“I know that to you, everything is in the past. You don’t hold onto the past, and you don’t need this confession of mine that’s ten years late. But the thought that it was because of my own stupidity that we missed out on a decade, and that I even caused you to leave Yunjing and go far away.”
Yu Xiang closed his eyes, steadying his about-to-spiral emotions, and said in a slow yet resolute tone:
“This time, no matter what your attitude is, even if you never accept me for the rest of my life, it doesn’t matter. I want to stay by your side, take care of you and Sheng-sheng, until you find a new destination.”
The sound fell, leaving absolute silence.
In a space less than fifteen square meters, Yu Xiang could hear only his own heartbeat.
Feeling the entire process of his heartbeat transition from violent to moderate, until it fell into a dead calm, the corners of Yu Xiang’s lips curved upward in a bitter arc.
A predictable result, and yet he actually had the face to hope for a response.
Yu Xiang gave up completely, just wanting to find an excuse to crawl back to his hotel room and lick his wounds in solitude, when Yan Hui spoke.
“You said you liked me? From when?”
“Eight years old, at the Zhou family’s youngest daughter’s hundred-day banquet. The moment I saw you playing Bach’s Prelude in C Major, I fell for you.”
“Then why did you still team up with the others to deliberately bump into me and cover me in ice cream?”
Yan Hui’s expression was exceptionally stern. Unsure whether Yan Hui wanted the nitty-gritty details of the event or the psychological motives behind the action, Yu Xiang could only honestly lay everything out on the table.
“It started with a remark from Little Six Zhou. He thought you were too much of an eyesore. It was clearly his younger sister’s hundred-day banquet, yet you stole the spotlight.”
Yu Xiang shook his head with a smile, though it was unclear whether he was laughing at Little Six Zhou or at himself.
“You know what our group was like back then: kids the family didn’t pay attention to, textbook generational heirs who couldn’t stand elite successors like you and Brother Hao.
“I should have joined them in disliking you, but instead, I was uncontrollably drawn to you. That crush made me panic. Afraid they would find out, I took the initiative to propose playing a trick on you to make a fool of you in public.”
By the end of his sentence, Yu Xiang’s face darkened, his eyes filled with an unspeakable, lingering regret.
One could say that all his disingenuous words afterward, and half a lifetime of regrets, stemmed from that childish and ridiculous proposal made when he was eight years old.
Once a person chose a side, it wasn’t easy to change. Their peers and environment would push them to run headfirst down the wrong path, and he was a textbook example.
Watching Yu Xiang’s look of utter remorse, Yan Hui narrowed his eyes. “Then everything you said at SEVENHOUSE was a lie, too?”
Yu Xiang instantly looked awkward. “You remember that.”
Yan Hui ground his back molars. He sure as hell remembered it! He had remembered it for a lifetime!
After that mountain-racing incident, Yan Hui had cut off contact with Chen Wenzhe, avoiding him the entire summer vacation, which meant he only learned when school started that Yu Xiang had lost the mountain run.
That group of people never raced the mountains again; instead, they shifted tracks and took up car racing.
Because Chen Wenzhe had managed the rare feat of beating Yu Xiang, his head swelled with pride and he completely forgot about Yan Hui, right up until the accident happened.
The cause of the accident was simple: Chen Wenzhe’s gang had a conflict with another group of mountain racers, and an accident occurred during their race, leaving one dead and two injured, plus one permanently disabled.
Chen Wenzhe’s crew consisted of second- and third-tier kids from the Yunjing business circle. With an incident like that, those with thinner family backgrounds were practically sued into bankruptcy. Chen Wenzhe also had his car and cards confiscated, his spending level plummeting to rock bottom, forcing him to track down Yan Hui to freeload.
Yan Hui hadn’t wanted to deal with him, but he also knew it was best not to completely burn bridges with a petty villain like Chen Wenzhe, so he offered perfunctory responses, paying the bill and leaving as soon as possible most of the time.
Until one day, when he spotted Yu Xiang at a newly opened trendy nightclub.
Ever since the mountain-racing incident, Yan Hui had wanted to officially get to know Yu Xiang, but never found the right opportunity. Seeing him now after such a long time, he naturally wasn’t going to let it pass.
