Chapter 66

At that moment, Fei Baolin's phone screen lit up in his pocket.

He pulled it out, glanced at it, and hung up without thinking.

The call to Fei Baolin was from an overseas number. These past two months, international calls had been hitting his phone every few days. Common sense said they were scam calls, and Fei Baolin had started out just hanging up. But recently the scam rings had gotten aggressive — hang up today, they'd call again in a few days. So Fei Baolin had started blacklisting every single one.

Good thing he kept his phone on silent, so he didn't disturb Xu Wei, who was on a call of his own.

"Hello? Dad."

Xu Wei's loud, brash voice rang out in the empty restroom. Wen Fu, who had been resting his head on Fei Baolin's shoulder, frowned at the sound.

What followed was Xu Wei's nonstop chatter.

"Found him. Found him ages ago. Don't worry about it."

"Rongzhou is that small. One student. Give it a few days of staking out and you'll find him."

"What's he like? What do you think? Broke and studying every day. What else would he even do?"

"Tried already. Same rotten temper, exactly like Lin Yuanyi. We look down on him for being poor, and he looks down on us right back."

"The old man Fei wants him back? I doubt it. Fei Baolin's got a spine of steel — he's a little Lin Yuanyi. Even if we don't lift a finger, he probably wouldn't want to go back to the old man anyway."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I won't let my guard down. Everything that needs doing, I'll do. I'll make sure those two — father and son — are split for good. Fei Baolin never has anything to do with Fei Corporation again. Happy now?"

"And the old man Fei, honestly — it's just a younger son, he died and that's that — yeah yeah, my cousin, the little short-lived ancestor, my cousin who died in a car crash at twelve — he died and that's that, my aunt can always have another one…"

The other end of the line seemed to snap at him a few times, shutting Xu Wei up for a moment.

After a while, whoever was on the other end finished speaking. Xu Wei laughed, his smile hard to read: "Fair point. My aunt can have kids. The old man's not far from done in these past two years. The way I see his illness, three, five years tops before we send him west to reunite with Lin Yuanyi."

"So what if there's no son? Isn't there still me? All these years, which penny of the Fei Family Estate's fortune wasn't earned by the Xu family? Am I, Xu Wei, really less than Fei Baolin? He's that unwilling to hand the group over to the Xu family? If we're talking closeness, I've been way more filial to him than Fei Baolin ever was."

After a few seconds, whoever was on the other end said something, and Xu Wei let out a cold laugh: "You're not wrong. The old man hasn't changed at all these years — his heart's still with those Lin mother and son. Back then he was cheating behind Lin Yuanyi's back, and no matter what, he wouldn't divorce her. Even when my aunt got pregnant, he had no intention of bringing her into the house. He was always afraid of Lin Yuanyi. For over a decade he wanted the wife at home and the mistress outside. If my aunt hadn't gotten pregnant on her own and gone to Lin Yuanyi with the prenatal checkup to confess everything, my aunt would probably still be the Fei Family Estate's kept woman on the side. What's the use of him clinging to Lin Yuanyi? Over a decade ago he transferred all her shares to threaten her into not divorcing him. And what happened? She didn't even look at him. She'd rather leave empty-handed, take her son to Rongzhou, and live poor than give him the time of day. Now he's old and suddenly remembers he has a son. The Xu family isn't about to work for someone else for over a decade for nothing. What is Fei Baolin, anyway? How dare he compete with me."

Xu Wei walked over to the urinal to relieve himself while talking.

"How pure is Lin Yuanyi, really? If she were that pure, would she change her son's name but not his surname? She left a way out for Fei Baolin! Just afraid her precious boy would suffer later with nowhere to turn, she kept the Fei character on Fei Qi's head — so the old man would have a way out later, so when Fei Qi grew up he could recognize his ancestors and go back to being the Fei Family Estate's young master. In your dreams!"

He pulled up his pants and went to the outer area to wash his hands. The sound of the water made Xu Wei's voice blur a little: "What a shame. Fei Qi with that rotten temper — a stone in the latrine, won't appreciate the old man's feelings!"

