Some people look like they’re reasoning, but they’re actually about to be cooked through.

The weather had entered the dog days of summer, hot during the day and cool at night. The evening temperature was very comfortable.

The fireplace didn’t need to be lit for now; it was just on with a soft ambient light.

Ming Chi, curled up on the sofa hugging his right knee, had half his face buried in his crossed arms. He firmly believed that the little sparks currently popping out of his chest, if they were to lick the inside of the fireplace, could instantly set it ablaze.

Mr. Shadow didn’t speak.

Mr. Shadow was actually not speaking.

Ming Chi steeled his heart and finally decided not to just rely on words. He stealthily moved his arm to brace himself on the sofa, preparing to first let Mr. Shadow experience the force that would come later.

He had recovered quite well these past few days. Gathering his strength, he was ready to act, about to launch himself off the sofa, when the support under his palm suddenly vanished.

Although Mr. Shadow wasn’t speaking, he had somehow already stood up and made the first move.

Ming Chi was lifted from the sofa in his entirety.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time—just look at the hand that automatically and skillfully wrapped around Mr. Shadow’s shoulder. Ming Chi’s body was clearly more experienced than his own memory.

Not just after the surgery, but also during the period of recuperation before it, he must have been carried around by Mr. Shadow quite a bit.

It was just that… this time, a certain person happened to be burning up. With a little random running around, he could set the fireplace on fire.

Ming Chi could almost feel his hand scalding Mr. Shadow’s neck. He wanted to pull his hand back to cool it down, but before he could move, the arm around his back tightened.

Ming Weiting was looking down into his eyes.

This action must have been mutual. When Ming Weiting looked at him, his figure was also reflected in Ming Chi’s eyes.

“Want an advance?” Ming Weiting raised his hand and touched his eyelashes. “An experience?”

Ming Chi blinked, his eyes instantly brightening. He quickly understood Mr. Shadow’s meaning. His body, which had been slightly retreating for fear of burning the other, now pressed forward without hesitation, holding tightly onto Ming Weiting’s shoulder.

“Uncle Lu,” Ming Weiting said, holding him as he stood up. “I’m taking Huo Miao back to the room.”

Ming Lu smiled and nodded, waving at Ming Chi, whose eyes were already filled with excitement.

…

Mr. Shadow must have secretly rehearsed on his own too.

Mr. Shadow must have secretly planned the best route to carry him from the sofa, up the stairs, and back to the room.

Mr. Shadow must have also wanted to catch him as he leaped over.

Although the order of the process was slightly adjusted, turning into being pounced into his arms first, then rushing upstairs, the effect was just as exciting and stimulating, even more so than Ming Chi had imagined himself rushing over—he could feel Mr. Shadow’s heartbeat. His heart knocked on the door from across their chests and immediately received the same undisguised, direct response.

Mr. Shadow carried him back to the room. Such a small amount of exercise certainly wouldn’t tire anyone out, but for now, neither of them wanted to move or do anything.

So the two of them lay side by side on the large bed, limbs sprawled out, him pillowing his head on Mr. Shadow’s shoulder.

A gentle breeze was blowing, and the moonlight cast the silhouettes of flowers and plants into the room. They looked at the myriad of twinkling stars outside the terrace.

“Oh my god,” Ming Chi stared at the stars, unable to look away, and couldn’t help but whisper, “How can it be this good?”

Ming Weiting turned his head to look at him, a particularly obvious smile in his eyes, and repeated in a low voice, “How can it be this good.”

“Mr. Shadow mimics what I say every day.”

Ming Chi was so happy he even couldn’t resist being a little picky. “You need to have your own creativity at this time. You should say something new.”

Ming Weiting was very cooperative and thought for a moment. “It’s not that good either.”

That wasn’t what Ming Chi meant. He widened his eyes and turned his head to look at him.

They were too close. Turning like this, they were almost face to face, able to feel the slight tickle of warm breath caressing their eyelashes.

