When he came back from work, Shang Hao brought along a big case.
“I flew to Shanghai this morning and brought you back some specialties.”
Lin Anran walked over to see what kind of food he brought back.
Shang Hao lifted the case and placed it on the dining table. It was so large that it nearly occupied the entire tabletop. The big case made a powerful boom when it landed, and Lin Anran subconsciously stopped approaching.
Shang Hao looked at him and said, “Come here.”
Inside the case was a box that was the girth of an entire person’s arms. Lin Anran was now already immune to Shang Hao bringing back expensive and exquisite boxes. But he was very familiar with the distinctive signature logo printed in the middle of the box, which belonged to a foreign master of arts that had become quite popular in recent years.
After the artist became popular, he successively launched joint name products with some brands, including well-known fashion brands and luxury brands. But what kind of dessert would this famous artist co-create? Judging from the exterior appearance, it certainly had a sense of design.
Shang Hao lifted the lid of the box with both hands.
He said, “I came across this painting at an auction. I heard that you artists like this kind of thing so I bought it in passing.”
Lin Anran glanced at the things on the table and almost forgot to breathe.
This painting was the work of an emerging artist. Even prints of the painting were limited and were being sold at high prices.
However, what was in front of him was an authentic autographed painting. Lin Anran could even smell the faint oily scent that was like fairy air. He was having an increasingly hard time breathing.
This couldn’t be said to be the dream of every artist; it was simply a legend in the minds of artists.
Shang Hao moved this great master’s painting to his house.
The great master’s painting, was moved, to his house…
He was dizzy at the thought.
Indeed, the current value of his small house couldn’t even come close to as high a price as this painting.
Let’s put it this way. This was simply a jewel in art galleries, but with the current soaring value of this painting, artists couldn’t even come close to collecting it. Rather, those who could purchase it were powerful collectors or wealthy businessmen.
Lin Anran took a few deep breaths repeatedly. He calmly comforted himself that it was also possible that this was a fake…Right?
He also wasn’t sure about it himself.
“I pulled some small strings and got it today in advance.” Shang Hao smiled, his tone seeming to say that he added some money to buy a cup of milk tea.
The gap between the picture frame and the box was filled with soft cushions to prevent falling and breaking. When the big brother next to him directly lifted the box and attempted to wastefully knock the painting out of the box with all his might, it made Lin Anran panic.
Shang Hao asked, “How was it? Okay?”
Lin Anran swallowed. “…Okay.”
When Shang Hao saw that he hadn’t come over and didn’t touch it, he began to wonder whether he bought the wrong thing. He put the painting down, and only then did Lin Anran, who was still standing in place, dared to walk forward in a daze.
“Happy?”
Lin Anran heard this and turned to look at Shang Hao. His pure, quiet black pupils touched Shang Hao for a second and then quickly retracted to look back at the painting.
“Happy,” he said.
Shang Hao leaned over to look under his lowered face. “How happy are you?”
Lin Anran couldn’t help but touch the metal frame. He said, “Very happy.”
Shang Hao casually raised a small bag from one side. “And this too.”
Lin Anran saw a well-known luxury logo on the bag and was dumbfounded. What day was this? He suddenly wanted to give him so many things.
This time, the item was a silk scarf with an oil painting-like color scheme, which was full of artistic flavor. Shang Hao explained, “They said it could be used as a hairband. Like this.”
He took the silk scarf out from the box, recalled the technique he’d learned, loosened the braid behind Lin Anran’s head, and put on the beautiful hairband.
He tied Lin Anran’s long hair up at the top of his head, passing the silky hairband through his hair and revealing the soft contours of his facial features. The color of the hairband matched perfectly with his black hair and white skin.
But Shang Hao was, after all, an amateur, so he tied the knot in the center of his head, as if he was going to tie him into a gift.
“It looks good,” he said affirmatively.
Lin Anran touched the two extra pieces that hung around his ears like rabbit ears and didn’t raise any objections.
