The Scorching Sun - 44
Yan Lie carried his mattress into the living room and chose a spot near the window. That way, when he pulled back the curtains, he’d be able to watch the next morning’s sun rise from behind the high-rises.
Fang Zhuo brought him two brand-new quilts and helped him make the bed.
By the time they finished, it was already two or three in the morning.
Even with two layers of quilts, the rental apartment was still a little damp and chilly without heating. And without a hot-water bottle, it took a long while after getting into bed for his hands and feet to warm up.
Fortunately, he’d had a little alcohol earlier. It was coursing through his body with a spreading warmth, shielding him, at least somewhat, from the bite of winter.
Yan Lie hadn’t taken off his coat. He sat against the wall, removed his gloves, and tapped away at his phone.
Her usual sleep schedule was long gone, and Fang Zhuo wasn’t sleepy in the slightest. The air outside the quilts was painfully cold, she curled herself into a ball and had no desire to move.
The phone on the table kept vibrating. Then came three tentative knocks from the other side of the wall. There was no need to guess who the strange person looking for someone to chat with in the middle of the night was.
Fang Zhuo had initially planned to pretend she was already asleep. After hesitating for a long while, she finally picked up her phone and glanced at the messages.
They Call Me Lie: Are you asleep?
Little Sun: ? No.
They Call Me Lie: Wanna chat?
Little Sun: Cold.
They Call Me Lie: Type under the covers. Pop your head out every now and then to get some air.
Fang Zhuo thought, Why would I do something that stupid? Even the one hand left outside the covers had gone cold and stiff within minutes.
Little Sun: Can't you sleep?
They Call Me Lie: I can't.
Little Sun: ?
They Call Me Lie: Could you stop being so ridiculously brief? Typing on QQ doesn't cost extra data.
But it does cost me a hand!
They Call Me Lie: It's my first time drinking alcohol today. Why is it making me more awake? I'm ridiculously hyper right now.
They Call Me Lie: Do you think I'm drunk?
Little Sun: You're not drunk.
Little Sun: But you are definitely acting drunk. [Bald Head]
They Call Me Lie: [Hehehe]
They Call Me Lie: I was browsing an online shop just now and came across one that sells chicken coops. Why is it recommending a store like that to me?
They Call Me Lie: [Image] Do you think little baldy would like this?
It was a chicken coop woven from straw.
Fang Zhuo had no idea whether Little Baldy would like it, but she had already realized that Yan Lie’s love for the Chicken Mascot was remarkably superficial.
Every now and then, when he happened to remember it, he’d buy it a house. When he forgot about it, he couldn’t even be bothered to care whether it was male or female.
She wasn’t going to fall for his tricks again.
Fang Zhuo expressed her disapproval with silence, hoping Yan Lie would figure it out himself.
Her phone continued to vibrate. One message after another popped onto the glowing screen, relentlessly testing Fang Zhuo’s patience in the stillness of the night.
They Call Me Lie: Actually, I was trying to pick out a New Year’s gift for you, but I don't know what you'd accept.
They Call Me Lie: I don't know if you'd accept anything, and I don't know what you'd be willing to accept, but I want to give you something.
He even sounded a little aggrieved.
When it became clear that he had no intention of stopping anytime soon, Fang Zhuo finally couldn't take it anymore. She snatched her coat from beside the bed and threw it over her shoulders, shivering from the cold as she hurriedly grabbed her quilt and ran out of the room.
When she emerged, Yan Lie was blowing warm air into his palms. He looked up at the sight of her, straightened, and grinned. "Huh? Did you feel my summoning?"
Fang Zhuo said, "You're so annoying!"
Ye Yuncheng was already asleep, so they kept their voices very low.
Yan Lie scooted over and rolled up his own quilt, making a little room for Fang Zhuo.
She sat down and said helplessly, "All right. What else did you want to say?"
Yan Lie lowered his head and went back to typing.
Fang Zhuo reached for his phone, laughing despite herself. "What could you possibly have to say that you can't say to my face? I didn't even bring my phone out!"
"I'm looking for my to-do list and my shopping cart!"
Fang Zhuo stood up to leave, but Yan Lie hurriedly caught hold of her quilt and admitted defeat. "Fine. I'm not looking anymore."
The two of them sat quietly, the vast tranquil darkness of night stretching out behind them.
Yan Lie gathered his thoughts for a moment, then sighed and confessed, "I don't actually have anything important to say. I just can't sleep, and I wanted someone to talk to."
"Then talk."
Yan Lie immediately had no idea what to say.
He couldn't think.
Whenever Fang Zhuo was beside him and actually gave him the chance to talk, his mind went blank. Sitting there with her already felt good enough. He was afraid that if he relaxed too much, something strange and inappropriate might slip out.
After waiting a while and realizing he still wasn't going to speak, Fang Zhuo softened her voice and asked him instead, "Why don't you want to go home? Even if you had to sleep on the floor at your own place, it'd be more comfortable than here, wouldn't it?"
Yan Lie froze. Several seconds passed before he answered, "I don't want to go back."
