Chapter 28

As usual, Xi Siyan prepared a simple breakfast, coaxed Jing Miao to eat a little, made him drink three cups of water, and told him to go back to sleep.
“Where’s granny?”
Seeing him not move, Xi Siyan held him and fed him water.
“Granny will rest a few days. Then Dad, Mom, granny, and us—we’ll all go celebrate New Year together.”
Hearing they were going out, Jing Miao showed interest. A year ago, he would never have cared. Xi Siyan thought perhaps it was time to take him for another evaluation soon.
“Is Xiaoxiao going? When do we leave?”
Xi Siyan watched him drink cup after cup. His gaze slowly turned dangerous, though his voice stayed gentle.
“Xiaoxiao isn’t going. It can’t take a plane. We leave the day after tomorrow.”
“Then these two days, gege stays home with me?” Jing Miao finished the water obediently, eyes curving happily at the thought of being together.
“Yes, baby.” Xi Siyan kissed him. “Go back upstairs and sleep some more. Give gege an hour—after I handle something, I’ll come find you.”
Jing Miao went back to sleep obediently.
Xi Siyan’s face changed.
He locked every bathroom in the house one by one, then called Uncle Yang to take Xiaoxiao away.
He prepared glucose and nutrition solution, started a pot of pumpkin porridge, cut fruit, and packed their luggage in advance.
Only after everything was nearly ready did he go upstairs.
Xi Siyan thought: from now on, he wouldn’t pretend to be a gentleman.
Working overtime until late at night was one thing, but coming home after a full week of enduring and “doing nothing” had consequences:
he went insane.
Jing Miao was roused and whined sleepily, “Gege, what are you doing…?”
“Baby…” Xi Siyan held him, voice hoarse, apologizing for his earlier roughness. “I missed you too much. Just now I… I almost wanted to do something bad.”
Jing Miao rubbed his eyes, woke fully, cupped Xi Siyan’s face, and kissed him.
“I missed gege too.”
Soft winter sunlight slipped through half-drawn curtains, bathing the boy’s beautiful body in a glow.
How could he be this indulgent?
Being indulged made the man’s worse instincts surface—reckless, possessive, demanding.
Over the next two days, they barely left each other—moving through rooms, clinging, quarreling, making up—until Jing Miao cried, hoarse and wronged:
“Gege, why are you like this!”
Xi Siyan panicked at the thought of going too far. He soothed him with kisses and soft promises, then apologized again:
“Sorry, baby. I won’t say it anymore, okay? Don’t cry like that—you’ll lose your voice.”
Sometimes Xi Siyan hated the scar on his leg.
It always made Jing Miao cry.
Sometimes Xi Siyan loved the scar.
It was like a bargaining chip—something he could use to make Jing Miao soften, no matter what.
After night fell, Jing Miao slept for a while in Xi Siyan’s arms, murmuring love and longing, then begged pitifully,
“Gege, can you be gentler?”
Xi Siyan kissed him. “Silly.”
On the third day, Xi Siyan changed again—so gentle it felt unreal.
On the screen, a sci-fi film called *Lucy* played. Xi Siyan held him and watched the unsubtitled version, but every few minutes he’d kiss Jing Miao’s cheek and whisper in awe,
“Baby… how are you so beautiful?”
Jing Miao liked today’s Xi Siyan the most.
So gentle he was like water.
He craved Xi Siyan’s reflexive tenderness. Each time Xi Siyan coaxed him, he forgot everything else.
“Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, my baby.”
Xi Siyan murmured unconsciously—he’d said it countless times these two days.
He had gone mad, clinging to Jing Miao without restraint. He had crushed himself with overtime just to carve out a long holiday—yet anxiety had been floating in his chest for a long time.
He didn’t know when it began, but looking back, signs were everywhere:
Jing Miao complaining to Su Wan in a roundabout way.
Buying him coffee and warming it against his own body.
Taking care of him, changing him, helping him wash up…
That panic felt eerily similar to the fear Xi Siyan had felt when he first realized how astonishing Jing Miao’s intelligence was.
Xi Siyan’s anxiety grew heavier and heavier until he lost control.
“I love you,” Jing Miao suddenly said, holding Xi Siyan with emotion.
Xi Siyan froze.
Usually, when Jing Miao said those words, there was always a title attached—*I love you, gege. I love you, husband.*
This was the first time he said it plainly:
I love you.
“I love you,” Jing Miao repeated. “When I went to work with gege the other day, I met Professor Jin. He said I used to come to the School of Materials a lot—probably for you.”
Xi Siyan’s desire cooled sharply. “Then what about baby? What do you think?”
Jing Miao hugged him and kissed him, then said again:
“I love you.”
“I must have loved you a lot before,” Jing Miao said, voice trembling into tears. “I can feel it. So I love you a lot now too. In the future too. The most.”
Xi Siyan’s premonition came true.
The Jing Miao of now was no longer fourteen.
Lin Song had once said Jing Miao’s behavior patterns were extremely dual: one way with Xi Siyan, another way with others. From Jing Miao’s attitude toward Xi Siyan, you could barely feel his growth at all.
He willingly played the “child” Xi Siyan raised—spoiled, clingy, tearful, stubborn—not an act, but instinct, shaped by years of being cared for.