CH 95

Twin Fish [Translator]12-15 minutes

Gu Qingchi continued living a normal life. He attended his doctor appointments. He did his work.

That farce of a banquet had been like a dream, forgotten upon waking. The banquet didn’t seem to have affected Gu Qingchi at all. DcuWFg

However, the company received several phone calls, all of them asking for Gu Qingchi. It was a mixed bag of good and bad phone calls. Some of the calls were inquiries. Some claimed to be a family member of Gu Qingchi’s. Some even asked for Gu Qingchi’s contact information. Ye Li found this ridiculous. He still remembered how Gu Qingchi had said that he was an orphan. In the end, he dismissed all of them. Mrs. Gu also had not sent Gu Qingchi any messages in a long time.

Life was quiet and deathly still, not a thing out of place. This was normal. This was how it should be. He no longer had anything to do with his past, and no one could see what he was like now. Everyone was living their lives, loving who they were supposed to love. Everything was good.

Chrysanthemum Garden.

It was then that Gu Qingchi attempted suicide for the first time.

On that day, he had just finished an appointment with his doctor. He went home and sat for a while. Suddenly, he stood up and took down all the curtains in the house. He cleaned up the entire house, sunlight illuminating the interior. The cat followed after him for a while before finally nestling next to the balcony and falling asleep under the sun. CTDFKx

Finally, Gu Qingchi checked the cat’s feeder and water dispenser. He filled it up with newly opened cat food.

He then sent out a message into a group chat. It was technically a group chat, but the only people in it were Xie Luyu, Ye Li, and Xiao Ke.

His message was very simple.

Can someone take care of my cat for me starting tomorrow? It’s very easy to take care of. It just needs cat food.

dVuIt9

Ye Li and Xiao Ke didn’t think much of the request. They both agreed. They simply asked when they needed to pick it up, and they didn’t really worry when they didn’t get a reply from Gu Qingchi.

He would reply once he saw it. Gu Qingchi had always been the kind of person who doesn’t look at his cell phone often. He much preferred playing piano over surfing the web to pass his time. He also wasn’t very good at using these various apps. He could spend up to half a day trying to figure out why he wasn’t getting notifications.

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Xie Luyu had been sleeping in his nanny van. He’d just returned from abroad and was currently jet-lagged. Whenever he was jet-lagged, he needed to have absolute silence. He was usually very even-tempered, nothing really bothered him, but he had a horrible case of grumpiness in the mornings. If he didn’t get enough sleep, he would be in a terrible mood all day. His assistant and his driver both knew of this, so they kept their movements quiet. 6xqZ k

The assistant and the driver were both startled when the sound of the WeChat notification rang out. They both checked their phones to see if they had forgotten to mute them. They then saw Xie Luyu crawl up from the back seat and turn on his own cell phone.

The assistant breathed a sigh of relief. Then, he waited for Xie Luyu to flare up. He could still remember the last time that Pan Xiaocheng sent a message to Xie Luyu early in the morning. In the end, Pan Xiaocheng was rewarded with a series of voice messages. Xie Luyu ranted for a full minute without stopping. He didn’t utter a single swear word, but each and every sentence was barbed. It was hard to say whether he was trying to make things hard for others or whether he was trying to make things hard for himself.

The assistant then saw Xie Luyu’s expression change. Xie Luyu didn’t even bother with sleeping anymore. He immediately reported an address to the driver and told him to head there, the sooner the better.

Xie Luyu was truly very nervous. His sleepiness was gone entirely. Upon seeing that message, he immediately felt that something was wrong. Gu Qingchi was the kind of person who tried his best not to bother others unless it was absolutely necessary. He avoided Xie Luyu. He never took the initiative to contact him. Even if he needed help, he wasn’t going to look for Xie Luyu. jBTrO9

Xie Luyu called Ye Li. Once he confirmed that Gu Qingchi’s schedule was empty, he started calling Gu Qingchi over and over, but Gu Qingchi didn’t pick up. Finally, one of the calls went through.

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However, Xie Luyu hesitated and decided to trust his intuition. He didn’t change his mind about where he was going. Instead, he asked the driver to head over there as fast as he could. JF1hvs

Xie Luyu lost count of how many times he’d asked the driver to go faster, just a little bit faster. It took ten or so minutes to get to Gu Qingchi’s place. He knocked on the door at first but it wasn’t opening, so he went to look for property management.

In the end, Xie Luyu found Gu Qingchi lying on his living room floor. His face and his body were covered in blood. He was soaking wet, drenched in an amalgamation of both blood and water. The carpet had been steeped in liquid as well. There was a bloody trail winding its way from the bathroom. The bathroom door was open. There, the cat sat squatting by the door, its abdomen dyed in red. It seemed to have entered the bathtub at least once as its fur was dripping wet. Xie Luyu had heard it screaming from outside the front door, but, now that he was inside, the cat was quiet, simply watching Xie Luyu as he checked on Gu Qingchi’s situation.

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Xie Luyu didn’t know how he managed to remember to bandage him, and he didn’t know how he managed to get him to the hospital.

It wasn’t until Gu Qingchi was lying on a hospital bed and out of danger that Xie Luyu finally felt a sudden and overwhelming pang of terror. RK9Nfl

The ward was a single-person room. The room didn’t seem like that of a hospital and more like that of a home. There was a vase on the bedside table. The flowers in the vase seemed to be several days old. They had already begun to wither.

This was a huge incident. The assistant had already informed Pan Xiaocheng. Pan Xiaocheng was currently standing outside the hospital ward, calling Ye Li. Lots of people had jumped into action, but Xie Luyu couldn’t be bothered to care about anything.