When he'd said enough, Xu Wei hung up, finished washing his hands, and left.

Fei Baolin leaned against the stall wall and quickly sorted through everything.

Back then, Fei father had cheated. Xu Wei's aunt had gotten pregnant without Lin Yuanyi knowing. When Fei Baolin's father found out, he didn't want to divorce, but from that point on he'd been slowly stripping Lin Yuanyi of her power in Fei Corporation and transferring shares — all so that one day, when the truth came out, he could threaten her into staying with the Fei Family Estate.

What he hadn't expected was how stubborn Lin Yuanyi was. Learning she'd been betrayed in both love and career, she left without looking back — for over a decade, until her death, she never made peace with Fei father.

On the Xu family's side, over a decade ago Xu Wei's aunt had secretly gotten pregnant. Once she'd confirmed the baby could be carried to term, she'd gone to Lin Yuanyi alone and confessed everything — betting on Lin Yuanyi's stubbornness, that she'd never come back after being wronged. Fei father couldn't hold onto her and was forced to divorce Lin Yuanyi. Only after Xu Wei's aunt gave birth to a younger son did he stop pestering Lin Yuanyi.

No one had expected that the Fei Family Estate's precious younger son would die in a car accident two years ago.

From what Xu Wei said on the phone, Fei Baolin's father had been in poor health these past few years. Fei Baolin also remembered that when Lin Yuanyi was sick and he'd gone to the company to find his father, he'd been told his father was recuperating in Europe. Nearly all of Fei Corporation's affairs had been handed to the Xu family to manage. Now Fei father's health was probably even worse.

—Which was why he'd thought of this eldest son, abandoned for years, living thousands of miles away: Fei Baolin.

With a biological son around, who'd consider handing their empire to an outsider?

And whatever Xu Wei did from here on out, his goal was singular: to drive a wedge between Fei Baolin and Fei father.

Once Fei Baolin had thought it all through, he suddenly felt a deep, dull boredom.

Just as the Xu family had figured, no matter how hard Fei father tried to get close to things in Rongzhou, Fei Baolin's feelings were the same as Lin Yuanyi's — he didn't want anything more to do with the Fei Family Estate.

What bored him was this: Xu Wei had gone to all this trouble for something that was already a foregone conclusion. The Xu family just wasn't confident enough — constantly disrupting his life was nothing but gilding the lily, scrambling over something that didn't need any scrambling at all.

Once you understood their goal, whatever tricks Xu Wei pulled were just a clown jumping around in Fei Baolin's eyes.

He should be at home right now, eating New Year's Eve dinner and watching TV with Wen Fu.

Fei Baolin rested his chin on top of Wen Fu's head, took out his phone, reached around behind Wen Fu, and held him like a pillow — all while blocking Xu Wei's contact info.

For all malice, shown or hidden, the best counter was to treat them like ants and ignore them completely.

After all that, Fei Baolin checked the time one last time. 11:10 PM. If they hurried home, they might still make the Spring Festival Gala countdown.

"Let's go."

He took Wen Fu's hand, pushed open the stall door, and slowly walked out of Yuntop, from the second floor down to the first.

Yuntop was in Rongzhou's development district, far from the city center. On a deep New Year's Eve night, there was barely a soul outside its doors.

The snow had picked up. Wen Fu stood on the big plaza in front of Yuntop's entrance. In the pitch dark, he and Fei Baolin held each other's hands tightly, not caring who saw.

Wen Fu rarely saw snow. Apart from the blizzard of 2008, kids who grew up in the southwest rarely saw the stuff.

He hadn't used to like it. Struggling to survive through those desperate days had used up every bit of Wen Fu's energy — a person who couldn't even get enough to eat had no time for spring flowers and autumn moons.

This New Year's Eve, standing next to Fei Baolin and looking up at the sky, he felt like he was seeing snow for the first time. His eyes were full of wonder.

Snowflakes drifted down sparsely toward his face. Wen Fu watched the snow and asked: "Bo-ge, what did he tell you?"

