27

Was time still moving? Xu Yan stared at his and Shen Zhi's overlapping hands, thinking vaguely. He took Shen Zhi's words apart—each character, each radical, every horizontal stroke, vertical hook, bend, dot, and press—and reassembled them piece by piece, to make sure he hadn't misheard, hadn't misunderstood.

He didn't remember how long the silence lasted, only suddenly felt Shen Zhi press close from behind, his breathing becoming distinct. Xu Yan was still in the posture of opening the door; Shen Zhi held his hand, then slowly his other arm circled Xu Yan's waist, his forehead gently resting against the back of his head, as if breathing in his scent.

'Xu Yan.' Warm breath wound ambiguously around the back of his neck. In the silence, Shen Zhi spoke softly: 'She wasn't wrong. I like you.'

'I love you.' Shen Zhi closed his eyes, held Xu Yan a little tighter, and said it very clearly.

He felt a weight lift. He knew Xu Yan had been waiting for this confession, and he could finally say it.

It wasn't that hard. Not hard at all, Shen Zhi thought—just a few words. Why had he avoided touching it for years, resisted admitting it so stubbornly? Once spoken, his chest felt like a waterfall surging; countless things he wanted to say burst out like spray, jostling to spill over, and yet he didn't know how to express them. But Shen Zhi felt that one sentence of 'I love you' might already be enough.

'Oh,' Xu Yan answered.

Shen Zhi froze. The next second, Xu Yan pushed his hand away, turned around, and asked expressionlessly: 'So?'

'I…' Shen Zhi tried to find something on his face—surprise, astonishment, shock, disbelief—but there was nothing. Xu Yan was unreasonably calm.

'What were you expecting?' Xu Yan looked at him with indifference. 'Expecting that one 'I like you' from you would make me lose my mind on the spot, weeping with gratitude? You think that sentence is something remarkable?' He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest, and smiled faintly. 'Shen Zhi, you're quite something. I orbited around you for four years, and your mouth was sealed tight as anything—not one extra word would you give me. Now we've been apart two months, and suddenly you can say you love me.'

'If I'd known it would be like this, why would I have bothered? Leaving earlier would have been fine. Don't you think?'

'Xu Yan.' Shen Zhi frowned and said quietly, 'Can we talk properly?'

Xu Yan's gaze lingered on his face for a long moment, then he suddenly laughed—but as he laughed, large drops of tears rolled down from the corners of his eyes. Xu Yan smiled and said: 'Forget it.'

After saying that he turned and went inside, immediately moving to shut the door. Shen Zhi quickly reached out to block it and pushed it open. Xu Yan had already stepped into the darkness; his voice sounded as though it had been forced out through great restraint: 'Don't come any closer.'

Shen Zhi stopped at the doorway and called out, worried: 'Xu Yan?' He felt a kind of near-collapse, ash-grey despair spreading toward him from the shadows of the living room like a tide—originating from Xu Yan.

'How can you bring yourself to say you love me?' Xu Yan's voice trembled slightly. 'I'd rather you hated me.'

He would rather Shen Zhi never love him, would rather Shen Zhi hate him for the rest of his life, than hear him say 'I love you' at this moment. Xu Yan had not failed to hope that Shen Zhi would grow to like him—in fact he was wishing for it every second of every day—but he was also painfully clear-headed: Shen Zhi could not possibly love him. How could anyone, after unreservedly displaying coldness, disgust, and impatience, still manage to say 'I love you'?

Xu Yan had thought he'd been longing for this 'I love you' all along, but when Shen Zhi actually said it, he realized how much he didn't want to hear it.

'You have the nerve to say you love me?' Xu Yan, word by word: 'I know what brand of yogurt you like to drink. I know you won't eat celery. I know you're used to sitting on the left side of the sofa. What about you? How much do you even know about me?'

'You don't respect me. You give me the cold shoulder. You make me doubt myself—every single thing I do, I have to force myself to examine it. And now you say you love me. Ask yourself who would want love this terrible. What the hell makes you think you deserve to say you love me?'

