After a few hours of breakdown, Liu Lin felt that he had no other choice but to sell himself to Yao Qi, which made Yao Qi laugh non-stop until he was out of breath, destroying his calm and gentle image.
“You really don’t need to bring them any gifts,” Yao Qi said while hugging him, still laughing from time to time, “There are very little things that can catch my family’s eye, and those things can’t be bought with money, so you don’t need to give them anything.”
“…No matter what, it’s still better to bring something than going empty-handed,” insisted Liu Lin, who had been stripped naked in the process of ‘selling himself’.
Even if you sell yourself, the money you get won’t even be enough to afford a single set of my mother’s clothes—was supposed to be his next sentence, but seeing Liu Lin’s persistence, Yao Qi silently swallowed it back. He rubbed Liu Lin’s hair and hummed, tacitly acquiescing in his decision.
After all, Liu Lin sold himself to Yao Qi, not to other people.
As a good owner, he could certainly afford to raise a silly dog.
And thus, Yao Qi began to accompany Liu Lin to buy the gifts—but of course, what Liu Lin used was his own money. In the past few days, Liu Lin finally remembered that Alipay existed, so he linked his bank account to the app and was finally penniless no more.
The bank card was not with him because he had previously entrusted it to Yao Yue when he left.
“Oh wow, Ah-Lin, you actually gave all your savings to Yao Yue and left me nothing, that really hurts,” Yao Qi sighed, pretending to be sad.
“N-no—I forgot to tell her to give it to you!” Liu Lin panicked, frantically trying to coax him so as to not make him feel sadder.
It was rare to see Liu Lin being flustered, so Yao Qi happily teased him for a while longer.
Yao Qi looked at the gifts the man bought, silently calculated the value in his heart, and found that his silly dog had actually accumulated quite a sum of hidden savings. He couldn’t help feeling a little complicated.
As an owner, discovering that the pet you thought you needed to take care of didn’t actually need you to take care of it would make you feel a sense of loss in your heart.
So Yao Qi put it on his agenda to find a reason to collect Liu Lin’s small treasury.
However, before Yao Qi could implement his plan, Liu Lin immediately linked his bank account to Yao Qi’s phone after buying the presents and even told him the pin number.
“It’s all yours.”
Liu Lin goofily went over to him.
“How long can I keep you with this amount of money?”
Yao Qi raised his eyebrows. For a moment, he stared at Liu Lin with a slightly complicated expression, and then raised the corners of his mouth. Glancing at the balance displayed on the phone, he said in a happy mood, “If we’re talking about Yao Qi the flower shop owner, then this can last for about three years.”
Liu Lin subconsciously started shifting around, feeling a little nervous. “Putting aside this identity, how long will it be?”
“Probably… half an hour?” Once he entered the family business, half an hour would be enough time for him to negotiate a deal that could bring more than this amount of profit.
So compared to him, Liu Lin was actually a pauper.
Liu Lin: So-shocked-my-jaw-dropped.gif
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.
“Ljtjtjtjtj! Pa’r bxjs, Ct-Olc, lo sbe mjc’a joobgv ab xffq wf, atfc P’ii yf atf bcf ab xffq sbe.” Tjb Hl mgbrrfv tlr ifur ilxf jc jggbujca glmt ygja, yea yfmjerf tlr afwqfgjwfca kjr gfjiis cba relajyif obg atlr xlcv bo gbuelrt qbraegf, tf vlvc’a ibbx jr bqqgfrrlnf jr tf vlv ktfc tf rja lc tlr ereji eqgluta wjccfg.
Liu Lin could no longer guess how rich Yao Qi was.
He felt very poor.
His aspiration to provide for Yao Qi now seemed like an extravagant dream—an extravagant dream that was simply impossible to achieve.
“You only need to serve me obediently,” Yao Qi continued to talk like a rogue, playfully teasing him.
Liu Lin, “Okay.”
Liu Lin looked calm on the outside, but he was already thinking of getting some side jobs. Although it was no big deal to be kept by Yao Qi as long as they could stay together, he still wanted to reciprocate in turn.
Even if he couldn’t afford to keep Yao Qi, at least he had to make some money to give to the man!
Otherwise, wouldn’t it be too big of a loss for Xiao Qi to be together with him?
—But of course, even if that was the case, Yao Qi wouldn’t let him go.