…

The temperature that had just barely dropped started to waver and rise again. Ming Chi blinked his eyes rapidly, preparing to pretend to be composed and turn his head back, but a hand had already been raised to cup the back of his neck.

“Every day from now on will be even better than today.”

Ming Weiting said softly, “Fifty years from now, when you write in your journal, there will be twenty thousand things better than today.”

Caught off guard, Ming Chi was hit with precision.

He let out an “ah,” pressed a hand to his chest, and slowly blinked, looking at Mr. Shadow, who was right in front of him.

Ming Weiting touched his ear and suddenly smiled.

Ming Chi was looking at his own reflection in his eyes and was suddenly embraced by the rippling smile. Before he could come back to his senses, Ming Weiting’s hand was already on his back.

Ming Weiting turned over completely and hugged him. “Huo Miao.”

Ming Chi wanted to respond, but he couldn’t find his mouth for the moment, so he could only clutch Mr. Shadow’s shirt and tug at it.

“If you don’t speak, I’ll take it as a yes,” Ming Weiting waited a few seconds, then continued, “Someone said I’m a very black-hearted creditor.”

Ming Chi couldn’t help but laugh. “Who?”

Ming Weiting looked down at him, his eyes seemingly filled with the stars that had jumped in from outside the window. This time, he didn’t mimic Ming Chi’s words. “Someone I like very much.”

Ming Weiting said, “The person who made me start writing a journal.”

He was not the captain of any particular ship, nor did he have the habit of keeping a sailing log.

Sailing logs were written by people on land, because that was not their normal state of life, so they had to write logs to distinguish and record, for later reference.

“No matter what kind of life, once it becomes your norm, you won’t particularly want to record it.”

Ming Weiting said softly, “My life is very monotonous.”

The sea would have many different sceneries, many people coming and going, getting on and off the ship. The ocean was vast and boundless, never-ending. Every new place you sailed to was new.

But when you lived on the sea, and this life became your norm, you wouldn’t deliberately appreciate them, nor would you feel they were so special and desirable.

But next to a flame, everything suddenly became different.

Ming Weiting had actually been thinking about this for many days. He had been thinking about where things had started to become special. How could he possibly mind that Ming Chi insisted on taking care of himself and not wanting others’ help? If there was a button that could make Ming Chi instantly cured and completely healthy, he would press it without hesitation.

In the entryway, seeing Ming Chi deftly adjust his posture on his own, propping himself up with his cane and standing steadily, seeing the sparkling, exceptionally spirited smile in those eyes, he wasn’t thinking about anything at all.

He couldn’t think of anything else; he just wanted to respond to that smile. He wanted to pick him up and run back to the room, lie on the bed doing nothing for a while, and hold Ming Chi to talk quietly for a bit, telling him just how cool and amazing he was.

It was just that Teacher Huo Miao had suddenly started a small lesson, so the progress of the whole plan was slightly delayed by a few minutes.

“On the way home, the things I said to you, I didn’t make them clear.”

Ming Weiting said, “I know you can take care of yourself completely, without any help from others. That’s not what I meant to say.”

Ming Chi, all steamed up, tried to raise his hand. “…I do need it, I don’t know the way.”

Ming Weiting smiled. He took that hand, lowered his gaze, and once again lightly kissed Ming Chi’s knuckles.

This kiss had a special elegance. Ming Chi rarely saw this side of Mr. Shadow, but he knew very well that this side must exist—although they were still lying lazily on the bed, this action pulled him to another place—the ocean, the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the ship that traveled the world.

“We can both live on our own.”

Ming Weiting said, “I do what the master of the Ming family should do, step by step. If you hadn’t gotten sick, you would have been able to take care of yourself long ago. You would have traveled everywhere, lived the life you liked. You could have lived cooler than anyone else on your own.”

Ming Chi blinked. He wanted to speak, but sensing that Mr. Shadow hadn’t finished, he swallowed back what he was about to say.

