Chapter 34 Are you pitying me?
Mu Yan felt as if he had been granted a general amnesty.
The one-year deadline was like pulling him out of endless torment. It was only one year. After a year, he could go back to his original routine life as if nothing had happened.
During this year, he no longer had to worry that Shang Qiyue might kick him out at any time.
The money Shang Qiyue gave him not only relieved him of the worry about his mother's dialysis costs, but also allowed him to make a down payment on a decent house.
Then he slowly paid off the loan, and even though it would take several more years to pay it off, he was able to have his own home in City A.
"So happy?" Shang Qiyue gently ruffled his hair.
"Hmm," Mu Yan smiled sheepishly, "Are you hungry, sir? Would you like some late-night snacks? You sent over a bit too much beef. I braised some beef and have some leftover broth, so I can make you some tea eggs."
He tried to get up from Shang Qiyue's embrace, but Shang Qiyue pressed him back down.
"Aren't you tired?" Shang Qiyue's arms were wrapped tightly around him.
"I'm fine, sir."
"I stopped because I saw you were too tired. If you still have the strength, we can do it again," Shang Qiyue said in his ear, his warm breath gently brushing against his earlobe.
Sitting on his lap, Mu Yan could sense that Shang Qiyue's threat was not fake.
"No, I won't do it anymore." Mu Yan lowered her head, half of her face burying under the blanket, only revealing a pair of round, puppy-like eyes.
Shang Qiyue couldn't resist turning the person around and kissing them again.
He kissed her fiercely this time, and Mu Yan was a little out of breath. Even after he let go, Mu Yan was still panting in his arms.
Shang Qiyue hugged him as if he were hugging a large doll. He had just noticed that Mu Yan had a shallow dimple on his waist, and he placed his hand on it and gently pinched it.
Mu Yan subconsciously let out a muffled gasp. He wanted to move forward, but it seemed as if he was shrinking into Shang Qiyue's arms.
Shang Qiyue couldn't help but pinch it again.
"Sir...it itches." Mu Yan had no choice but to beg for mercy in a muffled voice.
The sound was drawn out, almost like a coquettish plea. Shang Qiyue was quite pleased and immediately stopped pinching.
"Are you hungry and craving tea eggs? Tell me how to make them, and I'll make some for you."
"I'm not hungry, no need, sir."
Shang Qiyue was impulsive and unpredictable; how could I possibly order him to cook tea eggs?
Mu Yan didn't want him to do it, but Shang Qiyue became interested instead: "Beef soup with tea eggs, I feel like an aunt in my family used to make it like this when I was a child. Later she went back to her hometown and I haven't eaten it since. Now I suddenly want to eat it."
He got out of bed, and Mu Yan, seeing that he was serious, also sat up. Shang Qiyue wrapped him in pajamas and squatted down to put socks on him.
Mu Yan didn't expect him to do this for him, and his first reaction was to refuse, but Shang Qiyue grabbed his ankle without any room for argument.
Shang Qiyue looked up at him. Even looking up, his gaze was extremely aggressive. For a moment, Mu Yan almost thought that he was really going to grab him and do it again.
But Shang Qiyue just whispered "Don't move" and then put socks on him.
Mu Yan had prepared the beef broth with spices and salt beforehand. The tea eggs were not difficult to make; simply boil the eggs, crack the shells, and then put them into the beef broth to cook.
While Mu Yan was speaking, he kept a close eye on Shang Qiyue's expression. If Shang Qiyue showed even the slightest displeasure, Mu Yan would immediately take over the work from him.
However, Shang Qiyue seemed to find it quite interesting and was busy with it.
"Can I just put it in and cook it?" Shang Qiyue asked.
"Wow, Mr. Shang is amazing, you've already learned it."
Shang Qiyue pulled out a chair and sat down next to him: "You're quite good at praising people. You didn't know how to cook these tea eggs when you were five or six years old, did you?"
Mu Yan shook his head: "I learned it when I was in high school."
When Mu Juanhua was five or six years old, she hadn't come to their family yet. Let alone something as luxurious as boiling tea eggs in beef broth, they had to pray that Lin Guojun wouldn't forget to add rice to the rice jar just to get a full meal.
"Won't it be cold like this? Should we turn the heating up?"
Mu Yan wore only a loungewear over his pajamas. Although Shang Qiyue himself didn't even wear a coat, the body of a top-tier alpha is different from that of an ordinary person.
"It's not cold, sir. It's very warm here. The floor in the room felt warm just now."
Shang Qiyue bought this house on a whim because of its location, without paying attention to the renovations, but he insisted on having underfloor heating installed. Although City A is in the south, it gets damp and cold in winter, which is unbearable.
"As long as you feel warm, that's fine."
The beef broth boiled, releasing a rich aroma of meat. Shang Qiyue had never cooked before, but this was the first time he had discovered that the process of food cooking could actually be quite heartwarming.
Mu Yan's pajamas had a low collar, which drooped down to reveal his collarbone and the ambiguous hickeys on his chest. Despite his extremely well-behaved and innocent appearance, these features on him made him seem exceptionally erotic.
He had just finished showering... Shang Qiyue warned himself that he couldn't keep staring.
Shang Qiyue shifted his gaze to the eggs in the pot: "How long do you need to cook these?"
"It'll be ready soon, please wait a moment," Mu Yan replied with a smile.
Shang Qiyue didn't seem to be in a hurry, and Mu Yan knew that he was just asking casually, so he sat quietly in the chair, smelling the aroma of the beef soup after it boiled.
My body was very tired, and I felt heavy all over, but I also felt a sense of security, as if I had landed steadily on the ground without worrying about falling suddenly.
Time was up quickly, and Shang Qiyue took the tea eggs out of the pot.