In the following days, Shao Qing visited several times. He had already received the news that Yao Qi was going to join the family business, so it was only right for him to talk to Yao Qi about the matter. Previously, he had been too busy taking over the business of the Shao family. Now that things had settled down, he finally had time to come over.
No one came to visit after that, probably because Yao Qi had arranged everything beforehand.
The two lovers enjoyed their days together, but time always seemed to pass by too quickly. Upon waking up on a certain morning and seeing Liu Lin look like he was about to fight a great battle, Yao Qi was puzzled for a moment.
It wasn’t until he looked at the calendar did Yao Qi figure out what was going on.
January 15th—it was time to go home. No wonder his Ah-Lin looked so silly.
In his bad taste, Yao Qi did nothing to calm Liu Lin’s nerves. He leisurely took a shower and took out two sets of winter tunic suits from the closet, one black and one red. A red dragon was embroidered on the black suit while a black phoenix was embroidered on the red one. At a glance, you could tell that these two sets were a matching pair.
Yao Qi didn’t hesitate to hand the red set to Liu Lin while he himself changed into the black suit.
Wearing a traditional tunic suit during the Chinese New Year reunion dinner was one of the unwritten rules in his family. For those who hadn’t found a partner, a Bai Ze would be embroidered their suits. As for those who already had a partner, it would be dragon for the men and phoenix for the women. Later on, because his eldest brother and Su Yu were a same-sex couple, a new rule was set that the one on top would wear the dragon while the one below wore the phoenix.
Although Yao Qi was indeed the top in this relationship, he would still choose to wear the black suit even if he were the bottom. After all, the Queen Mother would probably skin Liu Lin alive if that really happened.
Yao Qi always took his time whenever he didn’t have to hurry, so by the time he finished changing, Liu Lin was already sitting on the bed waiting for him.
The man was clad in a red tunic suit adorned by a phoenix, sitting up straight as he devotedly stared at Yao Qi with a trace of nervousness, looking like a bride waiting for the groom on their wedding night.
All of a sudden, Yao Qi was struck with a desire to put a red veil on him.
Liu Lin’s lower lip was bright red from his own bite. In this atmosphere, the tinge of scarlet made him look especially charming and seductive.
Yao Qi carefully stroked the corner of Liu Lin’s mouth with his thumb. Pinching the man’s chin to make him lift up his head, he leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on those lips.
The kiss lasted no more than three seconds, a touch between lips without any hidden lust, yet dense with pure longing and affection, just like the loving nuzzle of a pair of mandarin ducks.
“I’ll let you go for now.” Yao Qi caressed Liu Lin’s face, a light smile etched across his face.
“What about at night?” Liu Lin was beaming, a hint of provocation gleaming in his smiling eyes.
“At night, I’ll be making you beg for mercy.”
“Alright.”
The two couldn’t continue to stick to each other for long, because just like Murphy’s law, the doorbell always liked to pick this kind of timing to ring.
Seventeen had come to pick them up.
The moment they arrived, Yao Qi was taken away by his eldest brother. He knew they deliberately did this to separate them for a while so that his parents could assess Liu Lin in the meantime.
Seeing his eldest brother frantically racking his brains in search of something to talk about, Yao Qi amusedly thought of a topic and chatted with his serious brother.
Not long after, Father Yao came in and nodded to Yao Qi’s eldest brother. Without looking back, his eldest brother walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.
“So fast?” Yao Qi took a clean cup and poured tea for Father Yao, handing it over with both hands.
“Your Queen Mother can’t wait any longer.” Father Yao took the tea and helplessly shook his head. “His knowledge is rather shallow, but he’s not stupid. He’s quite intelligent, has a quick brain and he’s… unexpectedly good at sweet talking. In terms of fighting skills and using weapons, he’s indeed very good. It’s clear that he’s been trained since childhood—and this is a bit dangerous. It will be very troublesome if you can’t control him.”
Yao Qi merely smiled and waited for his father to say the rest of the assessment, not at all hooked by the bait.
“Xiao Qi, you’re really getting less and less cute.” Father Yao sighed and put on a sad look, “—it can be seen that he loves you very much. It’s very unlikely that he’ll do anything to harm you.”
“Sounds like father is quite satisfied with Ah-Lin.” Yao Qi pretended to be stupid.
Father Yao snorted, “He has no status, no education, and no job. He can’t even provide for you. What’s the rule of the Yao family?”
