Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
There were times where the body may be more honest than the mind. At the very least, one’s first reaction would be instinctive and beyond the control of thought.
Bai Wu stood at the corridor and felt his whole body becoming cold. Not even the soft rays of sunlight could make him feel warm.
Out of nowhere, a subtle heat coursed through his arms and started slowly dispersing the cold winter air. Bai Wu jerked his head and looked up. A confused, persistent, and guilty face looked right at him.
“Papa!” Bai Wu found it hard to believe that Xu Lan was staring back at him. He immediately threw himself into the man’s embrace.
“Let’s go, quick. Once we’re out I’ll call the hospital and ask them to check on Li Xiu.” Xu Lan dragged the boy and urged him on. The man even took a few bed sheets from the ward in order to cover up Bai Wu’s body.
“Mm, okay!” A smile that stretched from ear to ear appeared on Bai Wu’s face as the boy happily exclaimed.
“You really messed up this time! How dare you smile!” Xu Lan scolded and smacked him on the back of the head.
“I know but I’m still very happy. Papa, I love you.” The boy held Xu Lan tight and briskly remarked.
“Idiot! You’re biting the hand that is feeding us. In the future, you and I would have to beg for food on the sidewalk!” Xu Lan’s lips curled and he dragged the boy to run faster.
“As long as I’m with Papa, I’m willing to beg on the streets.” Bai Wu’s resplendent smile was contagious. Many a person stopped just to return his smile with a smile of their own.
Xu Lan stopped bickering with the boy and whipped out his cell phone. After calling the hospital, he immediately booked an empty room at a hotel.
With the boy in his current state, it was impossible for them to strut about town as though nothing happened.
“Do you still remember what happened last time?” As Xu Lan fastened the curtains, he asked the boy. Bai Wu’s face became redder than a lit lantern at midnight.
“Mm…” Came a soft response from the boy, whose head was tilted downward.
After undergoing the transformation, everything from that day came back to him. When he was angry moments ago, he did not think much of it but when he thought about it now, his face became as hot as an erupting flame.
“Good, then follow what I taught you last time. I’ll wait for you in the toilet,” Xu Lan calmly replied.
Bewildered, Bai Wu looked at Xu Lan and was too embarrassed to say anything.
“What is it?”
“Isn’t Papa gonna help me?” In the lowest possible voice, Bai Wu asked.
“Be a good boy. You must do this kind of thing yourself.” Xu Lan entered the toilet and waited.
The man had simply picked a hotel and walked in. After all, it was his own son and he would have to put up with it.
A two-meter by one-meter bed was provided in the room along with some comfortable furnishings. Upon opening the windows, one would be greeted by the sight of a seemingly endless mountain range. The curtains were useless though, as they were the kind that sprang up when being pulled. The bathroom, however, was furnished with frosted glass. Such an atmosphere was perfect for young sweethearts to rendezvous, which showed how smart businesses were.
Xu Lan sat on top of the closed toilet bowl and became bored stiff after what seemed like a long period of time. When his boredom reached its peak, Bai Wu came and opened the door.
All traces of the dragon vanished. He was then a boy again, the reddened, bedsheet-covered Bai Wu stood at the doorway.
“Papa, bathe me.” The boy’s face became redder when he said that.
Xu Lan immediately kept his cell phone and turned on the tap for Bai Wu. When the water became warm, the boy was called in. His expression conveyed the hope that Xu Lan would bathe him but Xu Lan felt embarrassed.
He had always felt that the matter was rather sinful but at the end of the day, was Bai Wu not an adolescent boy just moments ago?
“Just take a quick bath. These places outside are dirty. Take a clean one when we go back home okay?” Xu Lan coaxed.
“Mm,” Bai Wu responded while biting his lower lip.
While Bai Wu was busy washing up, Xu Lan’s cell phone rang incessantly.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Mister Xu! Do you plan on tearing down the hospital? The whole damn door’s been ripped apart by you! And what’s the deal with the punch on Li Xiu? Where are you now? I’m telling you, get your a*s back here right now! If the Director General returns and sees all this, he’ll skin you alive I tell you!”
Even though a cell phone separated them, Xu Lan could imagine Sun Fei’s intense exasperation. Fighting hard to restrain a chuckle, Xu Lan told him that he would return soon.
When Xu Lan checked out of the hotel room with the blanket-covered boy, the front desk gave him some odd looks. If the man had not flashed his badge in that moment of desperation, the receptionists might have called the police station.