He knew Fei Baolin had come tonight because Xu Wei had suggested talking about Lin Yuanyi. Earlier, when Fei Baolin had come out the door, his face had looked bad. Wen Fu didn't understand why, after a trip to the restroom, Fei Baolin's face had cleared up again — but he figured now was the time to ask.

"Nothing."

Fei Baolin stood beside Wen Fu, quietly watching him watch the snow. Snowflakes landed on Wen Fu's clean, pale face and instantly lost their color.

The lights in front of Yuntop's main entrance poured down. They stood in the distant glow, Wen Fu's profile backlit. Fei Baolin could almost make out the fine down on his face.

He suddenly felt that rushing home wasn't so urgent after all.

Fei Baolin's gaze dropped, and only then did he notice Wen Fu's shoe toes were soaked through.

He suddenly remembered that when he'd found Wen Fu outside the door tonight, it had already been very late.

"How did you get here?" Fei Baolin tugged at Wen Fu's scarf, wrapping it tighter around his face.

"What?"

Wen Fu's face, which had been tilted up at the sky, finally turned down. In the moonlight, his obsidian-dark eyes, set off by the snow, looked round and bright.

"How did you get here?" Fei Baolin gestured for Wen Fu to look at his own shoe tips. "Walked?"

Home was far from here — even by bus it was over half an hour. By the time Fei Baolin had arrived at Yuntop, the last bus in Rongzhou had already stopped running. And Wen Fu never wasted money normally, let alone on a cab.

The few times he had taken a cab were last semester, on weekends after practicing songs at Qi Yichuan's rental — and even then, just to get home faster to eat with Fei Baolin.

Walking from home to here would take at least an hour-plus. On ground covered in snow, wet shoes made perfect sense.

Wen Fu shook his head. "Didn't walk."

Fei Baolin had been about to press him for the truth when Wen Fu said: "Ran."

The words died in Fei Baolin's throat. His Adam's apple bobbed. He stared at Wen Fu and asked: "How long did you run?"

"Don't know."

"Are your feet cold?"

Only then did Wen Fu think to look down at his own feet.

After looking, he still shook his head.

"Don't know that either."

Fei Baolin turned around and beckoned toward his own back: "Get on."

Wen Fu leaned forward to peek, as if trying to read Fei Baolin's expression.

Unable to see it, he lingered behind Fei Baolin and asked: "Bo-ge wants to give me a piggyback?"

Fei Baolin: "Get on or I'm leaving."

Wen Fu leaped onto Fei Baolin's back and clung tight.

Fei Baolin looked down and laughed: "You some kind of grasshopper? Poke you once and you jump."

But saying that, he bounced Wen Fu up a little higher. Once Wen Fu was settled on his back, he carried him toward the tree-lined path by the river.

"I'm not a grasshopper," Wen Fu said. "I'm a butterfly."

Fei Baolin: "Who calls themselves a butterfly?"

Wen Fu: "Bo-ge said so."

Fei Baolin: "Can you only echo Bo-ge's words?"

Wen Fu: "Didn't you say I shouldn't pick up the Japanese's words?"

Fei Baolin: "…"

Forget it. People who do big things don't waste words on kittens.

The tree-lined path by the Jinsha River was planted with evergreen camphor trees. Their lush green canopy at the top shielded them from the falling snow.

Fei Baolin felt the back of Wen Fu's knee, gave it a little squeeze, and asked: "Little butterfly, why do you never put on any weight?"

Wen Fu's two thin long legs swung: "I'm growing taller. Growing bones."

"Bones are still light."

"Not light," Wen Fu said. "They get heavier. When you grow up, your bones get heavier."

Maybe those words reminded Fei Baolin of something.

He was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked: "If bones get heavier as you grow, do they get lighter when a person is about to die?"

Wen Fu didn't answer. He tilted his head toward Fei Baolin's face and studied his expression.

He was thinking of Lin Yuanyi.

Xu Wei had said that in Lin Yuanyi's final days, her body had been covered in spots, nothing but skin and bones.

Fei Baolin knew.

