FQ chapter 23

Luan Ye leaned in to look at the painting as well. “You couldn’t tell?”

He had learned watercolor when he was four or five. After going abroad, he rarely painted again. Halfway through this one, he had started regretting it.

His skills were rusty. The clay board was made from straw, mud, and cotton—its surface uneven. The pigments were hard to mix…

So many excuses, but it all boiled down to this: the initial excitement had faded, and he wasn’t sure what he was doing anymore.

Maybe he’d just leave it like this. It wasn’t like when he was a kid and would get scolded for not finishing. He could always say he was tired and go home to nap…

As he thought about this and looked up—he saw Fan Qing had already fallen asleep.

Shit.

Luan Ye stared at him for a long time. Fan Qing was sound asleep, brows relaxed, chest rising and falling gently—completely silent.

Fan Qing had always been good-looking. Luan Ye noticed that the first time they met. But studying him now, especially when asleep, made it even more obvious.

If he woke him up now and said he was too lazy to keep painting, maybe they should just go—what would happen?

Probably nothing. Luan Ye figured Fan Qing would blink, then stand up and say, “Okay, let’s go.”

He wouldn’t ask why he gave up halfway or say things like, “I’m disappointed in you.”

Fan Qing’s emotions were more stable than his, more stable than most people’s.

Luan Ye exhaled softly, lowered his head again, and drew the small figure in the lower left.

This time, he felt strangely calm as he drew.

Anyway, Fan Qing wasn’t a professional and wouldn’t critique the drawing—if he dared, Luan Ye would kick him down the stairs.

But Fan Qing hadn’t said anything. In fact, he’d been too nervous to speak, just staring at the painting. Until Luan Ye asked a question.

“I can tell,” Fan Qing’s gaze finally moved from the painting back to Luan Ye’s face.

“I just… didn’t expect it.” He tried to make his voice sound calm. “Why did you draw me?”

“No reason. You looked good that day, dressed like that,” Luan Ye chuckled. “Just wanted to keep a memory.”

“…Oh.”

They locked eyes for a few seconds before Fan Qing lowered his head to look at the painting again.

“This…” he pointed to the pictographic writing that looked like tadpoles or little symbols. “Did you write this?”

Luan Ye gestured toward the wall full of similar writing. “Looked interesting. I wanted to ask you about it, but you were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you.”

Fan Qing looked a little embarrassed—his ears were turning red again.

“When the server came to change the tea, I asked her a few questions. She said this script is the only pictographic writing in the world that’s still in use. It’s been around for a thousand…”

He paused, and Fan Qing filled in the rest.

“A thousand seven hundred years.”

A strange and mysterious script that had been passed down for 1,700 years—now written by Luan Ye on his own painting.

“Yeah.”

Luan Ye smiled, rubbing the back of his neck from leaning forward too long. “She taught me two characters.”

“Aren’t you a local? I thought you’d recognize it.”

Fan Qing looked at the characters, unmoving for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was a little hoarse.

“I learned it in elementary school… but forgot. Now I remember.”

This was considered part of the local cultural heritage—whether you were an ethnic minority or not, you had to study it in elementary school. But it had been so long that Fan Qing didn’t immediately remember.

Now he did.

“Top of the honor roll, success in everything,” Fan Qing read aloud.

“You can actually read it?” Luan Ye set down his hand, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I thought that girl was joking when she taught me those.”

Fan Qing lightly touched the characters with the pad of his finger. “Your writing is pretty standard.”

But why had he written those particular phrases?

Luan Ye seemed to catch on to his thoughts and smiled.

“Aren’t you registering for universities? I figured these words might bring you some luck.”

Fan Qing immediately looked up.

Luan Ye went on, “Go downstairs and have them frame it. It’s yours now.”

Fan Qing stared at him for a while, just about to say something, when Luan Ye beat him to it.

“Don’t say you don’t want it—I already wrote the words on it.”

“…I was just going to say thank you,” Fan Qing smiled.

“You’re welcome,” Luan Ye smiled back. “Go on.”

Fan Qing brought the painting downstairs. He carefully rubbed the surface to make sure the paint was dry before handing it over to the front desk staff.

“Wow, it’s finished!” the server exclaimed in surprise. “It looks really good.”

It seemed she was the same one who had taught Luan Ye the characters earlier. Fan Qing nodded. “Yeah.”

It really was well-done.

The server glanced at him, clearly holding back a smile. Fan Qing pulled out his phone. “How much is it?”

If he remembered correctly, the payment was settled at the end here. He had taken a nap and then received a gift, which made him feel a bit guilty. And for him, the painting from Luan Ye was a valuable gift—though Luan Ye probably didn’t think so.

