Chapter 45

In the end, Wen Fu got watched by Fei Bolin while he brushed his teeth for a full five minutes. Fei Bolin didn't let him go to sleep until there wasn't even a trace of rock sugar left in his mouth.

In Fei Bolin's words, it was so he wouldn't lie on the pillow smacking his lips every now and then and thinking about it.

By the time the two of them got back to the room, it was already past midnight.

The next day, Fei Bolin's body clock had him opening his eyes at six-thirty. After forcing himself to stay in bed for another half hour, he decided to get up.

As he got up, he casually looked back at Wen—lying on the inside of the bed...

Where was Wen Fu?

Fei Bolin didn't see him on the pillow, and his first thought was that he'd snuck off to the kitchen again to steal food while he was asleep.

Luckily, he'd had the sense to check before leaving and spotted a suspicious lump under the blanket.

Fei Bolin reached out and lifted the corner of the blanket by the head of the bed first. What he saw was a pair of feet.

Then he went to lift the blanket at the foot of the bed, and only then did he find Wen Fu's messy sleeping head.

He sighed, moved the pillow over to prop up Wen Fu's neck, tucked the blanket back around him, and only then got up to make breakfast.

The usual English listening practice was playing from the kitchen, and along with the warm haze of cooking, the gravy noodles he'd spent all last night preparing were done.

The English audio drowned out the noise from the living room. Fei Bolin was carrying over the handmade noodles and just about to call Wen Fu up when he saw that Wen Fu was already sitting at the table, bleary-eyed, waiting.

The sight of it reminded him of Wen Fu's first day in this house. That morning too, Wen Fu had climbed out of sleep by following the smell of noodles, then curled up on the stool in a daze waiting for him to bring them over.

And just like that, three months had already passed.

Fei Bolin wasn't like Wen Fu, who had a strong appetite anytime, anywhere. When he got up early, he usually didn't feel like eating. Back when he was studying, breakfast was just fuel. Now that he was on break, if he didn't want to eat, he didn't. After drinking a glass of plain water, he sat beside him and watched Wen Fu hunch over his bowl, slurping noodles. Then, as he watched, he suddenly got up, went to the bathroom to get a comb, came back, stood behind Wen Fu, and started combing his hair.

Wen Fu's hair was a mess twenty-nine days out of the month.

And on the other day, it was an absolute disaster.

One time, Aunt Wu had just come back from buying groceries and ran into the two of them heading to School. Fei Bolin saw the look on her face—it was like she'd held it in and held it in, then finally couldn't anymore. She pulled him over and pointed at Wen Fu as she whispered, 'Bolin, does your house not have a comb?'

Every time Fei Bolin thought about it, he didn't know whether to laugh or be speechless.

His fingers slid into Wen Fu's hair, and the comb worked its way down little by little from the crown where the hair swirled.

Fei Bolin combed very gently. Whenever he hit a knot, he'd use his other hand to loosen it first.

But Wen Fu's hair had way too many knots.

Afraid of hurting him, Fei Bolin used his left hand to secretly massage Wen Fu's scalp while his right hand kept combing.

After a while, Wen Fu held his bowl and said while sipping soup, 'Bolin-ge, you need to use more force.'

'Hm?'

'You need to use more force.' Wen Fu took another noisy sip of broth full of minced meat topping. 'It won't hurt.'

Fei Bolin froze for a second, like he'd thought of something. Two seconds later, he looked away and answered perfunctorily, 'Oh. Okay.'

He tried adding a little more pressure, and sure enough, the hair became much easier to comb.

As Fei Bolin kept combing, he remembered it was New Year, and he should bring up some snacks for Wen Fu. So he asked, 'Want chocolate and candy?'

Wen Fu shook his head. 'No.'

'...Hm?' Fei Bolin tilted his head to look at him, automatically suspicious. 'Why not?'

'I'm saving room for food,' Wen Fu said.

Yesterday, Fei Bolin had bought a lot of groceries, so tonight's New Year's Eve dinner was going to be a big one.

If he ate snacks, there'd be less room in his stomach for the meal.

It was only after the last time he'd overeaten that Wen Fu learned a person could only eat so much.

And with that limited appetite, as much of it as possible should be saved for the food Fei Bolin made with his own hands.

Hearing that, Fei Bolin still couldn't stop the corner of his mouth from lifting a little. 'You like my cooking that much?'

He'd been eating his own cooking alone for years and had never thought it was anything special.

But then Wen Fu came to this house, and every meal he acted like he wanted to drink even the hotpot rinse water dry. Even after eating it for months straight, every single time he still looked like it was the first time he'd ever tasted it—eyes shining the second the dishes hit the table, and eyes still shining when he finished, leaving not even one grain of rice any chance of going to waste.

Last night excluded, of course.

'I do.' As usual, Wen Fu ate his noodle bowl spotless. 'And the tanghulu too.'