“We don’t keep useless people,” Yao Qi frankly answered his father, “You have said it yourself that he’s very skilled at fighting, he won’t be useless if he worked as my bodyguard. Father, you’ve never assigned any bodyguard to me, don’t you know?”
Yao Qi was the one who wanted to take no part of the family business before, so what use would a bodyguard be to him, a previously ‘ordinary man’?
“Don’t waste your time with me.” Father Yao poked Yao Qi’s forehead. “He can’t only be a bodyguard, how can he be worthy of you this way?”
The Yao family wasn’t a feudal family who required their children to marry strictly within the same circle, but in a family like theirs, it would be troublesome if the partners they chose had too big of a difference in status. To put it simply, others from the same circle would keep trying to push people to your side, because they were not at all afraid of offending someone whose status was below them.
The children of the Yao family could naturally reject those people, but their partners would still feel uncomfortable in this situation. As time went by, it would create a conflict and a gap that might eventually pull them apart.
“Uncle Changsheng could train Uncle Jin to be another ‘Mr. Su’, why can’t I train Ah-Lin to be another ‘Master Qi’?”
Liu Lin could become a ‘Master Qi’ who was even stronger than him.
Liu Lin wasn’t stupid, it was just that he would become stupid when it came to Yao Qi. Moreover, Liu Lin’s fighting skills were much better than Yao Qi’s, so training Liu Lin was far from something difficult to do. With time, the birth of another ‘Master Qi’ was a definite outcome.
“It’s good for young people to be ambitious,” Father Yao nodded in satisfaction, “Since you’ve made your decision, then work hard and don’t let that old guy Su Changsheng laugh at you.”
Su Changsheng was a legend—it was unfortunate that he died so quickly. However, old veterans like them could probably guess whether he really died or not.
Hearing what his father said, Yao Qi knew that he had passed his test.
The only one left would be his mother.
“By the way, I told that kid that your allowance is only ten thousand yuan (about 1500 USD) a month so you don’t have to worry about him not working hard,” Father Yao added.
Yao Qi flinched, the corners of his mouth twitching.
Was his father telling him not to cheat? Yao Qi couldn’t help laughing. He never planned to cheat in order to clear this hurdle. Now that he had joined the family business, he certainly couldn’t just simply treat Liu Lin like a kept man.
Therefore, training his Ah-Lin was a matter of course.
However, he estimated that it would take at least three years for his Ah-Lin to learn from him—and this guess was indeed correct.
It was three years later that Liu Lin became famous, and it was also three years later that he finally earned the capital to provide for Yao Qi.
Of course, this was all for later.
Small theatre
Fox Xiaoqi brought Tibetan Mastiff Lin back to his fox den.
Tibetan Mastiff Lin was very nervous. He was afraid that Fox Xiaoqi’s family wouldn’t accept him.
Fox Xiaoqi comforted him, “It’s okay, you’ve given me all of your savings, they will definitely not object to our relationship.”
Eldest brother fox: You can tell at a glance that he’s whipped. Pass.
Second brother fox: He looks pretty good. Also, it’ll look cool when you take him out for a stroll. Pass.
Big sister fox: It’s fine as long as Xiaoqi likes him. Pass.
Father fox: …fuck, you guys come from different species, how did you even start dating?
Fox Xiaoqi: That’s not a problem, I’ll be the one to raise him anyway.
Wait—“… it would take at least three years for his Ah-Lin to learn from him.”
NOW, IMAGINE AH-LIN AS ANOTHER YAO QI! WON’T THIS BE A BATTLE OF WITS, THEN? OR IS YAO QI ALWAYS AN EXEMPTION FOR BATTLES WITH LIU LIN?! QAQ
No matter how strong or smart he became, Liu Lin would never win against Yao Qi hhhh sads
He’s a honourary fox 🤭
Thank you so much for reading 😊💝💝💝
Actually, even if Tibetan Mastiff Lin is not a fox, he’s still raised by a fox. A win is a win XD
Thank you so much for the update <3
Thank You for the new chapter (๑°꒵°๑)･*♡
Thank you for reading 💓😊😊💓
This whole ordeal was to test his mettle? Man, this is one messed up family.
Indeed hhhh all very selfish and tricky
THANK YOU FOR THE UPDATEEE 😏😏😏❤️🥹🙌
Thank you for reading!!! 😊❤️❤️❤️