Tao Xi has not cried like this for a long time. He doesn't know how long he has cried, but he can only feel that Lin Qinhe has been holding him tightly, patting his back gently, and crying patiently with him.
It wasn't until he was so choked that he couldn't breathe because of crying for too long, and his tears could not flow dryly. Lin Qinhe held his shoulder and kissed his completely red and swollen eyes gently. Wen said:
"Stop crying, let's eat cake and make a wish together."
Tao Xi forcefully opened his sore and stinging eyes, looked straight at Lin Qinhe, and found that Lin Qinhe's eyes were also red, his chest heaved and convulsed, and nodded.
Lin Qinhe looked at Tao Xi's eyes, those beautiful eyes were wet from crying, the eyelashes were bound into small clusters by tears, and the dark pupils shone with a subtle light after the tears had soaked in.
He couldn't help but kissed Tao Xi again at the corner of his eye, grabbed Tao Xi's wrist, and pulled him up from the carpet.
Tao Xi obediently was led by Lin Qinhe to the bathroom. After Lin Qinhe wet the towel with hot water and wring it out, he carefully wiped his face and eyes. At that moment, he closed his eyes and looked up slightly like a child. Facing his face, he felt the touch of Lin Qinhe's fingers through the soft and moist towel, and occasionally choked intermittently.
After that, Lin Qinhe led him to the restaurant again, took a full glass of warm water and handed it to him. He took the glass with both hands and gulps it down. After drinking, the intermittent choking finally got better.
It was already past midnight, and the neon light outside the floor-to-ceiling window had already dimmed a lot. Only the heavy snow was flying incessantly. The two teenagers held hands and returned to the carpet beside the floor-to-ceiling window to sit side by side.
In fact, they both have many questions to ask each other, but at the moment they are just tacitly and quietly snuggling.
Tao Xi hugged his legs and put his chin on his knees, watching Lin Qinhe take out the cardboard boxes with candles under the coffee table and carefully insert them one by one on the cake.
He looked at Lin Qinhe's profile and looked at Lin Qinhe's fingers with candles in it. His head was empty from crying for too long, but his eyes were full, as if they were filled with freshly washed skylight.
Seventeen colorful candles were inserted into the cake. Lin Qinhe took out the lighter prepared earlier and asked Tao Xi softly, "Want to light candles yourself?"
Tao Xi shook his head and said in a hoarse voice, "I want to see you."
He used to see his closest relatives lighting the candles on the cake at a classmate's birthday party.
Lin Qinhe said "OK" and lit seventeen candles in turn with a lighter. The warm yellow candles were lit in clusters, swaying in the pupils of the two of them.
He turned off the floor lamp sideways, and the corner of this side and the two figures swayed in the orange candlelight.
"Close your eyes and make a wish." Lin Qinhe's voice was low and soft.
Tao Xi stared at Lin Qinhe dazedly, and for a long time he slowly moved his eyes to the cake and candles, and then looked at the candles out of focus, as if remembering something, and his eyes suddenly became wet again.
Lin Qinhe felt pain and softness in his heart, and asked in a soft voice, "What's wrong?"
Tao Xi shook his head, just holding Lin Qinhe's hand tightly, and then closed his eyes in the jumping candlelight.
Dear mother, are you all right in heaven
Could you please bless your child again
I wish him and Lin Qinhe a safe and smooth life and a happy and peaceful life.
Bless their holding hands never to part.
Tao Xi opened his eyes and saw Rongrong candles swaying on the seventeen candles. Although it was such a weak light, it seemed to have illuminated all the past seventeen years.
He turned to look at Lin Qinhe with a smile.
Lin Qinhe looked at him intently, with a smile on the corner of his mouth, and asked him, "Is it okay?"
Tao Xi nodded, holding Lin Qinhe's hand without letting go. He said, "Let's blow out the candles together."
"it is good."
The two heads approached the cake together, and the seventeen clusters of candles were extinguished in flickering and beating, like a sigh in a winter night.
"Happy birthday."
Lin Qinhe whispered to Tao Xi again.
After speaking, he tilted his head and leaned over.
