Chapter 26: Confiding

Lai Li remembered the conversation he had with Dai Linxuan at the temple on the Mid-Autumn Festival that day.

[“Bro, you didn’t use to smoke.”

“It’s inevitable to touch some during social obligations. If it’s not cigarettes, it’ll be something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like things that are illegal domestically.”

“Did you touch them?”

“You wouldn’t have asked me that before… You’d just assume I wouldn’t.”]

At that moment, Lai Li suddenly realized that Dai Linxuan hadn’t directly answered his question back then.

The veins on the back of his hand, propped on the desk, bulged. Even the coffee seemed to have a delayed aftereffect, erupting at this instant with bitterness and astringency ten times more intense than before, endlessly seeping into the surrounding flesh.

Dai Linxuan first leaned back into his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose, then sat up straight again. He soothingly pressed Lai Li’s hand and looked up at Jiang Qiujun. “Mom.”

“That’s not me,” Dai Linxuan said, his gaze fixed on the video, firm and deliberate. “—It can’t be me.”

It sounded like an admission, yet also like a evasion.

The three of them fell into a silent standoff. Fortunately, this floor consisted of independent offices, and no one paid attention to the scene.

Lai Li gazed almost calmly out the window at the towering skyscrapers and flashing neon lights. The glass across the way faintly reflected the heat waves of late summer into early autumn.

Yet the air-conditioned office building felt chillingly cold, and even the hand Dai Linxuan held carried a piercing chill.

In his subconscious impression, Dai Linxuan’s body temperature should have been warm and gentle, like the small bonfire they had lit with trash at the end of the alley when they were kids. As long as he got close, his body wouldn’t feel so stiff and cold. But now, it had no warmth at all.

It was like something dredged up from Antarctica.

Jiang Qiujun said, “I never imagined that after two years, you’d call me ‘Mom’ again under these circumstances.”

Dai Linxuan stiffened. Lai Li clearly felt his hand tense up, and he remained silent for a long time.

What were they talking about?

Lai Li couldn’t understand.

He withdrew his gaze from the window and wanted to turn his head to look at Dai Linxuan’s expression, but his eyes accidentally focused on the reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window. He saw his ten-year-old self—skinny, ugly, with an abnormal malice and ferocity lurking in his eyes.

He pulled at the corner of his mouth, stretching it wider and wider into a wild, mocking laugh at the twenty-two-year-old Lai Li.

“Don’t lie to yourself,” the reflection in the glass window pointed at itself. “This is the real you.”

Jiang Qiujun looked at Dai Linxuan for a moment and steadied her tone. “Fortunately, the person who filmed the video didn’t plan to make it public. They just didn’t want you taking a board position at the group, so they sent it to some current directors and demanded money.”

Dai Linxuan stated flatly, “You paid.”

“What else was I supposed to do? Watch my own child get condemned by thousands?” Jiang Qiujun jabbed her index finger down hard on the phone screen. “No matter what the truth is, people who see it won’t care—they’ll just assume you’re scum! All the excuses afterward will sound like nothing but sophistry!”

Dai Linxuan fell silent for a moment before saying softly, “What if I am a rotten person? After all, deep down in my bones…”

“Dai Linxuan.” Jiang Qiujun calmed down. “If you’re going to veer off the path over those ancient, rotten trifles and destroy yourself, then pretend I never gave birth to you.”

Lai Li snapped back to attention, his gaze stabbing toward Jiang Qiujun.

Those words were too harsh.

“I’ll handle this video. After all, family scandals shouldn’t be aired publicly.” Jiang Qiujun gave a mocking smile, picked up her phone, and headed out. She paused at the door for a second. “No next time.”

“Mom.” Dai Linxuan stood and called after her softly. “I can go get a—”

Jiang Qiujun left without looking back.

“…drug test.”

Lai Li lowered his eyes to his hand, pinched blue.

He didn’t pull away. Instead, he grabbed the only potted plant on the desk with his other hand and smashed it hard against the floor-to-ceiling window. The cactus scraped green juice across the glass, and the porcelain pot shattered into pieces, scattering everywhere.

Dai Linxuan instinctively tried to block it but failed.

He looked at the cactus wrapped in soil and thought it was a pity. He had specially brought it over from his own office, since he’d be stationed here for a long time.

