“You speak with shocking ingratitude,” Luo Yaoshan said. “Yansheng has taken care of you for many years. He treats you as if you were his own child. For your sake, he even delayed remarrying.”
“Haha.”
Qin Shun let out a short laugh.
“Take care of me?”
“He can’t even manage washing clothes or cooking properly. He needs someone to remind him just to eat on time. If no one pays attention, he ends up with hypoglycemia.”
“Making the bed, changing lightbulbs, fixing pipes, paying miscellaneous bills, he remembers all of it in a complete mess.”
“When he goes out during the day and comes back through the hallway, he often forgets to straighten his collar. If ink stains the corner of his clothes, he never notices. In winter, his hands and feet turn ice cold yet he doesn’t even realize how uncomfortable he is. Someone has to keep an eye on him every single day just so he remembers to apply his ointment.”
“And as for delaying remarriage because of me, that’s even more ridiculous.”
“It’s not like any woman wants him.”
“He doesn’t have a high level of education, earns little, looks ordinary and is clumsy with words. All he knows is how to bury his head and treat people well, as if that amounts to anything. Just recently someone came to the house, clearly trying to sell him insurance. He brought the contract home and hid it in a drawer. He doesn’t dare sign it and he doesn’t dare let me find out either.”
So it turned out that it wasn’t only his own jealousy toward A’Shun that had been quietly growing.
A’Shun’s contempt for him had been growing as well.
They truly were the most hypocritical pair of fake relatives in the world.
“Not to mention that dead gay like you constantly hanging around him, whispering things in his ear yet he’s blind to it all and keeps telling me ‘friend, friend.’”
“When the anti corruption investigators came asking about you, he was so frightened he trembled. He almost swore on the spot that he was a good little servant, obedient, incapable of rebellious thoughts. He can’t even lie properly, stammering and stumbling over his words. The moment I stepped out, he hid behind me immediately. He told me he was scared, that he regretted ever getting involved with you but the next time you came around, he was afraid of you again and pretended to be your friend. His courage is pitifully small and he can never make up his mind.”
Stop.
Please stop.
Please, I beg you.
Lin Yansheng covered his face and wept.
He had always known that he was weak.
So weak that even after hearing A’Shun say “I have never regarded him as my father,” he still couldn’t bring himself to leave. He remained standing there, continuing to listen.
Was a single arrow through the heart not enough? Did he really need to be cut into a thousand pieces before it felt painful enough?
Then, the door was pushed open.
A flood of dazzling light poured out in a sudden rush.
Lin Yansheng felt so embarrassed that he wished he could immediately find a crack in the ground and crawl into it.
“Uncle.”
“Yansheng.”
Both men stopped in their tracks.
A silence as heavy as death fell between them.
After an unknown stretch of time, Luo Yaoshan was the first to speak.
“Qin Shun, apologize to your uncle. Tell him that everything you just said was nonsense.”
Qin Shun acted as though he had heard nothing.
Instead, he asked, “Uncle, would you like to stay here and accept his comfort, or come home with me?”
Family disgrace should never be made public.
That was what Lin Yansheng thought.
He held himself together until he locked the front door of the house. Only then did he turn around, the resentment in his heart finally surging upward. He forced himself to remain as calm as possible as he spoke.
“A small temple cannot hold a great Buddha. Qin Shun, I believe I have not treated you poorly. If you feel wronged, then fine, I won’t stand in your way.”
After saying this, he waited for Qin Shun’s reaction.
What he hadn’t expected was that Qin Shun would laugh.
He froze.
“You’re sweating quite a lot, Uncle. You must have used up all your courage just now. If you look in the mirror, you’ll see how hard you’re trying to stop yourself from trembling.”
As Qin Shun spoke, he reached out and grasped his hand. His grip felt like a coarse, sticky vine wrapping around him.
Lin Yansheng felt as though all the blood in his body had been suddenly drained away, then rushed back in an instant. Immediately afterward, his entire face flushed a sickly red.
He was actually mocking him!
With a sharp slap, Lin Yansheng forcefully knocked Qin Shun’s hand away.
He lifted his head and met Qin Shun’s gaze directly.
They were a pair of magnificent eyes.
Yet perhaps because he had not slept through the night, the hollows of his eye sockets were slightly sunken and his pupils were dark and bottomless. Desire, hatred, intimidation, curiosity, countless emotions flickered within them.
