CH 71

As evening approached, there were no more visitors left in the exhibition hall.

In order to earn a little more money, Su Li stayed back with Lin Yuheng, who had just changed into his original clothes, to help pack up the exhibits.

“With such heavy rain, taking a cab alone would be expensive. Why don’t we leave together?” Su Li suggested, lacking confidence in his words. He wanted to earn some more money for his dating expenses.

“Isn’t this your father’s company?” he continued.

“My dad is not the boss,” Lin Yuheng replied with an unhappy expression while dutifully sealing the boxes.

He worked while worrying about Lin Yuxing; he didn’t know where Lin Yuxing had gone in such a hurry.

Lin Yuheng turned his head to look outside the exhibition hall. The heavy rain was still pouring down, seemingly intent on submerging C city in water. The sky that had lost its vibrant colors after the scorching noon was now gloomy, making people feel depressed.

Lin Yuheng rubbed his chest uncomfortably, his face turning pale.

“What’s wrong?” Su Li thought he was feeling ill and quickly squatted down to ask.

Shaking his head, Lin Yuheng said, “Since this afternoon, I’ve felt a tightness in my chest.”

“Is it because of the cold? My mom also feels this way when it rains. Rest for a while.” Su Li took care of the remaining work,  and said, “I wonder where Lin Yuxing ran off to; he didn’t even want the money he earned and left. It’s a shame.”

Lin Yuheng had already transferred half of his wages to Lin Yuxing and said to Su Li, saying, “I already sent him his earnings for half a day.”

Surprised, Su Li asked, “Don’t they withhold the money for not working the whole day?”

After asking, he thought about how Lin Yuxing’s father worked for this company, and the backdoor approach seemed reasonable.

With heartfelt admiration, Su Li said, “You are really good to Lin Yuxing.”

“Of course.”

Immediately, Su Li imagined a one-sided love scenario.

He speculated that Liao Yan’s liking for girls wasn’t genuine; maybe he just pretended to be straight because he saw that Lin Yuxing was already with Zhongi.

“Liao Yan, I think you’re actually pretty great. Keep up the good work.” Su Li gave him a good-hearted compliment. “We’re friends now, so I won’t beat around the bush. Let me say it directly; Gu Zhongyi has an irreplaceable place in Yuxing’s heart.”

Lin Yuheng looked at him like he was crazy. After thinking about it carefully, it seemed that this kid, Su Li, had misunderstood something.

Suddenly, Lin Yuheng’s mischievous side emerged. He deliberately said without much emotion, “You’re right. It seems I’ve been aiming in the wrong direction.”

Su Li was relieved and nodded, seeing that Liao Yan wouldn’t interfere with his roommate’s and Gu Zhongyi’s relationship. “Besides, our university has so many handsome guys and beautiful girls. Why bother having a one-sided crush on someone who doesn’t belong to you?”

Lin Yuheng raised both hands and feet in agreement, grinning mischievously, “Then I’ve decided to pursue you. How about that?”

As soon as those words left his mouth, Su Li was startled and took several steps back in a panic, hastily refusing, “No, no, no! Don’t even think about it!”

Lin Yuheng stood up, wearing an Alpha-to-the-extreme expression, and approached step by step.

“I have many good qualities you know, but I am impulsive and I have fallen for you, an Omega with a cute little canine tooth~”

“Ugh, I’m going to the dentist tomorrow!”

Su Li grabbed the broom beside him and awkwardly held it in a sword like position to keep Lin Yuheng one meter away.

“I’m telling you! My boyfriend is 1cm taller than Gu Zhongyi, and I love him! So give up on me!”

He swung the broom around, making cracking sounds, without a hint of breathlessness.

Lin Yuheng couldn’t bear it any longer and burst into laughter. The more he looked at Su Li, the more he felt like an exaggerated hamster. He couldn’t help but clutch his stomach.

Su Li realized that he was being teased and blushed immediately. “Laugh all you want! You play too much!”

Unbeknownst to Su Li, in a corner of the exhibition hall’s second floor, there was a guy in a wheelchair wearing a hat and a mask. He watched him silently for a long time. When he saw Su Li getting close to someone else, his hands involuntarily squeezed the armrests of the wheelchair.

The caretaker, Zhang Jie, looked at the time on her phone and respectfully inquired, “Mr. Liang, you’ve been sitting here for a while. The event is almost over. Do you still want to watch something else?”

