After My Rebirth, My Husband Pampers Me Everyday!

Chapter 166: Shallow reasons

ShangYan was gleeful on the inside. You’re here. After all these years, you’re actually standing in front of me. He held the hug a beat too long before catching himself and stepped back, giving Guiying a smile that felt steadier than he was.

Guiying shifted, uncomfortable. The hug had lasted too long, and he dropped his hands awkwardly to his sides.

ShangYan noticed, and his smile softened. Don’t scare him off now. Guiying caught that look and paused for half a second, something in his face stilling.

"Of course," Guiying said, reaching for his cup. "I should be leaving now."

Not yet. ShangYan’s mind scrambled for a second, searching for anything that would keep him in the chair. He couldn’t say stay because you’re my son. That would send him running. His eyes flicked to the portrait on the wall, then back to Guiying. Isabelle. Yes. Talk about Isabelle.

He spoke before he could second-guess it.

"No. Before you go, there’s something about your mother I think you should hear."

Guiying smiled, setting his cup down. "Uncle ShangYan, is there a specific reason you asked to see me?" His eyes moved around the room once before settling back on ShangYan’s face. "The reasons you’ve given me are quite shallow. I don’t know what you want from me yet, and frankly I’m not comfortable being in this house." He reached into his bag and took out his phone. "I’ll leave my number though. If you need anything, you only have to call."

ShangYan’s expression shifted. The warmth stayed in his face but something underneath it pulled tight, his hands stilling on the table, his eyes following Guiying as he stood.

Guiying noticed. He couldn’t make sense of it, the reluctance sitting so plainly on his uncle’s face, the way ShangYan looked at him like he was something he wasn’t ready to let out of the room. It made no sense. They had never met before today. His father had never mentioned ShangYan, not once, and ShangYan had clearly not reached out to his older brothers, so why him, why now, why this particular heaviness in a man who had no reason to feel it.

He set his number on the table and picked up his bag.

ShangYan rose from his chair.

He walked Guiying back through the corridor, past the ink wash paintings and the orchid on the console table, through the entrance doors and out into the pale morning light, and down the short path to where the Lexus sat at the end of the road with Tao Lingyue waiting beside it. He walked the whole way without speaking, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes forward, and Guiying walked beside him and said nothing either because the silence between them had a quality to it that didn’t need filling.

They stopped at the car.

Guiying turned to face him, hand on the door.

ShangYan looked at him for a moment. Then, with the particular expression of a man who knew he was about to ask for something he had no real right to ask for and was going to ask for it anyway, he said, "May I hug you again?"

Guiying looked at him.

The hope sitting in ShangYan’s face was unguarded and quiet, the kind that didn’t perform itself, and Guiying stood with his hand on the car door and looked at his uncle and felt that inexplicable familiarity press against his chest again, the same way it had since he walked through the door, and found he couldn’t say no.

He stepped forward and let ShangYan put his arms around him.

ShangYan held on for a beat longer than he should have, his eyes closed, something in the set of his shoulders going very still, before he caught himself and stepped back. His smile when he looked at Guiying was steadier than the rest of him.

Guiying dropped his hands to his sides, shifted slightly, and got into the car.

The Lexus pulled away from the building and through the gate and back onto the street, and ShangYan stood where he was and watched it go.

Tao Lingyue stepped up beside him.

ShangYan kept his eyes on the road where the car had disappeared.

"My son is lovely, isn’t he?" His voice was quiet, almost to himself. "He’s grown into a fine young man." A pause, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Though I’m a little saddened that he’s already married. That brat Liu stole him right from under my nose." He looked at the empty road a moment longer. "Seeing him in person, he’s a spitting image of Isabelle. Those eyes, clear as the ocean. Untainted, despite everything he’s been through. Such strong will." He exhaled slowly. "It’s a shame to have missed his growing years. I know my son would have been a very cute child." Something settled in his face, soft and private. "I hope that silly older brother of mine took pictures, because I will be requesting every single one of them when I tell the world he is my son."

Tao Lingyue said nothing, standing at his side with his hands clasped in front of him, looking at the same empty road.

ShangYan turned and walked back toward the building, and the gate swung shut behind him.

The Lexus pulled into the driveway and Guiying sat for a moment with the engine off, looking at the front of the house through the windshield.

He had driven around for twenty minutes after leaving ShangYan’s building, turning possibilities over: a gallery district he’d been meaning to visit, a market someone had mentioned once, a stretch of old hutong streets he’d photographed in his head a dozen times without ever going. None of it pulled strongly enough. His mind kept returning to the art room — the light table glowing soft and even, the empty shelves waiting, the darkroom door standing slightly ajar.

He got out of the car and went inside.

Uncle Wang appeared in the entrance hall. "Welcome home, Master Xue. Will you be needing lunch?"

"Later," Guiying said, already heading for the stairs. "I’ll be in the art room."