People always say that wonderful things in this world are fragile and fleeting: colorful clouds disperse easily, and glazed glass shatters at a touch. Yu Baihua had once believed this saying was nonsense anything he desired, he always managed to keep by his side.
Later on, he learned otherwise.
During that final period, the commercial empire the Yu family had painstakingly erected retreated step by step. Forced back into the corporate fold to help manage operations, Yu Baihua found himself suffocating beneath the crushing pressure exerted by his parents. He and Yu Sui had gone many days without seeing each other, until a rare, snatch-a-moment-of-leisure holiday arrived, and Yu Sui caught sight of his message:
“Accompany me to watch the fireworks tonight.”
He had always spoken to Yu Sui in that manner, carrying a hint of self-justifying entitlement. Because Yu Sui was invariably willing to accommodate him; even when displeased, his manner of refusal was always mild and circuitous, unfailingly leaving Yu Baihua deeply satisfied.
People always say that being loved feels like having something to lean on, and Yu Baihua had felt precisely that way. Yu Sui had never explicitly stated “I love you” to his face; whenever Yu Baihua advanced a step, Yu Sui would retreat a step, yet he always lingered precisely along a specific boundary line, coming within a hair’s breadth of standing firmly by Yu Baihua’s side.
Only this once did something go wrong.
The special notification chime on Yu Sui’s phone rang out, yet he chose not to reply, locking his screen instead, taking a sip of the coffee before him, and looking up at the person across the table.
Tang Jue sat opposite him, speaking with absolute certainty: “The Yu family has already tracked it down. The source of the leaks regarding their resort’s new developments, shipping route layouts, and material supplies is none other than Yu Baihua or rather, it is you.”
Tang Jue offered a round of applause laden with profound admiration: “Some of these matters weren’t even entirely clear to Yu Baihua himself, yet you, mere company lingering by his side, have them mapped out down to the finest detail.”
“You flatter me.” Yu Sui tore open a packet of creamer and stirred it into his cup, inexplicably feeling that the coffee tasted rather bitter. “It wasn’t particularly difficult.”
“Yu Baihua is no pushover, to say nothing of the entire Yu family.” Leaning forward, Tang Jue locked his gaze onto him. “You aren’t guaranteed to walk away unscathed… unless you join forces with us.”
Seeing him finally arrive at the crux of the matter, the lingering trace of impatience in Yu Sui’s demeanor receded slightly. He halted the silver spoon lazily stirring his coffee, letting it strike the rim of the cup with a crisp clink.
“And what is it that you people desire?”
“The total annihilation of every single member of the Yu family.” As Tang Jue uttered those words, he gritted his teeth, evidently nursing a deep-seated grievance accumulated over many years.
“Including Yu Baihua?”
“Including Yu Baihua.”
…
Yu Sui let out a light chuckle. “Fascinating. Do go on.”
“So long as you give your consent, subsequent terms of cooperation remain open for negotiation.” Leaning back into his chair with the air of someone holding a winning hand, Tang Jue reassured him: “Rest assured, we will provide you with sanctuary. You may enter into an engagement with me first; the current Yu family wouldn’t dare openly lay a hand on someone under my protection.”
Yu Sui nodded lightly. “How true that the mighty dragon falls prey to the snapping jaws of domestic dogs.”
“Yu Sui!” Tang Jue frowned, staring hard at him.
“Just a joke.” Standing up, Yu Sui looked down upon him from above. Though his eyes brimmed with a smile, a bone-chilling frost underlay his gaze.
“I accept this proposal. Happy cooperation.”
Tang Jue’s brows smoothed out. “Happy cooperation, Yu Sui.”
When Yu Sui stepped out of the café, a driver was already waiting outside to hold the car door open for him. Though Yu Baihua was currently buried up to his neck in chaos and stress, the privileged treatment afforded to Yu Sui had never diminished in the slightest.
Noticing that he remained silent for ages, the driver had no choice but to observe him through the rearview mirror, only to find Yu Sui wearing an impassive expression as he reached out on a whim to pluck a pack of cigarettes from the dashboard compartment. The driver wisely chose to keep his mouth shut.
Pushing open the cigarette pack with a single finger, Yu Sui tilted his head slightly to clamp the filter between his lips. With a flick of his other hand, a lighter materialized from nowhere, its cover snapping open with practiced familiarity as he clicked it to life. The crimson flame licked against his pale, slender fingers, yet he made no move to pull away, deliberately allowing himself to be singed.