“The handsome guy who was painting already paid for everything earlier when I brought up the tea—including the tea itself,” she said with a smile as she turned to find a frame. “Please wait a moment.”

Fan Qing froze, his brows knitting slightly. Then he sighed.

By the time the server finished framing the painting and handed it to him in a bag, Luan Ye had come downstairs.

“All framed?”

Fan Qing lifted the bag to show him. Luan Ye nodded. “I’m hungry. Let’s go find something to eat.”

It was already after five. Technically, dinner was the main banquet of the funeral. But since lunchtime had required several seating rotations due to the crowd, Fan Qing figured Luan Ye probably wouldn’t want to attend the big dinner.

He thought for a moment. “There’s a small place ahead. Not a big restaurant, but they have a lot of options—hot pot, grilled meat, rice noodles… even rice cakes.”

Luan Ye repeated, “Rice cakes?”

“The kind we had at lunch,” Fan Qing explained.

A few seconds passed before Luan Ye’s lips curved up. “Alright.”

He must have really been hungry, because he didn’t say much during the meal. It wasn’t until they were on their way back in the car that he finally spoke again.

“Did you talk to your family about where you’ll apply?”

“I did. My grandma said she’s healthy and I don’t need to worry about her,” Fan Qing said, much more relaxed than last time. “My aunt said I can go wherever I want, and she’ll pay for the tuition.”

Fan Qing smiled. “I told her I have money.”

“You’re really rich,” Luan Ye nodded. “You also said two thousand a month was too much—only needed fifteen hundred.”

Fan Qing was stunned, then laughed for a while before responding. “Back then we weren’t that close. I didn’t dare ask for that much.”

“We’re a bit closer now,” Luan Ye said.

There was a speed bump up ahead, so Fan Qing slowed down. After they passed over it, he responded with a quiet “Mm.”

Luan Ye continued, “Have you decided on schools and majors?”

“I picked a bunch. Just… waiting to see which one accepts me,” Fan Qing replied.

He actually wanted to ask Luan Ye what he had studied in college, and why he chose that major. But before he could say it, he held back.

He was afraid Luan Ye would say something like, “I chose it because my boyfriend did.”

He didn’t know why—but right now, Fan Qing really, really didn’t want to hear that.

They reached the entrance to Granny Mu’s alley. Luan Ye got out and closed the car door.

“I’m off.”

Fan Qing didn’t turn off the engine. He stayed there, watching Luan Ye walk through the gate before he finally turned around and drove home.

Li Ge hadn’t returned yet, and Laifu was probably still at the café. The yard was quiet. Fan Qing went upstairs to his room and sat for a while at his desk.

He had brought Luan Ye’s painting home. He opened the packaging, took it out, and stood the framed piece up on his desk.

The snowy mountains and grasslands were beautiful, like scenes hidden in the mist. The tiny figure of himself in the lower-left corner looked pretty cool—worth preserving as a keepsake. And the blessing written just for him, something Luan Ye had specifically learned how to write.

Fan Qing looked at it for a long time. He felt like laughing, but in the end, he just rested his forehead against the edge of the desk and let out a soft sigh.

The initial joy and emotional impact of receiving a gift gradually faded. Now, Fan Qing felt like his heart was floating—suspended in the air, not quite settled. A vague sense of nervousness and inexplicable loss crept in.

Should he give something back to Luan Ye?

But he didn’t really know what Luan Ye liked.

In all this time, he had never seen Luan Ye get particularly enthusiastic about anything, or express clear personal preferences, or insist on doing something specific. Everything he did seemed to rest on a vague, optional foundation.

The only things Luan Ye had explicitly said about himself were from that evening over tea—“I have an illness.”

And the several times he’d mentioned his boyfriend.

Boyfriend.

Luan Ye had a boyfriend.

Fan Qing looked up. In the twilight, the painted silhouette of himself on the artwork had taken on a warm, golden hue.

Had Luan Ye ever painted for that boyfriend?

Did that person teach Luan Ye photography? Had they hiked together? Had they seen the snowy mountains somewhere?

…What the hell is wrong with you? Fan Qing thought irritably. Why are you so curious about someone else’s business? What does it have to do with you?

Even if he had done all those things—so what?

He lowered his eyes. The pictographs Luan Ye had written were still on the painting. Fan Qing tapped them twice through the glass with his fingertip.

The last living pictographic language in the world. A script found only here.

Luan Ye had written it on this painting and given it to him. It was sitting on his desk now.

Unique. One of a kind.

At that thought, Fan Qing jerked his hand back like he’d been shocked. He felt a bit crazy.