“Lin Shen, get up.”
“Lin Shen.”
“Do you still wanna see the sunrise or not, Lin Shen?”
To be honest, Lu Chengxuan had never woken anyone up before in his life.
It was 5:20 in the morning, still pitch-black outside. Lu Chengxuan had already washed up and now sat by Lin Shen’s bed, trying—and failing—for a full ten minutes to wake him up.
It took about 25 to 30 minutes to walk from the hotel to the best sunrise spot, Yingri Peak. And with the sun expected to rise around 6:00 to 8:00 in the winter up here in Yingtian Mountain, if they wanted to catch it on time, they had to leave now.
But Lin Shen had taken a nap yesterday afternoon and didn’t actually fall asleep until nearly 1 a.m. So at this point, he’d barely had five hours of sleep.
Right now, he was wrapped up like a burrito in his blanket, completely dead to the world, showing no signs of waking up at all.
Just then, someone knocked on the bedroom door. Lin Wangye, already dressed and ready to go, came in.
The second he saw Lin Shen still out cold in bed, his eyes went wide. “What’s going on? He’s still asleep?!”
“I’ve been trying to wake him for ages. Nothing,” Lu Chengxuan said helplessly.
Lu Chengxuan was rarely at a loss for what to do. He stood beside the bed, and after a few seconds, seemed to remember something. He bent down and touched Lin Shen’s forehead—his temperature felt normal, no sign of a fever—then tried calling him again.
“Lin Shen, wake up.”
Lin Wangye looked even more stunned. “That’s how you’re waking him up?”
Lu Chengxuan looked confused. “How else should I wake him?”
“Leave it to me.” Lin Wangye rolled up his sleeves like he was about to go to battle. He strode over to the bed, grabbed one corner of the blanket, and yanked the whole thing off in one go. “WAH-LA!”
“Holy shit!”
The room had heating, sure, but it was still a lot colder than being wrapped up in the blanket. The second the covers were ripped off, Lin Shen practically shot out of bed like a spring. His hair was a total mess, sticking up all over the place as he sat there in a daze, locking eyes with the three people around him. He looked completely lost.
“See? Being too gentle doesn’t work.” Lin Wangye tossed the blanket back onto the bed and made a dramatic ‘after you’ gesture toward Lu Chengxuan. “Told you, this is how you do it.”
Realizing what had just happened, Lin Shen exploded. “Lin Wangye!”
“What, what? Hurry up and get washed up!” Lin Wangye stood his ground without missing a beat. He grabbed Lin Shen and dragged him toward the edge of the bed, kicking his slippers over. “If we didn’t wake you, you’d say we were leaving you out again. Now hurry up—keep dawdling and we’re gonna miss the sunrise!”
At this point, there was no way he could fall back asleep even if he lay down again.
Barely holding himself together, Lin Shen dragged his sleep-deprived self out of bed and shuffled like a ghost to the bathroom to wash up. After getting dressed, he was practically hauled out of the room. And the moment he stepped outside and met the freezing mountain air—his soul felt like it had been slapped clean awake.
“Why is it this cold?!”
“That’s how it is in the mountains. It’ll get better once the sun’s up,” Lu Chengxuan told him.
Lin Shen hunched his shoulders and clattered his teeth. “It wasn’t this cold last night! How does that make any sense?!”
“I know this one!” Lin Wangye instantly raised his hand—only to shove it right back into his pocket the next second from the cold, and jogged up the steps as he spoke. “It’s all about radiation and counter-radiation. During the day, the ground soaks up a ton of heat and hits its peak temp. But after sunset, it starts losing that heat. And since there’s no sunlight at night to keep the air warm, the air and the ground end up with a temperature gap. So the ground keeps releasing heat—what we call counter-radiation. That’s why sunrise is the coldest time of day.”
Once he finished, he didn’t even look at Lin Shen. Instead, he shot a look over at Shi Yuan, clearly fishing for praise with sparkly eyes. Noticing the gleam in his gaze, Shi Yuan smiled and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Okay, enough out of you,” Lin Shen exhaled a long puff of misty breath. “I’m already exhausted and now I feel like dying after listening to that.”
As soon as he said it, Lin Wangye shut his mouth tight. But when he saw the smile on Shi Yuan’s face, he quickly stuck out his tongue at him like a kid who got caught showing off.
