Chapter 15
At the intersection, Qu Tongqiu was ready to walk back on his own. Fortunately, Ren Ningyuan let him hitch another short ride and dropped him off downstairs at the apartment dormitory.
Even though he knew the address, it was Ren Ningyuan’s first time there. After looking at the building’s old exterior, he said, “The wind and rain were pretty bad last night.”
“Mm. I heard some places got flooded.”
“Your place must be a mess.”
“Ah…”
Ren Ningyuan’s earlier suspicion made Qu Tongqiu cautious as well. It felt as if showing any sign of hardship would look like he was trying to get something from Ren Ningyuan.
“No, the windows are sealed well.”
Ren Ningyuan looked at him. “Then I’ll go up and take a look.”
“The dorm’s fine, nothing special. Just like any ordinary apartment. Besides, you’re in a hurry.”
“Let’s go.”
“No need.”
It was the first time he had refused Ren Ningyuan. The other man was slightly surprised, looked up at him, smiled faintly, and then sat back in the car.
With the suppository inserted, Qu Tongqiu’s pain hadn’t eased, and even his walking posture had turned strange.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
That was what he said, but earlier, just going to the bathroom had turned his face white with pain. It was terrifying. Before the wound healed, he would only dare to eat liquids.
Ren Ningyuan looked at him. “If you’re uncomfortable, I should still take you for surgery.”
“No, I can manage on my own.”
Ren Ningyuan glanced at him again, nodded, and closed the car door.
Qu Tongqiu watched the car drive off until it disappeared, then turned and went upstairs. He didn’t know whether this would count, in Ren Ningyuan’s eyes, as him behaving a bit better. Even now, just like before, he still longed for Ren Ningyuan’s recognition and approval.
As he slowly went upstairs, reaching his floor, he fumbled for his keys—only to see someone already standing at his apartment door, one hand in his pocket, the other knocking impatiently.
Seeing that person, Qu Tongqiu was startled and unconsciously stepped back.
The man, already fed up with waiting, cursed when he saw him. “Where the hell have you been? You’re only back now.”
“…I went out for a bit. What do you want?”
Zhuang Wei snorted. “I brought supplies to rescue a refugee.”
Qu Tongqiu noticed the two bags at his feet and knew they were food, but he still didn’t want to get close. Just seeing Zhuang Wei’s face made him think of that night. Facing those vivid memories while sober was not a pleasant feeling.
“…How did you know I live here?”
Zhuang Wei looked rather pleased. “Easy. I asked Xiao Qiu who delivers for Ningyuan.”
Qu Tongqiu hesitated over whether to thank him. “Thanks for the trouble…”
“Then what are you standing there for? Open the door and invite me in.”
Qu Tongqiu had no choice but to tense up, take out his keys, and open the door.
Zhuang Wei carried the bags inside, properly changed into slippers, found a table to put them down, and then looked around. A lot of rainwater had seeped in. Qu Tongqiu had already mopped and tidied up before going out, but the room’s bareness was obvious at a glance—small, old, and with patches of peeling wall under the windowsill.
“This place is really run-down. Can people even live here?” Zhuang Wei said as if watching a joke. “You can stand this?”
“I live here just fine. It’s convenient. A place like this suits me.”
Zhuang Wei glanced at him. “That’s true.”
He had only enjoyed a few good days thanks to Ren Ningyuan. There was no reason for him to suddenly become delicate. This place was still quiet and clean enough. He had lived in places ten times worse.
If Ren Ningyuan and the others were mansions, then he was born to live in an old apartment like this.
After settling Zhuang Wei down, Qu Tongqiu boiled some water. With nothing else to serve, he made some pomelo honey tea from what Zhuang Wei had bought.
The two of them sat facing each other, turned on the small TV left by the previous tenant. There was nothing much on, and the atmosphere was awkward.
Zhuang Wei tried to get him talking, but Qu Tongqiu stayed tense and on guard the whole time. Zhuang Wei would never be nice to him for no reason. Last time, one meal of grilled meat and a movie had cost him a night in bed and an aftermath that left his backside in agony. This time he had brought quite a lot of food—who knew what he was really after.
Qu Tongqiu was in pain, distracted when chatting, and also anxious. Whenever he noticed Zhuang Wei edging closer, he hurriedly shifted back. After this went on for a while, Zhuang Wei probably found it boring. He sat a bit longer, then stood up to leave.
Qu Tongqiu walked him to the door, saying “Take care,” and watched him bend down, one hand braced on the wall, the other putting on his shoes. When the shoes were on, Zhuang Wei’s other hand came up to the wall as well, neatly pinning Qu Tongqiu between his arms.
The hair on Qu Tongqiu’s back stood on end all at once. His face went stiff, and he blurted out, “I’m not gay.” Zhuang Wei only stared at him from close range, eyes locked on his, smiling but not quite smiling.
“Why say that all of a sudden?” As he spoke, his breath brushed softly against Qu Tongqiu’s nose, lingering and teasing. Qu Tongqiu was startled and couldn’t get a word out.
