Chapter 6: Night of Vigil

Inside the room, Chi Lanyi felt so dizzy it was as if he might die the next second.

His heart raced wildly, pounding against his ribcage. Simultaneously, his cheeks throbbed; the capillaries under his skin were excitedly expanding under the rising blood pressure.

Zou Jun leaned beside him, saying, “Hey, you really can hold your liquor.”

“…”

“You look all delicate and weak, but you’ve got quite the temper. Do you know how strong that alcohol you drank is? It’s pretty high-proof.”

Chi Lanyi looked at Zou Jun dazedly. Propping himself up with his arms on the sofa, he struggled to keep upright. Zou Jun was still watching him, clicking his tongue: “You really are so good-looking…”

He reached out, wanting to touch Chi Lanyi’s face, but Chi Lanyi shied away.

Zou Jun wasn’t annoyed. Treating it all as part of flirting, he continued: “Hey, why be a tailor instead of a model or an actor? I think you’d suit being a model. These legs, this waist—supermodel material.”

“I can only express myself through design… otherwise, I have no meaning,” Chi Lanyi said softly.

Zou Jun laughed: “You’re so serious. Everyone’s just here to coast for a diploma.”

Chi Lanyi frowned. Shaking his head dully, he said: “I am… serious… I’m very good…”

“Ah, don’t talk about that now. What kind of place are we in? That talk is boring. Hey.” Zou Jun said frivolously, “Do you know how many people had their eyes on you the moment you started school? It’s just you, socially inept. Otherwise, you wouldn’t need to live in the student dormitory at school.”

“My family won’t allow me to study design… but I do it very well, I really am… why won’t anyone believe me…”

As he spoke, Chi Lanyi actually began to sob. His natural appearance was pure and clean; when he cried, his eyes were like leaking little lakes.

Zou Jun grew a bit impatient: “Don’t cry, crying spoils the fun. By the way, regarding that Renault business, you’re actually not so innocent. He’d had his eyes on you for over a year, always wanting to get with you. I even suspect he went for Xiao Gao because he couldn’t get to you.”

As if not understanding, Chi Lanyi let out a slow, “Huh?”

Zou Jun had lost interest in chatting with Chi Lanyi too. He sat down in front of him and teased, “Designer, how do you undo your buttons?”

“My buttons?” Chi Lanyi looked down dazedly.

Zou Jun reached to undo them. At that very moment, he heard a loud crash!

“Bang!”

Someone had smashed the door open.

“What the hell!” Zou Jun instinctively jumped up, starting to yell, “Who the hell are you?! Have you got a death wish? Security! Security!”

A tall, imposing man strode towards him. Zou Jun froze. For a moment, he was actually too scared to speak.

“Get lost.”

The man kicked him aside with one foot. Zou Jun clutched his stomach, groaning in pain. The man first strode over quickly, looking at the dazed Chi Lanyi, who seemed to have lost all reaction.

His fists clenched, veins bulging, then he strode towards Zou Jun, grabbing him by the collar: “What did you give him?!”

“Give him… I didn’t give him anything! Fuck, stop stepping on me, it hurts!” Zou Jun begged.

“The pills on the sofa. Did you give him those?”

Zou Jun wailed: “No, didn’t give him those! I was planning to, put two pellets in the drink. Just something to relax his muscles, a little enhancer, I thought he was too thin… Didn’t think…”

“Didn’t think? He’s in poor health; he absolutely cannot take that stuff. Are you fucking trying to kill him?!” the man roared, “What else did you give him!”

“Three cans of beer, that’s it… He drank those himself! He drank them himself, I didn’t force him!”

Chi Lanyi’s head was heavy. He could barely comprehend the words being spoken nearby, only hearing what sounded like someone getting beaten up.

He felt a bit hot and couldn’t help tugging at his collar. Nearby, Zou Jun kept screaming like a stuck pig: “…I didn’t even take his clothes off! And besides, he’s the one who nodded and agreed to come upstairs with me! He nodded himself!”

“…”

“He wanted to do it with me too!”

For a moment, all the noise actually stopped. Then, came another vicious kick!

It sounded like someone was being dragged out of the room.

Chi Lanyi was still absorbed in dealing with his buttons. It was April, springtime. He wore a shirt, which should have been neither too hot nor too cold. But now he was intensely hot, as if he was about to break out in a heavy sweat at any second.

The door was closed. But someone else seemed to be in the room besides him. That person initially stood by the doorway, as if trying hard to calm himself down.

Finally, that person walked over and stood before Chi Lanyi.

“What are you trying to take off?”

The person said coldly.

“…So hot.”

Chi Lanyi said.

He felt like every breath he exhaled was burning; his head was swollen and heavy. He wanted to drain all the blood out of his body.

He also noticed that the stranger was still watching him. The look in his eyes was extremely malevolent.

“Have you done it before?” the person suddenly asked.

“…Hm?”

“You’re nineteen. You’re an adult now. After becoming an adult, have you done it with others?” the person continued.

For a moment, Chi Lanyi couldn’t grasp the meaning of his words. First, he nodded dazedly, then he shook his head.

When he nodded, the man in front of him seemed ready to erupt and spew fire the very next second.

