Aze looked at the door curtain, his face tensed. He stood there quietly for a long time before he finally turned around and headed back. “Let’s go, I’ll teach you how to make oil lamps.”

Azhang sighed secretly in his heart. At first, he thought that Chen Qi’s plan was quite good, so he helped the other party hide it from Aze. But now, seeing Aze’s expression, he probably let his imagination run wild and ran himself into a dead end, right? It seemed it was necessary to remind Chen Qi not to go too over the top with things. Once the plan was revealed, it was still possible to move forward.

When Chen Qi came back, Aze had already gone to sleep. This was the first time Chen Qi saw Aze fall asleep in advance without waiting for him. Although the distance between their few houses was very close, when Chen Qi came back in from the outside, he still brought a chill in with him. He threw a few pieces of firewood into the fire to make it grow bigger, and it wasn’t until his body was nicely warmed up from the fire that he took off his fur coat and climbed into the bed.

Before, Aze had replaced the two fur blankets for one that was big enough to cover a pair of grown men, which he’d secretly requested Ali make for them. But tonight, the man had actually reverted back to the single-person quilts.

Recalling Azhang’s words of advice, Chen Qi stopped in his movements to get into the quilt. “Aze, are you angry?”

Aze had his back turned to Chen Qi, so Chen Qi could not see the other’s expression and couldn’t tell if he was really asleep or just pretending to be. Chen Qi climbed into bed, and propped half of his body up against Aze. Feeling the familiar warmth near him. Aze’s eyelashes moved unconsciously. Chen Qi chuckled lightly and proceeded to get out of bed to Aze’s room and retrieved the big quilt that had been replaced. When the quilt was warm from the fire, he then replaced the two single-person blankets atop the bed on the fire keng.

Aze let Chen Qi continue his actions, and with his stiff body, he continued pretending to be asleep.

Chen Qi got into bed after he finished fixing the situation with the fur blankets. This time he didn’t hold Aze’s hand. Instead, he moved his hand over Aze’s lean waist, where the lines were tight and the skin felt nice to the touch. Chen Qi could not help but linger for a bit and ate a few handfuls of tofu*. He felt Aze’s body get more and more tense, and it wasn’t until he pretended to be about to wake up before the hand stopped.

*eating tofu = taking advantage of

Chen Qi chuckled contentedly, leaned his head into the crook of Aze’s neck and half-wrapped Aze into his arms. The warm breath against his skin tickled Aze’s neck. “I’m sorry for causing you to misunderstand.”

Hearing Chen Qi’s words, Aze’s body moved.

“Originally I wanted to give you a surprise when I got it all ready. I didn’t expect my first time doing something like this would fail so hard.” Chen Qi recalled a colleague of his who had set up candles in the shape of a heart in the company lobby in order to propose to his girlfriend. He had held a handful of red roses in his arms, and in the midst of the crowd trying to leave at the end of the work day, he blocked the doorway and loudly yelled for the girl to marry him. At that time, Chen Qi had felt that this kind of behavior was quite ridiculous, but he still remembered the girl’s smiling expression as she happily agreed.

Unexpectedly, when it was his turn to try this kind of grand action, he ended up falling pretty short. His ideal proposal scene was to prepare a delicious meal on a sunny day, half kneeling in front of the other with a ring, and then asking him if he would marry him. Not in this setting where the two of them were lying in bed where the other man was even angry at him.

However, Chen Qi hadn’t wanted Aze to misunderstand. He had done those things without telling him in order to make the man happy. It had not been his intention to upset him in the course of trying to make him happy.

After thinking about it, Chen Qi became a little nervous. He sat half-propped up and straightened the expression on his face. Then he asked, sincerely, “Aze, would you be my mate? To be with me, the two of us, for the rest of our lives?”