CH 1

Editor: Scarlet

Song Yunshen had been standing in front of the door for a long time, smoking non-stop. A clutter of cigarette butts lay strewn all over the floor around him. The people inside, however, were completely unaware that they had an audience and were having sex in full swing. He pitched the last cigarette butt onto the floor and stomped it out. Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the unlocked door. 

“Yo, you guys getting it on?”

His voice was neither loud nor soft, but when the two people on the bed heard it, they nearly jumped out of their skins, and their actions came to a halt. Li Siyuan, in particular, was so scared stiff that he couldn’t even react immediately. His lips quivered for a long time, and he couldn’t speak without stammering.

“Yun, Yunshen… You, how come you’re back?”

Song Yunshen calmly put his hands in his pockets, leaned against the door, and said, “If I hadn’t come back, would I still have been able to see such a good show?” 

As he swung his gaze to the other person on the bed, he saw a stunning young man in his early twenties with a pale complexion and a nice, ripped figure. Li Siyuan, indeed, had excellent taste in men.

The young man frowned and looked at Li Siyuan with a questioning look. Waving his hand, Song Yunshen said with restraint, “Pull it out first.”

His face as white as paper, Li Siyuan jumped off the young man’s body as quickly as he could. Song Yunshen backhandedly locked the door before making his way slowly to the bedside.

The young man was busy getting dressed and didn’t notice Song Yunshen coming towards him. One corner of Song Yunshen’s mouth lifted in a mirthless smile, and he punched the right side of the young man’s face.

“Fuck you!”

The punch was, without a doubt, ruthless and accurate, knocking the defenseless young man to the ground at once. Before he could get up, Song Yunshen followed up with another punch. The young man tilted his head to dodge the incoming fist, but it still grazed the corner of his mouth before heavily slamming into the ground.

Frightened, Li Siyuan screamed, “Yunshen! Yunshen, stop! How can you hit someone?”

Song Yunshen’s forehead was bulging with blue veins as he grappled with the man. Although he was in the middle of fighting, he still had spare time to yell angrily at Li Siyuan, “You don’t have to fucking worry about him. After I deal with him, it’s your turn!” 

The young man gradually recovered, but because Song Yunshen had suppressed him from the start, he was at a disadvantage throughout the fight.

After Song Yunshen had punched the other party enough, he staggered to his feet and added another kick before stopping.

“You took the shoes that I have already worn out. Do you also want to eat the steamed buns that I have chewed? Hmm?” 

The young man stared at him with a deathly stare as he wiped a heavy handful of blood from the corner of his mouth.

“What are you to him?” The young man asked.

Song Yunshen clenched his fists so hard that he could almost feel his knuckles cracking.

“Come on, Li Siyuan, tell him. Who am I to you?” 

Llr ybvs agfwyilcu, tf rajwwfgfv bea j gfqis, “Lf, tf, tf… tf’r ws ybsoglfcv.”

Veqqgfrrlcu tlr jcufg, atf sbecu wjc jrxfv lc j mbiv jcv wjucfalm nblmf, “Glvc’a sbe afii wf sbe kfgf rlcuif?”

Ol Vlsejc jiwbra mglfv bc atf rqba.

“P… P tjv ilfv.” 

Llr fzqgfrrlbc euis, tf ibbxfv ja Vbcu Tecrtfc, ogbkclcu jr lo tf kjcafv ab fzqijlc rbwfatlcu, yea Vbcu Tecrtfc vlvc’a ulnf tlw atf mtjcmf. Lf vlgfmais qertfv atf wjc ab atf vbbg klat bcf tjcv jcv bqfcfv atf vbbg klat tlr batfg tjcv.

“Get out right now. Don’t let me see you again!”

The young man stared at him intensely for a long time, then turned around and left without saying a word.

When Song Yunshen turned around, he saw Li Siyuan huddled in the corner, clutching an ashtray. The latter was out of breath from crying: “Song, Song Yunshen, don’t mess around!” 