Pretty much everyone who chose to stay overnight in the mountains was there to see the sunrise.
The sky was still dark, and the path to Yingri Peak had lamp posts lining both sides every few steps, giving off a faint glow to light up the stairs ahead. Quite a few early risers had the same idea—they passed people hiking up either solo or in small groups every so often.
At first, Lin Wangye and Lin Shen still had the energy to joke around.
But ten minutes in, both of them were panting like crazy and completely out of the mood to talk. The hike from the little town to Yingri Peak wasn’t that long distance-wise, but the real killer was the altitude.
Every single step was a climb. There wasn’t a single flat stretch the whole way.
Halfway through, the sky began to brighten just a bit.
Shi Yuan had been through way worse than this climb, so out of the four of them, he was still in top form—his breathing hadn’t even changed much despite all the uphill steps.
He’d been walking beside Lin Wangye up front, but after stepping onto one of the taller stairs, he suddenly realized the person next to him hadn’t followed.
Looking back, he saw Lin Wangye frozen in place—one foot on the step, the other still on the one below, hunched over and gasping with his hands on his knees.
Catching Shi Yuan looking back, Lin Wangye pitifully reached out a hand toward him.
Shi Yuan took it and gave him a solid tug, pulling him right up.
“You tired?” he asked.
Lin Wangye nodded so hard it looked like his head might fall off, bending over to catch his breath. “So tired… Why is this mountain so hard to climb?”
“We’re almost there,” Shi Yuan said, trying to comfort him. “That sign we just passed said there are only a hundred and fifty steps left. Hang in there.”
Lin Wangye let out a long sigh, gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and muttered, “Lead the little puppy… I can’t move anymore.”
“Alright,” Shi Yuan smiled and tightened his grip around Lin Wangye’s hand, turning to keep climbing. “Let’s go.”
With someone pulling him forward, Lin Wangye suddenly didn’t feel so tired. His steps got lighter, and before he even realized it, he was moving faster and faster.
Farther behind, Lin Shen was practically wheezing. Every step felt like torture. He paused, looked around, and realized he couldn’t even see Lin Wangye anymore.
“Where’d they go? Is it just us now?”
Lu Chengxuan stepped up onto a higher stair and moved to the side to let other hikers pass. “They’ve left us way behind.”
“Damn… I wanna go back so bad.” Lin Shen stared up at the endless staircase ahead, completely hopeless. “Why did I even suggest climbing this stupid mountain? I’m such an idiot.”
“Stop talking about dying all the time. It’s bad luck.”
Lu Chengxuan caught his breath, then glanced up. “That pavilion up ahead? That’s the one. We’re almost there—come on.”
Lin Shen stared at him like he couldn’t believe it.
“You’re seriously not tired?”
“A little,” Lu Chengxuan said honestly, “but it’s manageable.”
Just then, a couple who’d been behind them casually strolled past hand in hand, right in front of their faces. The girl’s soft, sugary voice floated over.
“Baby, I’m sooo tired…”
“You’re amazing, babe. We’re almost there.”
The couple kept going, and their voices faded into the distance. Lin Shen got goosebumps all over—not sure if it was from the cold or just how cringey that was.
It was like something suddenly clicked for Lu Chengxuan. He stood still for a moment, then, while Lin Shen was catching his breath, held out a hand and asked tentatively, “If you’re outta strength, I can pull you the rest of the way.”
Lin Shen stared down at his hand for a solid three seconds, then looked up with a defiant glare.
“What, you think I can’t do it? Watch me.”
And with that, he pulled himself together and charged forward, skipping two steps at a time like a man on a mission. Lu Chengxuan silently watched his back, then followed without saying a word.
Yingri Peak was a viewing platform built especially for watching the sunrise.
It took Lin Shen and Lu Chengxuan nearly forty minutes to reach the top.
By the time Lin Shen stepped onto the final stair and made it to the viewing platform, the sky had already brightened. In the distance, mountain peaks rolled one after another, wrapped in drifting clouds, and the horizon was just starting to glow with the pale light of dawn.
The white mist slowly thinned, and the rising sun broke through the sky.
At that moment, the eastern sky suddenly burst with color. The clouds layered across the heavens were splashed in brilliant shades of orange and gold. The sunlight shot straight up into the sky, casting its gaze down over the world, gently waking everything still wrapped in sleep.
