When he pushed open the studio door, there was an easel set up in the middle. The desk that used to stand beside it in his memory had been shoved off into a corner.
Su Yin walked in and looked at the chaotic Color Palette, thick with caked paint. Back then, he used to leave it unwashed for quite a while after using it, but after Pei Weixue had washed it for him twice, he started cleaning it right away.
The clothing design on the canvas was flashy, completely unlike his usual style. He preferred looks that were more elegant and understated.
When he saw the curves in the design, the pen strokes, the pressure of each line, Su Yin slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh no, I’m not actually suffering from amnesia, am I?” The style was different, but handwriting did not change. Even the signature hidden in the drawing was the same.
He yanked the canvas down, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it into the trash, then picked up the palette to wash it. Back then, he had asked Pei Weixue why he was always so quick to help him clean his palette.
While washing it, Pei Weixue had said, “Didn’t you say you wanted to be my Color Palette?” He lifted the palette and gave it a little shake at Su Yin. “Then I should clean you up a bit.”
Before he had time to really savor the memory, it vanished.
From the sink on the balcony came sighs, each one heavier than the last. After washing the palette clean, Su Yin returned to the studio, sat on the little stool, picked up a brush, and casually sketched the outline of a formal suit.
The tip of the brush scraped over the paper, the soft rustle sounding through the stillness of the room.
The moment he picked up a brush, he lost himself in it. By the time a simple, elegant men’s formal outfit had come to life on the page, two or three hours had already passed.
It was only a draft, there would still be revisions later. He went to the cabinet at the side, took out some base fabric, and draped it over the plastic mannequin, resting his chin in his hand as he thought about how to make it.
He glanced at the sketch and saw he had not colored it yet. But when he picked up the paints, his head filled with Pei Weixue’s cold face, and he could not mix a single shade. He threw the paints aside, walked out, and stopped at the door to Pei Weixue’s room.
Not long after, the door opened. Pei Weixue, carrying documents, almost walked straight into the dazed Su Yin, then went right past him toward the front door.
“Xue’er, is it time to eat? Don’t go out to eat, I’ll cook.” Su Yin hurried after him, only to watch Pei Weixue change his shoes, open the door, and leave in one smooth motion. He felt utterly miserable.
How did it end up like this?
He lowered his head and patted his round little belly, then thought it over and decided he should sign up for a gym membership. Otherwise, with a body like this, he would not even be able to wear the clothes he made himself. What had happened? All his muscles had turned into fat.
Back at the office, Pei Weixue was eating a boxed meal while reviewing the terms in the bidding documents, checking for mistakes.
Buzz~ His phone vibrated.
He glanced at it. It was a bank card transaction record, one thousand six hundred yuan.
What had Su Yin bought this time?
His wallpaper was an old photo from their college days, Su Yin in a red basketball jersey mid-dunk. The hem of the jersey had flipped up with the force and the wind, exposing his beautiful abs.
His gaze was sharp and full of certainty as he leaped into the air with the basketball in hand. His long legs stretched front and back, and even the muscles in his calves were lit by the sun into clean, powerful lines.
He still remembered how, after that basketball game had ended, Su Yin had walked straight toward him, taken the towel from his hands to wipe off his sweat, tipped his head back to drink water with easy flair, then smiled and asked, “Wasn’t I amazing?”
Snapping back to himself, he tapped the screen and disabled the family card. He had almost forgotten this one was still active.
The limit on the family card he had given Su Yin was twenty thousand, and Su Yin always managed to spend it all in less than three days.
It was only the beginning of the month. What had that sixteen hundred gone toward?
What had he bought for He Nan this time?
His fingertip tapped into the photo album. Looking through all their countless pictures together, his thumb finally came to rest on Su Yin’s face in the photo taken when Su Yin confessed to him.
“Engineer Pei. Have you finished checking the bid documents? We need to send them out today, or it’ll be too late.”
Pei Weixue nodded, picked up the documents, and went out to package them together.
At the gym.
“Mr. Su, your foundation is really good. I guarantee that if you train with me for two months, you’ll have abs.”
Su Yin had just paid, and the moment he heard two months, he said in surprise, “Two months? That long? Back when I used to work out, it only took a little over a month.”
The trainer asked, “And when exactly was this ‘a little over a month’?”
Without thinking, Su Yin said, “When I was eighteen or nineteen.”
“Your metabolism was fast at eighteen or nineteen. You’re already twenty-six now, of course it’ll take longer.” The trainer patted his thick shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, I’m definitely not ripping you off. Your base is excellent.” His eyes swept over Su Yin from front to back. The proportions were nearly perfect, there was just a bit too much extra flesh. Getting him into shape would not be difficult.
