Chapter 32

Bai Chen’s lips curved into a smile, but he didn’t say anything. He reached out and took the shoulder bag from Zhu Yu’s hands.

Zhu Yu quickly stepped forward to walk alongside him.

Lowering his head, Zhu Yu instinctively touched the back of Bai Chen’s hand and his fingers. The frost-like chill made Zhu Yu reflexively grip his fingers. “Your hands are so cold! It’s freezing outside—you should’ve come in. Sister Chloe was going to mop the floor again before leaving anyway.”

After saying that, he directly wrapped Bai Chen’s hands in both of his own and rubbed them twice. “Let me warm them up for you.”

Zhu Yu’s hands were warm. The moment they touched, Bai Chen was momentarily dazed. His fingers unconsciously curled slightly before he pulled his hand back, looking a little uneasy.

“It’s not that cold. Let’s go home quickly—there’s rain in the forecast tonight,” he said.

Zhu Yu didn’t think anything was wrong with his actions. He was just genuinely concerned about Bai Chen. “It’s all my fault. If I had seen you sooner, I would’ve let you in. We had the heater on inside—it was really warm.”

He was like a little sun radiating warmth, making people feel cozy just by being near him.

In an instant, the chill on Bai Chen’s body was completely dispelled.

Bai Chen turned his head to look at Zhu Yu and said, “I got it. Next time, I’ll wait for you inside.”

Hearing this, Zhu Yu lowered his head and let out a quiet laugh, as if he were really happy. “There’ll be a next time?”

He must have been happy—his tone even had a slight upward lilt.

Bai Chen looked at him. “If you want there to be.”

“Of course!!” Zhu Yu immediately lifted his head, his eyes full of excitement as he seriously said, “It gets dark so fast in London now. Every time I get off work, it’s already this late, and honestly… I do feel a little scared.”

“But if you’re with me, I won’t be scared anymore.”

This should have been a flirtatious remark.

But coming from Zhu Yu, it didn’t feel that way at all. Maybe because he didn’t mean anything more by it—the only one overthinking was the person listening.

Bai Chen’s eyes flickered slightly. He let out a light chuckle and asked, “Then should I pick you up every time from now on?”

Zhu Yu blinked and pretended to hesitate. “That would be too embarrassing.”

“You’re so good to me—I really have no way to repay you. How about I offer myself to you instead?” With that, he raised his hand and hooked it around Bai Chen’s arm, rubbing his face against Bai Chen’s shoulder.

“I’m not picky with food, I keep the bed warm, and I can survive on just a single bun,” he added.

Zhu Yu was always making jokes like this, “I’ve fallen for you.” “I might as well marry you.” “I’ll dedicate myself to you.” “You’re the only one for me.”

After hearing it so many times, Bai Chen had finally built up some immunity. Although he couldn’t deny that his heart still trembled a little each time.

In the past, he would always ignore Zhu Yu’s teasing. But today, he remained completely calm, nodded seriously, and said, “Alright.”

“Eh?!” Upon hearing his response, Zhu Yu’s head snapped up in shock.

He looked at Bai Chen’s serious face and shook his head with a sigh. “How rare! Senior Brother actually joked with me.”

Bai Chen couldn’t help but chuckle. He raised a hand to push Zhu Yu’s head away, shifting that burning gaze off his face. Then, in a gentle voice, he reminded him, “Watch the road, Xiao Yu.”

Zhu Yu huffed and let go of Bai Chen’s arm. “Alright.”

“Oh, right, Senior Brother. Thanks for walking me home last night,” Zhu Yu said.

Bai Chen: “No need to thank me.”

Zhu Yu added, “No matter what I did or said last night, just treat it as me talking nonsense while drunk.”

Worried that something he said the night before might make Bai Chen think he wasn’t a proper person, Zhu Yu couldn’t help but explain.

Bai Chen asked him, “Then do you still remember what you did?”

