Drunk On The Night Breeze - Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Hearing Tao Zhi’s muttered complaints, Ruan Lingfeng didn’t say anything. He simply pushed the bowl Tao Zhi had mentioned toward him. “Here.”

Having failed to pick a fight, Tao Zhi fell silent.

After a moment of quiet, Ruan Lingfeng asked softly, “You said just now… you live alone?”

Normally, Ruan Lingfeng wouldn’t pry into others’ privacy. But since Tao Zhi had broached the subject, he likely hoped Ruan Lingfeng would follow up; otherwise, there would have been no need to start the topic.

Ruan Lingfeng remembered then—Mid-Autumn Festival, a time for family reunions, yet Tao Zhi had been like him: a bird with no branch to perching on, wandering outside. Seeing the other’s casual, carefree attitude so often had made Ruan Lingfeng forget that everyone has their own difficult story to tell.

Back then, Tao Zhi had no intention of opening up. Now, however, the hard thorns of his outer shell had softened, leaving behind only a bit of bluster. Ruan Lingfeng could see right through it.

If one party is willing to tentatively reveal a secret, the other party must be willing to catch it. Ruan Lingfeng decided he was willing to catch it. He was willing to ask a few more questions so this overly proud “stinky younger brother” wouldn’t feel like he was actively showing weakness. He was also willing to listen. He might not be able to do much after hearing it, but he could at least offer a few words of comfort.

Tao Zhi’s hands paused for a second. “Oh, it’s nothing much.”

Starting with “nothing much,” the words that followed were spoken without much emotion, as if he were talking about someone else. “It was back when I was in elementary school, I think? My ‘Little Dad’ (Omega father) committed suicide. My father and his mistress thought our old house was unlucky, so they moved elsewhere. I stayed behind in the old place by myself. My father wanted to send me to a boarding school or even abroad, but I didn’t want to listen to him.”

“Because I lived alone and didn’t like people coming into my house, I chased away the nanny my father hired… anyway, I just did everything myself.”

Tao Zhi paused here and glanced at Ruan Lingfeng. “I usually don’t bother saying these things. I only told you because you asked. I don’t really feel anything about it… I just wanted to say that I’m actually quite good at housework.”

Ruan Lingfeng’s heart surged like a thousand waves upon hearing Tao Zhi’s first sentence. He had considered that Tao Zhi might have a bad relationship with his family, but he had guessed wrong. He had thought, at most, that his parents were too busy with their careers to care for him, causing him to grow up rebellious. He hadn’t expected this, nor had he expected him to say it so nonchalantly.

Even without details, just mentioning it was enough to imagine how much it must have hurt. Especially since Tao Zhi was just a small child at the time.

He felt he had been too arrogant.

He knew Tao Zhi was pretending not to care on the surface, but was currently waiting to see how he would react. If he followed his heart, he would want to pat Tao Zhi on the head—but he knew Tao Zhi wouldn’t want pity.

Actually, it wasn’t pity… it was heartache.

Ruan Lingfeng spoke after careful consideration: “You’re that capable? Then you might as well help me out with some chores… since we live quite close now. If I’m not working overtime, I usually cook at home. You can come over for a free meal whenever you’re free… mostly because I actually hate doing the prep work and washing dishes. It’s annoying. If you come, I get to exploit a free laborer.”

“…You really are,” Tao Zhi had expected Ruan Lingfeng to say something else. He had imagined several things Ruan Lingfeng might say and had prepared responses to ensure he didn’t seem too pathetic. He didn’t expect Ruan Lingfeng to deflect so skillfully, completely avoiding his sore spot while hitting exactly where it counted.

He hadn’t been able to stop himself from saying “it’s been a long time since anyone specifically cooked for me,” so Ruan Lingfeng used the excuse of needing help with chores to invite him over for meals often.

Tao Zhi kept his head down, plucking the green beans. He knew he was starting to fall for him. Even if this Omega was a “Central Air Conditioner” (a person who is nice to everyone) who attracted messy “rotten peach blossoms” everywhere—the exact kind of Omega he usually resisted—he seemed to be falling anyway.

After a long while, he said, “You really have a cunning plan… how dare you? Asking me to come do your housework whenever I’m free? I’m a top-tier singer, you know.”

Ruan Lingfeng felt a sigh of relief in his heart and played along, bickering back: “…Is a top-tier singer so amazing? You only went viral recently because of the concert I planned for you.”

Tao Zhi regained his blindly confident, cocky attitude: “Don’t be a fool. Do you think we could have had that kind of buzz without marketing? The fansite masters who first posted the photos were all coordinated by Chen Ping—they’re basically semi-professional fans. Once they posted on Weibo, we bought all kinds of promotions. If you did this for some stingy person, nobody would even know you built such a cool stage.”

Ruan Lingfeng: “…”

Tao Zhi: “Hasn’t your market value skyrocketed? I’ve heard a bunch of copycats are trying to hire you to plan for them. Isn’t that all thanks to me? What’s wrong with making me a few meals to show your gratitude?”

Ruan Lingfeng glared at him. “I’ll poison your food.”

Tao Zhi: “…”

Just as Tao Zhi had said, he was good at housework. The efficiency of two people was indeed higher than one person working alone; they sat down at the dining table much earlier than Ruan Lingfeng had originally estimated.

