Sun Rain Chapter 64
byThat night, the two of them didn’t separate for a moment, moving from the bathroom to the floor-to-ceiling window outside, and finally to the bed.
When dawn approached, Shi Meng was utterly exhausted, unable to even open his eyes. Although Fu Xuanliao still had energy, he didn’t want to completely wear out his little mushroom in one go. He leaned against the headboard, offering his arm as a pillow for Shi Meng, his restless fingers playing with Shi Meng’s hair.
“How about I get a buzz cut?” Fu Xuanliao suddenly asked.
Shi Meng stirred, adjusting to a more comfortable position. “Why?”
“You cut your hair for me; I should show my appreciation too.”
“Haven’t you already shown it?”
“What?”
Shi Meng lifted a weak, soft hand and poked the spot where Fu Xuanliao’s tattoo was on his chest.
“That doesn’t count,” Fu Xuanliao said. “It wasn’t drawn well.”
“It is beautiful,” Shi Meng countered.
Fu Xuanliao assumed he was joking. “I only studied painting for a week.”
Shi Meng adopted the authoritative air of a master artist. “If I say it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful.”
Fu Xuanliao paused, then smiled. “Alright, it’s beautiful.”
It felt as if he had been taken under the little mushroom’s cap. He thought, so this is what love feels like—sweet, and a sense of security from being uniquely cherished.
If only there hadn’t been an outsider to spoil the mood at that moment.
Shi Meng couldn’t sleep, so he took out his phone and scrolled through it, finding a message from the previous night.
It was from Wei Liangji. The sender had somehow learned that the author name for Blazing had been corrected. Since he was away on a business trip, he could only offer congratulations via text and used the opportunity to invite Shi Meng to dinner.
Shi Meng didn’t hide his phone while reading the message. Fu Xuanliao glanced over and immediately scoffed, “Pest.”
“He’s a good person,” Shi Meng said. “He told me I should let go of the past and develop a stable, healthy relationship.”
Fu Xuanliao was the first to raise his hand to volunteer. “My name is Stable, and my surname is Healthy.”
This made Shi Meng laugh, and he curved his eyes. “You’re a rabbit.”
“A stable and healthy rabbit.”
“A fire rabbit.”
“Wouldn’t a fire rabbit be cooked?”
“Mhm, fragrant.”
“…Are you hungry?”
Shi Meng nodded. “Mhm.”
Fu Xuanliao immediately got out of bed, dressed, and went downstairs to buy food.
At this hour, the breakfast shops outside hadn’t opened yet, so he could only grab some prepared food from a 24-hour convenience store.
Shi Meng, who hadn’t gotten to eat rabbit meat, bit Fu Xuanliao several times. When Fu Xuanliao asked if he smelled fragrant, Shi Meng said he stank.
Fu Xuanliao thought he smelled of sweat, so he went to the bathroom to shower. As soon as he stepped in, Shi Meng followed, yawning sleepily, and mumbled, “It doesn’t stink that much.”
Unable to resist his contradictory behavior, Fu Xuanliao took a shower with Shi Meng.
He took the opportunity while Shi Meng was groggy to take advantage. “Did you forget to give me something?”
Shi Meng shook his head. “No.”
“Yes, think carefully.”
Shi Meng couldn’t think of anything. He looked up at Fu Xuanliao inquiringly, his wet eyes full of unguarded dependence.
Fu Xuanliao’s heart melted into a puddle again. He bent down and leaned close to Shi Meng’s ear, so close that his lips brushed the earlobe.
“A title,” he asked Shi Meng in a voice only they could hear. “When are you planning to give me a title?”
Experienced people always say not to make decisions when you’re not calm enough. Shi Meng only felt his ears burning fiercely and his heart pounding wildly at the time; he was definitely not calm.
So Shi Meng didn’t answer. Unmoved by the masculine charm, he leaned against Fu Xuanliao’s shoulder and pretended to sleep, then heard the man chuckle softly and sigh, sounding helpless.
The next day was sunny. They went for another stroll by the sea and saw fishing boats sailing into the harbor. Both felt a sense of familiarity but tacitly said nothing, instead holding each other’s hands tightly, leaving two sets of footprints on the beach, watching them be smoothed over by the incoming tide.