“Thank you for giving me these presents,” he said.
Lin Anran was someone who didn’t talk much and was a bit silly, but Shang Hao felt that today’s Ranran was a little bit strange. He wasn’t talkative in the first place, but today, he was twice as quiet as usual.
“No need for thanks.” He faced Lin Anran and asked intentionally, “Do you have anything to tell me?”
Lin Anran avoided looking at him and shook his head.
Still won’t say anything.
Shang Hao was almost certain that Ranran was angry with him because of today’s affairs.
Lin Anran was really a tortoise, right? In his understanding of life, it was safer to stay in his own shell, safer not to make friends, safer not to speak actively, and safer to choose not to speak out whenever he encountered a problem between them. Instead, he bottled everything up and sulked by himself.
Because he won’t say anything, how could anyone truly know what he wanted in his heart? He even secretly sent that strange letter to Shang Hao’s company.
If he hadn’t discovered Lin Anran’s behavior this time, who knew how long Lin Anran would continue to hide it from him?
In their future lives together, Shang Hao could foresee that he would be the one to be met with the silent treatment. Silent treatments were also a kind of emotional abuse. As someone who was amenable to coaxing but not to coercion, Shang Hao wanted to see how obstinate this person could be.
It really wasn’t good of him to tease Lin Anran in that letter. But he considered this incident to be a joke between himself and Lin Anran, because Lin Anran wrote to another “Shang Hao” without telling him.
Therefore, Shang Hao regarded this as a little bit of fun between them, and in the evening, he brought back a gift to Ranran as usual.
He hadn’t even said he was angry yet, but Lin Anran was already angry with him first.
—The reason why he stayed patiently in this shabby house for Lin Anran for this long, wasn’t it so Lin Anran could trust him one day?
Shang Hao could have brought it up first and be the first to speak, but he didn’t want to be the one to raise the issue. Lin Anran needed to learn how to speak.
He’d been patiently trying to teach Lin Anran to open his mouth and speak.
He certainly didn’t want to force him to communicate. When facing him, he didn’t want Lin Anran to just turn his back in silence.
They were together that night, but Lin Anran didn’t say a single word to Shang Hao.
Shang Hao took a shower first.
As the warm water rushed down over him, he stood alone in the bathroom, feeling irritable.
He couldn’t let this matter be brushed over. Moreover, Lin Anran shouldn’t think that escaping could solve everything.
He decided to do something.
After he came out of the bathroom, it was Lin Anran’s turn to go in and take a shower.
As he sat on the sofa, Shang Hao watched him walk into the bathroom. Then he patiently sat outside for a while, estimating the time. When the time was almost up, he got up and went to the bathroom door, put his hands on it, and leaned in.
The sound of the water in the bathroom stopped. There was an unusually long silence.
Shan Hao waited outside, raising a rather nasty smile at the corners of his mouth.
He was really on fire today. Before he came out of the shower, he emptied the bottles of shower gel and shampoo. He even washed out the bottles so that he could guarantee that Lin Anran would have no chance of raising any foam.
Even if Lin Anran could still accept the lack of shower gel, he certainly won’t be able to go without shampoo.
He didn’t believe that Lin Anran could possibly still refuse to speak to him today.
Sure enough, after a small bit of movements, Lin Anran seemed to give up. Quietness was restored in the bathroom.
As Shang Hao listened, his dark eyes were trained on the door in front of him, waiting for him to call his name.
However, even after a while, there were no movements in the bathroom.
Did this man really not plan to call him?
He frowned. Not wanting to say outside any longer, he gently turned the door handle. He wanted to see how Lin Anran would solve not having shampoo.
In the steam-filled bathroom, a snow-white arm was stretched out from the shower stall. This was followed by half of Lin Anran’s body as he leaned out, his hand aiming straight for the shaving foam on the sink.
The moment he entered, Shang Hao wanted to laugh at the scene in front of him.
