The Laws of Love

  Zhou Mo talked—about those things in the past.

       When he mentioned this, Suo Yang didn’t respond. Shen Huiming was taken aback for a moment and didn’t ask any more questions. Instead, he changed the subject and chatted with Zhou Mo as usual.

       Zhou Mo didn’t notice anything unusual from the other party, and he ate and talked about nonsensical things.

       Zhou Mo said that it was good for them to be together and that he thought it was great that Suo Yang had a boyfriend like Shen Huiming.

       But Shen Huiming said with a smile, “It doesn’t matter if you think it’s okay or not. Anyway, we are already together, and we won’t separate because of what others say.”

       Suo Yang sat there chuckling, listening to the two of them bickering without taking sides.

       Zhou Mo enjoyed the meal very much. According to his habit, he would definitely go out to play after eating, but the couple was so into each other, and he didn’t want to be the third wheel, so he waved goodbye after eating.

       Before leaving, Zhou Mo said to Shen Huiming with a straight face, “Old Shen, Suo Yang is the most handsome guy in our civil aviation industry.”

       Suo Yang lowered his head and smiled.

       “I know.” Shen Huiming said, “He is also the most handsome guy in our family.”

       The phrase ‘our family’ made Suo Yang feel very warm.

       Zhou Mo curled his lips, “Don’t just talk nice and do more practical things.”

       “Don’t worry.” Shen Huiming opened the car door and urged him to go in, “Come on, let’s go. We’ve got to go home and share our love.”

       Zhou Mo rolled his eyes and turned to look at Suo Yang.

       “Then I’m leaving.”

       Suo Yang nodded with a smile, “Be careful. See you some other time.”

       As Zhou Mo left, Shen Huiming and Suo Yang headed for the parking lot.

       It was past ten o’clock, and there were not many people in the car park, so Shen Huiming took the opportunity to hold Suo Yang’s hand.

       Suo Yang looked at him with a smile, “So bold?”

       “It’s okay,” Shen Huiming said, “If people see you, they will see you, and I have nothing to fear if you are not afraid.”

       Suo Yang didn’t say much but gave his hand a firm squeeze.

       The two of them returned to the car and had just fastened their seat belts when Shen Huiming coughed lightly and said, “Got something to say?”

       Suo Yang looked at him suspiciously, “What’s wrong?”

       Shen Huiming looked at him with a clueless look and suddenly wondered if he had been overly concerned.

       He had already guessed that Suo Yang had been hurt emotionally in the past. Otherwise, why were his nerves so tense at the beginning? He was always polite, always distant, as if no one could get into his heart.

       Generally speaking, such people had been emotionally hurt.

       Shen Huiming didn’t care too much about this. The past is the past, and it’s no use going over old scores. Neither he nor Suo Yang was that kind of person, but he was still curious and wanted to know what Suo Yang had experienced in the past.

       “I probably shouldn’t ask about this.” Shen Huiming said, “But you know, I’m actually quite nosy sometimes.”

       When he said this, Suo Yang was even more confused.

       “What’s the matter?”

       “During the meal, Zhou Mo said that you don’t trust others anymore because of those things before…” Shen Huiming took a breath and let out a ‘tsk’, “When I ask this question now, it makes me look particularly small-minded.”

       After listening to him ask, Suo Yang understood that this person was mindful of Zhou Mo’s remark.

       “Some things in the past did have some effects on me.” Suo Yang looked at him with a smile in his eyes and said softly, “Do you still remember what I told you before? I told you that I am very boring, and the more you know me, the more dull you feel I am?”

       Shen Huiming remembered what he said, and he remembered it very clearly.

       At that time, Suo Yang tried his best to persuade him to quit, and what he said was very uncomfortable to Shen Huiming’s ears.

       Suo Yang lowered his head and gently rubbed his fingers against the seat belt, looking a little embarrassed, “At that time, I actually meant what I said.”

       Shen Huiming leaned back in his chair and looked at him.