Song Yunshen pulled up the sleeves of his shirt and moved his wrists.

“How can you say that I’m messing around? Wasn’t it you who was messing around with him?”

He had caught Li Siyuan red-handed in the act of adultery, so even if the latter wanted to defend himself, he couldn’t.

This silent acquiescence was like a bucket of cold water poured down his head, quelling most of his rage and chilling his heart at the same time. Song Yunshen paused, coming to the sudden realization that it wasn’t worth acting this way. 

“Li Siyuan.” The corners of his mouth lifted to a smile that held no humor, and his voice was hoarse beyond recognition. “You’re the one who made me like this, but now you don’t care.”

On the spot and embarrassed, Li Siyuan lowered his head in.

“Yunshen, I’m sorry…”

After taking a deep breath, Song Yunshen said, “Don’t disgust me with such words. It is only because I was giving face to our eight-year relationship that I didn’t beat you today!” 

When he uttered the word “eight-year,” his eyes suddenly welled up with tears. He was doing his best to hold in his emotions, but despite his best efforts, a hoarse sob tore from his mouth at the end of the sentence. Hearing him cry, Li Siyuan froze in place.

Song Yunshen maintained his last sliver of reason and said in a low voice: “I’ll be back at 9:30 tomorrow night to pack my things. I don’t want to see you again.” Having finished speaking, he turned and left without looking back and slammed the front door.

Eight years were enough for a person to grow from an ignorant child to a bright teenager, or for a weak sapling to grow into a towering tree. Enough for the people surrounding you to have changed from one group to another. Enough for some things to arise from nothing and some to perish into nothingness.

How many eight years could a person have in their life? 

The thought hit him like a boulder falling from the sky, smashing him so hard that it left him seeing stars.

Song Yunshen trusted Li Siyuan blindly and believed in him as much as he did in himself. Never had he thought that the person he spent so much time with would one day have a change of heart, and consequently, stop being loyal to him.

He couldn’t understand. They had made it through so many difficulties together, so why couldn’t they live together happily now that the tough times were behind them?

He had felt Li Siyuan’s lukewarm attitude toward him in the past six months, but the pressures of life prevented him from giving it much thought. He had thought that it was just a seven-year itch and that everything would be fine after it was over, but he had never expected the other party would directly choose to throw him away in such a humiliating manner. 

He had already encountered a setback on his business trip and had to return early. But he hadn’t expected that the worst had yet to come.

As he wandered through the streets, watching the sky darken inch by inch, he suddenly realized that he had nowhere to go, just like a bereaved dog.

For a moment, he even had the impulsive thought that he should just find a place to die. Life was too difficult, and living was exhausting. Why did he have to work his fingers to the bone day in, day out? Was it just to withstand more blows?

He walked slowly to the bridge over the river. 

The streetlights were lit up, casting an orange glow across the shimmering water, as hazy and alluring as a magnificent dream, seemingly bewitching the frustrated visitors to let go of all earthly attachments and jump into it.

People always had to pay for their act of staking everything they had on a single gamble.

Sometimes, the price was losing everything they owned.

Leaning against the railing, Song Yunshen typed a long paragraph of “last words” into his phone’s text message box. He typed the last full stop, but he didn’t know who to send it to for a while. He had severed ties with his family the year he graduated from college, and he wasn’t in touch with any of his friends from back then. 

Li Siyuan was an extremely possessive person who would become jealous if he got any closer to a person, whether they were of the same sex or the opposite sex. As a result, Song Yunshen had no choice but to fade out of the friend circle around him.

What had Li Siyuan said back then? He had said, “It’s okay. We will only have each other in the future, and that’s enough.”

Song Yunshen had firmly believed this, and thus he had come the most appalling cropper.

He was already twenty-nine years old. When people reached this age, the majority of them had something to show for it, whether it was a career or a family. Some of his colleagues already had children who had already started walking, while others had successful careers and didn’t have to worry about food and clothing. He was the only miserable one who had been busy just struggling to make a living for so many years and still had saved nothing, so much so that he still lived in a rented place, unable to buy a house. 

