Don’t Be a Kept Man

ith her hand as she said, 

“Wu wu wu I super duper love you two!!!”

Chen Yi didn’t say much and just took the book, and right below Fu Xiu Nian’s signature, he signed his own name.
Flourishing and bold, arrogant and wide, one could faintly hear the “sha sha” sound of the pen across the paper.

What could be more exciting than nibbling a real CP?

When the both of them left, the girl held the book as if it was a treasure.
She took detailed looks at the signature and found that Chen Yi had drawn a tiny tiny heart between the two signatures and in that moment, she was so stuffed with sugar she couldn’t even breathe–!!!

Time seemed to have passed by very quickly and when night fell, Fu Xiu Nian and Chen Yi were just slowly walking by the river.
There was a slight breeze, blowing out the slight heat in people’s hearts.
Fu Xiu Nian didn’t know why, but he suddenly recalled that when they were filming for << I Came From Far Away >> last year, it was also during such a summer like this.

“Chen Yi,” 

Fu Xiu Nian suddenly called out.

“Hmm?” 

Chen Yi slightly raised his eyebrow at him.

But Fu Xiu Nian didn’t say anything and only reached out to hold his hand.

The night was falling, and the roadside gained a few roasted food stands.
Fu Xiu Nian thought about how they didn’t have much money and had even thought that they would just eat a noodle bowl like they did in the afternoon instead.
But Chen Yi went to buy a skewer of meat, and he even came back holding a bottle of orange juice in his other hand.

Fu Xiu Nian was a bit shocked at the sight, 

“Do we even have enough for the bus ride back?”

Chen Yi snorted, 

“What are you afraid of, we can always just walk back.”

Fu Xiu Nian didn’t hesitate anymore and quickly polished off the stick with Chen Yi.
The night was settling in and the tourists were gathered close together, holding either a light stick or a night light, creating and gathering dots of lights into a sea.

Fu Xiu Nian took off his mask and exhaled a deep breath.
From the fence, he looked out to the far away lake and suddenly said, 

“Time has passed by so quickly.
When it was summer last year, it seems like we just met.”

Chen Yi seemed to think about something and followed along to nod his head,

Fu Xiu Nian kicked the rock beside him and bumped into Chen Yi’s shoulder, narrowing his eyes and asked, 

“The first time you saw me, what did you feel?”

That summer had burned hotter than previous years, and the crickets were chirping nonstop to the point of madness, and the green trees made it so gloomy.
Others had gone to wash their hands for dinner, only Chen Yi was lying on the chair, closing his eyes to rest when Fu Xiu Nian had suddenly walked over.

At first he had only taken a slight glimpse, but with just that glance, Chen Yi could still remember his face, even more so than any martial arts practice.

A light grey set of hat and clothes, a handsome and clean facial structure, when he smiled there were dimples and when he stood in front of him, his back blocked that burning sun, layering over him, to the point where his hair was covered in a thin layer of gold.

Chen Yi coldly said, 

“A goodie two shoes.”

Fu Xiu Nian didn’t process that, 

“What?”

Chen Yi chuckled and said, 

“A weak moldable bun.”

So weak anyone could bully him, letting whoever wanted to bite a few times.

If anyone were to compare the current Chen Yi with the previous one, quite a few people would have found that there would be some kind of difference.
From the beginning of the purposeful thorns he kept on his body to his carefree and whatever attitude, his aura had gone through a bit of change.

Alike, but somehow not alike.

Fu Xiu Nian seemed to want to say something but up in the air, there was a sudden sound of a large explosion.
Shocked, he lifted his head to see, and he saw dimming lights falling down from the sky, like meteor stars bursting into all directions.
Before it disappeared, there was another ring of explosions following quickly, and another and another, fireworks were being blasted into the sky in the night, brightly shining, so beautiful it made people hold in their breaths.

The other pedestrians didn’t move and they all looked up, enjoying this moment of beautiful scenery.
Fu Xiu Nian was a bit shocked, 

“Why are there so many fireworks?”

Chen Yi shook the tickets in his hand, 

“It was written on the entrance tickets.
7pm across the Lin Jiang bridge, there would be a fireworks exhibition, didn’t you read it?”

