Lu Shian had intended to check out of the hospital first thing the next morning, but Lu Xuelan absolutely refused to allow it. She kept him there by force for another three days. It was only after the doctors repeatedly guaranteed that Lu Shian was fine that she finally let him leave.
During those extra days in the hospital, Meng Yu came by every night to help Lu Shian bathe and change. He occasionally ran into Jiang Yu or Lu Xuelan, but he never saw Doctor Song again. Whenever he was not on the night shift, he stayed behind to keep Lu Shian company.
Eventually, because of urgent company business, Lu Shian ended up leaving a night earlier than planned. Meng Yu had intended to ask for Lu Shian’s phone number before he left, but before he could even say goodbye, the man had vanished without a trace. The number in the hospital system belonged to Qi Lei, and the address provided was not Lu Shian’s private residence. For a figure like Lu Shian, private contact information and addresses are not easily disclosed.
Qi Lei handled the discharge procedures. When he came to Meng Yu for the final signatures, he relayed a message from Lu Shian. He asked for Meng Yu’s bank account details, stating he wanted to settle the fees for the bathing and overnight care provided over the past few days.
Meng Yu could not describe his feelings upon hearing this. He was caught between laughter and tears. Lu Shian truly only talked about money and never about feelings; he was determined to keep their relationship strictly transactional. Since Qi Lei insisted and Meng Yu did not want to make things difficult for him, he provided his account number.
Watching the SMS notification on his phone confirming a deposit of 500,000, Meng Yu let out a small tsk. Having money truly made one willful. He quickly opened the Loving Family WeChat group, tagged Mrs. Lin and Ms. Meng, and announced that dinner was on him tonight.
Back at the company, Lu Shian worked non-stop, remaining busy for an entire week before he finally caught a break. After work, he went to his private barbershop to have his hair washed before heading home. The doctor had instructed that the wound should not touch water, but he could not stand going to the office with hair that smelled, so he had them wash around the injury.
Upon arriving home, he went straight to his bedroom. Glimpsing the White Rabbit milk candy sitting on the table, he felt a strange impulse. Instead of going to bed, he pulled out a chair and sat down. He stared at the candy, lost in thought for about five minutes, before opening a drawer and pulling a photo from the very back.
He gripped the photo in his hand, his long, thick lashes trembling slightly as a hint of coldness seeped into his eyes. In the photo, Meng Yu was smiling happily. It was a side profile shot Lu Shian had taken secretly.
At that time, Meng Yu was only twenty-three, but he was already a doctoral student. Meng Yu was a typical top-tier student, having skipped multiple grades throughout his education. Lu Shian was not yet twenty-one and was a sophomore when they met during a volunteer outreach event at their university.
Lu Shian’s sexual awakening happened a month after meeting Meng Yu. Before that, he had never been in a relationship. Realizing he liked Meng Yu did not cause him panic; instead, he felt excited. There were other gay students at the school back then, though not many. He did not rush to confess. Instead, he subtly flirted, keeping things in a state of ambiguity.
They saw each other almost every day. No matter how busy Meng Yu was, he would find time to have a meal with Lu Shian. They spent hours on the phone every night saying goodnight. The two of them were more cloying than many couples in a passionate relationship. At the time, Lu Shian felt that Meng Yu liked him back. Though they never crossed the line, the intimacy between them was obvious to everyone. Lu Shian’s roommates often teased them. Meng Yu would only smile, never getting angry and never denying it.
Neither of them broke that window paper of silence until the night before Lu Shian’s twenty-first birthday. Ten minutes after Meng Yu sent him a goodnight message, Lu Shian could not help but text back. He still remembered what he wrote:
Brother Meng, tomorrow is my birthday. If I confess to you, please do not reject me, okay?
He had followed it with a pitiful-looking emoji. Back then, Lu Shian was soft-hearted and very good at acting spoiled.
After sending the message, Lu Shian’s heart was in his throat, but he did not have to endure a long wait. Meng Yu replied quickly:
I feel that a confession is something I should be the one to do.
Even now, Lu Shian could clearly recall his feelings upon seeing those words. It was a flutter of the heart mixed with a touch of unease, but mostly, it was an unspeakable joy. In this world, nothing is more beautiful than a mutual pursuit. Lu Shian had hidden under his covers, grinning like a blooming peony, unable to suppress his laughter.
No, I want to chase you. Let me do it. He replied two minutes later.
Meng Yu replied instantly: Okay.
Lu Shian could not contain himself at the time. He rolled back and forth on his narrow dormitory bed, making the wooden frame creak and thump. He was ruthlessly bombarded by his roommates several times that night.
On the night of his birthday, he invited his roommates and a few friends to go singing. He was prepared to confess to Meng Yu in front of everyone before the night ended. However, he was pressured into drinking a lot that night. In the end, he got completely drunk and was taken home by his cousin before he could carry out his plan.
The next morning, he woke up to find over a dozen missed calls and 99+ WeChat notifications. He ignored his headache and checked the missed calls first. They were all from his roommates. He did not call back but opened the WeChat messages in the roommate group instead.
He skipped straight to the first video, a mere five-second clip.
Inside an elevator, Meng Yu was passionately kissing someone wearing a red trench coat. The two were pressed together, inseparable. The video only captured their upper bodies. Meng Yu was facing the camera, while the person he was holding wore a hooded trench coat with the hood up, showing only their back. The video was clearly a candid shot taken just as the elevator doors were closing. Though blurry, it was unmistakable that the male protagonist was Meng Yu.
That video quickly made its way onto the school forums and bulletin boards, remaining at the top of the rankings for months. Meng Yu was the school’s recognized genius campus belle. Since he was not in a relationship, the sudden video of a passionate kiss made the entire school explode with gossip.
Lu Shian sat on his bed, numbly scrolling through the comments. There was everything imaginable, both good and bad, but most were speculations about the identity of the girl Meng Yu was kissing. Lu Shian could not bear to look any further. The impact of the video was too great. That red silhouette haunted his heart and mind, impossible to shake.
He opened his chat with Meng Yu. There were no new messages. The last one was from Meng Yu: Shishi, goodnight.
He checked his missed calls again. There were none from Meng Yu. He stopped looking at the group messages and ignored his roommates when they called. He turned off his phone, pulled the covers over his head, and slept until the next day.
When he finally turned his phone back on, there were still no messages or calls from Meng Yu. WeChat was once again flooded with 99+ messages. He glanced at them randomly. The roommate group was full of people cursing Meng Yu. Frustrated, Lu Shian stopped reading after the first two messages.
He did not go back to school, choosing to stay home instead. He sent a message to the group letting them know he was safe and then stopped responding to anything.
At that time, Lu Shian was innocent and easily fooled, but he was also someone who could not tolerate a single grain of sand in his eye. But because that sand was Meng Yu, he endured and waited through three full days of agony. He waited for Meng Yu for three days, yet he received no explanation, no call, and no message.
It was as if the two of them had never had any intersection at all.
Meng Yu did not take the initiative to explain and even played a disappearing act. Since they were not officially a couple, Lu Shian would not shamelessly go and ask, nor did he have the right to.
The ambiguity had gone to his head, and in the end, it turned out he was the only one who had truly fallen into it.