CH 24

TL: it gets uh kinda explicit at the end, just a warning

After breakfast, Chen Jingchuan and Shen Dongyu laid on the bed again, where the residual warmth had not dissipated. Shen Dongyu couldn’t resist the energy left last night and fell asleep in Chen Jingchuan’s arms again.

Chen Jingchuan was half-lying, looking sideways at Shen Dongyu who was hugging his forearm and sleeping soundly. He slowly leaned towards the head of the bed, and the corners of his bloodshot eyes rose, but he didn’t make any sound.

The mobile phone buzzed on the bedside table. Chen Jingchuan stopped the ringtone of his mobile phone, then quietly got off the bed, walked to the balcony, closed the glass door, and then answered the annoying call.

“Hey, Mom.” Chen Jingchuan held the railing with one hand and looked at the city of Beijing, where night was about to fall.

Jiang Yuan first asked about Chen Jingchuan’s wrist injury, and then asked if Shen Dongyu was still in Beijing.

“He’s still with me, you and dad don’t have to worry.” Chen Jingchuan said.

Jiang Yuan was probably shopping. Chen Lu was walking beside her, panting while holding shopping bags, while Jiang Yuan was still urging him to walk faster.

Chen Jingchuan listened to his parents’ voices, chuckled, and then said, “When you come back, I have something to tell you and dad.”

“What’s going on?” Jiang Yuan immediately stopped urging Chen Lu and wondered anxiously whether Chen Jingchuan was going to tell them that he and his blind date a few days ago had made a decision.

“I’ll wait for you to come back. Make sure to pay attention to safety when you’re out.” After that, he hung up the phone, not giving Jiang Yuan any chance to guess.

The sound in his ears disappeared, and the sound of cars honking in the city became louder and louder. Dark clouds filled the sky. Occasionally, a few birds flew from the gaps in the city to the bridge built on the river, looking for a place to land before the heavy rain came.

Shen Dongyu didn’t wake up until the night. After waking up, Chen Jingchuan picked him up, washed and changed clothes, and then put him in the passenger seat with Shen Dongyu’s confused eyes.

“Where are we going?” Shen Dongyu didn’t like the feeling of being stuck in the car. The air wasn’t circulating, and he always felt like vomiting. Chen Jingchuan opened all four windows. For once, the air in the city was good due to the rain.

Shen Dongyu had been asking this question tirelessly since he got up, but Chen Jingchuan deliberately didn’t tell him.

“Are you going to tell me or not?” Shen Dongyu looked slightly unhappy and threatened, “I won’t go if you don’t tell me.”

Chen Jingchuan suddenly turned his head to look at the person who was lazily leaning on his seat and joked, “If I have a meal with Muxu’s future wife, will the young master be willing to give me a favor?”

“Hardly.” Shen Dongyu continued his words, thinking of Li Muxu’s arrogant face.

“Be good.” Chen Jingchuan grinned at him, then stretched out his hand to rub the top of his head, then leaned forward and gave Shen Dongyu a passionate kiss1technically it was a “wet kiss” but that sounds…. ya.

Chen Jingchuan took him to a restaurant. Shen Dongyu entered the private room and saw Li Muxu and the wife who would enter the wedding hall with him.

Yan Xin asked Shen Dongyu to sit next to her, avoiding awkward contact with Li Muxu.

The quarrel between Li Muxu and Chen Jingchuan seemed to only last in the morning, but Li Muxu still refused to talk to Shen Dongyu.

Yan Xin, more or less, had learned about them from Li Muxu on the way here. When she looked at Shen Dongyu, she didn’t feel that he was as extreme, dull, and rebellious as Li Muxu described.

Instead, there was some reserved shyness and some teeth that were only shown towards Chen Jingchuan.

Chen Jingchuan looked at the man who was eating seriously because he was hungry and smiled happily. He reached out and pinched the earlobe that Shen Dongyu exposed to him when he lowered his head to drink soup, and then continued to chat with Li Muxu about work matters as if no one was around.

At the end of the meal, Shen Dongyu’s cell phone was vibrating. However, the cell phone was hung on the chair behind his back, so the action of reaching out for the cell phone attracted the attention of the three people at the table.

“What’s wrong?” Chen Jingchuan asked him.

Li Muxu also looked over, but his eyes were still sharp enough for Shen Dongyu to understand easily.

This made Shen Dongyu speak intermittently. The embarrassment and unnaturalness relieved by chatting with Yan Xin just now hit his brain again: “It’s, nothing. It’s just that my phone rang.”

After saying that, he took out the mobile phone that was vibrating continuously in his pocket.

Chen Jingchuan quickly took the phone into his hand and looked at the caller ID before handing it to Shen Dongyu: “It’s Shuran jie.”

