Chapter 30

This wasn’t the first time someone had said that to Qi Yang.

In his third year working under Kong Li, a new waitress joined the billiard hall. She was a college student—lively and bubbly—working part-time three and a half days a week.

Qi Yang had gotten used to taking care of Zou Meizhu and Qi Xing at home, and that habit unconsciously carried over into his work.

He scheduled the girl for day shifts only, letting her just tidy up tables and pass things out. If a customer made her uncomfortable, she could simply ignore them. Her occasional lateness or leaving early? Qi Yang turned a blind eye.

After two or three months, the girl confessed to Qi Yang.

She didn’t beat around the bush. She bought a small cake and straightforwardly said to him, “Want to try dating me?”

That was the first relationship of Qi Yang’s life.

His feelings at the time were simple. He had a good impression of the girl, their ages were suitable, and most importantly—she had asked if he was willing to “try.”

Qi Yang made it clear to her: his family had a lot of personal issues, and family and money would always come first for him. If what she wanted was the kind of clingy, sappy romance you see in movies and TV shows, she should look elsewhere.

The girl just giggled and said she didn’t mind. She simply thought Qi Yang was handsome and looking at him put her in a good mood.

At first, it really was easygoing. Qi Yang would occasionally buy her gifts and flowers. In their free time, they’d go see a movie. She asked him to drive her to and from work, and he mostly obliged.

It went on until the girl went home for winter break to celebrate the New Year. She called, saying she was bored and wanted Qi Yang to come hang out with her.

Qi Yang didn’t have the time. He needed to use every holiday to take Qi Xing to see the doctor.

That relationship started casually and ended without any messy attachments.

After the semester started, the girl never came back to work at the billiard hall. They deleted each other’s contact info and never saw each other again.

Mu Yicong’s words—“Want to try with me?”—made Qi Yang’s alcohol-soaked brain recall this almost forgotten memory.

When that girl had said it, it seemed cute. Coming from Mu Yicong, all Qi Yang felt was mockery and provocation.

“Try with you?” Qi Yang raised an eyebrow, deliberately turning it back on him. “Try what? Can you date me? Marry me? Or can you fuck me?”

Mu Yicong raised an eyebrow as well. “The last one’s up for debate.”

“None of them are up for debate.” Qi Yang stared at him. “I’m not gay. I’m not interested in you.”

Mu Yicong held his gaze for a moment. There was no embarrassment at the rejection. Instead, a hint of amusement gleamed in his eyes, as if Qi Yang’s answer was exactly what he’d expected.

This time, when Qi Yang opened the door and got out of the car, Mu Yicong didn’t stop him.

But he didn’t drive off right away either. Qi Yang had walked several meters with the pig trotter rice, then turned back and asked through the car window, “Aren’t you already limp?”

“Rejecting me and still so concerned?” Mu Yicong dodged the question again.

Qi Yang let out a scoff and turned away.

When he got home, Zou Meizhu was in a hurry to go play mahjong. She already had her jacket and scarf on and was pacing around the house.

Seeing Qi Yang come back with food, she quickly went up to him. “Have you been drinking, Yangyang?” She caught the smell of alcohol on him and fanned her nose. “How much did you drink? Are you dizzy? How about Mom cooks you a bowl of noodles before I head out?”

“No need.” Qi Yang handed her the bag, went over to pat Qi Xing on the head, and walked straight into the bedroom. “Heat up the food for Qi Xing. I’m going to sleep.”

Zou Meizhu was clattering around in the kitchen reheating food. Qi Yang lay on the bed. His head was swimming with waves of dizziness like static snow, but he couldn’t fall asleep at all.

His mind was in chaos.

The words he had exchanged with Mu Yicong today kept flashing back, one after another.

Asking if I like you.

What answer did you want to hear from me back then?

Were you really just curious, or were you hoping?

You don’t know yourself as well as you think.

Want to try with me?

Qi Yang frowned, sat up to let out a breath, then lay back down dizzily, pressing his arm over his eyes.

His intuition told him Mu Yicong was setting a trap. Every sentence was a leading question.

And damn it—he really was stumped by them.

Ten years ago, Qi Yang wouldn’t have thought about any of this. He did and said whatever he felt like. When he was bored, he went to find Mu Yicong. When something felt off, he just ran off.

He never considered whether he needed to think, and he never feared any consequences.

But Qi Yang at twenty-eight couldn’t be like that anymore.

Those memories of the past—ones he had simply summed up as “absurd” after reaching mental maturity—now echoed more clearly before his eyes, fueled by the alcohol surging through his body.

Yeah, why had he been so fixated on probing Mu Yicong back then?

He clearly found him maddeningly annoying, yet he still paid attention to him consciously or unconsciously, went looking for him to hang out. Even after getting poked by Mu Yicong’s thing, and seeing Mu Yicong ignore him, he still had to go knock on his door and demand an explanation.

How had he been so headstrong back then?

So Mu Yicong’s “try”—did he mean dating? Or did he purely mean trying that?

Qi Yang opened his eyes in the pitch-black room, his thoughts jumping all over the place like a loose hammer, suddenly landing on a messy idea.

If it was that… two men…

That “debatable” from Mu Yicong made Qi Yang’s heart even more agitated.

That bastard wasn’t thinking about fucking him, was he?

As a healthy male who had lived for twenty or thirty years, even if he’d never personally witnessed what went on between men, he’d at least picked up some common sense from movies and websites—he hadn’t eaten pork, but he’d seen pigs run.

