𝐷𝑒́𝑝𝑎𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡「LCF x MDZS」

Chapter 9 - 『As The Winter Reigns』

"A-Cheng, Shijie. Madam Yu wants to talk to you."

Although Cale's name wasn't included, he let out a confused 'huh?' as he looked at Wei Ying who's in high spirits.

"You talked with A-Niang?!" Jiang Cheng screams, his worried expression masked with a scowling face.

Cale immediately twirls Wei Ying around, checking for any injury with a frown.

"I just talked with Madam Yu! Don't worry. She also apologized for her rash punishment."

Yanli just sighs before standing up, beckoning for Jiang Cheng to follow her.

"As long as everything is alright." Yanli says as she could see Cale also starting to stand up with an intention to follow the Jiang siblings.

Before Yanli could tease the redhead about his masked worry to them, Cale had already backed it up with a lie.

"A-Ying. Let's go take a walk at the river."

A preposterous lie for someone who claims to be too lazy to even lift a finger when he's cozy with his own chair.

Jiang Yanli just giggles at his eldest little brother while Jiang Cheng just scoffs.

"Double the layer of your clothes. It's chilly outside." Cale says as he looks outside the window.

The season of winter is starting soon, and the first snow will commemorate its beginning.

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Puffs of white smoke continued to come out from both Cale and Wei Ying's lips, the younger shivering the most despite Cale fattening him up with three, thickest layers of clothes.

"Gege...I can't move and it's cold even with all this clothes."

Wei Ying thinks his Xun-ge is exaggerating, but he didn't complain earlier when Cale was dressing him up because it feels nice to have the redhead worry about his well-being in the winter season.

Though Wei Ying is more worried when the redhead only wore one set of clothes, seemingly unbothered by the cold weather.

Wei Ying then hears a sigh coming from the redhead, before he could see Cale kneel and remove the two layers of the younger's clothes and drop it on the cold ground.

The younger shivered even more so, to the point that Wei Ying could just let his teeth chatter from the bitter cold.

Cale removes the outer robe of his hanfu, only leaving a white layer of the cloth before draping the robe to Wei Ying's small shoulders, the younger slowly ceasing to tremble.

The redhead let his lips curl up into an amused smile when he saw how big his robe is to his little brother.

"Do you still feel cold?"

Wei Ying blinks in confusion as he welcomed the warm feeling emanating from his gege's clothes.

"It's...warm..." Wei Ying says as he slowly snuggled to Cale's outer robe.

"I'm glad." Cale says and slowly stands up.

Wei Ying continued to snuggle to the robe that smells of sweet apples in autumn.

He doesn't have any fond memories of winter season, considering that he fought against the dogs and the bitter cold when he was still living in the slums.

To Wei Ying, winter to him is considered emptiness. While others may celebrate it like the family he sees in every warm house with a warm fire and candlelights, it just reminds him how painful it is and how hard the mantou he held for his life to survive.