Blazing fire is hard to extinguish chapter 26

Damp

That evening, Lin Chi and Li Tingyan slept together on this dilapidated bed.

Lin Chi, exhausted from the day, fell asleep quickly. He buried his head in Li Tingyan’s neck and soon started snoring lightly.

Li Tingyan held him with one hand while dealing with work on his phone with the other.

It was cold in Changyu County despite the sparse moonlight. Li Tingyan’s fingers were almost numb, except where Lin Chi lay warm against his neck, curled up like a cat.

As he typed, he unconsciously kissed Lin Chi’s hair when he hummed softly.

The secretary, forced to work overtime, wore a face darkened with resentment, but thoughts of his hefty bonus made him grit his teeth and endure.

After closing the chat, he turned his head and nudged the other secretary, Xiao Gao, who was also burning the midnight oil. While typing on his computer, he gossiped, Do you think our boss has finally left the ranks of perennial bachelors? I heard from Xiao Chen that he’s been going out on dates a lot lately, always with that model. I wonder what’s going on with the little model this time, for the boss to specially chase after him in that middle-of-nowhere small county. Wow… Although I hate overtime, it’s quite romantic, isn’t it? Maybe we’re finally getting a ‘Madam’.”

Xiao Chen was Li Tingyan’s assistant who wasn’t present there.

As some of Li Tingyan’s closest associates, they were well-informed about his schedule but couldn’t gossip with other company members, so they shared gossip internally.

Xiao Gao rolled her eyes at him, her mature face expressing, “What gossip? Right now, I just want to blow up this building.”

But she still answered the question.

“Who knows,” she flipped through the documents in her hand, “Although our boss is considered a decent and handsome guy, these rich families, who knows who they really care for? When things are good, they treat you like a treasure, but when they’re not, you’re pushed aside.”

“Before I switched jobs, I worked for a playboy second-generation rich guy who was madly in love with a female star, causing a huge sensation. In the end, he couldn’t fight with his family for her and obediently broke up and married a suitable wife from a similar background. Look at our boss now, does he look like someone crazy in love?”

Li Tingyan had a good reputation as a boss, but the surface gentleness and concealed knives made her shudder at the thought.

She couldn’t imagine who could handle such a statue, nor who could have attracted Li Tingyan’s attention.

Finally, she concluded, “Don’t worry about it. There aren’t many Cinderella stories in the world. You should focus on your quarterly bonuses instead.”

….

Lin Chi slept until dawn.

When he got up, he was still a little groggy and wandered around the house for a while, but couldn’t find Li Tingyan.

When he washed his face and went out, he found Li Tingyan talking to someone in the yard, and he recognized Li Tingyan’s assistant standing opposite.

Oh.

This one seems to be adapting pretty quickly, already discussing business in his little broken yard.

Lin Chi wiped his chin with a towel, wearing loose pajamas he hastily bought, and a pair of oversized slippers given by a neighbor auntie. Apart from his face, there was no aura of a model on him.

He stood for a while, until the assistant Xiao Chen noticed him, and quickly said something to Li Tingyan.

Li Tingyan turned around and immediately walked over here.

Xiao Chen tactfully slipped away.

“Awake?” Li Tingyan asked, “I thought you would sleep a little longer.”

“Yeah.”

Lin Chi slapped his face and woke up a bit, “I can’t sleep. I set the alarm. Anyway, it’s Lin Zhaofeng’s farewell ceremony. I can’t be too late.”

This had been fixed for a while.

Li Tingyan also knew.

However, he clearly didn’t respect Lin Zhaofeng and didn’t think it was important, even if he got up earlier than Lin Chi.

The assistant had already bought breakfast appropriately, and Lin Chi only drank a bowl of soy milk and fried breadsticks, and then set off with Li Tingyan.

Thanks to Li Tingyan, to be more accurate, to his efficient assistant.

Everything else, including the procedures behind Lin Zhaofeng, did not bother Lin Chi again.

Sure enough, no one came to Lin Zhaofeng’s farewell ceremony, only a few neighbors, who had had ancestral friendship with his family, and who missed the old feelings and came specially.

But looking at the black and white photos of Lin Zhaofeng, who was young, he couldn’t say anything but sigh.