“I came here to save someone! Didn’t you see the person I brought in just now? He’s a criminal who specializes in child trafficking.” The man did his best to cast away his smiles and spout nonsense with a straight face.
“Papa,” disoriented, Bai Wu called out.
“Look! The child’s traumatized! Ever since I saved him, he kept on calling me ‘papa’. You! Yes, you! Can I trouble you to buy some clothes for the kid?” Xu Lan scrambled to exclaim. In the meantime, one of his hands lightly patted Bai Wu, signaling for the kid to keep his mouth shut!
Were lies that easily uttered by honest and sincere people?
The young lady’s expression changed immediately after seeing him. She hastily relieved her colleague from the shift in order for that colleague to go buy a set of clothes.
Following all that, Bai Wu and Xu Lan strutted out of the hotel lobby like royalty!
When they went back to the hospital, Sun Fei would surely have none of Xu Lan’s crap. Xu Lan was bombarded with a tongue-lashing assault and to top it off, he had no way of refuting the scolding.
Li Xiu was still unconscious. Therefore, Xu Lan could not say much without having first colluded with him. Obviously, Xu Lan could not come clean and say it was Bai Wu’s fault. If he did so, Sun Fei would not believe it at all, so for the moment, Xu Lan had no option but to endure the scolding himself.
“Were you tailed when you sent Teacher Wang back?” Holding in his own anger, Xu Lan asked worryingly for fear that someone would harm Teacher Wang.
“No. Could it be… did they do this? This is too savage. Were you able to catch up to them? Are you hurt?”
The rapid change in Sun Fei’s spoken tone rendered Xu Lan somewhat unable to acclimatize so quickly.
“No,” he replied in a low voice.
What’s done is done. For the moment, that would be the narrative. When the time comes, he would just beg Li Xiu to forgive Bai Wu.
“What did the doctor’s say?” Still worried, Xu Lan asked.
“Two of his ribs are broken and his spleen is bleeding. The CAT Scan is still in the process so the results are unknown.” Sun Fei sat down on the chair, took a pear and bit into it.
“Did you go and see Lao Liu? How’s he?”
The thought of Li Xiu’s chauffeur suddenly popped up in Xu Lan’s mind thinking that Bai Wu could be exposed by the chauffeur too.
“He’s still in the ICU. It’s lucky that he even survived the crash. It remains to be seen if he can make it, but the situation’s not encouraging.” Sun Fei took another pear and handed it over to Bai Wu.
The boy happily took it and gave it to Xu Lan.
“No thank you. You eat it.” That small gesture was enough to convince Xu Lan that he did not regret his decision, or rather, that the decision he made was the right one.
“Ah, little Bai Wu, this pear is for you, I’ll give your father another one.” The boy’s heart-warming actions swept away all gloominess in Sun Fei’s heart and he squatted down to tease Bai Wu.
“If only I had such a cute child! Little Bai Wu, would you like to stay with me for a couple of days?” Sun Fei handed the boy an apple.
Before Bai Wu could answer, Xu Lan scooped the boy into his embrace.
“Go and make your own child! This is mine, and no one’s allowed to take him from me!” Xu Lan hissed.
Sun Fei rolled his eyes and prepared a few sarcastic sentences but when he saw Bai Wu’s chubby face, he swallowed those sentences back.
Perhaps it would be nice to have a kid.
“What time is it? Maybe we should go back to the station and see how things are progressing, eh? Bai Wu, Zhu Jing came here with you this morning, right? Where is she? Why haven’t I seen her?” Xu Lan wondered.
“Big Brother Xiao Li called her and asked her to go back. She sent me to the hospital lobby and left.” Aware of his mistakes, Bai Wu lowered his head.
“How did you find me then?” Xu Lan asked again.
“I asked the nurse,” the boy softly responded.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now! We’ll be heading back.” After saying that, Xu Lan posed a few flippant questions so as to turn the tables on Sun Fei. He asked, “Why didn’t Xiao Li call you if he had a problem? Isn’t he with your team? Look at yourself, what kind of team leader are you?”
“Since he didn’t call me, it means that there’s nothing too serious about it,” Sun Fei retorted, then continued, “Let’s leave. My tiredness is killing me.”
“Alright. I’ll get a nurse for him. We can’t keep relying on Teacher Wang,” Xu Lan replied after giving some deep thought.
“Let’s go.”
