CH 2

Standing at the door was Zhu Luo—the cold, beautiful shou in the novel. A genius violinist on the stage. And the person to whom the original owner of his body always looked up to as a god.

At this moment, he was anxious.

He glanced curiously at the black garbage bag by Yu Le’s feet, but didn’t continue to ask as he stepped into the room with a sullen expression and asked, “A Yu, you were planning to study abroad. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

Yu Le stood sideways in front of the garbage bag, blinking in confusion.

He was caught off guard by the sudden questioning and had to quickly search the messy memories in his mind for an answer.

“I…”

In the novel, the original owner had never told Zhu Luo that he had multiple personalities. Knowing his fate in advance, he had decided to die along with his other selves, but he didn’t want his friends to worry, so he lied, saying that he was going to study abroad instead.

Watching him mumble and mutter without coming up with an answer, Zhu Luo’s frown deepened, “A Yu?”

Still organising his words, Yu Le answered slowly, “I haven’t fully decided if I’m going or not, I’m just considering the option.” He hung his head, “Don’t worry, if I leave, you’ll be the first to know.”

Finished adjusting his manner and expression, he looked up as he tried to imitate the original owner from his memory and smiled at Zhu Luo.

But when he met Zhu Luo’s gloomy red eyes, that seemed to be almost out of control, his smile was broken in an instant.

A strange feeling was bubbling in his chest, and he couldn’t help but step forward closer to Zhu Luo.

“A Yu, what’s the matter with you?”

“Ah…ah! No, nothing.” Saying this, Yu Le stopped immediately and returned to his earlier position with his head down and eyes on the floor.

His friend was acting so abnormally, Zhu Luo was feeling increasingly worried with each passing moment.

Was it really because he was too busy to contact him recently that he had fallen out of touch?

His thoughts slowed down as he carefully probed him out, “A Yu, has something…happened to you recently?”

The person opposite him shook his head without hesitation, “No, nothing happened. You’re thinking too much, I’m fine!”

His answer was given too decisively, without any extra thought put in. Zhu Luo became more sure of his suspicions, “A Yu, if you encounter something difficult to solve on your own, please tell me, okay? Aren’t we best friends?”

There was another sharp pain in Yu Le’s chest as the word “friend” slipped past his ears.

He had no expression on his face as he thought; a secret love really hurts.

Zhu Luo saw that he didn’t respond and decided that he had done enough probing for the day. If his friend really didn’t want to answer, he could ask slowly later.

Pausing for a few moments to ponder his next words, he carefully asked, “Next Saturday…I have a charity concert at the City Grand Theater, A Yu…will you come?”

“No–”

Zhu Luo continued speaking with hopeful eyes, “I want you to hear the songs I’ve prepared!”

Shaking his head, Yu Le decided that one night would still be fine. He would just have to be a bit more careful, “Okay, I’ll come if I have time.”

Sending Zhu Luo away a while later, Yu Le’s eyes sank as he let go of the rest of his mask. It might be harder than he had thought to adjust to this new life of his.

He was influenced far too much by the original owner’s residual feelings.

Even though he was alone in this body, with all the painful memories and heartfelt emotions he had been left with, he may as well be the fourth personality inhabiting it.

It was a horrible feeling to have, not being the one in control. His judgement was affected the entire time Zhu Luo was here; all the plans he had made to avoid him were thrown out the window. And there seemed to be no signs of his state improving with time.

He didn’t want to fall in love uncontrollably with Zhu Luo; he didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the original owner.

Luckily, Zhu Luo would be busy with the novel’s beginning, and the original had already been distancing himself from him somewhat because of his split personalities.

It would be best if Zhu Luo could get together with the main gong, the true protagonist of this world. As long as their relationship met with a positive result, the shackles on him would eventually disappear.

He would truly be a free man, then.

Thinking of this, he continued to organise the room.

In addition to the video camera, still on the desk, he found some more odds and ends, such as notebooks and music covers. It seemed that the original owner had even gone so far as to collect candid photos of Zhu Luo and place them in an album for safekeeping.

Eating, drinking, sleeping…nothing was left out. Every part of Zhu Luo’s life had been documented within it.

Holding back his distaste, with an indescribable depression, he waved his arms and swept all these things into the garbage bag.

The camera was the only thing that seemed unrelated to Zhu Luo, it belonged to the third personality of the body, but it was empty and didn’t feel emotionally linked with anything at the moment.

There was also a large collection of cute pink women’s clothing in the closet, with various wigs and many expensive cosmetics. No doubt, these also belonged to the little sister of the body.

The strange thing was, except for the common items, the desks, chairs, benches, computer, and so on, he couldn’t find anything that belonged to the second personality in the room. It all belonged to either the third personality or the original owner.

It was almost as if the second personality didn’t exist.

Without thinking too much, he began to count the property left by the original owner.

To his great dismay, he found that before the original owner left, he had decided to use all his money to support Zhu Luo and buy his music and merch. So what Yu Le was left to inherit was his poor social status and the few thousand yuan that his bank accounts added up to.

Yu Le’s face collapsed as he realised it.

The original owner was twenty-two years old this year, a senior in college, and lived in a rented flat with a single room next to his university.

He had been abandoned by his parents as a child and lived with his grandmother up until junior high, when she died of an illness. During all those hard times, Zhu Luo was the only friend that stayed by his side.

Although he had inherited most of the original owner’s memory, he wasn’t knowledgeable about his major in university, and there were many, many places where money was needed in daily life.

