Chapter 113
unedited
“Meow.”
Shen Yan’s eyelids trembled in his deep sleep—he seemed to have heard a cat’s soft call.
The source of the voice was very close, as if just by his ear. Even though he still didn’t wake up, he still felt something touching faintly against his ear, not much like a furball of a kitty, but just as warm.
“Meow.” The second time was softer than the first one.
This time, that thing touched his face. It didn’t feel like a cat’s paws or whiskers, but more like a human’s finger tracing over his cheek lightly, only to finally press on his eyelashes.
“Mn.” He made a vague noise, instinctively raising his hand. His fingers seemed to have managed to touch the kitty’s head, so just as he would usually do when patrolling the sickrooms in the clinic, he stroked it very gently.
That’s not right…What his palm touched wasn’t quite the same as a cat’s silken fur. Each strand and lock was just as thin and soft, but there was a certain degree of stiffness to it. After stroking it a few times, he didn’t manage to touch the hairy and pointy ear, but a fleshy and warm one—a human ear.
Shen Yan was startled, then quickly opened his eyes. The person opposite him crossed eyes with him immediately, seemingly just as startled.
Shen Yan was the first to come back to his senses. He finally realised what he was doing and took back his hand, embarrassed, “…Sorry, force of habit.”
Qi Jing was just putting his hand on the pillow, laying on his side docilely as he let Shen Yan stroke his hair, but when he heard him say so, he got taken aback at first, then sputtered with laughter, his eyes narrowing into smiling crescents. As he laughed, he really flipped over and drilled back under the duvet in a cat-like movement, hugging him close and tight in his arms.
At first, he was only quietly watching the sleeping face of the man on the other side of the pillow, then he meowed twice by his ear like a kitten, wanting to see if he would wake up. He just didn’t expect Shen Yan’s “force of habit” to make him reach his arm out and rub his head—and he accepted it with pleasure, even diligently assuming kitty’s role in enjoying this treatment.
…Because honestly, it was so cosy.
For a moment, he felt a bit envious of the kitties Shen Yan looked out for in the clinic.
The sunlight of an early winter morning made everything slow down, as if the light itself also entered a hibernation—falling quietly on the floor, the furniture, and the hands of the clock—holding back their ends so that unbeknownst to them, the time seemed to have slowed down as well.
And it wasn’t only time—human movements also became slow too. The hugs, caressing, kisses—they were all unhurried, languid.
It was still chilly outside the duvet, so Qi Jing had no inclination to get up from bed. Under the pretext of seeking warmth, his two hands roamed slowly all over Shen Yan’s body, from front to back for quite a while, and Shen Yan also opened his arms to hug him, stroking his hair gently. There was no fabric between their skin, so they rubbed against each other with nothing to keep them apart, the satisfaction it sparked hard to describe.
“I finally changed the screensaver on my phone.” For a while, Qi Jing said nothing in his embrace, but once he spoke, it was a topic Shen Yan didn’t really know where it came from.
“The screensaver?”
“Mhm.” Qi Jing chuckled, then sighed with nostalgia, “I haven’t changed it for a long time already.”
Usually, without Qi Jing’s permission, Shen Yan wouldn’t touch his private things, like his work documents, folders, the contents of his laptop and so on… Of course, it also included his phone. That’s why, he really has never even seen what his phone’s screensaver was.
At that time, Qi Jing slowly raised his upper body and took the phone from the side of the pillow to put it before his face, smiling indolently, “When you were still sleeping just now, I took a picture of you with my phone, wanting to use it as my new screensaver to look at everyday.”
Hearing this, Shen Yan was startled, his gaze following his movement to the phone’s screensaver—on the screen was a close-up of him, as if taken from a very close distance with just the right angle. Him in the picture had his eyes closed, seemingly deep asleep on the pillow, his expression just as gentle as the sunlight falling on his face.
After a while, Shen Yan’s gaze moved to Qi Jing. During the whole process, Qi Jing kept smiling faintly; seeing him look over, he took an initiative to shift over and lay a kiss on his cheek.
“Then what was your previous screensaver?” After waiting silently for the kiss to end, Shen Yan asked huskily.
At that moment, Qi Jing paused for a short while before chuckling quietly, “…It was also you.” Saying this, he opened the gallery on his phone and without waiting for Shen Yan to react, he found a picture inside.
This picture was taken from a bit far away, but the person on it was indeed him—and it was also him in his sleep. He was on the sofa in the clinic’s resting area, with a thin blanket and a small furry patient in his embrace, sticking out its head from under the blanket to lay feebly on his chest. Because of the window curtains being down at the time, the lighting on the picture wasn’t too good and both the human and the cat figures were blurry, but was still a kind of meaningful aesthetic to it.
Shen Yan recalled this scene and couldn’t help but freeze from shock.
