Xie Lin has been very abnormal lately.
At the dining table.
Chi Qing thought, holding his knife and fork as he lowered his eyes.
He had just seen that the weather outside was bad and remarked that it might rain, but after he finished speaking, Xie Lin, who was looking down at his phone replying to messages, rarely failed to respond.
After a long while, Xie Lin finally raised his head to look at him.
“…What did you just say? I didn’t hear you clearly.”
The man wore a simple shirt with the collar slightly open and his eyebrows raised. Even his absent-minded tone after looking at his phone carried a hint of casual flirtation.
This kind of thing was not happening for the first time.
Over the past few days, Chi Qing could clearly feel that he was being ignored.
He pursed his lips, not knowing or understanding how to express this sensitive emotion, and finally just said, “It’s nothing.”
After saying this, he noticed Xie Lin’s hand resting on the phone again.
Actually, the hand wasn’t important.
What was important was that the phone under his palm was placed face down on the table.
This was a very obvious defensive gesture—indicating that the phone’s owner did not want anyone to see his screen.
On the way back, Chi Qing’s mind was completely filled with this gesture.
Afterward, while in the car, Chi Qing pretended to casually touch Xie Lin’s hand, but he read absolutely nothing.
Xie Lin was keeping something from him.
What could it be?
This was Chi Qing’s first relationship, and he lacked experience.
So he could only look for similarities in the prime-time soap operas he usually watched.
The events that fit all the conditions… seemed… not to be anything good, because the arrow pointed to one direction: was Xie Lin starting to lose interest in him?
As if to prove this point.
One day, he went to the police station to find Ji Mingrui.
When Ji Mingrui handed him tea, he accidentally brushed against Ji Mingrui’s hand, and the strange voice rang out: [By the way… Chi Qing probably doesn’t know about that matter of Xie Lin’s yet, right?]
[I can’t really hold it in. After all, it’s about my brother. I want to say it so badly, but I can’t.]
[…]
It was winter now. Chi Qing’s cold fingers brushed lightly across the back of Ji Mingrui’s hand, and after hearing just those two sentences, the strange voice abruptly stopped.
Which matter?
Dying to say it, yet unable to.
Before Chi Qing even had time to think further, all these questions were answered one night.
That night, half-asleep and half-awake, he sensed some movement from the person beside him. Immediately after, with his eyes closed, he heard Xie Lin softly ask in the darkness, “Are you asleep?”
Chi Qing didn’t move, continuing to maintain his shallow, slow breathing.
Then the voice drew a bit closer to him: “Little Clean-Freak?”
“…”
The man’s breath brushed against his earlobe.
In the next second.
The address changed once again to: “…Wife?”
Chi Qing usually didn’t allow him to call him that, out of shyness and embarrassment; he wasn’t as thick-skinned as Xie Lin.
Suddenly hearing this under these circumstances, his eyelashes couldn’t help but flutter, nearly giving himself away.
Fortunately, Xie Lin didn’t intend to test him further.
Having tested enough, the man stopped speaking and instead began rustling around by the head of the bed, as if searching for something.
Only then, using the cover of the night, did Chi Qing secretly open his eyes.
With this glance, he saw Xie Lin with his back turned to him, holding… a long red string in his hand.
Having dealt with too many homicide cases in his daily life, Chi Qing’s first reaction was:
This string would probably be quite useful for strangling someone’s neck, wouldn’t it?
…
Xie Lin obviously wouldn’t strangle him in the middle of the night.
Just as Chi Qing was secretly guessing what this red string was for, the rustling movement stopped, and the man approached him once again.
In the darkness.
Xie Lin gently.
Lifted his hand.
Then, as if afraid of disturbing him, he carefully wrapped the red string around his ring finger.
…
The red string.
The ring finger.
With a soft snap.
Something like a fine electric current exploded in Chi Qing’s mind.
He probably knew what the thing Xie Lin didn’t want him to know was.
Xie Lin was going to propose to him.
