LQDBA 14

Chapter 14

“Even if you’re afraid of the dark, you can’t do this. I don’t care if you have some kind of psychological trauma or what; you can’t just go around kissing people like that.”

A flash of panic crossed A-Jiu’s eyes. His lip was still bleeding, and he looked pitiful and aggrieved as he called out again.

“Xing-ge…”

By the light of the flashlight, Wu Xing clearly saw the lip he had bitten, so he dug a few candles out of a cabinet and lit them. As the candlelight flickered, A-Jiu watched Wu Xing’s back as he stood up from lighting the candles; his previous heartbroken expression softened quite a bit. At least Xing-ge cares about me.

The Alpha’s gaze on the Omega was direct and raw as he spoke honestly, “I like Xing-ge. I want to kiss Xing-ge.”

Wu Xing froze in place. From childhood to adulthood, he had never been confessed to like this. His first reaction was to avoid it, but since A-Jiu had just said it so plainly, he couldn’t even pretend he hadn’t heard.

A-Jiu struck while the iron was hot, grabbed Wu Xing’s hand, and continued, “Don’t you like me kissing you? You felt it too, didn’t you?”

Wu Xing didn’t speak. He had felt something, but that might have just been because he lacked kissing experience and had been caught up in the moment. The next second, he pulled his hand away, interrupting the other.

“Don’t say any more.”

“We aren’t suitable.”

Wu Xing stepped back. Given his own circumstances—let alone finding an Alpha who wouldn’t mind his “flaws”—even a decent Beta might not be willing to be with him. A-Jiu was an Alpha; it was understandable that he might have impulses toward an Omega he lived with every day, but they truly weren’t a match.

“Let’s just treat this as an accident and never mention it again.”

A-Jiu kept his eyes fixed on Wu Xing’s side profile, illuminated by the candlelight, and asked in a low voice, “Do you like Dr. Zhu?”

Wu Xing blinked, not understanding what Dr. Zhu had to do with this, but answered patiently, “Dr. Zhu and I are friends.”

“A-Jiu, you’re very young. You’ll like other people in the future.”

The Alpha felt a sting in his lower lip, and hearing this made him restless. He responded somewhat childishly, “I only like you.”

Wu Xing smiled awkwardly, trying to ease the tension. “Maybe you liked someone before, too, but you just don’t remember.”

The Omega recalled how A-Jiu had kissed him—it hadn’t seemed like a first-timer’s attempt. But as soon as he said that, the big, burly Alpha’s eyes turned red. A-Jiu had lost his memories; he couldn’t refute Wu Xing’s words or prove his own past. Outside, the rain continued to fall, pitter-pattering endlessly.

Early the next morning, the power finally came back on, though the weather remained stiflingly hot. Wu Xing looked at the wontons A-Jiu had cooked on the table, cradling his bowl and silently sipping the broth. Beside the ceramic bowl was a note written by A-Jiu, saying he had taken the tricycle to go restock and would come back to pick him up.

Having to go back and forth meant A-Jiu had to get up even earlier than before, which filled Wu Xing with guilt. His injured ankle still ached, and just as he finished taking a painkiller, he received a call from A-Jiu.

As soon as Wu Xing opened the door, he saw A-Jiu. The man turned his back to him and crouched halfway down.

“Xing-ge, I’ll carry you downstairs.”

The stairwell was dark and sweltering. The Omega lay on the Alpha’s back, watching the steps pass beneath them, and said, “A-Jiu, I’ll add six hundred yuan to your wages next month.”

The Alpha remained silent. An invisible low pressure seemed to grip his throat. Silence was like a net, trapping them both. By the time they reached the shop, except for necessary work-related talk, A-Jiu no longer called him “Xing-ge” every other sentence like he used to. Wu Xing felt he had done the right thing, yet he felt a sense of loss because of it.

“Wu Xing.”

Dr. Zhu was off today and had come to the shop specifically, asking why Wu Xing hadn’t replied to his messages during the typhoon. Wu Xing, wearing a mask and holding a soup ladle, said his phone had been broken and he hadn’t fixed it yet. Dr. Zhu mentioned he had a friend who sold phones and could get him a 20% discount, urging him to get a new one. They chatted through the glass for a long while.

Thump—

A-Jiu brought over the preserved egg and fresh pork wontons that Dr. Zhu had ordered, setting them on the table with more force than usual.

“What’s wrong with your mouth? An ulcer?”

The Alpha’s mask was pulled down to his chin, and his lower lip had scabbed over. A-Jiu’s face was cold as he lowered his voice and said, “Dr. Zhu, haven’t you noticed Xing-ge’s ankle is injured?”

Dr. Zhu froze for two seconds, finally realizing why A-Jiu was angry. Wu Xing had been standing while chatting with him just moments ago. Dr. Zhu looked at Wu Xing again, who was already sitting down, wrapping wontons.

He had first met Wu Xing at the outpatient clinic. He was a newly certified doctor, and Wu Xing had been a regular patient assigned to him. They hadn’t known each other for long, and he couldn’t quite say when he had started to care for him. But the Alpha’s question just now made Dr. Zhu feel utterly ashamed.

