Chapter 38

"What's wrong?" Li Ziyou asked, surprised.

Xu Yan said nothing, his gaze following Shen Zhi as he rose. Shen Zhi almost stumbled, bracing a hand on the edge of the table: "I need to step out for a moment."

When he said it, his eyes were empty, unfocused, clearly avoiding Xu Yan's gaze, as if afraid to meet it. Xu Yan stared at his rigid back for a moment, then bent down to pick up the wine glass and set it back on the table. He said to Li Ziyou, "I'll go check." Li Ziyou nodded, and Xu Yan stood up and followed him out.

"Shen Zhi?" The corridor was quiet, footsteps muffled by the carpet. Xu Yan called out.

Shen Zhi stopped walking but didn't turn around.

"What's wrong?" Xu Yan asked, standing about two meters behind him.

Still no response. Something was very wrong. Xu Yan walked closer: "Is it urgent?"

He had only taken three or four steps when Shen Zhi suddenly reached for the door of a private room beside them and stepped inside.

The instant darkness enveloped him, Shen Zhi suddenly understood why, that night when he had confessed to Xu Yan, Xu Yan wouldn't let him turn on the lights after they entered the room, wouldn't let him see himself.

Because some things are too hard to face. When they happen, you just want to hide yourself away, tucked away tighter, and tighter still.

Like his confession, or like the truth that had been nearly five years late in coming.

The light widened as Xu Yan pushed the door open. The room was dark, but with the faint glow from the corridor, Xu Yan could see Shen Zhi standing with his head bowed beside a table.

The door closed. The two of them stood in silence in the dark. After a while, Xu Yan asked, "You drank that glass of wine, didn't you?" It was just a sudden connection to Shen Zhi's loss of control that night—if it had been only drunkenness, Shen Zhi couldn't have so uncontrollably grabbed him and kissed him. Besides, Shen Zhi had been thinking of Tang Yunyan at the time; without the drug's effect... there really was no reason he would have used a man as a substitute.

But setting all that aside, Xu Yan was actually relieved. From Shen Zhi's reaction, the dose hadn't been large, and the person beside him that night had been himself. Though it had led to far too many relationships that should never have happened, Xu Yan was still grateful it hadn't been someone else who helped Shen Zhi to his room that night.

As he had said, he had never regretted being with Shen Zhi, and so couldn't imagine what it would have been like if Shen Zhi had turned that reaction on someone else.

He waited a long time, but instead of Shen Zhi's "yes," what came was an "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry." Shen Zhi's voice trembled slightly.

Xu Yan froze. Then he felt something heavy slam into his chest, and at the same time it was as if he had stepped off a ledge, his whole body falling into weightlessness. He stood stunned for a long moment, then asked in a hoarse voice, "What do you mean by 'I'm sorry'? You think I drugged you?"

He suddenly, urgently needed something to lean on, just to keep himself standing.

Xu Yan heard Shen Zhi's ragged breathing, and heard his voice tremble even harder: "Yes. I'm sorry."

The darkness became a weighty, solid thing, pressing in from every direction, airtight. Xu Yan reeled for two seconds, a wave of nausea rising in his throat. He raised a hand to press against the wall beside him, breathing in a daze, vaguely recalling the conversation he and Shen Zhi had had that year.

—Why did you do it?

—Because I like you. I've told you.

—So you just... Xu Yan, you had to make things like this.

—That's why I'm saying sorry. I'm very sorry, I was too impulsive.

He had always thought Shen Zhi was questioning him about the kiss after drinking. He never could have imagined that what Shen Zhi had actually meant was a glass of wine that had been drugged.

One had asked obliquely, the other had answered cleanly—so cleanly that this absurd misunderstanding had stood between them for over four years, and he had been none the wiser.

But Shen Zhi? When he had clearly believed that, why had he still said they could try?

"You think I drugged you." Xu Yan straightened with effort, looking at the familiar outline before him, and asked, "Why did you still say we could try?"

At this point, everything was clear. Xu Yan could guess without Shen Zhi answering—after all, there was no more reasonable explanation.

Shen Zhi stood where he was without speaking, as if unable to get the words out. Xu Yan suddenly let out a low laugh: "You were getting back at me?"

So many things now made sense—why Shen Zhi had been cold and indifferent toward him, why no amount of his own efforts to please had ever earned a single smile.

Because from beginning to end, in Shen Zhi's eyes, he had been a despicable little person who had drugged someone in secret, not worth a pleasant look.

So that was it... so it had actually been that.

Not long ago he had still been feeling sick at learning that Qiu Hao had drugged Li Ziyou. He never could have guessed that in Shen Zhi's eyes, he had always been a similar sort of creature.

"No." Shen Zhi's voice was hoarse. "I never thought that." He couldn't even clarify his own thinking at the time—chaotic, hesitant, testing... but never vengeful. If it had been for revenge, he could never have been with Xu Yan. At the time he had simply not wanted Xu Yan to disappear completely from his life; he simply hadn't had time to think it through... the whole thing had been unsolvable from the start.

"Enough." Xu Yan raised a hand to cover his face, his shoulders shaking as he laughed—he really did find it funny. "What personality issues, what inability to love—you were just getting back at me over that glass of wine."

"Xu Yan..."

"You said let's try. So let me ask you." Xu Yan raised his head and spoke slowly. "Are you satisfied with how it turned out? Watching me run around after you for four years with no dignity, almost kneeling at your feet—are you satisfied?"

"Xu Yan..." Shen Zhi was in so much pain his voice was nearly a rasp. "Please don't say it like that..."

