The rainstorm came on violently. Lightning split the sky, its pale white glare tearing the night in two. Gale-force winds howled down the streets, whipping the trees on either side of the road back and forth.
At the entrance to the upscale residential complex, a steady stream of returning residents and vehicles filed in. Yan Yuchuan pushed against the flow, ignoring the security guard’s protests, and ran straight out of the complex, ending up on a completely unfamiliar street.
The rain poured down on his head, sobering him up like nothing else could. He knew he had screwed up.
And yet, from some hidden corner of his heart, he heard a voice whispering: Screw it all up.
Go ahead and ruin everything then you won’t have to keep clinging to that faint sliver of hope, stupidly holding on.
Yan Yuchuan pressed forward with his head down, no longer knowing where he was, wanting only to get as far as possible from the place that had just witnessed his disgrace.
Soaked through, he fished his dripping phone from his pocket and, standing in the curtain of rain, dialed Lin Zhihao’s number.
The phone rang for a long time before a sleepy voice answered: “Hello…”
Yan Yuchuan spoke without slowing his pace: “Are you asleep?”
“What do you think?” Lin Zhihao’s voice carried the irritation of someone dragged out of sleep. “Chuan-ge, it’s two in the morning. What’s going on?”
“Pack your things right now.”
“Huh?” Lin Zhihao froze. “Wh-why?”
“Go next door and wake up Zhimiao. Tell her to get ready too. I’ll buy tickets for the morning ferry.”
Lin Zhihao bolted upright in bed. “Wait, Chuan-ge, explain yourself. What the hell happened?”
Yan Yuchuan wanted to explain, but even he could barely process what he had done.
He had never claimed to be a paragon of virtue. If someone provoked him, he had no qualms about provoking them right back whether in that warehouse or when he hacked into Lu Feiyang’s family company. But willingly becoming the perpetrator? That was a first.
“Something happened.” After a moment’s hesitation, he kept it brief.
“Huh? What happened? Did Lu Feiyang come after you again? Didn’t you say you two were done?”
“It’s not him.” Yan Yuchuan swallowed hard. “Bottom line is, we can’t stay in Port Platinum anymore.”
“What? What the hell happened? You won’t tell me anything, how am I supposed to pack?!”
“Trust me on this one. Once we’re back in Pingcheng, I’ll explain everything to Uncle Lin. It’s all on me.”
“You” Lin Zhihao’s side rustled with the sound of him getting out of bed. He let out a weary, long sigh. “Fine. I’ll start packing. What time are you planning to book?”
“…”
Suddenly, Yan Yuchuan stopped walking.
Most shops along the street had long since closed, except for one 24-hour pharmacy still glowing with light.
He stared at the pharmacy’s sign, and for some reason, he remembered being seven years old, sitting at the bustling dock, clutching his bleeding leg, waiting for his parents to come back with medicine and take him to the new life they had promised unaware that they had already boarded a ferry and left, never having bought him a ticket at all.
As for how he had finally stopped the bleeding, or how he had dragged his injured leg back home he couldn’t remember any of it anymore.
A sudden image flashed through his mind: Ming Rao lying in bed, smiling at him before he went to shower. It was the first time he’d noticed that Ming Rao had dimples when he smiled.
“Chuan-ge?”
Yan Yuchuan snapped back to reality. “Wait. Don’t move yet.”
“Huh?” Lin Zhihao was clearly pissed now. “Chuan-ge, are you fucking with me?”
“I’m sorry,” Yan Yuchuan said. “Don’t rush. Wait for my message. I have something very important to do right now.”
Lin Zhihao, woken in the dead of night, terrorized by Yan Yuchuan’s vague words, and still kept in the dark was now itching to crawl through the phone and punch him.
Yan Yuchuan didn’t have time to explain. He hung up hastily, then splashed through the puddles on the ground and strode quickly into the pharmacy.
The clerk was a middle-aged woman, dozing off at the counter. Yan Yuchuan stammered out what he needed the medicine for. One glance and the clerk knew exactly what was going on, treating him like a clumsy virgin who’d just gotten his first taste, which wasn’t too far from the truth.
Yan Yuchuan hung his head in embarrassment, standing there like a scolded schoolboy, answering every one of her questions obediently.
It was his first time. His too. He’d worn protection. There was some, but not enough.
The clerk shook her head repeatedly, scolding him for being too impatient, too careless with his partner, and gave him an impromptu lesson on safe same-sex practices on the spot. Yan Yuchuan endured it with a stiff upper lip, accepting the lecture humbly, standing at attention like a soldier until she went to the back to fetch the medicine.