People from the secretary’s office heard the noise and hesitated outside the door, unsure whether to come in.

Dai Linxuan slumped back into the office chair, his expression returning to calm. Before he could let go of Lai Li’s hand, it was pried away.

Lai Li turned and left, just like Jiang Qiujun—without looking back as he headed for the door.

Dai Linxuan didn’t speak to stop him. He withdrew the hand hovering in midair and let it drop gently to his side. He lowered his long, dark lashes and stared at the cactus by the floor-to-ceiling window, a faint trace of relief in his brows and eyes.

Let it be like this.

With a “bang,” the door closed.

But what followed wasn’t peace and quiet—instead, there was a rustling sound.

Dai Linxuan froze abruptly. After a moment, he looked up. Lai Li hadn’t left; he was holding down the remote to lower the blinds, blocking the outside view.

Dai Linxuan watched Lai Li and only spoke in a joking tone once the blinds reached the bottom. “You look like you’re about to dismember me alive in the next second.”

Lai Li asked, “Why didn’t you explain?”

Dai Linxuan was stunned for a moment, then smiled. “Mom didn’t seem interested in hearing it.”

Lai Li walked over. “I want to hear it.”

“…Would you believe me if I explained?” Dai Linxuan looked at him.

“Whether I believe it is up to me.” Lai Li turned Dai Linxuan’s chair to face him and leaned down, bracing his hands on the armrests. “But you have to explain.”

“You’re so bossy, Little Chestnut.” Dai Linxuan smiled faintly but soon surrendered under Lai Li’s gaze with a sigh. “I was set up, that’s all.”

Lai Li remained unmoved. “You just said you could go for a drug test.”

Dai Linxuan hummed in acknowledgment. “I registered a venture capital fund abroad and needed local investors. When we were discussing the partnership, they chose the venue and said they’d show me something novel I’d never tried.”

Lai Li asked softly, “And you went?”

Dai Linxuan nodded, meeting Lai Li’s gaze without flinching. “I prepared in advance. Midway, I swapped the leaf they gave me for a cigar that looked identical on the outside. They got high and didn’t notice.”

In the video Jiang Qiujun had played, Dai Linxuan was farthest from the camera, so it was impossible to tell if he was smoking a leaf or a cigar. But if the video leaked, what he was actually smoking wouldn’t matter.

Combined with Zeng Wenzhi’s accusations at the welfare home, it was hard to imagine the storm it would unleash.

The public always viewed capital as rotten and corrupt. With their preconceived notions, when they discovered Dai Linxuan’s private life was equally debauched, they wouldn’t believe him because of his past charity work. Instead, they’d feel a sense of “I knew it.”

—How could the heirs of capital, raised in luxury and drinking the blood of the people, possibly be good people?

Dai Linxuan would face even more frenzied verbal and written attacks. Everything he’d done in the past would be deemed ulterior motives.

Even if the police cleared him and announced no illegal activity, the public would see it as “money buys everything.”

His years of good reputation and image would collapse in an instant, leaving nothing but filth.

“But I really didn’t expect them to film a video.” Dai Linxuan said, “Looks like one of them might have been arranged by one of our own family members to get close to me—Lai Li!”

Dai Linxuan furrowed his brow slightly.

Lai Li suddenly extended his index and middle fingers, pressing them against Dai Linxuan’s carotid artery. “Bro, your heart’s beating really fast.”

“After all, that video is a blemish. It’s weird if I’m not panicking when it’s suddenly thrown in my face.” Dai Linxuan gave a wry laugh and relaxed his body. “I’m not a machine. I can’t be unflappable about everything.”

Lai Li said, “Don’t lie to me.”

Dai Linxuan dropped his smile. “I’m not.”

Lai Li wasn’t sure if he believed it or not, but he didn’t press further.

He maintained that too-close distance, utterly oblivious to any awkwardness, stared into Dai Linxuan’s eyes while thinking for a moment, then suddenly asked, “Why did President Jiang say that just now?”

Dai Linxuan accurately caught which line Lai Li meant—”I never imagined that after two years, you’d call me ‘Mom’ again under these circumstances”—and perhaps also “those ancient, rotten trifles.”

He lowered his eyes and pondered his words for a long while before speaking. “I grew up in the old residence, you know.”

