MFW 16

Fortunately, Fu Xiaoting had a good personality and didn’t hold a grudge against him for the sneak attack. 

Breakfast was still a simple white rice. 

Li Fei watched Fu Siting chew, his chin resting on his hand. Actually, from the experience of feeding him lobster at the buffet that night and feeding him candy the next day, he had gotten the hang of the feeding game, and he wanted to feed Xiaoting now too. 

But he restrained himself and put on an elegant demeanor. 

One cannot. 

At least shouldn’t… sneak attack someone and then do whatever one wants. 

After finishing eating, Li Fei asked Fu Siting, “What are your plans for today?” 

Fu Siting looked at him blankly. What plans could an amnesiac patient in the recovery period have? 

“How about we go shopping together?” 

Li Fei genuinely thought shopping was a good choice. Whether it was to start raising Xiaoting again, to have it as a “first date” to deepen their understanding of each other, or just to go to familiar streets and shops to see if they could find some memories— shopping was suitable, right? And it wasn’t tiring. 

Half an hour later, the two got ready and went out. 

Fu Siting secretly glanced at Li Fei. 

For so many days, he had only seen Li Fei in suits and bathrobes. 

But today, Li Fei was dressed very casually. 

He wore a simple white cotton T-shirt, a long, metal chain in a steampunk style hanging from his collarbone, paired with black casual pants with slightly rolled-up cuffs and sneakers. He also wore a baseball cap, the brim pulled down slightly, giving him a casually cool look. 

Why do some people look good in anything? 

Fu Siting looked at himself. 

A black hoodie with an exaggeratedly huge cat print, the cat’s eyes still sparkling, paired with ripped jeans. Trendy shoes with studs, and an oversized pair of aviator sunglasses. 

If this wasn’t actually a new piece of clothing in his closet, and if Li Fei hadn’t insisted that he “wear this,” Fu Siting really… this style was too bizarre. 

Was his personal style at twenty-eight years old really this advanced? 

Of course, Fu Siting didn’t know that although the clothes were in his closet and in his size, they weren’t necessarily picked out by him personally. For example, the outfit he’s wearing now was actually a gift from Yin Yihao, the boy with the tiger teeth, for his birthday last year. 

But the style of this gift is just too much like Yin Yihao’s; only Yin Yihao himself can pull it off. Twenty-eight-year-old Fu Siting simply accepted it politely and never wore it out. 

But sixteen-year-old Fu Siting doesn’t know this! 

Isn’t it fun to change your style occasionally? Li Fei thoroughly enjoyed the sights and quietly took several photos with his phone. 

… 

On the commercial street, shops lined up one after another. 

Everywhere you looked, huge shop windows displayed various fashionable items. Seeing Fu Siting’s dazzled expression, Li Fei smiled. 

“Let me take you to a shop first; you’ll definitely like it.” 

As soon as Fu Siting entered the shop, he saw several huge city skylines and fantastical spaceships made of Lego bricks. Behind them, rows of tall shelves were filled with all sorts of exquisite figurines. From castle music boxes to cool sports car models, from classic movie and anime characters to museum souvenirs… things that might seem a bit childish to kids are just right for adults. 

Li Fei looked at Fu Siting. 

Although Fu Siting often had a blank expression, his emotions were actually easy to read. For example, the blank look on his face right now was the same as when he silently looked up at the starry sky lamp that day. 

He was in a cat-like state, which meant he was very happy and excited. 

This store had two floors and a huge selection of LEGO and figurines. 

Fu Siting looked very carefully, his eyes earnestly exploring the details of building different models. Compared to single figures, animals, cars, rockets, etc., he had always preferred all kinds of large-scale, family-friendly building street scenes, a preference that hadn’t changed before or after his amnesia. 

“Like this one? Then buy it!” 

“…” 

Fu Siting’s reaction surprised Li Fei. 

Even though his gaze had lingered on the huge treehouse brick for so long, as soon as Li Fei mentioned buying it, he immediately ran away to look at another item. 

Li Fei wouldn’t let him off the hook: “You still prefer this one? We can buy them all.” 

“…” 

A shop assistant came over, and Li Fei pointed to a row of scene puzzles: “This one, this one, that one, and that one, except for the one in the middle that he didn’t look at, buy the rest.” 

He spoke in English, and sixteen-year-old Fu Siting’s English was pretty good, so he quickly stopped him: “No need, I already have… so many at home!” 

“…” 

“The ones at home are older models, these are newer models. You can buy whatever you like, we can fit them all at home.” 

“No need!” Fu Siting refused with difficulty, “I really have so many at home, I can’t play with them all!” 

Fu Siting was, after all, only sixteen years old, and he was dirt poor. Many wasteful behaviors made him feel like he was sitting on pins and needles deep down. 

However, at this moment, it wasn’t entirely a matter of whether he was willing to spend the money or not. 

Well, hadn’t he seen before that there was a special toy room at home? He later realized he was wrong. 

Not just one, but three whole rooms! 

Those three rooms… had a huge number of toys, especially Lego. There were huge space stations, complex pirate ships from the Caribbean, all kinds of castles and movie scenes, covering several entire walls. 

Not to mention the huge collection of exquisitely crafted, absolutely priceless figurines, there were just so many. 

He could never collect them all in his lifetime, so there was really no need to waste money buying new ones. 

