This was probably the most sound sleep Lin Yao had had in a long time. His biological clock was shut down. Guan Ze went out for a walk and bought breakfast, but he was still wrapped in a quilt and sleeping soundly on the bed.
"Lin Yao," Guan Ze lifted the quilt and lifted him up by the arm, "I have to go to your house at noon, right?"
"Ah..." Lin Yao didn't cooperate. Guan Ze held his arm and he half hung on Guan Ze's hand, leaning his body and continuing to stare blankly, "What..."
"I said I was going to your house today, right?" Guan Ze grabbed his hair and shook it, "Don't sleep."
“… Go to my house?” Lin Yao glanced at him, stunned for a moment, and then suddenly widened his eyes, “Fuck, I’m going to see my dad today!”
"Are you awake?" Guan Ze loosened his hand, turned around and walked out of the bedroom, "Come and have breakfast, I'll go out and buy some things later."
"Guan Ze," Lin Yao jumped out of bed and chased after him, "What should I do? I'm nervous."
"It's okay, I'm not nervous." Guan Ze took a fried dough stick, sat on the chair and ate it slowly.
"I can't compare with you," Lin Yao turned around and went to wash up, "You have encountered everything since you were a child. You have been through a lot."
“I haven’t met the parents.”
"Then why aren't you nervous? I tremble when I think of my dad. All I can think of is the scene of him hanging my brother on a tree and beating him with a belt. You don't know how my brother was howling..."
"It's fine if you're the only one who's nervous. If I get nervous too, we'll go to see your dad while shaking, and he'll chase us out before we even get through the door," Guan Ze took a sip of soy milk. "What a success."
Although Lin Yao was nervous, he did not change his decision to solve the problem face to face with his father. This was the first time in his life that he was so determined to take on something. Even if his opponent was his father, he had to hold on.
While following Guan Ze around the mall and shopping, Lin Yao was thinking about how to tell his father.
In fact, Dad doesn't like to chat with him and his brother as much as Mom does. He is usually busy and doesn't spend much time at home. Lin Yao can't figure out what Dad's focus is on this matter.
"It's almost time, the plane should be here," Guan Ze checked the time, "Can you see if there's anything missing?"
"Actually, your can of tea is enough," Lin Yao looked at the shopping cart, "My dad's focus is definitely not on the stuff."
"Nonsense, of course not," Guan Ze patted him and walked towards the cashier, "but if the item he asked for is not to his liking, he will be even more unhappy."
Seeing that the time was almost up, Lin Yao called Lin Zong and said, "Brother, we are getting off the airport expressway and will be home in about an hour."
"Well, then I'll ask mom to prepare the meal." Lin Zong's voice sounded relaxed as he held a cigarette in his mouth.
"How is my dad?" Lin Yao asked carefully.
"I'm drinking tea and watching TV," Lin Zong smiled, "I should be helping in the kitchen in a while."
"How is he feeling? You didn't argue with him this morning, did you?" Lin Yao glanced at Guan Ze who was driving calmly, "I..."
"Don't worry," Lin Zong lowered his voice, "He has been in a good mood since his mother ran away from home."
"Okay, then you help me warm up first." Lin Yao frowned and bit his lip.
"become."
When Guan Ze's car stopped outside the courtyard gate, Lin Yao saw the curtains on the living room window facing the gate sway, and he didn't know who it was. He closed his eyes, took a breath and exhaled slowly, took out the key and pressed the remote control.
As the door slowly opened, Lin Yao patted his leg and said, "That's it!"
Guan Ze smiled and drove the car into the yard. As soon as Lin Yao jumped out of the car, he heard his mother's voice behind him: "Is your son back?"
"I'm back!" Lin Yao shouted, turning around to avoid the shovel in his mother's hand and hugging her, "Where's my dad?"
"She's helping me make dinner in the kitchen," Mom touched his face with a smile, then looked behind him, "Did Guan Ze remove his stitches?"
"Hello, Auntie," Guan Ze took the groceries from the car and walked over, "It's been a long time since the stitches were removed."
"Why do you need to buy so many things? You can just come here. Come inside. It's too cold. You don't have any hair yet," my mother waved and walked into the house. "How long will it take for your hair to grow out?"
"Quickly," Guan Ze replied with a smile, and then leaned close to Lin Yao's ear and lowered his voice, "If I'm not touched all the time."
"Get lost." Lin Yao also cursed in a low voice.
After entering the door, Lin Yao did not see his father, only Lin Zong standing at the door.
"Brother." Lin Yao felt a little nervous. His father was demonstrating. His family had taught him since he was a child that he had to go out to greet guests. But now that guests had come, his father was nowhere to be seen.
"You're back," Lin Zong patted his shoulder, nodded to Guan Ze, took the things in his hand, turned around and shouted towards the kitchen, "Dad, your son is back."
