Chapter 36

The car moved slowly. Xu Yan was a little dizzy, leaned back against the seat, was quiet for a while, then asked, "What's going on with you at the Company now?"

Shen Zhi's expression was very calm. He turned the steering wheel in a slow circle. "I'm preparing to leave the Company."

Xu Yan opened his eyes and looked at his profile. "Why?"

"No particular reason." Shen Zhi answered. "I've been thinking about it for a long time."

There was no need to say more—for instance, the various conflicts that had kept surfacing in the family over this period, or rather, since Xu Yan had left. Shen Zhi had initially assumed it was because of Xu Yan that he was having emotional problems, but later realized that wasn't the case. Those conflicts had clearly been destined to exist from the moment he was born.

His mother was a perfectionist with an extremely strong need for control; his father was strict and domineering, with the bearing of someone in power. The elite-style family upbringing had indeed shaped his rational, calm character, but it had also made him obsessive, withdrawn, and cold. For the first twenty years, Shen Zhi had moved forward along the prescribed track, but Xu Yan's appearance was like a marble flying in from nowhere, lodging itself in a fatal component and pulling Shen Zhi off the course his parents had expected, steering him in a direction they saw as "derailed."

At the end of last year, while he was hospitalized, he learned that Meng Yuwan had gone to find Xu Yan. Shen Zhi called her and told her to stop bothering Xu Yan.

"I just wanted you to hear what his attitude is now, so you could think it through and decide whether it's worth spending your heart on someone like this." On the phone, Meng Yuwan told him that.

Shen Zhi asked, "Xu Yan spent four years on me, and he never said it wasn't worth it. What right do you have to make that judgment for me?"

"Shen Zhi, as a manager of the Company, do you have any idea where your focus should be right now? Do you think that just because you're our son, you can rest easy?"

"I've never felt I could rest easy." Shen Zhi looked through the window at the distant sunset, and suddenly remembered an evening when he was standing on the second-floor balcony, and Xu Yan was in the garden taking photos. Xu Yan had looked up and smiled at him, saying the sunset was so beautiful, it would be a shame not to capture it... Lost in the thought, Shen Zhi suddenly smiled and said, "Nor have I ever felt I was your son."

Meng Yuwan hung up directly. Shen Zhi knew she was furious.

Their family had never erupted in any intense quarrels; in the eyes of Shen Ming and Meng Yuwan, that was seen as extremely failed and incompetent. They believed that the appearance of arguments meant someone hadn't achieved perfection, and that was precisely what they could not accept. Shen Zhi had grown up in a commanding and oppressive environment, and he had once thought this was the best way to solve problems.

In the end, it was from Xu Yan that he learned—sometimes people should follow simple, straightforward feelings.

His family had never taught him how to feel love, accept love, or give love back. It was Xu Yan who had worked hard to answer his questions and fill in every blank in his life. Xu Yan asked him, respected him, tolerated him—Xu Yan never argued with him because he loved him. But he had been too stupid, Shen Zhi thought, and too heartless—for the sake of a cup of wine four years ago, he had turned a blind eye to Xu Yan's love.

After work resumed following the New Year, Shen Ming began appearing frequently at the Company and quickly promoted several professional managers, dividing Shen Zhi's authority over business and management in order to force him to feel a sense of crisis and to soften and admit fault. But Shen Zhi never made any statement; his work went on as usual. Only his assistant knew that Shen Zhi was preparing all sorts of handover documents—he had already made his decision.

"Then what are your plans after." Xu Yan asked.

Shen Zhi drove in silence and did not answer. He still wanted to study law. He had given it up originally because of the compromise he had made with his parents to be with Xu Yan, and also because he wanted to become independent quickly; it hadn't felt like a stretch at the time. But in the end, Shen Zhi realized that no matter what the original reason had been, once he stepped onto the prescribed track, he was destined to be unable to escape it.

But if he hadn't entered the Company back then, and had instead borne the pressure to study law, would he and Xu Yan have separated because of it? Shen Zhi couldn't be sure. People always looked back after making a choice, constantly imagining that if they had taken a different path, the ending might have been different—but it was meaningless. Time would not flow backward for anyone, would not give anyone the chance to start over.

Xu Yan had never known he wanted to study law. If he said it now... Shen Zhi was afraid Xu Yan would guess the reason he had entered the Company. He was afraid it would weigh on Xu Yan's heart.

