To be honest, there’s really no need for this, He Yu thought, nestled in his blankets as he watched Xie Qingcheng struggle to communicate with his mother. There’s really no need. What meaning was there in care that was received by asking, in pity that was given by begging?
Later on, when Xie Qingcheng pushed the balcony door open and walked back into the room, He Yu hastily flipped over on his belly and closed his eyes, pretending he was asleep to prevent himself from getting even more annoyed. He could smell that faint icy scent of disinfectant on Xie Qingcheng’s body, but for some reason, perhaps because he was also wrapped in the chilly moonlight of a bright evening, it didn’t smell as bad as it once did.
Xie Qingcheng thought that He Yu was already asleep, so he kept his voice quiet when he said, “Forget it.”
The moonlight was clear and cold as it spilled onto He Yu’s bed. But, for some reason, those words revealed a bit of unprecedented warmth.
He Yu could tell that Xie Qingcheng’s voice was a bit hoarse from spending so long fruitlessly arguing with Lü Zhishu.
“Little devil… Get some rest. I’m not busy these next few days, so I can keep you company.”
Right in that moment, He Yu felt as if his heart was suddenly seized with an indescribable pain. It was a sensation he’d never felt so clearly before. It was like there was a rusty knife within his chest that had grown together with his flesh, and it had been abruptly awoken by those words and started to twist inside him, struggling to be drawn out.
It hurt so much he couldn’t breathe, but he had to stay quiet so that Xie Qingcheng wouldn’t realize that he was still awake.
He knew Xie Qingcheng had failed to negotiate anything from his mother. He wasn’t at all surprised by this result, but he suddenly realized that before Xie Qingcheng, there had never been even a single person who had strived so hard to make sure that he wouldn’t be lonely.
There had never been a single person who chose him over He Li, who stood on his side and asked his parents, who were practically strangers to him, Why?
He Yu tilted his face into the shadows, his thick eyelashes quietly lowered. There, tucked away where Xie Qingcheng couldn’t see, a tear slowly welled out and slid down his cheek, landing silently in the goose down bedding. Amidst this unfamiliar burst of pain, He Yu kept quiet, kept pretending, until finally falsehood became truth, and he gradually fell asleep for real.
The next morning, He Yu’s fever broke and he woke up very early.
The sun shone in through the gauze curtains, which swayed slightly in the wind as birds chirped outside the window. His head felt so clear, as though it’d been freshly washed.
Blinking, he collected himself and flipped over to get up. That was when he saw Xie Qingcheng beside the bed, asleep with his head on his arm and several strands of hair tumbling over his brow.
It was the first time he had seen Xie Qingcheng sleeping. He was tranquil, calm, and as serene and translucent as a diaphanous spirit, like the first glow of dawn cast over the windowsill after the passing of night.
He Yu’s gaze subconsciously shifted down to Xie Qingcheng’s wrist. One of the buttons had loosened in his sleep, so his sleeve splayed open, exposing a section of slender wrist with clear skin and elegant bones. In the morning light, it was almost shockingly pale.
He Yu looked at the line of words on that pale wrist, which he had glimpsed but never examined closely before.
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
He Yu left the nightclub with his emotions in a chaotic tangle. He wandered about without any set destination in mind, constantly thinking about such random things… But why did he remember those past events?
No matter what happened in the past, no matter what Xie Qingcheng had been feeling when he said, Little devil, it’s all right. I can keep you company, it was all fake.
The extent to which Xie Qingcheng had moved him back then was equivalent to the depth of the ruthless wound he had stabbed into his heart when he left without the slightest hesitation.
To be honest, over the years, He Yu had often wondered in the middle of the night why Xie Qingcheng had to leave.
Was he not good enough?
Was it because he hadn’t been able to become a normal person like Xie Qingcheng wanted?
That day when He Yu was still in ninth grade, when his fourteen-year-old self stood stiff as a pole before a departing Xie Qingcheng, he hadn’t even had the courage to ask that man, Xie Qingcheng, tell me, those words that you said to me, the warmth you showed me—did I make it all up?
Was it my misunderstanding?
Was all that we shared just a pure, simple doctor-patient relationship?
It’s been seven years.
Xie Qingcheng, even if you were just casually treating a stray dog, you have to get a bit attached in the process, right? So how could you break things off so cleanly? How could you leave just like that… How could you spout all those justifications, talking about working relationships, contracts, rules—as though you’d conveniently forgotten that you also occasionally showed me those bits of care and warmth that perhaps had no place in a doctor-patient relationship.
But having been abandoned like that, he felt too humiliated. His sense of self-respect had suffered a grievous injury, as though Xie Qingcheng had landed an excruciating, scorching slap across his face.
It hurt so much that He Yu was never willing to recall this moment later on.
And in the end, no matter how much he thought about it, it was all nothing more than his one-sided fixation. He had too little affection, so whatever he received from another, even if it was mere scraps, he treasured as his own and hoarded as if it was a priceless gem. It was laughable.
How humiliating.
He Yu’s pride caused him to take all those tiny stirrings of emotion and suffocate them with his own hands, then ruthlessly slam the coffin shut and seal them away—until this very moment.
He Yu closed his eyes, the casket of memories opening as he recalled the scene when Xie Qingcheng stood on the balcony and argued with his mother without backing down, when Xie Qingcheng pushed open the door and walked inside with an air of fatigue, and when Xie Qingcheng’s sigh landed next to his pillow.
Forget it.
Little devil… Get some rest. I’m not busy these next few days, so I can keep you company.
Xie Qingcheng had given him faith and companionship, but then he left so completely, so heartlessly. He could always remain calm and coolheaded, clearly weighing the pros and cons of the situation. He willingly studied psychology, yet he left the hospital because he didn’t want to become the next Qin Ciyan. He made pleasant statements about how the mentally ill should be treated equally, yet he claimed that people’s lives could be sorted according to their worth—that the lives of doctors were much more valuable than those of the mentally ill.
Xie Qingcheng was too complicated, too paradoxical.
Aside from the man who had truly been tormented to the point of helplessness beneath him last night, He Yu didn’t think there was a single facet of Xie Qingcheng that was real.
Everything about him was fake.
That man was like a kaleidoscope, but He Yu was too young, so he couldn’t make sense of him.
After walking for a long time without any particular destination, He Yu finally returned to his senses to realize that he had inadvertently walked to Xie Qingcheng’s neighborhood.
The words that Xie Qingcheng had left behind after their fight echoed through his ears once more. “Something’s happened at home, and I have to get back! Get the fuck off me right now!”
He Yu stood near the curb, his hands shoved in his pants pockets and a dazed expression on his face as he looked at the chaotic scene at the entrance of Moyu Alley in the distance. There were even a number of police officers gathered there.
He had a vague idea of what must have happened at Xie Qingcheng’s house.