When Jiang Lin opened the bathroom door, there was no one sitting on the sofa in the living room.
Cheese was waiting for him at the door, and when he saw him come out, he rubbed his calf. He went back to the room, put on gloves, picked up Cheese and came out to see that Shen Ran's sneakers were no longer in the entrance.
Ji Minglun was mixing the sauce for sweet and sour spareribs. The aroma of Muscovy duck stewed with taro came from the electric pressure cooker. He walked over and asked, "Is Shen Ran gone?"
"Hmm," Ji Minglun picked up a piece of fried pork ribs, dipped it in the sweet and sour sauce and passed it to Jiang Lin's mouth. After Jiang Lin opened his mouth to eat, he said, "He left first because he had something else. How does it taste?"
Jiang Lin chewed it, swallowed it, and then said, "It's delicious."
Ji Minglun smiled and used the tip of his tongue to roll away a bit of green onion from the corner of his mouth. He felt the corner of his lips getting hot, but before he could react, Ji Minglun kissed him on the lips again.
He was still holding Cheese, and it felt awkward to be stared at by the puppies with their heads tilted back and their eyes wide open, so he turned around and tried to go to the living room. He took a step when he was pulled back. Then his arms felt empty. Ji Minglun put Cheese on the ground, pushed him against the wall and kissed him again.
The two of them kissed non-stop in the kitchen filled with the aroma of food. When they finally had to end it, Jiang Lin leaned in Ji Minglun's arms to calm her breathing, but her stomach was growling with hunger.
Ji Minglun couldn't help it, he held up his red cheeks, and sucked on his swollen lips several times before he was willing to let him go.
While eating, Ji Minglun's cell phone rang. It was a message from Shen Ran.
[Senior, please keep what happened just now a secret for me.]
Ji Minglun replied: [No problem]
Shen Ran's name on the screen changed to "The other party is typing". Ji Minglun put the phone aside and continued to pick the bones from Jiang Lin's fish. Occasionally, he glanced at the phone screen and found that Shen Ran was still typing. He thought Shen Ran wanted to say something long, but after finishing the meal and washing the dishes, Shen Ran replied with two dry words.
[Thank you]
It started to rain in the afternoon, and the landscape vegetation downstairs began to tremble in the increasingly fierce wind. Jiang Lin used Ji Minglun's desk to write his paper, while Ji Minglun leaned on the sofa in the living room to watch the class group chat about the arrangements for the debate competition, and replied to Deng Feng's questions about the details of the store decoration.
At about three o'clock, Xie Min called him.
As Ji Zhuosheng's current wife, Xie Min's attitude towards Ji Minglun was always so polite that no one could find fault with it. This time was no exception. After making some polite opening remarks, she asked Ji Minglun how he thought about immigration.
From the moment he saw her call, Ji Minglun guessed what she was going to say. As expected, Ji Zhuosheng found that he couldn't persuade him, so he sent Xie Min over.
After staring at the TV screen in silence for a while, Ji Minglun was too lazy to say anything more and said directly: "Tell him that Ms. Cheng Yu already knows about this. She came to my place last time and beat me up. If he still wants me to get out, please go talk to Ms. Cheng Yu himself."
After saying that, Ji Minglun didn't give Xie Min a chance to speak and hung up the phone.
Jiang Lin in the bedroom heard the noise and came out to see Ji Minglun throwing his phone on the sofa and picking up the remote control to change the channel.
"Xie Min looked for you?" Jiang Lin asked.
Ji Minglun waved at him with the remote control in his hand, and when he came over, he pulled him to sit on his lap, hugged his waist and said, "You said my dad's brain is so bad, how come he can still make so much money?"
"It can be seen that the ability to make money has no direct correlation with IQ." Without Jiang Lin's answer, Ji Minglun rolled his eyes and summed it up.
Jiang Lin laughed out loud, rubbing his face and comforting him: "Forget it, your dad doesn't know that you hate Xie Min so much. You can only blame yourself for being so good at pretending since you were a child."
Ji Minglun said: "I pretended because they forced me to do it."
Jiang Lin grew up with Ji Minglun and knew almost everything about each other's families. Therefore, he understood that Ji Minglun was not as open-minded as he seemed. After all, when Ji Zhuosheng and Cheng Yu divorced in junior high school, he had seen Ji Minglun hiding away and feeling sad more than once.