Those unsightly images jumped straight into his head, replacing the faces with Mu Yicong and himself. The back of Qi Yang’s neck tightened like he’d been hit with a stun baton.

Fuck.

With burning ears, he turned over and yanked the quilt tight around himself.

Fucking pervert. Can’t even get it up, but he sure talks a big game.

Just as his mind was wandering, his phone buzzed dully—a call.

Qi Yang sat up and felt around the pillows, then remembered his phone was still in his jacket pocket. He got out of bed and grabbed the jacket from the hanger.

Seeing Mu Yicong’s name on the caller ID, he pursed his lips but still answered.

“Home safe?” Mu Yicong asked leisurely, as if he’d known Qi Yang would pick up.

“What else do you want?” Qi Yang clutched the phone and flopped back onto the bed.

“Nothing.” Mu Yicong explained simply, “Just worried you might have passed out in the neighborhood, so I called to check.”

If he had called to provoke him again with some pointless chatter, Qi Yang would have definitely started cursing right then.

But it was just a perfectly natural and simple expression of concern.

“Not that bad.” Qi Yang’s attitude softened a bit as he rubbed his eyes. “I was almost asleep.”

“Eat something,” Mu Yicong said. “So you don’t feel sick and want to puke in the middle of the night.”

“You didn’t eat either.” Qi Yang remembered the bowl of pig trotter rice that Mu Yicong hadn’t touched.

“Worried about me?” Mu Yicong’s voice carried a hint of a smile, starting to be annoying again.

The unlit room was pitch black, with only a sliver of light from the living room seeping under the door.

The alcohol was still making the back of Qi Yang’s ears and neck burn. Listening to Mu Yicong’s slightly husky voice through the phone, he suddenly thought of the images he had imagined earlier.

“Anything else? If not, I’m hanging up.” Qi Yang didn’t want to talk to him anymore right now.

“One small thing.” Mu Yicong’s tone suddenly turned more serious, and a mouse click sounded through the phone.

The next second, the phone against his ear vibrated. Qi Yang pulled it down to see the screen—Mu Yicong had sent him a file.

It wasn’t a rental agreement or a contract. It was hospital information.

“I had someone look into it a few days ago. For autism, the best hospital domestically should be this one.” Mu Yicong said in a low voice. “I booked a specialist appointment for you, but it’s scheduled for after the New Year.”

Qi Yang stared at the brief for a while, then sat up from the bed, leaned against the headboard, and opened it.

He had inquired about this hospital before. The chief specialist’s appointments were gold dust. Back then, he had limited money and limited energy, and had never been able to take Qi Xing there.

“Qi Xing’s condition seems okay—it’s not that severe,” Mu Yicong said. “You can try more places.”

Qi Yang felt a swirl of complicated emotions.

He had long accepted Qi Xing’s symptoms, and he wanted her to get better more than anyone.

Zou Meizhu couldn’t handle things. Over the years, he had run himself ragged, but the first person to offer him substantial help was Mu Yicong.

“No need.” Qi Yang thought about it for a long time, but still refused.

“Huh?” Mu Yicong was a bit surprised.

“I’ve taken her to all the places she needed to see. I’m used to it.” Qi Yang closed the file by tapping the X and put the phone back to his ear. “There’s no need to make me owe you a favor like this.”

Mu Yicong was silent for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his tone was alarmingly sober and blunt. “Are you making decisions for your sister’s life just to save your own face?”

Qi Yang was stunned.

“Relax.” Mu Yicong added, “These are two separate matters. I won’t use this to demand anything from you.”

The implication in that sentence was a bit ambiguous.

“What do you want me to pay you back with? That ‘try’ you mentioned earlier?” Qi Yang, emboldened by the alcohol, brought up the words he hadn’t dared to say face to face. “You want to sleep with me?”

Mu Yicong fell silent again.

Just as Qi Yang was silently cursing that alcohol was really not a good thing and preparing to hang up, Mu Yicong let out a low “Ah,” and said, “Kind of, yeah.”

If that strange electric jolt had only reached the back of his neck when he was imagining earlier, with Mu Yicong’s unabashed admission, Qi Yang’s head went whir—a string of sparks exploding.

“Fuck off.” He cursed through gritted teeth and hung up, annoyed.

Tossing his phone aside, Qi Yang slid back under the covers, his breaths growing heavier and heavier.

He forced himself to try to sleep for half an hour, then irritably grabbed his phone again and found a movie.

The images on screen were stimulating, but today the release process was taking forever. He just couldn’t get to the climax. As he was about to give up in frustration, Mu Yicong’s dark eyes suddenly popped into his head.

Throwing back the quilt to look at the sticky tissue, Qi Yang’s face turned as black as iron.

He slept until the next morning. Woken by waves of thirst and the sound of Qi Xing knocking on the door, he sat up—one knock, three times, two-second pause. Very rhythmic.

Suppressing the headache from his hangover, he took a moment, then opened the door to let Qi Xing in.

Hearing the house completely quiet, Qi Yang frowned, grabbed his phone, and checked the time. It was already nine.

“Where’s Mom?” he asked Qi Xing hoarsely.

Qi Xing didn’t answer. Qi Yang knew Zou Meizhu must have gone out again last night after Qi Xing fell asleep, playing mahjong all night.

“Come on, let’s wash your face and brush your teeth.” He got up, shuffled off the bed, and nudged Qi Xing’s head.

Qi Xing turned and walked out, but Qi Yang froze behind her.

The house had heating, so the kid only wore a set of thermal underwear to sleep.

And on the seat of Qi Xing’s thermal pants, there was a patch of dried bloodstain.