       “Quite a few people used to chase me.” Suo Yang smiled embarrassedly after saying this.

       He smiled, and Shen Huiming also smiled with him, “There are still quite a few people chasing you now, right?”

       “Yes, but I have you.” Suo Yang said, “Back then, it wasn’t like now. I didn’t know how to say no to people.”

       Suo Yang paused for a moment and said, “In the end, it’s actually my fault. I obviously didn’t like it, but because I couldn’t say no, I kept putting it off, and that created misunderstandings for others.”

       Not knowing how to say no was indeed troublesome. In fact, whether it was emotional or otherwise, it was the right thing to do when it was time to cut things off.

       “Maybe it’s because I didn’t explicitly refuse, so the other party thinks that we are already very close.” Suo Yang said with a bitter smile, “Actually, I never thought about starting a relationship at that time, only that I had just wavered a bit when I heard some words.”

       Shen Huiming frowned at him, quietly waiting for him to continue.

       “I heard him tell others—Suo Yang is a good-looking person, and he is really not interesting,” Suo Yang laughed. “Since I look pretty decent, I was carrying myself with poise all the time. No touching or getting too close, and there’s nothing interesting to talk about when chatting. When he sat next to me, he relied entirely on my face to support the situation. Otherwise, I would be embarrassingly uncomfortable, was what he said.”

       Shen Huiming listened to Suo Yang say these words in a calm and breezy tone and gently tapped his finger on the steering wheel.

       Suo Yang was actually a very thoughtful person, and even an unkind look from someone could make him reflect on himself, let alone when he heard such words.

       Shen Huiming couldn’t imagine how sad and disappointed Suo Yang was at that time. He was just glad that Suo Yang did not really deny himself and the possibility of love because of those things.

       He wouldn’t say anything like ‘if we had met earlier’ because both knew that there was no ‘if’ in this world. Shen Huiming couldn’t go back to the past to change anything. The only thing he could do was to make Suo Yang believe that even if Suo Yang was boring in the eyes of others, he was still a shining treasure in his world.

       “Are you very sad?” Shen Huiming asked.

       Suo Yang looked at him with a smile, “How should I put it? Maybe because I don’t really like that person, so what he said didn’t have a serious impact on me.”

       Suo Yang said no, but Shen Huiming felt that he was just stubborn and unwilling to admit it.

       “It’s true,” Suo Yang seemed to have read Shen Huiming’s mind, “to say that I’m sad, it’s really not that bad. At most, I’m a bit disappointed. Disappointed in him and disappointed in myself. But at that time, I reflected on it and thought that there was something wrong with me too.”

       Suo Yang looked at Shen Huiming and poked his frowning brows with his fingers, “Not to that extent, don’t frown so bitterly.”

       “I feel sorry for you.” Shen Huiming took his hand and kissed it.

       The two of them were intimate and lovey-dovey, and Suo Yang felt a little embarrassed.

       “It’s not entirely bad for me to know myself properly from these things.” Suo Yang said, “Zhou Mo took this matter too seriously, and then this happened two other times. Of course, both times I said no clearly, but sometimes, mouths are in other people’s faces, and we can’t decide what other people think.”

       Shen Huiming ‘cut’ unhappily, “What kind of people are they…”

       Suo Yang couldn’t hold back his laughter when he saw Shen Huiming like this.

       “I don’t even care. Why are you still angry?”

       “You’ve been wronged, and I, as a family member, that’s definitely something to be angry about.” Shen Huiming said, “I found that you are really quite…”

       Suo Yang looked at him nervously.

       “It’s not quite the same as others.” Shen Huiming said, “It’s hard to tell whether you are pessimistic or optimistic.”

       “My mother said that I am too indifferent to people and things. As long as it’s not something I care about, I don’t take it to heart at all.”