He just watched as the IV fluid slowly coursed into Gu Qingchi’s body. “It’s like I’m fucking dreaming,” Xie Luyu thought.

⁂ tqTDia

Mrs. Gu’s condition worsened. Mr. Gu and Gu Xie spent all day looking after her. They were truly at their wits’ end. They didn’t have any time to spare on anything else.

After waking up, Mrs. Gu yelled at Mr. Gu and Gu Xie in disbelief.

“What are you doing? You’re all crazy! That’s my child.”

Sometimes, she would quiet down. She said that she heard good boy playing piano upstairs. She said that they shouldn’t plant roses in the garden anymore, good boy got the thorns all over his hands. She said that good boy’s dogs have all died, he would be sad when he comes back. She said that they shouldn’t honk the car horn everytime they get home, good boy always runs down the stairs when he hears it, and the running was scaring her out of her wits. bFJ0nH

It may be that the picture she painted was just so beautiful. Mr. Gu and Gu Xie almost started to feel as though there really did seem to be such a child, a small child, a child who loved to laugh, a sweet and obedient child, a child that would run down the stairs at the sound of a car horn and throw himself into their arms, a child that truly loved his mother, a child that loved his father and older brother.

One day, Mr. Gu hesitatingly asked whether he should contact Gu Qingchi to help cajole Mrs. Gu. Gu Xie seemed to have been waiting for him to say this and agreed without hesitation.

Mrs. Gu then found out about it somehow.

Mrs. Gu knew that Gu Qingchi was coming, so Mrs. Gu got up so early and happily changed into her prettiest clothes. She also spent a lot of time talking about the dishes that good boy liked with Mrs. Wang. It was almost as if there really was a good boy like that. Ca4xkm

Woofie had already given birth to two puppies. Its docile personality has changed a bit since giving birth. It now had a tendency to bark at strangers.

Mrs. Gu was worried that Woofie wouldn’t remember good boy.

“Good boy is coming home today. Woofie, you have to be obedient.”

It was very easy for Mr. Gu to find the phone number for Gu Qingchi’s agent. He then clearly expressed his intentions to Ye Li. xWo2 z

Ye Li was silent for a moment before offering a very formal apology.

“My apologies. My artist’s itinerary has already been arranged. He won’t be able to make it for the time being.”

Chrysanthemum Garden.

Mr. Gu knew it was a refusal as soon as he heard it, so he didn’t continue bothering Ye Li. Instead, he turned to find someone else.

News of Gu Qingchi’s attempted suicide was kept strictly under wraps, but there was no such thing as an impenetrable wall in this world. There were still some people who knew the inside story. F678sn

The other party trusted that Mr. Gu wouldn’t spread this information around. Thus, he agreed to speak with him about it.

“He attempted suicide yesterday by cutting his wrists and was rescued. He’s probably in the hospital right now.”

It was likely that the other party didn’t actually know Gu Qingchi. He spoke very calmly. It was as though he were discussing something as trivial as yesterday’s weather.

Mr. Gu found this rather chilling. He had met Gu Qingchi at the banquet. He had a very deep impression of the kid. Gu Qingchi had been fine that day. He seemed normal. He looked like a kind and polite child. SIzfYK

The information he’d gathered on Gu Qingchi before had also given him a very high evaluation.

Now, that child was lying in the hospital after having cut his wrists.

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Gu Qingchi was very afraid of pain. Xie Luyu was very aware of this. Gu Qingchi was once splashed by hot oil while he was cooking, and, ever since then, he’d kept his distance. bSV pd

He’d always stick a band-aid over every single one of his injuries, even if it was just a small scratch, even if it didn’t bleed. He was only ever able to feel at ease once the wound was out of sight. He’d then have to lie down on the sofa for a very long time.

How miserable did he have to be in order to have the courage to cut that long and deep gash into his wrist?

Xie Luyu couldn’t imagine it, but he was incredibly miserable right now.

Gu Qingchi woke up at noon the next day. He stared at the tube administering fluid to him for a very long time. MT2l63

Xie Luyu watched him from the side, dispelling any such thoughts.

“You’ve still got two bags of fluid left. You can’t pull it out.”

Gu Qingchi weakly shrunk back into his blanket, leaving only his wrists exposed. His voice was so soft it could hardly be heard.

“I’m sorry.” dEo8tF

Sorry? Sorry for what?

Are you sorry for having troubled so many people? Are you sorry for not having succeeded in killing yourself?

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Xie Luyu looked at him and felt a sudden burst of powerless anger. Still, he didn’t forget to fix his wrist in place and adjusted the tube for him.

He pressed a hand to his forehead. He was practically begging. Al6nQL

“I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

“I’m sorry for all of my untimely appearances, my unreasonable affection, and my shameless badgering.”

He struggled to get each word out.

“However, my love can’t be taken back. I love you. I’m so distraught because of — ” 8v4ocg

He paused. He didn’t even want to mention the word. In the end, he lightly brushed over it.

“I’m just so distraught because of what you’ve done.”

Xie Luyu looked up. He pursed his lips. His eyes were a little red.

“It’s shameless of me to say this, but you can’t — you can’t hurt me like this.” SLfazv

He tried his best to put on a strict face, but his voice betrayed him. Despite his critical words, his tone didn’t convey much criticism. His voice was very weak. He sounded like he was noiselessly praying more than anything else.

I’m begging you. I’ll do whatever you want, but please don’t do this.