Lu Chiyan opened the refrigerator at the bar and looked inside. He took out two bottles of ice-cold Coke and pressed them against his cheeks. The icy sensation instantly cleared his head.
Good. Calm now.
Qin Sili might be tempting, but I've already sealed my heart off from love. Pursuing men can't compare to pursuing a career. I've thrown away my love brain. Now I only have a career brain!
Lu Chiyan came to the hot spring pool. Qin Sili was already soaking by the edge, his arms stretched out casually and resting lightly on the rim, his eyes closed as he relaxed. Steam rose from the hot spring and swirled around him, making the scene look too beautiful to belong to this world.
"I brought you a bottle of Coke too." After setting a bottle beside Qin Sili's hand, Lu Chiyan also stepped into the hot spring.
Only then did Qin Sili slowly open his eyes. His obsidian eyes were deep and tranquil. The instant he looked at Lu Chiyan, time seemed to stand still.
The Lu Chiyan he liked seemed to have returned.
Lu Chiyan's personality had changed greatly over the past few years. He had no idea where things had gone wrong, much less whether he had done something wrong to make Lu Chiyan suddenly loathe him.
He had thought his relationship with Lu Chiyan would only grow worse and that things would never ease between them again. Yet, to his surprise, the old Lu Chiyan had returned.
Now that he had come back to his side, he would not let him go again this time.
"Ah, this feels so good!" Lu Chiyan splashed around in the pool a couple of times, then swam over to Qin Sili. After taking a sip of Coke, he asked Qin Sili, "Aren't you having any?"
Lu Chiyan held up his Coke bottle, looking ready to clink bottles with Qin Sili. Only then did Qin Sili pick up the Coke beside his hand and clink it against Lu Chiyan's.
After one sip, Qin Sili's brows drew into a deep frown.
"Who makes that kind of face drinking Coke?" Lu Chiyan looked at Qin Sili in amusement. "Why do you look like you're drinking Chinese medicine?"
"Mm, I don't like the taste." As Qin Sili spoke, he looked at Lu Chiyan and said, "You've said that before too."
Lu Chiyan froze for a moment, then tilted his head as he looked at Qin Sili. "Huh? What did I say before?"
"That I look like I'm drinking Chinese medicine when I drink Coke."
"Really?" Lu Chiyan asked curiously. "When?"
"The summer after your first year of middle school," Qin Sili said.
"Huh?" Lu Chiyan furrowed his brows, trying hard to search for memories of that summer.
But there were none.
All he had in his head were memories of Lu Chiyan simping for that dog Duan Linfeng.
What rotten luck!
Lu Chiyan had come to the Qin Family when he was twelve. He had still been in sixth grade then. While he was in class, his teacher had called him outside, and he had learned the devastating news that his father had been in a car accident.
He had stayed at the hospital for two days before Qin Sili brought him back to the Qin Family.
That year, Qin Sili had only been sixteen himself. Like Lu Chiyan, he too had lost his father forever.
To make it easier to look after Lu Chiyan, Qin Sili had arranged for him to attend the same school, though one was in the middle school division and the other in the high school division.
When Lu Chiyan was in his first year of middle school, Qin Sili was in his second year of high school.
That summer, without telling Qin Sili, Lu Chiyan had secretly signed up for a summer camp with his classmates. To their surprise, they ended up getting scammed by an unreliable agency.
Lu Chiyan had called Qin Sili in the middle of the night, saying he was about to be sold off into the remote mountains and forests and telling Qin Sili to hurry and rescue him.