       Shen Huiming thought about it and felt that there was some truth to it. Suo Yang seemed to be nice to everyone, but he didn’t seem to be particularly nice to anyone. He seemed to be friendly with everyone, but he definitely didn’t get close to anyone randomly.

       Such a person, most of the time, keeps a distance from the world. You would think he was easy to get along with, but in reality, he only cares about his own little plot of land.

       Therefore, Shen Huiming could understand when Suo Yang said, “It’s not too sad. I’m a little disappointed at most.”

       But this was also very good. If one didn’t care about others, one wouldn’t get hurt easily, and one could live a more comfortable and self-effacing life.

       “Very good.” Shen Huiming shook Suo Yang’s hand vigorously, “I’m also relieved to hear you say that. I’ve been eating with a heavy heart in my mouth since Zhou Mo said that. I’m not even full.”

       Suo Yang smiled, “Not full? Do you want an extra meal then?”

       Shen Huiming thought for a while and said, “I’ll take you to a good place.”

       The two drove out of the underground parking lot, and on the way to the ‘good place’ Shen Huiming said, Shen Huiming was still brooding over what Suo Yang said just now.

       “To be honest, if I were you, I would have been so angry that I would have fought with him.”

       Suo Yang leaned against the back of the chair and looked at him, “What about after the fight? Would we break up on bad terms and see each other like enemies from then on?”

       He said, “I don’t like that outcome very much. Maybe this is also a kind of ‘escape’, avoiding all possible bad relationships. Sometimes pretending to be stupid and ignorant is a good way to solve problems.”

       “That’s why I still have to learn from you a lot of the time.”

       “I wouldn’t go that far,” Suo Yang laughed, “Everyone has their own style of doing things, and I just like you the way you are.”

       The love words came naturally from Suo Yang, and Shen Huiming was in a good mood when he heard it, like a child who had stolen another candy ball.

       The candy that Suo Yang fed to his mouth from time to time made Shen Huiming feel that falling in love was really a great thing in the world. How could someone find such a person boring?

       Shen Huiming took Suo Yang to a small barbecue shop. The shop was small, and the decoration was old.

       When the two of them went there, there was no room left inside the store, so the boss set up a table and two chairs outside for them so they had a place to sit.

       The night at the end of September was actually a bit cold, but it was especially nice to sit outside and eat a barbecue like this.

       The starry sky above their heads and the noise in the store had nothing to do with them.

       Shen Huiming said, “This restaurant has been open for many years. I always came to eat with my dad when I was in middle school.”

       Suo Yang liked this kind of place that had a lot of stories for Shen Huiming. It was like two time and space had intertwined, and he walked into Shen Huiming’s past memory.

       “If there is a chance in the future, I will take you back to my hometown.” Suo Yang said, “We have mountains and the sea there. I wonder if you will like it.”

       “I just like places with mountains, seas, and you.”

       The two ate barbecue, drank soda, and chatted with ease.

       Suo Yang and Shen Huiming suddenly understood a truth.

       It was like they read the same sentence in the same book—it was difficult to separate passion from love, infatuation from adoration.

       The personality of those people Suo Yang had met in the past could not be judged just because of this one incident, but he thought that perhaps because of this appearance of his, or perhaps for other reasons, these people were momentarily infatuated with him and developed a passion. In the very beginning, neither those people nor Suo Yang himself could distinguish whether the sudden feeling was infatuation or love, passion or love.

       However, countless facts have proved that infatuation is short-lived, and passion is fleeting. When they found that Suo Yang was not what they thought, they would get bored immediately.

       But after going through those ‘rotten peach blossoms’1, Suo Yang still had a real chance to see the light of day.

       Shen Huiming was his exclusive peach grove, and all the peach blossoms bloom only for him alone, and this time, he could be sure that these pink and white flowers bloomed for love and affection, not just passion and infatuation.

       “What are you thinking?” Shen Huiming asked.

       “Thinking of you.” Suo Yang said with a smile, “Thinking that it’s quite appropriate for you to wear my shirt too.”