chapter 54 - got a status

Perhaps because Zhuang Yan took good care of him, Xie Ning’s fever went down the next day.

Zhuang Yan breathed a sigh of relief, and Xie Ning breathed a sigh of relief as well.

If he took any longer to recover, Zhuang Yan would have pulled him to the hospital.

After Xie Ning’s fever went down, Zhuang Yan wanted to take him to get a new phone.

That day at the bus stop, Xie Ning’s phone screen was shattered into a million pieces and maybe because water got into it, it wouldn’t turn on no matter what they tried.

Repairing it must take a lot of money and time.

Zhuang Yan was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to contact Xie Ning, so he wanted to take him to get a new one first.

Xie Ning looked at the date today, then suddenly said, “There’s no rush. Let’s go in a couple days.”

Zhuang Yan frowned. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to find you if you run around recklessly again.”

Xie Ning raised both of his hands and promised, “I won’t run around recklessly anymore.”

Zhuang Yan glanced at him. “You’re not credible anymore to me.”

Xie Ning’s eyes widened. “I didn’t run around recklessly before, so what happened to my credibility?”

Zhuang Yan said decisively, “What do you mean, you didn’t?”

Xie Ning mumbled, “Except for last time.”

Zhuang Yan raised his eyebrows and looked at him.

Xie Ning, “Why don’t you give an example, then?”

Zhuang Yan was stumped for a second.

He thought for a moment and really couldn’t think of a time where Xie Ning ran around recklessly.

Xie Ning wasn’t someone who liked to run outside in the first place. If you give him a computer and drawing tablet, he could stay in the room and draw until the end of time.

Even if you wanted to take him outside, he might not even be willing to, much less going outside because he wanted to.

But this fact was nothing in front of Zhuang Yan’s determination.

He pondered quickly and said, “Who was the one who couldn’t sleep well in the middle of the night last time, ran to the art studio, and then was caught?”

Xie Ning looked at him indignantly. “E-even this counts?”

“Of course it counts.” Zhuang Yan said shamelessly.

“...” Xie Ning was dumbfounded for a moment. “I didn’t even get out the door of the house.”

Zhuang Yan looked at him, calm and composed. “Who said that it’s not considered running around just because you didn’t exit the door of the house? Is it not running around when you aren’t staying in your room in the middle of the night?”

Xie Ning: “...”

Zhuang Yan didn’t wait for him to react and continued to say, “Of course, it’s not just this one time.”

Xie Ning’s eyes widened. “There’s more?”

Zhuang Yan nodded. “That time at QiuMing Lake too.”

Xie Ning defended himself, saying, “I went to sketch that time, and wasn’t running around randomly.”

Zhuang Yan gave a short laugh. “You went to the lakeside in the middle of winter to sketch?”

“...”

Xie Ning was indignant. What’s wrong with sketching in the winter? Who said that you can’t sketch in the winter?

Zhuang Yan, however, was being completely unreasonable and said, “You’re normally afraid of the cold, yet you went to the lakeside when cold is in the air and the ground is frozen to sit in the wind? What would you do if you got a cold from your antics?”

“I didn’t get sick that time,” Xie Ning couldn’t help but say.

He was quiet for a little, and finally thought of something to say. “And if it wasn’t for me going to the lakeside that day to sketch, I wouldn’t have met you.”

Zhuang Yan looked at him for a while, then gave him a smile. “Since that’s the case, then I won’t count that time.”

Xie Ning slowly said, “There’s still more?”

Zhuang Yan racked his brains in a circle and couldn’t think of anything else for a long while, so he could only say, “Last time, I said it was cold outside and told you to go inside. You didn’t listen to me and ended up bumping into Xu Qing.”

He started to bring up old things. “And, you clearly like me, but you keep me hanging and won’t give me a clear answer. Really duplicitous!”

Xie Ning: I’m not, I didn’t, don’t speak nonsense.

Zhuang Yan scraped the tip of Xie Ning’s nose affectionately. “I’ll save you some face by not mentioning the rest. Anyways, you’ve lost your credibility with me.”

Xie Ning: “...There just isn’t anything else, right?”

Zhuang Yan’s current actions were similar to those of a couple that was quarreling for no reason, so Xie Ning was confused at the moment.

Zhuang Yan took the chance to give him a kiss, and changed the subject, saying, “Buying a phone isn’t a hassle. It’s just ordering it online, and even if you don’t trust online shopping, you can find someone to bring one over. Why must we wait two days?”

