Chapter 34#

Chapter 34: Extra €€ Nine

“Get up and eat!” Mo Xi ran to Pei Hao’s bedside wearing an apron, pulling a corner of the quilt with one hand and holding a spatula in the other. The morning sun shone on Mo Xi’s face through his fine bangs, making his delicate skin particularly dazzling.

Pei Hao opened his sleepy eyes, rubbed his messy hair, sat up lazily, and looked at Mo Xi: “What are we eating today?”

“Soup dumplings, egg and seaweed soup, and pan-fried beef patties.” Mo Xi blinked proudly and showed off the spatula that had just flipped the pan and still had a bit of beef smell, indicating that he made it himself.

Pei Hao looked at Mo Xi’s spirited appearance, and a smile appeared on his face. He reached out and pinched Mo Xi’s slightly chubby cheek, muttering softly: “Feels good. I’ll make braised pork for you tonight to fatten you up a bit more.”

“Giving you five minutes to get up.” Mo Xi slapped his hand away with a grin and ran to the kitchen to continue preparing breakfast.

Pei Hao watched Mo Xi’s joyful back, and a warmth surged in his heart. He just liked Mo Xi’s silly look. He turned over, jumped out of bed, and prepared to go to the bathroom to wash up.

Who would have thought that as soon as he walked out of the bedroom, he saw a figure sitting at the dining table.

Pei Hao walked closer and saw that the person was wearing a clean and refreshing high school uniform, sitting upright at the dining table, holding a book in his hand, and reading it with relish.

Isn’t this Fu Yan? Why is he dressed like this and reading here?

Pei Hao was startled. At this moment, Mo Xi took off his apron, pointed to the breakfast set on the dining table, and said to Pei Hao: “You guys eat, I’m leaving.”

“Don’t go!” Pei Hao had a bad premonition in his heart and blurted out almost without hesitation. He rushed up in three steps, grabbed Mo Xi who was putting on shoes and preparing to leave, and hugged him tightly in his arms.

Mo Xi turned his head and looked at him puzzledly: “Fu Yan is here, what are you doing?”

Over there, Fu Yan was still concentrating on reading the book and didn’t look up at them.

“Xiao Xi, what are you saying? I want to eat with you!” Pei Hao hugged him tighter with both hands, buried his head deeply on Mo Xi’s shoulder like a spoiled child, feeling the temperature of this person’s body, and vigorously inhaling the scent of his hair. His hair always had a refreshing smell. He hadn’t smelled it for too long, so long that Pei Hao thought he was about to forget it.

He couldn’t let go; he was greedy for the warmth on Xiao Xi’s body.

“Really? Isn’t he the one you always loved? I’m just a substitute.” Mo Xi lowered his head, looking depressed.

It was as if someone had suddenly pinched a sore spot hard, and the pain quickly spread through Pei Hao’s internal organs. This pain was too familiar, as if it had been quietly enacted thousands of times in some silent place. He took a breath, turned Mo Xi’s body to face him, and gazed earnestly into his eyes: “I love you, you are not a substitute.”

Mo Xi didn’t mean to be obedient. He used all his strength to pry open Pei Hao’s fingers one by one, then pushed him away, his gaze sharp as a knife: “You lied to me. You’ve loved him for so many years.”

Pei Hao met those cold eyes and couldn’t help shivering. He tried to grab Mo Xi, who pushed the door open and walked out, but his legs kept trembling and were too weak to exert force. He wanted to say something to explain, but his mouth seemed to be sealed, and he couldn’t say anything. He could only watch helplessly as Mo Xi’s figure gradually moved away in the corridor and finally shrank into a dot and disappeared.

After that, his vision began to blur, his mind was in chaos, and many fragments flashed by like a revolving lantern. The familiar sorrow surged again.

Soon, he would be back.

A blinding white light exploded in front of his eyes. Pei Hao woke up from the dream with a start, gasped for a few breaths, and gradually calmed down.

He looked up at the alarm clock on the bedside table; it was only six o’clock.

There were still three hours before going to the company, and he probably couldn’t sleep anymore. Pei Hao climbed out of bed dejectedly. As usual, he walked to the window first to smoke a cigarette. The morning wind, still carrying a chill, could sober him up a bit.

After smoking, he opened Mo Xi’s Facebook and looked through it carefully. He had been so busy at the company recently that he hadn’t had time to check his phone for several weeks.

In the past few weeks, Mo Xi had only posted one Facebook update, which was a few photos of the starry sky he took in a national park. He added a short caption next to it:

I finally got to the lake and saw those stars!

Pei Hao held the phone, and the corners of his mouth unconsciously turned up.

Both of them liked traveling. Pei Hao liked going to the seaside, and Mo Xi liked watching the starry sky. In the five years they were together, they went to the seaside countless times and also watched the starry sky by the sea many times, but none of the starry skies were as brilliant as the ones in Mo Xi’s photos.

He had thought about taking Mo Xi to see it properly once, setting up a tent on the mountain, watching for three days and three nights until they were dazzled, but he never got around to it.

Time waits for no one, and now he no longer had this opportunity.

Pei Hao looked at the dazzling starlight in the photo, twinkling like diamonds in the distant night sky, stinging his eyes a bit. He silently turned off his phone, changed his clothes, and walked towards the company.

It was not yet eight o’clock when he arrived at the company, and there was no one there. Pei Hao opened the proposal on the computer, studied it carefully again, and marked the key points to be discussed in the meeting today.

