Chapter 94

Jiang Luo yawned. “Most pop songs came over from Hong Kong back then, and they were all in Cantonese, so I just picked it up and learned to sing.”

Then he added something in Cantonese, saying that not only could he sing it, his Cantonese was actually pretty decent too.

“Why are you so funny?”

Huh?

Huo Zongzhuo naturally didn’t understand that last sentence.

Jiang Luo laughed and curled himself deeper into the blanket.

Huo Zongzhuo asked, “What does that mean?”

Jiang Luo said, “A compliment.”

Huo Zongzhuo raised a brow. “You sure it’s a compliment?”

Jiang Luo laughed out loud. “Whether it is or not, you can’t understand it anyway.”

Huo Zongzhuo lay down a little more, the arm on the inner side resting on Jiang Luo’s pillow. From the outside, it looked as though he were holding Jiang Luo.

He lifted a hand and brushed Jiang Luo’s bangs back toward the crown of his head—a clearly intimate, affectionate gesture—and lowered his head to ask softly, “Sleepy?”

Jiang Luo hummed in response, closed his eyes, and said, “Can you sing lullabies?”

Huo Zongzhuo smiled. His voice was gentle, his tone light. “A lullaby? What are you, a baby?”

With his eyes still closed, Jiang Luo said, “Just tell me what you can do.”

Huo Zongzhuo thought for a moment. “How about I recite you a poem?”

“A cultured man, huh.”

Jiang Luo said, “That works.”

Huo Zongzhuo thought for a bit, then began:

“Once the old commandery of Yuzhang, now the new prefecture of Hongdu.
Its stars divided among Wing and Chariot, its land touching Heng and Lu.
Girdled by three rivers and five lakes, commanding Man and Jing, drawing in Ou and Yue…”

He’d picked a piece of classical prose at random.

And Jiang Luo—true to form for someone who never liked studying—fell asleep before Huo Zongzhuo even reached “Across a thousand miles, greeted with honor, the hall filled with distinguished guests.” His breathing grew heavier, and just like that, he was out.

Huo Zongzhuo found it amusing. He continued reciting softly, “It is the ninth month of the year, the season belonging to late autumn,” while his hand stroked Jiang Luo’s forehead and hair again and again, tenderness overflowing.

He looked at Jiang Luo—at his brows, his eyes and lashes, the bridge of his nose under the warm light—and found himself completely absorbed.

It was love, leaking out without his noticing.

Huo Zongzhuo felt his heart grow fuller, more solid—and at the same time, oddly hollow, as if he weren’t quite grounded, an uneasy flutter rising within him. Especially when he thought of how different he and Jiang Luo were; when he thought of Jiang Luo someday liking a girl, falling in love, getting married, leaving him behind to live a life of his own.

As he looked at Jiang Luo, Huo Zongzhuo suddenly felt that this moment was something he had stolen.

And because it was stolen, it could only be hidden.

Hidden away. Never spoken aloud.

Like that song—

Silence Is Golden.

Huo Zongzhuo very lightly touched Jiang Luo’s cheek.

Silence?

He wasn’t willing.

Why did it have to be silence?

Was there really no path left for him to walk?

The next morning, Jiang Luo woke first. When he opened his eyes, he saw Huo Zongzhuo lying flat beside him, having given him the entire blanket. Huo Zongzhuo himself was covered only with a throw blanket—probably pulled from somewhere else the night before.

Jiang Luo was about to get up to use the bathroom when he noticed that Huo Zongzhuo hadn’t moved at all. He looked over, and without realizing it, began staring at Huo Zongzhuo’s eye sockets and the bridge of his nose.

Clearly, Huo Zongzhuo was the good-looking type.

High brow bones, deep-set eyes, a straight nose.

After looking for a moment, Jiang Luo reached out and lightly tapped the tip of Huo Zongzhuo’s nose with his fingertip. A completely random thought popped into his head: with a nose like that, wouldn’t it get in the way when he kissed some woman in the future?

Then another thought followed: oh—big nose, big something else.

Too bad it doesn’t work.

Why doesn’t it work?

Jiang Luo pondered again: what’s not working? Don’t tell me it’s congenital?

Huo Zongzhuo’s lashes trembled, as if he were about to wake up. Jiang Luo didn’t know what possessed him—he immediately closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

Huo Zongzhuo opened his eyes, turned his head to look at him, and spoke with a slight nasal tone. “Awake?”

Only then did Jiang Luo open his eyes. He grinned. “When did I fall asleep last night?”

Huo Zongzhuo turned his head to check the time on the bedside clock. “At ‘Across a thousand miles, greeted with honor, the hall filled with distinguished guests.’”

Jiang Luo sat up. “What’s that?”

Huo Zongzhuo put on his watch while still lying down. “The Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng.”

Jiang Luo threw off the blanket and got out of bed, deliberately playing dumb. “Who’s Prince Teng? What kind of king was he?”

Huo Zongzhuo got up as well, amused. “You really don’t know, or are you pretending?”

“Prince Teng was a prince from the Qing dynasty.”

Jiang Luo slipped on his shoes and headed for the door to use the bathroom, snorting with laughter. “Why not just say Wang Bo was from the Qing dynasty too?”

Huo Zongzhuo knew then that Jiang Luo had been pretending.