After returning to Fengcheng, Fu Xuanliao was dragged back to work by Fu Qiming. Shi Meng, while preparing for his competition, accompanied Li Bihan on various outings, attending several gatherings with her old friends.
Perhaps because they had been informed beforehand, the atmosphere at the gatherings was excellent. No one stared with curious eyes, and no one whispered behind their backs. Li Bihan was eager for the whole world to know that Shi Meng was her child, and she also intended to pave the way for Shi Meng’s future. She generously introduced him to all her relatives and friends, asking them to look out for him in the future.
She also took Shi Meng to her maiden home. There, Shi Meng met his maternal grandparents for the first time.
From a distance, Shi Meng saw an elderly couple with silver hair, supporting each other as they stood at the doorway. When Shi Meng called out, “Hello, Grandpa and Grandma,” the old lady immediately shed tears.
His grandfather, who had been a university professor before retirement, possessed an enduring scholarly elegance. He led Shi Meng to the study and personally wrote him a calligraphy scroll, wishing him peace and success and great achievements in the art world.
The mother and son stayed for dinner. Afterward, Li Bihan went for a walk with her father, while his grandmother held Shi Meng’s hand and spoke to him.
Most of it was intimate talk, telling him to visit often and treat the place as his own home. Later, she mentioned the Shi family. Hearing that Shi Huaiyi had woken up, the old lady scoffed, “I never agreed to Bihan marrying him in the first place. Look at all the bad things he’s done over the years.”
In his grandmother’s eyes, Li Bihan’s tragic marriage and Shi Meng’s misfortune for the first twenty years of his life were all Shi Huaiyi’s fault.
The facts were indeed so. Perhaps having faced life and death had given him some perspective; the first person Shi Huaiyi wanted to see after waking up was Shi Meng.
Although he couldn’t speak with the oxygen mask on, Shi Meng could at least discern a degree of regret in his trembling gaze.
Therefore, when he later received the stock transfer agreement from Shi Huaiyi, Shi Meng wasn’t surprised.
Li Bihan also received one. She initially cursed it as being too little, too late, but upon hearing that the car accident had severely injured Shi Huaiyi, and he might spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, she felt a pang of pity. She didn’t tear up the document on the spot but handed it to Shi Meng, asking him to handle it along with his own.
Shi Meng had nothing to agonize over. He mailed both unsigned documents back.
Jiang Xue called this decision immensely satisfying.
“Sun Yanfeng also sent me something,” Shi Meng said, pulling out an unopened letter.
Jiang Xue quickly snatched it away. “Don’t look. That guy is probably trying to play the emotional card again, saying that woman, Yang, loves you.”
Jiang Xue was spot on. Under her supervision, Shi Meng tore open the letter and skimmed it. Sure enough, three sentences couldn’t pass without mentioning Yang Youlan. The letter was filled with pleas for Shi Meng to visit her and resolve the “misunderstanding” between mother and son.
“Between mother and son? A misunderstanding?” Jiang Xue’s voice rose. “She’s utterly shameless. She’s staining the very word ‘mother’.”
Shi Meng probably knew what misunderstanding Sun Yanfeng was referring to. On many sleepless nights, he had involuntarily recalled moments from his childhood. The leaky shack was his earliest memory fragment since he could remember. The woman who raised him until he was eight wasn’t entirely devoid of feeling for him.
He remembered Yang Youlan, who abandoned him on a busy street that year, only to return later with red eyes to look for him. He also remembered the biting cold of winter when the house only had one thick quilt. Though Yang Youlan would curse and grumble, she would still wrap the quilt around him late at night—a warmth he remembered.
Even if it was a form of emotional transference, he could even understand Yang Youlan’s hatred and hostility toward him. But the path was her own choosing. Hurting someone in the name of love was more despicable than straightforward hatred.
Because the deepest memory was the confusion of constantly being beaten and cursed without knowing what he had done wrong.
“Sigh,” Jiang Xue’s sigh pulled Shi Meng’s thoughts back to reality. “It’s just a shame about the Shi family shares.”
She was still regretting the documents Shi Meng had returned.
Shi Meng said, “I have money.”
“Who ever has too much money?” Jiang Xue advised him. “It’s time you bought property for yourself.”
Shi Meng thought for a moment. “I have a house.”
Jiang Xue slapped the table. “Well, I never! You bought a house and didn’t even tell me.”
Shi Meng shook his head, sounding hesitant. “But… I haven’t decided if I want to move in yet.”