"Dad!" Lin Yao shouted, "I... brought... a friend back..."
"Please sit down. I'm busy." Dad responded from the kitchen.
After sitting down in the living room, my dad came out of the kitchen slowly wearing an apron: "You're back."
"Dad," Lin Yao quickly jumped up from the sofa and introduced to his father, "This is my friend, Guan Ze."
"Uncle." Guan Ze stood up.
"Ah," Dad took off his apron and sat across from them, humming. It was hard to tell what the hum meant. "Sit down."
Lin Yao's palms began to sweat. His mother put the juice of unclear color on the table. He took it and took a sip. He couldn't taste anything. He felt that the cup kept sliding down. In order to prevent the cup from falling to the ground and causing his father to misunderstand, he put the cup back on the table.
"Uncle is still cooking." Guan Ze smiled as he looked at the apron around his father.
Dad didn't say anything. He stared at Guan Ze and looked him up and down without any courtesy. There was a sharpness in his eyes that Lin Yao had never seen before. He looked at him for three minutes. Lin Zong couldn't stand it anymore. When he leaned forward and was about to speak, his dad said, "Well, help me."
"My dad is a better cook than my mom." Lin Yao secretly glanced at Guan Ze. Guan Ze had a calm face. It seemed that the few minutes that his dad stared at him did not make him feel embarrassed or uncomfortable.
"Auntie's strength lies in creativity." Guan Ze said while leaning on the sofa.
"That's right," Lin Zong was happy to hear that. He took a cigarette and lit it. "Want to smoke?"
"No." Guan Ze smiled.
Lin Zong threw the cigarette in front of Lin Yao: "Hold it all the way."
Dad remained silent, his eyes moving back and forth between Lin Yao and Guan Ze. When Lin Yao lit his cigarette, he pressed the lighter four or five times before it lit. He took two deep puffs and blew two smoke rings under the table. After calming down, he looked up at his dad and said, "Dad, let's get to the point."
"Well, go ahead." Dad stared at him.
"What happened between me and Guan Ze," Lin Yao flicked the ash of his cigarette. Because he was nervous, the ash didn't fall down after three attempts. Finally, he pushed hard and the ash flew over the ashtray and landed in front of his father. "Did mom tell you?"
Lin Yao looked at the small handful of cigarette ash, and saw from the corner of his eye that Guan Ze actually raised his hand to cover his face. He was quite familiar with this action of Guan Ze. Guan Ze was smiling. How could he actually smile in this situation!
"I said a little, say it again." Dad brushed the ash that Lin Yao flicked in front of him onto the ground.
"Hey!" Mom came out of the kitchen and saw him doing this. She shouted, "It's okay to smoke, but why are you leaving cigarette ashes on the floor!"
"Your son's cigarette ashes." The old man bent down helplessly and picked up the ashes on the floor with his hands.
"How did my son's cigarette ash end up in front of you?" Mom came over and took a piece of paper to clean up the ash, then turned to Guan Ze and Lin Yao and said with a smile, "Let's chat first, we'll have dinner soon."
"Yeah." Lin Yao nodded, thinking about how to talk to his father. Originally, he asked this because he didn't want to repeat the relationship between him and Guan Ze, which was too embarrassing, but he didn't expect his father to answer like this.
“No need to say it again, Mom is not…” Lin Zong lowered his head and fiddled with his mobile phone, and it was unclear whether he was really playing or just pretending.
"What's your business?" Dad interrupted Lin Zong.
"I'm afraid Yaoyao will talk too much and delay my meal." Lin Zong put down his phone.
"Shut up and stay still." Dad looked at him sideways.
"Okay." Lin Zong stretched, turned on the TV, leaned aside and started watching TV.
The sound of the TV eased the tense atmosphere a little. Lin Yao adjusted his mood, put out his cigarette in the ashtray, and said through gritted teeth: "Dad, you know I've never had a girlfriend. I'm not interested in girls. I like men."
"Really?" Dad crossed his arms.
"Yes, I like men," Lin Yao repeated, turning to look at Guan Ze. The calm look in Guan Ze's eyes made him feel more at ease. "I like Guan Ze, just like you like my mom. I want to be with him for the rest of my life."
"You're quite arrogant," Dad said with a sigh, "Do you want to spend your whole life with me? Do you think I'm willing to spend my whole life with you?"
This sentence was directed at Guan Ze. Lin Yao and his father looked at Guan Ze together.
"If I don't like it, I won't come with you," Guan Ze picked up the cup in front of him and took a sip of his mother's special juice. It probably didn't taste very good. Lin Yao frowned when he saw Guan Ze, "Uncle, I think about everything before I do it, and the same goes for feelings."
"What is your family's attitude?" Dad asked.