Zhu Yu shook his head and answered honestly, “Not much. That’s why I want you to just pretend everything I did was drunken nonsense.”

Bai Chen’s Adam’s apple bobbed. A dark, unhappy gleam flickered in his eyes. He lowered his gaze, his thick lashes hiding the emotions beneath them. “Alright.”

They had reached the stretch of road where the streetlights were broken. Zhu Yu used his phone’s flashlight to light the path ahead, completely missing the shift in Bai Chen’s mood.

For the rest of the walk home, Zhu Yu did all the talking.

Bai Chen barely spoke. He remained silent, lost in thought.

That night, Bai Chen was in the kitchen making egg fried rice while Zhu Yu was at the coffee table assembling a box of LEGO. Liu Bo was curled up asleep on his lap.

There were no instruction sheets, so Zhu Yu had to rely on the completed image to piece everything together bit by bit. It would be a miracle if anyone could actually finish it.

“Senior Brother, do you think it’s really possible to put this together without instructions?” Zhu Yu struggled for a long time before finally giving up and dismantling the base he had built.

Bai Chen placed the rice on the dining table, then walked over and sat beside Zhu Yu at the coffee table.

He took the box of LEGO pieces from Zhu Yu’s hands and began sorting out the identical ones. “This LEGO set was custom-made by the professor.”

“Every single piece has a purpose. If we categorize them first, determine the main structure of the church, build the foundation, then figure out where the larger pieces should go, and finally fill in the smaller pieces in the right places… theoretically, we should be able to put it together.”

Bai Chen’s voice paused, and then, in a restrained tone, he said, “But I can’t do it.”

Zhu Yu swallowed and lifted his gaze to Bai Chen.

What he saw in Bai Chen’s eyes was an unfathomable depth of sorrow.

His heart clenched sharply. A wave of indescribable bitterness surged from his chest, leaving him unbearably uncomfortable.

He had to do something!

That was the only thought in Zhu Yu’s mind at that moment.

So he hurriedly grabbed Bai Chen’s hand and loudly reassured him, “Senior Brother, this definitely isn’t your fault! Maybe this LEGO set isn’t actually that church—it could be some other building. Or maybe… some pieces are missing from the box!”

“Listen to me, whatever you do, don’t put pressure on yourself!” Zhu Yu’s voice grew more and more urgent.

He couldn’t stand seeing Bai Chen this unhappy.

At this moment, what Zhu Yu wanted to know even more was—why was Bai Chen like this? Or rather, what exactly had happened in Bai Chen’s past that he didn’t want to talk about?

Bai Chen lowered his eyes and looked at Zhu Yu’s hand. Because Zhu Yu was naturally slim, his palm wasn’t very big, but his fingers were beautiful—well-defined, slender like spring bamboo, with neatly trimmed, rounded nails.

“Alright, I’ll listen to you.” Bai Chen smiled, then turned his hand over to clasp Zhu Yu’s, pulling him up as he said softly, “Let’s go eat.”

The moment Zhu Yu heard “eat,” he immediately brightened up. Seeing that Bai Chen didn’t seem too affected by the previous conversation, he finally relaxed and nodded. “Okay! Let’s eat first!”

Tonight, their luck was particularly good. Just as they arrived downstairs at their dormitory, heavy rain suddenly poured down.

For London, this was nothing unusual.

Outside the window, rain lashed down, thunder and lightning intertwined, and the wind howled around the apartment building like eerie wailing.

Then, with another clap of thunder—

The entire room went dark.

The sudden loss of vision startled Zhu Yu. He let out an “Ah!” and stumbled forward half a step, only to fall into a warm embrace the next second.

He could hear the strong, steady heartbeat of the person holding him.

“Did the power go out?” Zhu Yu couldn’t see anything. His hand instinctively roamed upwards, brushing over a soft chest before sliding up to Bai Chen’s ear. Only then did he let go and tilt his head up to ask Bai Chen.

His warm breath fanned against Bai Chen’s neck.

