Chapter 53: A Beautiful Wish

Fu Rangyi remembered this sentence.

After all, the note that said [Fu Rangyi, if you want to eat it, just eat it. Zhu Zhixi is very generous] was still lying in his study drawer, along with the broken beaded bracelet. Whether it was the chocolate or Zhu Zhixi, both were surprises that fell from the sky, unplanned gifts.

Zhu Zhixi took his hand, touched it, and shook it a few times, saying to him, “Although, biting my neck might not have any substantial effect, and I’m not like an Omega who can soothe you physiologically, but it’s better than nothing, right? A little bite, releasing some pheromones, going through the motions of marking can also have a psychologically comforting effect. Just like last time, when I got drunk and bit your gland, I was very happy too.”

As he spoke, his fingers gradually slipped between his, lacing their fingers together. “Fu Rangyi, I’m serious. Don’t hold back, don’t hide it in your heart. Since you trust me so much already, you can also try to rely on me a little more.”

After Zhu Zhixi finished speaking, he looked up at him and tilted his head. “You’re not talking again, just staring at me. What are you looking at?”

Fu Rangyi didn’t know what to say. He was surrounded by an unprecedented sense of unease, as if submerged in water. The better Zhu Zhixi was, the more unreal it felt, the more it felt like a dream. It seemed as if he could just close his eyes, and this person would disappear, and his life would return to the way it was before.

But he could no longer go back.

The desire faded, and the pheromones inside the car gradually turned cold and bitter.

Zhu Zhixi, of course, was oblivious to this. But he didn’t need pheromones to sense Fu Rangyi’s emotions, so he continued to console him, “Don’t worry, Professor Fu. At least we’re not completely clueless now. There will definitely be a way.”

His smile was bright, his eyes clear, as if full of hope for everything. Fu Rangyi looked at him and finally raised his arms, embracing Zhu Zhixi.

“Why are you smiling?” His arms tightened, but his tone was light.

But Zhu Zhixi was stunned. He paused, then raised a hand to stroke Fu Rangyi’s back, saying casually, “Because I just like to smile. Is this the first day you’ve known me?”

“Is that so?” Fu Rangyi buried his face in the crook of his neck. “But just now, when we talked about what would happen when it hits zero, you were silent for a long time. It was only when you saw my face turn pale and saw how worried Liang Yi’en was that you suddenly spoke up, telling everyone to cheer each other on.”

Hearing this, Zhu Zhixi was speechless and at a loss.

Fu Rangyi continued, “You often pretend to be optimistic, especially when you’re scared. At those times, your voice is higher than usual, and your tone is more exaggerated. You’re not like that when you’re genuinely happy.”

Listening, Zhu Zhixi let out a small laugh and then said, “What are you talking about? I am very optimistic. I…”

As he spoke, the tip of his nose inexplicably tingled, and he suddenly couldn’t continue. He had no choice but to lower his head as well, burying his face in Fu Rangyi’s neck.

You’re the one who can read minds, aren’t you?

Fu Rangyi stroked his back and told him in a firm, calm voice, “It’s okay to be scared. You don’t have to hide your negative emotions just to reassure others. At least, you don’t have to do that in front of me.”

It was the first time anyone had ever said something like this to him. Tears welled up in Zhu Zhixi’s eyes. This person was clearly anxious too, yet he could perceive his emotions so keenly.

After a long silence, he managed to hold back a sob and said, “Of course I’m a little scared. When something like this happens, there’s probably no one who wouldn’t be scared, right?”

“Mm,” Fu Rangyi said. “Of course.”

“Before today, I had thought of many possibilities, but after really knowing the meaning of this countdown, I feel so sad.” Zhu Zhixi sniffled. “I suddenly realized that it’s not a string of numbers in my palm, but a real, existing life, a little dog. It might be sick, it might be very, very old, and it’s about to leave this world.”

Tears still fell, dripping onto the side of Fu Rangyi’s neck.

“I know.” Fu Rangyi patted his back. “I understand what you mean.”

