After Shi Liang met with the business partners with Bai Yuan in the morning, the two of them went to a nearby hot pot restaurant to eat.
Bai Yuan suddenly said, “Yanxiang is back from studying abroad. He said he hasn’t been back in China for a long time and that domestic development has been too rapid, so he’s afraid of being laughed at. He hopes we can show him around.”
Li Yanxiang, as the name implies, is Li Yanxiang, who is Bai Yuan’s cousin. Every time Shi Liang went to play with Bai Yuan when they were kids, he would run into Li Yanxiang.
He remembered that Li Yanxiang had always been very good to him back then. For a long time, his relationship with Li Yanxiang was even better than his relationship with Bai Yuan, who was actually related to him by blood.
It was only later that Shi Liang began to notice that Li Yanxiang was a little different toward him.
Although Shi Liang wasn’t very sensitive to romantic feelings at the time, he had still read about them in novels to some extent, and Li Yanxiang was simply too doting on him.
Besides, both of them were men. Before meeting Qi Wei, Shi Liang firmly believed that he would definitely walk the path of getting married and having children in the future.
Therefore, regarding Li Yanxiang’s ambiguous feelings toward him, while he didn’t feel any psychological aversion, he was deeply terrified when he thought about the gossip and rumors two men might face if they were together.
For a very long time, he deliberately distanced himself from Li Yanxiang. The last time they met was right before Li Yanxiang was about to go abroad to study.
He had been accepted into Harvard University in the United States, and before leaving, he came to see Shi Liang. Shi Liang was watering flowers in his courtyard at the time, back when the crabapple blossoms were in full bloom.
After exchanging pleasantries, a long silence followed. Li Yanxiang spoke up to break the awkward atmosphere: “The crabapple blossoms are blooming quite nicely.”
Looking at the lush and vibrant crabapple flowers filling the courtyard, Shi Liang picked one of the best-blooming ones and said, “During the Ming Dynasty, there was a custom of top scholars wearing flowers in their hair. You’ve had great grades since you were a child, never slacking in any subject, and you’ve always been the neighbor’s child in the eyes of parents. I think if you lived in ancient times, you would certainly be a young man wearing flowers before the imperial court. I will give you a crabapple flower and wish you top honors in getting into the highest institution of learning.”
Li Yanxiang tightly clutched that crabapple flower in the palm of his hand, terrified that bringing it down to the ground would let it touch even a speck of dust.
After he left on that trip, Shi Liang never saw him again, only occasionally receiving text messages from him on WeChat every few days.
When he and Qi Wei got together, Li Yanxiang even sent him a huge red envelope to congratulate him on successfully ending his single status.
Only then did their relationship gradually improve.
Until now, having just graduated from university and returning home, he was an only child, and his parents demanded that he return home to inherit the family business.
Through their chats over the years, Shi Liang could sense that Li Yanxiang had long since let go of his past feelings for him, so naturally, he no longer needed to feel awkward.
“Alright!” Shi Liang readily agreed.
Ever since his breakup with Shi Liang, Qi Wei had not dared to recall anything related to Shi Liang.
Everything connected to Shi Liang would make him think of their past together, sweet or bitter. He had gathered everything related to Shi Liang and packed it into a small wooden box.
Actually, he wanted to just throw it away directly, like netizens on the internet who discard everything related to their exes after a breakup.
After all, Shi Liang had already drifted away, and life still had to move forward. Carrying such a painful and heavy past would strip him of the courage and determination to keep walking ahead.
Yet, while packing these old items away and reminiscing bit by bit about every little detail involving Shi Liang, he truly could not bear to part with them.
They say the best cures for a broken heart are time and a new love. In his heart, there was no one who could compare to Shi Liang.
He could only rely on time.
But time passed so slowly! Every day was painful, and he often doubted whether he would ever truly be able to forget Shi Liang.
Qi Wei wiped away his tears, telling himself it was no big deal, just a broken heart after all.