Aside from his good looks, he didn’t know what other advantages he had. Neither his educational qualifications, nor his salary, nor his temper were up to par.

But even if he was like this, he was very nice to Li Siyuan. If he had one hundred yuan, ninety-nine would be for Li Siyuan to spend. Even if he was hungry, he made sure that Li Siyuan had what others had. Even if he had to grovel over the customers daily, he ensured that Li Siyuan was his happy little prince. He let Li Siyuan pick the household chores he wanted to do and let him quit his job when he felt like it. Sometimes, Song Yunshen even rushed straight to the bathroom to wash a basin of stinky socks for him when he came back home after working overtime in the early morning.

Although it was exhausting, Song Yunshen had never felt that there was anything wrong with this.

Just like how it was natural for a man to spoil his spouse, he liked spoiling Li Siyuan. 

He liked to see Li Siyuan nestled on the sofa watching TV in a carefree manner, liked to hear the words “Hubby, you worked hard,” which he said softly after he finished the housework at night, and liked to hug him to sleep while sniffing the aroma of shower gel on his neck. Whenever all this happened, all his tiredness would go away and he would get his second wind.

The cool breeze of the night engulfed him in memories, easily bringing him, a 6’3-foot-tall man, to tears.

How beautiful the memories were, how cruel the reality was. The simple and lovely Li Siyuan in his heart had slept with another strange man in the same bed that they had shared for seven years.

That kind of pain and humiliation was an experience you could never forget. 

He slammed his fist on the railing and deleted his “last words” word by word with trembling hands.

“Fuck you, Li Siyuan, you fucking piece of shit!”

Cold tears streamed down his cheeks and onto the screen, blurring his vision.

Song Yunshen spent all night in a hotel, smoking like a chimney. He numbly shaved his beard in front of the mirror at dawn and went to work smelling of smoke. 

When he arrived at his office, his colleagues were chattering together, and he didn’t bother listening to what they were talking about. He strode directly to his desk and sat down. Not long after, one of his female colleagues, dressed to the nines, came over.

“Eh, did you go to the nightclub last night? Why do you smell so strongly of smoke?”

Song Yunshen was not in the mood to joke with her. He just waved his hand and said nothing. The female colleague was not reconciled with the fact that he neglected her and deliberately knocked on his desk.

“Hey, look at me!” 

Song Yunshen helplessly raised his head.

The female colleague posed coquettishly.

“Do you feel that I look different today?”

She indeed looked noticeably different today. She had put on some heavy makeup, which she normally didn’t do on weekdays. On top of that, she had out on a strong perfume, its scent flooding the entire room and even the corridor. Furthermore, she was wearing a pair of ridiculously tall high-heeled shoes, which made her walk unsteadily. 

“I’m gay,” said Song Yunshen with an expressionless face.

“…”

The female colleague rolled her eyes heavily.

“Song Yunshen, you’re so thick-skinned. I’m only fucking allowing you to admire. I’m not specifically dressed up for you to see.” 

Song Yunshen had no choice but to respond perfunctorily.

The female colleague said excitedly, “Do you think my makeup and dress up look no worse than those college students who just joined the company? You certainly can’t guess that today my face alone is worth several hundred…”

Cutting her short, Song Yunshen asked, “So, what’s the reason?”

The female colleague laughed before saying, “Don’t you know that the son of CEO Lin will be parachuted into our company today? He will be our direct boss from now on.” 

This came as a surprise. Trying hard to raise his spirits, he inquired, “What about Ol’ Huang?”

“Transferred away.” The female colleague spread her hands. “Since the young master is coming, someone must vacate a position for him. According to rumors, he is a handsome young man. Maybe he prefers mature, older sisters. When the time comes, I’ll just do a bit of this and that to appeal to his tastes, and then—”

“Then you’ll lose your job.” Song Yunshen got up and walked to the coffee machine, leaving his female colleague steaming mad behind him.