After Reuniting, My Beautiful Ex-Lover Fishes for Me Every Day - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Reunion

The rain falling on his body suddenly stopped. Wei Changli looked up, and his eyes met those of the man holding the umbrella.

The broad canopy of the umbrella blocked out the rain. A handcrafted gemstone inlaid on the handle refracted a glint of light, much like the visitor’s gaze as it fell from above—elegant, noble, and impeccably composed.

Yan Xu.

Wei Changli’s burning Adam’s apple bobbed. He silently recited this name in his heart: his ex-boyfriend’s name. In the years since they had parted, he had envisioned their reunion many times, but he never imagined it would be this wretched.

This embarrassment was one-sided. After all, the man before him was just as brilliantly restrained as he had been years ago. Even the gaze hidden under the umbrella carried a moving, indistinguishable complexity and pity.

The wind, laced with rain, stirred his tied-back hair—long enough to nearly reach his waist. He appeared as elegant as a cold, nocturnal cereus flower blooming in the deep of night.

Yan Xu crouched down and held the umbrella over the young man’s head. After a long silence, he spoke: “How did you get yourself into such a state?”

The long-lost voice reached his ears, mingled with the sound of rain. Wei Changli struggled to keep his eyelashes from falling; in his trance, he couldn’t tell if this was reality or a hallucination. He forced himself to look at the other man, their eyes meeting in a silent, heavy exchange.

In just that momentary gaze, he clearly felt his heart skip a beat. Immediately following that, the humiliation caused by their starkly different circumstances surged up like a bitter tide, drowning what little remained of his sanity.

With a sharp slap, Wei Changli suddenly struck away the man’s hand as he tried to check the wound on his forehead.

Yan Xu’s movements paused, yet he maintained his reaching posture. His eyelashes seemed to tremor in synchronization with the rhythm of the falling rain.

The streaks of rain stretched out a suffocating silence. A moment later, Wei Changli’s lips curled:

“Recently, every family has been tearing each other apart to scavenge the resources of the Wei estate. I was wondering when the Yan family would become restless… Now it seems you are even more urgent than I imagined. Don’t you Yans always pride yourselves on being ‘clean and upright’? Yet here you are, rushing back in such a frantic hurry… truly, you couldn’t wait.”

The young man’s weak voice carried undisguised mockery. However, Yan Xu’s expression didn’t change at all upon hearing this accusation.

He took off his overcoat and draped it over Wei Changli, pressing him into his embrace as if wrapping up a kitten, preparing to move him to the car.

“Don’t touch me!” Wei Changli struggled, as if the man’s lightest possible movements had poked through the soreness of his entire body.

Although the Young Master Wei had pushed himself to his absolute limit, the instincts honed from his childhood training allowed him to seize Yan Xu’s wrist. The latter made no attempt to dodge, letting himself be held by the trembling grip.

“Stay away from me,” Wei Changli hissed through gritted teeth. “I told you three years ago—never appear in front of me again.”

The man turned his wrist over, gathering the young man’s hand into his own palm, and spoke: “You’re injured, and it’s not safe outside. I’m taking you away first.”

“Hypocrite.” This time, Wei Changli failed to break free. A cold sneer escaped from his panting lips.

Yan Xu’s expression remained flawless from beginning to end. The pulse of his body heat extended through his skin to Wei Changli’s fingertips, making the young man instinctively flinch from the warmth.

He intended to lift the man in a horizontal carry, but the person in his arms consistently shrunk his body in resistance.

If possible, Wei Changli wanted to embed himself into the brick wall behind him, sealing all his wretchedness within the cement gray. His lips moved, and the rain hanging from the corner of his eye was about to drop:

“Yan Xu, what makes you think… I would go with you?”

Like a stray dog that had been bullied to the limit.

The torrential night rain showed no sign of letting up, and the condition of the person before him had reached a crumbling point. Yan Xu’s expression was blurred further by the continuous lines of rain. He lowered his gaze during the standoff and noticed the kittens hidden in the young master’s bosom.

The few little creatures of unknown origin were no larger than rats; their fur was sparse, and their eyes didn’t seem to have opened yet. At a glance, it was impossible to tell if they were dead or alive.

They occupied the space against the young man’s chest.

Yan Xu picked up the kitten huddled closest to Wei Changli and asked: “Then, do you want to save them?”

It was a sentence so gentle it couldn’t be gentler, yet Wei Changli heard a hidden threat within it.

Without allowing for argument, Yan Xu brushed aside the rain-soaked hair on his forehead and cupped his face, saying seriously: “I will save them. Be good, and come home with me.”

Home.

The word “home” pierced Wei Changli’s nerves like a steel needle taken from an ice cellar. He wanted to laugh for no reason, but his throat was so dry it ached. This pain was like an interlacing spiderweb, invisibly trapping him in a cage.

Even after being apart for three years, a lingering tacit understanding remained between the two. Yan Xu seemed to realize he had poked Wei Changli’s sore spot; his flawless expression finally showed a fleeting crack.

The abrupt silence was like a snag in an old radio tape. The man suddenly raised his hand to caress Wei Changli’s cold cheek with extreme tenderness.