With the competition imminent, Shi Meng naturally didn’t visit the prison. He returned to Xuncheng for intensive practice. Even Fu Xuanliao could only see him on Saturdays.
That day, he heard a knock on the door again. Shi Meng initially planned to ignore it, but Fu Xuanliao called him, sounding pitiful. “I’m already here. Just let me see you, okay?”
Shi Meng went downstairs to open the door and froze when he saw the person with very short hair standing there. Fu Xuanliao, also unaccustomed to it, raised a hand to touch the prickly stubble, asking somewhat awkwardly, “It’s… not too ugly, is it?”
In fact, Fu Xuanliao had a handsome face and a good head shape, so any haircut made little difference.
Shi Meng didn’t compliment him, though. Instead, he asked what he was doing there.
“I missed you,” Fu Xuanliao answered truthfully. “I came to brush up my presence.”
And incidentally, to do laundry, cook, release the painter’s desires, and bring inspiration to the busy artist.
Afterward, Fu Xuanliao grabbed Shi Meng’s hand, which was wandering over his body, and bit his fingertip. “Is Mr. Shi satisfied with the home service provided this time?”
Shi Meng gave a passing grade. “It’s acceptable.”
“Then the contents of that cardboard box…”
Before Fu Xuanliao could finish, Shi Meng tilted his head and pretended to fall asleep.
Fu Xuanliao couldn’t help but smile, continuing to fiddle with his soft hand and placing a kiss on his palm.
With persistent rehabilitation, Shi Meng’s hand injury had improved significantly. The scars had faded, and when Fu Xuanliao brushed his lips over them, he only felt a slight raised texture.
Fu Xuanliao played along with Shi Meng’s act. “Good little mushroom, open the box.”
Said aloud, it sounded even stranger than singing.
“Sleeping” Shi Meng’s lips twitched, but he didn’t respond.
Fu Xuanliao pressed his advantage and kissed him again. “Tell me, darling, when will he open the box?”
Shi Meng couldn’t bear it anymore and opened his eyes. “Am I a mushroom or a darling?”
“Both,” Fu Xuanliao said, his plan successful and his smile wide. “You can be whatever you want.”
As long as the wounds were healing, everything was moving in a good direction.
(Part 2)
Later, Shi Meng, finding the noise distracting, suggested they be strangers for a while, until his competition was over.
Fu Xuanliao firmly refused but then obediently lowered his presence, giving Shi Meng ample space and time. He only drove to pick him up on the day of the competition, and in front of Shi Meng, he zipped his mouth shut, signaling that he absolutely wouldn’t disturb him.
The final was a live painting session. Fu Xuanliao was like a parent waiting outside the exam hall for their child. When he saw Shi Meng emerge, he immediately rushed forward. “How did it go?”
Shi Meng didn’t speak. His expression showed neither joy nor worry; he just stared down at his right hand.
Fu Xuanliao quickly comforted him. “It’s okay. If you didn’t perform well this time, there’s always next time. Once your hand is better…”
Shi Meng ignored him, turned, hailed a taxi, tossed out, “I’m leaving first,” and drove away.
Fu Xuanliao was left standing there, utterly bewildered, wondering if this “stranger” period was going to last until the results were announced.
Feeling depressed, Fu Xuanliao went to complain to an old friend.
Gao Lecheng heard that Fu Xuanliao had redrafted a contract. Aside from extending the effective period until “physiological death” and changing “Saturday” to “three hundred and sixty-five days a year,” the content was similar to the previous one. He gasped, “Isn’t that locking yourself up for life? You’re weaving your own cocoon, full of sincerity. You really know how to play.”
Fu Xuanliao sighed. “But he won’t even open it to look.”
“Is he still mad at you?”
Fu Xuanliao looked troubled. “The old grudges and new ones combined would fill a truck. He has plenty to be mad about.”
Though he sounded discouraged, he didn’t slacken his efforts.
After drinking two pots of soothing tea, Fu Xuanliao drove toward the east of the city.
He had bought an apartment there before the New Year. The housekeeper had messaged him today saying she had delivered all the daily necessities and asked him to check if anything was missing.
The car turned into the community gate and parked in the underground lot.
It was a large, flat apartment. Fu Xuanliao remembered that Shi Meng had stood by the floor-to-ceiling window for a long time when he visited his previous home, and the city’s brilliant lights reflected beautifully in his eyes.
