Don’t Be a Kept Man

hich Chen Yi immediately followed up with, 

“My expertise is in square dancing2.
If anyone has the interest, come find me.”

The moment his words dropped, the audience was at first shocked and then their next reaction was to burst out in laughter.
Chen Xiao Meng on one hand was laughing, and on the other she was discreetly giving the back of Zhang Duo the middle finger and quietly cursing him, 

“Trash!”

Fu Xiu Nian nodded his head, thinking just the same.

Deng Zhan Ting herself seemed to be partial to classical dances, and she smiled, thanked the judges for their consideration and chose to join Tong Lao-shi’s team. 

By the end, there were eight members under each judge; each of them paired up and had to come up with a new program within one week, continuing through to the next elimination round.

The filming session for the program was almost done, and Chen Yi was inadvertently looking back, when he spotted a man right beside Chen Xiao Meng.
And as Fu Xiu Nian was focusing on Chen Yi with everything he had, their eyes locked onto each other the moment Chen Yi looked at him.

Just one glance, and Chen Yi could immediately recognize Fu Xiu Nian.
He paused and then a smile began to grow widely on his face.
He discreetly gave a hand signal for Fu Xiu Nian to wait for him after this.

Fu Xiu Nian could only nod his head.

When the program finished filming, the audience began to disperse.
Chen Xiao Meng’s leg wasn’t fully healed, and Chen Yi rarely let her go out.
This time she had secretly left the house without Chen Yi’s permission, and seeing that it was ending, she quickly grabbed her crutches, ready to scatter.
Yet when she stood up, she fell right back into her seat.
Fu Xiu Nian subconsciously stood to hold her, 

“Um…… You seem to be Chen Yi’s sister.
Do you want to wait for him?”

Chen Xiao Meng did not think that Fu Xiu Nian could recognize her and immediately smiled and waved her hands, 

“No worries.
When he sees me later, he’s going to scold me with no end in sight.
I’ll call for a taxi up front, and I’ll get home pretty fast.”

Filming the program took about five hours and a normal person’s legs would have gone numb, so there was no doubt that Chen Xiao Meng would have an even worse experience.
Seeing that he couldn’t hold her back, Fu Xiu Nian did not feel comfortable enough to let her go by herself and so followed her all the way to the taxi.

When Chen Xiao Meng got into the taxi, she thanked him through the window, 

“Thank you! Yi-Ge is really nice.
Please continue to support him in the future!”

Fu Xiu Nian nodded his head and waved her goodbye.

The temperature was getting very cold in the late autumn, but the pedestrians moving on the streets had not diminished any less.
The traffic lights on the roads were shining with bright colours, illuminating the night, and the cars flew past nonstop, seemingly even more boisterous and lively than in the day.

Chen Yi let Ling Dang go back first by herself, and he himself went to Fu Xiu Nian’s car.
When he opened the car door and stepped in, he brought with him a breeze of cold air and a few seconds later, it disappeared into nothingness.

Chen Yi’s mouth was still eating a lollipop, but as it was almost done, he was really just biting the white stick.
In the eyes of others, and for those from far away, it looked like he was smoking.
Fu Xiu Nian reached out to pull that stick out of his mouth and passed a newly opened lollipop over to him, 

“Don’t bite onto the plastic stick.
It’s toxic.”

Chen Yi smirked, 

“Can it be more toxic than my mouth huh?”

Fu Xiu Nian wanted to laugh at that, but instead he turned on the car as he said, 

“Today was a rare sight for me to see you compliment someone.
That Zhang Duo is only passable with his dancing, always doing something wacky.
When he first debuted, he had been roasted for that, but he achieved his bucket of gold when he went out of the country.
Half of his fame is due to his marketing team driving it up.”

Chen Yi didn’t understand this and so he didn’t make any judgment.
He thought about something else however, 

“The person sitting beside you today was my sister.”

Fu Xiu Nian shook his head in laughter, 

“I know, so I sat there all day, not daring to speak at all.
When the program sent off its viewers, she had gone off by herself to call for a taxi.”

Chen Yi sighed and flicked off the dust on his pants, 

“Why are you so afraid? She just sent me a message.
Probably afraid that I would scold her as I normally don’t let her go out.”

And then asked, 

“Right, how’s your uncle doing?”

