Chapter 43 Perler Beads

Chapter 43: Perler Beads

The next morning when he woke up, Xiang Wei had completely forgotten about the shirt stays he was supposed to wear. Although the weather was hot, the air conditioning was on indoors, so he wore a short-sleeved shirt with the jacket he'd picked up yesterday over it, and a pair of shorts below—a pretty mismatched getup.

When Shen Jiyue walked out and saw him like this, he mentally scratched out his earlier guess that Xiang Wei might have fallen for someone at first sight and changed his style accordingly. He didn't bother asking why he was dressed that way—let him do what he wanted.

After breakfast, the two went their separate ways to handle their own stuff.

In the afternoon, Chang Hu came to visit with an apology gift.

"I'm really sorry. I didn't know that snake egg was placed there by you—I just grabbed it casually." That pink-haired guy looked even more subdued than usual, his tone heavy with remorse, and he looked genuinely sincere.

Xiang Wei accepted the gift, waved his hand, and generously said it was no problem. He invited him to stay for dinner, then led him over to see the snake egg.

"It's gotten so big!" Chang Hu exclaimed in amazement at the egg, which was much larger than when he'd found it. He really wanted to reach in and give it a poke to see if the texture felt different—after all, this was a sacred egg!

Unfortunately, the egg was securely protected inside the incubator, with Xiang Wei on one side and Shen Jiyue on the other watching him. He didn't have the nerve or the guts to take it out, so he could only look on obediently.

He'd been holed up at home for over half a month, waiting and waiting for news of the egg hatching. Seeing that his next work commitment was already here and he'd be busy soon, not sure if he'd still be around to see it hatch, he could only bring his apology gift and head over.

Of course, this time he'd called ahead before visiting, afraid of catching them at a bad time when they weren't home. But even after calling ahead, he still got a shock when he got there.

He'd mistaken someone the moment he walked in. Xiang Wei had been sitting with his back to him, wearing a blazer. He glanced over, thought it was Shen Jiyue, and called out.

But the person remained seated without moving. Chang Hu called again—still no response. He thought the guy was acting aloof, so he walked over and patted him on the shoulder. When he looked down, he met Xiang Wei's eyes.

Chang Hu: ???!!!

(；)

He nearly jumped out of his skin.

Since when does Xiang Wei wear suits? And at home, of all places. Chang Hu thought back to their previous meetings—that was totally not his style.

Looking more carefully, the clothes didn't fit quite right. Chang Hu raised an eyebrow and figured it out immediately—you two are so close you're sharing each other's clothes now!

Xiang Wei didn't realize Chang Hu was calling him until he was right next to him. He put down what he was doing, invited him to sit, and hurried off to get Shen Jiyue.

"What would you like to drink? Alcohol? Soft drinks?" Leaving Shen Jiyue to keep his friend company, Xiang Wei went to the fridge, opened it, and asked what they wanted, grabbing his own favorite drink first.

After chatting for a while, they all gathered around the snake egg. Chang Hu was a total newbie—the moment he saw the egg, he was amazed at how much it had grown and asked when it would hatch.

At that, Shen Jiyue and Xiang Wei both frowned, looking a bit worried.

Ever since learning that the snake egg belonged to Xiang Wei, they'd talked it over at home. By all logic, the egg should have hatched two weeks ago, yet for some reason there was still no sign of it hatching.

Every step of the process had been normal—red veins appeared early on, the egg got bigger in the middle stage, the veins disappeared at the beginning of the month, and occasionally they could see the little snake moving around inside. That's when Xiang Wei told Chang Hu the egg was about to hatch.

But another half month had passed, and the egg was still sitting there perfectly fine. If not for the little snake moving from time to time, and Xiang Wei's firm assurance that the egg was fine, Shen Jiyue would have thought they'd messed it up.

Compared to their worry, Chang Hu took it all in stride. In his mind, this snake egg was basically a Miao sacred relic. Since it was sacred, of course it was different from ordinary snake eggs—hatching after a few decades would be totally normal too.

He happily finished checking out the egg and got lucky enough to catch the little snake moving. Greatly astonished, he couldn't help but whoop and holler as he whipped out his phone to record a video—making the two "snake parents" next to him look pretty neglectful by comparison.

Shen Jiyue & Xiang Wei: If you'd seen it a million times and had your phone full of these videos, you'd be calm about it too.

The two watched indulgently as he finished recording and chattered on excitedly about how happy he was, taking the chance to share some little stories about the egg's development.

Chang Hu listened with rapt interest, put away his phone, and when he learned about their worries, he comforted them in turn: "Don't worry. This snake egg isn't ordinary—it's an egg Xiang Wei brought from home, so it's definitely different from other eggs! Normal babies are born after ten months, but Nezha took three years. It's like great talents maturing late—the later they come, the more extraordinary they are."

Xiang Wei glanced at him sideways—I've used that example too! Thinking about it, he figured it made sense. Let nature take its course. The egg looked perfectly healthy, full of life. Maybe it was just waiting for the right time to hatch.

So he calmed down as well, letting go of his last lingering worry, and joined in the laughter. Chang Hu was human too, and humans knew about raising children—which meant what Chang Hu said had merit. The logic checked out, and Xiang Wei nodded in reassurance.

Shen Jiyue found Chang Hu's words a bit far-fetched. What did it have to do with where the snake egg came from? An egg was an egg. But then he looked up and saw Xiang Wei's calm, composed expression, and paused.