Tao Zhi had initially offered to bring wine, but Ruan Lingfeng remembered how Tao Zhi had developed a fever after drinking last time. He firmly rejected the request, neither letting him bring any nor opening his own stash. So, Tao Zhi was now sitting across from Ruan Lingfeng, sipping on a Coke.

Looking at the person across from him, Ruan Lingfeng felt a bit of emotion. “Actually, I haven’t eaten with anyone in a long time… I mean, at home.” Grabbing a quick meal with colleagues while working was a common occurrence.

Despite there being only two of them, Ruan Lingfeng had prepared a somewhat lavish spread: four dishes and a soup, all steaming hot.

He added, “Normally I just throw something together. When I can’t think of what to eat, it’s just various stir-fried meats. Broccoli and meat today, garlic sprouts and meat tomorrow, dried tofu and meat the day after.”

Tao Zhi pushed his luck: “Then you should thank me for improving your diet today.”

Ruan Lingfeng: “Then thank you very much indeed.”

Hearing Ruan Lingfeng say he hadn’t eaten at home with anyone for a long time, Tao Zhi somehow thought of Ruan Lingfeng’s unlucky ex-boyfriend… When Ruan Lingfeng was dating that guy, they must have cooked at home together, right? Thinking this made Tao Zhi unhappy, and he asked casually, “So when was the last time you ate at home with someone?”

Ruan Lingfeng picked up some food and thought back carefully. If he didn’t count going back to his hometown, it was… about half a year ago?

When Ruan Lingfeng gave that timeframe, Tao Zhi looked shocked. “You’ve been broken up with that idiot for half a year? And he’s still stalking you?” Did you cast a spell on him? Tao Zhi thought, but he didn’t say it out loud.

“Huh? No,” Ruan Lingfeng said. “We broke up about two months ago. But before the breakup, it’s true we hadn’t eaten together for a long time. I was busy. Sometimes when I finally managed to be home and messaged him, he said he was busy too… I don’t know if he was actually busy or just faking it. Anyway, toward the end, having a partner felt about the same as not having one. We only saw each other once in a long while.”

Tao Zhi got even angrier. Motherf—er, someone is at home cooking and waiting, and you can say you’re ‘busy’ and not come back?

Tao Zhi asked, “So you dumped him?”

“I was the one who brought it up.” Ruan Lingfeng paused, seemingly finding it strange to discuss his romantic life with a “younger brother” like this. He hesitated for a moment before saying, “But I didn’t originally want to break up… I caught him cheating.”

Tao Zhi: “……”

Tao Zhi: “Fuck his mother.”

Ruan Lingfeng was clearly the victim, but Tao Zhi’s reaction was much more intense.

“And he still has the fucking nerve to come looking for you? I thought you were the one who dumped him.” Back at the police station, to protect Ruan Lingfeng’s privacy, Tao Zhi and Chen Ping had stepped away while the relationship dispute was being settled. Therefore, Tao Zhi didn’t know exactly what had happened between Ruan Lingfeng and his ex. Seeing the man’s persistence was annoying, but he had assumed it was a typical breakup, and it looked more like Ruan Lingfeng had done the dumping—because he felt an Omega like Ruan Lingfeng, who could release pheromones at an Alpha he’d just met, might be the type to get tired of people quickly.

Actually, if he thought about it carefully, Tao Zhi should have realized the labels he put on Ruan Lingfeng were too far removed from Ruan Lingfeng’s actual behavior. But right now, he had no time for deep thought; he was still fuming. “The next time I see him, I’m really going to hit him.”

Ruan Lingfeng didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Don’t be angry.”

Tao Zhi buried his head in his food and asked, “You said you didn’t originally want to break up… and he said you still have feelings for him… you…”

“You ran into him?” Ruan Lingfeng had been wondering how Tao Zhi knew Xu Mao was still stubbornly harassing him. Hearing Tao Zhi say this confirmed they must have crossed paths.

Tao Zhi hadn’t intended to bring it up, but he mentioned it now: “Yeah. Just yesterday, saw him downstairs at your old place. I chased him off.”

Ruan Lingfeng: “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tao Zhi: “Nothing to tell. He’s bad luck.”

Although the analogy was a bit strange and not very polite to Tao Zhi, when Tao Zhi said he had “chased him off,” Ruan Lingfeng naturally thought of a small dog guarding the house.

“I meant, why didn’t you tell me you were downstairs at my place… I don’t want to hear about him either, it’s annoying,” for some reason, Ruan Lingfeng began to explain slowly. “And don’t listen to what he says. I’m beyond disgusted; how could I still have feelings for him? When I said I didn’t want to break up, I meant that I felt as long as there were no major conflicts, there was nothing wrong with just living like that.”

Tao Zhi actually wanted to ask: So if he hadn’t cheated, would you really have stayed with that trash who barely even came home?

Then he thought, if his lover sent him a message saying they wanted to eat at home together, he would catch a flight home even if he were busy to death.

He had thought about such things before, many times.

But in the past, he had thought about it from the perspective of a child, with resentment. In his memory, his “Little Dad” was always waiting for someone who never came home.

What he was thinking now was: If I had a lover…