Shen Zhi actually hoped Xu Yan would feel bad for him—that would mean Xu Yan still cared—but he didn't want Xu Yan to carry any burden, and he was even more afraid Xu Yan was completely indifferent, so he let it go.

Seeing him silent, Xu Yan rubbed his brow. "Tang Yunyan told me once that you were managed very strictly as a child. I always felt before that I had no standing to say it, and you probably didn't want to hear it either, but now I suppose I can say it."

"No matter what you do, you do it well, so try to let yourself be happy, even though I still don't really know what would make you happy."

After four years of still not figuring out how to make Shen Zhi happy, Xu Yan didn't know whether to call himself a failure or simply suspect that Shen Zhi was an AI.

It seemed a long time had passed. Shen Zhi kept driving quietly. Xu Yan was drifting off, when he suddenly heard him say, "You make me happy."

Xu Yan slowly opened his eyes wide, his gaze gradually focusing on the pendant hanging in front of him—the Snoopy Pendant, the one he had thrown into the flowerbed on New Year's Eve. He hadn't noticed it when he got in the car, and only now realized the Snoopy Pendant was swaying gently, flashing on and off.

"When I'm with you, I'm happiest of all." The car stopped at the crosswalk. Shen Zhi looked at the bright red light and said quietly.

He was slow to feel, cold by nature. While inside it, he hadn't noticed, or had been blinded by old grievances, and had kept resisting admitting it. But no matter when he recalled it, the years he had spent with Xu Yan were his happiest, most carefree days—without a doubt.

The hand hanging at his side was taken. Xu Yan turned his head and saw that Shen Zhi was still looking ahead. Perhaps the heater in the car was on high enough that Shen Zhi's hand was not as cold as before. He wrapped Xu Yan's hand in his palm and said, "Xu Yan, I still want to ask you for a chance."

"If..." He seemed reluctant to recall the scene from that night in Otaru. He frowned and paused for a moment before continuing, "if you haven't gotten together with someone else."

"Let me pursue you. Just give me that chance. Everything else—whatever happens—doesn't matter."

Hurt, pain, even revenge—Shen Zhi had no thought of hiding, no thought of running. He could bear it, and he should bear it. Xu Yan had tasted everything; only by swallowing down double, year after year without counting, could he barely reach the line called 'even,' and only then would he have the right to ask Xu Yan for a word of forgiveness.

The red light entered its ten-second countdown.

Xu Yan looked into Shen Zhi's eyes.

Eight seconds.

Xu Yan looked at the bridge of his nose.

Six seconds.

Xu Yan looked at his lips.

Four seconds.

Xu Yan looked at his jaw.

Two seconds.

Xu Yan lowered his gaze to look at their joined hands.

The light turned green.

Xu Yan pulled his hand free. "Drive properly."

Shen Zhi's lashes moved. He withdrew his hand and started the car.

Xu Yan kept staring at the swaying Snoopy Pendant. That night in Otaru, he had used such a clumsy method to push Shen Zhi away. They should have ended like that, brushing past each other forever, and yet Shen Zhi had stubbornly turned back, walked toward him, asked him for a chance, and come to hold his hand without giving up.

But so what.

Shen Zhi said Xu Yan made him happy, yet in return he had kept giving Xu Yan coldness, making him suffer. He said those four years were his happiest, but Xu Yan had never felt any happiness from him, and had worried over it, walking on thin ice. The Xu Yan of the past might have laughed and cheered at such words; now he only felt the irony, helpless.

Wearily, he pinched the bridge of his nose, too tired to respond, and simply changed the subject. "Did you get Li Ziyou's wedding invitation?"

Without getting a definite answer, Shen Zhi lowered his eyes a little, but still replied, "I did. Will you go?"

"Yes." Xu Yan said. He and Li Ziyou were still in touch, but never touched on personal feelings. Xu Yan didn't know who her current boyfriend was, and had been a little worried when the invitation arrived. When he opened it and saw the groom wasn't Qiu Hao, he felt inexplicably relieved.

Xu Yan had always felt that a person like Qiu Hao simply wasn't worthy of Li Ziyou. He didn't know whether the anonymous email he had sent back then had had any effect, didn't know whether Li Ziyou and Qiu Hao had broken up because of it, but Xu Yan didn't regret it. At the very least, his conscience was clear.

"Can we go together." Shen Zhi asked. "I'll come pick you up."

Xu Yan turned his head to look out the window. One streetlamp after another flew past. The midnight street was silent and empty, the ground dappled with the shadows of trees.

"No need." A few seconds later, Xu Yan answered.