Perhaps he would forget Shi Liang, or perhaps he wouldn’t. But it didn’t matter either.
No matter how agonizing the bloodshed or how grand the sorrow, it would all be washed away by the passage of time, leaving behind only faint red stains and a detached grief, faint to the point of losing color, detached to the point of no longer being worth mentioning.
Who couldn’t live without someone else? The Earth keeps spinning no matter who leaves.
Even though Qi Wei comforted himself over and over again, he knew deep down that many things had changed; everything, absolutely everything, had turned sour.
Just like exquisite, precious delicacies on a table, yet lacking salt, though they looked no different on the surface, they had simply lost their flavor.
After organizing these items, he locked the box and placed it in the deepest corner of the wardrobe, as if locking it away meant that everything related to Shi Liang would be locked deep within the corners of his heart, eventually to be buried by the passage of time.
He began to work diligently every day, walk steadily, and approach every task, big or small, with seriousness. Because the moment his mind wandered even subconsciously, frame after frame of memories featuring Shi Liang would flash through his head, causing him unbearable agony.
Without a carrier for intense emotions, the pain wouldn’t strike with such fierce and overwhelming force, leaving him powerless to endure it.
He had always known that Shi Liang’s significance to him was entirely different. His mother had died early, and his father was a compulsive gambler who was completely unreliable. As the eldest son, it seemed naturally incumbent upon him to shoulder the heavy burden of supporting the family.
No one had ever asked for his opinion, and not even he himself had ever asked about his own feelings. He simply felt that since he was the older brother and the eldest son, and his father was useless, the eldest son must act as a father.
Therefore, when his uncle suggested he go to the seaside to catch and sell fish, he agreed without a second thought. His uncle’s family wasn’t wealthy, but they had always treated them well. Giving a man a fish is not as good as teaching him how to fish; he began learning how to catch and slaughter fish from his uncle. Every time he finished selling fish, his entire body reeked of a fishy smell.
His father’s meager wages were entirely used to pay off gambling debts. During high school, he made a living by setting up a stall to sell fish, supporting his younger sister and paying for his own tuition.
Life was truly difficult, exceptionally difficult. But he had made it through all of it.
Because later on, he met Shi Liang, who gave him a lot of money and even paid off the gambling debts for his heavily gambling-addicted father. Shi Liang connected his sick sister with doctors and searched for a matching heart.
He appeared in his life like a hero stepping on colorful auspicious clouds, granting him dignity and bestowing upon him all sorts of partiality.
When he met Shi Liang, he wasn’t mature enough yet. He had grown up according to the appearance Shi Liang liked, leaving too many traces of Shi Liang on himself, so how could he possibly forget?
He lay down on the sofa and drifted off to sleep.
Shi Liang came home from work as usual. The weather was extremely hot, and the moment he stepped through the front door, he pulled a bottle of iced cola straight out of the refrigerator.
Qi Wei walked over and looked at the cake sitting inside the refrigerator.
He asked, “Are you under a lot of stress lately? Why did you suddenly feel like eating cake?”
Qi Wei looked at him, completely frozen for two whole seconds. His face turned pale before color slowly returned to Qi Wei’s face after a long while.
Today was actually his birthday.
Shi Liang had forgotten.
Seeing that Qi Wei didn’t speak, Shi Liang turned around and walked back to the bedroom.
At that time, the two of them were in the middle of a cold war.
After his work grew increasingly busy, Shi Liang simply developed a habit of picking fights and making a fuss out of nothing.
In the beginning, Qi Wei kept patiently coaxing him, but everything has its limits, right?
Yet Shi Liang’s drama had no limits.
On this particular day, when Qi Wei came home, Shi Liang was already fast asleep. He switched on the dim little lamp in the bedroom, sat down by the bedside, and gently kissed Shi Liang’s forehead.
This action instantly kissed Shi Liang awake. He smiled faintly, looking drowsy and utterly adorable.