That was… Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, when Qi Jing came over to send the mooncakes—
“You…”
“At that time, I already developed feelings that went beyond friendship to you.” Qi Jing continued speaking calmly.
Shen Yan stared into his eyes, unmoving, yet Qi Jing’s gaze lowered to take a look at this nostalgia-inducing picture.
“I must have gotten possessed for a moment, because I took this picture and saved it in my phone, and then… I decided to never meet with you again.”
Saying this, Qi Jing laughed self-mockingly, his voice hoarse.
“When I was pressing the shutter at that time, I was thinking… ‘This man can’t possibly be with me, he can’t belong to me’.” He muttered quietly and slid with his thumb, returning to the homescreen. In its palm-sized frame, there was a face of a man hugging him in a sleep after the night of passion, causing a tinge of sweetness to slip into his bitter smile, melting into it as he spoke, “But when I was taking the picture just now, what I thought was, ‘this man belongs to me, he will always be with me’.”
It was a very strong, but also a very confident thought—
At that time, Qi Jing tossed the phone aside without a word and lowered himself to hug this person firmly.
“Come with me.” He said.
“Okay.” Shen Yan replied calmly, as if it was a very normal, very simple thing being discussed.
It was just a single word, but Qi Jing knew how much went into it.
He had clearly received a reply he wished for, but his heart couldn’t help but jolt. All of the emotions weighing on him seemed to be shaken all at once, leaving him unable to tell which one was joy and which one was sadness… But right now, he no longer needed to separate them, because rather than the end of the journey, how they would continue going forward was more important.
The news channel director received a message from Qi Jing.
These few days, he gave Qi Jing quite a few calls, all of them mostly about the same as he tried to persuade him to accept this scholarship opportunity, and Qi Jing’s answer never changed—”I will give it another thought”. Hence the “I’m giving you three days” also became “I’m giving you four days”, and then “I’m giving you five days”, but each time he ended up hanging the call indignantly.
That’s why when he received those three words,【I accept it】in a message, he couldn’t process it for a moment.
By the time he processed it, he had already managed to dial Qi Jing’s number. “Aiya, Xiao Qi, you finally got it!”
“I’m sorry, Director, this time I really inconvenienced You…” Qi Jing smiled, a bit ashamed, looking through an online catalogue of apartments in Beijing on his PC screen as he took the call. If they wanted to go to Beijing, then they naturally had to first solve the housing issue.
Director was beyond pleased with his decision, his compliments to him and his “understanding girlfriend” unceasing. He expressed that he would first contact the Beijing side, because before sealing the deal the person in charge from CCTV would most likely want to see Qi Jing himself and have a face-to-face interview with him out of pure formality, to get to know him or whatsoever. During this time, he could take his time preparing to move.
As Qi Jing was preparing to leave, the woman was preparing to leave too.
She told them this plan as they visited the hospital to bring her food, the reason being, “I can’t let you two take care of me forever, and the hospitalisation fees for staying here day after day won’t make a small sum.”
As she spoke up to say so, Qi Jing was taken aback, nodding his head instinctively.
“You too have your own life.” She said faintly.
Shen Yan didn’t reply immediately.
Qi Jing on the other hand couldn’t sit still. After he got to know that Shen Yan told her about their relationship, the three of them never brought it up anymore, but everyone of them had a tacit understanding of it. Qi Jing was a bit overcautious before the woman, always feeling too ashamed to look her in the eyes. The woman on the other hand didn’t show any intention of avoiding him, even silently staring at him for a while at some times, then smiling with frustration, making it hard to fathom what she was thinking.
“Auntie, maybe it would be better for You to recuperate a bit longer,” If the reason was what he thought it was, then maybe it would be better for him to take an initiative and appear less before the woman, “In fact, soon I will have to go back to my job, so Shen Yan can spend more time with You.”
“He should accompany you more when he has time.” Yet he didn’t expect the woman to suddenly say something like this. Qi Jing was caught off guard, his cheeks flushing a bit.
“Mom…” At that time, Shen Yan also spoke up.
“Don’t worry, I’m really fine already.” What the woman said wasn’t wrong. After the recuperation these days, although her complexion couldn’t be said to be rosy, it also wasn’t sickly anymore. During the check-up, the doctor also said that her body functions were all mostly recovered and that she could already consider leaving the hospital.
Her stay at the provincial capital also wasn’t short, and she got a husband and new family after her remarriage, so she also couldn’t stay here for too long. Shen Yan also used up all the days of his leave and could only come over after his shift, so the commuting back and forth would be a bit inconvenient in the end.
Under the woman’s insisting, the discharge procedure was finished by the next day and Shen Yan also prepared her return ticket and all the meds needed for the recuperation period. In the morning, Qi Jing went to the company to make the preparations for his return to work, then hurried to eat the last lunch with her at noon before sending her out together with Shen Yan to the provincial bus station.
