Don’t Be a Kept Man

Chapter 20: The First Snowfall

Mama Lu has an early rest schedule as her health was not that great.
So after the three of them had dinner, they all returned to their rooms.
Lu Qi was just preparing to open his computer when he received a phone call from Huo Ming Chen.
He plugged in his headphones, and for some reason his heart felt like it was relieved,

“Hello?”

Lu Qi felt like he could guess why the other called him,

“It’s snowing in the capital?”

Huo Ming Chen’s voice was a little miffed,

“Snow what.
The weather report is not even accurate.”

Lu Qi could not help but laugh,

“Then hurry up and get to bed and sleep.
It’s the same if you look at it tomorrow.”

They have so many years left, even if it’s only some couple of years, won’t they see at least one snowfall in their lifetime?

It was curiously silent for three seconds on the other side of the phone, and Huo Ming Chen suddenly said half serious, half jokingly,

“If I said that I am underneath your house right now, would you believe me?

Lu Qi’s mouth responded,

“Don’t joke around.”

But his body had already risen up from his chair and grabbed a jacket before heading down the stairs.
He didn’t even need to confirm by looking out the window.
He just knew in his heart that the other must be underneath his home.

Huo Ming Chen started the car, and was about to leave,

“What, I can’t even joke with you, stop pretending to be serious –“

But he stopped in the next second because a few steps away from his car window, there was a familiar shadow.

Amidst the surrounding backdrop of old, beaten up cars, the limited edition sports car was even more obvious than finding a pearl in the sand.
Lu Qi walked over, phone call still connected and with a playful tone said,

“I never pretended to be serious.
I have only fooled around.”

He opened the door to get in the car, and before he even sat down properly, he was embraced.
Lips to lips, a kiss full of raw emotion was bestowed.
Lu Qi slowly responded back in kind, wrapping his arms around the back of Huo Ming Chen’s neck, and closing the car door, the very action creating a secure room for them to unleash their passion wildly.

Somehow, in the middle of this, their positions shifted until they were facing each other.  Huo Ming Chen was kneeling in Lu Qi’s lap and was naked wearing nothing but a white fur coat.
Lu Qi’s hands left behind trails of warmth as they slid downwards and circled around his waist, pushing aside the coat and revealing a thin waist paler than the fur on the coat.

Lu Qi bit his earlobes and then his neck, making Huo Ming Chen shiver, and said casually,

“So you have a cool skin tone.”

Huo Ming Chen was aroused and stimulated to the point where his eyes had reddened, and he strongly grabbed Lu Qi’s shoulder, growling in a low baritone,

“You fucker can’t find a hotel?”

This position was too deep.

Lu Qi closed his eyes, and said as if he was afraid he couldn’t anger Huo Ming Chen to death,

“Oh, sorry, there’s no hotel around here.”

The man on top was in a state of numbness and paralysis.
His legs were shaking, his waist was trembling, and his voice was hoarse,

“A motel is fine……”

“I’ve said it before, the motels here aren’t clean.”

Lu Qi opened his eyes, and there seemed to be a flash of laughter in their depths.

“Didn’t you say to come straight into the car? What, we can’t now?”

“……”

Huo Ming Chen could only focus on breathing now, and so Lu Qi was the only one who could move and tidy the aftermath.
After they were cleaned up, the both of them still continued to hold each other in the same position.
Lu Qi’s chin rested on the other’s inky black and soft hair, which was very different in comparison to Huo Ming Chen’s explosive personality.

Lu Qi finally addressed the elephant in the room,

“It’s New Year, why did you drive over here?”

Huo Ming Chen wiggled around to make himself comfortable, and his voice was still a bit hazy from the afterglow,

“I was just nearby doing some things, and it was along the way.”

Originally, he had only planned to take a look and then leave, but who knew that Lu Qi would take his words so seriously and really went downstairs to see him.

Lu Qi seemed to have an idea about what Huo Ming Chen was doing,

“Was it because of the family business? I heard that a new member was added to the board of directors.”

Hearing that, Huo Ming Chen widened his eyes, and straightened his body to look at him better,

“Where did you hear this from?”

“Some news article online.”

Lu Qi did not lie as some gossip websites did report on this issue,

“Oh,”

Huo Ming Chen went back to lean on him, voice mocking,

“It’s my uncle.
Haven’t seen him in a million years.
Who knows what floor he crawled out from? Came back from the US and immediately said he wanted to exercise his brain before it dies.
Is he pretending that everyone is an idiot?”

Lu Qi put on an all knowing face,

“What are you afraid of, the company is still yours and your brother’s.”