Lin Shen had never seen a sunrise before—and right now, he was completely stunned.
He stood there, staring out at the mountains, the morning glow, and the endless sweep of snow-covered peaks. For the first time in his life, he could truly feel the power of nature’s handiwork.
“Waking up early was worth it. Climbing this mountain was worth it. Hell, being alive was worth it,” Lin Shen muttered in awe.
As the sun climbed higher and the light grew too blinding to look at, people on the platform slowly began making their way back down. Some stayed behind in the pavilion at Yingri Peak to keep enjoying the view. Others continued along the mountain path toward different scenic spots.
Once the crowd had mostly cleared, Lin Shen finally spotted Lin Wangye near the edge of the platform.
He and Shi Yuan stood side by side, just two faint silhouettes backlit by the rising sun. Lin Shen raised a hand to block the glare, and saw that the two of them were holding hands—fingers tightly intertwined.
“I told you they were dating, and you didn’t believe me,” Lin Shen said to Lu Chengxuan.
“I never said I didn’t believe it,” Lu Chengxuan replied. “I just felt it wasn’t our place to get involved. It’s their relationship—they can handle it themselves.”
Lin Shen frowned. “So what, I’m just some outsider now?”
“Unless you’re one of the two people involved, you are an outsider,” Lu Chengxuan said.
Lin Shen turned to stare at him for a second, then quickly looked away and kept his gaze fixed on the horizon. “So that’s why you never ask about my love life?”
Lu Chengxuan, who’d been so full of reason just a second ago, suddenly fell silent.
Lin Shen kept his eyes on Lin Wangye, clearly not paying attention to the silence behind him, and went on, “You think who I like is my business. You think you’re just an outsider, so it’s not your problem. That’s it, isn’t it?”
The two of them stood side by side, shoulders almost touching—but neither of them looked at the other.
Under the glaring morning sun, Lu Chengxuan’s dark eyes still looked impossibly deep. After a long pause, he finally said, “That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?” Lin Shen asked immediately.
“You have the right to decide who you’re with. That’s not something I can interfere with.” Lu Chengxuan turned to look at him, eyes sharp like he could see straight through him. “Besides, you never seriously liked anyone. You were just messing around.”
Lin Shen froze—completely lost for words.
So it turns out Lu Chengxuan had seen right through his whole flirty act with Yang Qingsen from the very beginning.
What if… he never got jealous at all?
Then what the hell was Lin Shen even performing for?
Lame!
The more he thought about it, the more pissed off he got. But for some reason, he also felt a weird pang of guilt. He crossed his arms like he didn’t care, turned his head away, and snapped—half angry, half sulking—“Lin Wangye! We’re heading back!”
“Coming!”
Lin Wangye turned and came running over without a fuss.
The main event of the day was visiting Yingfu Temple, and now that the sunrise was over, it was already past seven—they needed to head back soon.
It wasn’t until they started going downhill that Lin Shen finally understood what ‘true’ suffering meant.
Climbing up had just been tiring—exhausting, sure, but doable if you gritted your teeth and powered through. But going back down? All steps. And even though it looked easy, every single one made his calves shake like jelly. Just staying upright was a challenge.
Meanwhile, Lin Wangye had Shi Yuan holding onto him, so he didn’t even have to worry about slipping. He practically floated down the mountain, relaxed and steady.
Lin Shen, though? He turned down every offer of help. Especially in front of Lu Chengxuan, he got extra stubborn—refusing to let anyone see him struggle. He had to prove he could make it down the mountain on his own, just like he had going up.
Seeing how determined he was, even Lin Wangye didn’t try to argue. In no time, he’d disappeared out of sight.
Lin Shen, pretending he wanted to ‘enjoy the scenery,’ slowed his pace on purpose and took each step carefully. Lu Chengxuan didn’t call him out on it—he just walked alongside him, quietly looking at the view as they went.
After half an hour of this silent back-and-forth, Lin Shen finally spotted the familiar stone path leading into town. It felt like seeing an old friend.
But just when he let his guard down for one tiny second, it happened.
He hadn’t noticed that the next step was steeper than the others. The moment he stepped down, his foot missed the edge and twisted hard to the side.
As his balance gave out and he pitched forward, one terrifying thought flashed through his mind: ‘Welp, guess this is where they carve my tombstone.’
“Lin Shen!”