But Zhu Zhixi’s tears couldn’t be stopped. He felt it was absurd, but he couldn’t control his emotions. He could only cry in Fu Rangyi’s arms and say, “At least I still have everyone. Everyone is helping me. I still have my family with me, and I have you. But that little white dog, I don’t even know where it is, if it has food, if it has a place to hide…”

The first time they met, it ran out, wandering the streets. Just as Xiao Yu said, it knew it was going to die, so it left home. Where was it now?

“We will find it.” Fu Rangyi loosened his embrace a little, cupped his face, took out a tissue, and gently pressed it against his eyelids, coaxing him like a child. He said softly, “Maybe it still has some unfulfilled wishes, and it’s gone to do those things. If we extend the countdown, it can also stay a while longer, right?”

Zhu Zhixi reached out, pressed the tissue himself, his nose red, and nodded. After a while, he put down the hand holding the tissue and hugged himself.

Seeing him hug himself with red eyes, Fu Rangyi was a little confused, thinking he was both pitiful and cute. “What does this mean? You think my comforting wasn’t good enough? You have to hug yourself too.”

“No.” Zhu Zhixi closed his eyes and said in a very small voice, “Didn’t Xiao Yu say? There’s still a wisp of the little dog’s soul in my body. After you’ve coaxed me, it’s my turn to coax it.”

Fu Rangyi was stunned for a second, then smiled. He also wrapped his arms around the little god of love who was hugging himself and said warmly, “Then I’ll coax it with you.”

“Mm,” Zhu Zhixi said softly. “Good doggy, you’re the best little dog in the whole world.”

This sounded like someone who had dealt with dogs for many years. But for some reason, Fu Rangyi suddenly had the illusion of being comforted too. It was as if that sentence was said to him.

How strange.

In the week that followed, they were either looking for the dog or working. Fu Rangyi couldn’t stay at home by himself, so he simply went to the museum with Zhu Zhixi, under the guise of helping, and even insisted that Zhu Zhixi give him the title of “Professional Consultant.”

However, the thing the professional consultant did most was not releasing pheromones to create a natural barrier, but pulling the busy curator into a bathroom stall for kisses and hugs, and a “marking” on the side.

“My neck is going to break.” Zhu Zhixi was kissed until his legs went weak, but he could still joke around. “I have to wear a waterproof bandage to work every day now, and I change it daily, just like an Omega with an inhibitor patch.”

Fu Rangyi was still buried in the crook of his neck, his breathing heavy. Every time he finished “marking,” there would be a very quiet period where he couldn’t let go, as if he needed to cool down.

After many times, Zhu Zhixi figured out some patterns of the doggy doctor’s anxiety period.

For example: Fu Rangyi was clingiest when waking up and before going to sleep. At night, if he slipped out of Fu Rangyi’s embrace while sleeping, he would be pulled back into an embrace within five minutes.

The morning him was easier to seduce. A spark could easily start a fire. And he really liked to hold him from behind, nipping at the flesh of his nape while they did it, though most of the time it wasn’t real intercourse, just simulation. His arms would wrap around him extremely tightly, and several times Zhu Zhixi almost couldn’t breathe. Sometimes, his palm would slip into his pajamas, travel all the way up, grasp his neck, turn his chin, and forcefully compel him to turn his face and kiss him.

Soothing the doggy doctor was not an easy task, and finding an unknown little dog was even harder.

They didn’t even know specific information like the little white dog’s age or gender. The only clue was a photo Zhu Zhixi took when he encountered the puppy on the afternoon of the teachers’ dinner, but the puppy in the photo was running and very blurry.

Fu Rangyi contacted several professional dog-finding teams, but they all declined due to the difficulty of the task.

Based on his memory, Zhu Zhixi drew a portrait of the puppy, attached the snapshot, wrote down the time and place he encountered it, and made a very exquisite and cute poster. He even worked overtime to hurriedly make a video and post it on his account.

After clicking publish, he put his hands together. “Little doggy god, please bless me. I have to find it.”

“It’s possible. Netizens can find anything.”

“I hope so. I’m just worried that a video unrelated to travel might not get many views.”