Jiang Lin hugged Ji Minglun and patted his back, and advised: "It will get better and better in the future. I will always be with you."
Ji Minglun hugged Jiang Lin's waist tightly, buried his face in his neck, and absorbed his scent. After a moment, he simply picked him up and put him in his bed to let off some steam.
This typhoon landed farther away than the last time. The rain stopped in the city after less than two days. On the third day, the sky began to clear up. Jiang Lin also mentioned during breakfast that he wanted to go see his mother.
Jiang Lin's mother Tang Ying died on a typhoon night. Since she left, Ji Minglun would basically sleep with Jiang Lin whenever there was a typhoon. This time, it made people feel more at ease than ever. Jiang Lin lay in Ji Minglun's arms and slept soundly all night. Not even a thunder startled him.
Ji Minglun hadn't visited Tang Ying for a long time. After dinner, they changed their clothes and went downstairs together. After the typhoon, the scene was in a mess. The cleaners in the community were cleaning up the fallen leaves and garbage. Ji Minglun drove out and first accompanied Jiang Lin to choose a bunch of white chrysanthemums in a flower shop near his home, then crossed the busy main road, got on the elevated road and drove to the suburbs.
Tang Ying was buried in a beautiful cemetery on the outskirts of the city. Ji Minglun used to accompany Jiang Lin to pay respects every Qingming Festival, so he knew how to get there and the appointment procedures. When they arrived at the cemetery, he showed the appointment certificate and signed it, then parked the car in the garage and walked towards the west hillside with Jiang Lin.
This hillside is full of rows of tombstones facing east. Today is a weekday and the typhoon has just passed. Apart from the two of them, there are only three other families' tombstones where people are paying homage.
Ji Minglun walked in front, and Jiang Lin followed behind with flowers in his hand. When they reached the row where Tang Ying's tombstone was, Ji Minglun stopped, turned around and stretched out his hand to Jiang Lin.
Jiang Lin's expression has been bad since he came to the cemetery. He didn't think much about the hand extended by Ji Minglun, thinking that Ji Minglun wanted to pull him. Just after he said "no need", he saw the person in front of him leaned over, put his dry palm against his palm, and held his fingers tightly.
There were not many people around. Jiang Lin looked at the hands holding each other in a daze. Ji Minglun continued to walk to the middle and stopped in front of the tombstone. Only then did he collect his thoughts and look at Tang Ying's photo.
He personally selected this photo, a photo of Tang Ying and his eight-year-old self. Although Jiang Jianchen strongly opposed using this photo on the tombstone, it was useless because he was only 14 years old at the time and could decide these things on his own. Jiang Jianchen could not blackmail him with money, nor could he really turn against him, so he could only reluctantly let all the relatives of the Jiang family see this ridiculous tombstone photo.
Ji Minglun took out a pack of wet wipes from his trouser pocket, squatted down and began to carefully wipe the dust off the tombstone.
Jiang Lin held a white chrysanthemum in his hand, stood quietly beside him, watching Ji Minglun's actions, and occasionally glanced at the photo on the tombstone.
His appearance inherited all the advantages of his parents, especially Tang Ying's facial features. Jiang Jianchen fell in love with Tang Ying at first sight. Tang Ying was talented, beautiful, and an only child. She had good conditions in all aspects, but she was introverted and melancholy by nature, and resisted socializing. This fatal character flaw was the most attractive advantage in Jiang Jianchen's eyes at the time. After pursuing Tang Ying at all costs, he quickly proposed to her, but less than two years after the marriage, he began to cheat on her on the grounds of Tang Ying's character problems.
The reason why Tang Ying got cancer was largely related to the psychological pressure Jiang Jianchen had put on her for a long time. Jiang Lin only knew this after he met Tang Ying's doctor. Unfortunately, he was still young at that time. Apart from hatred, he couldn't even do anything for Tang Ying. What he blamed himself most was that he couldn't even hate her to the end.
He was born without grandparents. Apart from his mother, his only real relative was his father. Therefore, after his mother passed away, he hated Jiang Jianchen, but at the same time he could not completely get rid of the care Jiang Jianchen gave him.
However, if we talk about the years from the age of fourteen to adulthood, it was actually the person in front of him who truly gave him support and warmth.
