Chapter 38
When Jiang Heng was in his second year of middle school, Lu Yichuan was in his first year of high school.
They were in the same school, but one was in the middle school section, the other in the high school section, north and south ends of the campus. They rarely saw each other unless they deliberately sought each other out.
On the first day of school, Jiang Heng skipped class and went to the high school auditorium.
He arrived just as Lu Yichuan was giving a speech on stage.
The young man stood tall and straight, his posture elegant and composed.
Before he could even begin, someone in the audience shouted through a megaphone, “Lu Yichuan, your mother was a mistress who gave birth to you, and now your father has a mistress too. What do you have to say about that?”
Pure, unadulterated malice.
The auditorium erupted in an uproar, the school leaders caught off guard. The person continued, “What goes around comes around. Did your mother think about this day when she was a mistress? Letting the son of a mistress give a speech on stage, does the school even know about your background?”
By the time the school leaders reacted, it was too late. All eyes were on the stage.
A lone figure stood there, illuminated by a single spotlight, every expression on his face clearly visible.
“Lu Yichuan’s mother was a mistress who schemed her way into becoming Mrs. Lu, driving his father’s first wife to her death.”
“The glamorous Lu family young master you see is actually the son of a mistress, with dirty blood flowing through his veins.”
Suspicion, disgust, and mockery filled the eyes of the audience, directed at the figure on stage. The vast stage seemed empty, the spotlight like a pillar of shame, pinning him in place.
Lu Yichuan was like a monkey put on display, his façade ripped away on the first day of school, exposed for all to see.
Then, a small figure pushed through the crowd towards him, small and round like a potato, yet with arms outstretched, unhesitatingly shielding him.
Jiang Heng grabbed the microphone on stage, his voice trembling as he spoke, but his eyes were firm.
“You keep calling Lu Yichuan the son of a mistress, saying his mother was a mistress, that his blood is dirty…”
“Even if he is dirty, that dirt doesn’t come from his mother, but from his father, the man who couldn’t control himself.”
“And no one can choose their birth. You’re judging someone based on something they can’t control. You are the one who’s truly dirty and disgusting. If your mother knew what kind of person you are, she would be the one regretting giving birth to you.”
Jiang Heng found the world incredibly absurd. In a failed marriage and a broken relationship, they didn’t blame the root cause, but instead placed the blame on the consequence, while the true culprit remained hidden in the shadows.
He didn’t deny Lu Yichuan’s mother’s wrongdoing, but he also knew that without her, there would have been someone else.
…
The incident in the auditorium was too big to be contained, and Lu Yichuan’s mother found out.
She dragged him by his collar and forced him to kneel in front of his father. The tall man looked down at him, said nothing, and left.
His mother tightened her grip on his neck and shrieked, “Why did you cause such a scene? That little bastard your father is keeping just came here to flaunt her victory, and now this happens! What will he think of me? How will he treat me?!”
Lu Yichuan watched her hysteria, and after she finally calmed down, he spoke calmly, “I can support you now.”
The woman loosened her grip, stunned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m capable of supporting you now. If you can’t stand it anymore, you can get a divorce.”
The next moment, a slap landed on his face.
“Lu Yichuan, who taught you to say that? That little slut? So she can take my place after I divorce him?”
“No.” The boy kneeling on the floor turned his head, his expression hidden in the shadows. “Lu Cheng is not a good match for you. You’ll only suffer more if you stay with him.”
Qian Lu threw a glass at his forehead. “Divorce? Let me tell you, that will never happen. Lu Yichuan, I think you’ve been spending too much time with Jiang Heng, your heart has become wild. If it weren’t for him, this incident wouldn’t have blown up like this…”
Blood trickled down Lu Yichuan’s forehead. He didn’t seem to feel it, just blinked, his voice strained. “Mother, without him, do you have any idea how this would have ended for me?”
“Do you even know who that person was who insulted you? That was someone from the Li family! Can we afford to offend them? So what if you were insulted?”
Lu Yichuan opened his mouth.
What about him?
He wanted to ask:
In her heart, what was he?
The boy covered his forehead with his hand and slowly lowered his head.
He finally understood that you couldn’t wake someone who was pretending to be asleep. And he had never received their love.
…
Late at night, Jiang Heng secretly snuck into Lu Yichuan’s bedroom.
The boy had a bandage on his forehead and was doing his homework, seemingly unaffected by the morning’s incident.
Jiang Heng felt guilty. “I’m sorry, did I cause you trouble?”
“No.” Lu Yichuan didn’t look up from his homework. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t know what to do.”
Jiang Heng, in his teddy bear pajamas, sat down beside him, looking at the wound on his forehead. “What happened to your face?”
“I bumped into something.”
Jiang Heng was silent. After a few minutes, he touched Lu Yichuan’s arm. “Lu Yichuan, don’t be like this.”
The pen made a heavy mark on the paper. Silence filled the room for a few seconds. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. You seem…sad.”
He offered some clumsy words of comfort. “Don’t be sad. None of this was your fault. If your friends distance themselves from you because of this, it just means they weren’t true friends in the first place.”
Lu Yichuan said softly, “I don’t have any friends.”
