Chapter 3:
I Disliked Him from the Start
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THIS WAS XIE XUE’S older brother, Xie Qingcheng.
Xie Qingcheng had once treated He Yu’s illness as his family’s personal physician.
He Yu looked like a normal person on the outside. The impression he gave others was always gentle and kindhearted, and he excelled in conduct, learning, and career. However, the He family had a closely kept secret: this enviable golden child had suffered from a rare mental disorder since birth.
It was an orphan disease, with only four recorded cases having occurred throughout history. The circumstances of each patient were similar: They had congenital deficiencies in the endocrine and nervous systems. When disrupted, their personality would drastically change. Usually, they were numb to pain, but when their condition flared up, they would lose touch with reality, become bloodthirsty, and gain intense destructive tendencies toward themselves or others, resulting in a standard antisocial personality. Physical symptoms included a high fever and confusion, with each flare-up being more severe than the last.
In clinical practice, this disorder was nicknamed “psychological Ebola.” It gradually caused the patient’s mind to collapse, consequently paralyzing and numbing their body. In the end, they would suffer the deaths of first their mind, then their body. Like a metastasizing cancer, the symptoms would worsen step by step, breaking down a fully functioning member of society into one who’d have difficulties with the most basic of social tasks until eventually becoming a complete lunatic.
In this manner, Patients 1–3 had all been tormented to death before succumbing to that final stage.
He Yu was Patient 4.
His parents brought him to many famous doctors, both local and international, but it was no use. The doctors all believed that the only way to delay the progress of the disorder was to hire a medical caretaker to stay by He Yu’s side and carry out long-term supervisory care in order to lower the frequency of flare-ups.
Ultimately, with various considerations in mind, the He family found Xie Qingcheng, who was only twenty-one at the time.
That year, He Yu was eight years old.
But now, He Yu was already nineteen, and Xie Qingcheng was thirty-two.
Xie Qingcheng looked even more unflappable than before; one could even call him indifferent and cold. He was not easily affected by anything, so He Yu’s sudden return had not shaken him. He only spent a few seconds looking over the young man he hadn’t seen in more than three years from head to toe, ignoring He Yu’s polite greetings.
With his age and social standing, he had neither the interest nor the need to play along with a boy who wasn’t even twenty years old. He only asked, “Why are you here?”
“I…”
“It’s already so late. This is the female faculty dorm.”
He Yu smiled. Though he wanted to curse, “Why the fuck are you here then?!” he nevertheless responded politely, “I hadn’t seen Xie-laoshi in a very long time. We were talking for so long I forgot the time. Sincerest apologies, Doctor Xie.”
“You don’t need to call me Doctor Xie anymore. I’m no longer a doctor.”
“My bad. Old habits,” He Yu responded lightly.
“…Aiya.” Seeing the atmosphere between them grow tense from the sidelines, Xie Xue rushed to mediate. “Um, Dage, don’t look so stern and serious… He Yu, sit down, don’t be nervous. We haven’t seen each other in so long.”
As she spoke, she distanced herself from He Yu, acting quite courteously. She was always like this: When she was alone with He Yu, she was very casual and behaved as though they were quite close. However, as soon as anyone else was present, especially when it was Xie Qingcheng, she would maintain a polite boundary between herself and He Yu.
He Yu figured that Xie Qingcheng had used fear from a very young age to inspire this behavior. This older brother who acted so much like a family head from a feudal society was the epitome of straight man cancer7 and egregious chauvinism.
Such a man would be ever-vigilant about threats to the safety of their female dependents. When Xie Xue was young, Xie Qingcheng didn’t even let her wear dresses with hems above the knee. One time, her school organized a talent show for families and classmates, in which Xie Xue had breakdanced. As Xie Qingcheng watched from beneath the stage, his expression had gone black. When the young Xie Xue stepped off the stage, he interrogated her about why she would participate in such an improper dance performance with a grim look on his face, then forcefully draped his suit jacket over her shoulders.
Though it was only eight or nine at night, Xie Qingcheng probably thought it was extremely improper for a single man and an unmarried woman—like He Yu and his sister—to be alone together at such a late hour.
Just as expected, as soon as Xie Qingcheng walked into the room, he pulled up a chair and sat down. The head of the household crossed his long legs, loosened his cuff links, and looked impassively at He Yu.