The moment he had it in hand, he practically sprinted all the way back to Ming Rao’s place.
But when he keyed in the passcode, stepped inside, and stood before Ming Rao’s closed bedroom door, his legs turned to lead and he couldn’t move another step.
He had imagined many possible scenarios on the other side of the door: perhaps Ming Rao had fainted from the pain and was unconscious; perhaps he had called that Uncle Zhang and was already receiving treatment at the hospital; perhaps he had called the police, and in a few hours Yan Yuchuan would be arrested on charges of sexual assault. He had even imagined the worst-case scenario: perhaps, unable to bear such humiliation, Ming Rao had leapt from the twenty-seventh floor…
Yan Yuchuan held his breath and pushed open the door.
The stereo was no longer playing the Mirage track; instead, the background noise of a short video filled the room. Ming Rao lay on the bed, still in the same position as before, his phone screen glowing as he watched intently.
Hearing the door open, Ming Rao turned his head. “You’re back? Is it raining hard outside?”
Yan Yuchuan walked in silently and stood at the foot of the bed.
The room was strangely calm. None of the dramatic scenes he had imagined had come true. It was as if nothing had happened just another ordinary night of scrolling through short videos before falling asleep.
Yan Yuchuan felt he owed Ming Rao an explanation for leaving without a word earlier, so he waved the bag in his hand. “I bought you some medicine.”
Ming Rao nodded, seemingly unconcerned, and gave him a once-over from head to toe. “You’re all soaked.”
Yan Yuchuan placed the medicine on his bedside table. He was too wet to sit down. “What were you about to say earlier?”
Ming Rao blinked in confusion. “What?”
“Before I went out, you wanted to say something to me. What was it?”
Ming Rao froze, then after a moment said, “Oh, I wanted you to take an umbrella. I just saw the news there’s a typhoon tonight.”
Yan Yuchuan nodded, then said, “You need to take a shower.”
Ming Rao tried to stand up, but the moment his feet touched the floor, he collapsed directly to the ground.
Yan Yuchuan quickly caught him and helped him sit in the recliner by the window. He undressed him, then reached out his arms to carry him.
Ming Rao suddenly moved violently. Yan Yuchuan thought he was having a stress reaction to him, his heart clenching as he hurriedly asked what was wrong.
“I want to get my phone.”
Yan Yuchuan fetched his phone for him, then scooped him up horizontally and placed him in the bathtub.
He carefully wiped Ming Rao’s body, and when he saw the injury there, he was relieved it wasn’t as severe as he had feared, though the marks of abrasions and bleeding were still visible.
He didn’t dare look Ming Rao in the eyes, keeping his head down as he asked, “Does it hurt?”
Ming Rao shook his head, expressionless, his eyes fixed on his phone screen, where occasional cat meows drifted from the short videos.
Yan Yuchuan silently cleaned away the accumulated fluid. Then, Ming Rao gently nudged his arm.
“Look at this cat,” he said, holding up the phone screen for Yan Yuchuan to see. “Its fur is curly.”
Yan Yuchuan saw it a gray, nondescript kitten.
Ming Rao asked, “Isn’t it cute?”
He answered with an absent-minded “Mm,” though honestly, he thought the cat looked like a mop that had been washed so many times its color had faded beyond recovery.
“It’s called Mie Mie, only a few months old, I think. This cattery just bought it from abroad as a breeding cat. Ow”
Suddenly, Ming Rao inhaled sharply, his features twisting in pain.
Yan Yuchuan’s heart leapt to his throat. “I’m sorry, I’ll be gentler.”
Ming Rao said nothing, his expression gradually returning to normal. He continued swiping the screen, muttering to himself, “I wonder when it can have kittens. I really want to raise one.”
After the bath, Yan Yuchuan carried Ming Rao back to bed, propped his back against the headboard, and applied the medicine.
Ming Rao suddenly stopped scrolling through Little Red Book and stared directly at Yan Yuchuan.
Yan Yuchuan felt scorched by his gaze, his whole body prickling. He kept his head down, pretending not to notice. After a while, he could no longer pretend and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Ming Rao said frankly, “I’m hungry.”
Before he could respond, Ming Rao pursed his lips and added, “I want to eat that flatbread.”
If he hadn’t mentioned it, Yan Yuchuan would have almost forgotten about the meicai flatbread though that had actually been the original reason they came home. While reheating the flatbread, he also warmed a glass of milk for Ming Rao.
Ming Rao took the steaming flatbread, and his eyes immediately lit up with anticipation. It made Yan Yuchuan feel like some kind of predator, luring an innocent boy into bed with tasty snacks.
