Married the Abandoned Puppy Alpha - Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Early Winter Snow

Unexpectedly, after finally seeing Shi Qingze, He Xinglou’s first thought was to feel a pang of sorrow.

How could he be here?

How could he live in a place as rotten as this?

In He Xinglou’s imagination, Shi Qingze should have continued being the dignified heir to the Shi family, living as he deserved in that vast, boundless ancestral estate—silk bedding, climate-controlled rooms, exquisite delicacies—never mistreating himself.

He might miss his partner far across the galaxy, but he should be doing so while standing before pristine floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out at the glittering night view of the Imperial Capital, surrounded by the faint, gentle fragrance of his room.

It should have been like that.

He Xinglou bit his lip and stared at him, his neatly trimmed nails digging into his palms because of his clenched fists.

Shi Qingze looked much thinner; the contours of his features seemed to sunken in the dim light, his face so narrow that one could cradle it with both hands.

He Xinglou felt that his current state was somewhat familiar. Thinking back, he remembered that when they had reunited the last time, the Shi Qingze he saw in the secret room looked just like this.

In places where he couldn’t see, Shi Qingze always seemed to let his life fall into a mess.

The bullet fired long ago finally ricocheted back, striking He Xinglou directly in the heart.

His voice trembled as he suppressed a sob, whispering, “Why are you running? Do you… not want to see me?”

Across several floors, Shi Qingze’s expression instantly became soft and helpless. His face vanished from the gap in the stairs, followed by the sound of footsteps slowly approaching upward.

He Xinglou froze in place. He clearly had so many things to say; now that the entire building held only the two of them, he wouldn’t even have to fear disturbing others if he shouted, yet those words were stuck in his throat, unable to be squeezed out.

He stayed quiet for a few seconds, then felt that Shi Qingze was walking too slowly, so he proactively started walking down as well.

The footsteps drew closer, eventually merging into the same frequency.

Seeing a tall shadow turn the corner, He Xinglou stopped on the stairs and waited, silently watching Shi Qingze appear before him.

After two months apart, the two finally met.

“Was that you earlier, downstairs at the office?” He Xinglou suddenly asked an unrelated question.

Shi Qingze was wearing a solid black trench coat, almost blending into the night, except for his light gray eyes which shimmered as he blinked slowly at him.

His shoulders carried glistening water marks as if he had been in the rain. He Xinglou belatedly remembered that it was supposed to snow tonight; those marks were likely melted snow.

“Not answering?” he pressed. “Did you see that scene, misunderstand something, and that’s why you didn’t want to see me?”

As he spoke, He Xinglou’s voice took on the aggrieved tone of someone about to cry.

Shi Qingze sighed. “I didn’t ‘not want to see you’.”

Xinglou raised a hand to shield his tears. “I wasn’t messing around with someone else. That was just a kid… Did you see it? When did you get here?”

He rarely showed such a childish side in front of others, speaking incessantly without control. Seeing this, Shi Qingze’s heart softened, and he stepped forward to embrace him.

“How could I misunderstand Brother? Brother is even still wearing the wedding ring.” Shi Qingze stroked his hair, sensing the uneasy aura in the overflowing pheromones.

So, he also released his own pheromones with restraint. The scent of pine enveloped him comfortingly. Only then did He Xinglou feel his heart find solid ground, letting out a long breath.

He buried his face in the crook of Shi Qingze’s neck, the tears remaining on his face merging with the melted snow.

“Then why didn’t you come to see me?” He became suspicious again. “Is it because I didn’t come home on time and you’re angry?”

“No, I’m not angry. Don’t be afraid, Brother.”

Shi Qingze paused, his tone somewhat helpless. “It’s just that I wasn’t ready yet.”

He Xinglou gave him a pinch on the waist, muttering, “What preparation do you need to see me? Do you have any idea—”

The pressure of his fingers softened, changing into a tight wrap of his arms around him.

“Do you have any idea how much I missed you?”

The sound of breathing in his ear suddenly lost its rhythm. Shi Qingze pulled him even tighter into his embrace. “I missed Brother very much too. That’s why I came looking for you.”

He Xinglou nodded.

He wasn’t surprised by this; after all, Shi Qingze had said before that no matter where he went, Shi Qingze would come for him.

After getting the pheromones he craved, He Xinglou calmed down significantly. He pulled back a short distance and tugged at Shi Qingze’s sleeve.

“Come to my room with me. It’s too cold here.”

Shi Qingze didn’t move, his expression suddenly becoming a bit awkward. “I have to go back to my room to take care of something.”

“What thing?” He Xinglou was confused. “I’ve been there; there’s clearly nothing.”

Shi Qingze pressed his lips together, and after a long while, he managed to squeeze out two words: “Tending flowers.”

“What?”

“Tending flowers. It started snowing tonight, I have to move the sunflowers back inside.”