Bai Chen’s eyes darkened even more. He turned his head away and gave a low “Mm.” Then he took the hand that had paused by his ear and moved it away.

Throughout the entire apartment complex, frustrated curses filled the air, their intensity rivaling the uproar of a high school suddenly announcing a holiday over the loudspeakers.

Bai Chen turned on his phone’s flashlight, illuminating a small corner of the living room.

He glanced at the apartment group chat and said, “The dorm supervisor said there’s an issue with the electrical box. It’ll take a while for the power to come back.”

“Alright then.” Zhu Yu let go of the hand that had been clutching Bai Chen’s sleeve.

Using the faint glow from Bai Chen’s phone, he walked over to the sofa to grab his own phone.

“Huh? It’s out of battery.” Zhu Yu pressed the power button, only to see the low battery warning flash on the screen.

“I’ll go get some candles.” Bai Chen placed his phone on the dining table and added, “Go sit at the table first. Maybe by the time we finish eating, the power will be back.”

Zhu Yu nodded enthusiastically, his tone cheerful. “Okay! Good thing dinner is already ready!”

He continued excitedly, “Today really is my lucky day! I went to work at the shop at noon, and August told me I got a raise. Then, the results for last week’s report came out today, and I scored high again. We only got home right before it started raining, and the power only went out after we finished cooking.”

“Hehe, so lucky!” He grinned smugly at the end.

Bai Chen took out a brand-new, unopened box of candles from the cupboard. As he returned to the table, he said, “Since today is Xiao Yu’s lucky day, we have a little cake after dinner to celebrate.”

Zhu Yu’s ears twitched. “You made a cake?!”

“Strawberry-flavored,” Bai Chen said with a warm smile.

Zhu Yu’s eyes sparkled, bright as the stars. “When did you make it?!”

Bai Chen: “While I was frying the egg fried rice.”

Zhu Yu immediately jumped up from his seat and threw his arms around Bai Chen. “Senior Brother, Senior Brother! I’m so happy!”

He practically clung to Bai Chen like a koala. The movement was so sudden that Bai Chen instinctively supported Zhu Yu’s lower back, afraid he might fall.

“What am I going to do when I go back home…” Zhu Yu’s return to his country was still uncertain, but just the thought of leaving and being separated from Bai Chen made him upset.

In the quiet moment where all he could hear was Zhu Yu’s voice and his own heartbeat, Bai Chen suddenly picked up on a faint sound—soft, muffled sobs near his ear.

“Xiao Yu?” Bai Chen’s heart clenched, and he called out to him.

Zhu Yu buried his face in Bai Chen’s neck, tears slipping down. “Senior Brother, you’re my best, best friend. I don’t want to be apart from you.”

“I don’t want to go back home either.” His voice carried a hint of tears.

If he had never met Bai Chen, then when Zhu Ting asked him to return home, he would have packed his bags without hesitation, ready to leave at any moment.

But now, everything was different.

Maybe he was relying on Bai Chen too much.

But so what? No one had the right to tell him who he could or couldn’t rely on.

Bai Chen raised his free hand, intending to pat Zhu Yu’s head to comfort him, but in the end, he hesitated mid-air and withdrew it. That kind of action would have been too intimate.

His tone was teasing, but gentle as water. “Isn’t today your lucky day? How come you’re crying on your lucky day?”

Zhu Yu felt a little embarrassed, but he still didn’t loosen his arms around Bai Chen’s neck. He sniffled and stubbornly declared, “Senior Brother, you should be comforting me right now.”

He had clearly felt Bai Chen’s hand about to touch his head, but for some reason, it had pulled back at the last moment.

“If you comfort me, I won’t be sad for the entire next week.” Zhu Yu’s voice was soft, whispering near Bai Chen’s ear, with a hint of spoiled petulance.

But not overly coquettish.

The next second, he felt a gentle weight on top of his head—Bai Chen’s large, warm palm resting there.

