Ice Cream Cone (2/2)
“Mr. Gu,” Su Zesui asked timidly, “Do you want a drink?”
Following the boy’s gaze, Gu Yilan turned his head and saw a coffee shop directly across from them through the car window.
The trauma from coffee still hadn’t faded for Su Zesui. Just looking at it made him tremble again, his eyes darting around nervously. But his small hands gripped his seatbelt, as if to say—if you say yes, I’ll go.
“Want something to eat instead?” Gu Yilan raised his hand and pointed to the ice cream shop next door.
Outside that shop stood a giant, kawaii-style ice cream statue. One glance at it was enough to completely distract Su Zesui.
His eyes lit up, and the trembling stopped. He nodded enthusiastically.
He loved ice cream, but because he rarely went out, he’d almost never had a real cone—only those frozen bars that kept well for a long time. Now, with Gu Yilan by his side, he could finally enjoy a proper cone in peace.
“And then…” Su Zesui asked again, “Where to?”
“The last stop,” Gu Yilan said as he opened the car door, giving the butler a glance that told him to wait outside.
The butler had no idea what his boss was thinking, but still obeyed and stood outside, waiting quietly for the two.
Su Zesui had never been this happy. A bright, genuine smile lingered on his face the whole time.
As long as he happily finished a big, sweet cone at the ice cream shop… he would pass the challenge.
Marriage… marriage…
It was the height of summer, and the line at the shop was long. Hiding behind Gu Yilan’s tall figure, Su Zesui still felt his social anxiety flare.
Gu Yilan first brought him to a seat in the waiting area.
Seeing the boy obediently take the innermost corner seat, Gu Yilan asked, “What do you want to eat?”
“Strawberry ice cream… jam sundae… strawberry milkshake…” Su Zesui looked at the menu. “And… marshmallows, chocolate, and cookie crumbles.”
Gu Yilan: …
“You can’t have too much,” he said, frowning slightly. Then he shifted gears: “Do you remember what I taught you in the car earlier?”
Su Zesui thought hard, counting on his fingers as he recited, “No bowing, no apologizing.”
Gu Yilan gave a quiet grunt. “What else?”
Su Zesui made a little hand gesture near his ear and obediently replied, “Call someone.”
“Mm.” Gu Yilan straightened up and glanced toward the line. “Wait here.”
Su Zesui nodded vigorously, watching the man walk away to queue up for him. His heart felt full—tight with emotion.
He couldn’t quite tell one emotion from another, so he rubbed his chest gently with a hand.
His bat, sunglasses, and mask had all been confiscated by Gu Yilan. Now, all he could rely on was his own willpower—and the emotional support that the man nearby gave him—to endure sitting among the crowd. His curled lashes trembled faintly.
But because his face was too striking, it wasn’t long before two guys who had just entered approached to strike up a conversation.
“Hey, are you alone? Waiting for your order?” one of them, a trendy guy in streetwear, greeted him.
The other seemed to be his friend. He slung an arm over the first guy’s shoulder and added playfully, “Can we add you on WeChat?”
The shop was noisy, so the two spoke loudly to be heard—making their voices feel like a direct attack on Su Zesui’s ears, triggering his social anxiety hard.
Instinctively, he searched for Gu Yilan in the crowd—but quickly remembered he was still in line.
So, stiff as a board, Su Zesui forced himself to lift his head and gave a tiny wave of his hand.
——Don’t bow, don’t apologize. That’s what Gu Yilan had taught him.
But the two guys were clearly outgoing extroverts. Even after the gentle rejection, they tried to win him over: “We don’t mean anything weird. You just seemed cool, so we wanted to make friends.”
“I invested in this ice cream shop too,” one of them laughed. “Figured I could get a little feedback while I’m at it. Kill two birds with one stone.”
Gu Yilan hadn’t taught him how to deal with this kind of overwhelmingly friendly approach.
Su Zesui’s soft lips parted slightly, his gaze unfocused, eyes fixed on an invisible spot on the table. Underneath it, his small hands clutched the hem of his shirt, palms drenched in sweat.
——What should he do now? What to do? Should… should he call someone?
He always spoke slowly. And when it came to anything social, his thoughts were even slower.
During the one or two minutes he stayed silent, the two boys had already understood his meaning. They let out a cheerful laugh to ease the awkwardness and said, “It’s okay if you don’t want to add us. But you really are super cute—I’m sure more people will like you in the future. Sorry to bother you.”
“Bye-bye,” the other boy waved and added politely, “Hope you have a great day.”
Su Zesui stared blankly at their backs as they walked toward the line.
He wiped the sweat off his palms onto his clothes and gave his soft, squishy cheek a disbelieving pinch.
——Was he… cute? Would many people really like him?
——Really?
——…Would Gu Yilan think he was cute too?
——Would someone like him?
——Was it true?
In all his life, Su Zesui had never been complimented like this. He hadn’t even encountered strangers this kind. He never imagined someone he didn’t even know would wish him a “happy day.”