Xie Ning explained, “In two days, someone’s going to give me a phone.”

Zhuang Yan was suddenly on the alert. “Who?!”

“Yan Xi.” Xie Ning glanced at him and slowly said, “It’s almost my birthday, and he gives me a phone as a present every year.”

Zhuang Yan paused for a moment. He didn’t know if he should pay attention to Xie Ning’s birthday or if he should complain that gifting a phone every year is some strange operation.

He couldn’t hold back, and frowned to say, “A cell phone...as a birthday present? And every year?”

Xie Ning nodded.

A relatively large problem in everyone’s life is deciding what to give a friend for their birthday present.

The price and the feelings of friendship must be there. Yan Xi had lost hair over this predicament.

As for why he decided on gifting a phone in the end, the responsibility lies with Xie Ning.

His personality is easygoing, and he doesn’t like to socialize. To him, a phone was only useful to call and to text, so he could use one phone for many years.

Later on, Yan Xi couldn’t stand it anymore, and simply gave him the newest phone model every year to remind him to update phones.

Zhuang Yan, after listening to the whole story, asked him, “When exactly is your birthday?”

Xie Ning said a date, and Zhuang Yan calculated that it was exactly a week before the film’s shooting started.

He suddenly felt like the time he and Xie Ning knew each other was much too short.

Even if they were together from morning till night, and he knew Xie Ning’s height, weight, hobbies, and tastes very well, there were still many things that he was powerless about.

For example, the annual birthday. If they don’t normally mention this topic, then most people wouldn’t take the initiative to think about it.

Another example, Xie Ning’s past…

Yan Xi already knew some things, but Zhuang Yan himself had to investigate and observe for a long time before he knew the truth.

Zhuang Yan lowered his gaze. “Sometimes I feel like I met you too late and missed a lot of good, beautiful times in my life.”

Xie Ning seemed startled, and after a while, he whispered, “It’s not too late.”

“I think it’s too late.” Zhuang Yan shook his head and said, “If I didn’t go abroad, we might have been together in university, and children could be running all around by now.”

If the Zhuang family and Xie family were closer, and their parents’ generation were closer, then he and Xie Ning might have known each other since childhood, playing together as innocent playmates.

And he wouldn’t have missed Xie Ning’s past two decades.

Xie Ning blushed a little after hearing this. “What children? We’re both men.”

Zhuang Yan asked, “Then do you like children? If you don’t like them, then forget it, but if you do, we can adopt a child after we get married.”

Xie Ning was dumbfounded again.

Zhuang Yan spoke too naturally about marriage, as if they had already talked about marriage before and were only missing the part where they got the marriage certificate.

Xie Ning pondered: Was this progress too fast?

Zhuang Yan, seeing him silent, asked, “Do you like boys or girls?”

Xie Ning replied subconsciously, “I’m fine with anything.”

After he answered, he felt like something was wrong and was afraid that Zhuang Yan would actually get him a child, so he hurriedly said, “No...I don’t want to raise a child.”

Zhuang Yan asked, “You don’t like children?”

Xie Ning shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t like them, but I’ve never thought about raising children before.”

He thought about it and said, “From the day I discovered my sexuality, I’d never thought about having children, and I don’t know how to be someone’s parent.”

He feels more out of place than a sense of belonging in his family. When he was little, he thought his family should be harmonious and happy, but who would have known that his world turned upside down and somehow turned into him being almost strangers with his own parents.

Xia Wan and Xie Jing failed to give him a good example, so he didn’t know what he would do as a parent.

He thought, with the way things have turned out, he probably wasn’t an up-to-standard child, and most likely wouldn’t become an up-to-standard parent.

Zhuang Yan squinted and said, “Then we don’t have to have children. It’s pretty good to live in a world with just the two of us.”

Xie Ning quietly said, his face red, “...what world with just the two of us?”

Zhuag Yan said again, “Actually, I think children are pretty troublesome. It’s already hard enough for me to raise you.”

Xie Ning stared at him with widened eyes. “Why do you say you’re...raising me?”

Zhuang Yan confidently said, “Right now, are you not living in my house!”

Xie Ning: “Yes.”

Zhuang Yan: “Right now, aren’t you eating the food I cooked!”

Xie Ning: “Yes.”

Zhuang Yan: “Right now, don’t I pick you up and drop you off whenever you need to go out!”

Xie Ning:” “Yes.”