It is still snowing heavily outside the window, and every roof is covered with snow-white dreams. The two teenagers sitting in front of the window are sitting next to each other, kissing each other in the interlaced breaths, like snowflakes falling into the center of the lake. The silent place is hot and lingering.
In the end, Tao Xi only ate a small piece of this cake, because Lin Qinhe said that eating too many sweets in the middle of the night was bad for his health, so he and Lin Qinhe posted the photo taken at night on the next page of the album, With a pen, solemnly write "17" under the photo.
After finishing it, it was almost one o'clock. Tao Xi took a shower slowly in the bathroom of the master bedroom. When he came out, he saw Lin Qinhe sitting on the bedside in his pajamas and looking down at his phone. Also took a shower in the other bathroom.
Tao Xi used his two red and swollen eyes to patrol Lin Qinhe's smoky gray pajamas several times. He walked to the bed with his slippers, took off his shoes and climbed to Lin Qinhe's side, pretending to ask naturally:
"Where do I sleep?"
When Lin Qinhe saw him coming out, he put down his phone, hugged his waist and put it on his lap, looked up at him slightly, and said, "There is only one bedroom here."
Tao Xi sat on Lin Qinhe's lap with his legs apart, put his arms around Lin Qinhe's neck, glanced at the other pillow next to him, didn't notice the word "prepare", and asked with a red face:
"What are the other two rooms?" He saw that there were two more rooms with closed doors.
It's almost two o'clock, Lin Qinhe thought about it, and said to Tao Xi, "I'll show you now."
Tao Xi nodded quickly, he had long been curious.
He followed Lin Qinhe out of the bedroom. The first room opened by Lin Qinhe was a piano room. Tao Xi followed him to the black grand piano in the center of the piano room and walked around the piano. I wanted to open the lid of the piano but held back, only asked:
"Do you practice the piano every day?"
Lin Qinhe said: "No, practice once in a while."
As he spoke, he lifted the lid, played a small string of notes on the keys with his right hand, and asked Tao Xi, "What do you want to hear?"
After thinking about it for a while, Tao Xi said, "Let's sing "Happy Birthday"."
Lin Qinhe really sat down and played a song "Happy Birthday", but he temporarily added a lot of adaptations, and a familiar and simple song became complex and pleasant to the ear.
Tao Xi sat beside Lin Qinhe and watched his knuckled fingers play an almost brand new piece of music on the black and white keys.
"This is a completely new song, and it needs a new name." After Lin Qinhe finished playing, Tao Xi tilted his head and thought, and his fingers randomly pressed a note on the keys.
Lin Qinhe retracted his hands, looked at him, and said, "It's called "Happy Birthday, Mr. Tao Xi".
Tao Xi remembered the song "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", and was very satisfied with the name, and said with a smile on the corner of his mouth, "Okay, thank you Mr. Lin Qinhe."
The two walked out of the piano room. Tao Xi followed Lin Qinhe to the next room, which was also the last room. He asked curiously, "Is this room a study or a bedroom?"
Lin Qinhe didn't answer him, and opened the door directly. He looked up, but stood at the door, nothing in his mind.
This is a spacious studio with a full-length floor-to-ceiling window to ensure sufficient lighting. There are three easels of different sizes, a large worktable, drawing boards, lighting, molds, linings for painting... Tall There are a lot of paints, brushes and paper and other painting tools in the cabinet, and almost everything about painting is readily available.
On one side of the wall hangs a gouache painting of peach blossoms and flowing water in a clear stream in the middle of the mountain.
Tao Xi's eyes trembled, as if the fireworks and neon lights all over the world were flashing in his eyes.
After staring blankly for a while, he suddenly turned around and stretched out his arms to hug Lin Qinhe's waist, buried his forehead on his shoulder, and kept rubbing it back and forth, causing his hair to explode.
Lin Qinhe was a little itchy from being rubbed, and he laughed lowly. Through the thin pajamas, he could feel the slight vibration of his chest, and asked him, "Do you know where to sleep now?"