He thought about it carefully. Xiang Wei had indeed told him a few days ago that the egg was fine. He'd been worried that the other was too fixated on the egg and would be devastated if something went wrong, so he'd taken him out for some fresh air.

He'd had the steward bring in a professional snake breeder to examine it, who said it looked very healthy, though an egg that never hatched could be dangerous.

Now another week had passed and the egg still hadn't hatched. Shen Jiyue was secretly anxious, but he kept watching Xiang Wei. Though the other showed some concern, he remained remarkably steady overall—not like someone who thought something was wrong with the egg.

He couldn't help but wonder—could snake eggs from different places really be that different? Xiang Wei was so confident, so it must be true.

And just like that, for no particular reason, all three of them—two humans and one snake—felt confident about the egg hatching.

After a pleasant dinner together, when they mentioned going out for a stroll, Chang Hu tactfully took his leave, not wanting to be a third wheel and choke on couple's affection.

Once he was gone, Xiang Wei discussed with Shen Jiyue where to go this time. They'd already walked through almost every nearby spot. Since they'd eaten early and it was still light out, they decided to venture a bit further.

Shen Jiyue took Xiang Wei to a perler bead shop that was all the rage lately, supposedly popular with young people. He figured Xiang Wei had never tried it, so it would be a good opportunity. Besides, perler beads were easy to pick up—you just needed patience and time, and those were two things they had in abundance.

When they arrived at the shop, it wasn't too crowded. Since they were beginners, they chose patterns with fewer colors and simpler outlines. Once they'd picked their designs, they sat down and started beading right away.

As it turned out, snakes were incredibly patient. From start to finish, Xiang Wei worked in complete silence, not even shifting in his seat. After finishing, while waiting for the staff to iron his piece, he wandered over to see how Shen Jiyue was doing.

Seeing that he was almost done too, Xiang Wei started looking for the next pattern to make. Flipping through the shop's designs, he felt none of them appealed to him.

Having finished his "appetizer" and now familiar with how perler beads worked, the snake wanted to challenge something more difficult. He was stumped because he didn't like any of the shop's designs—until he learned that custom designs were allowed. He let out a little cheer.

Good thing he'd brought his tablet. He pulled up a drawing he'd made yesterday and asked the staff if it could be made into a pattern. When they said yes, he watched eagerly as they worked, and finally walked away with a printed pixel grid, raring to go.

Shen Jiyue watched him bustle around, muttering with the staff, then happily return with his pattern. He didn't know what Xiang Wei was making this time, and didn't disturb him—he just picked a photo from his own album and started beading.

This time took much longer. The pattern was far more complex, with so many colored beads that Xiang Wei's eyes went cross-eyed. But he calmed himself down and slowly placed them one by one.

Time passed bit by bit. Heaven rewards the patient snake—finally, the last bead went down. He let out a breath and looked at the finished pattern with an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.

Yes! Finally done! He carefully pushed his chair back, stretched his arms and legs, pulled out his phone to snap several photos, then called a staff member over to take it for ironing.

His neck was a bit sore from looking down for so long. He rolled his head around in all directions, then grabbed his water bottle and chugged several big gulps. Such a shame it had no flavor. The snake had already had two bottles of soda during the day, so Shen Jiyue wouldn't let him have any more at night—only plain water.

He still craved something sweet, but the snake was thirsty, so he'd drink whatever was available. Water quenched thirst just fine.

He looked to his right—Shen Jiyue was also walking back, presumably having just finished and sent his piece off for ironing.

"What did you make?" he asked curiously, leaning over.

"A picture of you and the snake egg." Shen Jiyue opened his phone, and a photo he'd taken at some unknown time popped up. It showed Xiang Wei looking up with a smile at the camera, his finger resting on the incubator as if interacting with the snake egg.

Xiang Wei's eyes widened in surprise—clearly he hadn't known when Shen Jiyue had taken that photo. He felt a little happy and asked if it had been hard to make.

Shen Jiyue said it wasn't too bad—it had been pixelated, though it might not look quite like the original after ironing. Xiang Wei said that was fine and pulled out his phone to show him what he'd made.

"?" Shen Jiyue took one look and froze. The man in the image had long hair and wore flowing ancient robes—he looked strangely familiar.

Before Shen Jiyue could ask, Xiang Wei happily announced: "It's you! Look, and this is me!"

"?!" Shen Jiyue barely had time to be shocked that the ancient-robed man was really him when he followed Xiang Wei's pointing finger and saw a snake.

Xiang Wei continued, "How is it? Does it look like him? I've been drawing this for a long time, ever since I first started learning to draw. This is the best out of the three versions I've drawn."

The powerful beings from his clan that he used to dream about were mostly set in the Republican era, with some in ancient times and modern times. Only once did he dream of a scene on a mountain peak, where that long-haired man and a yellow companion that looked a lot like him appeared.

And now, for some reason, Xiang Wei dreamed of the person on that mountain peak every day. Although he would still forget what he looked like upon waking, the snake didn't care—he never remembered human faces in his dreams anyway.

Because he dreamed of him every day and grew familiar with him over time, his brushstrokes came more naturally as he drew. Before he knew it, Shen Jiyue's face appeared on the screen.

The snake was taken aback, but in his heart, he felt it was only natural.

==========Author's Note:==========

Made it in time for today's update! Darlings, tomorrow's update will also be a bit late—you can check back after 9 PM.

Snake (looking at the ancient-style Shen Jiyue drawn on the screen, scratching his head): The feeling is right!

Shen Jiyue (looking at the ancient-style version of himself and the snake version of Xiang Wei): My beloved loves snakes deeply.