Perhaps because of the worries that Shen Shuran learned not long ago, this phone call made Shen Dongyu’s nerves obviously tense. He quickly left the private room and walked along the winding corridor to the hotel’s platform garden.

“En.” Shen Dongyu agreed to Shen Shuran’s instructions: “I know.”

The camellias were in full bloom, so much so that when they were intentionally tied into a bunch, they looked a bit like fake flowers, which drove Shen Dongyu to step forward and touch the petals before he could tell they were real.

“Jiejie…” Shen Dongyu stood up straight, looked at the flickering lights of the aircraft’s wings over the distant city, and expressed his worried emotions with difficulty: “Will Auntie Jiang Yuan blame me?”

Shen Shuran was working overtime in her office in Guangdong. Sitting in the darkness without turning on the lights, she sighed slightly and told Shen Dongyu the difficult problem that she couldn’t grasp: “I don’t know, A’Yu.”

It was like the moment she found out. Confused and collapsed, without the courage to face it.

Shen Dongyu turned back slowly, hoping to wait for Chen Jingchuan’s call to say dinner was over, so that he wouldn’t have to answer a made-up excuse in front of Li Muxu, and would have to work hard to greet him with a smile.

Li Muxu didn’t have to be willing to look him in the eye, because Shen Dongyu didn’t like him either.

In fact, before Shen Dongyu had gone far, Li Muxu couldn’t resist the urge to gossip, but Chen Jingchuan stopped him in time.

Shen Dongyu didn’t go back for a long time. After Chen Jingchuan stood up again and clinked glasses with Yan Xin, he got up and left the room, went to the platform garden and the lobby, and finally found Shen Dongyu next to the pillar at the door.

He rested his forehead against the pillar, his hands hanging on the hem of his trousers, looking at the dirt left by stepping on the marble floor, closing his eyes for a long time and then opening them again, over and over again.

It was also this kind of noisy yet ordinary day, that could be found by rummaging through all 365 days in a calendar, that could be quickly found in memories, that put a heavy stress on the heart. A day that could make people zone out before suddenly pulling them back to clarity, where Shen Dongyu and Chen Jingchuan were thinking about the same things.2Basically how they were thinking about the same memories/events

On that day, Shen Dongyu smoked on the steps in front of the hotel, four or five cigarettes.

When it was time to say goodbye, there was a strong smell of smoke when he opened his mouth. Yan Xin hugged him and said see you next time, you have to come to the wedding.

Shen Dongyu politely agreed and watched them leave quietly.

Looking back, Shen Dongyu hugged Chen Jingchuan, who was much taller than him and he couldn’t catch up to. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in the scent of Chen Jingchuan, which was familiar and unforgettable.

“You need to quit smoking.” Chen Jingchuan stroked his back and said calmly.

Shen Dongyu hummed softly in his arms, but soon, when Chen Jingchuan was about to leave, he stretched out his neck and kissed the side of Chen Jingchuan’s neck with his cool and smoky breath.

He thought it was just a gentle touch, but he didn’t expect him to show his teeth and bite Chen Jingchuan’s aorta, wrapped in flesh and blood, and felt the beating of blood.

“I’m sorry.” Shen Dongyu let go of his wet lips, leaned into Chen Jingchuan’s arms, looked into the void of the sky with drooping eyelashes, and murmured to himself.

Chen Jingchuan was confused: “What are you apologizing for?”

“Even jiejie didn’t know if Auntie Jiang Yuan would approve of us being together.” Shen Dongyu felt that he might have done something that left Chen Jingchuan with no way out.

Chen Jingchuan completely understood Shen Dongyu’s words and couldn’t help but frown and wanted to laugh. But at the same time, he realized something else: “What did Shuran jie say to you?”

“Nothing.” Shen Dongyu closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. “I’m just afraid.”

Chen Jingchuan straightened Shen Dongyu’s body, supported his listless head, kissed his downward lips, then hugged him harder than Shen Dongyu hugged him, and said in his ear, “I’ll go talk to them. Don’t worry, don’t be afraid.”

Maybe the rainy night was too cool, that made the confused troubles seem to have hope. The wind blowing from outside the gauze curtain lifted off the moonlight and laughter.

Shen Dongyu was very sensitive everywhere, so he couldn’t explore too quickly. He could only slowly, calm down his emotions, and then gently press against his body and sweat, and then toss and turn in his deepest parts. Under this unbearable love, only sounds of gasps and moans could be heard.

It was Chen Jingchuan’s lack of words. It was Shen Dongyu’s lack of sense of security since childhood. It seemed that, in every setting, whether or not love was strong enough could only be proven by depth and dampness.

TL: you guys don’t know how hard it was for me to translate that last part…