CH 15

Chen Yuncheng walked all the way to the elevator, stopped and did not rush to press the elevator. He sent Ning Junyan a WeChat message: “Are you still at work?”

Ning Junyan quickly replied: “Yes.”

Chen Yuncheng typed: “Where is your office? Let me pick you up from work.” Then he raised his head and couldn’t help but smile.

This was the first time Chen Yuncheng had been to Ning Junyan’s office.

Ning Junyan was not there at the moment and had only left him the password to open the door, and told him to go to his office to rest first.

Before he came, Chen Yuncheng was still a little nervous, afraid that someone would stop him, and he couldn’t explain why he was here well. It turned out that finding Ning Junyan’s office doorplate was easier than expected, perhaps because the hospital was already too crowded with people, and no doctor or nurse who passed by cared who he was.

Ning Junyan’s office was not big, with a desk, a sofa, a wardrobe and bookcase, and a small refrigerator.

Chen Yuncheng didn’t touch anything of his stuff and just walked to the front of the bookcase. He looked at it and saw that it was full of medical books, many of which were in English.

At that moment, Chen Yuncheng really felt the gap between the two people after being separated from Ning Junyan for more than ten years.

In fact, if he thought about it carefully, there had been a gap between the two since childhood, but at that time Ning Junyan was not in his right mind, so Chen Yuncheng couldn’t feel it. He ran around outside with Ning Junyan every day and felt that he had a silly follower.

The foster father didn’t like Ning Junyan very much, since Chen Yuncheng wouldn’t bring back more money to the family than he would have if he was taking Ning Junyan out.

Perhaps at that time, the foster father had thought about sending Ning Junyan away, but then Ning Junyan was still there. Chen Yuncheng would think later that perhaps because Ning Junyan was a fool, no one wanted to buy a fool to raise him back, so the foster father had no choice but to keep him. Anyway, Chen Yuncheng was quite happy to have another person around to play with.

The little Ning Junyan was very obedient, although he only listened to Chen Yuncheng’s words. He was supposed to be a spoilt child, since he did not know how to do anything in life, and Chen Yuncheng even had to wash his clothes for him.

When Chen Yuncheng took a large basin to wash clothes in the yard, Ning Junyan squatted beside him and watched him. When Chen Yuncheng finished washing, Ning Junyan would run the water to help him clean his clothes together.

At this time, they were often scolded. The foster mother would stand at the door to scold them whenever she heard the water rattling too long from her room.

Ning Junyan had always ignored it, but Chen Yuncheng would quickly turn off the water at this time, carelessly washed the clothes twice and hung them. They were wearing old clothes that looked dirty no matter how clean they were.

When he returned to his room at night and closed the door, Chen Yuncheng felt the most relaxed.

He would turn on a lamp and read comic books on the bed. He rented the comic books outside, and secretly put a ten yuan deposit with the owner. After he finished reading one, he would go to change with another.

Chen Yuncheng didn’t even go to elementary school at that time, so he didn’t know many characters. He liked to read comic books because he could see pictures even if he couldn’t read. But Ning Junyan was different. Although he didn’t even know his own name, he knew a lot of words, at least those in comic books.

So when Chen Yuncheng was reading comics, Ning Junyan lay beside him and read with him, taught him the characters he didn’t know and taught him pinyin and stroke order.

Once, Chen Yuncheng borrowed a comic back, and when he opened it at night, he found out that it was not a teenage action comic but a girl’s romance comic. He was so disinterested but thought that he had better finish reading it after spending all the money, so he plopped down on the bed with Ning Junyan and flipped through page after page.

In the end, there were many scenes of the heroine and the heroine making out in the comic.

Chen Yuncheng was still too young to know what was going on in the world, so he only knew that they were making out, but he didn’t know exactly what was going on. The comic was quite subtle, so he was curious and turned to Ning Junyan and asked, “Can you have a baby like that?”

There was hardly any expression on Ning Junyan’s face as he stared at the cartoon and said, “I don’t know.”

Chen Yuncheng was curious, “If a man and a woman lie on the same bed and kiss and hug, they will have a child, why don’t foster father and foster mother have one?”

Ning Junyan folded his arms under his chin and said, “I don’t know.”

Chen Yuncheng felt bored, he closed the comic and said, “It doesn’t look good, let’s stop reading it.”

Ning Junyan said, “Oh.”

Chen Yuncheng turned over and lay on his back on the bed, quietly listening to the sound of the TV coming from the foster father’s room next door. After a while, he felt an itch in his heart while thinking about the pictures in the comics. He turned his head to look at Ning Junyan, “Did you choose the comic today?”

Ning Junyan who was also lying on his back at this time, replied, “No.”

Chen Yuncheng got the urge to tease him and said, “It’s you.”

Ning Junyan turned his dark eyes to look at him, and said softly, “It’s me.”

Chen Yuncheng smiled and sat up. He reached out and pulled out the comic book from under the pillow and flipping it open to cover Ning Junyan’s face.

Ning Junyan extended his hand and tried to lift it up.

Chen Yuncheng grabbed his hand and didn’t let him touch the comic book, so Ning Junyan didn’t move, and kept lying on his back with the book covering his face.

After a long time, Chen Yuncheng still remembered some of the pictures in that comic, but he and Ning Junyan never rented a girl’s comic to read again.

Chen Yuncheng waited for more than ten minutes inside Ning Junyan’s office, but he still hadn’t returned.

Chen Yuncheng did not rush him and just sat on the sofa quietly playing with his phone. The office was well heated and it didn’t take long for Chen Yuncheng to feel a little sleepy, so he put his phone aside, tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

He didn’t expect that he would fall asleep, and he slept for a long time. When he woke up again, he had a brief blank, unable to remember where he was.

That was until he opened his eyes and saw Ning Junyan sitting across from him.

Ning Junyan had taken off his jacket and was sitting behind his desk, looking at Chen Yuncheng all the time. When he saw him open his eyes, he said, “You’re awake?”

Chen Yuncheng still felt dazed from his sleep, and his arms were a bit numb after maintaining a fixed position on the sofa for a long time, so he first sat up, yawned, and then asked, “When did you come back?”

Ning Junyan said, “I just came back not long ago.”

Chen Yuncheng couldn’t help rubbing his eyes and asked him, “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Ning Junyan didn’t answer, and just asked, “Still sleepy?”

Chen Yuncheng smiled, “How long do I have to sleep then?”

Ning Junyan said, “It’s okay, I can wait for you.”

Chen Yuncheng glanced at him.

Ning Junyan looked very calm, and his tone of voice was also very flat that people could not feel his emotions, and sometimes could not understand what he was trying to say.

Chen Yuncheng stood up, pulled his wrinkled jacket, and said, “No, I’m already hungry, let’s go have dinner.”

Ning Junyan nodded and stood up too. He reached for the coat hanging on the hanger.

Chen Yuncheng suddenly said, “Do you remember when we rented the wrong comic book and rented a girl’s comic book when we were young?”

Ning Junyan said, “Well, Bewitched Treasures.”

“What?” Chen Yuncheng was stunned for a moment.

Ning Junyan said indifferently, “The title of that comic.”

Chen Yuncheng stood there a little dazed, “Really?” He couldn’t remember the name of the comic anymore, if it was really the name, why did he get it wrong then?

When he was still in a daze, Ning Junyan suddenly approached, raised his hand and hung a soft scarf around his neck.

Chen Yuncheng looked at him in surprise.

Ning Junyan just said, “Let’s go, let’s eat.”