Free Web NovelWhen the man in front of him said his name was Xi Heyan, Wen Yuzhi first thought he had misheard.
After all, there were plenty of people in the world whose names sounded the same.
Maybe their names were only pronounced similarly, or maybe they were homophones written with different characters...
But those two guesses became much less certain after Wen Yuzhi saw the shock that surfaced in the other man’s eyes with his own eyes.
Because Wen Yuzhi realized... when Xi Heyan heard his name, he, too, seemed a little surprised.
It was a look mixed with astonishment and sudden realization.
Xi Heyan seemed to want to take one more step to confirm something. Looking at Wen Yuzhi, he said, “I have a friend...”
Wen Yuzhi looked back at him and said quietly, “I have a friend too.”
“......”
At that point, both of their hearts gave a jolt.
The look in their eyes as they stared at each other seemed to be saying the same thing: what a coincidence, you have a friend too.
“...What’s your friend’s name?” Wen Yuzhi asked hesitantly.
Xi Heyan pressed his lips together. In a low voice, he said, “He told me his name was Wen Yuzhi. His parents gave him that name.”
Wen Yuzhi: “......”
Great. The last trace of doubt was gone at that moment.
Once every other possibility had been ruled out, the only thing left was the one truth Wen Yuzhi found hardest to believe.
Which was—
the person standing in front of him was the online friend he knew.
Silence spread through the air.
#What are you supposed to do when the friend you’ve only ever chatted with online suddenly meets you offline?#
Wen Yuzhi had never imagined something this dramatic would happen to him too.
He and Xi Heyan had already known each other back when he was still with the Wen family.
At the time, Wen Yuzhi had no real friends around him, and even his daily range of movement was restricted by the Wen family’s control. On top of that, all the miserable messes in the Wen household only made him more fed up.
Xi Heyan was the only person Wen Yuzhi could relax around and talk to openly.
Xi Heyan had nothing to do with the Wen family, and he never discussed gender or status with him. When talking to Xi Heyan, Wen Yuzhi did not need to worry about any of that chaotic nonsense.
And because they were only online friends separated by a great distance, he could complain to Xi Heyan without any reservations about all the awful things he had run into.
Every time, Xi Heyan would respond to him.
Back and forth like that, they gradually became more and more familiar with each other.
But until today, their relationship had still been limited to chatting online.
Wen Yuzhi had thought before that they might meet someday. If the chance came, he really did want to meet this friend of his. But for now, that had only been a thought.
What he had never expected, though... was that he would run into him here on Blackrock Star.
This meeting had come much sooner than Wen Yuzhi had imagined.
Even the place and the way they met were both so sudden and so completely without warning.
Maybe because his mind was full of other thoughts, when the white wolf tried to come over and keep acting spoiled, Wen Yuzhi seemed a little distracted too.
As he stroked the white wolf’s head, he secretly glanced at the man beside him.
Xi Heyan seemed very sensitive to other people’s gaze. The moment Wen Yuzhi’s eyes landed on him, the man at his side turned back as if he had sensed it.
The instant their eyes met, both Wen Yuzhi and Xi Heyan froze at the same time as they thought of who the other was.
“Cough...”
After coming back to themselves, the two of them awkwardly looked away.
“Well...”
“I...”
After quite a while, Wen Yuzhi had just opened his mouth when he realized Xi Heyan had spoken at the exact same time.
Their voices collided like that, then both fell silent at once.
The scene abruptly sank into a strange, eerie quiet.
An awkward atmosphere seemed to drift all around them.
After a moment of silence, Xi Heyan was the first to speak.
“How did you end up here?”
If he remembered correctly, Wen Yuzhi should have been staying safely at home right now, so how had he suddenly appeared on Blackrock Star?
“I was kidnapped.” Wen Yuzhi blinked. “Those people took me onto an unfamiliar warship. Later, I found a way to escape in an escape pod, but I ran into a stellar storm on the way. The pod got caught up in it and happened to crash here.”
“Little Shuang said you were rescued by Uncle Chong...”
“I was unconscious at the time. The hunting team found me, and the Uncle Chong you mentioned decided to bring me back.”
Even though he was talking about something very dangerous, Wen Yuzhi’s expression stayed calm.
Xi Heyan, however, frowned.
He had not expected Wen Yuzhi to run into one thing after another like that.
First kidnapping, then a stellar storm.
No wonder he had ended up on this planet.
“And you?”
Just as Xi Heyan was thinking that, he heard Wen Yuzhi ask him.
Actually, from Chong Fengshuang and Chong Fengxue’s attitude, and from that “Brother Yan,” it was already obvious that Xi Heyan had some connection to them.
And Xi Heyan’s answer confirmed it.
“I was born on Blackrock Star. Uncle Chong counts as one of my elders.”
As he spoke, Xi Heyan added, “I’m studying at the military academy on another planet right now. I only came back this time because of a few things.”
So the bits of school life he had mentioned while chatting had not been lies either.
Xi Heyan really had not been on Blackrock Star before this.
