CH 18

At 6:30 in the morning, in the small room of the An brothers, the electric fan buzzed and hummed. 

When An Wuyang woke up, he discovered he was sweating all over. The old T-shirt he now used as pajamas stuck to his back as if smeared wet with glue. 

He got up quickly, turned off the fan, and left the room without making much noise.

The house was quiet, and everyone was still snoring.

This was the usual morning situation for An Wuyang. As he was the only person who needed to get up early to work part-time, waking up on time around six o’clock every day.

He looked out the window of the bathroom. The whole town was just slowly waking up, and soon it would turn into a place bustling full of noises. 

As the sound of brushing his teeth ceased, the phone vibrated in the pocket of his baggy pants. 

— Are you up? I’ll be downstairs in ten minutes.

An Wuyang rinsed his mouth and wiped the foam left around his mouth with a towel. He just woke up, so he replied to the text message blankly.

— OK.

Putting away his mobile phone, he sped up the movements of washing his face, passing urine, and rushed to his bedroom to change his clothes as soon as he was done. 

The fair and slender body had a sentimental, unique taste of youth at this age. 

There seemed to be not much flesh in the body, nor much body hair. 

Back then, Huo Yunchuan told An Wuyang was still a boy as he had no hair. In fact, he wasn’t wrong. He still had at least ten years to live before becoming a mature man.

— I’m downstairs. 

The phone rang again. 

An Wuyang put on his trousers, looked around for his baseball cap, and did not have the time to tend to his cellphone. 

He clearly remembered that he took it out of the backpack when he came back. Then, he opened the zipper of the backpack and saw the white baseball cap was still lying inside. 

‘This memory…’

He slung his backpack on one shoulder, picked up his cellphone, and went out. 

There was slight perspiration on both sides of the tall nose bridge. When passing by the living room, he grabbed a tissue to deal with it. 

— I’ll be waiting for you in the elevator.

The phone buzzed against his palm, and An Wuyang knew it was Mister Huo’s urging. He spared no attention to it and strode straight to the elevator door. 

Ding! The elevator door opened. 

Mister Huo, who was clad in a neat suit, stood inside. When he saw the young man in the hallway, his brain stopped working for a minute. 

“Morning, Mister Huo.” An Wuyang nodded to Huo Yunchuan inside and walked in.

“Morning,” said the other, who just came back to his senses. He immediately closed the elevator door and pressed the first-floor button. “We’re going to have breakfast. What would you like to eat?”

An Wuyang held both the backpack straps near his chest. A thoughtful expression arose on his face, feeling a little distressed. “You decide. I don’t know what’s tasty.”

The best five breakfast restaurants he had ever eaten in his entire life were Old Wang’s rice noodle rolls downstairs.

Five bucks per serving were already enough.

“Did you sleep well last night?” asked Huo Yunchuan while he looked straight ahead, not letting his eyes glance sideways. 

There was no mirror in the elevator here. Yet, the boy’s figure was reflected on both opposite sides of the metal lift, manifesting a vague silhouette. The clothes were light-colored, and the body was slender. 

“It’s okay, just a bit hot,” An Wuyang nonchalantly said.

Huo Yunchuan furrowed when he had an ominous premonition. He said, “Was the air conditioner on?” In fact, what he wanted to ask was: Is your family very poor?

“Ah, just turned on the electric fan.” An Wuyang quickly added, “It’s expensive to use the air conditioner, and it raises a lot of electricity bills overnight.”

Huo, the eldest son of a wealthy family, Yunchuan, with an inconceivable look on his face, thought: Someone actually went as far as to calculate the electricity bill for the air conditioner alone?

‘It’s really incomprehensible.’

He admonished, “Don’t do this again next time. Understand?”

“…” An Wuyang glanced at him but said nothing. 

When they interact with each other in reality, the other party’s aura would be overwhelming, making him unable to breathe.

Huo Yunchuan supposed the other failed to hear it clearly. He said with a serious face, “Even if you don’t take care of your health, you must heed the child you carry is the baby of the Huo family. And he will be the heir of the family in the future.”

An Wuyang pursed his lips, followed by a crooked focus. “What if it’s a little princess?”

Huo Yunchuan was stunned speechless. A little later, his tone became much softer when he said, “It’s unlikely.” The chances of two men having a daughter were relatively small. “However, even a daughter can be an heir.”

When they descended downstairs, the crisp morning air made the two feel better, and their minds pondered about the future baby’s gender. An Wuyang pushed, “What if she doesn’t want to be the heir?”

Huo Yunchuan stretched out a hand and looked over his shoulder. “Walk well.” He also answered the question in passing. “How can there be so many what if? We’ll know about that in the future.”

An Wuyang nodded while he thought to himself. ‘I can’t take part in the baby’s life, after all. Will they like such a strict father?’ 

He pretended to bear such a question in his heart, and he became silent on the road.

Huo Yunchuan looked at him from time to time. His thin lips occasionally opened and thinned back without a word, because he had not had a single clue what to talk to this soon-to-be-father 18-year-old.

The point was, the lad may not appreciate it. 

Thus, there was no way to communicate.

However, Huo Yunchuan did not know why An Wuyang hated him…

“Is it okay to eat here?” He stopped at a hotel.