Tao Xi said "um", after being quiet for a while, he raised his head and stared at Lin Qinhe and said, "Don't forget what I said, when I make a lot of money in the future, I want to buy a big house with a yard, then You must live in the house I bought."
Lin Qinhe rubbed the back of his head and said, "Okay, listen to you."
Tao Xi walked around the studio a few times before reluctantly followed Lin Qinhe back to the master bedroom. When he saw the big bed again, the embarrassment appeared again.
He never thought that he could live with Lin Qinhe and sleep together so soon.
"Do you recognize the bed for sleep?"
Hearing Lin Qinhe ask himself, Tao Xi hurriedly said, "I don't recognize it."
He had slept on a bed with straw, and a broken wooden bed in a ten-person room. It was the first time he had slept in such a big and soft bed, and he had the urge to roll around on the bed.
Tao Xi thought so, so he did the same, took off his slippers and climbed onto the bed, rolled around on the bed, rolled from here to there, rolled back from there, but rolled into Lin Qinhe's arms.
Lin Qinhe wrapped his arms around his waist, looked at him funny, kissed his forehead lightly, and said, "Go to bed early, it's very late."
Tao Xi was silent in Lin Qinhe's arms for a while, but still couldn't help asking the question he had always wanted to ask:
"How did you know?"
Know what goes without saying.
Lin Qinhe turned sideways and turned off the light, the bedroom fell into darkness, then covered the quilt again, and hugged Tao Xi into his arms again.
He only talked about the fact that he hired someone to investigate Taoxi Bay, omitting the details of the old man and Tao Jian.
Tao Xi listened to Lin Qinhe's speech in a daze, thinking of what Lin Qinhe recognized himself through his handwriting before, and felt more and more that Lin Qinhe was so smart and sensitive.
"Why haven't you spoken out?" Lin Qinhe asked him calmly.
Tao Xi hesitated for a while, and finally said, "I promised me... my adoptive mother would not tell the truth until she became an adult."
But in fact, he didn't take Guo Ping's begging to heart.
The real reason, only he knows.
Lin Qinhe's hand around Tao Xi suddenly clenched tightly. Fortunately, it was dark in the bedroom, and they couldn't see each other's expressions. He was silent for a while before suppressing his ups and downs, and said solemnly:
"She is not qualified to ask you this, and you don't have to keep your promise."
Tao Xi gave a "hmm" and said, "That's why I was going to tell you, but I didn't expect you to know first."
He started to feel sleepy, his eyelids were fighting, and at the same time he was still excited. He wanted to continue talking to Lin Qinhe. At this time, Lin Qinhe gently kissed his forehead again, and said softly, "Go to sleep, good night."
Tao Xi hooked his neck and kissed Lin Qinhe gently on the forehead, and said vaguely, "Good night, but I don't seem to be able to sleep."
Having said that, maybe it was because he was tired of crying, or maybe it was because the secret was finally entrusted with relief, and within 10 minutes, Tao Xi fell into a deep sleep.
Instead, Lin Qinhe didn't fall asleep. He opened his eyes in the dark and listened to Tao Xi's shallow breathing, his expression almost solemn.
He said he would take Tao Xi home, but he knew that the family was not just a few blood-related people living under one roof.
He will definitely let Tao Xi recognize his relatives, but can Tao Xi really return to that so-called new family? How is he going to get along with relatives who have never lived together in seventeen years? What's more, there are conflicts among those relatives, and Yang Duole, who has been raised for more than ten years, is also sandwiched between them.
With such a sensitive personality as Tao Xi, will he be hurt and wronged in this new family during the run-in period
He had to think carefully, but he was an outsider to the Fang family and the Yang family after all, and he was not qualified to talk about anything.
Therefore, he must first give Tao Xi a home and give him an eternal retreat.
He even thought that if those relatives could not accept Tao Xi well.
Then he would be happy to be the only family member of Taoxi.
The author says:
I'm sorry that Sanyuan has been really busy recently, and there are some cards, so the update is very unstable. If it can't be updated on the same day, it will be explained in the comments of the latest chapter at around 7 pm. Thank you for your continued follow-up and update. encourage!