The tea eggs were indeed very fragrant, just as delicious as the ones my aunt used to make when I was a child, but who later went back to her hometown.
Shang Qiyue turned his head and glanced at Mu Yan. He had already eaten two whole tea eggs and was now peeling the third one.
He discovered that Mu Yan had a large appetite. He could actually eat quite a lot. But when it came to food he didn't like, he would rather eat less and go hungry, while he would eat a lot of food he liked.
Shang Qiyue had a business partner who was like that. He grew up in poverty, eating sweet potatoes every day. After he grew up and could eat his fill, he became extremely picky about food. When discussing business, he wouldn't drink anything less than twenty-year-old red wine, and the fish had to be Songhua River mandarin fish that had just been caught from the reservoir that afternoon and flown in. His requirements were much higher than those of Shang Qiyue, a young master who had grown up in luxury.
However, this kind of person is relatively easy to deal with. They are much better than those business partners who are always thinking about their lower bodies, who have already booked omegas at clubs for him but still cling to their own company employees.
Shang Qiyue wiped his hands with a tissue, then used a new tissue to wipe away the bit of egg yolk stuck to Mu Yan's lips.
The gesture was intimate, but through the tissue, it didn't seem like something ambiguous; it was more like something a mother and brother would do to him.
Mu Yan looked up and asked him, "Mr. Shang, are you full?"
"I ate two, they were quite delicious. Why did you think of making tea eggs this way? Do you really like eggs?"
"It tastes good probably because the beef you bought is of good quality. I could tell when I was cooking the soup... I really like eggs. But when I was little, there wasn't much else to eat. Eggs were the best and most nutritious food I could get. The happiest thing when I was little was when my mom would secretly cook an egg for me."
Mu Yan soon regretted what she said. How can people truly empathize with each other? Telling President Shang these things… wouldn't he think she was playing the victim to get money?
"Sir, I... I'm not trying to play the victim, I'm sorry to say all this..." Mu Yan tried to make her tone sound sincere, but no matter how sincere she was, it sounded unconvincing given their relationship of exchanging money and sex. "Thank you for making me tea eggs today..."
“I know,” Shang Qiyue said. “I won’t miss you that much… You can still tell me these things in the future.”
"I like listening to you talk, about things before you met me, or anything else."
Mu Yan was slightly taken aback and looked up to meet Shang Qiyue's eyes. Shang Qiyue actually had a face with sharp features, handsome yet aggressive, but sometimes, for some reason, Mu Yan always felt that he wasn't so fierce.
Sometimes, Mr. Shang really does surprise people.
Even if he might just find it amusing, just like Granny Liu found it novel when she saw the eggplant stewed with chicken in the Jia family, and the Jia family members also found it amusing when they saw the wild gourds and vegetables she brought.
"I...I'm going to wash the dishes."
Shang Qiyue stood up, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him back: "Just soak it, someone will come to wash it tomorrow."
"Let's wash it off. You should go to sleep first. This pot used for cooking beef soup will be hard to wash tomorrow."
Shang Qiyue had never washed dishes before; he was practically an idiot in that respect, so he didn't insist. While Mu Yan was washing the dishes, Shang Qiyue stood awkwardly to the side, his long arms and legs seemingly unsure where to place them.
"What are you doing standing here? There aren't many bowls, you don't need to help."
"I can't just sit here and watch you work, that would be so impolite."
Mu Yan smiled softly. He wanted to say that he was originally bought by you, and you don't need to care about this.
But he was still not used to saying such self-deprecating things, so in the end he said nothing.
Shang Qiyue reached out and hugged him. Mu Yan hesitated, unsure whether to turn around and kiss him.
"If only you had a good father," Shang Qiyue suddenly said. "If it weren't for the fact that I have a family to explain things to, and you are so obedient, virtuous, and well-behaved, I would really want to marry you."
Mu Yan was taken aback by these words, then smiled naturally: "What are you talking about? I'm a beta, there's no way we could be together."
Shang Qiyue fell silent. He hugged Mu Yan from behind, quietly watching him wash the pot and then led him back to the bedroom.
Mu Yan had just turned off the light and snuggled back into bed when Shang Qiyue reached out and pulled her into his arms.
"Sir?" Mu Yan asked cautiously, not knowing why he was doing this.
In this position, with his head resting on Shang Qiyue's arm, even the strongest alpha's arm would go numb after being pressed down like this for a while.
“It’s okay,” Shang Qiyue said, “I’ll just hug you for a little while.”
Even though they had seen each other's naked bodies before, embracing each other in the dark through their clothes made Mu Yan blush.
Fortunately, Shang Qiyue couldn't see it.
“Tell me more about your past… about your childhood,” Shang Qiyue said.
"When I was little...?"
Mu Yan thought about the things he had accidentally said before he said he was going to wash the dishes, and he thought that President Shang was probably giving him a way out. He wanted to tell himself that he didn't think he was playing the victim, nor did he think he was asking him for money.
It would be better if President Shang were a little worse. It's always better to feel helpless in front of a wicked person than in front of a kind one.
“Are you curious about rural life?” Mu Yan smiled. His childhood was poor and boring, not worth mentioning. He wasn’t powerful enough to talk about such things with a smile. “I can take you to see the next village sometime. I think they were named the most beautiful village.”
"Their village is full of beautiful row houses, and there are places for square dancing and exercise. There are lots of fruits and vegetables in the yards, and magnolia flowers bloom along the roadside in spring. It's very beautiful."
“I’m not interested, and I don’t want to go,” Shang Qiyue said. “I just… want to know more about you.”
[Author's Note]
It's my birthday today, so I'm giving out red envelopes to the first 50 commenters to celebrate! No need to wish me a happy birthday, just post your comments as usual!
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