Chapter 36: Withdrawal

Ji Cheng realized that Song Linyu hadn’t gone far.

To be precise, he hadn’t left at all.

As Ji Cheng came downstairs, he spotted Song Linyu sitting on a bench in the hospital’s designated smoking area. His expression was blank as he stared at the cold white wall ahead, then lit a cigarette.

Pale blue smoke curled around him hazily. The knuckles gripping the cigarette still bore faint red marks that hadn’t fully faded, yet he exuded an icy, listless air—drab and muted in a way that made him seem like a completely different person from the one who faced Fu Yanzong.

The bitter tang of nicotine wafted over, stirring Ji Cheng’s own craving. He walked up, lit a cigarette for himself, and asked Song Linyu a question in the process.

“I remember you didn’t smoke back in the day?”

Song Linyu turned his head to look at him, his expression icy cold, as if he had no interest in talking. After a moment, though, he parted his lips and said calmly, “I’ve always smoked.”

…And it had started early, back when he was sixteen.

In private, smoking had been an important way for Song Linyu to relieve stress.

He wasn’t the obedient, taciturn good student that his teachers and Su Tang saw. More often, in the brief gaps between Su Tang’s orders, he would slip into the shadows behind the first-floor stairwell, light up a cigarette at random, and silently mull over his thoughts.

If he got lucky, Song Linyu would overhear the bouncy footsteps of people coming down the stairs, along with their chatter.

There would be Su Tang’s voice, bossy and loud amid a crowd, demanding to know where Song Linyu was. There would be clusters of girls he got along with, arm in arm, gossiping away.

Their world was nothing like his—no major worries to fret over. They just griped about teachers eating into evening self-study time to go over test papers, or how the cafeteria food was barely edible.

Sometimes there were those sweet little burdens… Like, did that guy from Class Three ask you for a hair tie today? …But I think Song Linyu from Class Six is even cuter. He never pays anyone any mind, though—he’s always glued to Su Tang.

Oh, and oh! Have you seen Fu Yanzong’s new movie that’s blowing up?

“Yeah, yeah!” Song Linyu heard a girl reply with a grin. “Fu Yanzong is so hot, and his acting is top-notch. I bawled my eyes out watching it…”

Song Linyu’s hand paused mid-drag in his corner hideout. He repeated the name to himself.

He recalled the student ID he had kept, and how he used to deliberately pass by Fu Yanzong’s school, watching him from across the zebra crossing.

Back then, Fu Yanzong hadn’t grown out his hair yet. He wore the standard blue school uniform, black backpack slung over one shoulder, phone in hand as a crowd surrounded him while he talked. If someone mentioned something that caught his interest, he’d tilt his head with a half-smile, say a joke Song Linyu couldn’t quite make out, and have everyone cracking up.

Meanwhile, Song Linyu stood on the opposite street corner, left arm weighed down by a backpack stuffed with endless homework and thick workbooks. His own faded blue-and-white uniform looked utterly ordinary. He watched Fu Yanzong quietly. Three seconds later, the light turned green, and the hurried crowd surged across like a black-and-white documentary, mechanical and colorless.

But in that silent black-and-white reel, Fu Yanzong was in color. As they brushed past each other in the brief green light, Song Linyu got jostled, and his books tumbled from his grasp. When he bent to pick them up, Fu Yanzong crouched down to help.

It was just a simple favor—no lingering eye contact, no fateful palm-to-palm moment like in some TV drama.

Just a polite “Thanks” and “No problem.”

Fu Yanzong didn’t remember Song Linyu that time, of course, and Song Linyu didn’t see any issue with that. He simply treated observing Fu Yanzong as a stress-relief hobby—a way to temporarily escape his own world, escape Su Tang.

Song Linyu’s sixteenth year had just seen the death of a family member, leaving him utterly alone. A father he’d never met and a bizarre intruder who controlled his life had conspired to make it happen. Meanwhile, Fu Yanzong, at seventeen, had shot to fame with his debut film, sweeping up public attention. Everyone around was talking about him.

And yet, somehow, their names ended up mentioned side by side by his classmates.

For some reason, Song Linyu found something wryly amusing in that. He actually curved his lips, letting out a rare, silent chuckle.

The moment passed when ash from his cigarette accidentally dropped to the floor and the dean came rushing over to bust him. He schooled his expression, withdrew his gaze, hugged his books like he was just passing by, and slipped away.

No one suspected him of breaking school rules. In everyone’s eyes, Song Linyu was always the same. He didn’t need to explain anything—just stick to the script.

Halfway there, two messages hit his phone. The first was from Su Tang: Where’s the fried bread you were supposed to bring? The second was straightforward—the most comprehensive info available on Song Wen, plus Dongyu’s shareholder breakdown.

Song Linyu scrolled to the bottom of the table and saw Fu Yanzong’s name next to 10% shares.

…

Song Linyu claimed he’d always smoked, but Ji Cheng remembered that Fu Yanzong had no intention of getting addicted to cigarettes, so he’d never smelled smoke on Song Linyu.

“So you quit for Fu Yanzong?”

That was Ji Cheng’s question to Song Linyu, but he got a denial in response.

“No.” Song Linyu said softly, “I didn’t quit. I just held back.”

As long as Fu Yanzong disliked it, he could hold back indefinitely.

Song Linyu figured that was a reasonable step toward getting close to him. Besides, he hadn’t expected this phase to last long anyway. Denying himself a craving wasn’t a big deal.

“You’re impressive,” Ji Cheng said with a laugh, sincere about it. “I couldn’t pull that off.”