She really didn’t understand why her usually homebound employer had suddenly decided to come to that pet products promotion event in such heavy rain. Besides, they didn’t even have any pets at home.

She gently reminded him, “It’s getting late, and the driver has been waiting outside for a long time.”

Liang Xie slowly withdrew his lingering gaze.

Wearing a mask, he replied in a low voice, “Let’s go.”

As he turned his wheelchair around, Su Li finally looked up and caught a glimpse of Liang Xie’s back. But soon, Zhang Jie, who was pushing the wheelchair, blocked his view.

Su Li curiously asked, “Why is there still someone on the second floor at this hour?”

“You mean that person in a wheelchair? He has been looking over here for a long time,” Lin Yuheng replied.

“What’s there to see here?” Su Li wondered.

With their relationship getting closer, Lin Yuheng became more unrestrained in teasing him. “Maybe he’s interested in you. Wait here; should I go get his WeChat for you?”

Su Li sneered, deliberately speaking fiercely as he handed the broom to Lin Yuheng. “stop joking around and come help me!”

They quickly finished organizing the work, and the packed boxes were wheeled away.

Su Li and Lin Yuheng walked outside the exhibition hall and found a place to take shelter from the rain. Su Li took out his phone and was about to call a cab when a car with hazard lights flashing pulled up beside them.

“Isn’t that Gu Zhongyi…Gu Senior’s car?”

Gu Zhongyi stopped the car in front of them, and they didn’t hesitate to get in.

“Gu Senior, Yuexing left around 2 o’clock this afternoon, saying there was something urgent. We don’t know the specifics, and what was so urgent” Su Li preemptively answered the question Gu Zhongyi was about to ask.

Gu Zhongyi was worried. He woke up from a nap at home, saw the heavy rain outside, and hurriedly drove to pick up Lin Yuxing from work. Before leaving, he called and messaged Lin Yuxing but didn’t receive a response.

Unfortunately, he encountered a traffic jam on the way, delaying his arrival.

Lin Yuheng’s hand, which was buckling his seatbelt, paused. He quickly got out his phone and called Lin Yuxing, but he didn’t get through.

He nudged Su Li’s arm with his elbow. “Did you contact Yuxing this afternoon?”

Su Li checked his phone and found that Lin Yuxing hadn’t replied to any of his messages.

“He hasn’t replied to any of my messages.”

Gu Zhongyi didn’t say anything and drove quickly to the university.

Generally, if something happened to Lin Yuxing, it would be within the university’s area. But no matter what happened, Lin Yuxing would habitually inform Gu Zhongyi and wouldn’t disappear without a reason.

Having experienced the accident in City D, both Gu Zhongyi and Lin Yuheng’s faces turned grim.

Su Li was frightened by the sudden silence in the car and sat up straight in his seat. He timidly asked, “What’s wrong? Is there something wrong with Yuxing?”

No one answered him.

Su Li realized that something might be seriously wrong and called his dorm neighbor, inquiring if Lin Yuxing had returned to their dorm.

But Lin Yuxing wasn’t in the dormitory either.

Gu Zhongyi’s car sped up, and Su Li sat nervously, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.

Strangely, the uncomfortable pheromone inside the car wasn’t Gu Zhongyi’s bitter orange scent, but a more unfamiliar sandalwood scent. It was filled with anxiety and fear.

Su Li felt slightly uncomfortable. He helplessly looked at “Liao Yan” beside him and then glanced at Gu Zhongyi, who was driving with a serious expression, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.

After their previous conversation, Gu Zhongyi could feel that the current Lin Yuheng still couldn’t control his pheromones well when emotions surged.

So, he turned on the car’s ventilation system, specifically designed to clear out pheromones.

The rain didn’t stop.

In the café near the hotel, only Lin Yuxing was left in the private room.

Qing Ling’s sorrow was limited, and he had completed a long-delayed task, leaving without any attachment.

In silence, Lin Yuxing sat quietly for a long time.

He couldn’t shed a single tear; he felt that his entire body was ice-cold, as if a sharp icy blade was piercing through him on a winter day.

His throat was choked with something, something he couldn’t swallow or spit out.

Helplessly, Lin Yuxing closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing, attempting to calm himself down.