So, coaxed by Chen Wenzhe, Yan Hui half-heartedly took a seat, his gaze drifting intentionally or unintentionally toward the VIP booth upstairs.
Noticing Yan Hui kept looking up at the upper floor, Chen Wenzhe laughed, “Only people with invitations can get into the booths. But in a place like the nightclub, the booths aren’t anything fun; the dance floor is where the real action is, right boys?”
The crowd chimed in, but Yan Hui feigned curiosity and asked, “What are the booths like in this place?”
“Ha! What could they be like? Pretty much the same as anywhere else,” Chen Wenzhe said offhandedly, pouring Yan Hui a glass of alcohol.
“Yan Hui, don’t drink orange juice at a club. Try this instead: authentic Glenfiddich 30-Year, has a real kick!”
Yan Hui smiled and refused, “No thanks, I don’t like the taste of alcohol, I’ll stick with orange juice. Are there restrooms in the booths?” Maybe he could wait around for Yu Xiang to come out to use the washroom?
Seeing Yan Hui turn him down, Chen Wenzhe looked displeased. “There are, didn’t I just say they’re all pretty much the same? Oh come on, drop the orange juice, where is the fun in that!”
Chen Wenzhe snatched the orange juice right out of Yan Hui’s hand, shoving the wine glass straight into his palm.
“Since you’re already here, how can you not drink? Here, big brother will add a little extra kick for you, guaranteed you will love it!”
What extra kick?
Yan Hui frowned, a gut feeling telling him something was wrong, and he made to leave.
“Don’t go! You finally came, stay for a while!”
A flash of malice crossed Chen Wenzhe’s eyes. He threw a glance at his lackeys, and together the group forced Yan Hui back down onto the sofa, picking up the spiked glass and trying to shove it down his throat.
Yan Hui realized instantly that Chen Wenzhe had planned this from the start.
Instead of screaming and giving them an opening, he clamped his lips shut and struggled violently, refusing to open his mouth no matter what.
Yet he was only one person while they had a good five or six, and soon enough, someone pinched his nose to force his jaw open.
Yan Hui tried his best to hold his breath, but how long could he possibly hold out?
Deafening music pounded in his ears, and the savage faces of Chen Wenzhe and his cronies filled his vision, illuminated by dim, psychedelic lighting into a surreal blur.
Yan Hui felt like meat on a cutting board, or a small boat tossed in a storm, left with the pathetic choice of watching himself slide into the abyss.
Just as he was about to fall, Chen Wenzhe, who was holding the glass, was suddenly sent flying backward, a stream of alcohol tracing a parabolic arc through the air as it sprayed across the floor along his flight path.
Then came the others holding onto Yan Hui. One by one, without exception, they were yanked by the collar and hurled away.
Only then did Yan Hui dare to gasp for breath, collapsing forward onto the sofa as he panted heavily.
Before he could catch his breath, his arm tightened and he was yanked to his feet, dragged all the way upstairs.
“Old Chu, don’t hold back! But don’t beat him to death either! I’ll take the blame if anything happens!”
“You got it!”
Yan Hui stared blankly at the furiously seething Yu Xiang, and it wasn’t until they entered the booth and he was tossed onto the sofa that it finally clicked.
Yu Xiang had saved him.
“Thank…”
“Are your brains just for decoration? Did you not understand plain human speech when I told you to stay away from big-head Chen? If someone hadn’t seen you guys, you wouldn’t even know how you died!”
Furious, Yu Xiang paced back and forth inside the booth, pointing right at Yan Hui’s nose and cursing up a storm.
“If I had known you were this stupid, I wouldn’t have let you ride in my car back then! Better to kick the bucket early and be reincarnated, maybe you’d grow a brain next time! You were even in the top three for grades! A pig is smarter than you!”
Amidst Yu Xiang’s thunderous scolding, Yan Hui slowly straightened his posture, feeling a novel sense of fascination.
No one had ever chewed him out like this to his face.
Ever since he was little, he had been the model child and good student, praised by all and never once scolded. When he started rebelling in high school, staying out late, smoking, handing in blank test papers, drinking liquor he hated, and getting into random fights, nobody yelled at him either.