Fu Siting sincerely pleaded this. 

But Li Fei still didn’t seem to understand, still smiling and coaxing him to buy whatever he wanted, saying everyone has hobbies, and giving him another room wouldn’t be too much. 

It was only at this moment that Fu Siting truly understood that the entire collection in those three rooms belonged to him. 

He pursed his lips, lowered his eyes, and didn’t know what to say. 

In just a few days, although he had personally experienced countless times how Li Fei, twelve years later, was spoiling him without any limits, didn’t the person being spoiled know how to restrain himself? 

At least with Fu Siting’s simple understanding at sixteen, no matter how rich he was, no matter how much his lover indulged him, three rooms full of toys was still too much, too wasteful of money. 

Fu Siting now genuinely wondered if he, at twenty-eight, had been spoiled rotten, spoiled to the point of being arrogant and forgetting his roots. 

Even with all that money, who could afford three rooms just for toys! In just twelve short years, has he completely forgotten the hardships of his youth and started squandering money so recklessly? 

Not to mention, Fu Siting has never forgotten that shortly after he woke up, someone told him to treat Li Fei well from now on and not to argue with him anymore. 

Twenty-eight-year-old Fu Siting is still arguing with Li Fei?!

What was he thinking? Had he really been spoiled rotten? How had he become so arrogant? 

… 

Fu Siting didn’t know; he couldn’t understand. His pale fingers clenched tightly. The image of twenty-eight-year-old Fu Siting suddenly ceased to be perfect, instead becoming questionable. 

… At this time, Fu Siting wouldn’t know that the excessive collection at home was actually the result of his revenge spending after becoming rich. 

Even Li Fei only discovered much later that Fu Siting wasn’t a particularly fanatical collector of figurines. 

Although he would buy things like a fanatic, he would often leave them in his room after buying them and never look at them again. He wouldn’t even unpack many expensive items. 

… The source of this revenge spending was an inescapable pain and lack. 

The one who wanted the toys wasn’t the current him, but the boy who once stood longingly in front of a shop window, only to leave silently, getting nothing in return. 

Later, that boy grew up and, through his own efforts and talent, finally achieved sufficient wealth. 

But at the same time, the desires that had been suppressed finally began to overflow like a flood. 

Only by excessively acquiring what he once desired could he briefly experience a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of being able to breathe again. 

But that painkiller always seemed temporary. 

As time passed, the emptiness returned, old wounds reopened, and he would start buying again. It was as if by desperately filling the void with material possessions, he could eventually mend the bottomless abyss in his heart. 

Li Fei silently indulged his buying spree. 

There were plenty of rooms at home; let alone two, ten or twenty, he could build as many as he wanted. If that wasn’t enough, he could simply buy him a few more houses. 

Li Fei genuinely didn’t mind Fu Siting’s occasional outbursts. 

Because if the debts of childhood could be even slightly compensated for by later material possessions, if doing so could alleviate even the slightest pain, then even if it was a bottomless pit, he hoped to fill it with as much as possible. 

At least it would lessen his pain. 

And actually… actually, Fu Siting hadn’t really gone on any more crazy buying sprees in the last few months, or even the last year. He didn’t know if he had forgotten, or if he had finally filled enough voids. Li Fei didn’t remind him. 

A black hole isn’t always a black hole. 

Life isn’t always hopeless. 

He was willing to silently indulge Fu Siting, gradually mending his past self through various excessive forms of compensation. 

He was also willing to give him all sorts of things to help him make amends—from limited-edition figurines to antique artworks, from expensive watches to rare books; material forms of love could also soothe the wounds in a lover’s heart to some extent. 

He genuinely hoped that Fu Siting would have more and break free from the shackles of the past as soon as possible. 

So he didn’t expect that Fu Xiaoting would refuse. 

Li Fei’s dark eyes stared fixedly at his amnesiac lover before him, and then he gradually realized that sixteen-year-old Fu Siting was not the young man who later became wealthy and could comfortably and vengefully make up for his past regrets. 

Sixteen-year-old Fu Siting was a boy struggling in the pain of deprivation. 

He was sensible, self-controlled, and calmly suppressing his emotions. He had nothing, and dared not have any desires. He had too many anxieties, so much so that the idea of ​​compensation felt somewhat terrifying to him. 

Suddenly receiving too much would only intensify his anxieties. 

For a moment, Li Fei was genuinely grateful for the roles he had played. 

Given his upbringing, he certainly couldn’t have immediately grasped the nuances of Fu Siting’s feelings. Fortunately, he had played a character similar to the sixteen-year-old Fu Siting; poor yet resilient, tormented by injustice, struggling painfully for most of the series. 

To prepare for this complex role, he read numerous books and simulated the character’s situation and emotions countless times in a rented, dark room. 

Only then could he begin to understand, even slightly, how difficult Fu Siting’s world was. 

“Then… let’s pick one today,” he said softly. “Just one to take home, okay? As a souvenir, something small is fine too.” 

“After all, O decided to start raising you from today.” 

“Let your brother give you your first little gift?” 

***

Author’s note: 

In *Interstellar*, love is the only thing that can transcend time and space, escaping the black hole.

In reality, twenty-eight-year-old Fu Siting had already bought enough; and Li Fei has almost finished covering the rest for him. Let’s congratulate Xiaoting.