“You’re back from work? You got back way too late. Overtime must be exhausting, right?”
As Shi Liang spoke, he burrowed straight into Qi Wei’s arms.
“There was a proposal from a client that wasn’t quite satisfactory. The people below made some revisions, but I still felt there were flaws, and I didn’t trust anyone else to handle it, so I ended up doing it myself.”
Shi Liang sighed. “You, oh you. Delegate power when you can; don’t do everything yourself. Do you know how Zhuge Liang died? He worked himself to death.”
“Actually, I’m doing okay. Even if it’s hard work, it’s a painful kind of happiness. Plus, my secretary was working on it alongside me, and a young girl like her is full of drive. Whether as a leader or as her older brother, I shouldn’t slack off.”
Shi Liang paused. Qi Wei only had one younger sister, who was still in high school.
So, was this older brother a romantic kind of brother?
Shi Liang looked at Qi Wei, who was so enveloped in exhaustion that he hadn’t even realized he had slipped up and spoken wrongly.
Shi Liang pulled away from Qi Wei’s arms. Qi Wei didn’t notice anything amiss and went straight into the bathroom to take a shower.
After entering, Qi Wei came right back out because he forgot to grab his exfoliating towel, went back in, and then came out again because he forgot his bath towel.
It seemed he really was too exhausted to function.
Meanwhile, Shi Liang was now completely wide awake. Back when he first asked Qi Wei to be with him, Qi Wei had told him he didn’t like men. And now, he had hired a new female secretary to stay by his side.
Was this woman really just a secretary?
She probably secretary-ed her way right into his bed by now. Growing up, he had seen plenty of this sort of thing; many mistresses started out as secretaries before eventually squeezing out the original wives and taking their places.
The sound of water trickling from the bathroom reached his ears, while Shi Liang’s inner thoughts whirled in a chaotic, turbulent storm.
He didn’t snap out of it until Qi Wei stepped out of the bathroom and walked right up to him.
Qi Wei wanted to step forward and hug him, but Shi Liang shoved him away hard.
With an impatient expression, he snapped, “It’s too hot, don’t hug me.”
Qi Wei froze for a moment. His brain was genuinely too sluggish to turn, completely unable to comprehend what had gotten into Shi Liang.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Shi Liang said coldly, “Nothing. I just feel hot and don’t want to cuddle.”
Qi Wei looked around searching for the air conditioner remote control. Seeing it was on the table, he got out of bed, put on his slippers, and went to grab it.
Since he hadn’t figured out Qi Wei’s relationship with the secretary yet, he couldn’t alert the enemy prematurely. His relationship with Qi Wei had affection, but not an overwhelming amount of intimacy; he wanted to first see whether Qi Wei had actually cheated before making a decision on whether to break up.
Once suspicion takes root, the verdict is already sealed.
Even though Shi Liang had no evidence, his heart was vexed beyond measure, and his impatience toward Qi Wei was magnified to the extreme.
Having just finished his shower, Qi Wei wore flip-flops and dragged his exhausted body over to heat up a glass of milk for himself.
“Do you want some milk?” Qi Wei asked.
“No,” Shi Liang answered decisively.
Qi Wei was slightly stunned. “What’s wrong?” He walked over.
Tap, tap, tap, the sound of his flip-flops slapping against the floor was just like summer mosquitoes, buzzing endlessly in Shi Liang’s ears.
His tolerance level toward Qi Wei had already reached a critical threshold. Shi Liang endured and endured; frowning, he cast an unfriendly glare at Qi Wei’s feet as they drew closer step by step.
Yet Qi Wei remained completely oblivious.
Could he possibly be any more clueless?!
Dissatisfied, Shi Liang snapped at him, “Can you not make so much noise when you walk? It’s so damn annoying.”
Qi Wei rubbed his eyes, which were too heavy to keep open. Through his fatigue, even Shi Liang’s silhouette looked blurred and indistinct.