After being kicked out by Pei Yixin, Pei Hao joined a small startup company. The founder of the company was a career woman under forty, with various impressive halos€€MBA, Wall Street, investment banking€€who resolutely chose to return to China to start a business at an age when most women devote themselves to family and children. She and Pei Hao had contact in Pei Yixin’s company before. Although the cooperation didn’t work out, the two chatted happily. Learning that Pei Hao had left his dad’s company, Fu Bing immediately extended an olive branch to him, and the two hit it off. Pei Hao appreciated her vigorous and resolute style of doing things, and Fu Bing valued his ability to get things done.

Stripped of the Pei family’s halo, Pei Hao truly understood what life’s hardships meant and that making money wasn’t easy. The first half of his life was as the young master of the Pei family. He was lucky and successful in everything he did. If anything happened, others would give him some leeway for Pei Yixin’s sake. In the past, the pocket money Song Wanqin gave him alone was several times more than his salary. He didn’t work to make money, but just to prove that he had the ability to make money.

Now he worked hard and without complaint in his position, often working overtime day and night. The salary Fu Bing paid him wasn’t low, but it still couldn’t compare to the pocket money his mom used to transfer to him casually.

Falling from the sky into the daily necessities of the human world, he was now willing to admit that his life was so smooth before really because he had a powerful dad, and it had nothing to do with himself.

One day while eating in a shopping mall, he suddenly remembered that Mo Xi had bought him many expensive gifts before. How many meals of instant noodles did that person eat to save up that money?

Every time he thought of this, he always found it hard to suppress his sadness.

The company had been running for less than two years. Some of the management were poached by Fu Bing from everywhere, and other employees were basically fresh graduates. There were many tasks Pei Hao didn’t feel comfortable handing over to subordinates right away, so he had to lead them through it personally, which often left him exhausted.

For example, after the meeting today, his assistant suddenly ran over in a hurry and said the client called to say they wanted to move next week’s meeting up to tomorrow.

Pei Hao rubbed his eyebrows gloomily: “What about the week after next?”

Assistant: “President Wang said he won’t be in the country next week, so we must meet in advance.”

A string of curse words flashed through Pei Hao’s mind, but he had to remain calm when facing his subordinate: “Then send the revised proposal to my email before getting off work today, and the samples must be ready too.”

As soon as Pei Hao joined the company, Fu Bing let him follow a few important orders and assigned him an assistant. Many people in the company were unconvinced. After all, Pei Hao was young and inexperienced, and seemed to have nothing but a face. However, the boss just happened to think highly of him, so the people below could only gossip€€for example, saying that Pei Hao was a toy boy kept by Fu Bing.

President Wang, whom they were meeting tomorrow, was one of the potential clients the company wanted to win over the most. Originally, Fu Bing was going to negotiate in person next week, but President Wang willfully changed the time, and Fu Bing was still abroad resolving personal matters and couldn’t make it back.

He was President Wang’s second direct contact person. Since Fu Bing wasn’t there, he had to go. The interview was tomorrow, and there was no time to send the proposal back and forth. If there were any problems, he could only revise it himself. Pei Hao was prepared to work overtime in the office tonight and asked his assistant to order takeout for dinner.

The assistant was named Chen Xu. He had just graduated from university but was much more careful than boys of his age. He remembered Pei Hao’s various preferences after being told once and was also very attentive to company matters. At first, Chen Xu was in the administration department, managing some miscellaneous affairs in the company. Pei Hao found him handy to use, so Fu Bing handed him over to Pei Hao to mentor.

In the evening, the employees in the company left one after another. Pei Hao was still sitting in front of the computer working overtime. Chen Xu walked in with the takeout and said, “Brother Hao, time to eat.”

Pei Hao stared intently at the computer, typing on the keyboard, and only replied: “Thanks, you go first.”

The night sky drew a black curtain, and the moonlight became brighter. People in the office had long gone, and only one light was still on. Chen Xu propped his head with one hand, half-lying on the table, staring intently at the person still buried in work in the room, a strange feeling surging in his heart. The person in front of him lowered his head and frowned, his eyes like a deep, bottomless cold pool, his slender fingers typing something quickly on the keyboard. The dim light reflected his clean profile. Even in such an environment with a soft light effect, that person looked very cold and stern.

From the first day they met, Pei Hao had always been reticent, as if he didn’t care much about anything around him. Chen Xu wanted to know what could make this person smile.

He wanted to walk into his world and take a look.

Pei Hao finished typing the last word and raised his hand to check the time. It was almost 10 p.m. He just closed the computer when he suddenly felt a gaze from a corner and was almost startled.

The person in the corner withdrew his gaze in a panic, fine sweat breaking out on his forehead from nervousness.

“Why haven’t you left yet? It’s 10 o’clock.” Pei Hao recognized the person in the corner and found it strange. He didn’t assign work to Chen Xu today. Logically, he should have gone home after delivering the takeout.

“Oh… I… Sister Fu asked me to revise a contract for her.” Chen Xu lowered his head unnaturally. Because he was lying, a layer of blush covered his cheeks. Fortunately, the light was too dim for others to see.

“Oh.” Pei Hao stood up, tidied up his desk, and said plainly: “Go home early.”

Watching Pei Hao’s figure about to leave, Chen Xu didn’t know where he got the courage. He suddenly called out to Pei Hao and asked carefully: “Brother Hao, you haven’t eaten your takeout yet. How about we go for a late-night snack together?”

Pei Hao looked at the cold takeout on the table and felt a sour pain in his stomach. He had been eating irregularly recently, and his stomach trouble had flared up.

After thinking for a while, Pei Hao still refused: “No, I have things to do at home. Next time.”

“Oh, okay.” Chen Xu was like a deflated ball, lowering his head dejectedly.