It was still an hour before the departure of the bus, so the three of them were sitting in the waiting room, silent.
The silence lasted until the woman suddenly asked, “Xiao Qi, are you still in contact with your family?”
Qi Jing was taken aback for a bit, then remembered that he had used the topic of being abandoned by his family to get closer to the woman at first. His face turned gloomy as he smiled bitterly and shook his head. “No,” He said quietly, “What I said to You before wasn’t a lie, Auntie. My family really doesn’t want me anymore. Last time I saw them was years ago, and we don’t even call each other more than some five times a year—after my car accident, we only talked twice.”
“What did they say the last time?”
“The last time…” Qi Jing hesitated, recalling the content of his conversation with his father.
【After you’re finished with the interview, call me back… Tell me if she did.】
“The last time was when I called my dad before I came to the hospital to see You,” He slowly clenched his hands on his knees, continuing with difficulty, “I told him that I need to interview a certain mother, ask her if she regretted…”
—If she regretted abandoning her child.
He didn’t finish his words, but the woman already understood what he meant to say—back then, Qi Jing already asked her this question. She turned her head to take a look at Shen Yan. His head was lowered as he sorted out her luggage and he didn’t say anything, so she took her gaze back.
“Then what did your dad say?” Her voice sounded even more quiet than usual.
“He wanted me to tell him the outcome after the interview ended.”
But… the so-called interview wasn’t in fact a real interview and at that time, he didn’t know if he should proceed with the conversation with the woman, so in the end, she neither confirmed or denied. And so, this matter dragged on all the way until now, still unsolved.
And the reason for it to remain unsolved, aside from the woman herself, was mostly because of his father’s motive.
“The way I see it, my dad probably wants me to hear from You that… You didn’t regret it.”
To let it prove that him having no regret was right.To let it prove that his son was only expecting too much.
Qi Jing wanted to smile self-mockingly, yet he felt that the corners of his lips were a bit stiff, unable to quirk up. If it really was like that… then he would rather never call him back in his life, to spare himself getting his face slapped and getting mocked for shooting himself in the foot.
The woman didn’t say anything for a long while. Just as Qi Jing was thinking that this topic has already passed, the woman’s next words left him dazed. “Call your dad back. After calling, you tell him that… That the mother you interviewed has a few words for him.”
Hearing this, Shen Yan stopped what he was doing and took a profound look at the woman.
The woman didn’t say anything anymore, only encouraging Qi Jing gently, “Call him.”
It took a few seconds for Qi Jing to get over his astonishment. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do, so he instinctively casted a perplexed glance at Shen Yan. At this time, Shen Yan slowly looked away from the woman, nodding his head towards him.
Qi Jing remained silent, only taking out his phone slowly after a while. He found the number, one he barely called a few times these years, yet didn’t forget a single digit of it. He tried pressing that green calling button twice with no avail, only pressing the right place by the third time—then he realised that this dull calling sound couldn’t no longer cover his suddenly urgent breathing.
With a ‘clack’, someone seemingly took the call.
“Hello?”
Qi Jing shook slightly—it was his father. The landline in their house had a caller display, so his phone number was surely displayed on it… He didn’t know if his father saw it before he took the call.
The answer was yes. He clearly did, because father’s voice was like the heavy and humid air before a rain, with a trace of overbearance to it. Before he could even speak, he asked coldly, “…How long do you need for an interview? Why do you only call now?”
Qi Jing opened his mouth to speak, then shut it back.
Seeing his son not speaking, Qi Jing’s father also seemed to mild down a bit, remaining silent with him, only coughing every one and then from his chronic laryngitis.
“That mother, the one I interviewed… She wishes to talk with You.” After a long while, he said so dazedly and without waiting for father’s response, he directly put the phone in the woman’s hands.
The woman received it without a word, then put it slowly by her ear.
“Hello, Mr Qi,” After saying her greetings, she went straight to the point, “I am that mother that got interviewed, right now I’m making this call with my son by my side… There’s a few words that I wish to tell You.”
A/N:
I really think that Shen mama should introduce herself like this: “I’m your son’s boyfriend’s mom”… (This kind of fighting fire with fire… What to do, it really has a bit of that something to it)
The previous chapter has been locked by JJ six or seven times already… I don’t have energy for it anymore. Those who haven’t seen ch112 yet, please go and read the author notes there… _(:3」∠)_
T/N:
Lucilla: I kinda wonder what the frustration in Shen Yan’s mother’s smile meant whenever she looked at Qi Jing meant… Was she frustrated because she still had a bit of a hard time getting used to her son being in a relationship with a man? Or maybe she was thinking of her own past relationship, and of how she also once wanted to be accepted and protected by her loved one? So, what are your thoughts guys?