“I said you were smart, and you become smart.
Said you were an idiot and you become an idiot.”

Huo Ming Chen tugged on Lu Qi’s ears and kissed his chin,

“Dummy, he has the right to inherit too.
Some of the board members were already in deep conversations with him when I went to the office the other day.
My brother is too young, and in their eyes, his youth and inexperience is a fault.
My dad’s too old, and he thinks that he needs to make up for failing his brother.
Who knows what’s going to happen.”

Lu Qi nodded his head, and tactfully concluded,

“Then this uncle, doesn’t seem like he’s a good guy.”

Huo Ming Chen laughed mockingly,

“Immediately fighting for our inheritance when he returned to the country, what kind of good thing could he be?”

Hearing that, Lu Qi was shocked on the inside.
That old Huo Yuan Guang really could not restrain himself and was now already starting his quest against Huo Ming Chen for the family inheritance.
Wasn’t that just looking for death, or could it be said that his rebirth had the butterfly effect and changed even Huo Yuan Guang’s fate?

All Huo Ming Chen could hear right now was the stable beating of Lu Qi’s heart.
Each beat had a strange and entrancing magic, calming him down from his irritation and impulsiveness.
He turned his head to look out the window, and something made him suddenly straighten up and forcefully pull on Lu Qi’s sleeve,

“Quick, look outside!”

After hearing that, Lu Qi looked out the window and discovered that in the quiet night, it had started to snow.
White snowflakes slowly dancing in the air, falling onto the streetlights, the windows, the ground, the tree branches.
Breathtaking and beautiful beyond words, everything was being covered in layers and layers of white.

When snow falls onto this earth, humans will suddenly feel how small and insignificant they are.

Lu Qi rarely notices these things and doesn’t know if it was because of the person beside him or for some other reason.
But he looked upon the scene outside the window seriously and with sincerity, and he slowly and tightly hugged the person in his embrace.
At this moment, his heart did not have any other desires, and in a rare occurrence, was as pure as his heart could ever be.

“After all that, we can see the same snowfall.”

Huo Ming Chen responded with the truth,

“Fuck, if it was not for me coming all this way to see you.”

His expression was strange for one second after he said that, and then turned silent.
Huo Ming Chen was not someone to hold things in, but he really did not want to let Lu Qi know how much he cared about him.
What little he could hide, and however long he could hide it for.

If Lu Qi knew how much he cared, he’d be conceited and boss him around without fear.

Huo Ming Chen did not say anything, so Lu Qi pretended he did not hear anything and switched the topic,

“Sleepy? Do you want to take a nap at my house?”

Huo Ming Chen was a little surprised and raised his eyebrows.
He asked suspiciously,

“Are you sure you want me to go to your house and not to a motel to sleep? What if your family sees me?”

Lu Qi was being rarely accommodating today,

“Don’t worry, I’ll just say that you’re a friend.”

Huo Ming Chen looked at him and then hugged him tightly and laughed, looking very happy,

“I do want to lie on your bed, but I have something in the morning.
I’ll just stay here for a bit then leave.”

So he came all the way out here at night only to stay for a small amount of time, underneath his home, quite mentally ill this one is.

Lu Qi didn’t know what to say, as going back to the capital from here is at least 4 hours, and he extended his hand to pinch the other’s sore waist,

“Can you survive?”

Huo Ming Chen wrapped his arms around Lu Qi’s neck and bit his bottom lip, saying with a sickly sweet voice,

“If I can’t, what are you going to do?”

Lu Qi thought to himself about what he could do and said,

“Then I’ll drive you back.”

The words were just spoken out loud, and he felt like he was squeezed tighter.
Lu Qi has never realized that Huo Ming Chen was this emotional and that he had a pure and sincere heart, unlike his own stone heart that can’t retain any warmth.

The two of them held each other tightly in silence for a while, with no one saying anything.
When time was almost up, Huo Ming Chen lightly let go, and he sat back in the driver seat, turning his head to look out the window.

“I’m going back now.”

Like a korean drama, as if it was the parting scene of two lovers, into death.

“Mhmm.”

Lu Qi nodded his head, without much of a romantic bone in him.
He opened the car to get out, walked a few steps but then remembered something and turned back around.
Parted by the window, he told Huo Ming Chen,

“Be careful on the road.”

The other gave him an OK sign and then started the car to leave.
Lu Qi stood by the entrance of his family’s apartment complex, and stared at the car driving away before heading back upstairs.

The author has something to say:
Author: The weather report would have never been accurate ~ (shrugs helplessly)