Before Dr. Zhu left, he saved his number in Wu Xing’s backup phone and reminded him to go back to the hospital for a check-up on his ankle. Wu Xing agreed, then listened as Dr. Zhu mentioned that once autumn arrived, they would begin installing elevators in their apartment complex. It seemed he would have to trouble A-Jiu to carry him downstairs for a while longer.

Between summer and autumn, Wu Wonton Shop suddenly became a hit. Eight out of ten customers said they had seen a recommendation from a streamer and specifically asked for the “mixed-sauce dry-tossed shrimp and crab roe wontons.” The shop only had Wu Xing and A-Jiu, and even after hiring a temp worker, they were still buried in work. There were few tables for dine-in, and lines formed outside.

“Boss, when will it be our turn?”

Wu Xing’s hands were moving so fast they were practically on fire as he wrapped wontons, and he answered, “I’m sorry, it might still be two hours.”

“Two hours? I should’ve just ordered delivery.”

The printer for the delivery orders never stopped running. A new order popped out every second, and they had to change the paper roll constantly. The platform was overwhelmed, and Wu Xing had to apply to temporarily close the shop, but there were still many orders backlogged. Many delivery riders in blue uniforms waited outside the tiny wonton shop, wishing they could just run into the open kitchen and help the boss wrap the wontons themselves.

After a week of this nonstop hustle, their Monday day-off was also canceled. The ordinary wonton shop had leaped into being a “viral” spot, and only then did Boss Wu have time to search for who had recommended his wontons.

On his phone screen, a girl with wine-red curly hair was eating the mixed-sauce wontons. She ate neatly, and when the comments asked where they were from, she answered quickly, mentioning that her late grandfather used to love ordering from “Wu’s.”

As she spoke, a white cat jumped into the frame. She picked it up and introduced it to everyone: “This is the cat my grandpa left for me. Say hi to the aunties.”

“Meow…”

“His name is Xiaobai (Little White). When I first saw him, he was tiny, but now he could be called Dabai (Big White).”

“Speaking of which, the owner of this wonton shop and my grandpa had a real connection. They were the ones who saved Xiaobai from a tree.”

After she finished, she picked up a wonton drenched in sauce and took a sip of iced Sprite. The mukbang video was heartwarming and touching. It exploded online, was shared repeatedly, and brought “Wu’s” to fame. Seeing the video, Wu Xing thought of the old man’s first phone call and the little white cat that had kept him company, and his eyes grew slightly damp. The old man hadn’t ordered from them for a while, and he hadn’t realized he had already gone to another world.

Thanks to this surge in popularity, business at Wu Wonton Shop was finally on the right track. Wu Xing ended up giving A-Jiu a 1,200-yuan raise on his base salary.

Ever since the kissing incident, their relationship had become strange. Wu Xing bought two new phones from Dr. Zhu’s friend—one for himself and one for A-Jiu—and also bought a small nightlight online. On the bedside table, the mushroom-shaped eye-protection lamp emitted a soft, uniform white light.

Outside, it was drizzling. A-Jiu lay in bed, thinking of Wu Xing’s warm lips from that night.

Even though he couldn’t see the expression on Wu Xing’s face at the time, he was inexplicably certain that the other man had also been lost in that kiss.

A-Jiu reached out and touched his healed lower lip. It was as smooth as new; other than feeling itchy during the healing period, it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable. But when the Alpha ate, he would intentionally touch his lower lip and pull a face, watching as Wu Xing hung his head, looking ashamed while shoveling rice into his mouth.

“Xing-ge, I want to eat blueberries.”

If this were before, Wu Xing definitely wouldn’t have bought them; even he himself couldn’t bear to eat blueberries. Such a tiny box would cost twenty or thirty yuan—it was basically highway robbery. A-Jiu leaned in, making sure Wu Xing could clearly see the bite mark he’d left, and finally, he got his wish, hearing the other man give a soft, resigned “Mm.”

There were no blueberries at the wholesale market; you had to go to the imported fruit section of the supermarket. Wu Xing had looked at them several times but couldn’t bring himself to buy them, only finally making up his mind when the transparent box with the blueberries was slapped with a yellow “discount” sticker.

Wu Xing bought the blueberries, washed them one by one, and put them on a plate as A-Jiu’s dessert.

“Your blueberries.”

The Alpha calmly withdrew his gaze from Wu Xing’s back, popped a blueberry into his mouth, and said, “So sweet.”

Wu Xing just watched him eat, suddenly remembering how, when he was little, he would always give his own favorite snacks to his younger brother. But A-Jiu was more than just a little brother who needed taking care of.

Seeing the Omega lost in thought, the Alpha took three or four blueberries into his palm and held them out to the other’s mouth. Wu Xing felt embarrassed and said, “I’ll do it myself.”

“A-Jiu, my foot is healed. You don’t need to carry me downstairs tomorrow.”