Lu Chengxuan reacted in a flash. He grabbed Lin Shen’s wrist and bolted down three or four steps, catching him mid-fall and wrapping an arm around his waist to steady him.
“Shit—ow! Ow ow ow—”
Lin Shen had wanted to tough it out, maybe save a little face. But the second his left foot hit the ground, a sharp, stabbing pain shot through his ankle. Cold sweat broke out instantly, and he had no choice but to cling to Lu Chengxuan’s arm and lean on his shoulder just to stay upright.
Lu Chengxuan caught on quickly, holding him up as he checked.
“You twisted it?”
At this point, Lin Shen couldn’t even pretend to act tough anymore. He was basically hanging off Lu Chengxuan, keeping his injured foot off the ground just enough to ease the sharp pain in his ankle.
“Yeah, yeah—fuck, it hurts like hell.”
Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he was gripping Lu Chengxuan’s shirt so tightly it looked like he might take a bite out of his shoulder at any second.
Lu Chengxuan helped him over to the nearest pine tree. “Hold on to this.”
Clinging to the tree, Lin Shen couldn’t resist running his mouth.
“What, are you just gonna leave me here to die? Lu Chengxuan, if anything happens to me, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you first.”
Lu Chengxuan didn’t respond. Once he saw Lin Shen was stable, he turned around and bent down a little, standing on slightly lower ground.
“Get on.”
Lin Shen forgot about the pain for a moment. His attention shifted completely. He stared at Lu Chengxuan’s back, blinked fast, and clung to the tree like his life depended on it.
“This is way too embarrassing. Just help me walk a bit—I think I can hop down.”
“Pick one: get on now, or I carry you down over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes,” Lu Chengxuan said calmly.
That was all it took.
Without another word, Lin Shen let go of the tree, grabbed Lu Chengxuan’s shoulders, and climbed onto his back. Lu Chengxuan caught him easily, straightened up a bit, hitched him up higher, and started making his way down the mountain—one step at a time.
The path ahead was a long stretch of steep steps. From Lin Shen’s point of view—without his feet on solid ground—it looked terrifying.
He had no choice but to lock both arms around Lu Chengxuan’s shoulders to make sure he didn’t fall.
And like that, the distance between them became ridiculously close.
All he had to do was lower his head slightly, and their faces would almost be touching. Even when he tried to lean back a little, it still felt like they were just inches apart.
Lin Shen’s gaze started darting around like he couldn’t figure out where to look. Despite the freezing weather, his face somehow kept getting warmer.
And weirdly enough… he started to feel kind of sleepy.
Being so close, he could smell that familiar scent of Lu Chengxuan’s body wash rising off his scarf and lingering around his nose.
His Adam’s apple bobbed ever so slightly. Then he asked, his voice soft:
“You tired?”
“Not really,” Lu Chengxuan replied. “You’re not that heavy.”
Maybe because the trail was slippery, or maybe just to be extra careful, Lu Chengxuan moved slowly.
The stone steps were still wet with dew and frost from the snow the night before, making the downhill trek kind of treacherous. But he carried Lin Shen with rock-solid balance—he didn’t even stumble once.
Lu Chengxuan’s slightly rushed breathing was clear and steady, right in Lin Shen’s ear. After hesitating for a few seconds, Lin Shen slowly lowered his head and rested his chin lightly on Lu Chengxuan’s shoulder. “You know, this is the first time in my life someone’s ever carried me like this.”
Maybe to conserve energy, Lu Chengxuan didn’t respond.
Lin Shen was used to that. After all these years, silence from him was nothing new. So he just breathed in slowly on his own, taking in the crisp, cold mountain air—fresh and clean, with a faint scent of laundry detergent. It was coming from Lu Chengxuan’s clothes.
“Did your dad ever carry you?” he asked again.
“Not that I can remember,” Lu Chengxuan replied truthfully.
“Then I’ll carry you someday.”
Lin Shen turned his face slightly, leaning against his shoulder, eyes closed, and mumbled, “From now on, I’m your dad.”
Lu Chengxuan: “……”
*
Author’s Note:
Yingfu Temple grants every wish.
Yingri Peak humbles every smart mouth.
Hello, everyone ヾ(＾∇＾). I hope you enjoyed the story! If you’re feeling generous, please buy me a coffee, share/comment on my translated works! Check out the link below for early chapters. (๑>ᴗ<๑)