That patch of skin swiftly flushed red, carrying a faint, dull sting. As a magician, he would never ordinarily permit his hands to suffer such damage, yet he appeared momentarily lost in thought, his slightly narrowed eyes half-concealed behind the drifting plumes of smoke, lending him an unreadable, enigmatic allure.
The phone screen lit up repeatedly, flashing with endless messages sent by Yu Baihua. In the past, Yu Sui would reply the instant he saw them; today, however, he slowly smoked an entire Marlboro cigarette clear to the filter before finally picking up his phone to tap out a single sentence:
“Occupied.”
“Occupied? With what? With going out to drink coffee with other people?”
Yu Baihua’s fury practically bled through the text messages. Ignoring it entirely, Yu Sui instructed the driver to return to the hotel, closed his eyes, and rested.
The silenced phone screen finally flickered and faded entirely into darkness.
Meanwhile, Yu Baihua stood staring down at the documents tossed mercilessly to his feet by his father, bracing himself the next second for a vicious slap across the face.
No one dared intervene when Yu Ming struck; Yu Baihua took the blow squarely. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have instantly ignited a cataclysmic war, yet today he appeared hollowed out, staring blankly at the black-and-white print across the report the two characters forming Yu Sui seemed to burn like fire, scorching his eyes until he dared not look another second.
Scattered across the floor alongside it were photographs capturing Yu Sui engaged in lively, congenial conversation with various individuals with Tang Jue, and with others harboring predatory ambitions toward the Yu family.
With a self-abasing cruelty, Yu Baihua refused to close his eyes, as though desperate to carve every single image deep into his brain. After a long beat, he stubbornly forced the words out, his voice hoarse and still clinging to denial: “It couldn’t have been him…”
Flying into a blind rage, Yu Ming clamped his fingers around Yu Baihua’s chin, his eyes overflowing with undisguised revulsion: ” Useless trash.”
Standing off to the side wrapped in a shawl, his mother watched the spectacle with cold, unmoving detachment, instinctively stepping back the moment Yu Ming lashed out, terrified of the fallout catching her as well.
Their gazes had never encompassed anything beyond their own personal interests and power; by contrast, Yu Baihua remained so sickeningly naive it hardly seemed possible he was born of their flesh and blood.
Yu Ming enunciated each word clearly for his son: “Yu Baihua, you are to drag him here this very day, do you understand? The Yu family has never tolerated anyone daring to humiliate us in this fashion.”
Remaining silent and unmoving, Yu Baihua resembled a statue carved of stone. When no one spoke further, an unknown duration later, he let out a low, humorless laugh, brushed past Yu Ming, and strode away with his men in tow.
The messages he dispatched to Yu Sui received no further reply. Yu Baihua’s final text was stark and concise:
“7 PM tonight, by the Binjiang Riverside.”
When Yu Sui returned to the hotel, he ordered a bottle of Château Petrus, which was fully decanted by the time he emerged from the shower. Draped in a bathrobe, he poured himself a glass and, finding himself with time to spare, summoned 058 to play a round of cards.
The secret to winning against 058 was avoiding excessive victories; since everything on the table was dictated entirely by Yu Sui, the poor, unsuspecting system remained convinced that Yu Sui was playing fair and square, pitting their matched skills against one another as it grew increasingly enthusiastic, entirely oblivious to the fact that it was being played like a fiddle all along.
Naturally, playing cards with one’s own avatar lacked the thrill of playing against Yu Sui directly. Yet normally, Yu Sui couldn’t be bothered to spare 058 the time of day; granting such exceptional attentiveness today naturally aroused the system’s suspicions.
The sudden, roaring crash of thunder erupted without warning, followed immediately by a torrential downpour whose ferocious momentum finally caused Yu Sui to snap back to reality.
“What time is it?” he inquired.
“Half past ten…” 058 replied, before watching Yu Sui lower his gaze in quiet contemplation for a moment, stand up, change back into his clothes, and pull on a coat to head out the door.
“Where on earth are you heading this late?” 058 retreated back into the system space, thoroughly bewildered.
Pushing open the hotel’s revolving doors, Yu Sui grabbed an umbrella prepared for guests, and bypassing his driver entirely, hailed a taxi on the spot.
By the Binjiang Riverside, Yu Baihua had in truth been waiting from the afternoon straight through until now. He watched the sun sink slowly below the horizon, the golden radiance cast by the setting sun eroding away inch by inch until swallowed by absolute gloom, yielding to the deep, starless, moonless abyss of night until the storm broke, pouring down as though the entire sky were being inverted upon the city.