When he'd picked up Lin Yuanyi's Ashes Container the summer after finishing middle school, he'd thought it was so light — so light that the ashes inside felt like he could scatter them with one cupped hand. Before Lin Yuanyi had gone abroad for treatment, she'd already been skin and bones. Back then, when Fei Baolin had gone to the hospital to care for her, he'd sometimes carried her to the wheelchair or to the bathroom. Even Lin Yuanyi at her thinnest, reduced to a skeleton, hadn't weighed as little as that Ashes Container.

He figured illness really could hollow out a person's body — suck the marrow dry, eat through the bone. Tormented to the end, a person became like a frame built of thin paper, inside and out. A light squeeze and it crumbled. Touched by fire and it floated away weightless.

"That's how it gets light enough to float up to the sky." Wen Fu tilted his head, nuzzled Fei Baolin's back of the head with his own. Whether or not he sensed Fei Baolin's mood, he whispered in his ear: "Float up to the sky, and you become a star keeping the sky company."

"Bo-ge, the sky isn't just for little birds."

Wen Fu said: "There are stars keeping you company too."

Fei Baolin stopped walking.

The Jinsha River's water surged with the wind on this quiet snowy night. The sound of it scattered like drifting sand grains across the pitch-black sky, drilling into their ears.

The wind drove the snowflakes tumbling through the air. Suddenly it turned, drifting past the walkway and, without warning, whipping into the shade of the trees.

Winter snow was like a swarm of sharp blades — spectacular from afar, but on your face it was just stinging pain.

Wen Fu feared no pain, no snow, no blade. He was the sharpest, most beautiful flake of snow, the keenest knife in this world.

Seeing the wind hit Fei Baolin's face, Wen Fu jumped down from his back and positioned himself on Fei Baolin's left, in front of the concrete railing by the river.

The driving snow hit them full in the face, fluttering down onto Wen Fu's brows, eyes, and hair. Fei Baolin grabbed him and turned him around, and saw a few snowflakes caught in Wen Fu's long dark lashes.

Snowflakes clung to the bridge of Wen Fu's nose too. Fei Baolin gently picked them off, so they wouldn't melt into icy water against his skin.

The neon lights on the concrete bridge below blinked ice-blue. Fei Baolin led Wen Fu to the railing closest to the river, and used the light to brush the snow from between his lashes.

The cold wind had stripped the last bit of color from Wen Fu's face. He looked like a porcelain doll made of snow — dark thick brows, pale and exquisite features, cool to the touch. Looking at him, you couldn't help fearing he'd melt the next moment.

Well-behaved. Pretty. And silent.

As if Wen Fu had always been like this, never changing.

Fei Baolin was very close to Wen Fu — close enough to almost make out, in the depths of Wen Fu's half-closed eyes, a reflection that belonged to him.

He stared intently at Wen Fu, and out of nowhere remembered a long-forgotten form of address.

Without thinking, he opened his mouth.

"Little sister."

Fei Baolin said softly.

"What?" Wen Fu opened his eyes at that moment, thinking Fei Baolin had finished picking the snowflakes from his lashes.

"Little sister."

Fei Baolin straightened up, looked down at Wen Fu, a faint, unreadable smile flickering in his eyes.

He repeated: "You're the little sister."

Wen Fu's brain clearly couldn't keep up with Fei Baolin's turns. His damp lashes trembled slowly with his blink: "What's a little sister?"

After asking, he felt the question sounded strange, so he lifted his face toward Fei Baolin and asked again: "Why little sister?"

"A little sister is a little sister." Fei Baolin pressed his lips into a smile. "No why."

Wen Fu turned to look at the river, thinking for a moment. He didn't show any anger or firm refusal at the form of address — after thinking it over, he turned back, tried to make Fei Baolin see his error, and corrected him seriously and quietly: "I'm the little brother."

Fei Baolin's smile was unreadable: "You're the little sister."

Wen Fu: "Little sister?"

He stared into Fei Baolin's eyes for a while and understood that Fei Baolin was doing it on purpose. Though he couldn't figure out why, since Fei Baolin insisted, he'd accept it.

"Then I'm the little sister."

Wen Fu reached out his arm, took Fei Baolin's hand, and said.