Before Dai Songxue became paralyzed, he had always kept Dai Linxuan by his side to raise him. Only when his health couldn’t hold out anymore did Dai Linxuan return to his parents.

Dai Linxuan said, “There was a time when I was jealous of Dai Yi.”

Lai Li was stunned. He had never imagined that Dai Linxuan, raised amid praise, would harbor a negative emotion like “jealousy.”

“Before I turned twelve, I was pretty much like you after age ten—like an unloved… foster child.” Dai Linxuan said, “The only one who was good to me was Grandpa. As for Dad and Mom, I probably saw them three times a year.”

Once during Spring Festival, once during Dragon Boat Festival, once during Mid-Autumn.

“They acted like they didn’t even have a child. They didn’t care how I turned out—no scolding when I was naughty, no praise when I excelled. Even during our rare meetings, they barely looked at me properly. They only came to the old residence for the family banquets.”

Lai Li frowned. “Why?”

What kind of parents treated their child with such indifference?

“They just didn’t like me.” Dai Linxuan said casually. “I wasn’t born at the right time.”

Lai Li clearly couldn’t accept that. He couldn’t imagine anyone disliking Dai Linxuan after meeting him.

“Later, when Grandpa had his stroke and couldn’t care for me anymore, I went back home. Dai Yi was a little over three then.” Dai Linxuan recalled. “No comparison, no disparity.”

“Other kids my age had their parents around, but they weren’t dangling in front of me. Dai Yi was different—she was my little sister, with us day in and day out. Dad doted on Xiao Yi especially. Mom wasn’t overly warm toward her, but compared to how she treated me, it was worlds apart.”

Dai Linxuan hadn’t returned to his parents until he was twelve, but they already had another child by then.

A child they named themselves, raised themselves, and accompanied personally as she grew.

Dai Linxuan watched it all like an outsider, witnessing it with his own eyes over the next dozen-plus years.

He saw his mother, who treated him like a stranger, gently coaxing his sister to sleep, placing her sister’s hundred-day photo by the bedside, hugging her, holding her little hand. Even with a busy schedule, she made time to play with Dai Yi, attend parent-teacher conferences, never missing important occasions. Meanwhile, Dai Linxuan’s parent-teacher meetings from childhood were either attended by Grandpa or Grandpa’s secretary. His homeroom teacher had even talked to him about it, saying parents should be involved personally—it was understandable to be busy, but not every time.

Dai Linxuan could only smile apologetically to the teacher and say they really couldn’t make it.

With Jiang Qiujun’s aloof personality, she had even read bedtime stories to Dai Yi.

As a teenager, Dai Linxuan had stood at the doorway, pressed against the wall, listening quietly.

Even after returning to his parents, he still didn’t receive their love. He remained ignored, like a transparent person. Whether he was awful or exceptional, he couldn’t stir the slightest emotional ripple in them.

“I rebelled once.” Dai Linxuan curved the corners of his eyes, as if recounting some youthful anecdote. “During finals in ninth grade, I deliberately bombed to rank dead last in the grade. My homeroom teacher suspected puppy love or rebound from family pressure, so she called my parents.”

Lai Li’s breathing hitched; he already guessed the outcome.

“Dad was in a meeting and didn’t pick up, never called back.” Dai Linxuan spread his hands. “Mom answered and said she knew.”

“That evening when I got home, no accusations, no beatings—everything as usual. Dad had a dinner with friends, and the first thing Mom did when she got back was pick up six-year-old Xiao Yi and ask how her day at kindergarten was.”

Lai Li had no real sense of these descriptions, but seeing the bitterness permeating Dai Linxuan’s expression made his own chest fill with an inexplicable palpitation, suffocatingly tight.

Dai Linxuan raised his hand, crooked his index finger, scraped it down his nose, and finally covered his lips. “Xiao Yi’s existence made me deeply realize that my birth wasn’t anticipated.”

This favoritism had nothing to do with material things—it was something intangible, seeping into the air through everyday details. Just breathing it in felt suffocating… but air was essential; not breathing meant death.

Lai Li grabbed Dai Linxuan’s hand and gripped it tightly. “You’ve never told me any of this.”

If he had, Lai Li would remember.

Dai Linxuan smiled and pinched Lai Li’s wrist. “Because when you were little, you didn’t even have what I did.”