Even after arriving at the publishing house, Lin Yansheng was still trembling all over.
“What happened?”
The editor spotted him from afar and walked over. “Old Lin, you look like a drenched chicken. You’re covered in mud.” After teasing him, he added with concern, “Quickly dry yourself off and change your clothes. The spring chill is still biting these days, don’t catch a cold.”
Lin Yansheng gave a bitter smile and took out the manuscript pages, which looked just as miserable as he did. He briefly explained what had happened. Then he asked, “Do you have any clean paper? I’ll copy everything again as quickly as I can. I should still be able to make it in time.”
The editor, who had been full of worry not long ago, now seemed strangely relaxed.
He said to him, “No rush, no rush. First I should take you to the hospital for a checkup, that’s what matters. It’s best if nothing serious happened.”
“I’m fine,” Lin Yansheng said, feeling confused. “Weren’t you the one urging me yesterday? Now you’re saying ‘no rush.’”
The editor spoke in the tone of someone who had just escaped disaster.
“Yesterday was yesterday. Today is today. Today our publishing house is no longer in danger of closing down. Old Lin, relax. Our rice bowls are safe.”
“Huh?”
“Just before you arrived, someone bought our entire operation at a very generous price. Everything will remain the same.”
Lin Yansheng was stunned.
For some reason, the first person who came to his mind was Qin Shun,
People may not be divided by rank but clothing certainly is. Qin Shun had been wearing a suit. A basic style, simple and flawless. The fabric had looked extremely refined, unquestionably expensive. It made him appear both dignified and radiant.
The thought made Lin Yansheng feel indescribably embarrassed.
Just as Qin Shun was about to touch his arm, he recoiled as if a snake were about to bite him. Lowering his head, he said, “There’s no need.”
He did not know how to deal with it.
So he simply chose not to deal with it at all.
He stood up and walked away.
Even though he did not turn around, he could feel a gaze faintly fixed on the back of his neck.
Lin Yansheng asked, “…Was it Qin Shun?”
The editor suddenly fell silent. After a moment, he patted Lin Yansheng on the shoulder.
“Repaying kindness with kindness has always been considered a beautiful thing. Teacher Lin, don’t dwell on what happened back then anymore. From the very beginning he bore the surname Qin. If Qin Maolin truly wanted to fight you over him, you would never have won. Besides, he was just a child back then. What choice did he have? From what I see, he still remembers your kindness in his heart.”
Lin Yansheng said nothing.
He had never told anyone the truth about what had happened back then. Even when Luo Yaoshan asked, he had stubbornly kept his mouth shut.
So everyone believed that Qin Shun had only left because he had no other choice.
When he returned home, he first drank a great deal of wine in silence.
As long as he didn’t see him, he could pretend that such a person no longer existed in the world.
But the moment he caught even a glimpse, those old feelings, eroded by the passing years into something unrecognizable, would surge back into his heart, faint yet overwhelming.
That night he dreamed of the days in the walled city.
The narrow, twisting corridors. The constant sound of dripping water that never seemed to stop. No matter where he walked, he could smell firewood smoke, incense ash and filth. Dirty water ran through the drains, flowing deep into the cracks of the ground until it disappeared.
He slept until the afternoon of the next day.
Lin Yansheng was awakened by the ringing of a telephone.
His mind was still muddled.
A voice on the other end asked, “Hello, is this Lin Yansheng?”
The accent was strange, like that of a foreigner yet the three words “Lin Yansheng” were pronounced with remarkable clarity.
“Yes, it’s me,” he replied. “And you are…?”
“I am your younger brother. I mean… we have the same mother. Mother is dying. She is very sick, terribly sick. She misses you but she feels guilty. She doesn’t know that I contacted you. I searched through the telephone directory for a long time before I finally found you! I thought you might want to come see her one last time.”
The next day, Lin Yansheng booked a flight to England.
The cost of medical treatment would be enormous.
Without hesitation, he contacted a real estate agent he knew, a young man named Xiao Chen and put his apartment up for sale. Recently the housing market had been improving and a good price would easily attract buyers.
After landing, the so called younger brother who had contacted him never appeared.
Lin Yansheng had a bad feeling.
