bai heard Luo Yusen murmur softly, “Your hands are so cold.”
The warmth from Luo Yusen’s hand continuously spread to him. Suddenly, Fei Bai didn’t want to leave anymore. He wanted to stand in the icy world and let Luo Yusen hold his hand like this forever.
It was quite miraculous that shortly after Luo Yusen made that phone call, a taxi arrived as if it were specifically coming for Fei Bai and his grandma. Without even needing to hail it, the taxi stopped steadily in front of them.
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.
“Cigluta, atf mjg lr tfgf. Tbe rtbeiv ub.” Oeb Terfc gfifjrfv Mfl Djl jcv qjaafv tlr yjmx.
Mfl Djl cbvvfv delfais, gfaegcfv atf mbja ab Oeb Terfc, jcv kjr jybea ab gfwbnf atf rmjgo ktfc Oeb Terfc tfiv tlr kglra ufcais. “Bffq la bc.”
Vwfiilcu Oeb Terfc’r rmfca bc atf rmjgo, Mfl Djl rlifcais ibkfgfv tlr tjcv jcv uba lcab atf mjg klat tlr ugjcvwj. Coafg afiilcu atf vglnfg atflg vfralcjalbc, tf aegcfv ab ibbx yjmx ja Oeb Terfc bearlvf atf mjg. “Vtlzlbcu, sbe rtbeiv ub yjmx.”
Luo Yusen raised his chin at him and stood there, watching him leave.
Grandma looked thoughtfully at Luo Yusen’s tall and upright figure in the rearview mirror and said to Fei Bai, “Feifei, have you thought about how to talk to your parents?”
Fei Bai sighed, “I’ll just tell them directly.”
Grandma took his hand and rubbed it gently. “In my opinion, your happiness is the most important thing. I don’t understand why your parents can’t see that.”
At this moment, the driver sitting in the front seat chimed in, “That’s right. We only live once, and we should seek happiness. We can’t let others’ opinions control us.”
“You have a very open mindset,” Fei Bai said with a smile.
“Well, I didn’t always think this way,” the driver said, turning the steering wheel. “But then our house got demolished back home, and that’s when I started to change my mind.”
Half an hour later, the taxi stopped outside Fei Bai’s parents’ residence. Fei Bai took out his phone to transfer money to the driver, but the driver put away the QR code and stopped him. “No need, young man. You don’t have to pay. President Luo helped me out before, so consider this a way of repaying his kindness.”
Fei Bai was momentarily stunned. It turned out Luo Yusen had arranged this taxi for him.
Fei Bai and Grandma got out of the car, registered at the security gate of the residential compound, and were allowed through. Walking along the familiar streets, they both felt a sense of nostalgia, as if transported back in time.
“Feifei, do you remember when you used to go to kindergarten and elementary school? It was Grandma who walked this road with you,” Grandma reminisced.
Fei Bai replied that he remembered, though his voice sounded muffled under the scarf.
They also encountered some old neighbors from the past, who were loading a large box of firecrackers into the trunk. With fireworks and firecrackers banned in the urban area in recent years, they were likely taking them to the outskirts to set them off.
“Hey, Feibai, you’re back? I haven’t seen you in years, and you’ve grown so tall,” the neighbor greeted them warmly.
“He’s now more than a head taller than me,” Grandma said with a cheerful smile, gesturing to show the height difference. She then turned her attention to the neighbor’s fireworks. “Are you going to set off firecrackers?”
“Yes, this one is a 20-shot, this one is a 100-shot, and there’s also a 108-shot. It’s all for good luck during the New Year,” the neighbor explained, showing the boxes to Grandma.
Feibai was curious. “Are they really accurate? When they say 100 shots, does it really mean 100 shots?”
The neighbor replied casually, “Well, there might be one or two missing.”
Fei Bai thought for a moment, then asked, “What if there’s a two-shot firecracker and it’s missing one or two shots? Will it still go off?”
The neighbor was taken aback. “You know, I’ve never thought about that scenario.”
Even though he hadn’t been back for several years, Fei Bai still found his way home with ease. The moment he pressed the doorbell, his heart suddenly started to race.
He heard his mother’s footsteps approaching from afar. The moment she saw him, she pulled him into her arms and said, “Feifei is back.”
Since he started elementary school, he hasn’t let his mother hug him. His memory of being hugged was from when he was just a little kid. Now, being hugged by his mother without any warning, his body instinctively tensed up.
His mother was no longer taller than him. She struggled a bit to hug him, with her head only reaching his shoulder. Fei Bai felt her body trembling slightly, so he patted her: “Mom.”
In response, he heard a faint sob.
Fei Bai was surprised. His tense body gradually relaxed. His mother’s softened emotions brought back memories from many years ago. He softly said, “Mom, please don’t cry.”
He knew his mother also felt regret. She hadn’t been there for him during his entire senior year of high school, hadn’t witnessed his nervous anticipation when checking his college entrance exam results, and hadn’t sent him off to university. She had missed many of the important milestones in his life, and these were moments that could neither be made up nor repeated.
He saw his father walk over from the living room and stand silently behind his mother, looking at him. After a long while, his father finally said, “Let him come in first. Standing at the door like this isn’t right.”
Only then did his mother release Fei Bai, her eyes filled with tears as she led him into the house. Then, hesitatingly, she called out to Fei Bai’s grandma, “Mom.”
Fei Bai took off his coat, and his mother took it from him without a word. Then she asked him, “Aren’t you going to take off your scarf?”
He hesitated for a moment before reaching up to undo the scarf around his neck.
Perhaps it was his expression or his slightly awkward movements, or maybe it was just a mother’s intuition about her child, but as she took the scarf to hang it up, she suddenly asked, “Did you buy this yourself?”
Fei Bai didn’t immediately answer. He saw his mother looking closely at the small brand initials in the corner of the scarf.
Mother Fei… If you don’t want to lose your son a second time, you gotta learn to compromise :/
I swear to god, if they still don’t come around to the fact that their son is gay, imma do something to my pillow!
And the thing is we know there are so many parents around the world who do this to themselves… Trying to force / manipulate your child into a society norm doesn’t work out well.
Thank You for the new chapter（♥￫ｏ￩♥）