For Yan Chengfeng, the Spring Festival meant a lot.
First of all, it was during the Spring Festival that he and Zhen Ning met at the age of sixteen. Shortly after the holiday, they went to KYM for their trial.
Youth training life was tough, with many kids coming from different places. The training was intense, and they only had a few holidays each year to go home.
Of course, many youth trainees felt they couldn’t endure it. Some would go home for the New Year and never return afterward.
During his first Spring Festival after a year at KYM’s youth training program, Yan Chengfeng went home.
His family lived nearby. He had a meal with his parents, told them how the coach had recently praised him, and how he had a good chance of playing once he became an adult. Two days later, he returned to the base.
He assumed Zhen Ning had also gone home. However, when he got back, he found Zhen Ning quietly playing ranked games alone in the training room.
Zhen Ning had spent the Spring Festival alone at the base and hadn’t said a word about it to Yan Chengfeng.
Yan Chengfeng was both angry and anxious. “Why didn’t you tell me you were spending the Spring Festival alone? Why did you—”
“You needed to reunite with your family.” Zhen Ning looked up at him and said lightly, “I don’t care much for these kinds of holidays. It doesn’t matter.”
Yan Chengfeng: “…”
He simply couldn’t believe anyone would dislike celebrating such a lively festival.
In their second year at KYM’s youth training program, Yan Chengfeng went home early before the festival but rushed back to the base before New Year’s Eve because he wanted to spend the New Year with Zhen Ning.
However, he didn’t tell Zhen Ning, intending to surprise him.
But when he arrived, Zhen Ning wasn’t in the training room. The other youth trainees who had stayed behind said Zhen Ning had gone to the back door of the base—his father had come to see him.
Yan Chengfeng recalled that Zhen Ning had once mentioned his parents had divorced when he was very young and that he had been placed under the custody of his omega father.
Through the glass, Yan Chengfeng saw Zhen Ning’s father for the first time.
The two looked… incredibly alike.
It was like a bigger Zhen Ning and a smaller Zhen Ning—a big beauty and a small beauty, a big iceberg and a small iceberg. They stood face to face at the base’s entrance, confronting each other coldly.
They stood far apart, so their words were inaudible, but from Zhen Ning’s expression, Yan Chengfeng could tell their relationship wasn’t good.
Zhen Ning’s father wore an expensive, high-quality coat and was well-maintained, but the fatigue in his eyes was evident.
At that moment, a few other youth trainees were peeking in from outside the window. A group of undifferentiated alphas, living together every day, had never seen such a high-level beauty.
A few of them stared, their eyes practically glued to him. “Wow, such a beautiful omega… so elegant…”
Yan Chengfeng looked at Zhen Ning’s father for a while, feeling nothing special, and muttered, “Zhen Ning’s features are clearly better-looking.”
The few youth trainees immediately turned to him with alarmed expressions.
Yan Chengfeng: “…What’s wrong?”
One of the youth trainees couldn’t help but speak up. “Yan-ge, we know you’re close with Zhen Ning, and yeah, he’s good-looking, but you do know he’s going to differentiate into an alpha, right?”
Yan Chengfeng scratched his head.
He had simply thought Zhen Ning was more attractive than his father. Or maybe, in Yan Chengfeng’s eyes, Zhen Ning had always seemed more good-looking than everyone else.
He didn’t dwell on it and just cleared his throat. “Stop talking nonsense, and stop peeking. Zhen Ning is coming back. Hurry up and bring the stuff!”
Just as the back door of the base opened, Zhen Ning heard a loud voice, “Happy Spring Festival!”
Zhen Ning looked up, slightly surprised. “Weren’t you going home?”
Yan Chengfeng, of course, wouldn’t admit his little scheme. “Oh, I stayed home for two days, and my mom started nagging me, so I thought I’d come back early to train.”
“Here.” As he spoke, he stuffed a thermos lunchbox into Zhen Ning’s hands. “I made dumplings again this year. They look much better than last year’s. Try them and guess which ones I made!”
Zhen Ning lowered his head and examined the dumplings in the box for a while.
After a moment, he calmly pointed at three. “This one, this one, and this one. Only these three were made by you—the others weren’t.”
Yan Chengfeng was stunned. “No way… how did you figure that out?”
Zhen Ning: “It’s easy to tell. The edges of these three dumplings aren’t as neat as the others.”
“…Stop talking, just eat!”
At that moment, Yan Chengfeng was frustrated that his dumplings looked too ugly. However, he didn’t notice the faint smile in Zhen Ning’s eyes as he looked at him.
Back then, Yan Chengfeng had simply thought of Zhen Ning as the person closest to him. He had given him his whole heart, just hoping to bring him some warmth.
Maybe he had idealized everything, or maybe Zhen Ning was just a block of ice that couldn’t melt. When Zhen Ning left that year, Yan Chengfeng had felt uncontrollably disheartened and lost.