Shi Liang’s tone was genuinely unfriendly. Qi Wei froze instantly, not daring to move a single inch further. He looked back at Shi Liang, but Shi Liang’s gaze had already shifted away and was no longer resting on Qi Wei at all.
After a long silence with no movement, Qi Wei tiptoed over to the table, grabbed the remote control, and lowered the air conditioning temperature further. Then he tiptoed back, terrified of provoking Shi Liang any further.
The moment Qi Wei climbed back onto the bed and lay beneath the covers.
Suspecting that Qi Wei might have cheated, Shi Liang found it utterly impossible to calmly share a bed with him. He gave Qi Wei a shove: “Don’t lie so close to me.”
Qi Wei had no idea what was wrong with Shi Liang. Everything he did felt wrong, and whatever he did, Shi Liang found fault with it. He felt as though Shi Liang’s words were needles piercing his heart, stinging so badly that the corners of his eyes grew damp. He hadn’t done anything wrong, had he? Why was Shi Liang treating him this way? Was he disgusted with him now? The thought filled him with panic, yet he remained bewildered and at a complete loss.
He inched outward, sitting rigidly on the edge of the bed, not daring to move, nor even daring to lie down to sleep.
To his shock, Shi Liang’s slow torture of him hadn’t stopped yet: “What are you crying for? You’re a grown man, can you stop crying all day long? You’re the one acting aggrieved now, what on earth do you have to feel aggrieved about?”
Upon hearing this, Qi Wei’s tears fell instantly. He wasn’t someone prone to crying, yet for some reason, he simply couldn’t control his tears at that moment.
He hurriedly wiped the tears from his face, desperately holding back so they wouldn’t keep falling.
Seeing him like this only irritated Shi Liang even more. With that look on his face, it made it seem as though he was the one bullying Qi Wei!
So when Bai Yuan invited him out for drinks, he agreed without a second thought and walked right out, slamming the door shut behind him.
In the quiet room, the silence was terrifying. The faint, unidentifiable buzzing sound still hummed in his ears as he gripped the bedsheets tightly, trying to soothe wave after wave of cramping pain deep within his heart.
After who knows how long, he received a call from Bai Yuan telling him to come pick up Shi Liang and take him home.
Arriving at the location Bai Yuan sent him, he walked into the bar. Inside, only Bai Yuan and Shi Liang were left.
At that moment, Shi Liang was slumped facedown over the table.
Bai Yuan pulled Qi Wei straight away to keep him from leaving: “To be honest, I really don’t understand why Shi Liang ever liked you. You have no money, and you can’t bring him happiness. Aside from this face of yours, you’re utterly useless. Besides, you’re already twenty-five this year, you’re not young anymore. Even the same face gets boring after you look at it for too long. If you don’t cherish him properly, sooner or later he’s going to leave you. Why on earth would he give up Li Yanxiang for you? It’s utterly muddle-headed! But people can be muddle-headed for a moment, sure, but they won’t be muddle-headed for a lifetime. Just wait and see, one day, he’ll grow sick of you.”
Li Yanxiang? He knew that name. Ever since Shi Liang brought him up, the two of them would video chat and talk every few days, and Shi Liang had told him they were childhood friends. It wasn’t like Qi Wei hadn’t noticed the subtle signs.
Shi Liang had only told him that Li Yanxiang was too lonely and isolated abroad, and as a friend, he couldn’t bear not to care. Qi Wei hadn’t thought much more of it at the time.
At that exact moment, a wave of insecurity engulfed him. Without realizing it, Qi Wei raised his voice: “Impossible! He loves me so much, he would never leave me.”