Obviously, a few thousand yuan was not enough.

He had to find a way to make some money.

The camera could be sold, but after thinking about it, it would be better to keep it.

He had been in the photography club in college in his past life and enjoyed playing around with cameras; it might come in use later for the plot.

As for the dresses, wigs, and make-up? Save them…they could also be handy in the future.

Doing one last round of the room, all the things he was throwing out had been collected. Hauling the bag over his shoulder, Yu Le went downstairs to throw it all out.

But as he returned upstairs to his room, an unexpected person appeared by the trash can.

Zhu Luo hadn’t left immediately.

Recently he had been busy preparing and rehearsing for his concert, so he’d had less contact with his long-time friends.

The last time they had met, Yu Le had said that he would definitely be at his concert.

And now, after only a few weeks of no contact, Yu Le had decided to study abroad and seemed to be hiding something significant.

It was an unpleasant situation. He felt betrayed.

More than that, he felt that something was wrong.

Yu Le’s eyes had changed. They no longer looked at him the way they used to; they felt estranged and distant. As if a gap had been created between the two of them overnight.

He didn’t know what had happened to Yu Le. He didn’t understand why Yu Le had changed.

Even if he wanted to ask, Yu Le refused to answer his questions.

After going downstairs, he was reluctant to leave so quickly without any questions answered. Not knowing what to do, he stood in a corner and waited for something, for anything, to happen.

He saw Yu Le carrying the huge garbage bag downstairs with an expression of disgust on his face as he threw it in the trash bin.

His carefree appearance was remarkably different from his attitude when facing him earlier.

It wasn’t until Yu Le went upstairs again that Zhu Luo emerged from the shadows.

Something was wrong with Yu Le. He was only doing this because he was worried for him, that’s all.

Zhu Luo approached the trash bin slowly, reaching in a hand. He would just take a look; that was all.

Comforting himself, he started rummaging around until he found the bag that Yu Le had dumped.

But after seeing the things inside, he could no longer keep calm. All of the stuff in the garbage bag was related to him!

A photo album full of pictures of himself! Music albums he had released years ago! Even some notebooks that he had used and thrown away in the past!

The only thing he couldn’t recognize was an old music box. Spending some time thinking hard as he held it, he remembered that he seemed to have gifted it to Yu Le a long time ago.

What is this?!

Yu Le secretly collected so many things about him?!

He didn’t know how he should react, but he did know that at that moment, he was furious! His face turned blue and white as his thoughts raced to understand why this happened. Why his close friend would keep so much from him.

Collecting his personal items was already going too far, but before he knew it, he even threw away everything like it was trash. Worthless rubbish.

A Yu, what exactly do you want me to do?

Are you trying to cut ties with me forever?!

He gritted his teeth as his fingers habitually curled into fists.

He wanted to storm back upstairs, to yell and scream as he questioned Yu Le what he thought he was doing.

Although he had felt that something was off with Yu Le, seeing how he reacted to him tonight made him realise; this matter may be more serious than he had expected.

He shivered again as he thought of Yu Le’s indifferent attitude towards him.

He knew his friend well, so he knew that if he was unwilling to tell him what was going on, no one would be able to make him speak. He used to like that Yu Le was so quiet, that he wasn’t bothering him all the time, but now it just brought him more anxiety. It was so uncomfortable to have to guess things himself.

But…Zhu Luo looked at the garbage bag again with doubt. Did he really know his friend?

Bearing heavy emotions, Zhu Luo continued to stand beside the garbage bin like a fool, forgetting to carry himself with any semblance of anonymity.

“Grandma, grandma, look! Someone is digging through the trash!” A loud child’s voice suddenly sounded from behind.

A round, chubby little boy was running ahead of an old woman with silver hair and a kind face.

At the age of nine, he was incredibly overweight due to his doting grandmother and his own greed for snacks. Trying to help him lose weight, his grandmother began to start exercising with him, walking him each night with her dog.

The child had reluctantly been led outside while rolling his eyes and escaped away from his grandmother as soon as they were outside. Immediately seeing Zhu Luo, though, he was far too occupied with spectating the uncommon sight to continue racing away.

The silver-haired grandma quickly caught up to and flicked her grandson’s forehead. Putting on a serious face, she began to teach him seriously, “If you don’t study hard and exercise well, you will be just like him in the future, only able to pick up garbage!”

The little ball’s dark eyes were still looking at Zhu Luo, “But he looks so good!”

“What’s the use of being good looking, he still has to pick up trash! If you pick up garbage in the future, you will have to eat vegetables every day and you won’t be able to afford chicken wings, coke, or french fries!”

But the little fat boy was not fooled by this operation at all as he pointed at Zhu Luo excitedly, “Grandma, I have decided that I will pick up trash when I grow up! As long as I pick up trash, I will grow up to be as good looking as him!”

Grandma couldn’t help shouting angrily, “Nonsense!”

“It’s not nonsense, I want to!” Straightening his neck bravely, the child stared at his grandma. His eyes started rolling around as he thought of something, “I might not want to pick up trash, but…I have to eat McDonald’s today instead!”

Raising her hand, the grandma was entirely prepared to flick him again as punishment but showed a distressed expression halfway through her actions and gently caressed his head instead. “Okay, let’s eat McDonald’s…But this is a one-time thing! You can only have it today!”

“…” Zhu Luo woke from his daze as he listened to the pair’s conversation.

Covering his face with his collar, he hesitated briefly before picking up the trash bag and hurriedly leaving.

His back looked as if he was running for his life.