Jiang Heng, in his teddy bear pajamas, snuggled closer. “It’s okay, you have me.”
The boy finally turned to look at Jiang Heng beside him. “Will Rongrong leave me?”
“No.”
Under the light, the bandage on Lu Yichuan’s forehead cast a shadow over his face. His skin was pale, his eyes fixed on Jiang Heng. After a moment, he chuckled.
“What will you use as a guarantee?”
A guarantee that you won’t leave me forever?
Jiang Heng swung his legs, thought for a moment, and said slowly,
“My life.”
Little Jiang Heng woke up in a different place.
The bed beneath him was even bigger and softer than the one in the dormitory, like sinking into a cloud.
Sunlight streamed in through the clean window, casting a golden glow on the light-colored wooden floor.
Jiang Heng pushed back the covers and got out of bed, looking around the room.
It was spacious and bright, with fluffy rugs everywhere, feathers dangling from the bay window, and a soft cat bed below.
For a moment, he thought he was in heaven.
A few seconds later, the door opened. The man leaned against the doorframe, his eyes crinkling with a smile. “You’re awake.”
It was a villa Jiang Heng had never seen before, with a garden outside. Lush trees shielded it from the surrounding houses, creating a secluded space.
The garden was filled with flowers, pink and white blossoms blooming in abundance, attracting several butterflies.
Jiang Heng was placed in the garden. A butterfly flitted past him, and he instinctively reached out a paw, only to realize he had overestimated the length of his legs and couldn’t even touch it.
He turned around and saw Lu Yichuan standing behind him. Bathed in the warm sunlight, he looked incredibly gentle.
“Do you like it here?”
A place built just for you.
Jiang Heng meowed shyly, his body elongated in the sunlight, his fur slightly longer now, the silver tips more prominent.
[Why did we suddenly move?]
Lu Yichuan sat down with a cup of coffee, his loose clothes accentuating his collarbone, the red string around his neck a stark contrast against his pale skin.
He seemed to have shed his usual weariness, his features relaxed. “I like it here. It’s quiet and peaceful.”
Just the two of them, a man and a cat, undisturbed.
Jiang Heng’s heart skipped a beat, a strange feeling in his chest, but before he could think about it, Lu Yichuan looked at him from afar. “Want some canned food?”
“Meow!”
[Yes!]
This villa was built exactly to Jiang Heng’s liking; he loved every corner of it. The warm, comfortable bed, the bright and clean room, the abundance of toys, and Tom and Jerry playing on TV every night at eight o’clock sharp.
A kitty should watch kitty cartoons.
And with Lu Yichuan constantly by his side, never finding it childish to play with him and his toy mouse, Jiang Heng was in paradise.
After a week of this blissful existence in the villa, he finally realized something was wrong.
The man hadn’t left the villa for a whole week.
Jiang Heng, carrying his toy mouse, found Lu Yichuan in the kitchen. The man was wearing an apron, watching a video on his phone, learning how to make cat food.
He padded over and meowed, then was picked up by Lu Yichuan.
The man took the toy mouse from his mouth and tossed it aside. “Don’t hold it in your mouth, it’s dirty.”
Jiang Heng wanted to protest that his mouse wasn’t dirty, but his mouth was forced open, and a toothbrush was shoved inside.
“…”
The kitten, indignant, bit Lu Yichuan’s finger.
Lu Yichuan looked down at him for a moment, then slowly withdrew his finger, the tip slightly wet with saliva.
“My hand is dirty too,” he said.
Jiang Heng was rendered speechless.
His speechless expression seemed to amuse Lu Yichuan, his chest vibrating with silent laughter. “Only Mimi is clean in this whole world.”
Jiang Heng looked up at him with a wooden expression.
Lu Yichuan placed him on his shoulder, looked at the chopped ingredients on the cutting board, and asked, “Do you want carrots?”
Jiang Heng shook his head firmly.
Lu Yichuan added chopped carrots to the mix.
“…”
He asked again, “Does Mimi like broccoli?”
Jiang Heng shook his head again.
Lu Yichuan added broccoli to the mix.
“…”
The man continued, seemingly to himself, “Oh, and eggs.”
Jiang Heng bit his ear.
[That’s disgusting! I don’t want it!]
Lu Yichuan regretfully put the eggs back, meeting the kitten’s reproachful gaze. “You can’t just eat meat and no vegetables. I forgot to buy pumpkin. I’ll replace the carrots with pumpkin tomorrow.”
Jiang Heng didn’t like pumpkin either.
Lu Yichuan covered the pot and started steaming the cat food.
Jiang Heng pawed at his shoulder, finally remembering why he had come to find him.
[Lu Yichuan, why are you always staying at home?]
Lu Yichuan, who usually understood Jiang Heng’s meows, seemed completely oblivious this time.
The kitten, with its innate flexibility, climbed onto his other shoulder.
[You haven’t left the house for a week. Aren’t you going to class?]
Lu Yichuan opened the pot, scooped out a small spoonful of cat food, blew on it to cool it down, and offered it to Jiang Heng.
“Try it, is it good?”
“Mimi only needs to eat, drink, play, and look at me every day. You don’t need to worry about anything else.”