"I don't have any family," Guan Ze smiled and answered calmly, "My parents are both dead, and I don't have any relatives to visit."
"You grew up on your own." Dad was obviously dissatisfied.
"Almost." Guan Ze didn't mind his father's attitude and kept smiling, "So I care about 'being together' more than anyone else. I don't want to destroy anyone's peace, but I hope to give peace to the people I want to be 'with' even more."
"I have reservations about people who have grown up without anyone to supervise them," the father took a sip of tea, "my son has had a slow brain since he was young..."
"Dad." Lin Yao sighed.
"Ever since he was young, he couldn't tell the difference between good guys and bad guys, and couldn't see through other people's minds..." Dad looked at Guan Ze unkindly.
"So I came." Guan Ze interrupted his father. Lin Yao's heart skipped a beat. Apart from his mother, no one else dared to interrupt his father so arrogantly. He hesitated whether he should rush over to protect Guan Ze's head when his father threw a cup at him.
Dad didn't explode. I don't know if it was because it was the first time he was interrupted in his own home and he didn't react. He just kept looking at Guan Ze, as if waiting for him to continue.
"Lin Yao is stupid, but you know best whether he is really stupid or not," Guan Ze looked at his father, "Take a step back, Lin Yao is really stupid, so I came here. You have met many people, so you are the most suitable person to judge what kind of person I am."
Dad was silent for a while, then suddenly smiled. This smile made Lin Yao feel creepy. Dad smiled and looked at Lin Zong, who was staring at the TV as if he was obsessed with the commercials. "This thing is good."
"So you are here to give me questions today?" Dad turned around and continued to stare at Guan Ze.
"No, I'm here to reassure you today," Guan Ze still smiled, "You don't intend to object, you just want to confirm what kind of person I am, right?"
Dad sneered: "Very confident."
"I definitely have this confidence," Guan Ze picked up the cup, frowned, and took another sip of juice, "because I'm serious."
Dad didn't say anything else and looked at Guan Ze thoughtfully.
Lin Yao put his hands in his pockets, squeezing them until they were almost broken. He took a breath and said, "Dad, I'm not stupid."
"What a reflex arc." Lin Zong laughed at the side.
"I'm not stupid. I can tell who is serious and who is pretending. I can also feel who will change for me," Lin Yao ignored Lin Zong. "I know best what kind of response I get for my love. Guan Ze makes me feel stable and safe. I..."
"As a grown man, do you still need others to give you a sense of security?" Dad suddenly asked.
"Hmm? What does this have to do with whether I'm a man or not?" Lin Yao was stunned for a moment, and suddenly felt that there seemed to be something else in his father's words. "Dad, what... do you mean?"
"Brother Lin," Mom poked her head out of the kitchen and called to Dad, "Come and help me take the soup out. It's too hot."
"Well," Dad stood up and glanced at Lin Yao, "Let's eat."
Lin Yao stared at his father as he walked into the kitchen, feeling all kinds of emotions in his heart. He leaned close to Guan Ze's ear and whispered, "Damn, why aren't you talking?"
"What?" Guan Ze looked at him with a smile, and said in a low voice, "Your father didn't say anything. Do you want me to chase him now and tell him that you are up there?"
"Fuck!" Lin Yao gritted his teeth.
Lin Zong stood up and cleared the things on the table: "Let's eat. Has Guan Ze tried my mother's cooking?"
"Have had some snacks." Guan Ze helped Lin Yao put the chairs in place.
"That's the basics," Lin Zong walked towards the kitchen, "You can slowly get used to the intermediate and advanced levels."
The meal my mother cooked today was particularly sumptuous. It was obvious that she put a lot of thought into it. Several of the dishes were said to be particularly good for wounds, but the taste was as bad as always, leaving me at a loss for words.
"Guan Ze has been living alone, right? Can he cook?" asked my mother.
"It's okay if it's simple, like cooking some noodles or something." Guan Ze smiled.
"It's so unnutritious. When you have time, come to my house and I'll make it for you. You can learn from me at the same time. Then you don't have to eat noodles all the time when you cook for yourself." Mom said confidently.
"Yes, my mother has done research on nutritional matching," Lin Zong replied, and added in a low voice while lowering his head to eat the food, "Anyway, people who always eat noodles for no reason probably don't have a very good taste."
"Forget about that dish of yours," Dad took a sip of wine, "Let him eat noodles instead."
"What do you know?" the mother was not happy and glared at him. "You have been eating the food I cook for 20 to 30 years. Isn't it good? My two sons grew up eating my food and are now more energetic than the other!"
"Yes," Dad nodded and looked at Guan Ze, "You study hard."
"Yeah." Guan Ze also nodded, picked up something with chopsticks and put it into his mouth. After chewing for a long time, he found out that it was an apple.