Song Linyu didn’t reply. He just suddenly found this cigarette irritating too.

Because holding back and quitting outright were two different beasts. The latter was forever; the former, just a fleeting spell. At first, Song Linyu thought he’d only need to endure for a few years. But then he went back on his own word, often wishing it could stretch on longer—ideally forever.

Fu Yanzong was more effective than any placebo for him. But apparently, the heavens never heard Song Linyu’s later revision. In the end, all he got was Fu Yanzong’s words: “We’re done here.”

“We’re done, Song Linyu. Don’t show up here again.”

The door slammed shut with a bang. Song Linyu knelt dazed amid the wreckage, realizing his hands were trembling uncontrollably.

His mind told him this was for the best, but his body screamed in agony for a sedative—cigarettes, alcohol, even meds. Anything.

Anything to fool himself into forgetting what Fu Yanzong had just said.

Song Linyu fumbled urgently, desperately, habitually for the cigarettes in his pocket. But the moment his fingers met empty, icy air, he realized the pocket had been empty for a while.

/

Ji Cheng didn’t exchange more words with Song Linyu. He seemed to have recalled something unpleasant and silently stubbed out the glowing cigarette butt before standing and leaving, his back looking a touch forlorn.

Ji Cheng lounged in the chair, leg crossed, watching Song Linyu’s retreating figure. That’s when it hit him.

There was an unbridgeable time lag between Song Linyu and Fu Yanzong—there had been before, and there still was. To reset those hands to normal, both gears in the clock would need to grind to a halt at once.

But why would Fu Yanzong ever stand still for one person?

Ji Cheng turned away, eyeing the cigarette Song Linyu had left in the ashtray. He shook his head lightly.

/

…

Ji Cheng irritably ground another cigarette butt into the ashtray. Song Linyu, standing beside him, lowered his gaze silently, saying nothing.

It hadn’t been long since Three Quarters had been submitted for Cannes when Ji Cheng received an invite from Maison Lévant, cordially asking Fu Yanzong to attend a show in Paris.

Lévant was a luxury powerhouse in international fashion—French roots, with a cool, sharp edge. They only extended invites to public figures with a compelling personal story. Their tone toward Fu Yanzong, their ambassador, was impeccably polite: elegant French phrasing, perfectly worded. Ji Cheng read it over and fired off a message to Fu Yanzong without a second thought.

But no reply came, even as the deadline dragged to its final day.

Fu Yanzong had vanished somewhere—phone off the hook, messages ignored. Sure, he’d gone radio silent after wrapping films before, but now he wasn’t picking up from Song Linyu either… That didn’t sit right.

With that in mind, Ji Cheng glanced at Fu Yanzong’s personally hired assistant standing nearby.

He’d specifically warned Song Linyu before: no getting too close to Fu Yanzong outside work hours. But clearly, this new assistant had bent the rules.

Keep distance? Ji Cheng recalled how Fu Yanzong had been with Song Linyu lately—they’d probably been zero distance apart for ages.

Ji Cheng hadn’t doubted Fu Yanzong’s stance. To him, Song Linyu was just a bed warmer for Young Master Fu to kill time with. If not him, there’d be another.

But with no blowup yet, this sudden ghosting from Fu Yanzong felt off.

“You two fight?” Ji Cheng rubbed his furrowed brow and turned to the silent Song Linyu. “Over your recent absences?”

Song Linyu had been taking frequent leaves of absence lately. For an ordinary assistant, that wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. But who ever heard of a kept lover vanishing all the time?

Ji Cheng could only guess at the reasons behind it. Seeing that Song Linyu still hadn’t spoken, he paused with his cigarette and said, “Does the smell bother you? Sorry about that—who told our boss to be so capricious, after all?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Song Linyu replied. “I’m not bothered by it.”

After a pause, he added softly, “He’s not the capricious one… It’s my fault. It’s only natural that he’s angry.”

Song Linyu’s plan had reached its final wrapping-up stage. He had no choice but to show his face in public, so he’d racked his brains for excuses, doling them out to Fu Yanzong in bits and pieces.

Over that time, Song Linyu had come up with excuses so airtight they seemed flawless. He’d even roped in plenty of people to back up his act, confident that even if Fu Yanzong investigated, nothing would turn up.

But Fu Yanzong didn’t seem to care about his excuses at all.

The last time Song Linyu had seen Fu Yanzong was three days ago.

That morning, he’d been in the kitchen with his phone open to a recipe, preparing Fu Yanzong’s breakfast. Song Linyu’s cooking wasn’t exactly top-notch, but Fu Yanzong had never once complained about it.

Then the message arrived from an anonymous email.

Song Linyu stared at it blankly for a moment before turning around and setting the plate down on the kitchen island.

Fu Yanzong, who usually lounged in bed for a good while, was already seated at the table waiting for him that day. Song Linyu pulled out a chair and sat beside him, grasping Fu Yanzong’s arm in a coquettish grip.

He was wearing nothing but one of Fu Yanzong’s shirts, haphazardly thrown on—it did little to hide the marks on his skin. His whole demeanor radiated a sultry sensuality. Fu Yanzong turned his head to meet his gaze and heard him murmur softly, “Bro… I have something to do today… it’s…”

“Go ahead.”

Fu Yanzong cut him off.

He looked at Song Linyu for a moment, then decisively withdrew his arm. Calmly, he picked up the knife and fork beside him.

As he sliced into the decent-looking but unappetizing food Song Linyu had made, Fu Yanzong said flatly, “No need to explain these things to me. Song Linyu, if that’s what you came to say, I have no interest in hearing it.”