After guessing this, Chi Qing became strange too.
He couldn’t understand this emotion of his; it felt like returning to the day they had first confirmed their relationship, where a single word, sentence, or even a glance from Xie Lin would make him flustered.
Sometimes he didn’t dare to look directly into Xie Lin’s eyes.
This feeling seemed to be called nervousness.
The next day, while eating, Xie Lin casually placed some food in his bowl and asked, “Why is your face so red?”
“It’s a bit hot.”
“But your hands are very cold.”
“…” The tips of Chi Qing’s ears grew even redder. “Just eat your food.”
Day by day, the date drew closer.
“Tomorrow is New Year’s Day,” Xie Lin said, inevitably feeling nervous himself, coughing once before continuing, “I booked a restaurant. Let’s go have dinner together.”
Chi Qing guessed it would be this day, because New Year’s Day on the calendar at home had been circled with a red marker. He prepared himself mentally in advance and, for this day, watched many proposal clips in movies and TV shows.
Most people would choose to hide the ring inside a cake.
Therefore… according to the logic of how things usually progress, he deduced that Xie Lin would also order a cake.
The restaurant was located in the city center.
Chi Qing was so nervous that he even messed up cutting his steak; the knife and fork slipped, making a harsh scraping sound against the plate.
“Eat mine,” Xie Lin cut his own portion of steak and handed it over. “Why are you so clumsy today?”
Chi Qing looked away: “It’s because the steak was cooked too tough.”
“Yeah,” Xie Lin said to the steak that wasn’t tough at all, “it’s its fault.”
Still, Chi Qing couldn’t stand it himself: “I was just making a random excuse.”
He paused and added, “Why is it that no matter what I say, you think it’s right?”
“Otherwise?”
“People should have their own thoughts.”
“But I like you,” Xie Lin looked at him with a smile, “so I can’t help it. What should I do if I just can’t help wanting to coax you?”
Halfway through the meal, Chi Qing asked as if casually, “Is there any cake?”
Soon, an exquisitely styled cake was brought over by the waiter.
Chi Qing didn’t usually eat desserts, but for this particular cake, he took his spoon and ate it bite by bite, exceedingly carefully.
He ate the cake very cautiously. Soon, half of it was gone, but he still hadn’t bitten into a certain object.
Chi Qing actually couldn’t eat any more.
The whipped cream was too sweet and cloying.
Just as he was preparing to catch his breath and continue eating, the waiter who had just left returned.
The waiter held a serving tray. There was no food on the tray—only a towel and a knife.
It was of a very large size.
Did cutting a cake require a knife this large?
Only when the waiter drew closer did Chi Qing see the specific shape of the knife—it was a rather familiar, serrated knife.
A red ribbon was tied to the knife, binding the knife and a ring together.
Xie Lin took the tray from the waiter’s hands and walked up to Chi Qing step by step: “I went to Bianmin a while ago, but unfortunately, Bianmin doesn’t sell knives anymore. I had to run to several shops before finding an identical one…”
“I thought for a long time about how to propose to you. Thinking it over, our story seems to have started with this very knife.”
“So, are you willing to… marry me?”
Proposing with a serrated knife.
Xie Lin was probably the first person in the world to do so.
Amidst his own racing heartbeat, Chi Qing thought of another thing—that is, he had eaten that cake just now entirely in vain.
The ring had a simple design, embellished with a few small diamonds. When this ring was gently slipped onto his finger by Xie Lin, he thought of the sensation of the red string being cautiously wrapped around it that night.
Different, yet similar.
Even the man’s carefulness was exactly the same as that night.
Xie Lin kept his head slightly lowered as he put the ring on him, his bangs falling over his forehead. He was just about to look up after putting the ring on, but his neck was suddenly held down by Chi Qing. In the next second, his lips brushed against a warm spot.
Chi Qing took the initiative to kiss him.
Amidst the entanglement of their lips and teeth, he tasted a mouth full of cream.
Then, he heard a sentence: “I do.”