The news of his brother’s death felt like a clump of soil weighing on his heart. It seemed insignificant, but with every gust of wind, it scattered everywhere, causing discomfort no matter where it touched.

At that moment, Lin Yuxing didn’t know what to do or how to react to that news.

After a while, he took out a box with a combination lock from the large box.

With a trial mindset, he entered their birthdates, but it didn’t unlock.

His fingers went numb, and after hesitating for a moment, he entered another date: the day they were separated at the welfare institute.

It unlocked.

Inside the box, there wasn’t much else, only a few notebooks.

Lin Yuxing sat quietly not even noticing that his phone had run out of battery.

Several of the pages of the notebook had missing content, probably lost or never added. But the first one started shortly after Lin Yuheng left for overseas, and the last one ended on the day the new ” Qu Xing” arrived at the villa.

After that, all the pages were blank.

Sitting in place, Lin Yuxing dazedly stared at the notebook for a long time. His mind was filled with various thoughts, but he was exhausted from those fragmented memories.

In the first notebook, there was a transparent bag with a small bundle of hair and a note inside: “In memory of my first time doing charity at 14 years old, I donated my hair to a child with cancer – Lin Yuheng, xx year, xx month, xx day.”

In the second notebook, there was a photo of them as children.

In the picture, he and Lin Yuheng were sitting closely together, smiling blissfully.

He remembered that day, when Lin Yuheng, who usually didn’t care about anything, said with a bright smile, “Aunt Director wants to take a picture with us too. Do you think it’ll look like a family photo? Xing Xing, let’s smile later, okay?”

In family photos, everyone had to be happy.

With a blank expression, Lin Yuxing closed his eyes and took a deep breath, flipping the photo to the back, where he saw their names.

Suddenly, he noticed something from the notebook.

Lin Yuxing’s nose tingled, and he hastily put away the photo, feeling overwhelmed by emotions, restless, and uneasy. He took out his phone, only to realize it was out of battery. He staggered a few steps and went to the lobby of the café.

After begging repeatedly, a girl lent him a laptop.

Lin Yuxing searched for two pieces of news.

One was about the accident on the sidewalk in City D, and the other was about Lin Yuheng being hit and falling into the river on the bridge.

He also found two video clips of the accidents.

Although the image quality was blurry, and faces couldn’t be seen clearly, Lin Yuxing could tell that the person who pushed him on the sidewalk in the first video was wearing the exact same clothes as the person in the second video who fell into the river.

Lin Yuxing’s fingertips trembled as he slowly scrolled the mouse.

On the page, the neat words clearly wrote, “Victim Qu , 17 years old, grew up in Country H, recently returned to China ” and other related information.

Qu, Qu Xing, was the tormenting name in Lin Yuheng’s diary.

In an instant, tears streamed from Lin Yuxing’s eyes, falling incessantly. Countless shapes of pain flooded his consciousness, gradually crushing him.

That person was indeed Lin Yuheng, his brother.

His brother didn’t break his promise; his brother really came to find him…

The girl who lent him the laptop saw him crying and panicked, offering him several tissues.

Lin Yuxing covered his face with one hand, crying silently. He couldn’t even utter a complete thank you, stumbling his way to the restroom.

He splashed cold water on his face again and again.

Countless times.

But the pain in his heart didn’t diminish in the slightest.

Lin Yuxing didn’t remember how he got back to the apartment. He was soaked from the rain, and he made a mess of the floor.

Rainwater left long streaks on the floor, like a quiet water snake.

Staring blankly out the window, he recalled the day Lin Yuheng had the accident, the same heavy rain. Those raindrops fiercely struck his heart, breaking him apart.

He couldn’t understand that incident at all, nor did he know how Lin Yuheng knew about the car accident or why he was hit and fell into the river…

But Lin Yuheng was already dead, and no one could answer him.

He numbly placed the box on the coffee table, went to the balcony to get a cloth to clean the floor, and vigorously wiped away the dirty spots he had made. He kept wiping and wiping for a long time, but he always felt that it couldn’t be cleaned.

His wet shirt stuck to him, and his vision blurred as tears continued to fall on his hands, the cloth, and the floor.

How could he clean it up?

He couldn’t cry out, nor could he speak.

He stubbornly dwelled on the unclean floor, blaming himself for not being able to do anything right.

Suddenly.

Lin Yuxing seemed to give up. He slumped on the floor, lost in thought.