The meal was quite relaxing. Dad would chat with Guan Ze from time to time, mainly about Guan Ze's work. Lin Yao felt that it was like an interview, but Guan Ze seemed quite relaxed.
When they finished eating and cleaned up, although Dad still didn't smile, his aggressive aura had subsided. Lin Yao felt relieved. After taking the dishes into the kitchen, he secretly pinched Guan Ze's hand and said, "Wife, you did a good job."
"You're not nervous now, are you? I almost sweated when I saw you like that just now." Guan Ze helped him put the bowl into the sink.
"It's okay, the effect has passed," Lin Yao poured detergent on the bowl, "How do you know my dad won't object?"
"How can you still object when things have come to this? Your father knows it very well," Guan Ze pushed him aside, "I'll wash the dishes, you go stay with them for a while and listen to the news."
When Lin Yao returned to the living room, his father was making tea, using the tea leaves that Guan Ze brought.
"Why do you let Guan Ze wash the dishes?" Mom stood up.
"Let him wash the dishes. It's no big deal to wash the dishes." Lin Yao hugged his mother and sat back on the sofa. He looked at his father and said, "Dad..."
"There should be nothing wrong with this person, but," Dad took the teacup and sniffed it, "the tea is good."
"But the tea is good?" Lin Yao was stunned. What did this have to do with anything
"But he's smarter than you. I think he's smarter than Lin Zong." Dad sighed. "You can't even hold a girl, so how can you hold him? Your brother said he went to find him before..."
"Dad!" Lin Zong jumped up from the sofa, took the cup and poured him tea, "Drink tea."
"I have it." Dad shook the cup in his hand.
"Lin Zong!" Lin Yao reacted and shouted at Lin Zong's back, "Have you gone to find Guan Ze?"
"Isn't it just the time when I went to the hospital with mom?" Lin Zong picked up his phone and walked to the window.
“Bullshit!” Lin Yao shouted, chasing after him and grabbing his arm, “You went to find him alone! Damn it, why did he suddenly run away! Lin Zong, you old fox!”
"The old fox is your father." Lin Zong struggled to pull his arm free.
"Don't interrupt! You're killing me!" Lin Yao grabbed his arm and wouldn't let go.
"What are you doing?" Guan Ze walked out of the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up.
"I..." Lin Yao looked at Lin Zong and then turned to look at Guan Ze, "Did my brother come to see you?"
"Yes, I have looked for him," Guan Ze came over and pulled away his hand that was grabbing Lin Zong's arm, "What's wrong with looking for me? If you were my brother, I would have taken action a long time ago."
Lin Yao opened his mouth but nothing came out. He didn't dare to be too presumptuous in front of his parents. What's more, Guan Ze's words made sense. Lin Zong loved him since he was a child. No matter what happened, Lin Zong would definitely be the first one to stand up for him.
"Oh." Lin Yao sat back on the sofa. If Lin Zong hadn't been there this time, he didn't know what he would have done.
Lin Zong sat next to him and hugged his shoulders: "Brother is too anxious."
"No," Lin Yao lowered his head and thought for a while, "It's better to have a brother."
My dad had been watching silently, and only now said, "Are you going to move out?"
"Ah?" Lin Yao raised his head.
"Are you going to move in with Guan Ze?" Mom repeated what Dad said.
"I..." Lin Yao inexplicably felt like blushing after hearing these words. All that popped up in his mind as he heard these words were scenes of him behaving like a hooligan in Guan Ze's house.
"How about Guan Ze move in with us?" Dad continued to ask.
"Just forget it," Lin Zong couldn't hold it in any longer. "You really have good ideas. If Lin Yao is willing to move, then just move over. It's so inconvenient for a couple to live in the same room with an old man and his wife."
"Then move over there." Dad waved his hand.
"Let's talk about it after the Chinese New Year," Guan Ze smiled. He knew that Lin Yao's mother was often alone at home. "There's no rush for this."
"Speaking of the New Year," Dad took a sip of tea, "If you have nothing to do during this period, come and help. If there is anything to buy, move, or clean, you can help Auntie."
"good."
"Since Lin Yao has made up his mind, we have nothing else to say," Dad poured Guan Ze a cup of tea, "You don't have to think of yourself as an outsider. People in our family are easy to get along with. Just look at Lin Yao and you'll know."
"Yeah." Guan Ze responded, picked up the cup and took a sip of tea.
"But I have something to say," Dad looked at him, "We won't interfere with Lin Yao's decision, but if I find out that you have done anything wrong to him, I will not let you go."
"Don't worry." Guan Ze put away his smile and said seriously.
Although Father Lin's eyes and tone were very serious, at that moment he felt a comfort he had never felt before. His heart seemed to have fallen on a thick cushion, warm and solid.