The shadows of trees were flying quickly past the car windows and Fu Xiu Nian’s clean and gentle jade-like face fell halfway into the shadows.
Yet the warm smile on his face dispersed some of its darkness, 

“Not bad.
The doctor said he needs to cut off smoking, but he’s not happy.
He’s been smoking since he was a teen and so to make him stop is harder to accept than if you were to take away his life.”

Chen Yi bit the candy in his mouth into shards and licked around his mouth to taste the flavour, 

“Life is more important isn’t it?”

Fu Xiu Nian drove the car all the way to the gates of Chen Yi’s community, and after he parked in front of the gates, he lay over the wheel, looking up at him.
After a while, he finally said, 

“It’s late.
Go back now, otherwise your family will worry about you.”

His heart was still yearning and not willing, but his hands reached out to push Chen Yi away.
The only exception was his hands tightening on Chen Yi’s sleeves in the dark, just like a cat who wouldn’t leave his master’s side.

Chen Yi thought that to be in a relationship, being so secretive was indeed very troublesome.
His heart started to silently calculate which way to go public would be the best.
He hooked Fu Xiu Nian by the chin to kiss him and then gently ruffled his hair as he said, 

“Then I’ll go now.
Be careful when you drive back.”

The community was very quiet and the faint yellow street lamps made the road feel even colder.
Normally there would only be the rare car flying by, and so when Chen Yi opened the car door to step out, his eyes immediately sharpened up.
His footsteps slowed and his eyes seemed to look somewhere far away.

Away from the community gates, about a hundred metres away, a black car was silently parked.
Through its window, there seemed to be the suspicious shadow of a camera and seeing Chen Yi look over, it quickly moved away.

Chen Yi seemed to think of something then and he suddenly smiled.
He leaned against the car, with his arms above the window and facing Fu Xiu Nian sitting inside, and hooked his fingers at him, 

“Come out.”

Fu Xiu Nian didn’t understand what was going on and opened the door to get out, 

“What?”

Chen Yi didn’t speak and only reached out to pull him into his embrace.
His chin fell against Fu Xiu Nian’s soft hair and nudged against him.
There was a streetlamp behind him, and in the faint yellow light showering down, dropping softly onto his shoulders, it warmed up and gentled his cold and stoic face.

Fu Xiu Nian was so mesmerized by him that his mind blanked out.
After a while he finally came back to his senses and he reached out to grab Chen Yi by the collar and asked, 

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

For some reason, Fu Xiu Nian’s pockets started to always have something inside.
Chen Yi slipped his hand inside Fu Xiu Nian’s outer pocket and without even needing to guess, he had already patted out a piece of candy.

Fu Xiu Nian smiled, revealing his white teeth, 

“Eat less.
You’re going to get toothaches.”

“If your pockets didn’t hold candy, then I wouldn’t have eaten any.”

Chen Yi squinted his eyes, eyes that were playful and full of other thoughts more suitable for the night, and nodded to show that he knew.
He leaned down to kiss Fu Xiu Nian, as if he called him out just to grab a piece of candy.

“Then I’ll head home.”

“Hmm.
Be careful on the road.”

Fu Xiu Nian drove the car away and Chen Yi watched him leave, eyes never leaving that shadow within the darkness, before finally turning around to head back into his house.

 

 

Notes:

 

*1 This is a proverb/idiom saying that basically means humans must look upwards/head upwards as that is their will and passion to go beyond what they can do, to always keep bettering themselves, to keep improving and becoming better, “heading up” for a better place to be in versus water flowing downwards is a “natural” rule because that’s how nature is, with gravity and all scientific rules of how things are, water will always naturally be flowing downwards.
And so this becomes where if you don’t do anything, you will just be like water, following what it’s “supposed” to be/following the flow whereas as humans, we should really be motivating ourselves/to push ourselves to become better, to improve and succeed with greater rewards.

*2 I forgot to add this when it was mentioned a bit earlier in the volume, but as reference in volume 1, square dancing here is not the western style of square dancing.
This is people, usually older females (middle-aged), gathering in plaza squares and dancing (hence the “square dancing”.
If you have not seen the footnote in volume 1 , you can check out this link on youtube for a bit more information and visuals)

TL Tidbits:

Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year everyone! Hope your new year goes better and safer than the one before and may we all bask and swim in comfort and riches!