Ming Weiting remembered what he had just said and added, “Traveling everywhere with navigation, living the life you like while asking for directions.”

Ming Chi couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Wouldn’t I get lost too easily!”

“It’s okay if you get lost.” Ming Weiting also smiled and touched his ear. “Wherever you go, someone will like you.”

Ming Chi’s ear got a little hot from his touch, but the night wind seemed a little cool. He pursed his lips for a moment and unconsciously scooted closer to Mr. Shadow.

“The trajectory of fate was unfair to you, causing setbacks. We have corrected it now.”

Ming Weiting pulled the quilt over him, paused, and then continued, “Next, returning to the original trajectory, we can still both live on our own. I will still do the things I did in the past, and there will be no problems.”

Ming Chi’s expression grew more and more serious. He frowned slightly, took Mr. Shadow’s hand, and gently pulled it a couple of times, wanting to sit up with him.

Ming Weiting didn’t move. He just continued speaking, as if these words had been drafted in his mind for a long time, and a slight interruption or pause would mean he would never have the chance to continue.

“I prepared a ninety-five-page plan to become a fan again, but even ninety-five pages will be finished one day.”

“I was invited by you as a friend to learn how to make bread and shrimp dumplings with you, but even the most difficult cooking techniques can be mastered one day.”

“Uncle Lu and I are your family, but family members will also have their own careers and lives.”

Ming Weiting said, “I hope you recover soon, and I hope you can be completely healthy. But I find myself feeling uneasy about the fact that ‘you no longer need to be taken care of’—I’ve been trying to find the source of this uneasiness.”

Ming Chi, pillowed on his arm, lay back down. He listened intently and, hearing this, suddenly couldn’t help but ask, “Did you find the answer?”

“I did,” Ming Weiting nodded. “You answered me.”

When he heard Ming Chi whisper “someone is waiting for me to come home,” he realized he had finally found the answer. That flame was always more sensitive than him, possessing a kind of natural intuition that went straight to the core.

“What I’m truly uneasy about is not these things,” Ming Weiting said. “It’s that I want a position by your side.”

Ming Chi was stunned for a moment, his eyes widening slightly.

Ming Weiting raised his hand, bent his finger, and lightly touched Ming Chi’s eyelashes.

His life was monotonous, and there was originally no problem with this monotony.

He had grown up like this and continued to be Mr. Ming like this. Everything became different after meeting Ming Chi. That flame dyed everything with a special, exceptionally bright color… and so he started keeping a journal.

But even if one day, he finally couldn’t find any suitable identity to stay by that flame’s side—although such a hypothesis was almost impossible, but if it really happened—it was not as if he couldn’t return to his original pace of life and continue to live out this life.

It was not that he couldn’t do this, but at some point on some day, he suddenly began to feel uneasy because of this hypothesis.

He suddenly found himself desperately hoping to achieve Ming Chi’s hypothesis—that he could wait at the place Ming Chi would return to every day, always be there, waiting for that flame to come home every day.

“Oops,” Ming Weiting was silent for a moment, then looked down and smiled. “My father taught me that greed is a great taboo.”

Ming Chi, wrapped in the quilt, continued to inch over, bit by bit.

He finally moved enough to be able to wrap Mr. Shadow in the quilt as well, so he did just that. When the quilt covered both of them, he, all steamed up, rested his forehead against Mr. Shadow’s chin.

“How can you be uneasy about something like this,” Ming Chi patted Mr. Shadow’s back gently and muttered, “I only forgot to come home for one day, right?”

That was not at all what Ming Weiting was trying to say. He smiled, held Ming Chi, and lifted him up from the quilt so that his eyes could see his own. “Then.”

“For the next fifty years, or longer,” Ming Weiting asked, “can I continue to wait every day?”

Ming Chi looked up, stunned, and met Ming Weiting’s gaze. His throat moved slightly.