However, the reality completely exceeded his expectations. The next day when he opened the comments, Zhu Zhixi felt like the sky was falling. More than half of the discussions in the comment section had gone completely off-topic because he forgot to take off his wedding ring while recording the video and also didn’t close the door. In a few frames, Fu Rangyi was seen walking from the living room back to the study, passing by his room.

So the comment section started discussing his marital status, which made Zhu Zhixi so angry that he pulled on Fu Rangyi and shook him for a long time.

“Why didn’t you hide properly?”

Fu Rangyi raised an eyebrow. “Why should I hide? This is my home. And you didn’t notify me in advance.”

That was true. Zhu Zhixi felt even more desperate, resting his chin on his shoulder. “Great. Now no one is helping me find the little dog, they’re all looking for my husband…”

Fu Rangyi lowered his head and pinched his cheek.

“What?” Zhu Zhixi lifted his face to stare at him.

Fu Rangyi blinked.

Can’t I be made public? No one notified me this was a secret marriage.

Besides, those students on the school forum already knew your account. Otherwise, how would the comment section have diverged so quickly this time? They’re all university students on vacation with nothing better to do than gossip.

“It’s nothing,” he stood up. “I was going to say, that photo of yours, I helped restore it. You can replace it with the new one.”

“Really?” Zhu Zhixi immediately came back to life and followed Fu Rangyi to the study.

The restored photo was even clearer than he had imagined.

“That’s great. I’ll reprint some posters. Tomorrow I’ll take them to the place where I found him, and also to You’an Street where I last saw him, and see if there are any notice boards to post them on.” Zhu Zhixi stood next to the computer chair, and after speaking, he bent down and gave Fu Rangyi a peck on the cheek. “Professor Fu, you’re amazing.”

However, Fu Rangyi was in a daze.

You can get distracted even when I’m kissing you? Zhu Zhixi tilted his head and moved close to Fu Rangyi’s face. “What are you thinking about?”

Only then did Fu Rangyi come back to his senses. He raised his hand to touch Zhu Zhixi’s face and asked in a low voice, “How old do you think this dog is?”

Zhu Zhixi looked at the screen. “From my experience, it should be a dog over ten years old. I held it before, and its condition was very obvious. It might even be thirteen or fourteen.”

Fu Rangyi was quiet for a while, then said, “You might not believe this, but I think I’ve figured out why I can affect the countdown.”

Zhu Zhixi was surprised. “Really? Why?”

“In my third year of high school, it was also winter. I remember it rained that day. I was on duty, and when I was throwing out the trash, I found a small puppy. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a rat because it was so small and dirty, covered in mud.”

Fu Rangyi fell into his memories. “At that time, it was in a small puddle. I felt that if the rain continued, it would either suffocate on the mud or drown, so I picked it up and took it back to the dorm. It was frozen through. I wrapped a hot water bottle in a towel to warm it up and managed to save it. Later I gave it a bath, and it was indeed a little white puppy, but…”

He glanced at the screen. “The appearance of a puppy and an adult dog is too different, and it didn’t have any distinctive markings. If it weren’t for this countdown, I would never have connected them.”

He had almost forgotten about this, not because it had been too long, but because Ruby was later taken away. Fu Rangyi had forcefully detached himself from all memories related to pets, forcing himself not to think about them.

No memory, no emotional connection, no heartbreak.

Moreover, that homeless little puppy would also remind him of himself.

Zhu Zhixi asked again, “What happened then?”

“Li Qiao said it was probably only a month old, so I bought some goat’s milk and fed it for many days with a syringe used for inhibitors. I secretly took it to class. Later, it got better day by day, could walk and bark, which also attracted the attention of the dorm manager. Our school was very strict and didn’t allow me to keep a dog in the dorm, so they told me to send it away.”

“At that time, I had no choice. I called my adoptive mother and asked if I could bring the dog back for her to take care of for a while, but she said the puppy was too small and was afraid she couldn’t raise it well,” Fu Rangyi continued. “The school gave me too little time. I had no choice but to ride my bike everywhere looking for a pet shop. I finally found one that was willing to take in stray dogs and left it in their care.”

