Chi Lanyi quickly averted his gaze.
He was like a rabbit entering a frozen state—thinking that as long as he stayed still, the predator wouldn’t discover his weakness, wouldn’t approach. And so he continued standing there dumbly, praying deep in his heart that the strange man would leave.
Fortunately, the man seemed to perceive his resistance. After silently observing him for a moment, the man turned and left.
Only the oud fragrance lingered persistently, seeping into Chi Lanyi’s body.
Chi Lanyi left the restroom. His mind blank, he walked very fast, as if fleeing from a ghost—so much so that he nearly collided with a classmate greeting him.
“Chi Lanyi? Why do you look so pale?” French classmate Claire said. “We just heard the news. Whatever was going on between you and Renault, it was completely baseless…”
“Who was so immoral as to randomly report you? I heard the school staff made a clerical error and accidentally exposed the tipster’s email when posting the announcement. It was an Outlook address…”
Chi Lanyi had no heart to chat with anyone. He drifted back to his apartment.
All the details of today at the office building, in the restroom—they vanished from memory. But certain fragments grew clearer and clearer in his mind.
One moment, it was the scene of that strange man staring at him from behind the plants.
The next moment, it was him standing in the restroom. The strange man pushed open the restroom door. He stood frozen at the sink, his fingers numb, a sinking feeling in his lower abdomen.
The heavy, cold oud scent clung persistently. Chi Lanyi picked at his fingers neurotically, endless thoughts of self-loathing bubbling in his head.
“What the hell is wrong with me?”
“Could it be… that I really am a sick homosexual?”
A phone call came through. Chi Lanyi jolted violently. Seeing his mother Mu Rou’s name on the screen, it was as if he glimpsed a savior from the normal world.
“…Hello. Mom.”
“Sweetheart, it’s past one in the afternoon. Have you eaten?”
Chi Lanyi’s voice turned light and cheerful: “Yes, I ate. I have class in a bit at two.”
Actually, there was no class today. But when talking to his mother, Chi Lanyi felt as if he had returned to a certain shell. The shell was safe, clean, soft.
He seemed to be an emotionally stable child again, no sudden bursts of rage, no lingering depression.
“Ah, so hardworking. Take good care of yourself, okay? Remember to take your vitamins and fish oil. You’re out there all alone, with no one to look after you, how can I not worry?” Mu Rou rambled on.
Chi Lanyi smiled. He felt like he’d returned to the human world; everything was back to normal. But Mu Rou quickly added: “Your dad, honestly. Making you go abroad to study economics and management, to inherit the family business and all… It would’ve been fine to study domestically. After you graduate, just follow your dad and older brother, listen to them, let them manage you.”
The hand holding his phone tightened. He averted his eyes, dodging anything in his room related to his identity as an art student.
Once Mu Rou started talking, she went on and on. Perhaps because she was a housewife with no job, having so many emotions to pour out, she would constantly call her easy-going younger son at any time, for any reason.
After talking about the garden at home, then about new friends made at a tea gathering, she suddenly said, as if just remembering: “Sweetheart, it’s a good thing your dad didn’t agree to let you study fashion design back then.”
“…Why?”
Mu Rou said: “Your Auntie Meng’s kid… is a pervert.”
His heartbeat skipped a beat.
“You know, the one who likes pretty jewelry and designs accessories for women? Uncle Meng saw him… kissing a man! Your Auntie Meng and I were at church doing service. When she heard the news, she fainted right then and there. It was terrifying. Pastor Li even had to follow her to the hospital.”
“He…” Chi Lanyi heard his own voice, hesitant and weak, “…likes men?”
“Ugh! Don’t even talk about it, so dirty, so perverted! Your Auntie Meng nearly cried herself into fainting. Doing such disgusting things will send you to hell. Pastor Li said, it’s all that designing, all those women’s things, that corrupted him,” Mu Rou said, as if genuinely terrified, still shaken.
Liking men.
Again with the men.
Chi Lanyi fell silent once more. Mu Rou didn’t notice the abnormality. She continued: “Sweetheart, before I had a bit of a thought, but now I think—thank goodness your dad locked you at home for a month just to make you study politics and economics. Thank goodness we forced you back onto the right path.”
“…”
“Your dad and I, everything we do is for your own good. Those art schools are full of perverts. You need to study well, don’t let yourself be led astray, okay? Be a good child, don’t make us worry.”
“…Okay. Yes, Mom.”
Chi Lanyi felt his voice was very airy and unfocused. He felt like a piece of paper curled up by dampness, or a feather soaked and softened by rain—carrying an altogether unpleasant smell.
Mu Rou kept nagging for a while longer, then suddenly asked: “Sweetheart, why is there the sound of rain on your end? Today’s weather forecast said there’s no rain where you’re studying?”
“I… I’m not sure either. It suddenly started raining this afternoon.”
Outside, it had indeed started pouring again.
“Sweetheart, why weren’t you answering calls the past couple of days? Mom was worried sick! I had your older brother call E University to ask. They said they couldn’t even find any record of you.”
“I use my English name at school. Mom, I’ve been rushing assignments the past few days. I’m tired, let me rest for a bit.”
“Mm, okay, rest well.”
The call ended.