An Wuyang turned his head and perceived a very high-end, grandeur restaurant. Eating breakfast might cost him two months of water and electricity bills combined here. 

“You arrange.”

Usually, Huo’s eldest son’s breakfast was very simple. He only drank a glass of water before exercising in the morning. Then he took a shower and spent 20 minutes finishing breakfast, and after that, he would change his clothes to head to work. 

Huo Yunchuan got up at exactly 6 o’clock today. He had opted against exercising or to eat his usual breakfast, and just drove to pick up a certain person. 

Life in the next month would almost be like this. Huo Yunchuan looked at the boy, who was enjoying breakfast with relish. He sat across from him, thinking that the appearance of this child completely disrupted the rhythm of his life. 

His child had yet to be born, and yet he now lived a life taking care of a child.

Although it was not annoying, rather a little ineffable irritability.

“Go for a walk after eating.” Huo Yunchuan said to him, “I’ll buy you comfortable clothes, shoes, and hats.”

Facing his cold hard gaze, An Wuyang had to nod. “Okay.”

‘Now that I carry the man’s child in my stomach, I can’t just pull a long face whenever I want to, as I did before. Just wait until after giving birth to slap him hard on the face,’ An Wuyang thought inside. 

Shopping was actually quite fun.

Expensive and gorgeous things delighted his eyes. ‘What is this brand? That logo? I’ve only seen it on TV before. When I looked closely, it was marked by a jaw-dropping price.

An Wuyang held up his hat and turned to look at the man who was picking clothes for him. He looked like he was picking cabbage and did not take these brands seriously.

“Come here.” The man waved.

An Wuyang thought he asked to try on clothes. 

Yet, contrary to it, Huo Yunchuan just compared the clothes on him. If he thought it suited An Wuyang, he handed it over to the sales guide to get the appropriate size.

“Are you tired?” Only half an hour had elapsed after getting off the bus, and yet the other part already asked twice if he felt tired. 

An Wuyang inwardly rolled his eyes, shook his head, and said, “I’m not tired.”

But he still sat down on the sofa. 

“Drink some water.” Huo Yunchuan took out the prepared flask he brought with him, unscrewed the lid, filled half of the cup, and handed it to An Wuyang with a blank expression. 

“Thank you.” An Wuyang received it and studied it first. The sight astonished him. A few bright red Goji berries floated on the hot water. The taste of hot water made his mouth sweet.

The shopper’s guide lady gaped confusedly when she saw this scene. ‘Are these two… uncles and nephews? Father and son? Ah, it should be the latter. Just look at this pampering.’

This young man did nothing at all the whole time and even ignored what the elder man did for him. Exactly like a little devil who only put on a pair of clothes and opened his mouth to eat. Tsk. 

If An Wuyang knew what the young lady was thinking, he would have an impassable death. Never once in his lifetime did he act like a little brat. Not even a day. 

“Speak.” Huo Yunchuan accompanied An Wuyang to stop and shop in several places, wandering a lot, and only then did they sit down at a small tea bar. The young lad asked for some lemon tea, but he spurned that request down. He only ordered wolfberry water and then answered Assistant Chen Fang’s call. 

“Mister Huo, are you coming to the company today? Mister Gao said he’d arrive soon,” Chen Fang quavered over there. It was almost ten o’clock. The boss, who usually went to work on time, broke his record and was missing today. 

“I’m near Huarui.” Huo Yunchuan looked at his watch, and the current time exceeded his expectations. “Please let him go back to Huarui. I’ll head there to meet him.”

Chen Fang breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, I’ll inform Mister Gao now.”

After hanging up, he could only notify the senior manager that the president temporarily changed the itinerary and to please cooperate. 

“Are you going to work?” asked An Wuyang with dark eyes, while he sipped on the glass of wolfberry water.

Huo Yunchuan turned to look at him, then he heard again the voice which reminded him of his incapability to coax people. “Well, I’ll accompany you to play when I have time.”

“…” An Wuyang stared at him unblinkingly. He felt that Mister Huo really regarded himself as a child. 

To hear the man wanted to take him to the company and meet some people with him, An Wuyang disliked it. However, had it not been for the frightening expression Yunchuan used when he refused to leave Wuyang in the car and that it was dangerous, the latter would persist. An Wuyang had no choice but to walk in front and was instructed by the man to walk along the route. 

Ever since this man found out he was pregnant, he had always let himself walk before him and never let An Wuyang tail in the back.

Once the elevator on the seventeenth floor opened, An Wuyang thinned his lips and trod forward. 

“Turn left and walk slowly,” commanded the man behind. 

“Am I going to follow you all day—” The words “couldn’t you find me a place to stay” were suspended in his throat when he saw a familiar silhouette walking in front of him. His eyes widened as he spotted his father, An Cheng. 

“It won’t be until the housekeeper arrives at the place. I feel unrelieved when I leave you alone,” Huo Yunchuan stated in an unyielding tone, while his body braved an unquestionable demeanor. 

“…” Those words fell on deaf ears. An Wuyang’s face lost all of its colors in an instant. He spun around in panic and buried himself in Huo Yunchuan’s arms. 

The throwing of oneself in those arms happened without the least thought of expecting. 

Huo Yunchuan, at once, became unable to make a simple movement and had turned into a statue from head to toe.