Only then did He Xinglou remember that it was after seeing the half-bloomed sunflowers on the opposite balcony that he had come over out of curiosity.

He was completely baffled. “You came to this planet, didn’t come to see me, but instead had the heart to grow flowers across the way??”

“Because… they were flowers intended for Brother,” Shi Qingze explained with difficulty. “I started growing them on the starship. Maybe I gave them too much nutrient solution; I didn’t expect them to bloom early. But it’s snowing today, and I was worried the petals would freeze.”

I see. Everything became logical, and He Xinglou relaxed instantly.

Back when Shi Qingze was working at the amusement park, he had given him flowers too—a bright, brilliant bunch of sunflowers.

“So, you didn’t come to see me immediately because you wanted to give me the flowers when we reunited?”

Shi Qingze nodded obediently.

“Dummy.” He Xinglou gave him a light flick on the forehead. “Couldn’t you just buy them here? The climate here is like Earth; there would be flowers.”

“But those wouldn’t be ones I grew myself,” Shi Qingze corrected him seriously.

“I’ve read Brother’s picture book. Aren’t flowers only precious if they are grown by one’s own hand? And at the end of the book, someone drew sunflowers in the empty pot”

Shi Qingze observed him closely, speaking tentatively. “The person who drew those sunflowers must be someone very, very important to Brother.”

He Xinglou looked up abruptly, staring at him in surprise.

He already knows?

Shi Qingze didn’t say more, appearing to wait for his answer.

He Xinglou sighed. He didn’t answer immediately but instead took his hand and led him up the stairs.

“Let’s move the flowers inside first, then we can talk slowly.”

…

Returning to the room where Shi Qingze was staying, He Xinglou noticed that those few sunflowers were planted in culture dishes. Next to them was a small, frayed notebook detailing the growth of the sunflowers.

“You take such good care of the flowers, but such poor care of yourself,” He Xinglou complained unhappily.

Shi Qingze became a bit nervous being scolded, fearing he was actually angry. “I didn’t take poor care of myself.”

He Xinglou raised an eyebrow, his look saying, “You dare talk back?”

Then Shi Qingze didn’t dare say a word.

He diligently moved the culture dishes to the corner of the room and activated a protective shield, ensuring the flowers that hadn’t fully bloomed wouldn’t suffer from the frost.

Xinglou watched him work in silence, then suddenly said, “Actually, there is no parallel world.”

Shi Qingze’s movements stopped, and he turned to look at him.

“Shi Qingze, I…” He Xinglou spoke with difficulty. “Have you never wondered why I know so much about Ancient Earth?”

This time, Shi Qingze answered very quickly: “Why should I wonder?”

He tilted his head, sounding quite justified: “Brother is just very amazing.”

How thick are those filters? He Xinglou’s expression was complicated.

However, after being interrupted like this, He Xinglou felt much lighter. The next words weren’t so hard to say.

He sat on the simple bed, determined to reveal his final secret. “It’s because I come from the era of Ancient Earth.”

“The picture book you gave me was the original owner. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it? It was a book my mother bought for me when I was about five. The sunflowers in the empty pot were also drawn by my mother.”

Xinglou lifted his eyes, trying to observe Shi Qingze’s expression, but he saw no surprise or doubt on the other’s face.

“Didn’t I tell you the story about the parallel world? I said that in that world, only two genders existed. I was wrong. It wasn’t a parallel world; it was the world before the Interstellar Era began.”

Shi Qingze was slightly moved. “Brother means that thousands of years ago, the world’s genders weren’t like they are now?”

Xinglou twitched the corners of his mouth. “Perhaps interstellar travel brought rapid evolution to human genes. I was also very surprised when I first arrived here.”

He felt curious. “You don’t suspect I’m lying? Or that there’s something wrong with my head?”

Shi Qingze shook his head. “You wouldn’t lie to me. I know.”

He went to the suitcase, took out the picture book from under a pile of clothes. “I can’t understand the writing on this, but because Brother had such a strong reaction to seeing it, I took it to the Institute of Cultural Relics to investigate. Of course, most of the text couldn’t be deciphered, but among the few recognized characters, I found Brother’s name.”

He hadn’t expected him to have done such a thing.

He Xinglou was moved. “So, you guessed it back then?”

“A guess is one thing, but the truth had to wait for Brother to say it personally.”

Shi Qingze’s eyes held confusion. “I just don’t understand how something like this could happen. Even now, technology hasn’t broken through the principles of time travel, yet thousands of years ago, in the Earth era, could someone already do it?”

“That experiment was just a lucky miracle,” He Xinglou sighed.

“Humanity back then was facing an apocalypse, so the whole world was racking its brains for a solution. Some proposed space travel, some insisted on time travel, some suggested living underground… In short, there were all kinds of theories, so they decided to try everything.”