After a long while, he repeated: “I will save them. Will you come home with me?”

Wei Changli’s brow furrowed silently. He wanted to refuse, but his current predicament forced him to bow his head. He had no choice.

The night was so cold it felt as if it were stripping the bones from his body.

This silent standoff did not last long. Wei Changli suddenly closed his eyes coldly, his face instantly becoming haggard to the extreme.

Yan Xu read his silent acquiescence. He swept his arm under the crook of the youth’s knees, lifted him up, and strode toward where the car was parked at the alley entrance.

The driver, waiting by the car, opened the door, assisting Yan Xu as he sat in the back seat with Wei Changli. He thoughtfully handed over a dry towel and hot water.

He spoke respectfully: “Director Yan, I have contacted people to wait at the Medical Department.”

Wei Changli opened his eyes upon hearing the words “Medical Department.” He silently met Yan Xu’s gaze. In the moment their eyes met, Wei Changli knew that a certain awkward, unspoken understanding still existed between them.

The man looked down at him for a few seconds before saying to the driver: “No need. Go straight home.”

The driver closed his mouth in a disciplined manner. The car engine roared to life. The wipers cleared the windshield as the bright lights split the intersecting streets, breaking through the vast curtain of rain.

The rear of the car they occupied had independent seats, with the center armrest creating a fixed gap between them. Initially, the cabin was silent. Both leaned against their backrests—one peacefully closing his eyes, the other turning his head to look at the blurred, repetitive scenery outside. The darkness felt as though it had no end.

Stripped of the rain’s physical cooling effect, Wei Changli felt as though his entire being was on fire. His body temperature rose rapidly; he trembled uncontrollably from his fingertips to his scalp, and even his internal organs surged with wave after wave of restless, burning itchiness, torturing him to the brink of collapse.

But even in this situation, even having been forced onto Yan Xu’s car, Wei Changli was still unwilling to show a shattered, submissive side.

He still harbored the hope of suppression and concealment, wanting to hide it and drag it out until the very last possible moment.

Time rippled away in the splashes kicked up by the wheels. While Wei Changli was desperately enduring, Yan Xu suddenly opened his eyes.

He turned his gaze toward the young man. Deep in his clear pupils was reflected a face flushed crimson from the lack of rain to cool it down.

“How much longer do you intend to endure?” the man asked quietly.

He had noticed.

Wei Changli felt his heart tighten.

He had always known this man was sharp. Without the natural interference of the storm, it was a certainty that Yan Xu would discover his abnormality.

Knowing he couldn’t hide it but still struggling to endure, Wei Changli only felt his persistence was laughable.

Yan Xu stared at him, watching the burning fever-red spread from the corner of the youth’s eye to his earlobes. His lowered eyelashes were wet enough to drip. The boy looked so weak it was as if he were suffering some form of torment.

The man’s perpetually inscrutable expression seemed to turn a bit colder. He suddenly opened his lips: “U-turn. Back to the Medical Department.”

The driver responded and obediently turned the car around.

“I’m not going there,” Wei Changli said.

As if he hadn’t heard, Yan Xu closed his eyes to rest again. Though his back rested slightly against the seat, his posture remained upright—it was the posture of someone long accustomed to high status: forceful and brook no refusal.

Wei Changli repeated breathlessly: “I said… I’m not going.”

“External wounds can be dressed at home.”

Yan Xu suddenly opened his eyes and frowned slightly as he leaned in. The distance between them narrowed in an instant, and the balance of sitting on opposite sides of the car was easily broken.

“Then what do you plan to do about this?”

The man’s voice was flat and expressionless, but his extended finger used a nearly insulting force to trace the shape of Young Master Wei’s lips. His fingertips rubbed those two wet, red lips without restraint, forcing open Wei Changli’s clenched teeth. He used two fingers to stir within the feverish, engorged mouth, watching silently as shimmering threads of saliva dampened the young man’s teeth, flowing down the bright red lips in a moist, erotic trail.

Wei Changli no longer had the strength to resist. His throat moved slightly, and he only used his fragile yet stubborn eyes to look back at Yan Xu.

He would not go to the hospital.

Wei Changli held only this one stubborn thought in his mind.

This young master, who had grown up pampered by the Wei family like a star surrounded by moons, had a natural fear of “hospitals.” This was a trauma that had existed since his childhood—something he couldn’t recall but was etched into his bones, incurable despite the passage of years.

Yan Xu knew he had this problem. He had never asked why, but he remembered.

“Or are you saying that to avoid the hospital, you’d rather use ‘another method’ to solve it?”

Yan Xu withdrew his wet fingers and lightly tilted Wei Changli’s chin up. His gaze was deep; both his words and his actions were cornering him.

Between two evils, choose the lesser. Going to the hospital was the optimal solution right now.

“…”

The air became quiet and deadlocked again, until Wei Changli curled his lips into a cold, derisive smile.

His hand trembled as he gripped Yan Xu’s wrist. He then lowered his head and pressed a hot, moist, and malicious kiss onto the man’s cool back of the hand.

“Stop acting like a gentleman… didn’t you come looking for me just to do that?”