CH 3

Editor: Scarlet

Song Yunshen went straight back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep. At 9:00 p.m., the alarm clock went off, waking him up. He didn’t get off the bed but just continued to lie there with his eyes wide open, quietly staring up at the ceiling before he could finally snap out of his dream. After drinking some water, he got up, changed his clothes, and went out. 

Despite struggling for so many years, he was still dirt-poor; he really was quite a failure. People his age already had considerable savings, unlike him, who had less than 20,000 yuan on his card. Even if he were to change his sexual orientation immediately, he couldn’t actually get a wife—he couldn’t even afford the bride price.

People don’t realize that they’re in trouble until it’s too late. When he was still with Li Siyuan, he hadn’t paid too much attention to these things. He was simply content with having enough to eat and drink every day. It was okay as long as he could save some money to pay the down payment for a house in the future and settle down in this city. But now, the magic had vanished, bringing him back to reality, where the sky and earth had changed and the world had left him far behind.

He took a taxi all the way back to the rented apartment. Li Siyuan wasn’t there, and the door was locked. Li Siyuan seemed to have made a clean break with the past. Perhaps he had been waiting for this day for a long time, but his conscience had held him back, making him unable to find a suitable reason to extricate himself from the relationship.

Song Yunshen, with a cigarette in his mouth, opened the door. The room was clean, and Li Siyuan’s belongings had disappeared. While gazing around at every corner of the room, he dragged his steps to the sofa before sitting down. 

He and Li Siyuan had rented this place after graduating from university, and it had already been seven years. From the bed, sofa, and refrigerator to the stickers on the wall, every decoration—everything—was carefully selected by the two of them. Everything in this place was a memory etched into their bones and blood.

As fresh graduates with nothing but many bills to pay, they had lived crowded together in this small apartment, but they had been still full of hope.

This apartment used to look different when they had first moved in. The furniture had been old and worn-out, the water pipes used to break from time to time, and the place had even a rat nest in the corner. They had been attacked by the rats on the third night they had moved here. Li Siyuan had screamed and hid behind him. With no choice but to bite the bullet, he had picked up his slippers. With the rats scurrying everywhere, he hadn’t been able to chase them, which had brought him to a boil. He had eventually rolled up his sleeves and simply fought them desperately. Finally, the rats had died under his slippers. Li Siyuan had hugged his waist and said excitedly, “Hubby, you are awesome.” At that moment, all his anger and fatigue had disappeared without a trace. He had been panting, but he had still laughed and proudly said, “Of course.”

They had gone to many places to buy a bed but had never found what they were looking for. At that time, the two had just received their first month’s salary, and the total had only been about 8,000 yuan. They hadn’t had the guts to spend a cent, so they had come to the furniture center. Li Siyuan had been the first to notice the bed. While walking around, he had suddenly pointed towards a bed and exclaimed, “Yunshen, take a look; doesn’t that bed look good?” When Song Yunshen’s gaze had fallen upon the bed, his eyes had lit up at once. The two had then strode over and tried it by lying down with the permission of the shopping guide. While fondling the pattern on the headboard of the bed, Li Siyuan had said, “Yunshen, I like it very much. Let’s buy it. From now on, it will belong to the two of us.”

Song Yunshen had laughed, came up to his ear, and whispered, “Okay. Then, I’ll fuck you on it every day.”

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Li Siyuan had a habit of becoming inexplicably angry over trivial things. Once, Song Yunshen hadn’t understood the reason for his anger, so he could only keep coaxing the other person. Unable to take it any longer, Li Siyuan had asked him, with red eyes, to go away and come back when he had thought about it clearly. Not daring to provoke him any further, Song Yunshen had left, crestfallen. He had dared to return only after three hours of shopping outside. He hadn’t forgotten to buy Li Siyuan’s favorite fried buns. As soon as he had entered the door, he had seen Li Siyuan sitting on the sofa, crying. Panicked, he had hurriedly gone to comfort him, who then rushed into his arms and started crying and scolding him again. Song Yunshen had listened for a long time before figuring out what had happened. He had taken out his mobile phone and looked at it. Sure enough, the phone’s battery had been out of charge and had switched off by itself at some point.

“I’m sorry, it’s my fault,” he had apologized. 

“I thought… you really don’t care about me anymore…” Li Siyuan had cried out of breath. “I’m sorry, Yunshen… I, I shouldn’t have been so angry with you. I’m also wrong…”

Song Yunshen had felt extremely bad. While wiping away his tears, he had said, “No, you’re right, I’m the one who was too stupid. I’ll try and do better.”

Once upon a time, he had frequently heard such a loving and gentle tone from Li Siyuan. Once upon a time, their bed had been stylish and its headboard beautiful. But time had caressed it, leaving behind traces and memories of bygone days, and then had abandoned it in the dust of the past. Now, the bed that had captivated both of them had gone out of style, and its headboard had also become mottled with deep and shallow scratches. Likewise, Li Siyuan and his caring tone had also become a thing of the past.

Nothing remained constant, whether it was a bed, a person, or a relationship. Li Siyuan was no longer the Li Siyuan who used to steal a glance at him shyly, nor was he the Song Yunshen who used to be full of vigor and sharpness. 