Bai Yuan offered some heartfelt advice in an earnest tone: “I used to keep a cat. Back when I loved it, I would buy it the best cat food every single time, buy it toys, and even bought it a phone. Even though it scratched up a proposal I spent ages writing, no matter how angry I was, I couldn’t bear to blame it, at worst, I could just rewrite it. Later on, when I grew sick of it, even if it didn’t do anything wrong and just stood there, I would find its shedding fur annoying. Love is just like that: when you like someone, anything goes; when you don’t like them, everything they do is wrong. So please don’t flatter yourself too much. Your only advantage in front of him is your face, but you also know that wealthy people are never short of handsome men and beautiful women throwing themselves at them. Those people are attractive and obedient, can you really compete with that?”
Qi Wei looked at Bai Yuan with a blank, unblinking stare, though it was as if he wasn’t seeing him at all.
Seeing that Qi Wei’s eyes lacked any focus, Bai Yuan knew his words had hit their mark. The corners of his mouth twitched upward slightly.
“Shi Liang is yours now. Take care of yourself.” With that, he turned and strode away.
Placing Shi Liang inside the car, Qi Wei pressed his palm against Shi Liang’s, rubbing the back of his hand with his thumb. His tone was sorrowful and heavy: “Have you truly grown sick of me already? If I become a bit more obedient, will you fall in love with me all over again?”
He pressed Shi Liang’s hand against his own face, savoring this fleeting moment of physical intimacy between the two of them.
Whenever Qi Wei took the initiative to talk to Shi Liang in an attempt to break the ice between them, Shi Liang would either brush him off perfunctorily or ignore him with chilling indifference.
Today, when Shi Liang saw him walk over and suddenly took the initiative to speak to him, his heart had bloomed with flowers, only for this single sentence to cause every single blooming flower to wither away.
Shi Liang had even forgotten his birthday!
Ever since he turned down the necklace, they had never celebrated his birthday. Every year, Shi Liang was the one who remembered to buy a cake, and the two of them would share a candlelit dinner and cake to mark the day.
Qi Wei knew that this year, Shi Liang definitely wouldn’t eat a candlelit dinner with him, let alone buy him a cake.
So he had gone out early that morning to buy a cake and placed it in the refrigerator.
Qi Wei’s heart ached terribly. He could clearly feel Shi Liang drifting further and further away from him, yet no matter what he did, he couldn’t change that reality.
Ever since he was young, Qi Wei had been a strong-willed, prideful man who cared deeply about his face; he had no idea what level of submission was required to be considered obedient.
He felt that he was already being humble and submissive enough at this point, yet Shi Liang showed no signs of turning back.
Was it really true that if he were just a little more submissive, Shi Liang would stay by his side?
After who knows how long, Shi Liang walked out of the bedroom. When he had grabbed the iced cola from the fridge earlier, Qi Wei had been holding that exact same posture. After going inside to change clothes and staying in there for a while, when he came back out, Qi Wei was still maintaining that exact same posture.
He was staring down at the cake, lost in thought.
In an instant, understanding dawned on him. He walked back into the room and fetched the down jacket he had bought for Qi Wei long ago.
“Happy birthday. This down jacket is your birthday gift. Wishing you happiness and joy every single day.”
Qi Wei smiled as he looked at Shi Liang, but he didn’t reach out to take the down jacket. Because he suddenly understood that his humility and subservience could never win back Shi Liang’s heart; the two of them were destined to break up in the end.
Let me look at you one last time, right here in my dream, because I feel like I’m about to wake up.
Qi Wei scrambled up from the sofa. A wave of chilliness brushed against his waist. Sitting there on the sofa, his mind went completely blank, unable to snap back to reality for a long, long time.
Just as Li Yanxiang stepped out of the airport, the crisp, biting-cold air rushed into his nose. He rubbed his uncomfortable nose; the sky was overcast, and snow flurries drifted down imperceptibly.
Kyoto’s winters were always exceptionally cold.
He had originally intended to stand outside the airport and breathe in the air he hadn’t tasted in nearly seven years, but after standing there for barely a moment, the chilly wind cut right through his clothes, biting into his bones and making his whole body shiver with misery.