Fu Xiu Nian didn’t say anything and looked up at the fireworks, the ground, the sky, just anywhere but Chen Yi until his shoulder felt a weight.
Chen Yi came up to rest his head on his shoulder and asked, 

“Has today been unforgettable?”

The two of them had a rare chance to go out and play.
Today was definitely unforgettable, but to Fu Xiu Nian, being with him, each minute, each second was precious.

Fu Xiu Nian asked back, 

“What do you think?”

Chen Yi was wearing a black backpack and he reached out to grab something.
There was the crinkling of plastic and then like magic, a fruit candy bouquet appeared.

The candy was the most commonly seen kind, about a thumb’s length with the picture of a fruit on it.
The plastic stick was long and thin, and when you held on to it, it was like a colourful flower.
In the midst of Fu Xiu Nian blanking out, Chen Yi brought the candy bouquet forward and lifted his eyes to look at him.
He asked him back, 

“Then this, is this unforgettable enough?”

Fu Xiu Nian was a bit stupefied and he lifted his head to look at Chen Yi, before lowering it to look at the candy, then Chen Yi, then the candy, taking a long time to come back to his senses.
On his mouth a faint smile appeared, as if it was a water ripple, spreading wider and wider with his eyes glimmering and shining.

Fu Xiu Nian blinked his eyes as he smiled, receiving the candy bouquet, a bit dumb as he asked, 

“Where did the money come from?”

Chen Yi tilted his head and looked at him, 

“Oh, I sold a kidney.”

Fu Xiu Nian waved the candy, crinkling up the plastic wrapping, and faintly smiled as he said, 

“You’re lying to me again.”

Chen Yi counted with his fingers, 

“A hundred yuan was given to us, of which we spent twelve for the bus, ten for the bike game, twenty-six for lunch and drinks, but the bike game gave us two hundred so we still have two hundred fifty.”

Fu Xiu Nian unwrapped a candy and stuffed it into Chen Yi’s mouth, 

“And then?”

Chen Yi continued, 

“Playing the hoops took a hundred, leaving a hundred and fifty.
I asked the game owner how much he got the items for and he said three hundred.
I sold it back to him for two hundred and adding the twenty stuffed with the toy, that’s a total of three hundred and seven.

And he became giddy, 

“After the candy and the meat, we still have two hundred.”

Crouching on the floor, Fu Xiu Nian couldn’t stop smiling, 

“Don’t say it out loud.
You should be careful of being put on the ban list at major attraction parks.
Other people come here to spend money, you come here to earn money instead.”

Chen Yi chuckled and then pulled the other up with him.
In the midst of the fireworks, he pulled him into his embrace and as the fireworks exploded in their ears, he said something into Fu Xiu Nian’s ear, but the camera didn’t catch that part.

“The first time I saw you, I felt, we were not from the same world.”

“The second time I saw you, I thought, how obedient, how weak, how virtuous……”

“How suitable to marry as a wife.”

Fu Xiu Nian had always been good to Chen Yi and Chen Yi could feel that.
He doesn’t say it out loud, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t know.
It was just that as the years passed, being by himself all the time, he was used to holding everything hidden in his heart.

Not all love stories will be bad in this world, not all stories will have a bad ending.
The two of them being able to be together, it was actually quite lucky.

The previous summer, Fu Xiu Nian had given Chen Yi a piece of candy, sending his most purest form of happiness to him.

When the fireworks show was over, with only the last few sparks lingering in the sky, everywhere started to get noisy again.
They were outside the city and the transit wasn’t very good at night.
Fu Xiu Nian and Chen Yi prepared to head back and they had planned to take the bus, but in the end, the program crew said they could provide a vehicle.

Chen Yi sat in the car and patted the pocket holding money they had left and snorted, 

“Should’ve spent it all.”

 

Fu Xiu Nian put his legs on Chen Yi’s knees, shaking them over and over, holding onto that bouquet of candy and not willing to let go, 

“It’s such a pity that you aren’t in business.
A pair of empty hands to exchange for a white wolf, giving up almost nothing to always gain so much.”2

“You’re patting off all the dust on me, do you have ADHD?” 

Chen Yi patted his legs, but Fu Xiu Nian wasn’t stable and instead, his legs started sliding off.
Chen Yi grabbed his feet back and placed them firmly onto his thighs.