It wasn’t that he underestimated Jiang Luo—he’d just suddenly thought of something and grew curious. “Do middle and high schools still teach The Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng these days?”

As Jiang Luo opened the door, he replied, “How would I know? I never liked studying.”

The reason he knew The Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng was because, in his previous life, Huo Zongzhuo had once gifted a handwritten copy of it to a boss he was on good terms with. That boss had framed the piece and hung it in his office. Jiang Luo happened to see it during a visit—saw the title of the prose, and also saw Huo Zongzhuo’s personal seal stamped at the end.

After coming back from the bathroom, Jiang Luo even asked, “Boss Huo, under what circumstances would you give someone something you wrote yourself—like The Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng just now?”

Under what circumstances?

Huo Zongzhuo felt that there really wasn’t any situation where he’d give someone his own writing.

He did enjoy practicing calligraphy, sure, but he wasn’t a master. Why would he give someone his own work?

Hearing Jiang Luo ask, he thought for a moment and said, “Maybe if I wanted to mock them for being uncultured—remind them to read more books.”

Jiang Luo burst out laughing, especially when he thought of that pig-headed boss.

Huh?

Huo Zongzhuo didn’t understand what he was laughing about.

Jiang Luo waved it off, saying it was nothing, then added, “Write me a Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng too.”

“I’ll have it framed and hang it in my factory office.”

“Sure,” Huo Zongzhuo agreed. Then he asked, “It has to be that one? Offices usually hang landscape paintings.”

Jiang Luo picked up the empty wine bottle and cups and headed out, turning his head back. “I don’t want landscapes. Write me ‘Get Rich Overnight,’ or ‘Make Billions,’ or ‘Haicheng’s Richest Man.’”

Huo Zongzhuo laughed. “Not even trying to hide your ambition?”

Jiang Luo was already out the door. “A small-time boss who doesn’t want to be the richest man isn’t a good singer.”

Downstairs, he saw his mother setting breakfast on the table. Carrying the cups and empty bottle, Jiang Luo spread his arms and went over. “Mooom~ morning~”

“The beds at home are really comfy.”

“I’m sleeping here again tonight.”

Just like that, New Year’s Eve passed, and a new lunar year began.

That day, over on Mo Wanzhen’s side, she was at her aunt’s place with her parents and siblings.

After lunch, everyone sat chatting in the courtyard. As they talked, her aunt smiled and said to Mo Wanzhen, “Zhenzhen, after the New Year, why don’t you take our Xinxin with you to Haicheng?”

Mo Wanzhen paused, peanuts in hand. She hadn’t expected that and looked up in confusion.

Her mother chimed in as well. “And your brother too. After the New Year, let him go to Haicheng with you.”

“Didn’t you say at dinner on New Year’s Eve that your boss’s factory was newly set up and planning to invest more money to expand?”

“They must be short on people.”

“When the time comes, just put in a word and stuff your brother into any office.”

“The salary doesn’t have to be high—five or eight hundred is fine. We’re not asking for much.”

Mo Wanzhen lowered her gaze and continued shelling peanuts, saying nothing. She more or less understood.

Her family saw that she was making money in Haicheng, even sending two hundred home every month—and they weren’t satisfied.

They wanted her to keep supporting the family, to pull her sister along, bring her brother too—ideally, move the whole family to Haicheng.

Mo Wanzhen ate the peanuts with her head down. This time, she couldn’t bring herself to smile.

On Zhang Ningfu’s side, it was the afternoon of the third day of the New Year. He was sitting on the couch with his granddaughter, helping her stack building blocks, when his son, daughter-in-law, and wife gathered around him, saying they had something to discuss.

Zhang Ningfu thought it must be about money again—maybe the family was short. He figured it was fine. His salary was good now; he made quite a bit and could afford it.

But his son opened his mouth and said, “Dad, you said before that your factory’s being rebuilt, and you took out a loan of a full ten million.”

Rubbing his hands, the son continued, “Dad, look—at the factory, you’re basically an official of some rank. Can you get me into your factory too?”

……………………………………………

Behind his glasses, Zhang Ningfu blinked, slow to react. “But you don’t understand anything about garments.”

“Weren’t you the one who refused to learn—refused to be a tailor?”

“Yes, yes.”

The son didn’t say anything else. Neither did the daughter-in-law.

Zhang Ningfu’s wife spoke up. “Old man, are you stupid? Going to a factory to be a worker? Of course he’d be a leader, sitting in an office!”

“You’re managing such a big factory now. The workshop used to be yours too. Whatever you say goes. If your son goes over, isn’t it just wherever you want to put him? If you want him in an office, he’s in an office. If you want to give him a certain salary, you give it!”

Zhang Ningfu stared, stunned. He looked at his son and daughter-in-law, then at his wife, took off his reading glasses. “Since when do I get to decide?”

“That factory isn’t mine.”

“It belongs to our boss.”

“President Jiang’s!”

“I’m just a tailor, working for him. What can I decide?”

The son and daughter-in-law still said nothing. Zhang Ningfu’s wife curled her lip. “That’s only because they bought our workshop in the first place.”

“With the workshop, they got the factory.”

“Old man, don’t be muddleheaded.”

“Now that you’re running the factory, whatever you say goes!”

“If you say so, then putting our son wherever you want—what’s the problem with that?”