Zhuang Yan squinted at him again and asked, “Then isn’t that me raising you?”

Xie Ning was speechless for a moment. “...Yes.”

Zhuang Yan was satisfied, and his mind began to wander. “Why don’t we raise rabbits together in the future instead? They’re cute, soft, and not hard to take care of.”

Xie Ning choked. “What?”

Zhuang Yan nodded. “Just treat them like your children.”

Xie Ning: “...”

He couldn’t fight back and say that he wanted to raise a blue whale, right…

His final struggle was to say, “Aren’t our topics a little too out of shape?”

Zhuang Yan said, “What were we talking about in the beginning?”

Oh, his birthday.

Zhuang Yan asked him, “How are you planning on celebrating your birthday?”

Xie Ning replied under his stare. “Return to the large compound...and celebrate it with my grandpa, I guess.”

Zhuang Yan frowned lightly.

Xie Ning knew that he wasn’t satisfied with such an arrangement, and said, “I celebrate it like this every year...but I’ll also invite some good friends to the large compound to eat together.”

Zhuang Yan’s eyes lit up. “Then am I among those that are invited?”

Xie Ning: “...Yes.”

Zhuang Yan asked, “Who else is there?”

Xie Ning said, “My parents...and some close relatives might also be there.”

Zhuang Yan smiled. “So this time, I can meet your parents again?”

Xie Ning: “...”

Zhuang Yan wasn’t willing to let this go, and raised his eyebrows to ask, “Then what’s my status? A good friend of yours?”

Xie Ning moved his lips, but couldn’t say anything.

Zhuang Yan reached out his hand, squeezed his cheeks, and narrowed his eyes a bit. “Will you say it?”

Xie Ning looked to the side. “...”

Zhuang Yan saw his slowly reddening ear tips, and didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. “No, why do you still get embarrassed so easily?”

Xie Ning was stubborn. “I’m not embarrassed!”

“Yes, yes, you’re not.” Zhuang Yan looked at his nearly-burning face, but decided to go along with his words. “Then are you going to say it or not?”

Xie Ning immediately closed his mouth.

Mr. Rabbit wasn’t going to be teased, so Zhuang Yan could only find another way to do it.

The two of them were currently sitting on the sofa and chatting. Zhuang Yan grabbed his wrist and pulled Xie Ning into his embrace.

Xie Ning, caught off guard, turned his body because of this surprise attack.

Right afterwards, Zhuang Yan hugged his waist and turned sharply, making him fall completely into his arms.

Xie Ning’s eyes widened. “!!!”

“You still won’t say it?” Zhuang Yan raised his eyebrows.

Xie Ning was now sitting on his lap, and the lower half of their bodies were practically pressed together.

Because they were at home, they were both wearing loose and comfortable pajamas. The fabric was soft, but they weren’t able to block the warmth that came from their intimately connected thighs.

Xie Ning’s entire body slowly began to heat up.

Zhuang Yan curled the corner of his lip and reached his hand out to cup Xie Ning’s chin, and lifted it towards him so that they were staring at each other.

Xie Ning felt like every part of his body, from head to toe, didn’t belong to him and was floating in the air.

The only thing he felt was heat.

It was too hot.

His body was very hot, and Zhuang Yan’s body was hot as well.

The way Zhuang Yan was looking at him...was even hotter.

Xie Ning murmured, “...Say what?”

Zhuang Yan slowly lowered his head, and their foreheads touched until their breaths intermingled. “Say what I am to you.”

And then the kiss landed.

It started from the forehead, slid past his eyebrows, and landed on his eyes.

Xie Ning closed his eyes reflexively.

Immediately afterwards, his lips were touched by someone else’s, slowly sucking and biting.

Xie Ning couldn’t help but tremble, and his hands irresponsibly clung to Zhuang Yan’s neck.

The kiss was too hot and carried a sense of wanting to swallow Xie Ning whole. After the kiss, Xie Ning’s entire body went soft and collapsed into Zhuang Yan’s arms.

After holding Xie Ning and bullying him in various ways, Zhuang Yan finally heard the word “boyfriend” from Xie Ning’s mouth, and was satisfied.

Although his voice was as soft as a fly’s...he was still given a proper status.

Zhuang Yan thought, in his good mood, that although he was still a boyfriend right now, he could still be promoted to a fiancè.

Being proposed to on a birthday was probably still quite romantic.

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Author’s Note: I raised my head and looked at the chapter title...sigh.

Twitter: @jiyangtrans