“Fine. We’ll leave it at that for now. I’m taking the meal plan, and I’ll be here on time tomorrow.” Su Yin took the meal plan and walked out, planning to go to that company called He Nan’s and see what was in his workstation.
He was basically working for free anyway. If he wanted to leave, he would leave, who cared.
After squatting by the roadside in the pose of a thinker for quite a while, he finally dug up the address from the attendance app and checked the route with navigation.
Before setting off, he decided to look for Jiang Zhi first. He did not know what the situation used to be, but now that he was going to He Nan’s company, no matter how he looked at it, he should ask his brother first.
Best of all, he could try to find out from Jiang Zhi whether the ‘Su Yin’ of these past six years had done anything else.
He had quite a bit of confidence in Jiang Zhi. Ever since he was four and had bought a fried dough stick at a breakfast stall and split half with Jiang Zhi, Jiang Zhi had clung to Auntie Jiang and insisted on moving into his house.
Only later had he learned that Auntie Jiang had long been too busy outside with business to come home. That day had been Jiang Zhi’s birthday. He had been sitting at the doorway waiting early in the morning, and what arrived was half a fried dough stick.
Auntie Jiang was a natural at business and had divorced early. She had hired plenty of caretakers for Jiang Zhi, but children always wanted their mother by their side.
Jiang Zhi had lived with his family for three years, and only after Auntie Jiang’s company went public had he moved back home.
Jiang Zhi had been full of himself since childhood, and after growing up he became incredibly pretentious.
Honestly, it was not hard to believe that even without ‘him’ interfering, Jiang Zhi and He Nan would have broken up sooner or later. A pretentious bastard’s love life was bound to be complicated.
Ding-dong~
“Mr. Su! You’re finally here.” Housekeeper Wu glanced behind her and said like she had just seen a savior, “The young master is upstairs.” She stepped outside a little and lowered her voice. “That’s just how the young master is. All that nonsense about cutting ties forever, he just wants you to apologize to him.”
Su Yin thought, Great. That meant he must not have done anything too beastly to Jiang Zhi. He had not actually stolen him away, so things had not gotten to the point where Jiang Zhi would truly ignore him.
He followed the housekeeper inside, but before he had taken more than a few steps, Jiang Zhi came running downstairs and shoved him. “Get out! Who told you to come!” Caught off guard, Su Yin was pushed back several steps. Only when he reached the doorway did Jiang Zhi pull Housekeeper Wu away, grab the door, and point at him. “We cut ties, and you still came! Get out, get out, get out!” Bang, the door slammed shut.
Yesterday he had even attended his graduation ceremony, and today he would not acknowledge him anymore. He had even used words as serious as cutting ties forever.
After the door closed, Su Yin turned and left in dejection. Jiang Zhi had grown into himself quite a bit too. He wondered how things had gone during those years he spent abroad, and whether he had joined the Jiang family company after coming back.
Su Yin had been the very first person to know Jiang Zhi wanted to study overseas. They had even made plans, one day he would become the chief designer of Jiang Group, they would earn money together and spend it together. Jiang Zhi had also offered strategies when Su Yin was chasing Pei Weixue. Granted, they had all been terrible ideas, and he had not used a single one.
Somehow, their relationship had ended up at the point of “there’s no road left.”
Still distracted, he took a cab to He Corporation. After asking the receptionist where the design department was, he went upstairs. The design department was not small. The moment he stepped inside, he heard a mocking, snide voice. “Designer Su finally decided to come to work?”
He could not be bothered to respond. He looked around, found an empty seat, walked over to it, checked the ID badge, and began sorting through the things there. Anything he still wanted, he packed into his backpack. Anything he did not, he tossed out directly.
“Hey.”
A stack of documents was flung down in front of him. He froze for a second. “What’s this supposed to mean?”
The male coworker said, “These are what the client wants. Give them to me within a week.”
Excuse me?
Su Yin turned his head. “And you are?” As he picked up the documents and looked through them, he saw they were client requirements for clothing design, and the designer listed was not even his name. “What do you mean by this?”
“You’re not drawing them? Then I won’t be letting you into President He’s office.”
Su Yin: “?” So he was supposed to do the sketches, and this guy would take the credit himself? No wonder the whole desk had only a few scraps of discarded drafts. He stood up and walked toward the man. “A thief?”
The male coworker was puzzled by how different he seemed. Before, the second he used that line, Su Yin would obediently rush to draw, saving him effort and earning him extra bonuses. Straightening up, he said, “If you don’t want to draw, then President He won’t be seeing you anymore. There’s a senior staff gathering tonight, and I was even thinking of getting you a little seat in the corner.”
Su Yin stared at him for a moment, then decided to let it go. There was no point trying to reason with an idiot. One of his life mottos was this: do not waste your breath on people who cannot understand human language. He turned back and kept packing. But just before he finished, the former male coworker pressed down on the papers in his hand. “Where are you going? You’ve already been late all morning!”