He almost couldn’t stop himself from speaking, but Mr. Shadow raised his hand to cover his eyes. A warmth approached and settled over them, then didn’t move. The heart in his chest once again began to hear the neighbor from across the door knocking.

“No rush to answer, Huo Miao. You need to get better first.”

Ming Weiting said, “You’ve encountered very terrible things. I know that even if you’ve forgotten, you still remember.”

This was said a bit strangely, but Ming Chi could understand.

He had already forgotten those things. Everything had been erased and turned into a blank, but the instinctive habits left behind, the inexplicable feelings that occasionally popped up, would not disappear so decisively along with them.

The him now was the him who had lived for twenty-three years. The events of these twenty-three years, whether remembered or not, would leave traces.

It was all the traces of these twenty-three years that had shaped the him he was now.

“Let me guess,” Ming Chi hadn’t seen those letters yet, but he could basically deduce the general situation. He took over the conversation with a straight face, “There’s a flame here that’s about to go out.”

Ming Chi said softly, “A kind-hearted person saved him and picked him up.”

Ming Weiting thought for a moment. “Not really.”

Ming Chi was surprised. “No?”

“Not a kind-hearted person,” Ming Weiting said. “A black-hearted creditor.”

Ming Weiting took the initiative to tell him this. “During this time, this black-hearted creditor swindled him out of one hundred and thirty-four paintings and fifty other IOUs.”

Ming Chi’s eyes widened under his palm.

The eyelashes brushing against his palm were ticklish. Ming Weiting’s expression softened, and he smiled, moving his palm away. “So… at this time, I can’t swindle you anymore, no matter what.”

Ming Chi pulled his thoughts back from the fifty IOUs—for some reason, he had a vague intuition that he had most likely been quite proactive in selling himself off decisively while counting the money.

“Is it okay?” Ming Chi straightened his shoulders, trying hard to prove himself. “I’ve had the surgery, I’m already better.”

Ming Weiting shook his head. “It’s not okay.”

In those past years, this flame had been surrounded by a darkness so thick it couldn’t be dispelled. Except for the three years he was cared for by Mrs. Ren, he had hardly been to any interesting places or met any interesting people.

So Ming Chi had to go and see first.

This had nothing to do with what he thought or whether he was uneasy—Ming Chi must first live a normal person’s life, experience the happy things he should have experienced, and meet many people.

He was very honored to have filled the blank in Ming Chi’s life, but this blank should be filled with more things he should have come into contact with long ago.

That flame should first get its freedom.

When that time came… if Ming Chi still thought that coming home to find Mr. Shadow was the happiest thing, and still thought that a person like him was not boring and that they could spend their lives together day and night.

At that time, if he still had this honor.

Ming Weiting slowly explained these words to Ming Chi, watching his expression grow more and more serious. He couldn’t help but smile and tapped him between the eyebrows. “I’m not letting you go by yourself.”

“A black-hearted creditor also has to seek some special privileges for himself,” Ming Weiting said warmly. “I’ll go with you, to a freer place, to meet more very interesting, very amazing people.”

Only then did Ming Chi immediately let out a sigh of relief. He looked at him, his expression still particularly serious. “Mr. Shadow is the most interesting and most amazing.”

Ming Weiting was at a loss for words. He lowered his shoulder, closed his eyes, and rested his forehead against Ming Chi’s.

“If I have this honor… if, at that time, you still think so.”

Ming Weiting said softly, “Huo Miao.”

He was not a very generous or magnanimous person.

Ming Chi had to first enjoy absolute, unrestrained freedom.

If, in the future, Ming Chi had something he liked more and wanted to do, or someone he admired more and was more compatible with, he would absolutely respect Ming Chi’s wishes and would always be his best friend and family.

…

But if, at that time, he was still Huo Miao’s Mr. Shadow.

If he had this honor.

Ming Weiting looked at him. “Every day of yours from now on, when they are recorded in the journal, will include my name.”