Fei Bolin smiled. He was basically done combing Wen Fu's hair. Messy was still messy, and the comb could press down the ends that were sticking up, but the second it passed, they'd spring right back up again. Still, at least it wasn't tangled anymore, and he looked less bedraggled.

'After you finish the noodles, rest a bit and then you can eat strawberries. After lunch, you can have the hawthorn.' He reminded him, 'I'm going out. You're not allowed to sneak food at home by yourself.'

Wen Fu turned to look at him and didn't even ask what he was going to do. 'I'm coming with you.'

Fei Bolin thought about it. He didn't have anything to do at home anyway, so he might as well take Wen Fu with him to the internet cafe and let him watch a couple more episodes of cartoons.

Half a month ago, after that anonymous video about No.1 High School was uploaded, the trojan he'd planted had limited how far the video could spread. And the internet in those days wasn't all that developed to begin with, so just like he'd expected, the buzz died down in less than two weeks. On top of that, New Year was packed with entertainment gossip, and in just the past few days, nobody was talking about what happened next in that case anymore.

Fei Bolin had seen that coming, so during the internet cafe's final half day of business before the end of the year, he picked out two more clips from the secretly recorded footage those two kids had taken. After editing them, he posted them to the forums and Weibo the same way as before. But this time, he didn't heavily censor the faces of the older students in the video, because this was his last chance to upload anything— the closer it got to the start of school, the less often he could stir up public attention. Otherwise, once School started and the school carried out an investigation, there was a real chance they'd trace it back to him.

Fei Bolin was almost betting everything on this. By not heavily censoring those two, he was thinking that even if the school didn't thoroughly investigate every bullying and extortion case, at the very least, pressure would force them to deal with the two older students whose identities were now clear.

After he'd finished all that, he realized Wen Fu beside him had already watched all of Tom and Jerry and had quietly scooted over, now staring at him with complete focus as he uploaded the video.

While waiting for the upload to finish, Fei Bolin made do with the internet cafe Wi-Fi and downloaded a few episodes of Digital Monster and The Voice of China for Wen Fu.

He didn't know many cartoons. Before he turned four, he'd spent all his time at Fei Family Estate rushing from one lesson to the next—horseback riding, piano, foreign languages, golf. After four, he'd been busy struggling to survive in this small city with Lin Yuanyi. It was like Fei Bolin had always been shut out of the ordinary entertainment most kids took for granted, so he never really had the chance to figure out what he liked either.

All he could do was type the names of a few shows he'd heard classmates mention over the years into the search bar, then let out a breath of relief when the anime covers popped up on the page, grateful that Wen Fu wouldn't miss a good cartoon just because he'd remembered the title wrong.

Because Wen Fu was there, this New Year's Eve turned Fei Bolin a lot busier.

He had to cook in the kitchen while also keeping an eye out so Wen Fu didn't eat too many candied hawthorns. He had to clean up in the kitchen while leaning out every so often to warn Wen Fu not to plop down on the floor while watching cartoons. And he had to set out bowls and chopsticks while loudly stopping Wen Fu from sneaking bites of food with the same hand that had just touched his phone.

In years past, New Year's Eve had always dragged on forever. This year, though, in the chaos of Fei Bolin constantly calling out warnings to Wen Fu, the whole reunion day was over in a blink.

Before midnight came, the two of them were leaning over the balcony rail, with the living room behind them pitch-black.

The sky held a bright moon and sparse stars, and as far as the eye could see, the city glittered with the lights of ten thousand homes.

In their ears rang the countdown from the Spring Festival Gala playing in all the neighbors' homes.

'Three, two, one—'

'Bolin-ge.' Wen Fu tugged at Fei Bolin's sleeve and, for the first time, copied the way other people gave New Year wishes and whispered to him, 'Happy New Year.'

Distant fireworks flickered in Wen Fu's dark, glossy eyes.

Next year, he should buy a TV.

Fei Bolin thought.

-

On the first day of the new year, before either of them was even fully awake, Aunt Wu was already knocking on the door and dragging them over to her place for tangyuan. That was a Rongzhou custom.

Wen Fu never talked much to begin with, and Aunt Wu took him for the lonely, withdrawn type, so she didn't really try to chat with him either. She served four big tangyuan to each of them, then sat down beside Fei Bolin and watched them eat while making small talk.

Fei Bolin ate two. Wen Fu finished his whole bowl.

Aunt Wu hurried off to add four more for Wen Fu.

Fei Bolin finished the other two. Wen Fu finished his second bowl too.

The black sesame tangyuan were each the size of a palm. Wen Fu went through three full bowls and ate twelve in one go.

Aunt Wu snuck a glance at him, told them to take their time, then ran off to the balcony to drink tea and read.

Nobody could dislike a little cat who loved to eat.

If he could eat, he was Fu.

Aunt Wu smiled to herself and drank tea while reading.