That’s why his feelings were so complicated now.
Even though their relationship was closer than ever, Yan Chengfeng still feared he was overthinking it. He worried that he was imagining things—that Zhen Ning didn’t need him at all.
After all, when Zhen Ning left that day, he had seemed indifferent. If Zhen Ning didn’t feel the same way and he had eagerly shown up to spend the Spring Festival with him… wouldn’t that make him a clown?
But… what if?
New Year’s Eve was tomorrow. After finishing a ranked game, Zhen Ning looked away from the screen and noticed the training room was empty. The base was nearly deserted.
Yan Chengfeng’s seat had been empty all morning. Zhen Ning guessed he must have gone home last night.
Tao Luo was the last to leave with her suitcase. As she passed by the training room door, she waved happily at Zhen Ning. “See you after the New Year, Zhen Ning! Happy New Year!”
Zhen Ning replied, “Happy New Year.”
The base quickly fell into silence.
Zhen Ning was accustomed to tranquility and had always felt that silence wasn’t a bad thing.
However, once everything became quiet, he inevitably felt a bit aimless. After finishing two ranked games, he sat in the training room, lost in thought for a while, before standing up and walking to the base’s lobby.
When he first returned, everything had been chaotic. Now, Zhen Ning could finally calm down and take a good look at the place.
Three years had passed.
The KYM base seemed much the same as Zhen Ning remembered. The décor hadn’t changed much, except for the brand of the chairs in the training room. The only noticeable difference was the trophy cabinet, which had been replaced with a larger one, now filled with trophies from various competitions.
However, the topmost spot in the cabinet was still empty.
Zhen Ning walked up to the trophy cabinet and noticed a group photo.
It had been taken when KYM made it to the semifinals of the World Championship for the first time—a team photo captured in front of the venue in the US as they were leaving.
Yan Chengfeng stood between Lei Tao and Tao Luo. Tao Luo was grinning so broadly it looked like her smile could touch the sky, but Yan Chengfeng’s expression wasn’t good.
He wasn’t even looking at the camera, instead gazing into the distance beyond the frame, as if lost in thought or thinking of someone.
Suddenly, Zhen Ning heard a voice behind him. “Looks good?”
Startled, he turned around to see Yan Chengfeng standing there, wearing a thick coat, panting heavily as if he had just rushed back from outside.
After a moment, Zhen Ning spoke. “Weren’t you going home—”
“I just sent my parents to the airport. They’re going on a trip to a neighboring city,” Yan Chengfeng said, turning his face away. “Going home is a hassle, so I came back to the base.”
Zhen Ning was silent for a few seconds. “Going home is a hassle?”
Their base was in the suburbs, about an hour’s drive from the airport on the other side of the city.
Realizing the flaw in his excuse, Yan Chengfeng’s face stiffened.
He said, “I’m worried about the upcoming matches in the Spring Split. I can’t focus on training at home, so I came back to the base for more convenient practice. Is that a problem?”
Zhen Ning didn’t reply.
Perhaps sensing that Zhen Ning was about to see through him, Yan Chengfeng hastily averted his gaze and turned to look at the trophies in the cabinet.
As he stared at them, he found himself lost in thought.
“Do you see these trophies?” Yan Chengfeng said after a while. “If you hadn’t left back then, you would have been part of all this glory too.”
Zhen Ning said nothing.
“Of course, you could say… it’s your own fault,” he said dryly, like a petty schoolboy bringing up old grievances from who knows how many years ago.
After a long silence, he heard Zhen Ning say, “Indeed.”
Yan Chengfeng took a deep breath.
No, no. He thought urgently, This isn’t what I originally wanted to say to Zhen Ning.
Whenever he thought back to the past few years, Yan Chengfeng couldn’t help but lose his temper, forgetting what he had originally intended to express.
Calm down, he told himself. Think about why you went through so much trouble to come back to the base and what exactly you wanted to ask Zhen Ning.
Zhen Ning turned around, preparing to head back to the training room.
Yan Chengfeng exhaled, gritted his teeth, and hurried forward, grabbing Zhen Ning’s wrist.
“B-but it’s my fault too.”
Yan Chengfeng spoke awkwardly. “Because whether it was years ago or now, I can’t let go of someone, even if I don’t know whether he likes the dumplings I make or if he even needs me to be with him.”
“Even if… he once left me behind.”
“I could have stayed home. It’s only a half-hour drive, and I could still train for ranked games there.”
He continued, “But I wanted to come back to the base because I’ve been thinking about it for so long, and I still can’t figure it out. I always seem to guess wrong, so I don’t want to guess anymore. I just want to ask you directly.”
Zhen Ning’s breathing hitched slightly.
“Zhen Ning,” he heard Yan Chengfeng ask, “Do you want me to spend the Spring Festival with you?”
Author’s note:
Say you want me to stay, and I won’t leave. I guess I can keep you company!