“Even if I’d been late for years, what’s it to you? Am I even getting paid?” Su Yin had been pushed too far. He knocked the man’s hand away. “You’d better start acting like a human being. However many of my designs you took, I’ll be taking them all back. Get lost!”
“You!”
Su Yin said, “You what? Point at me again and I’ll report you for plagiarism on the spot!” After cursing him out, he watched the male coworker shrink back in fear, then turned and walked off. This was ridiculous. He had worked in a place like this for more than half a year? With an environment like this, he would have quit in under an hour. How had he endured it?
What exactly was that He Nan’s appeal?
The moment he stepped into the elevator, the doors of another elevator opened on the other side. He watched a familiar man in a suit walk past, then lowered his eyes in thought. Huh? Wasn’t that that He Nan guy?
He frantically jabbed the floor button several times. Hurry up and go! Nothing good would come from running into him.
On the way home, a text message came to his phone.
【You really left?】
Unknown number, but at a glance he knew it was that brat Jiang Zhi. Typical, all bluster, soft-hearted, and hopelessly pretentious. He really did not have time to play along with Jiang Zhi right now. He would deal with him after he had coaxed Pei Weixue back and won his mom’s forgiveness.
Now that he had left He Nan’s company, he also would not be interfering in those two’s relationship the way everyone said he had. Whatever happened to them happened.
After getting home, Su Yin wanted to find the marriage certificate and take a look. He searched his own room for ages and still could not find it, so he could only creep over to Pei Weixue’s room. The moment he pulled open the drawer, he saw the two marriage certificates.
They felt a little strange in his hand. Looking closer, he realized they had been laminated. That really was exactly the kind of thing Xue’er would do.
When he opened the marriage certificate and saw the photo of himself clearly, his face was expressionless, like a walking corpse. Even his eyes were dull. The date was only a few days after his confession. He could now be completely certain, someone had set him up. Someone had stolen six precious years of his life.
And tangled his life into a complete mess.
He should have had a happy, perfect life. After graduation, he should have put on a clothing exhibition with his teacher. After a few years, he should naturally have had a studio of his own. Then, once Jiang Zhi returned to the country, they would work together and make money side by side.
He should have pampered Pei Weixue until his fair skin glowed rosy, and at seven o’clock sharp every evening, he and his mom should have been meeting up in the square to dance.
His life should have gone smoothly from beginning to end, not turned into this, where he had nothing.
The slightly rough matte texture of the marriage photo scraped against his palm. Su Yin stared at it for a long time. In the photo, Pei Weixue looked just as he remembered him. When he was younger, he would always smile neatly, showing a perfect row of eight teeth, the joy in his eyes impossible to hide.
Set off by the red wall behind him, he was dazzling. The white shirt did not make Pei Weixue look more mature, it made him look even younger instead. The longer Su Yin looked, the redder his eyes grew. He had never thought of himself as much of a crybaby before.
But seeing all this, this past he had never been part of, this beauty he had never even glimpsed, left such a bitter taste in his heart.
Who exactly was that person?
He put the marriage certificates back where they belonged, returned to his own room, and dragged a box out from under the bed. Thankfully, the box was still there. When he opened it, there were seven photo albums inside, all different sizes.
He flipped one open at random, and every page was full of photos of himself and Pei Weixue together. Back then, every time he took a photo, he would have it developed immediately and put it away. There were many albums like this in his room at his mother’s house too. Taking photos and developing them right away had always been his habit.
They were not on his phone, but they were here. That was the only consolation.
The first photo was of Pei Weixue squatting by the flower bed at school, holding a carton of milk and drinking from it, while his other hand toyed with the ants on the ground.
They had not known each other yet. Su Yin had been passing by with a basketball and some classmates, when he happened to glance back and saw that scene. Pei Weixue had long legs, but when he squatted down he somehow became one small little bundle. He was thin, and his long trench coat hung down and covered his body. One look had left a deep impression.
He had never seen a man who could carry off a bizarre color combination like a bright yellow trench coat with purple skinny pants. At the time he had not known Pei Weixue was color-blind, he had just been curious. Even when designing clothes, he would not have dared use a combination like that. It felt like nothing made that way would ever sell.
And yet there were people who could ignore color coordination completely and still look good in anything they wore.
He remembered that before going over to strike up a conversation with Pei Weixue, his thought had been that he wanted Pei Weixue to model for him. Then… then everything went off track. He swore it was not love at first sight. At the beginning, he had really just wanted to be friends.
As he kept turning page after page, he could describe exactly what had been happening when each photo was taken. There were smiling Pei Weixues, miserable-looking Pei Weixues, crouching ones, standing ones, lying down ones, and even terrified candid shots on a swing. At first, the albums only had quiet side profiles of Pei Weixue, but little by little there were more frontal shots, and eventually even sleeping photos.