By the time he heard that much, there was nothing left Wen Yuzhi did not understand.
The Brother Yan Chong Fengshuang had mentioned earlier really was Xi Heyan.
And it was not that Xi Heyan was “gone” in the way Wen Yuzhi had thought, but that he was no longer on Blackrock Star—he had gone outside to study.
Xi Heyan had now come back because of something, and just happened to run into him here...
As everything clicked together at that moment, even Wen Yuzhi could not help feeling that this was far too much of a coincidence.
And Xi Heyan was thinking the same thing in his heart, wondering what kind of fate this was.
The entire interstellar world was so vast, yet by sheer chance, the escape pod Wen Yuzhi had been riding happened to fall on Blackrock Star, and he had also chosen this exact time to return there.
With all those coincidences piled together, they had ended up meeting offline without warning, in a way neither of them had ever expected.
Xi Heyan did not believe in so-called fate, but after learning Wen Yuzhi’s identity, beneath the surprise in the depths of his heart there was also a faint sense of relief he could not quite explain.
As for what exactly he felt relieved about, Xi Heyan could not work it out for the moment.
But after everything had been laid out clearly, the atmosphere between them gradually stopped feeling quite so stiff.
Wen Yuzhi simply began openly looking Xi Heyan over, from his hair to his eyes to his nose and mouth.
He studied every part of Xi Heyan’s face with open curiosity.
And under such an obvious gaze, Xi Heyan’s body stiffened for an instant, while a trace of tension suddenly rose in his chest.
“Is there something on my face?”
he asked.
Wen Yuzhi shook his head. “I just didn’t expect you to look like this...”
This was his first time ever meeting an online friend in person.
Before this, they had never exchanged photos, and based on the impression Xi Heyan gave in their chats alone, Wen Yuzhi had had no way of guessing what he actually looked like.
He had only thought, roughly, that Xi Heyan was a military academy student... so he must be tall, and his build probably would not be bad either.
And because Xi Heyan’s chatting style was a little cold and terse, with a tone that always felt fairly serious and proper, in Wen Yuzhi’s mind he had assumed Xi Heyan would probably look stiff and stern too.
But the reality was that Xi Heyan did not look like some rigid old-fashioned disciplinarian at all. On the contrary, he had an extremely aggressive face.
Sharp brows, bright eyes, deep-cut features.
And the most memorable thing about him was his eyes.
If you looked closely at Xi Heyan’s eyes, you would notice there was a hint of blue in them. That faint, ghostly blue spread through the heavy darkness, and under the reflection of the light, it looked like a single arc of light deep beneath the sea.
Very distinctive, and very beautiful.
Out of everyone Wen Yuzhi had ever seen, his father ranked first. Xi Heyan could probably take second place.
Yet compared with being good-looking, Xi Heyan felt Wen Yuzhi was still the best-looking one of all.
It was just...
“Your appearance...”
When Wen Yuzhi looked at him in confusion, Xi Heyan said, “The last time we did that video call, I saw what you looked like. But back then, you seemed a little older than you do now...”
If Wen Yuzhi before had looked like a slender, beautiful boy, then the Wen Yuzhi now was an even cuter version of that.
The kind that made people want to cherish him and protect him.
Even though the face was exactly the same, if Wen Yuzhi had not admitted it himself, Xi Heyan really would not have dared to be certain that he was the same boy as before.
“So when you were looking at me just now, you were curious about how I look now?” Wen Yuzhi tilted his head.
Xi Heyan noticed the glance Wen Yuzhi shot over. He coughed softly, then nodded.
“Yes.”
Actually, Wen Yuzhi did not really know how to explain it either.
His situation was something like reverse growth caused by his bloodline not having fully awakened before.
If he really tried to explain it, it would be troublesome.
It would very likely involve the special nature of royal blood too, so Wen Yuzhi only said vaguely, “This is temporary for now. After a while, I’ll change back.”
Maybe once his molting period ended, he would grow back to the way he was before.
Although Xi Heyan was still a little puzzled after hearing that, he did not keep asking.
Even between friends, conversations needed a sense of boundaries.
Not to mention that they had only just met in person.
Besides...
Xi Heyan glanced at the little boy standing beside him, who only came up to his waist.
The way Wen Yuzhi looked now...
Xi Heyan’s eyes darkened slightly. freewёbnoνel.com
There was no denying that Wen Yuzhi looked very cute like this.
After the slender, beautiful boy had become smaller, those originally exquisite, stunning features had turned youthful and soft as well.
That soul-stealing effect had lessened, replaced instead by cuteness.
Wen Yuzhi still had no idea that, in Xi Heyan’s mind, he had quietly gained yet another label: cute.
They were walking at the back of the group, and while they talked, without noticing it, they had already returned to the base.
Soon, another problem followed.
Before this, Wen Yuzhi had been staying in Xi Heyan’s room.
But now the room’s owner had returned.
And as the guest who had been occupying that room, should he keep staying there from now on?