"If you don't want to answer, you don't have to." Fang Zhuo didn't turn to look at him. Her voice was so calm it almost sounded like she was talking to herself. "Are your parents not good to you?"
"It's not that they're bad..." Yan Lie tipped his head back and thought for a moment. "It's hard to explain."
Fang Zhuo didn't know what a normal family was supposed to be like, but she knew one thing. Whatever kind of family Yan Lie had, it clearly wasn't one he liked.
She remembered the last time she'd run into Yan Chengli, and the almost unrestrained reaction Yan Lie had shown. Going over the memory carefully, she decided Yan Chengli was probably the kind of person who didn't know how to communicate and was rather domineering, someone even a person as capable as Yan Lie couldn't deal with.
Fang Zhuo asked, "Have you ever told him? That you don't like it?"
The breathing beside her grew slow and steady. Just when Fang Zhuo thought he'd fallen asleep, he finally said in a low voice, "There's no way to tell them. They wouldn't understand."
Fang Zhuo was at a loss. "Really?" Fang Yiming, at least, seemed to have a fair amount of self-awareness.
After a while, Yan Lie said softly, "I'll tell you, but by tomorrow, you have to forget all of it."
"Okay."
"And if there's anything you don't understand, you can't ask why."
"Fine."
Yan Lie considered where he should begin.
"They have a lot of important things in their lives, and every single one of them comes before me. It's been that way since I was little. They'd leave me home alone, then come back late at night, drunk."
They always had plenty of excuses, hardships, and wisdom earned from experience. A child's feelings simply didn't matter enough to them.
"Life forced us into it" was a perfectly good excuse. It gave them every right to refuse to understand him, while still expecting him to understand them.
But at heart, he was selfish too. He couldn't be that magnanimous.
"When people hit a low point, nothing goes smoothly. They'd use the alcohol as an excuse to argue and fight, smashing things around the house. But whenever they tore into each other, they'd suddenly seem completely sober. I don't know what alcohol really is. How can it strip a person down until only the worst part of them is left?"
Fang Zhuo had never been drunk either. She couldn't understand why anyone would willingly let their reason slip away until they could no longer control themselves, instinct told her that wasn't how it was supposed to be.
She was a very attentive listener, responding to every description with nothing more than a quiet nod.
Yan Lie raised a hand and rubbed his temple. There was still a faint roughness against one patch of skin, hidden beneath his bangs.
He liked touching that old injury while thinking about all sorts of chaotic things. It had become a habit, one that could quickly bring him back to a state of rationality and cold detachment.
"When I was little, I lived with my grandma for several years, so I wasn't close to them. They tried to build a relationship with me. It lasted for a very short time. Then they realized it wasn't working. I wasn't an obedient child, they gave up and devoted themselves completely to pursuing their careers."
It had been the worst period of his life, practically a time of utter chaos.
He'd even wondered whether one of the reasons they'd chosen to leave A City and start over elsewhere was because they didn't know how to face him.
Yan Lie gave a bitter, self-mocking laugh. "I'm not a vending machine. They can't just put in a coin and expect me to dispense whatever they want. Truth is, they never wanted that much of a relationship with me in the first place."
Fang Zhuo tried hard to think of something to say, but she remained silent. She'd never been good at dealing with things like this and had no idea what kind of comfort she was supposed to offer.
Given her limited social experience, the best and most common approach might have been to show Yan Lie just how terrible Fang Yiming was, proving that he wasn't the only unlucky person in the world. But Fang Zhuo knew that wasn't the kind of comfort Yan Lie needed.
"I don't understand," Yan Lie said.
The hardships they'd endured had been real. When they were young, they'd genuinely spent half their lives working themselves to the bone for financial freedom.
What Yan Lie couldn't understand was this: that goal had been so difficult, yet they'd spent years, even decades, pursuing it until they achieved it. So why did their patience fail when it came to him? Why did he seem like someone not worth investing in, someone who simply didn't matter?
"Forget it." Yan Lie sighed. "They just want me to grow up and learn to understand things on my own."
Fang Zhuo finally found something she could agree with and hurriedly said, "You're already very sensible. An ideal son... Not that I want to be your father."
Yan Lie generously chose not to dwell on her slip of the tongue. In the darkness, he called her name.
"Fang Zhuo."
"Hm?"
Yan Lie turned toward her and looked into her eyes. "Do you think having thoughts like these makes me... pathetic?"
Fang Zhuo raised her voice slightly. "Okay, are you going to start accusing me now?"
The corners of Yan Lie's mouth lifted. "Then I'll give you a chance to defend yourself."
"I don't need one!" Fang Zhuo said. "There is nothing to defend. Why would I defend myself?"
Yan Lie slid farther down beneath the quilt and settled his head against the soft pillow, calling her name again.
"Fang Zhuo."
"Hm?"
With complete innocence, Yan Lie asked, "So will you patiently work on raising my affection level?"
Fang Zhuo asked, "How much do I have right now?"
Yan Lie thought about it. "A whole lot."
"That's good." Fang Zhuo asked, "It shouldn't be too hard to raise it. When did I get all those points?"
Yan Lie mentally searched through his entire history with her before letting out a quiet laugh.
"I gave them to you myself.”
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