Ming Rao took a bite, the crisp crunch filling the air, and the corners of his mouth curled up in a satisfied smile.
This time, Yan Yuchuan looked more carefully. So it wasn’t dimples they were shallow pear-shaped dimples.
He sat in the recliner, hunched over, staring at the grain patterns of the wooden floor, when he suddenly heard Ming Rao say between crunchy bites, “I’ve heard people say the first time always hurts a lot. And I’ve always been afraid of pain even in middle school, I’d cry when I got shots at the hospital. My mom couldn’t stand it, said she’d never seen anyone so delicate.”
Yan Yuchuan’s mind went blank for a moment. When he realized what Ming Rao was doing, he was so ashamed he wished he could bury his head in the ground.
Ming Rao was comforting him.
The person he had just treated with such malicious roughness was now comforting him in return, telling him it was okay, that the pain was normal, and not to blame himself.
What on earth had he done.
Yan Yuchuan had never felt so mortified in his entire life. He only wanted to flee from Ming Rao’s sincere, innocent, all-too understanding gaze. “I’m going to take a shower.”
He peeled off his soaked clothes. With no properly fitting change of clothes available, he had no choice but to come out naked and lie down beside Ming Rao.
Ming Rao was still scrolling through Little Sweet Potato. Hearing the movement beside him, he turned his head and asked, “What’s your Little Sweet Potato handle?”
Yan Yuchuan said he’d never used it. Ming Rao ordered him to register, then made him follow his account.
Tapping into Ming Rao’s Little Sweet Potato page, Yan Yuchuan discovered he was something of a minor influencer. His homepage was filled entirely with his own photography, each post racking up over a thousand likes.
The newest photo was of a pale yellow flower. Yan Yuchuan found it familiar. After glancing back and forth between the phone screen and the bedside table a few times, he casually asked, “Is this the flower you photographed?”
Hearing this, Ming Rao’s hand on the screen froze, and a slight stiffness crossed his face. “Just a random shot. It’s not good.”
Yan Yuchuan said, “It’s nice.”
Ming Rao insisted, “It’s not.”
Yan Yuchuan knew nothing about photography and wisely dropped the subject. He paused, then pivoted: “It won’t hurt as much next time.”
Ming Rao didn’t respond. Instead, he showed Yan Yuchuan his phone screen. The post title read: “Sharing Hidden Photo Spots Around Platinum Harbor: Qingshi Village.”
“Tomorrow I’m going there to photograph the ancient trees. You’re coming with me.”
Yan Yuchuan actually thought Ming Rao probably wouldn’t be able to walk for the next several days, but he kept that to himself and agreed.
Ming Rao nodded, satisfied with his young lover’s compliance, then turned off the light.
The room went dark in an instant, leaving only the faint glow of his phone screen.
He returned to his Little Sweet Potato homepage and saw that the photo of the champagne rose on the bedside table had already garnered over a hundred comments.
[What does this mean??? Something’s going on??!!]
[Bedside table, lamp, flower just asking out of curiosity, is showing off your relationship really this subtle now?]
[Been following you for six months, you finally]
[Feel like I’ve been shown up, not sure, let me check again]
Ming Rao mechanically read through every comment, whether gossipy or congratulatory, his gaze nearly icy, devoid of any warmth a living person should have.
He stared blankly at the “100 points” emoji, staring for a long time, forgetting even to blink, until his eyes grew swollen and his nose stung. He hit delete.
Dawn was about to break, and Yan Yuchuan still hadn’t fallen asleep.
Opening his messaging app, he saw that Lin Zhihao had forwarded him a notice about traffic restrictions during the typhoon, along with a voice message.
[What’s the situation over there? Are you leaving or not? If you’re going, go today once the typhoon hits, you won’t be able to!]
Yan Yuchuan turned his head and looked at the person sleeping soundly beside him.
He didn’t know why, but this person always seemed to witness his worst, most unbearable moments and yet always found unexpected ways to give him hope for something better.
He’d been so close, so close to walking away today. But in the end, he’d chosen to stay.
Not because he’d been struck by some moral awakening. He wasn’t a saint. He had many flaws, when he made mistakes, he wanted to run; when he hit obstacles, he was tempted to give up entirely.
What ultimately turned him back was that he didn’t want Ming Rao to have to deal with his wounds alone, to face those questions whether malicious or well-meaning, equally embarrassing just like the seven-year-old version of himself, left alone on the dock.
A faint ray of morning light broke through the clouds. Soon, Platinum Harbor would begin another day of bustling noise. The person beside him breathed softly, brows furrowed, sleeping restlessly.
Yan Yuchuan replied: [I’m not leaving.]