With Me Here

With his cravings satisfied, Shen Rui'an was in a wonderful mood. Flowers were flowers, grass was grass, and he no longer felt melancholy over the passing seasons.

He followed Baisui on a stroll through the villa estate, while Su Tingbai walked beside them, introducing the sights along the way.

The estate had been kept exceptionally beautiful. It was summer now, with lush trees casting shade and flowers blooming in splendid profusion. Even walking through it lifted one's spirits.

When they grew tired, they stopped at a pavilion to rest. Shen Rui'an habitually took out his phone and found it covered in countless little red notification dots.

He thought he was being cyberbullied!

But after thinking it over, he didn't seem to have a habit of leaving comments everywhere either!

When he opened Douyin's creator dashboard, he found that they were private message and new follower notifications.

Shen Rui'an was utterly baffled.

Worried about him, Su Tingbai stepped closer and asked, "What's wrong?"

Shen Rui'an opened his most-liked video and scrolled through the comments. Everyone was asking whether it was Baisui, and they were all praising Baisui for being adorable.

Shen Rui'an was delighted by the praise. Ignoring the other comments, he replied to one praising Baisui: [That's right! Cute, isn't he? He's mine!]

Shen Rui'an felt a little smug. Baisui was incredibly good-looking. He had been handsome ever since he was little, and it wasn't hard to imagine how upright and impressive he would look once he grew up.

Hearing Su Tingbai's concern, he looked up at him and held up his phone with a hint of pride. "Su Tingbai, look! Baisui has become an internet celebrity. He has so many likes, and lots of people are following me too!"

Baisui lay lazily at his feet. Shen Rui'an gently rubbed his head. "Baisui, you'll have to support Dad from now on."

"Woof!" Baisui didn't understand, but he knew how to respond.

Su Tingbai glanced at the screen and realized that he didn't even have Shen Rui'an's account!

He followed each other with Meng Meng, Ya-ya, and the others, yet he wasn't following him...

Su Tingbai gave Shen Rui'an a sour look, then took out his phone, noted down his ID, and searched for it. Shen Rui'an's account was the first result, and he decisively tapped Follow.

That follow seemed to light some kind of fuse. Some of Su Tingbai's followers noticed that he had followed someone new.

His following list was short, and most of the accounts on it belonged to friends who followed each other. Su Tingbai hadn't set it to private, so anyone could open it and take a look.

And so they discovered that he was following Baisui Chang'an.

That single tap seemed to give the netizens their confirmation. Everyone knew that this had to be Shen Rui'an.

In an instant, Shen Rui'an gained tens of thousands more followers.

The little red dots in Shen Rui'an's dashboard made his eyes hurt. He disabled private messages and ignored everything else.

"So many people are following me. What do I do? I can't clear away these little red dots." Shen Rui'an was a little troubled. He didn't really want to make his account private, but he also didn't want to keep watching the red dots pop up.

"You can turn off all notifications, but after you tap this, you won't receive notifications when other people like your posts either. Do you want to set it?" Su Tingbai asked as he sat beside him.

"It's fine. I don't really like looking at that stuff anyway. Can you help me do it? I don't really understand." Shen Rui'an handed his phone to Su Tingbai. He wasn't particularly interested in people online. They could be seen but not touched, which felt unreal, so when browsing videos, he stuck to watching without commenting or liking.

"Alright." Su Tingbai took his phone, then paused. "I followed you. Should we follow each other back?"

Shen Rui'an played with Baisui in his arms without looking up. "Sure. If I come across anything fun in the future, I can share it with you."

More importantly, if he saw delicious food and got cravings, he could order dishes from Su Tingbai.

He had discovered that everything Su Tingbai made was delicious!

Wasn't Su Tingbai worried about him eating unhealthy things? Then surely food he made himself was fine, right? Hehe...

Shen Rui'an lightly pinched Baisui's ears and turned his face away with a secret smile, afraid Su Tingbai would discover his little scheme.

Su Tingbai immediately took advantage of the opening. "My main account gets too many private messages, so I might miss yours sometimes. How about I follow you with my alt account too?"

"Mm-hm, whatever you want. Are you done?" Shen Rui'an urged.

Su Tingbai was very familiar with Douyin's dashboard. He quickly set everything up, followed Shen Rui'an with both his main and alt accounts, made sure they all followed each other back, and only then returned the phone to him.

"All done." Su Tingbai glanced at the sky. The sun was getting stronger, and Shen Xiaoyao's delicate body probably couldn't take it. He coaxed him gently, "Let's head back, alright? The sun's getting strong. I'll make you some tea to cool you down when we get back. The mint by our front door is growing nicely. How about some mint water?"

At the mention of food and drink, Shen Rui'an immediately perked up. "Okay, okay! Let's go quickly. I'm tired of looking around anyway."

No matter how large the estate was, he had been wandering around it for over ten days and had already figured it all out. He wasn't as curious anymore.

Su Tingbai laughed. He knew it!

"You've been here for half a month. What do you think of this place? If you're tired of playing around here, there's a market in the town ahead tomorrow. I can take you to see the bustle." Su Tingbai hadn't missed Shen Rui'an's mood. Seeing that he was a little bored, he suggested taking him out.

"A market? What's that? Is it fun?" Shen Rui'an had never gone shopping, nor did he know what going to a market meant.

For most of his more than twenty years of life, he had been shuttled between various sanatoriums, hospitals, and the Shen Household. There were very few places he had been able to explore, and he went to crowded places even less often. His stamina was too poor; he could suddenly have trouble breathing and fall unconscious at any time. On the rare occasions he traveled far, he needed a wheelchair because he was too weak. Walking for too long would make his legs go limp.

His condition had improved somewhat after he turned sixteen, and he had been able to take slow walks by himself. He had thought he would get better, but after his twentieth birthday, it started getting worse again.

Going out was always troublesome for him, and over time, he stopped wanting to go out.

Shen Rui'an was both tempted and nervous about Su Tingbai's suggestion. Could he really go?

Instinctively, he overlooked the fact that his bouts of weakness had gradually become less frequent over the past ten days.

"Can I?" he asked uneasily as he looked at Su Tingbai. He needed to tell Su Tingbai how troublesome it was for him to travel.

Meeting his longing yet uneasy gaze, Su Tingbai nodded. He understood Shen Rui'an's physical condition far better than Shen Rui'an imagined.

Back when the Shen family had asked his grandfather for help, he had stayed up all night studying Shen Rui'an's medical records, examination reports, and everything else.

No one could say exactly what illness he had, but rest and recuperation were certainly the right course.

Still, Su Tingbai felt that Shen Rui'an might long to have fun like an ordinary person. The Shen family worried too much and had instead restricted Shen Xiaoyao, forcing him to tuck away that childlike heart of his.

It had been clear from that camping trip that Shen Rui'an wasn't unwilling to go out. He had merely reduced the number of times he went out because he felt it troubled others too much.

A little foolish kitten who was softhearted and always thought of others.

"You can. Don't worry. I'm here." Su Tingbai held his hand. For some reason, those three words—I'm here—calmed Shen Rui'an's anxious heart.

It was as though Su Tingbai's presence itself was a symbol of reliability.

And so Shen Rui'an began looking forward to tomorrow.