Qi Wei drove out, only to see Shi Liang smiling at Li Yanxiang. A dull ache gripped his heart. The car surged far ahead before Qi Wei finally registered that the heavy, throbbing pain stemmed from his own foot pressing down uncontrollably on the pedal.
Slowly, he pulled the car over to the roadside and sat there for a long time before driving back to his residence.
Upon arriving home, Qi Wei took off his coat and sat in the living room. Having already eaten outside, he had no appetite whatsoever for anything else. He dismissed the housekeeper who wanted to prepare dinner for him.
Closing his eyes, Qi Wei leaned back against the sofa. A brief flurry of footsteps echoed before the front door clicked shut.
Not a single other sound remained in the room. Qi Wei sat completely motionless, a faint buzzing ringing in his ears. The atmosphere in the room was stiflingly quiet, so still that a falling needle could be heard.
Suddenly, Qi Wei found it slightly difficult to breathe, a wave of panic washing over him. He had originally wanted to catch a quick nap on the sofa, but now sleep was entirely out of the question.
Ever since Shi Liang left, he had not experienced a single night of sound sleep.
In the dead of night, he could not stop thinking about Shi Liang. Shi Liang used to love him so deeply, yet when he walked away, his resolve was absolute. He did not need to wait many years to realize that he had certainly made many mistakes along the way.
Perhaps love meant letting go; he should have respected Shi Liang’s choice, allowed him to leave, and wished him well.
As for the pain, he could keep all of it for himself.
Whenever the sorrow became too overwhelming to bear, the only thing he could do was trust in time, believing that time would eventually dull every trace of agony.
When he went to the airport to see him off that day, he unexpectedly caught sight of a figure whose back resembled Shi Liang’s. It was only when he spotted Bai Yuan walking at the very end that he realized it truly was him.
He knew he should turn away, but his feet still betrayed him, dragging him toward where Shi Liang was.
During these three months apart, he had missed Shi Liang with every fiber of his being. Even catching just a single glance would have been enough to satisfy him.
He walked up to the storefront selling down jackets, only to find Shi Liang laughing and chatting with another man. The two of them stood terribly close, having long since crossed the boundary of a safe distance.
He did not know that man’s name, but he knew that man fancied Shi Liang.
The heartache at that exact moment reached its absolute peak. For someone who had truly loved deeply, how could it be possible not to feel a thing upon seeing the person they loved being intimate with someone else?
Without Shi Liang, he was nothing more than a walking corpse just dragging out an existence. Life without Shi Liang was genuinely more than he could handle.
His younger sister had tried to comfort him, telling him that heartbreak was just how things were and that it would pass in time.
Yet he knew he might never heal.
After his mother passed away, his father remained trapped within the agony of her death, drinking heavily every single day and sometimes even smashing things when intoxicated. With his sister still so young, he had lived through a truly excruciating period during those years.
He figured he ought to hate his father, because while the man might have been a devoted lover to his late wife, he was a terrible father who had never once attended a parent-teacher conference and completely ignored his sister when she was bullied at school.
He had only been fourteen years old back then, just a child himself, yet he was forced to independently face the harsh realities of life while protecting his sister and caring for an alcoholic father.
Later on, when his sister fell terminally ill, his father refused to care at all, even uttering the callous remark that her death would simply lighten the household burden.
It was not until he crossed paths with Shi Liang that a flicker of warmth and light finally pierced through his cold, dark existence.
He had longed so desperately to hold onto that sliver of warmth and light, which drove him to struggle and fight with every ounce of his strength, hoping merely to stand by Shi Liang’s side.
Yet the moment he finally attained the capability to stand beside Shi Liang, Shi Liang no longer wanted him.
In his pursuit of Shi Liang, he had somehow managed to lose Shi Liang entirely.
Fate was truly laughable. Qi Wei suddenly burst into laughter, tears streaming down his face.
In the empty house, even the sound of the wind was absent.
Qi Wei wrapped his arms tightly around himself.
How on earth had he managed to live his life in such a solitary and tragic manner?
Clearly, he loved Shi Liang so deeply; clearly, Shi Liang had loved him just as much; clearly, he had tried so hard. So why on earth had they ended up breaking up?
It seemed as though he had made no wrong turns at every single crossroads in life, yet existence had morphed into the exact shape he feared most, leaving him to live out the very nightmare he dreaded, isolated and desolate.
Qi Wei retrieved a bottle of liquor he had treasured for a long time from the cabinet.
He drank it cup after cup.
Shi Liang spent the entire afternoon shopping with Li Yanxiang, hauling back bags of various sizes. Upon returning home, he found that relatives and friends had already gathered at the house.
Since he had been out, his parents had been helping entertain the guests. He hurried over to exchange pleasantries, and as the late-arriving friends trickled in, the official program commenced.
Following the host’s opening speech, the performances began with a comedic sketch, followed by a local errenzhuan routine.
Despite having transmigrated into the novel and experiencing this sort of gathering for the very first time, he somehow felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity, finding the performances rather dull.
The grand finale featured two of his favorite actors alongside a few stage actors performing a play, Thunderstorm.