"Aren't you disgusted, Shen Zhi?" Xu Yan looked at him. Though he couldn't see clearly, he knew that face so well—he could trace every feature without turning on a light. He asked, "Eating, sleeping, kissing with me—didn't it make you sick the whole time? Didn't you think I was like something crawling out of a gutter, dirty and pitiful? Every time you looked at me, didn't thinking about me drugging you make you want to throw up?"

"It must have, right?" He laughed again, but huge tears were rolling from his eyes. "Otherwise you couldn't have treated me like that."

He saw Shen Zhi take a few steps toward him, then stop. After a few seconds, Shen Zhi said in a choked voice, "Xu Yan, I never thought that. I misunderstood you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

To see Shen Zhi cry in his lifetime—Xu Yan wiped at his eyes and asked mockingly, "What are you crying for? What do you have to cry about? I'm the one who should be crying."

"I gave you every bit of my heart, and in your eyes I'm that kind of thing." Xu Yan finally couldn't hold back the sob in his voice. "You misunderstood me—fine, that's my bad luck. I accept it."

"But why did you still say you'd try with me? Why did you use cold violence to get back at me? Four years, four whole years! I couldn't figure it out no matter how hard I tried! Did you ever treat me as a person?!"

"Because you thought I drugged you, you treated me like trash, right!" Xu Yan cried, losing control and shouting at him. "In the end you say you like me—do you think you're so noble? Do you think you're forgiving me? Should I kowtow to you and thank you for deigning to fall in love with me?!"

There was no edge, no tipping point—Xu Yan was already standing at the very center of collapse. He hadn't wanted to part with Shen Zhi on good terms, but he had never expected things to end up this ugly. He would rather Shen Zhi had been cold to the end; he could not accept that his own sincere heart had been filthy and ugly in the other's eyes from the very start.

"Xu Yan..." Shen Zhi walked over, took hold of him, and pulled him into his arms. "I'm sorry. It's my fault."

Xu Yan said nothing. His whole body was shaking, tears running down their pressed cheeks and into the hollow of Shen Zhi's neck. Shen Zhi pressed a hand to his back, apologizing over and over: "I was wrong, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Yan Yan."

Yan Yan. Those two words again.

Xu Yan's head throbbed as if it would split. From that night four years ago, from the moment he had learned the truth behind that form of address, these two words had tormented him endlessly. He had done everything he could to avoid them, unwilling to face them, because to him they were too humiliating. So much so that even if Shen Zhi was now truly calling him, it still triggered a painful reaction. He had thought himself tempered into steel, but it turned out Shen Zhi could always bring him to swift, total ruin.

He finally couldn't stay upright. His legs gave way and he sank, as if something was hurting terribly. Crying, he said, "Shen Zhi, for fuck's sake stop toying with me..."

Shen Zhi kept holding him tight, kneeling on the ground with him, unable to say another word. Xu Yan gazed through his tear-blurred eyes at the ceiling he couldn't make out, his sobs broken by trembling gasps. Memories of the past few years flashed past like a revolving lantern—regrets, debts, remorse—all streaking by and vanishing in an instant. Xu Yan thought, maybe today was the real ending.

Before he had only been tired, only unwilling to continue. But now he had truly died once—he had been misunderstood all along, taken for a shameless person who would do anything, and the relationship he had worked at for four years might actually have been born from a murky, unclear revenge.

"That day..." Xu Yan suddenly spoke in a drained, calm voice. "I shouldn't have left campus that day."

That night he shouldn't have left campus. If he hadn't gone to eat that barbecue, he wouldn't have run into Shen Zhi.

Shen Zhi heard the regret in his voice, his heart lurched, and he suddenly held Xu Yan tighter, his tear-thick voice panicked: "Xu Yan."

Xu Yan calmly, bit by bit, pulled free of his embrace: "I regret it."

"Shen Zhi, all these years, haven't you just been relying on the fact that I love you?"

Haven't you just been relying on the fact that I love you. Xu Yan could finally say this sentence out loud. He had once thought it sounded tough, that saying it would surely feel satisfying. Turned out it didn't. The favored one acts without fear, treading on the other party's humble and sincere love with willful cruelty, and yet there is always someone hoping for even a little in return—only to look back and find it was nothing but an ugly, consuming drain.

Before this, Xu Yan had really almost softened, had truly wavered over whether he and Shen Zhi could have a new beginning. Fortunately—Li Ziyou had cleared his name, Shen Zhi had given him the truth, so he wouldn't have to keep living under a misunderstanding, and could finally break away whole, never having to hesitate again for even a second.

Xu Yan stood up. Shen Zhi's tears still lingered on his shoulder. He looked down at Shen Zhi, as if looking down at nearly seven years of his own love, which now amounted to nothing more than this.

"We're done." He slowly wiped his tears dry. If Shen Zhi could see clearly, he would find a trace of pity on Xu Yan's face. "Shen Zhi, I suggest you see a doctor. There's something wrong with you psychologically. No wonder you can't love anyone. You're really pitiful."

He pulled the door open and walked out without looking back, leaving Shen Zhi alone in the dark. Shen Zhi remained kneeling. He raised a hand to cover his eyes, but couldn't stop the tears leaking through his fingers, and had no courage to chase after him—he knew he had no defense, that no matter what reason he gave, Xu Yan could never turn back.

From the moment he had misunderstood Xu Yan, from the moment he had said "let's try," everything had already been racing toward the wrong ending. Shen Zhi could swear a thousand times that he hadn't been with Xu Yan out of revenge, but he could never deny that his coldness, his contrariness, his awkwardness over the years in this relationship had not only been due to personality, but also, to a greater or lesser degree, had truly stemmed from that glass of wine.

He loved Xu Yan, yet could not step over that high ridge built of misunderstandings. Xu Yan was such an upright, kind, and steadfast person, yet he himself had stood in the victim's place and become the aggressor instead, making a person like Xu Yan suffer torment and grievance.