“Are you nervous?”
“…”
“Why won’t you look at me now?”
“…”
“To be honest, I think you do feel something toward men.”
“How could that be!” Goosebumps broke out all over Qu Tongqiu. He hurriedly urged him, “You’ve got your shoes on already. Go, go now.”
“What are you scared of? Afraid I’ll kiss you?” That seductive, coaxing tone made Qu Tongqiu stammer. “I—I’m just not used to being this close to people…”
“How about we try a kiss?”
“No need!” Qu Tongqiu refused in a panic.
“Relax, just joking.” Zhuang Wei snorted. “Why are you so tense?” Even as he said that, his eyes didn’t let Qu Tongqiu go.
Seeing Zhuang Wei’s lips about to press over, Qu Tongqiu panicked. Suddenly mustering his courage, he shoved Zhuang Wei hard. “I don’t like this kind of joke.”
He had been bullied badly before. Whenever he wanted to resist, it was always Ren Ningyuan who casually stepped in with a few words, and only then would others treat him as an equal. Now, he couldn’t count on Ren Ningyuan anymore.
He still hadn’t managed to say anything truly harsh. His heart was pounding, his voice weak. “What happened last time is over. Let’s just leave it at that. But it won’t happen again. I’m serious. If you don’t respect me, I won’t be polite to you.”
Zhuang Wei froze for a moment, then his face darkened, teeth clenched. “Not polite? Who do you think you are? In our circle, someone like you dreaming of climbing up to someone like me—that’s pure fantasy. I’m the swan, you’re the toad, got it?”
It sounded harsh, but not entirely wrong. Still…
“Sorry… but I’m not gay…”
Zhuang Wei glared at him for a long while, then suddenly reached out and pinched his cheek hard, cursing under his breath, “Stubborn idiot.”
After Zhuang Wei left, Qu Tongqiu remained tense. Feeling unsafe, he shut the door tightly and checked the lock twice before going to bed.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew Zhuang Wei didn’t actually like him—only had that kind of desire.
Being violated by a man like Zhuang Wei, with his looks and status, might be some people’s sexual fantasy. But in reality, rape could never be anything pleasant. No matter how handsome, stylish, or high above others the attacker was, it wouldn’t make it beautiful. In the end, it was just another form of violence.
No matter how good-looking or powerful a man was, who would willingly let himself be seized and beaten just for someone else’s release?
Pleasure belonged only to the one committing the violence. He himself was nothing more than a toilet, a tool—feeling only pain, bleeding, injury, and psychological scars.
Thinking of those two big bags of food, like a deposit Zhuang Wei had left behind—last time, he seemed to be worth only that much—made him feel afraid.
Curled under the blanket, he chose a position that didn’t hurt too badly and lay face down. Thinking of all the kindness Ren Ningyuan had shown him without ulterior motives brought him some comfort, and he slowly fell asleep.
To avoid losing his perfect attendance bonus, Qu Tongqiu didn’t take leave. When the workweek came, he went to work as usual. Anyway, it wouldn’t heal quickly. Waiting for the wound to recover slowly couldn’t get in the way of earning money to support the family.
He was the one who worked overtime most diligently in the company. Daily expenses were no problem, but with a child at home—especially one who studied well and had many interests—it was different. There were always many things that required saving up for, from future overseas study to, farther down the line, a wedding dowry.
As a father, he painstakingly saved bit by bit, depositing money every month, dreaming of the future.
That day while working overtime, his daughter called to say she had just gone to donate blood voluntarily and was now in the dorm with classmates, secretly using a small rice cooker to boil pig liver soup.
This was exactly what colleagues envied—having a daughter was thoughtful and caring. Once boys left home, they grew wings and flew off. Remembering to call home once a week to report in was already pretty good; expecting regular heart-to-heart chats was unrealistic.
Qu Tongqiu repeatedly reminded her to be careful using prohibited appliances and taught her to add some spinach and pepper to make it tastier. After hanging up, he chatted with a colleague nearby. “My daughter’s school had a blood donation event today. I just found out she has a rare blood type. That’s really not a good thing. O-type Rh-negative—how rare is that, exactly?”
“Wow, panda blood,” the colleague said while copying documents. “That’s really rare. She has to be careful not to get hurt—having little blood is troublesome. So are you Rh-negative too, or is your wife?”
Qu Tongqiu thought about it. He himself had never been told his blood was special, and he remembered Yang Miao’s postpartum transfusion going smoothly—she had the most common type.
“Seems neither. My wife is just O-type.”
“Then what about you?”
“I’m ordinary AB.”
“Maybe that rare type skipped a generation.”
“Yeah, even if both parents have common blood, you can still get panda blood,” the colleague said, then suddenly turned to him. “Wait, that’s not right. Your daughter is O-type—how did you two give birth to her?”
“Huh? AB and O can’t produce O-type?”
“Of course not. That’s basic knowledge. Didn’t you take biology in middle school?”