Clutching his luggage, he scurried back inside the waiting room to enjoy the air conditioning.
After quite a while, the person picking him up still hadn’t arrived. Having flown for nearly a dozen hours, he was exhausted, sleepy, and starving.
He randomly wandered into a Chinese restaurant and casually ordered some food to eat.
Several years had passed, and domestic cities had truly undergone earth-shattering changes. Passing by a bubble tea shop on his way over, none of the milk teas he used to love as a child were available anymore, and he didn’t recognize any of the modern names on the menu.
Fortunately, he didn’t care for bubble tea quite as much these days anyway.
When Bai Yuan and Shi Liang arrived, Li Yanxiang had already finished eating and was holding a cup of hand-drip coffee to warm his hands.
The moment Li Yanxiang laid eyes on Shi Liang, his gaze glued itself straight onto Shi Liang, unable to budge even an inch.
Shi Liang’s face was as flawless as jade, framed by thick eyebrows and large eyes. His gaze held the soft, unyielding brilliance of moonlight, carrying a profound gentleness and warmth. His facial features were sharply defined, as if meticulously carved by an artisan, with red lips and white teeth, exuding an elegant, aristocratic aura all over.
Li Yanxiang raised the coffee cup in his hand and took a sip.
Hmm, quite elegant indeed! This was completely different from the lovestruck airhead persona Bai Yuan had described to him.
“Traffic was a bit jammed, so we’re a little late,” Bai Yuan explained.
Li Yanxiang pulled his gaze back. “It’s fine, I didn’t wait long either. I was pretty hungry just now, so I went and grabbed a bite.”
With that, he cast his gaze back onto Shi Liang, smiling like the morning sun: “Brother Shi Liang.”
Noticing the trench coat Li Yanxiang was wearing, along with the thin base layer underneath, Bai Yuan frowned. “Hey little bro, did studying make your brain short-circuit? Wearing this kind of outfit in such freezing weather, aren’t you cold?”
With that, he grabbed him and pulled him toward a clothing store, walking straight inside.
Bai Yuan’s phone rang. Waving his hand at Shi Liang, he asked Shi Liang to help Li Yanxiang pick out a couple of thicker down jackets.
“Brother Shi Liang, we haven’t seen each other in years. You’ve really gotten more and more handsome. And you’ve got such a great vibe now, too.”
Ever since they met, Li Yanxiang’s eyes had been practically glued to Shi Liang.
Could it be that in Bai Yuan’s eyes, my fashion sense is actually this good?
A trace of inexplicable, petty pride swelled in Shi Liang’s heart.
Shi Liang smiled. “What kind of vibe?” He reached out and tapped Li Yanxiang’s wrist, lifting the coffee cup in his hand higher. “The vibe of coffee, I suppose?”
Li Yanxiang wouldn’t let it go. “No, I mean you’re different from before. Back then you were just handsome without much of a presence, but now you have an incredible, undeniable charm.”
Shi Liang gave a faint smile: “Thanks!”
“Go on and see which down jacket you like, try it on.”
Li Yanxiang casually grabbed one off the rack and smiled brightly: “Brother Shi Liang, see how this one looks on me?”
Li Yanxiang had a fantastic physique, tall, lean, and broad-shouldered, standing at nearly 1.9 meters tall. With refined, handsome facial features, he looked full of vibrant youthful energy, yet carried a sharp, capable air when doing things. At a glance, he looked like a textbook top.
In fact, ever since Shi Liang realized he was gay, he had always firmly believed that he himself was a top.
That was until he met Qi Wei. From the very first glance at him, he felt that as long as they could be together, who topped or bottomed didn’t matter at all.
Although Qi Wei wasn’t an athletics major like him, he went for a 5-kilometer run every single day, only stopping those runs over the past half-year because his work had become exceptionally hectic. Even so, he still hit the gym whenever he had free time.