Chapter 2: The Older Lover – 2: Don’t Call Me Young Master

A thin, frail youth poked his head out and stared at Luo Yan, showing no intention of opening the door and letting him in right away.

Meanwhile, the two men tailing Luo Yan were climbing the stairs step by step, only a few meters away now.

Luo Yan looked at the youth: “Young Master—”

Before he could finish, the youth opened the door and said in a low voice: “In.”

Luo Yan hopped inside like a rabbit.

The old security door clanged shut.

Still in his school uniform, the youth stood in the narrow entryway, staring at Luo Yan, every line of him on guard.

His hair clearly hadn’t been trimmed in ages. Choppy and tangled, it covered his eyes and half his face, making his already bloodless complexion look even gloomier.

Luo Yan looked at the boy before him, caught two breaths, and had no spare attention for small talk; he spun around and pressed his eye to the peephole.

In the dim light outside, he could make out two bearded, rough-faced middle-aged men cursing up a storm.

One of them actually came over to kick the door, but the other held him back, muttering something like forget it, it’s not like we’d be short one victim.

After cursing filthily for a good while, the two finally left.

Only then did Luo Yan let out a long breath.

He steadied his breathing and slowly turned around.

“Eldest Young Master?”

The youth said woodenly: “My name is Yan Qinghan. Not ‘Eldest Young Master.'”

Luo Yan figured the boy simply didn’t want to be addressed as “Eldest Young Master,” so he went along: “Thank you, Young Master Qinghan. I’m the new steward from the Yan family. My name is Luo Yan.”

“Right, I’ve brought you some Mid-Autumn gifts…”

As he spoke, the flush on his face, raised by the sprint and the scare, still hadn’t faded; if anything, it made his already fair skin look whiter than snow.

Yan Qinghan stood across from him, regarding the “Mid-Autumn Gift” Luo Yan had set on the floor with cold eyes. He didn’t bend down to inspect it, didn’t thank him. He only said: “Oh.”

Luo Yan remembered the Old Steward’s instructions and hurried to add: “Yes, these were all sent at Mr. Yan’s request. He also said he’d originally wanted to invite you home for dinner, but with so many people in the house, he was worried you wouldn’t be comfortable…”

Yan Qinghan’s mouth twitched: “You’re new?”

Luo Yan said: “Yes…”

Yan Qinghan said: “Then thank Uncle Zhang for me. He went to the trouble.”

The Old Steward’s surname was Zhang, so this “Uncle Zhang” had to be him.

Hearing that, Luo Yan understood at once: the boy hadn’t believed a single word he’d said.

Fine, let him not believe. It wasn’t as if Luo Yan wanted to make excuses for that trash dad anyway.

Just then, a line of text surfaced in Luo Yan’s mind:

[Main Quest Progress: Mid-Autumn Gift delivered to the Yan Family’s Eldest Young Master, Yan Qinghan.

Please follow the plot and get Yan Qinghan to eat the Mid-Autumn Gift.]

[Hint: Main Quest is now past the halfway mark. Progressing smoothly! Points Reward Channel unlocked. New Points earned: 500]

Whoa!

Great progress! Five hundred Points right out of the gate!

Keep in mind, 100 Points bought one use of the “Fleet-Footed” skill, and 200 was enough for one round of “Huaxia Kung Fu,” enough to knock those perverts outside sprawling and leave them spitting teeth!

Seeing progress and rewards like this, Luo Yan’s heart lightened considerably; all that earlier tension and unease melted away.

Next, all he had to do was talk Yan Qinghan into eating what he’d brought, and the Main Quest should be complete.

Though Luo Yan had no idea what was actually in the box, it was a Mid-Autumn gift. There had to be mooncakes, right?

So Luo Yan eyed the box on the floor and smiled politely: “Let me get these unpacked and put away for you.” Once everything was put away, he’d just take out a mooncake, unwrap it, and hand it over.

Only then did Yan Qinghan glance at the things on the floor. “No need. I can do it myself.”

Luo Yan hurried to say: “Please, let me. Weren’t you in the middle of studying? I’ll handle it.”

Yan Qinghan didn’t stop him again. He only said, “Thanks for the trouble,” then walked back to the writing desk, sat down, opened his workbook, and resumed his problems.