But when he started shaking his head, the man forcibly suppressed himself, like a volcano forced back to its dormant state, struggling to regain composure.

“Did you ever, or didn’t you?” the man said, voice strained with suppression.

His voice held anger, hatred, and an unstoppable, thick possessiveness.

Even the veins on his neck were throbbing with ferocity.

Chi Lanyi both nodded and shook his head. A long time later, the man finally gritted out: “…Forget it.”

It seemed the man knew that if this continued, he wouldn’t be able to hold back his curses anymore.

His waist—as if touched. For a split second, Chi Lanyi felt the strength and scorching heat of that broad palm gripping his waist.

Chi Lanyi shuddered with extreme sensitivity. A mixture of fear and confusion spread through his mind, and alongside it arose an excitement he refused to admit, a shameful thrill.

His shirt clung to his heated skin. Chi Lanyi’s breathing was uneven, his whole body rigid. The person touching him also paused. The man’s hand hung in mid-air; suddenly, he realized something from Chi Lanyi’s reaction.

The man’s breathing was clearly disturbed, but it was quickly, forcibly suppressed.

Then, the man withdrew the hand that had originally intended to lift Chi Lanyi up.

“Forget it. Just stay sitting on the sofa.”

Chi Lanyi heard that person say.

That was the second time tonight he had heard that person say “forget it.”

Chi Lanyi remained on the sofa. He watched as the man called people in. Several people surrounded him, helping to examine him.

As he was encircled, the man stayed at a distance, neither too far nor too close. Finally, after everyone else left, the man stared at him, then let out a cold laugh.

“Tough luck you’ve got,” the man’s voice held an emotion impossible to tell if it was sarcasm or relief. “Drink less from now on.”

The man looked at Chi Lanyi’s disheveled collar and once more felt the urge to lean in and fix it for him. But in the end, the man just looked down at his own hand.

The night deepened gradually, and soon, a hazy light grew. Chi Lanyi curled up and fell asleep on the sofa.

His hair was disheveled, tangled across his pale face.

And Gao Rong sat on the carpet beneath the sofa. His face remained expressionless the whole time, until the morning light fell upon him.

From start to finish, he did nothing.

Just as if he had finally managed to display the indifference he was supposed to feel when facing Chi Lanyi.

Even if he had just spent the entire night staring at a single spot on the carpet.

…

Early the next morning, a heavy rainstorm hit Paris.

As if trying to wash away all the filth of the previous night. The drainage system was clogged; the entire city was submerged in rain. Gao Rong exited the bar, his secretary holding an umbrella and escorting him to the car.

After getting in, the driver asked him, “Mr. Gao, to the office?”

Gao Rong raised his eyelids slightly; his face, despite a sleepless night, showed no signs of fatigue.

“Back to the hotel,” he said.

Back at the hotel, sitting on the bed, Gao Rong unconsciously crumpled the paper cup in his hand.

Coldly, he realized just how absurd and laughable he was.

He had gone and saved Chi Lanyi once again—after Chi Lanyi had abandoned him in their past life.

After he had been reborn for fifteen years and thought he had already forgotten Chi Lanyi.

While Chi Lanyi remained completely oblivious.

—He felt an intense sense of being humiliated.

He felt like an irrational beast, or perhaps a puppet. The moment Chi Lanyi appeared before him, he was led by the nose. On the way to the bar in the car, he had been thinking that a 19-year-old Chi Lanyi must be more naive and easier to control than a 22-year-old Chi Lanyi. Yet the moment he entered the bar, he was once again dragged along by the sight of 19-year-old Chi Lanyi’s miserable state.

And for this, he had even injured a man.

A dull pain radiated from his knuckles. Probably just bruised.

Last night, when Zou Jun said “Chi Lanyi wanted to do it with him too,” Gao Rong had fiercely punched him several times. His fists hadn’t just landed on Zou Jun’s face, but also on the nearby wall.

Yet even the pain at that moment was numb. Carrying that numb pain, he had sat beneath the sofa where Chi Lanyi slept, sitting there until dawn.

Gao Rong hated Zou Jun, but he knew what he truly loathed was himself.

He loathed his inability to rid himself of his possessiveness over Chi Lanyi.

Even more, he loathed that feeling while sitting beneath the sofa—the premonition that he would soon be drowned by the tide named Chi Lanyi.

A long while later, Gao Rong finally calmed down. He gave Gao Yuanzhou a call.

“Hello? Uncle… I’m at home.”

Gao Yuanzhou was clearly terrified and spoke with a fawning tone. Gao Rong said coldly, “Get over here. Now.”

He hung up the phone and looked at the dizzying leaden-gray rain clouds outside the window. Gao Rong told himself it wasn’t for any other reason.

He was merely ensuring that he would absolutely not repeat the same mistakes again.

On the other side of the city, Chi Lanyi splashed through puddles. Dizzy and muddled, he practically fled back to the student dormitory.

Under the dormitory manager’s strange look, Chi Lanyi locked himself in his room. His lips trembled, and his mind buzzed ceaselessly.

He was very afraid.

His head was full of static, fragmented images, and at the center of them all was the tall figure of a strange man sitting beneath his sofa. Chi Lanyi curled up and buried himself in his blankets.