“Tell me, how exactly did you just happen to get accepted to Xie Xue’s university, and into her exact field of study at that?”
His forceful attitude from his occupation had seeped into his personal life. At that moment, He Yu felt like he was a patient at the hospital stuck with a moody doctor who asked, “Tell me where it hurts,” in a flat, indifferent tone.
When He Yu thought of it like this, he found it sort of funny.
Xie Qingcheng saw that He Yu didn’t respond for a while, and the corners of his mouth seemed to carry a slight smile. Xie Qingcheng’s gaze iced over. “You can’t explain?”
He Yu was wrong. He wasn’t a doctor examining a patient—Xie Qingcheng’s tone sounded exactly like a policeman interrogating a criminal.
He Yu sighed and replied, “It’s not like that.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“I couldn’t get used to being abroad, and I like screenwriting and directing. You’re asking me why it’s such a coincidence, but how can I explain it?” He Yu smiled as he spoke, patience dripping from every word. “It’s not like I’m a fortune teller.”
“You like screenwriting and directing?”
“Yes.”
Xie Qingcheng didn’t press further, because his eyes were drawn to the “fried lumps of rice with egg and ham” that He Yu was holding.
Xie Qingcheng furrowed his brow. “…What is that?”
He Yu wanted to throw the plate at Xie Qingcheng’s face—a face that looked as if others owed him a fortune—then follow up with “What’s it to you?”
But because Xie Xue was present, he smiled at her brother politely and replied, “Yangzhou fried rice.”
Xie Qingcheng looked at it closely for a few more seconds. With a cold expression on his fatherly face, he said, “Take off the apron. I’ll make another one.”
He Yu stared at him, dumbfounded.
“How did you survive abroad for all these years?”
“…By ordering delivery.”
Xie Qingcheng’s gaze sharpened, a hint of condemnation flashing in his eyes.
Under his penetrating glare, He Yu was transported back to the first time they met. On the villa’s freshly mowed lawn, Xie Qingcheng had looked down at the eight-year-old He Yu with a gaze so sharp it could practically dissect his heart.
That day was He Yu’s birthday. A crowd of children were playing at the He family’s enormous villa. They had tired themselves out and were chatting on the white pebbles of the lakeshore about their ambitions.
“When I grow up, I wanna be a celebrity!”
“I’m gonna be a scientist.”
“I’m gonna be an astronaut!”
There was a chubby kid who didn’t know what he wanted to be, but he didn’t want to show it either. As he looked around, he happened to catch sight of the housekeeper ushering a young doctor through the front yard.
The grass was lush and vibrant, and the sky was a clear and pristine blue. The young doctor was carrying a bouquet of flowers for his boss. The splendidly blooming summer hydrangeas were wrapped in pale silver tissue paper, arranged with silvery willow catkins and bright double roses. As a unique touch, the bouquet was covered in a layer of decorative tulle.
Xie Qingcheng held the flowers in one hand and casually stuck his other hand in his pocket. He was wearing a clean, close-fitting white lab coat with two ballpoint pens clipped to his breast pocket. Since he wasn’t working at the moment, the front of the coat was unbuttoned, revealing a lead-gray shirt beneath, as well as a pair of long, shapely legs clad in loosely tailored pants.
The chubby kid gaped at him. After a while, he pointed at Xie Qingcheng with his short, stubby, sausage-like fingers and declared, “I’m gonna be… I’m gonna be a doctor!”
There was a sudden gust of wind, and since the florist really hadn’t paid enough fucking attention when they wrapped the flowers, the wind managed to blow away the tulle covering Xie Qingcheng’s bouquet. The white fabric immediately floated into the sky over the lawn, only to fall when the wind died back down again.
All the children craned their necks to look at that piece of white tulle. It finally fell precisely in front of He Yu, the only one who wasn’t interested at all.
Although He Yu didn’t like the doctors, pharmaceutical representatives, and researchers who often appeared in his home, he was habitually courteous. Therefore, he lowered his head, picked up that square of soft tulle, and brought it over.
“Doctor, you dropped this.”
He looked up at those indifferent eyes.
It was the height of summer, but inexplicably, they still made He Yu, who was learning Tang dynasty poetry at the time, think of a particular phrase: “Snowfall whispers onto the neighboring bamboo grove.”8