In this unfamiliar place he had no relatives and no friends and his spoken English was poor. After several days of running around in confusion, he finally managed to find his mother.
Only then did he learn that after remarrying she had never had another child. The illness was indeed serious, the medical records she had faxed to him were not fabricated.
The truth was simply that she had not sought treatment. She had only obtained a few painkillers from a doctor and was now living in a dark basement, quietly waiting to die.
Lin Yansheng brought his mother back to Rong City.
Then he asked about the progress of selling his house.
He almost wished he hadn’t asked.
The moment he began looking into it, he discovered that Xiao Chen had disappeared without a trace and that his house had already been sold.
Lin Yansheng immediately went to report the matter to the police.
The officer said, “All the documents are complete. They carry your own signature and are legally valid. The buyer has the transaction receipt and the full payment for the house has already been transferred.”
Lin Yansheng’s hands and feet turned icy cold.
“I haven’t seen a single cent.”
“Do you remember signing a contract?”
“There was an agency agreement.”
“That’s it, then. They must have taken advantage of your urgency and tricked you into signing something by mistake.”
“I can introduce you to a lawyer, Mr. Lin,” the officer said, seeing how honest and pitiful he looked.
A lawsuit could certainly be filed.
But where would he find the money to hire a lawyer?
His house had been temporarily frozen. Most of his savings had already been swindled away. He still had to buy medicine for his mother. Already, he was barely making ends meet.
Half a year earlier, Luo Yaoshan had said farewell to him, explaining that he had run into some trouble and would need to go abroad to lie low for a year or so.
Even if Luo Yaoshan were still here, Lin Yansheng would never have been able to bring himself to ask. Borrowing a bit of money for Qin Shun’s school tuition back then had been one thing, he had been able to repay it. Helping someone in an emergency was one thing but helping someone out of poverty was another entirely. Medical bills could reach hundreds of thousands. How could he possibly have the nerve to ask for that kind of money?
The rent on his apartment was about to fall three months overdue.
He was already worried that he might not even be able to pay it.
When he returned home, his landlady, Mrs. Wang, opened the door for him. While Lin Yansheng had gone to the police station earlier to inquire about the investigation, he had asked her to keep an eye on things for the afternoon.
Lin Yansheng thanked her and said, “Next month, when I receive my manuscript payment, I’ll immediately make up the rent.”
“There’s no need,” Mrs. Wang said. “Someone has already paid it for you. The next six months have been paid in advance as well. He knows you’ve run into some trouble.”
Lin Yansheng’s emotions were like a drop of water splashing into a pot of boiling oil.
His expression remained completely blank.
“Who was it?”
In truth, there was no need to ask.
He already knew.
Mrs. Wang handed him a slip of paper with an address written on it.
He recognized the handwriting.
Lin Yansheng began boiling the medicine while continuing to write.
As he wrote, he lost track of time. Only when he smelled something burning did he realize what had happened and hurried into the kitchen. In his haste he forgot to take a cloth and when his hand grasped the pot handle he was burned so badly that he flung it away. With a loud crash, the pot shattered into pieces.
There was no time to clean it up.
His mother began coughing in the bedroom and called out loudly, “What happened?”
Lin Yansheng stood there, pacing back and forth in confusion, his hands and feet completely disordered.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
His mother asked, “Can you pour me a glass of water? I’m thirsty.”
An entire dose of medicine had been wasted.
Lin Yansheng started boiling another pot of medicine, picked up the broken fragments and knelt on the floor to wipe away the spilled liquid.
Suddenly, he could no longer deceive himself.
He understood that he had reached a dead end.
He had never been good at household chores. It was already the middle of the night by the time he finished cleaning and even then he still felt as though some places remained unclean.
His mother had already fallen asleep.
He opened the notebook where he usually wrote down scattered fragments of inspiration. On the very first page was a photograph tucked inside, an old picture of himself and his mother.
At that time she had been in the full bloom of her youth, wearing a washed blue robe. She held him in her arms, he had been only five years old then, shy and eager to please, smiling awkwardly at the camera.
And so, Lin Yansheng went to find Qin Shun.
It was a damp spring night.
Mist filled the air.
✦ ✧ ✦
Fleurveil
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
(´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡ a little coffee would be lovely
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← 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