After smoking a whole pack of cigarettes, Song Yunshen pulled his thoughts out of his memories and darted a glance at the clock on the wall. It was already past eleven.

He checked his phone. There were eighteen missed calls and more than twenty days’ worth of WeChat messages. He took a cursory look at them and was about to put the phone away when he happened to see a new friend request.

The username had only one letter, a capital L. The profile picture was an image of a handsome guy wearing sunglasses, and his face looked a bit familiar.

If you did a lot of work in this line of work, you would develop a habit: No matter if you were acquainted or not, as long as you received a friend request, you would accept it and then chat for a while. If it was from a customer, their contact would be pinned, and if it was from a potential customer, their contact would be saved. Daily advertisements were posted in Moments. If the request was from none of the above, then you would delete it directly, without looking for a reason. Out of habit, Song Yunshen accepted the friend request and sent two words. 

“You are?”

Shortly after the message was sent, the five words “The other party is typing” appeared at the top of the dialog box. A few seconds later, the other party replied with two words.

“Lin Wanghe.”

He didn’t recognize the person. 

Song Yunshen was feeling cranky and didn’t have the mood to continue chatting. He was about to delete the other party from his friends list when another message came.

“Young Master Lin.”

“…”

Song Yunshen pressed the delete button pronto, without hesitation. 

The sound of a child being beaten came from the room next-door. The young couple taught the child a lesson, and the child cried heart-rendingly. The sound that he used to find too noisy now inexplicably made him emotional. Facing the empty room, Song Yunshen walked to the closet step by step and pulled out the suitcase to pack his clothes—shirts, pants, coats, and socks. His heart sank every time he packed an outfit, and when the closet was empty, so was his heart.

Everything about him, literally everything, was related to Li Siyuan. The shirt was bought for him by Li Siyuan, the watch was picked for him by Li Siyuan, and the belt was also buckled for him by Li Siyuan… How could one possibly forget all of these memories overnight? Such a big feat required the possession of Buddha-like wisdom, which Song Yunshen lacked, thus plunging him into a mire of unbearable sadness and heartache.

He was the one to break the contract first, not the company, and he hadn’t even written a resignation letter, so he didn’t expect to continue working in this industry. Where could he go now? His family hadn’t contacted him for seven years, and he didn’t know whether their phone number had changed. If he suddenly appeared with his suitcase at his parents’ house, that would be really awkward.

He didn’t have enough money to start his own business, and he didn’t dare take out loans. He had passed the age where he had the capital to take risks, and now he really couldn’t afford to lose. 

Even after ruminating for a while, Song Yunshen couldn’t come to a conclusion. He could only force himself to stop thinking. Finally, he examined the room for the last time, took his luggage out, and turned around to lock the door.

If he was as loaded as Lin Wanghe, he would at least have had the ability to buy this room to preserve the only memories left, but it was a pity that he didn’t have such luxury. Even renting it for a year was out of his reach. This was also one of the reasons why he despised Lin Wanghe. That person was young, rich, and capable. He could easily destroy everything Song Yunshen had, watch him be decadent and depressed, and then say in a condescending and hypocritical manner that he hadn’t known it would be like this.

Song Yunshen actually knew that Lin Wanghe was innocent. The problem between him and Li Siyuan had already started a long time ago, and it wasn’t by any means Lin Wanghe’s fault.

But he still couldn’t get rid of the resentment and jealousy that had made home in his heart. Even if it were for the sake of his remaining self-esteem, he could never work under Lin Wanghe while pretending as if nothing had happened. 

Song Yunshen spent several days in a row browsing the recruitment website in his small hotel room. He ate instant noodles when he was hungry and drank bottled water when he was thirsty. He hadn’t washed his hair for several days, and his hair was oily and emanated a disgusting smell.

For the first time in his life, he was living such a bad life. The inconvenient conditions in the hotel were one aspect, but the most important thing was that he had lost interest in taking care of himself. He used to be the type of person who had to carefully style his hair before going out but now, he didn’t even want to wash his face during the day. Depravity was indeed a fascinating thing. Even if you knew that it was by no means praiseworthy, there was still a sense of thrill in abandoning oneself to the power of despair.

He had read hundreds of job advertisements and sent out resumes dozens of times in the past few days, but all of them had sunk into the sea. His chest seemed to be pressed against a boulder, making him unable to breathe. He really couldn’t stand this feeling of oppression, so he simply went out and bought a box of wine. After coming back, he started drinking like a loon.

In the face of sad thoughts and a gloomy mood, even tea could get one drunk. Song Yunshen, who usually had great capacity for liquor, got easily drunk at this time. Soon, the floor was littered with wine bottles, and he sat among them without any scruples, motionless, like a pile of mud. 

The mobile phone rang again and again. He subconsciously picked it up and answered the call.

“Baby…”

The person on the other end of the call paused and said, “Song Yunshen.”

“Baby… I…” Song Yunshen hiccuped. He was about to say, “I miss you,” when he suddenly had a moment of sobriety and realized that he shouldn’t debase himself like this. But he was unable to restrain the gnawing yearning and pain in his heart. Torn between head and heart, he let out a hoarse, plaintive sob.