“Alright, Xiao Yu, don’t be sad anymore.”

His head was lightly ruffled, and Bai Chen’s voice continued, “Didn’t we say we’d spend the New Year together? You won’t be leaving that soon, and neither will I.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have said that.

He should have told Zhu Yu that he didn’t want to be apart from him either, that maybe his feelings for Zhu Yu weren’t just those of friendship.

But Bai Chen was, at his core, a reserved person. He was restrained, understood boundaries, and never put others in difficult positions. Perhaps it was because, from childhood to adulthood, he had never been in an environment where love was expressed openly.

He couldn’t say it out loud.

So he could only express it through small details and quiet acts of devotion.

But Zhu Yu had grown up in an environment filled with love—what he had never lacked were the small details and quiet affections.

Hearing Bai Chen’s words, Zhu Yu felt much better. He climbed down from Bai Chen, put his hands on his hips, and said, “That’s true.”

“There’s no point worrying about things that haven’t happened yet.” He returned to his seat and took the initiative to light the candles. “Senior Brother, let’s eat!”

The sudden emptiness in his arms made Bai Chen feel dazed for a second. But as Zhu Yu’s voice rang out, he sat down at the dining table.

After lighting the candles, Zhu Yu joked, “Senior Brother, don’t you think this feels like a candlelight dinner?”

Bai Chen lifted his gaze to look at Zhu Yu. His eyes still held a faint redness at the corners, but he was smiling so brightly—like a cheerful little puppy. The firelight reflected in his eyes, making the lingering tears shimmer like stars.

“It does.” Bai Chen nodded in agreement.

Even after they finished eating, the power hadn’t come back on.

Zhu Yu’s phone was completely out of battery, and after playing with Bai Chen’s phone for a while, that was nearly out of charge too.

“Senior Brother, I just remembered—a new movie came out recently in China.” Zhu Yu took out his laptop. “Do you want to watch it to pass the time?”

He placed the laptop in the center of the coffee table and picked up Liu Bo, who had been napping on the sofa, settling the cat on his lap.

Bai Chen moved to sit beside Zhu Yu. “What kind of movie is it?”

Zhu Yu thought for a moment. “I think it’s about a secret crush in high school?”

The movie began with a rundown high school, the filter giving it a heavy, melancholic tone.

Watching the characters silently crush on each other, Zhu Yu couldn’t help but comment to the person beside him. “See, this is why movies are just movies. I went to an international high school, which was already easier than some other schools, but I was still so exhausted I wanted to drop dead. Not a single person to have a crush on—just a whole bunch of people I wanted to assassinate.”

Bai Chen chuckled at his words.

“Did you only start learning art in high school?” Bai Chen asked.

Zhu Yu nodded. “Yeah. Painting is really tough. If anyone ever tells me that art students have it easy, I’ll fight them!!”

Even though Zhu Yu’s family was extremely wealthy, he still had to take the college entrance exams.

“You’ve worked hard.” Bai Chen turned to look at him.

Zhu Yu shook his head. “Actually, I didn’t have it as hard as some of my classmates who studied art.”

“After all, if I didn’t do well, my family would still have my back.” His thoughts drifted to how much his family doted on him.

“In the end, I guess I was just too rebellious. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have sent me here.” As soon as he brought up his family, Zhu Yu had the urge to explain why he had been sent abroad.

“When I was younger, I was immature. Whenever I got upset, I’d run away from home. Usually, I’d just go to a friend’s or a relative’s house. But that time, I didn’t go to them. I didn’t tell anyone—I just decided to climb Mount Everest. Actually, I didn’t even start climbing. I stopped at the base and just traveled around the area.”

“But then I lost my phone. I had a lot of cash on me at the time, so I didn’t rush to buy a new one, and I ended up losing contact with my family… for about three days.” Zhu Yu sighed. “That incident scared my grandmother so much she had to be hospitalized.”

“My mom was furious and just packed me up and sent me to London.”