Only when Yan Qinghan moved did Luo Yan notice how the blue-and-white school uniform billowed on the boy’s frame in loose waves. He was so thin his clothes barely hung on him.

This build looked nothing like what a boy his age should have; he was far shorter than his half-brother, who was half a year younger.

Could it be that in his years living alone, Yan Qinghan hadn’t been eating well? Falling behind on nutrition?

Speculating to himself, Luo Yan carefully surveyed the room, wondering where he could put these things.

The room was tiny, a studio of about thirty square meters. At the far end, a single wooden bed stood against the wall, made up with thin bedding, and a cotton blanket, equally thin, folded into a neat square.

The sheets and covers were old, but all of them clean.

Beside the head of the bed was an old-fashioned writing desk, where Yan Qinghan now sat hunched over his problems in the room’s only chair with a back.

Next to the desk stood an ancient wardrobe, obviously a relic from a decade or more ago.

The room connected to a bathroom, but there was no separate kitchen, only a sink by the entrance on the right, with a rice cooker, a kettle, and the like on the counter beside it.

Surveying the furnishings, Luo Yan concluded that the only place anything could be stored was the cabinet under the counter.

So he carried the box over, tore off the plastic tape, and started taking things out.

But the moment he opened the box, Luo Yan went blank.

He had assumed that a “Mid-Autumn Gift” would contain mooncakes and fruit, ready to eat straight out of the box.

Instead, this heavy box held a bag of vacuum-packed new rice, a bag of golden millet, a bundle of dried vermicelli, and assorted dried mountain goods: shiitake mushrooms, wood ear, and the like.

This… how was Yan Qinghan supposed to eat this? Chew on a dried mushroom as-is?

But if Yan Qinghan didn’t eat it, how was today’s Main Quest supposed to be completed?

While Luo Yan stood there dumbfounded, Yan Qinghan’s pen stopped on the other side of the room:

“Just leave it there.”

“Also, I heard the robbers might set up an ambush by the neighborhood gate. Find yourself a spot and sit a while. Don’t head out right away.”

Luo Yan answered on reflex: “I haven’t put anything away yet. I was going to pour out the rice, only I couldn’t find your rice bin anywhere.”

Yan Qinghan, pen in hand, took several seconds before answering: “There’s no rice bin.”

Luo Yan said: “No rice bin? Then where do you keep the rice?”

Yan Qinghan answered vaguely: “Wherever.”

Only then did Luo Yan understand: it wasn’t just that there was no rice bin. There was… probably no rice at all.

He didn’t dare ask further. He examined everything above and below the counter with care: pots, bowls, pans; then half a bag of salt, a bag of sugar, some dried chilies, half a bottle of soy sauce.

Other than that, a dried-out, rock-hard mantou sat in the rice cooker.

That was everything the “kitchen” contained. Not even a bottle of cooking oil.

Luo Yan scratched his head and quietly asked the System:

“System, how does Yan Qinghan have no food at all here? Doesn’t that trash dad of his give him living expenses?!”

Until now, Luo Yan had assumed Yan Qinghan had merely been kicked out to live alone and had to manage his own daily life. He’d never imagined the boy’s living conditions would be this bare, this destitute.

The System checked the records:

[Sigh. That fortune-telling master said that if Yan Shi gave Yan Qinghan money, it would count as a leak in the wealth luck, and no amount of patching could fix it.]

[So from three years ago, when Yan Qinghan moved out on his own, Yan Shi hasn’t given him a single cent of living expenses.]

Luo Yan was floored: “But Yan Qinghan is only seventeen! He was fourteen three years ago! How is he supposed to live with no allowance!”

The System said:

[He works part-time at a convenience store and a supermarket, then buys the cheapest mantou for dinner and breakfast.]

[As for lunch, he eats the student meal at school, the kind with free refills and all-you-can-take free soup. Barely enough to fill him up.]

Luo Yan took a long moment to recover, then said, half consoling himself: “Well, at least his dad is still paying his tuition.”

System: [As if!]

[Yan Qinghan studies on scholarships and pays his own fees with his part-time wages.]

[Put it this way: since he was kicked out, his dad hasn’t spent one cent on him.]

Luo Yan: “…Holy. Crap.”