Watching the two actors perform on stage, Shi Liang found it quite fascinating. A person’s aesthetic preferences remained remarkably consistent; the vibe those two exuded felt entirely like Qi Wei, though Qi Wei looked somewhat more handsome than they did.
Actually, he had never cared for stage plays in the past; movies and television series were more his style.
The very first stage play he ever saw in his life was suggested by Qi Wei, who mentioned he was quite curious about Thunderstorm, a work they used to study in textbooks.
That was the first time Shi Liang had ever heard of a stage play. Before that, he hadn’t even known what a stage play was, only learning from Qi Wei that this piece called Thunderstorm had actually been part of their school curriculum.
At the time, he had scrambled everywhere trying to secure tickets to no avail. Just as he was fretting over it, Shen Bingchen’s parents had a sudden emergency and couldn’t make it, handing their tickets over to them. Thus, Shen Bingchen ended up joining them to watch Thunderstorm.
Halfway through, Shen Bingchen needed to use the restroom and headed into the innermost stall, which looked completely identical to all the others from the outside.
The moment he squatted down, a disembodied voice echoed from somewhere: “Come on, push hard, you can do it. If nothing comes out, it doesn’t matter, at least let out a fart.”
Startled out of his wits, he pulled up his pants and bolted right out. Good grief, who could possibly squeeze anything out after hearing that?
As soon as he stepped outside, he ran into several people staring straight at him, prompting him to duck awkwardly into a different stall.
It took him ages before he finally emerged from that place.
Ever since that day, Shen Bingchen never went to watch Thunderstorm again.
After Shi Liang and Qi Wei finished watching the play that evening, they searched everywhere for Shen Bingchen, but his phone went unanswered, and a WeChat message simply stated that he had already left.
Shi Liang and Qi Wei ended up at a Haidilao hot pot restaurant for a meal. By the time they finished eating, it was already late into the night, so they decided to make do and stay at a nearby hotel for the night.
Throughout their relationship, Shi Liang had always been the one who wanted to strip Qi Wei down and take full advantage of him, but the moment they reached the hotel entrance, his courage completely failed him.
He didn’t dare let his gaze linger on Qi Wei for even a second, and even holding hands felt remarkably scorching.
Noticing him standing there frozen, Qi Wei held out a hand: “Come on, your ID.”
Shi Liang stared at Qi Wei in astonishment: “You need an ID just to stay at a hotel?”
Qi Wei looked back at him with an expression of utter disbelief, his eyes bright and a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips: “Did you really not know that all hotels in Beijing require the original ID card for check-in?”
Shi Liang swallowed hard.
Back when Qi Wei was still hesitating about whether or not to enter a relationship with him, someone had warned Qi Wei that a rich second-generation heir like Shi Liang could never truly love anyone. They claimed he merely wanted to sample whatever flavor caught his fancy and would split the moment he grew bored. They suggested that staying with him might not last more than a few years before he tossed him aside, even if it meant saving his sister’s life.
Consequently, in Qi Wei’s mind, Shi Liang must have had a revolving door of boyfriends and girlfriends, making hotel stays an absolute routine occurrence for him.
“I didn’t know! We always stayed at my place before!” What Shi Liang meant was that whenever something happened between him and Qi Wei previously, it had always taken place at home.
Qi Wei’s gaze dimmed immediately, and his expression fell flat.
Lost in his own nervous tension, Shi Liang completely missed the shift in Qi Wei’s expression.
He had no idea when exactly it started, but Qi Wei showed zero restraint whenever they were in bed. Now that they were at a hotel, goodness only knew how soundproof the walls were!
That night, Qi Wei drove him relentlessly. No matter how much he begged for mercy or softened his tone like he used to, it had zero effect.
He was pushed past his limit until he passed out cold.
Even in his unconscious state, Qi Wei refused to let him go.
After what felt like an eternity, Shi Liang stirred from his hazy slumber as he felt Qi Wei gently calling his name. Dizzily blinking his eyes open, the first things that came into view were the overlapping purple and red bite marks and pinch marks branding his chest and shoulders.
He responded to Qi Wei’s call with a soft hum, the daze and ethereal sensation in his voice rendering that single syllable exceptionally intoxicating.
Qi Wei paused for a moment. Looking as though he had just stepped out of a bath, sweat dripped from his chin down onto Shi Liang’s arched spine.
What followed was an entirely new round of even more punishing conquest.
When he woke up the next morning, his voice was completely gone, his eyes were swollen from crying, and his lower back ached so badly that he couldn’t budge an inch.
The stage play grand finale at the banquet made it impossible for Shi Liang to settle his mind, his head filled entirely with thoughts of Qi Wei.
Once the banquet concluded, he collapsed onto the bed in exhaustion. With the time already past two in the morning, Shi Liang curled up on the mattress and drifted off to sleep.
When he woke up, he looked around at the chaotic mess left behind by yesterday’s revelry.
A line from The Peony Pavilion drifted into his mind: “A fine day and pleasant scenery are of no avail; what garden holds such delightful and joyous pursuits? It is because of your flower-like beauty and flowing years that I wander aimlessly, feeling a quiet self-pity in my secluded chamber.”
The present scene left Shi Liang feeling equally hollow inside, stirring up a wave of self-pitying melancholy.