“When I was 20, I passed the physical fitness test of the Space Agency and was assigned to the time travel experimental group, becoming the first subject.”

“At the end of the picture book is a letter my mother wrote to me. She revealed that after I disappeared, the experimental group arranged for others to test, but all failed. So for a time, they thought I was dead too, that the experiment was a total failure, and the focus of research shifted to interstellar travel. It wasn’t until over a decade later that they picked up my life signal near a black hole.”

Shi Qingze understood. “That signal came from the future.”

He Xinglou sniffed and nodded. “It’s possible the frequency of the experiment just happened to pass through a wormhole. I am the only successful case of time travel, and a case that absolutely cannot be replicated. Moreover, I lost many memories in this time jump; the process was indeed perilous. So—”

He looked steadily at Shi Qingze. “I can’t go back. I can’t go to a parallel world, and I can’t go back to the Earth of the past.”

Shi Qingze was silent for a long time before saying, “When we lived together before, Brother’s words always made me very upset. It was like everything you said was hinting at a goodbye.”

“Brother wanted to return to the original world, right?”

“At that time, yes,” He Xinglou recalled. “Because life was miserable, and the Omega heat was so troublesome, I really wanted to return to my original life. I felt that was my true track.”

He noticed as he spoke that Shi Qingze’s shoulders slumped and his mood dampened. So he leaned forward and took Shi Qingze’s wrist, pulling him in front of him.

“But if I had to name the most likely moment I would have left, it was when we were on Planet Muxia.”

He Xinglou looked up at him with a smile. “You gave me the keys to the starship. You gave me that opportunity. At that time, I had solved my status problem, and there were basically no distractions. I could have completely taken the starship and left to find a way back to my original world.”

He paused, giving a self-deprecating smile. “Of course, looking back now, that was just a pipe dream.”

Shi Qingze listened seriously. Perhaps feeling that He Xinglou would be tired looking up at him, he simply knelt down himself, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on him.

“But Brother didn’t leave,” he stated.

This posture made it easy for He Xinglou to reach out and cradle Shi Qingze’s cheeks with his palms.

He said, “Because you became my only distraction.”

“Shi Qingze, the moment I knew the truth, I was naturally sad. I didn’t cry because I was sad that I couldn’t go back; I was sad because the people I loved have all passed away.”

“But I also feel fortunate.” His eyes curved. “I used to worry what if one day I really did return to the original world? What would you do? This kind of thing was completely out of my control. I might have come here in a daze and might have gone back in a daze, perhaps without even a chance to say goodbye to you.”

“That risk was like an uncontrollable bomb. I didn’t know when it would explode, or if it would explode at all. But now the dust has settled, and I never have to worry again.”

He saw a layer of tears welling in Shi Qingze’s eyes, shimmering in the dim room.

Neither of them spoke for a while. The room was so quiet that only the sound of the wind squeezing in could be heard. Outside, the snow fell heavier, coating the entire city in white. Between heaven and earth, only the sunflowers in the corner glowed like little flames.

“Brother, I am a very selfish person,” Shi Qingze said suddenly.

“I once bragged to you that no matter where you went, I would follow you. But if you went back to the Earth era, I definitely would not have been able to find you again. When I saw that picture book, I vaguely realized this, so I was so panicked I couldn’t sleep. That’s why I asked the Institute of Cultural Relics about your destination and followed you here.”

“Now hearing you say you can’t go back, I’ve finally breathed a sigh of relief.”

His eyelashes trembled, and a tear rolled down, dripping onto He Xinglou’s clothes.

“After knowing my selfishness, will you still love me?”

He Xinglou leaned down and kissed his lips, which were damp with tears.

“Of course I love you.”

…

When the two went downstairs, the snow on the ground had already accumulated quite thick, making a crunching sound when stepped on.

He Xinglou was a southerner before transmigrating, and the Imperial Capital Star also kept temperatures relatively warm and comfortable, so seeing snow inevitably felt exciting and novel.

He ran forward a few steps, played for a bit, then looked back to find Shi Qingze following slowly behind.

He Xinglou wanted to call out to urge him, but he saw Shi Qingze looking very serious, stepping precisely, one foot at a time, into the footprints He Xinglou had just made. The entire clean field of snow left only a single row of tracks.

He Xinglou laughed at the sight. “Should I say you’re gifted or just naturally talented?”

He’s always doing these things that make my heart skip a beat.

Shi Qingze looked up blankly, asking with his gaze, “What?”

He Xinglou laughed again without further explanation. He jogged back and leaped onto Shi Qingze’s neck, being caught and held steadily by the other.

The solid embrace clearly made Shi Qingze very happy too. He chuckled softly and gently kissed He Xinglou’s ear, which was red from the cold.

“Brother, we will be together forever.”

“Mm!” He Xinglou responded to him loudly and with certainty.