Some Lin Yansheng could understand, others he could not. All of them burned there, like a ghostly blue green flame blazing in the depths.
It was as if that fire were about to be flung directly onto him.
Lin Yansheng vaguely sensed that something unknown was undergoing a violent transformation. He did not understand what it was, only that instinctively, he felt afraid.
“I never should have brought you back in the first place.”
“Yes. It would have been much better if I had simply died back then.”
“You ungrateful, heartless wretch!”
“Is that the most vicious thing you can think of to say, Uncle? It doesn’t hurt at all. Why not try something even more vicious?”
Lin Yansheng was so furious that his hands and feet trembled uncontrollably.
Holding back his breath, he forced out his words.
“So what, then? You want me to be afraid of you, is that it? Fine, I’m afraid of you, I’m afraid of you, does that satisfy you? I’m not worthy of being your guardian, so why are you still here? Get out of my house. Get out!”
As he spoke, Qin Shun stepped closer and closer.
Lin Yansheng retreated until there was nowhere left to retreat.
Qin Shun opened his broad chest and back like a spreading wall and, without giving him any chance to resist, wrapped his arms around him and pulled him into an embrace.
Lin Yansheng stiffened in terror.
The fear that had lingered within him for so long seemed to finally become reality in that moment.
He had always known that Qin Shun had grown taller and larger than he was but actually experiencing it was an entirely different matter.
“I’m not leaving, Uncle. If you want to know, then I’ll tell you everything. Touch the wounds on my back yourself. I should have told you long ago. Those injuries… I made them myself.”
That was what Qin Shun said to him.
Lin Yansheng did not know how to respond.
He was terrified.
Qin Shun felt like a gigantic, violently beating heart and at the same time like some unknown creature, madly trying to burrow into his torn open soul.
“Uncle, open it and see for yourself,” he urged him. “Uncle.”
Lin Yansheng resisted. He shut his eyes tightly, feeling certain that his face had already been smeared into a mess by tears.
He must look unbearably ugly, he thought.
Then,
In the midst of the chaos, something soft and moist gently pressed against the corner of his forehead. Then it moved to his eyes, his cheeks, searching clumsily in different places as though looking for something.
Only after a moment did he realize that it was a pair of lips.
The shock struck him like lightning.
He froze for a moment.
Suddenly, Lin Yansheng struggled violently, only to be restrained.
He strained so hard that the tendons in his neck bulged and tightened, the veins throbbing and pulsing visibly.
“Qin Shun!!!”
His voice was filled with terror.
Qin Shun seemed possessed as he tried to kiss him.
With a dull thud, Lin Yansheng looked down at the brass paperweight in his own hand.
Something so blunt and unsharp had actually smashed open Qin Shun’s brow bone, leaving a gash from which blood began to flow.
Everything came to an abrupt halt.
Qin Shun did not move.
Even as the blood ran into his eyes, he paid it no mind.
He simply stared at Lin Yansheng, deeply and intently.
Only after a long time did his long eyelashes, now stained with blood, blink slowly once.
Lin Yansheng spoke.
Finally, Qin Shun released him.
“I’m sorry, Uncle,” he said.
“Get out.”
Lin Yansheng said it again.
Qin Shun’s face turned deathly pale.
He stood up and left in complete silence.
Their parting was astonishingly careless and abrupt.
Qin Shun disappeared from Lin Yansheng’s life without a trace, as though he had died.
Until five years later.
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
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← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 1 · UncleChapter 2 · Ran AwayChapter 3 · TimidChapter 4 · DeceasedChapter 5 · Grow upChapter 6 · CharmChapter 7 · EndureChapter 8 · Biological FatherChapter 9 · ContestChapter 10 · MisunderstoodChapter 11 · BreakChapter 12 · ReunionChapter 13 · MeetChapter 14 · To clearChapter 15 · InstructionsChapter 16 · RegretChapter 17 · SecretChapter 18 · Subtle SophistryChapter 19 · GuestChapter 20 · KissingChapter 21 · Extra 1Chapter 22 · Extra 2Chapter 23 · Extra 3Chapter 24 · Extra 4Chapter 25 · Extra 5Chapter 26 · Extra 6Chapter 27 · Extra 7Chapter 28 · Extra 8