By the time they were home, it was already dark.
When they got out of the elevators, they could hear a faint crying sound.
The door was not locked and when Chen Yi twisted it open, a chubby kid rammed straight into him and couldn’t absorb the rebound energy and fell on the floor onto his butt.

The crying stopped for a moment and the world was at peace at once.

The child on the floor was about six to seven years old, and he was wearing overalls, so very chubby and cute.
There were a few tears still dripping down his face, and when he saw who “bumped” into him, he wiped his tears and climbed back up from the floor, 

“Uncle, daddy wants to hit me.
I don’t want to go home.
Take me in.”

And then went crying again to Fu Xiu Nian.

Chen Yi laughed and didn’t let the chubby kid touch Fu Xiu Nian.
He grabbed him with one hand through the back straps of his overalls to toss him back inside, 

“Kid, got a zero on your exam again?”

Chen Xiao Meng was standing in the living room and her hair was in a mess, evidently having gone through a “terrible battle”.
She stomped her feet in anger, 

“He came running over by himself when school let out.
You guys weren’t home and he came to find me.
I was just calling his dad when he threw my phone into the fish tank!”

The chubby kid was Fu Xiu Nian’s nephew, and since he was young, he had been a master at creating trouble.
When he knew he had gotten into deep trouble, he would come over to hide, a bold child king indeed.

Chen Yi took joy in her misfortune, 

“Who told you to buy a phone that wasn’t waterproof.”

Chen Xiao Meng had pushed him in anger when she discovered the camera crew behind them.
Embarrassed, she took her hand back and then huffed off in anger on her crutches, 

“This bundle of trouble can be managed by whoever wants to.
I don’t care!”

Fu Xiu Nian grabbed two tissues and crouched down to wipe the tears off the chubby child, 

“How did you get here? Your dad?”

The chubby kid thought that his uncle Fu Xiu Nian was super gentle and he loved his uncle the most.
He reached out to hug his neck and said, 

“Fu Si Ping went to attend a meeting.
Mommy’s at a fashion show outside the country and they both don’t care about me so I told the driver man to bring me here when I got off school.”

Chen Yi pulled him away, 

“How old are you to still be crying.
Go play by yourself over there.”

The program still needed to film a short ending interview, and upon hearing that Chen Yi was not going to banish him away, he immediately ran off.

The interview was done separately, with Chen Yi in the bedroom and Fu Xiu Nian in the living room.
They didn’t know what the crew would be asking them, and this program was notorious for asking difficult questions, testing the guests’ bottom line over and over, trying to guess at their real personalities.

Chen Yi’s outer appearance was very cold, but since he was home, he unconsciously let down the barriers in his heart.
His eyebrows were lazy and comfortable as the female interviewer complimented him, 

“You are very handsome.
Actually I can be considered as your fan, as you have a particular meaningful way to refute back at others.
But since filming for << Minister >>, we very rarely see you battle it out with anti-fans.”

Chen Yi honestly said, 

“Hmm, that is because I had no fans before, so I could only face them myself.
But now I have fans, I don’t need to do it myself anymore.”

The female interviewer paused in surprise and then smiled as she said, 

“Actually I would rather be viewing this kind of understanding as a sort of growth, as when compared to before, you have made leaps and bounds of progress.
But at the height of your popularity, you chose to expose your relationship, causing quite a few fans to leave.
Do you think about it and regret it?”

Chen Yi shook his head, 

“Not one bit.”

The female interviewer asked, 

“What about your fans? Do you feel ashamed?”

Chen Yi thought about it and then warmed up his voice to say, 

“Idols are really, in some sense a mental hope for fans.
When another person sets someone else as an idol, that means that that person had some sort of special quality that was attractive to them, and they would unconsciously want to mimic and follow it.
I hope that the reason why they followed me as a fan is not only due to the superficial reason of looks……”

 

 

Notes:

 

*1 This is, as you might have already guessed, from the Journey to the West, of the main character.

Sun Wukong

*2 This is an idiom that means without, or with a very tiny amount of effort, they received a huge payout/reward, usually towards business like stocks.
This is comparable to how white wolves are very rare (outside of the arctic) as well the danger factor of even trying to get a white wolf with no weapons, and sometimes referred to as not making any investments, or using cheat/lying tactics to gain something that is very big.