If he also took away the shaving foam earlier, would Lin Anran be going for the toothpaste right now?
The bathroom was only so big. When he came in, the person in the shower stall was startled and his hand shrank back in fright. Shang Hao didn’t need to see it to know that Lin Anran must have an alarmed expression on his face.
When he saw Shang Hao in the bathroom, Lin Anran anxiously tried to close the shower door, but he wasn’t fast enough. A large hand grabbed the door in the next second, holding it open.
The partition glass between them was frosted, so that Shang Hao couldn’t see the rest of Lin Anran’s body.
Lin Anran was like a severely frightened animal as a hand held his face, prompting him to look up.
Shang Hao held the door with one hand, and squeezed his cheek with the other. At this time, Lin Anran looked like a drowning animal, or a prey caught by the back of his neck.
This was the first time he saw Shang Hao like this. Lin Anran panted under his hand, his face pale as he shrank pitifully behind the door.
But there was still no sound from beginning to end. Not even to tell him to get out.
“Lin Anran, you look at me.” Shang Hao stood outside the door, just to ask him, “Is it really that difficult for you to talk to me?”
Lin Anran’s wet black hair stuck to his face, neck, and shoulders. As Shang Hao squeezed his face, he even felt that Lin Anran’s teeth were trembling.
When Shang Hao saw him like this, his heart felt both pained and angry. But suddenly, the anger was extinguished, and no fire could come out.
He’d never experienced such anger that was so abruptly suppressed before in his life. “What did I do wrong? If you feel unhappy, you should tell me so I can change it.”
Shang Hao was still amazed that he could suppress his own anger to this extent.
But Lin Anran finally looked as if he had something to say.
His cheek was being squeezed and his soaked body was tense as he hid behind the door as much as possible. He could only make a shapeless, strange sound, and since he was exerting himself physically, his words came out separated.
“…I’m, sorry.”
Lin Anran squeezed the words out from his throat and said them to him
His face in Shang Hao’s hands was wet and cold. After he said this, Shang Hao saw him opened his eyes and tears burst out from them suddenly and uncontrollably.
Shang Hao was suddenly scalded by the glistening teardrops in his eyes.
It was quite the opposite of what he thought. Lin Anran wasn’t angry with him; he didn’t even know that he was being teased.
The truth was that Lin Anran knew that Shang Hao had discovered what he’d done, and he felt that he’d let Shang Hao down.
His silence wasn’t because he was sulking; it was because he’d foreseen what would happen next.
I did something wrong. You must hate me. Because you hate me, you must not want to talk to me anymore.
Lin Anran knew that it was easy for others to dislike him. They always isolated him from a young age and refused to talk to him. As a result, he always sat at a table by himself.
Because he knew that others wouldn’t care about him, he didn’t bother going out of his way to speak to them. As he grew up, silence became one of his defense mechanisms, a subconscious way for him to avoid getting hurt.
He was pessimistic. His vast amount of experience in trying to make friends supported this pessimism. So when Shang Hao suddenly brought those gifts home today, he regarded this as abnormal behavior. Was this the last gift? Was it compensation?…
Lin Anran had never been angry with Shang Hao from beginning to end. He recognized his mistakes earlier than Shang Hao, and he lacked enough confidence in himself to predict what would happen. The fact of the matter was that he did something wrong.
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.°(ಗдಗ。)°. The misunderstanding… do not bully Lin Anran! Thank you for the chapter.
T_T thank you for translating
I feel as confused as he is – I’m getting to understand his state of mind 😳🥺
Poor baby. I know the feeling of not wanting to get hurt and wanting to stay on your shell instead
damn i really can’t sympathize
In literal tears 😭😭😭
The fcking doctor did not do her job. All the talks about his delusions and split personality but none of them the real problem. It was his social anxiety. It was so severe that it was obvious to people interacted with him but the doctor didn’t do anything except to talk. He should be on therapyp