As he rode the elevator up, Fu Xuanliao was still thinking about whether he should make time to visit a furniture store tomorrow. Shi Meng was particular about aesthetics, so he hadn’t dared to leave the soft furnishings entirely to the renovation company. He planned to choose them himself, and if necessary, he wanted to contact a few buyers to bring back some unique decorative items from abroad.
He considered this their future home with the little mushroom, so he was dedicated to making it perfect.
But Shi Meng wouldn’t even open the cardboard box, let alone…
Thinking this, Fu Xuanliao dejectedly pulled out his key to open the door. He didn’t notice anything when the sensor light in the entryway came on, until he looked down and saw a pair of shoes beside the shoe cabinet.
Shi Meng was sensitive to the cold, so the house had to have heating. Even before the utilities were installed, Fu Xuanliao had planned to install radiant floor heating throughout the entire house.
And now, the floor heating had clearly been on for a long time. Fu Xuanliao took off his shoes and stepped onto the floor, not feeling cold at all.
He stumbled almost frantically inside, and as if by divine inspiration, pushed open the master bedroom door. The scene that met his eyes was covered in a warm, yellow hue.
The bedside lamp was on. A tall figure was kneeling on the floor with his back to him, barefoot, bending over to take clothes out of an open suitcase one by one.
Hearing the door open, the person turned around. It was the face that haunted Fu Xuanliao’s dreams.
Shi Meng curved his lips at him, his eyes filled with the scattered, shimmering light of stars.
“Can I live in this room?”
It was destined to be an eventful night. The two of them spent a considerable amount of time just embracing.
Fu Xuanliao’s breathing was ragged, and his voice was choked with emotion. Holding Shi Meng, he alternated between saying “thank you” and “I’m sorry,” incoherent with feeling.
It took a long time for him to calm down. Fu Xuanliao leaned over Shi Meng’s shoulder, like a difficult-to-soothe big child.
When asked when he had seen it, Shi Meng gently patted Fu Xuanliao’s back and said, “I saw it a long time ago.”
On the day he returned to Fengcheng to handle his affairs.
Fu Xuanliao grunted, sounding displeased but not daring to act on it. “Then why only come now?”
Shi Meng said, “The competition is over.”
“Oh,” Fu Xuanliao pretended to be indifferent. “You ignore me when you’re busy, and only think of me when you’re free. What’s that called… summoned at will and dismissed at a wave?”
Shi Meng saw through his pretense, thinking he was childish, but indulged him anyway. “I kept the key on me. The competition ended early, so I came back to pack…”
Before he could finish, Fu Xuanliao cut him off.
“I know, I know everything,” he said. “You don’t need to explain.”
You haven’t done anything wrong. You are so good. I can figure things out myself. Explaining is something you never needed to do, from beginning to end.
These words reminded Shi Meng of the other item he found in the cardboard box: a letter from Fu Xuanliao.
Fu Xuanliao clearly had little experience writing letters. The format was messy, but the handwriting was square and neat, every stroke deliberate.
In the letter, he rambled about many things: recent events, people he dreamed about, and the future life he looked forward to.
He wrote: I don’t know if you will regret letting me in. I hope you won’t. You don’t need to regret it. Regret doesn’t suit you; leave that to me.
He also wrote: You don’t have to forgive me so quickly. You can keep me on edge. I will be prepared, so when I’m thrown into the water, I won’t flail uselessly like someone who can’t swim. Instead, I will float and swim back to the shore to find you.
As if solving the dilemma for Shi Meng about whether he wanted a life with him or without him, Fu Xuanliao forcefully answered—no matter which life, I will find you.
Shi Meng thought this person was as unreasonable as ever.
After they had embraced enough, they separated and started unpacking clothes together. Someone brought up the winter camp from twelve years ago. Fu Xuanliao laughed. “Everyone else was in ninth grade or high school. What were you, a seventh grader, doing joining in the fun?”
Shi Meng seemed embarrassed about getting lost in the mountains. It took him a while to speak. “Back then, if it weren’t for you…”
Fu Xuanliao thought he was complaining and explained, “I didn’t expect you to run off to such a remote place. I circled the foot of the mountain several times, which is why I was delayed.”
Shi Meng listened, then stared at him for a moment.