Yet today, someone widely known since childhood for lacking discipline, a premier elite among spoiled brats and the school’s acknowledged top delinquent, was tearing him a new one from head to toe.
The residual fear, panic, sorrow, and helplessness lingering inside Yan Hui were smoothed away by Yu Xiang’s colorful, mother-heavy volley of curses, until he finally let out a sudden snort of laughter.
The cursing abruptly stopped, and Yu Xiang’s face was covered in dark lines. “Are you out of your damn mind?”
Yan Hui shook his head with a smile. “If we’re talking about being out of your mind, you’re not far behind! Otherwise, why would you keep helping me time and again? Worrying this much about me getting into trouble, could it be that you… like me?”
“Who the hell likes you?!” Yu Xiang barked, hopping up in anger.
“If you don’t like me, why do you pay so much attention to me?” Yan Hui tilted his head. “We barely even knew each other back then, right?”
Yu Xiang sneered. “We’re all running in the same circle, stop pretending to be strangers! You dare say you didn’t know who I was? Didn’t know whose family Old Chu belongs to?”
Yan Hui fell silent for a fraction of a second. “So what if I did? We’d never even spoken, you could completely have ignored me.”
“Ignored you, and then watched you drag all of us into the pit with you?” Yu Xiang scoffed. “You’re the young master of the Yan family, for crying out loud! If something happens to you, not a single person present is getting away!”
Yan Hui’s brows furrowed. “So that’s why you insisted I ride in your car during that mountain run?”
“Duh! When big-head Chen had that mountain-racing accident, it cost thirty million just to settle it, and the Chen family’s cash flow was practically gutted. If it were you who got into trouble, how much money do you think it would take to appease the Yan family? Once the cost gets too high, we second-generation brats are all disposable pawns!”
Yan Hui’s lips parted slightly as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he simply swapped to another question:
“Then what about tonight? Why did you save me? Chen Wenzhe was just spiking my drink anyway, it’s not like it’s fatal. Why are you getting so hot and bothered over it?”
“Because half of this nightclub belongs to me!” Yu Xiang gritted his teeth. “And I sure as hell didn’t know the idiot getting spiked with alcohol was you!”
Yu Xiang grew more agitated the more he spoke.
“That guy is competitive and fights dirty without a baseline, and he’s already on bad terms with me. Coming specially to my turf means he definitely didn’t come with good intentions! I always keep an eye on him. Forget about you being the one spiked today, if it were a stray dog I’d still save it!”
“So, you really would save just a stray dog?” Yan Hui eyed Yu Xiang with a sidelong glance and asked with a cold chuckle.
“No, I wouldn’t. I didn’t even know he was here. With people coming and going in a nightclub, it’s impossible to stare at him the whole time.”
Yu Xiang gave a light cough and lowered his voice. “When I found out he was spiking your drink, I panicked so hard I almost jumped straight down from the second floor. Good thing I made it in time, or I really would have lived with lifelong regret.”
When Chu Zizhen beat up Chen Wenzhe, a packet of white powder had fallen out of his pocket, which was how they found out what the guy had put in the drink. If Yan Hui had actually consumed that glass, the rest of his life would have been ruined.
Chen Wenzhe was sentenced to prison as a result, and the Chen family went bankrupt under liquidation in less than a year, the whole family vanishing from sight ever since.
The first words spoken inside the SEVENHOUSE booth had marked Yan Hui’s very first active pursuit of love.
Only he knew what a tangled mess his emotions had been when those words left his mouth: both apprehensive and hopeful, excitement and panic intertwining like he was clutching a hundred fleeing little rabbits.
And the instant of disappointment and numbness that followed upon receiving an answer still retained its lingering chill to this day.
Yan Hui had lived twenty-eight years, and he had only mustered the courage to ask twice. Both times, the answers he received could only be described as nightmares, which was why he never dared to ask again.
Who would have thought that the whole truth of it was actually like this.
A massive sense of absurdity washed over him. Yan Hui lowered his head and let out two soft chuckles.
“Yu Xiang, you are such a massive idiot!”