“Doing this, doesn’t his dad worry about the women’s federation, the neighborhood committee, or the police showing up at his door?”

The System glanced at the records again:

[Host, you’re overthinking it.]

[This Small World’s timeline is set around the Blue Star’s 1990s. There’s no such thing as a well-developed minor-protection system here.]

[Things like this are all lumped together as ‘family matters.’ Nobody lifts a finger.]

Luo Yan raised his head and looked at Yan Qinghan, scribbling away under the lamp, his gaze turning complicated.

Only moments ago he’d been wondering how Yan Qinghan could be so thin, a whole head shorter than his younger half-brother. Now, looking at the boy’s “dinner,” he understood immediately.

At the age when a boy most needed to grow, his meals morning and night were two mantou, and he had to work part-time, attend classes, and fight for scholarships on top of it: surviving was already an achievement, so where would spare nutrients for growing taller come from?

Just as Luo Yan was thinking this, Yan Qinghan’s stomach let out a couple of loud growls.

He was still only a child after all. At the sound, embarrassment finally got the better of him; he set down his pen and pressed a hand over his stomach, as if he could smother the noise that way.

But covering it with a hand was useless.

Yan Qinghan’s stomach growled louder than ever.

Hearing it, and thinking of his Main Quest, Luo Yan instantly had a plan.

He stuffed the bag of rice under the counter, stood, and asked in a tone of consultation: “Young Master Qinghan, I’m worried those two might keep watch outside all night. It may not be easy for me to leave for a while.”

That was, of course, a lie. The current Luo Yan, with a healthy balance of Points in hand, had nothing to fear from two perverts.

Yan Qinghan said: “At eleven, the nearby factories change shifts. It gets noisy outside, and security patrols this area. Robbers won’t dare show themselves then. You can wait until then.”

Luo Yan scratched his head: “It’s not even nine yet… When the Old Steward sent me over, I left in such a hurry I haven’t had dinner.”

Yan Qinghan said nothing.

Luo Yan asked in the softest voice he could manage: “So… could I eat something here?”

Yan Qinghan’s voice was hard and cold: “…There’s a mantou in the pot.”

Luo Yan hadn’t expected the boy to think of sharing his own nearly nonexistent rations, and quickly found an excuse to decline: “No, no. My stomach’s weak. I can’t eat mantou.”

“Luckily there’s new rice in what the Old Steward sent. How about I cook some porridge?”

Pen still in hand, Yan Qinghan lowered his head and returned to his problems, answering with a single word: “Suit yourself.”

Luo Yan knew that meant yes.

He rinsed the rice and got it boiling, heated some water in the kettle, dug a lunch box out of the pots and pans, and dropped a handful of dried shiitake into it.

Once the water was about the right temperature, he poured enough warm water over the mushrooms, added a little white sugar, clamped the lid on, and shook the box with all his might.

It was a “quick-soak trick for dried mushrooms” he’d learned long ago. Who knew he’d get to use it in a Small World?

About two minutes later, the mushrooms were softened. Luo Yan soaked some wood ear the same way, rinsed everything clean once it had rehydrated, sliced the shiitake, and tore the wood ear into small pieces.

Twenty minutes later, the porridge came to a boil. Luo Yan dropped in the mushroom slices to cook along with it and added a small spoonful of salt.

Stirring the porridge, he waited until the aroma rose and it looked about done, then boiled another kettle of water to blanch the wood ear. After its hot bath and a rinse of cold water, he plated it and drizzled soy sauce over top.

And just like that, the simplest mushroom porridge and cold-dressed wood ear salad were ready.

Luo Yan set the food on the counter and called over: “Young Master Qinghan, I made a bit too much… could you help me finish some?”

Truth be told, while Luo Yan cooked, he could see Yan Qinghan’s eyes drifting over this way the whole time.

And no matter how the boy covered his stomach with his hands, the rumbling wouldn’t stay hidden. It was nearly keeping pace with the bubbling of the porridge.

But now, the youth only pressed his lips together and didn’t speak.

Luo Yan knew the boy was embarrassed, so he added: “A whole pot like this would be such a waste if it didn’t get finished. This is fresh new rice, straight from the fields. It’s so fragrant.”

Yan Qinghan glanced again at the steaming porridge. His throat bobbed twice, and at last he rose from his chair.