It was the first time—enough of a shock to throw his heart out of rhythm and scatter his thoughts.
His eyes looked distant as he recalled what the two boys had said. He kept rubbing at his fair cheeks while his heart thumped wildly.
When Gu Yilan returned, the sight he walked into was this:
The boy’s ears were flushed red, and the cheek he was touching had been pinched so much it looked feverishly warm. No one knew what he was thinking about—he was just smiling to himself like a fool.
Gu Yilan waved a hand in front of his eyes.
“Th-Thank you,” Su Zesui snapped back to reality and stood up, both hands taking the strawberry ice cream Gu Yilan handed him.
“I packed up the rest. You can eat it later,” Gu Yilan said, his voice oddly hoarse.
“You’re not eating any?” Su Zesui asked.
“I don’t like sweets,” Gu Yilan said, jerking his chin toward the store entrance. “You go first.”
Su Zesui didn’t notice anything unusual. He was ridiculously happy, practically skipping as he walked. Every few steps, he’d turn back to glance at Gu Yilan, visibly in a great mood.
Once they got into the car, he couldn’t stop himself from lifting his small hand and gently covering his soft lips, eyes crinkling with joy.
“You’re that happy?” Gu Yilan handed the packed ice cream to the butler and looked at the boy.
His brows were lowered, voice low and rough, with none of his usual teasing tone.
“Happy,” Su Zesui answered obediently, unaware of anything off.
He licked the strawberry ice cream, feeling like sweetness was spreading through his whole body.
Gu Yilan said nothing else but kept his promise—not taking him anywhere else and driving straight back to the villa.
Once home, Gu Yilan went up to the second-floor study to deal with his mountain of pending work.
Su Zesui happily returned to his room, rolling around on his bed, trying to calm his bubbling emotions.
——Maybe he was cute.
——Maybe Gu Yilan would like him. Maybe they’d get married.
——Right?
Once he had calmed down a bit and was about to get back to studying biology competition material, his phone buzzed—it was a WeChat message.
[Big Brother: When are you coming home?]
Lying on the soft, fluffy bed, Su Zesui poked at his phone with two fingers, slowly typing.
[(o^^o): Not coming home]
[Big Brother: Still playing with your brother, huh? Gu Yilan just told me last night—you’ll be home in a day or two.]
[Big Brother: Tell me the exact time. I’ll come pick you up.]
Su Zesui’s hands froze on the screen.
Since his fingers had stayed still for so long, WeChat even popped up an emoji preview.
When Su Zesui saw those two seemingly ordinary WeChat messages, all the blood in his body instantly ran cold. His once-excited heart suddenly sank into silence.
What did that mean… “Gu Yilan said last night that he’ll be back in a couple of days”?
——He said that last night?
Su Zesui instinctively sensed that something had gone terribly wrong, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.
His mind was a complete mess. Uneasy and confused, he didn’t even have the energy to reply to his brother’s message. Instead, he anxiously opened the chat with the one person he saw as the most trustworthy and dependable—Uncle Butler—hoping to find some sense of safety there.
After all, Uncle Butler had always encouraged him, giving him hope to hold on.
[(o^^o): Uncle, I made it back. Can I marry Mr. Gu now?]
On the other end, the butler had just found a moment to rest. When he saw the message, he felt helpless and full of sorrow.
Back when he saw little master Su happily return to the car with an ice cream in hand, he already knew it was over. Completely over.
Young Master Gu no longer intended to make the boy give up indirectly—he was now going to reject the marriage himself, the hardest way possible. No matter how hard the boy tried to overcome his fear of people, it wouldn’t change the outcome.
[AAA Butler: I’m sorry, little master.]
He didn’t know what else to say—he could only try his best to offer comfort.
[AAA Butler: Young Master Gu has his own reasons… Maybe, possibly, he might not be able to marry you… Don’t be sad…]
With a soft “plop,” Su Zesui’s phone fell onto the bed. He couldn’t bear to read the rest of the comforting words. It felt like something had snapped in his mind.
Even if he was slow and unfamiliar with the ways of the world, he understood what Uncle Butler meant.
——No, no, no—something’s wrong. This isn’t right. It’s not supposed to be like this…
Su Zesui’s mind went blank. He sat stiffly for a while, then picked up his phone again in disbelief, exiting the chat with the butler.
He was completely lost, unsure of who to turn to or how to change the situation.
But since it was a new account, his WeChat contact list was extremely limited. As soon as he left the specific chat window, he suddenly remembered that pitch-black profile icon once in his friend list.
In times of hardship, people often turn to the mystical for help—but right now, Su Zesui felt as though he were falling into a bottomless abyss.
In a flash, he remembered the curse from the fortune teller named “Uncle Period”—
[I bet you and him will never get married.]
That sentence was like the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
Su Zesui felt a cold sensation on his cheeks. When he reached up to touch it, his fingers found a string of tears—cold, and chilling to the bone.
(╥﹏╥)
Ying ying ying