First-Class Lawyer

Chapter 124 - The Past (i)

This wasn't Yan Suizhi's first time proactively seeking intimate contact.

Before, he had clearly initiated more intimate contact, each one scratching maddeningly at the heart, yet never was it like this.

Without a single word, yet inexplicably stirring sadness.

Gu Yan froze briefly before saying in a low voice, "I didn't mean for you to see them."

"It's nothing much." Yan Suizhi's voice, pressed into the hollow of his shoulder, was muffled. Even so, it was still tinged, as it usually was, with a faint hint of a smile. "It's fine. It's only a case, not anything important. I just suddenly felt like being a rogue when I saw how good-looking you were."

Gu Yan tightened his arms around him. His embrace exposed a personality that differed marginally from him in the ordinary—warmth liberally wrapped around his being, and his scent, bit by bit, pervaded the air that Yan Suizhi breathed.

Just like this, the hands that Yan Suizhi rinsed in water at a length regained a warmth that travelled from the tips of his fingers to the palms of his hands, and then through the veins to his heart, filling his chest like a surging wave.

The last time he felt like this was in the loft when Gu Yan told him, his voice low and hoarse, of his recurring dreams after the explosion that he was still alive.

The time before that, Gu Yan was leaning against the door, his gaze lifted as he looked up at him on the floor above, telling him goodnight in a deep voice.

And even before that was on the first floor of the villa, in the kitchen, where Gu Yan gazed at him with eyes downcasted, then pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips.

Then there was a long gap, so long that he could barely even remember how many years it was...

This achy feeling of fullness in his chest, tight and tender, always tempted one to blurt out something or other.

Yan Suizhi rested his chin on Gu Yan's shoulder, his gaze shrouded by the shadows of his eyelashes, staring vacantly into space. After a long spell of silence, he suddenly and quietly spoke, "Gu Yan..."

"Hm?"

"Why did you choose me as your direct mentor back then?"

"Because of the lecture I listened to in the past," Gu Yan paused, then said, "Also because... I met you in Helan a long time ago."

"How long ago?" Yan Suizhi sounded minutely startled.

"When I was around eight or nine, at an orphanage," Gu Yan said.

During those days, his grandfather would take him to an orphanage. Most of the children then shared his plight, that their parents were in the military and lost their lives in battle. But what was different was that he had a grandfather, and they didn't.

He didn't know what his grandfather had hoped for by regularly bringing him to the orphanage. Perhaps he wanted him to never forget the hardships of life, or that he wanted to evoke compassion in him. His grandfather, a man of few words, had never told him the reason.

However, it was undeniable that the personality he developed had an unshakeable connection to this experience.

He met Yan Suizhi on a winter afternoon. The sunlight was surprisingly beautiful that day, bathing the lawn of the orphanage in radiance. It was more comfortable than artificial temperature control, so many children were playing on the swings and playground on the lawn, basking in the sun.

Carrying donated goods, his grandfather went to look for the person in charge, leaving him on the lawn.

"Why didn't he bring you with him?" Yan Suizhi asked.