He lowered his eyes. “Later, when I was on vacation, I went back to look for it, but the shop assistant told me it had already been adopted.”

After hearing this, Zhu Zhixi felt a little heartbroken. “Xiao Fu, don’t be sad. You were still a minor back then, but you already did everything you could.”

Fu Rangyi still looked very calm. “We can go to that pet shop and see if we can find the adopter’s information. Maybe it’s still with its owner.”

On the way to the pet shop, Zhu Zhixi reviewed the previous events and felt that many clues were falling into place.

“No wonder Xiao Yu called you ‘Dad’,” he looked at Fu Rangyi in the driver’s seat. “Because he also has a wisp of the puppy’s soul in him. It’s actually that little dog; he thinks you are his father.”

It was a red light. Fu Rangyi looked over, his gaze unprecedentedly soft. But he didn’t speak.

Zhu Zhixi said, “You were the one who snatched it from the grim reaper’s hands. Such a small life. If it hadn’t met you, it might have… reached longevity a long time ago.”

Fu Rangyi was amused by his sudden change of words.

“Its first perceptions and memories of humans all came from you. You were the one who warmed it, saved its life, fed it, slept with it, played with it. In its heart, of course you are its father. Maybe, its whole life…”

Zhu Zhixi frowned, suddenly unable to continue.

In its short ten-odd years, maybe it had been missing you all along.

A horn honked. Fu Rangyi, stunned, turned his face and drove away from the intersection. He drove very quietly until they reached the address of the pet shop.

He remembered it very clearly. This was the place. Because he had been so reluctant to leave the puppy back then, leaning on his bicycle, he had stayed outside for a long, long time, long enough to memorize the pet shop’s storefront decor—creamy yellow, Little Flower Pet Shop, with a cartoon image of a small spotted dog on the sign. He had even memorized the signs of the shops next to it.

But after parking the car and revisiting the old place, the shop had vanished, replaced by a clothing store.

Zhu Zhixi was not reconciled. He went into the store to ask around and came out with his head lowered.

“The owner said they went out of business and moved away a long time ago. The tenants have changed three times already.”

Fu Rangyi nodded, showing no emotion on his face, only saying, “Let’s go back for now. We have a check-up tomorrow, so we need to rest early.”

The old street was shrouded in twilight. The setting sun stretched his shadow long, making him look very lonely. For a moment, Zhu Zhixi had an illusion, as if the one standing next to him was not the present-day Fu Rangyi, but a seventeen-year-old boy who had nothing.

“Nian Nian,” he suddenly spoke, calling him by that name.

Hearing his nickname, Fu Rangyi was a little dazed and turned his face to look at him. But in the next second, he was hugged by Zhu Zhixi.

The setting sun illuminated Zhu Zhixi’s face, making it golden and translucent. The small peach fuzz on his cheeks glistened, making him look more like an angel than a real angel.

“It’s okay. Even though we didn’t find it, I gained something especially, especially precious.”

“What?” Fu Rangyi reached out and gently brushed aside his wind-tousled bangs.

“The truth. Do you know what truth?” His tone was playful, as if telling a fairy tale. “The little white dog was always very grateful to you, loved you very much, but it couldn’t find you and couldn’t be with you. It might have been like me, a procrastinator, thinking, ‘I’ll take it slow, there’s always a way.’ But then, it saw the countdown and thought, ‘It’s over, there’s not much time left.’ It was so anxious it was spinning in circles, desperately trying to find a way. And then it met me, and took one look, and thought, ‘Hey? This person isn’t so bad.'”

Zhu Zhixi’s eyes were moist. He took a deep breath and said with a smile, “So it brought me to your side, to love you.”

---

Author’s Note:

 The little white dog met Zhu Zhixi, its soul drifted and drifted, watching him come to Professor Fu’s side, watching them go to the Civil Affairs Bureau to get their marriage license, living together, very content. The little dog couldn’t write, otherwise it would definitely have drawn a perfect checkmark on its bucket list.
Actually, the theme of this book also applies to the little white dog. The first time it was saved in its life was by Xiao Fu. Love arrived before death.