Lin Chi chose a photo of Lin Zhaofeng when he was thirty years old as his memorial.

There is no other reason.

First, Lin Zhaofeng, at the age of thirty, was far from corrupt, still a good husband and father.

Second, in the many years since illness and pain invaded him, Lin Zhaofeng’s appearance has long been ruined, and there were no photos to choose from.

“A good man…” Auntie, who lived next door to Lin Chi, was leaning on a cane, sighing, and even her eye sockets were a bit red.

Her head wasn’t very bright anymore, looking at Lin Chi, then looking at Li Tingyan beside her, for a moment, she couldn’t remember who was the son of the Lin family.

In the end, for some reason, she chose Li Tingyan and grabbed Li Tingyan’s hand, “You, you’re better than your dad, don’t learn from him, never.”

She vaguely cautioned.

Li Tingyan completely didn’t understand the dialect, looking at Lin Chi with a puzzled face.

Lin Chi quickly grabbed the old lady’s hand.

“Auntie, you’ve got the wrong person. This is my friend,” he shouted at the old lady’s ear, knowing that Auntie Cai was a bit deaf, “I’ll remember what you’re saying, I certainly won’t be like him in this life!”

Old lady Cai struggled to identify Lin Chi’s face, reacting for a while, and shook Lin Chi’s hand hard.

“Good… Good.”

After the farewell ceremony, it was cremation.

The raging fire destroyed everything into ashes.

Waiting outside, Li Tingyan also accompanied Lin Chi.

Lin Chi sat straight, the waiting room quiet, his head slightly bowed, shoulders thin, fingers mechanically fiddling with his watch strap.

Li Tingyan looked at him, just feeling that he was like a thin piece of paper.

Although Lin Zhaofeng was not a good person and his existence in the world had no positive significance,

But after today, Lin Chi was truly alone.

That household registration book eliminated one more name. Ultimately, only Lin Chi was left.

Li Tingyan thought about it, not knowing whether to speak out and comfort, finally just gently holding Lin Chi’s hand.

…..

Because everything was simplified, Lin Zhaofeng’s burial was also simple.

Lin Chi chose a nice grave for him, not far from his grandparents.

“Let me do the last bit of good for him, a person always wants to be a little closer to his own relatives,” Lin Chi told Li Tingyan, “Besides, besides relatives, who else is going to accept him?”

Lin Zhaofeng had deteriorated himself to such an extent that perhaps only his parents would forgive him.

Li Tingyan thought so too.

Lin Chi didn’t pay attention to the burial process, as there were professionals handling it.

But since he made a special trip to the cemetery, he specially went to see his biological father and mother.

Li Tingyan also went over with him.

Actually, Lin Chi was feeling a bit uneasy.

He had no blood relation to Li Tingyan, yet there was a layer of ambiguous entanglement between them, which he brought deliberately before his deceased parents, making things feel rather odd.

But Li Tingyan didn’t mind at all; in fact, he actively followed Lin Chi.

Arriving at the grave, looking at the gentle young man in the photo, he even commented, “Your eyes really resemble your biological father’s.”

The man in the photo bore some resemblance to Lin Chi, not just in the eyes but also in facial features.

However, his smile was gentler, lacking Lin Chi’s assertive demeanor; one could tell he was a good-tempered person.

And the name on the gravestone was Lin Dong.

Li Tingyan found it strange. “Your biological father and stepfather have the same surname?”

Lin Chi nodded. “Yeah,” he replied, placing flowers at Lin Dong’s grave.

“The surname Lin is quite common here; in any village, at least half the people have it, so there’s usually some distant connection. If you really think about it, my biological father and stepfather are also distant relatives.”

As Lin Chi spoke, he squatted down, wiping the area next to the flowers.

He had never spent a day with his biological father and didn’t harbor any sentimental feelings, just a sense of duty.

Since he was here, it was only right for a son to tidy up for his father.

Soon, however, he noticed Li Tingyan also squatting down beside him, helping to clean the gravestone carefully with tissues.

This young master seemed pampered, yet he was efficient and neat in his actions.

Lin Chi was momentarily stunned, then smiled, “You… if others didn’t know, they’d think you were part of my family.”

He recalled Aunt Cai’s embarrassment earlier for mistaking the two of them, and his smile deepened a bit.