One time while drinking, Jiang Zhi, drunk out of his mind, had joked that he was Pei Weixue’s pathetic little simp. Pei Weixue, sitting off to the side, heard that and looked nervously at Su Yin, then immediately argued with Jiang Zhi, “He’s not!” He had sounded very agitated, and worried too.
Su Yin could not have cared less. Riding the alcohol, he slapped the table at Jiang Zhi. “Twig! I love being one, I want to be one, our Xue’er deserves it. Even if I spend my whole life simping for him, that’ll still be my happiness. If you’ve got the guts, go find someone to simp for and see what that gets you!”
Back then Jiang Zhi had put on that arrogant act of his. “Don’t make me laugh. Me, Jiang Zhi, needing to chase after anyone? The people volunteering line up from here all the way to the entrance of your apartment complex.”
“You’d better mean that.”
That night was the first time Pei Weixue had ever gotten angry with him. After they came out of the bar, Pei Weixue said with a dark expression, “Yin-ge, don’t ever talk about yourself like that again. I won’t let you be some pathetic simp.”
Su Yin leaned crookedly against him, the two of them pressed close together as they walked home along the roadside. “Like that? I really want to be one.” At the time, Pei Weixue’s body had gone stiff for a moment, and he had muttered something under his breath. Su Yin had to tilt his head and listen two or three times before he finally heard what Pei Weixue had said.
Then I’ll simp for you too.
At the time he had been incredibly stupid, and too drunk to really understand what it meant. Looking back later, was that not basically a confession in disguise?
Seeing how strange Pei Weixue looked, he had even thrown an arm around his shoulders and said, “Don’t be mad, don’t be mad.” He had pulled a face and leaned in close to Pei Weixue. It had also been the first time he had ever seen Pei Weixue roll his eyes. “I’m not mad anymore.” Su Yin had laughed in delight. “Xue’er, even your eye roll looks pretty.”
Such a simple, direct five words, and no matter how many hundreds of times he thought back on them, they still tasted sweet.
Pei Weixue looked quiet and reserved, but in reality his goals were always very clear. He was never vague or indecisive. What he wanted, or what he disliked, he would say directly.
And that mouth that was always saying nice things just to make him happy, he had only kissed it once!
Pulling himself out of his memories, he went into the bathroom and scrubbed it from top to bottom all over again. The more he washed, the angrier he got at himself. Who exactly had used his body? In these past six years, had that person kissed Xue’er lots of times?!
So infuriating!
He picked up the cleaner and poured it into the toilet.
Could they have done even more intimate things with Xue’er?
So infuriating!
Clang!
He scrubbed hard at the gaps in the wall with the brush and knocked over a bottle of essential oil. At once, the scent of cedar spread through the whole bathroom. The second he lifted his arm, it hit the shower control, and he was drenched from head to toe.
“I can’t live like this anymore.” He muttered to himself as he reached over to turn off the shower.
After the water poured over his head, it soaked the wound on his back again too. It itched and hurt at the same time.
Now the bathroom was even more of a disaster than before he had started cleaning.
He had not even had a wet kiss with Xue’er yet, boohoohoo~
Outside, Pei Weixue, who had been home for a while, heard a great racket coming from Su Yin’s room. Puzzled, he set down his laptop and walked over to look. Faint crying sounds drifted from the bathroom. He took one step forward, then immediately retreated several more.
He walked back out to the doorway, glanced over his shoulder once, then went straight back to his room and shut the door.
After crying his eyes out, Su Yin washed up with a red nose. Only after he had cleaned himself properly did he go to the kitchen to prepare dinner. Before coming home, he had bought a bag of kiwis, but when he opened the refrigerator, he saw there was already kiwi juice inside, probably brought over by his mom. So he set the bag aside and started making dinner.
Since Pei Weixue had started taking that medicine again, he naturally prepared some supportive medicinal cuisine too.
The aroma drifted into the room. Pei Weixue’s nose twitched. The glow of the computer reflected on his face, lighting up his absent expression. It had been a long time since he had eaten those medicinal dishes. He did not know how to make medicinal cuisine. Every time, Su Yin had been the one to cook it, for the sake of his illness.
He lowered his eyes and did not move.
Knock knock…
“Xue’er, I made dinner, come eat. There’s creamy corn, the kind you like. Mom even brought over kiwi juice, come out and eat.”
Pei Weixue did not even turn his head, and said nothing.
Su Yin knocked on the door for quite a while without getting any response. “If you don’t answer me, I’m coming in.” No one paid him any attention.
He twisted the doorknob hard, but the door was locked from the inside.
Su Yin: “…”