Chi Lanyi sat on the edge of his bed, staring blankly at the rainy scene outside. He thought, how could E University’s international office, where he was supposedly studying political economics, possibly find where he was?
He had secretly left E University without his family’s knowledge, sneaking off to F University to study design. That was his first deception against his family.
He had no desire for women, yet experienced an irrepressible sexual impulse towards men. That was his second deception against his family.
Chi Lanyi threw himself into the bathroom again.
He kept washing himself, yet avoided touching his own body excessively.
But after washing, as he put on his pajamas, the feeling of the fabric lightly brushing his waist made him stiffen up again.
Once more, that man’s voice echoed in his mind.
“Have you done it before?”
That borderline offensive question rang out in his head again.
His heart felt as if tightly clenched by a large hand. Biting his lip, Chi Lanyi knew the man’s appearance at school was no coincidence.
Due to his family background, Chi Lanyi had met many people similar to this “uncle”—people with immense power and influence.
They came from all industries, yet were uniformly arrogant, treating anything beyond their own self-interest as beneath notice. For someone like that to personally bring a nephew who’d done wrong to school to apologize was almost mythological.
—Unless they had another motive. For instance, catching sight of some prey that had caught their interest.
Prey could be money, could be a company. But in Gao Rong’s intensely invasive stare, Chi Lanyi saw himself.
The way Gao Rong looked at him was no different from a wolf eyeing a rabbit.
Chi Lanyi hid back under his blankets. He felt fear. He feared he was being watched by a cold, powerful predator, and he also feared the undeniable… anticipation and excitement that thought stirred within him.
…
Rain started falling again in Paris. Gao Xi called Gao Rong, hysterical once more: “Gao Rong! Didn’t I tell you to help smooth this over? Now everyone’s going to know Zhouzhou is the other man!”
As she spoke, she broke down into sobs: “What do we do?! Zhouzhou is supposed to be a grand pianist! How can he show his face now? How can he face anyone?! My Zhouzhou…”
“He’s in his twenties. It’s about time he took responsibility for his own decisions. He’s an adult.” Gao Rong said coldly. “Next month, I’ll send him to the UK. I’ve contacted a fully residential liberal arts college. You can’t control your son, so let the school manage.”
“Fully residential? He’s grown up being taken care of by nannies since he was little. How can he endure such hardship… No! Send him back to the US to be with me! I don’t want him going anywhere else!”
“The decision is final.” Gao Rong signaled his secretary to bring the documents over. “That’s it, Gao Xi. Your child has caused far too much trouble. It’s time he was properly disciplined.”
Just before he hung up, Gao Xi suddenly sneered. “Properly disciplined? You say it so righteously… Who doesn’t know you have your own ulterior motives?”
Her sarcasm made Gao Rong abruptly stop moving.
Gao Xi continued: “I heard it all from Zhouzhou. Was it really for him, or for that other pretty boy? I never imagined you, Gao Rong, also liked playing with pretty young boys?”
Gao Rong’s body first went icy cold and rigid. As if struck at his most unwilling admission, an extreme fury rose afterwards.
Did Gao Xi know what she was saying?!
Gao Xi—what right did she have to say such a thing to him?!
“All of you are truly sick in the head,” Gao Rong said, his voice strained.
He hung up, refusing to communicate with Gao Xi. But she relentlessly called back: “Ha! Gao Rong, you still don’t dare admit it? I say, if you like that pretty boy, just go for it. Don’t use disciplining your nephew as a cover. Take out that pile of money you treasure like your life, buy some pretty gifts for him. Isn’t that what these art students want? You say we’re crazy, but how clean are you and your pretty boy? He’d definitely cozy up to you for the money…”
Gao Rong interrupted frigidly, “Your current husband is cheating again. He has an illegitimate son, in Tokyo.”
Ignoring Gao Xi’s instantaneous, disconnected breakdown on the other end, Gao Rong hung up the phone.
His secretary was scared into dead silence by his expression. Gao Rong waved her out, sitting alone in the suffocating quiet.
He stared at his phone, not even pressing the lock button. Gao Xi’s words still echoed in his mind.
“You, too, like playing with pretty young boys.”
He had never been that kind of person.
In his last life, he only had Chi Lanyi. In this life, he possessed wealth a hundred, a thousand times greater than before, had lived for fifteen more years, yet had never touched messy people.
He was unlike those other men in his circles. He exercised restraint, self-discipline. No smoking, no drinking, even avoided stimulating food. In this life, besides living to one hundred and twenty, he had no other needs.
Normally, hearing such words from Gao Xi, he would have only treated them with cold indifference.
Because he knew he was not that kind of person.
So why, this time, had he still been so stung?
Gazing at the several unopened packs of Seven Stars cigarettes on the table, Gao Rong, after a long moment, suddenly understood. He was so stung because he felt humiliated.
Humiliated because of Chi Lanyi.
Not because Gao Xi used Chi Lanyi as a tool to humiliate him for having selfish motives, nor to humiliate him for not being as morally upright as he appeared, nor to challenge his control over the family.
But because, indeed, upon seeing Chi Lanyi in such wretched disarray again—
He had once again felt a fierce, overpowering desire to get close to Chi Lanyi.
Even though Chi Lanyi had betrayed him so thoroughly in their previous life.