But then he thought, in a remote place like theirs, they probably couldn’t produce someone with Li Tingyan’s naturally noble air.

Li Tingyan didn’t mind, “If they think so, let them.”

He gathered the used tissues into a plastic bag.

He asked Lin Chi, “Do you want to move your biological father’s gravestone as well?”

Lin Chi shook his head.

“No,” he replied.

He gazed deeply into Lin Dong’s eyes in the photo, those beautiful, spirited eyes, the only connection between him and his biological father.

“He probably wouldn’t want to leave; this is his home, where he hardly ever left in his lifetime, and now all around are his relatives. If I took him away, he’d probably feel lonely.”

“But my mom would probably want to come with me.”

Lin Chi said.

He slowly stood up, taking another bouquet of flowers and walking to another row of gravestones, stopping in the middle.

Li Tingyan silently followed.

Lin Chi placed the flowers at the grave and gently wiped the photo on the gravestone with a hundred times more tenderness.

The person in the photo was a woman named Zheng Xin, in her early forties, with a gentle and delicate face, smiling beautifully.

Lin Chi looked at her, as if a thousand words were contained in that one glance.

Over the years, he returned to Changyu County every year because of Zheng Xin.

He knew his mother had been waiting for him.

Waiting for her child to grow up, waiting for her child to become strong and independent, able to take care of himself.

Waiting for her child to finally come and take her away.

Lin Chi clenched his teeth, feeling choked up in his throat.

But he didn’t want to show it, bowing his head to arrange the bouquet still damp with dew.

He spoke in dialect to Zheng Xin, “This time, let’s leave for good, okay? I’ll take you far away, and we won’t come back. Lin Zhaofeng is gone, no one will bother you anymore.”

“I’m doing fine now, made a little name for myself. When you’re in the city, you can still see your son’s advertisement posters. You used to say I looked good and could be on TV. Look, now I really can.”

Lin Chi smiled at the photo on the tombstone, but his eyes were dark, moist, and dim, like a sky filled with rain.

Li Tingyan clearly couldn’t understand the local dialect.

But for some reason,

Maybe Lin Chi had been speaking Mandarin for too many years, and the dialect wasn’t considered standard.

Li Tingyan understood every word he said.

He heard Lin Chi say, “I’m sorry, Ms. Zheng. I promised to take you away when I was seventeen, but it’s been so many years.”

His tone sounded relaxed, natural, as if a son was coaxing his mother.

But Li Tingyan lowered his head and saw clearly the slight trembling of Lin Chi’s bowed back.

Since he met Lin Chi, he had always been optimistic, outgoing, even reckless.

He had such strong vitality, true to his name, as fiery as the sun.

But on this clear morning, Li Tingyan realized more clearly that Lin Chi’s weakness and sadness seemed to have been left in Changyu County.

Left in the year he was seventeen.

Li Tingyan stood for a while.

He was fundamentally indifferent, having seen too much of life and death. He had elegantly attended many celebrity funerals, giving tactful and comforting speeches, but his heart remained unmoved.

But on this ordinary morning, he gently bent down, his hand resting lightly on Lin Chi’s shoulder.

He hesitated, exerted a little force, and pulled Lin Chi into his arms.

Lin Chi’s eyes were initially just slightly moist, but now he couldn’t hold back anymore.

Emotions surged up inexplicably.

But he was also a little annoyed, feeling like his inner self had been exposed, with the stubbornness and embarrassment of youth.

Yet when he met Li Tingyan’s gaze, he deflated.

Li Tingyan’s gaze was calm, devoid of sympathy or pity.

Li Tingyan’s fingers brushed gently over his slightly damp eyes, like comforting a child, his palm lightly stroking the back of his neck.

There was no specific meaning behind it, just an indication that he was there.

Now Lin Chi really couldn’t hold back.

He lifted his head, eyes looking up, but his eye sockets were still uncontrollably warm.

“It’s embarrassing.”

He sniffed.

But thinking that the one witnessing his embarrassment was Li Tingyan, he felt a bit reckless.

In the end, he suddenly bumped his head against Li Tingyan’s shoulder.

“Let me lean on you for a while,” he murmured.

Li Tingyan hugged him tighter.

“Okay.”