Light from the corridor leaked in at the door. Shen Zhi stood in that shaft of light, but Xu Yan couldn't make out his face no matter how he looked. Shen Zhi stood rigid, as if he'd been slapped, his face pale. Only after a long while did he say in a low, hoarse voice: 'I'm sorry.'

'It's a problem with my personality. I…' He closed his eyes as if in pain and said, 'I don't know how to love someone.'

'If you don't know how to love someone, can't you learn? Are you useless?' Xu Yan mocked. 'Stop making excuses. Not loving is just not loving. I've never seen this kind of love that chills a person to the bone.'

He was actually about to lose his footing. If there had been anything within reach, he would have hurled it by now. But Xu Yan still held himself upright and said coldly: 'Get lost. I don't want to see you again.'

Damn it. Something inside him was rapidly collapsing—one-sided devotion, wounds he'd fought desperately to heal, all-or-nothing terror, self-deceiving comfort. Xu Yan could already calmly accept that Shen Zhi didn't love him, could accept every kind of unresolved regret, but he could not face this fact: that the person whose mouth spoke of love had so cruelly trampled his entire heart's devotion underfoot for four whole years.

What kind of bullshit love is this? If this is all Shen Zhi can give him—if Xu Yan had known sooner—he would absolutely, definitely not have answered 'okay' when Shen Zhi said he wanted to try.

'Xu Yan.' Shen Zhi still remembered the tears that had fallen from Xu Yan's eyes not long ago, mingled with that ill-timed smile on his face—complex and piercing. Xu Yan was crying like this in front of him for the first time. Shen Zhi said hoarsely, 'It's my fault. I'm sorry.' He didn't know what else he could do besides apologize at this moment. He only understood that a late confession is a blade—it does nothing but wound.

The living room was silent. Xu Yan's rapid breathing gradually became an uncontrollable sob. He sat on the sofa, elbows on his knees, his face buried in his palms, and said: 'Shen Zhi, you're really cruel.'

'I'm begging you—just consider that I was being pathetic before. Today is the last time. Let me go, okay?'

Shen Zhi felt an indescribable panic rise from his chest. He walked toward Xu Yan, but Xu Yan suddenly raised his head. The tears in his eyes and on his face carried a faint, blurred gleam in the dimness. He said: 'You've already wrecked me like this. Don't come closer. Don't make me hate you.'

That last thread of his life-or-death self-respect had finally broken today. The only thing he could do was borrow the darkness to hide his wretched state. If Shen Zhi insisted on exposing him, Xu Yan would truly hate him to death.

'Go, Shen Zhi,' Xu Yan said through his sobs.

Shen Zhi's throat was dry as a desert; he could barely make any sound. He slowly turned and walked toward the door, moving from shadow into the light, then closed the door behind him—leaving Xu Yan a complete, safe space in which to hide and vent alone.

It was only now that he truly understood where he had gone wrong—not that he didn't know how to love, but that while not knowing how to love, he had coldly hurt people. Xu Yan loved him so much, his whole heart brimming with scalding devotion, wishing he could give it all away. But he had poured ice water over that burning heart for over four years running, watching it stiffen and lose its color, until at last it was covered in wounds and Xu Yan took it back, carefully trying to warm it again, praying it would give up its delusions and beat only for itself from now on.

His confession today had shattered the defensive line Xu Yan had been holding up by sheer will. He truly had no right to say he loved him. Xu Yan had endured loneliness, disappointment, solitude, and blow after blow in this relationship—giving everything and receiving nothing in return—and he was the culprit: cold and self-absorbed, obsessive and blind, awkward and twisted, self-imprisoned. He owed Xu Yan beyond measure. How could he deserve to say love? Just saying love was nowhere near enough.

Separated by a door, Shen Zhi heard Xu Yan's desperately restrained, anguished crying. After a few seconds, a heavy crash came from behind the door—a glass water cup smashed against it, then shattered and scattered across the floor, as if shattering Shen Zhi's own taut nerves along with it. Fragments exploded in his chest, piercing into his viscera, glass thorns rolling through his blood. The pain made him lower his head and arch his back, his whole body wanting to curl in on itself.