Looking at Ji Minglun's back as he carefully wiped the tombstone, he leaned over and placed the flowers in the center of the tombstone. After Ji Minglun stood up, he took the man's empty left hand.
Ji Minglun turned his head and glanced at him, and he said to Tang Ying: "Mom, Minglun and I are here to see you."
"We are in this kind of relationship now." Lifting up his clasped ten fingers, Jiang Lin showed it to Tang Ying.
Ji Minglun also looked at the woman on the tombstone who was hugging her son with a relaxed and bright smile, and said seriously: "Aunt Tang, Jiang Lin and I are together, don't worry, I will take good care of him."
A gust of wind blew by, and the delicate petals of the white chrysanthemum trembled slightly. Jiang Lin looked at himself in Tang Ying's arms, who was forever frozen in his eight-year-old appearance, and finally his gaze fell on Tang Ying's eyes.
When this photo was taken, Tang Ying had just won the most important award in her life. She took Jiang Lin to Yunnan for a trip. During those days, Tang Ying was always smiling. She walked in the spring mountain breeze, and her beautiful eyes were filled with the light reflected from Erhai Lake. They were so bright and moving, which was a world away from the sick and damaged eyes that no longer had any life.
Feeling the fingertips in his palm move slightly, Ji Minglun turned his head to look at Jiang Lin again.
After saying that, Jiang Lin fell silent. In the past, Jiang Lin would be so quiet every time he came to see Tang Ying. Ji Minglun knew that he was talking to Tang Ying in his heart, so he didn't disturb him, but just held his hand tightly and passed on his body temperature.
On the way back, Jiang Lin leaned his head against the window in a daze.
The sun in the west lit up his fair face, but his eyes looked dim. Ji Minglun stepped on the brakes at the traffic light ahead, reached out and stroked his cheek, and asked, "What do you want to eat tonight?"
Jiang Lin had no appetite and said, "Whatever."
Every time after paying homage to Tang Ying, he was in a very low mood. Ji Minglun wanted to cheer him up, so he took out his mobile phone and planned to find a restaurant he liked. However, as soon as the APP was opened, the screen automatically switched to the incoming call screen, which was the instructor at school.
Ji Minglun pressed the answer button and heard his instructor say that he needed a document urgently but some of the data was uploaded incorrectly, and hoped that he could help deal with it if he had time.
After hanging up the phone, before Ji Minglun could even speak, he heard Jiang Lin say, "You go ahead and do your work. I'll go get it myself."
Jiang Lin had just finished paying the tribute and wanted to pay the management fee, but he heard the staff say that Tang Ying's previous procedure was about to expire, so he asked Jiang Lin to get the death certificate as soon as possible to renew it.
Jiang Lin was thinking about this matter, so before leaving, he told Ji Minglun that he would go home to get his documents and come back the next morning to get them.
This route is convenient for both going back to school and going to Jiang Lin's house. Ji Minglun said, "I'll take you back to your house first and then go to school. The teacher is not in a hurry."
Jiang Lin did not refuse and continued to lean against the window in a daze. On the way, Ji Minglun wanted to stop the car to buy him something to eat, but he had no appetite. When he arrived downstairs of his house, he unlocked the car door and wanted to get out, but Ji Minglun grabbed his arm.
Before he could stop turning his head, his breathing was intercepted by another person.
Ji Minglun's breath pressed over him, not as gentle as before, but not rough either. The man seemed to want to pour his breath all over his body. He pushed him against the back of the passenger seat, half of his upper body leaning over to lock him and trap him.
The kiss came suddenly, but surprisingly it was something he had wanted all this time.
The space in the car was not enough for Ji Minglun to make big moves, but this limited range also made the contact between them more intimate. Jiang Lin was shrouded in dizzying pressure, and as he endured the caress from Ji Minglun, the grief in his heart was gradually dissolved by the deep affection and touch brought by this man.
Raising his arms, he hugged Ji Minglun's back and kissed him passionately. His eyes were so wet that he couldn't open them. At this moment, he heard a "click" sound by his ear, and then wind blew in from the right.
A tall middle-aged man looked at the two people hugging in the car. He could no longer hold back his usual gentlemanly demeanor when he saw his only son pressed against the back of the chair, his face flushed and gasping for breath. His anger burst out of his chest like magma.
"What are you two doing!?"