The words that followed were not “it’s okay,” but two words laced with a smile: “Idiot.”
Lying in the new bed that night, neither of them could sleep.
They simply continued the conversation they hadn’t finished that afternoon. Fu Xuanliao asked Shi Meng who he had painted for the competition. Shi Meng looked up at him. “You.”
The surprise was too sudden. Fu Xuanliao couldn’t believe it. “Really?”
“Mhm,” Shi Meng said. “A buzz cut is easy to draw.”
Fu Xuanliao deflated again, raising his hand to touch his prickly head, comforting himself. “Well, at least it served a purpose.”
Later, Fu Xuanliao fell asleep first.
He was a sound sleeper, staying exactly as he was positioned. Shi Meng lay on his side, resting his head on Fu Xuanliao’s arm, his free hand wrapped around his waist, holding him tightly.
Then he closed his eyes, counted from one to a hundred, and opened his eyes. The person was still there.
Like a clear day after snow, as the snow melted, the pain gradually receded.
Like the revival of all things, his heart came back to life.
Fu Xuanliao always sought to gauge Shi Meng’s love for him by any means, even sacrificing his dignity in exchange.
But Shi Meng had so many little secrets, too many to tell in three days and three nights.
For example, in the competition that afternoon, the original plan was to paint himself. Teacher Ma had said self-portraits were likely to stand out and score high. Shi Meng had diligently studied for months, but when he picked up the brush on stage, he changed his mind and painted the newly-buzzed Fu Xuanliao he had seen when he opened the door that day.
Because of this change, Shi Meng was angry that his hand didn’t obey him, and angry that Fu Xuanliao had used his good looks to disturb his peace of mind, which was why he hadn’t given him a kind look when he came out.
Another example: regarding the winter camp mentioned a few hours ago, Shi Meng wasn’t complaining at all that he hadn’t found him sooner.
What Shi Meng wanted to say was—if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have signed up at all.
If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have accepted that key, and I certainly wouldn’t be here.
Late at night, Shi Meng had a hypothetical dream.
Assuming there were no such twists of fate and they had met in childhood, Fu Xuanliao would surely be his hero, arriving on a cloud of colorful auspiciousness to dispel the last trace of gloom. They would grow up together, experience the joys and sorrows, the separations and reunions of life’s journey.
And Shi Meng wouldn’t have asked to get off halfway, leaving himself in boundless darkness. As long as he clung to Fu Xuanliao’s back, maintaining his dependence, he could safely reach the end of the story.
After all, every dream, whether good or bad, had all its most vivid parts connected to him.
When he woke up, Shi Meng saw Fu Xuanliao propped up on his elbow, lying on his side, smiling more brightly than the sun outside.
Before Shi Meng could speak, Fu Xuanliao spoke first. “I suddenly realized I missed saying one thing last night.”
Shi Meng blinked.
Thank you, I’m sorry, and…
“I love you.” Fu Xuanliao looked deeply at Shi Meng, repeating tirelessly, “I love you, I love you.”
Shi Meng raised his right hand and gently stroked his brows and eyes, allowing every line and every angle to overlap with the one on the canvas, as if after enduring wind and rain, taking wrong turns, and circling around, he had finally found a comfortable completeness.
A kiss landed squarely on Fu Xuanliao’s cheek. After a moment of silence, Fu Xuanliao raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”
Shi Meng knew what he was waiting for, but he still curved his lips and said, “Good morning.”
Then, in the morning sunlight pouring in freely, amidst the interwoven sounds of their breathing and heartbeats, he softly replied—
“Me too.”
Author’s Note:
It’s finished!
There were many difficulties during the serialization of this novel (mainly my own health and family matters). I even overturned and heavily revised it once midway. Thank you all for your patience until now.
Also, this piece is not a typical “chasing wife in the crematorium” story. What I wanted to write was a story of love, hate, entanglement, and mutual torment—a painful yet ultimately fulfilling love story. I personally love this story, but individual experiences vary. If it didn’t meet your expectations, I can only say I regret that our brainwaves didn’t align. Let’s try again in the next one.
I’ll take a few days off and then start updating the extras. The promised free extras will be included, as will a parallel world extra where there are no misunderstandings. There’s still a lot I want to write about these two, and I’ll take my time with each one.
In summary, thank you for the encounter, thank you for the companionship. Hope to see you in the next book!