The river began to surge and rush turbulently. Yu Baihua brought no umbrella, nor did he make any move to leave or dispatch his subordinates to purchase one. Standing in the pouring rain was rather pleasant, because the moment raindrops ceased falling directly upon your skin, you knew the person you were waiting for had arrived.
A silent black umbrella materialized to shelter Yu Baihua from the deluge. Yu Sui uttered not a single word. Cascading streams of rainwater cascaded off the rim of the umbrella, partitioning the space into a private universe shared solely by the two of them.
Yu Baihua still had the leisure to slowly nibble on the sweet he kept tucked inside his cheek. Sensing that the person he awaited had finally arrived, he broke into a smile and said: “Yu Sui, look up.”
Ordinarily, these fireworks would have painted the night sky in a dazzling, frost-flower display of dazzling brilliance, outlining the joyous smiles of countless pedestrians beneath the dome of the sky resembling fireflies threading through lofty pavilions, or purple butterflies fluttering over silk curtains.
Yet owing to this relentless downpour, whatever fireworks managed to launch were instantly choked by the moisture, blurring into a murky, indistinct haze of gray that possessed zero aesthetic appeal.
Yu Sui gazed quietly ahead, neither of them speaking a word. Only after a prolonged silence did he break the stillness, his voice carrying a muffled, subdued edge:
“Yu Baihua, you don’t actually like me, do you?”
His tone was detached and composed as he asked: “Yu Baihua, you don’t actually like me, do you?”
Yu Baihua let out a scoff escalating from a light chuckle into a full-throated laugh. Turning his head with vicious intensity to fix a dead-eyed, blistering stare upon Yu Sui, he gritted out through clenched teeth:
“What do you think?”
“Just a game. Did Young Master Yu actually take it seriously?” Yu Sui asked with feigned puzzlement.
“Just what is your game…” Yu Baihua’s murmured whispers carried an icy, suffocating chill. “So clever, yet you still dropped down to play house with a child.”
Yu Sui let out a soft laugh, offering no refutation as he leaned in close to murmur near his ear: “Considering Young Master Yu’s looks, I certainly didn’t come out at a loss… It’s just a pity you proved far more useless than I anticipated, and your precious Yu family is no exception.”
Following that, he felt a hot, scalding tear strike the back of his hand, nearly causing him to lose his grip on the umbrella for the very first time.
Those droplets of water were scorching beyond measure; Yu Baihua’s eyes were inflamed and bloodshot as he bit down hard on his lower lip, refusing to utter a single sound.
“Yu Sui,” Yu Baihua demanded, articulating each word with agonizing effort: “Then why did you still come today?”
The subordinates he brought with him remained stationed nearby; a single command from Yu Baihua would seal Yu Sui’s path, making escape an impossibility.
Lowering his eyelids, Yu Sui kept his expression hidden from view. When he finally spoke, his voice was laced with a sigh, rendering it impossible to discern whether his regret was genuine or merely pity for a man beaten into total, utter defeat.
“Could you bear to do it?” Yu Sui asked.
He stepped closer to Yu Baihua, his amber pupils catching the faint, shimmering streetlamps along the riverbank to cast a golden half-hue resembling the hypnotic, mesmerizing irises of a venomous snake.
It was the distance at which ordinary mortals lean in to share a kiss. Yet contrary to every expectation, that kiss never descended.
The sole thing left lingering beside Yu Baihua’s ear was Yu Sui’s absolute, unwavering verdict: “Yu Baihua, you cannot bring yourself to kill me.”
Being loved feels like having something to lean on Yu Baihua had always assumed that phrase applied to himself.
In truth, the reality was precisely the reverse.
The umbrella shading his head ultimately pulled away. The rain gradually dwindled, pattering lightly against their frames once more, yet failing to stem the sensation of being drowned alive by utter despair.
Yu Sui remained entirely composed, entirely graceful. The retreating silhouette of him holding his umbrella displayed not a single trace of hesitation, his coat hem dampened by the icy trails of rain as though brushed by stray tears.
Only his hand, gripping the umbrella handle so tightly that the knuckles turned deathly pale, stood out with stark prominence against the night.
Not a single soul moved to block his path, for Yu Baihua never gave the order.
For countless years thereafter, that receding silhouette remained permanently etched within Yu Baihua’s memories.
“Congratulations, Host.”
As Yu Sui departed, he heard 058 chime in:
“Your mission is nearing completion.”