Qu Tongqiu felt confused. In those days, classes were all about exam scores. Minor subjects were just for show—hand out a textbook and let students flip through it themselves. Knowledge of physiology and health was lacking, and whatever he’d seen back then was blurry now. Even the first time he was intimate with Yang Miao, if she hadn’t taken the lead, he might not have succeeded at all.
“But my wife is O. If the child takes after the mother, wouldn’t she be O?”
“That’s not how it works. Anyway, if you’re AB, you can’t have an O-type child.”
“But clearly the mother is O… could there be some mutation or something?”
“This isn’t a TV drama. Nothing that magical. Someone must have tested wrong. Doctors are often careless.”
The colleague tapped his shoulder with a stack of files and went back to working overtime.
Qu Tongqiu returned to his seat and continued processing accounts on the computer. He still had more than an hour of overtime left to finish.
He refused to waver. He had never doubted that his daughter was his biological child, just as he believed the Earth was round. Any doubt was absurd.
Yet as he worked, he kept making mistakes. Panic slowly crept in, and before he knew it, sweat had soaked his back. He desperately wanted to find a biology textbook, to go through it word by word and argue with his colleague, to prove he wasn’t wrong—that he and Yang Miao could give birth to a daughter like Qu Ke.
But of course, there was no textbook. Wiping his sweat, Qu Tongqiu opened a browser and went to a search engine.
He typed in keywords related to blood types and clicked through the results one by one. Similar pages popped up again and again. He read them carefully, line by line, then closed them one after another.
He still felt it was impossible. No matter what the websites said, Qu Ke couldn’t not be his daughter. He had waited outside the delivery room and followed all the way, peering in through the window. There was no way the baby had been switched. Compared to his own abilities, his daughter was indeed prettier and smarter, but that must have come from her mother. Besides, when she was little, everyone said her nose looked like his.
The overtime colleagues gradually left, until he was alone at the computer, searching and reading. Seventeen thousand related pages—it didn’t feel like many at all, even too few. He was almost at the end of the results, and still there wasn’t a single page that could confirm that AB and O parents could produce an O-type child.
“Old Qu, still working overtime? You’re really hardworking. Come earlier tomorrow—I’m closing up,” the elderly security guard said, carrying a thermos of hot tea to urge him along.
Qu Tongqiu had no choice but to shut down the computer, tuck his briefcase under his arm, and leave the office, his body trembling slightly.
He trudged along the road, stumbling shallow step by shallow step, and thought he should call Yang Miao to ask her directly. But before he knew it, he was shaking with anger, his fingers unable to press the keys, feeling utterly incapable of talking to her at all.
He had willingly sacrificed his own life, given up his studies, and gotten married. Whatever he had to face, he believed it was his responsibility to bear. Even at the hardest times, he had to grit his teeth and endure, carrying himself like a proper father and husband.
Yang Miao had grown tired of it and walked away, freed herself, while he alone had kept propping up this broken family with single-minded devotion. There were plenty of times when, as a poor single father, after buying formula for his daughter he had nothing left to eat himself. He had even secretly sold blood. There were countless bitter days, yet in the end he always felt it was worth it.
Because he believed that in this lifetime he had little experience with romance and was not the kind of man blessed with love, yet his very first relationship had been with someone like Yang Miao—beautiful, gentle, and virtuous—and she had even given him an exceptionally smart and lovely daughter.
Those bits of good fortune had sustained him for years as a divorced middle-aged man, comforting him day after day.
But even Yang Miao had deceived him.
That kind of betrayal felt like something exploding inside his habitually bowed, submissive body.
At Nar, a veteran waiter greeted an unfamiliar guest with a standard smile. The newcomer was clearly an exhausted wage earner, dressed in an outdated, cheap suit, a bulging briefcase tucked under his arm. The handle was broken, the leather cracked; without even looking, one could tell the seams inside had long since split.
Someone who hadn’t replaced his bag in ten years should really just go drink beer at an ordinary bar. Yet this man trembled as he spoke: “Hello, I want to see Ren Ningyuan.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ren is very busy.”
“Then when he’s done, please tell him to come see me. My name is Qu Tongqiu.”
Seeing that the man was barely maintaining politeness, lips trembling, veins standing out on his forehead, the waiter instinctively judged that this was not a customer, but someone here to settle a score.
“I’m afraid Mr. Ren won’t have time. You’d better—”
“It’s fine. I’ll wait.”
The waiter couldn’t help but pity his frail build and honest, easily bullied look. Like a rabbit so anxious it might bite, he seemed pitiful. The waiter hesitated briefly between calling security or the manager, then decided to go upstairs and interrupt the boss, who was entertaining several VIPs in a private room.
The atmosphere inside clearly wasn’t one to be disturbed, but the moment the waiter mentioned the guest’s name, the boss stood up at once, gave a brief instruction, and went downstairs without even grabbing his jacket.
The waiter quickly got to work, efficiently preparing an empty VIP room and drinks, then shut the door, his mind full of wild guesses.
“What’s wrong?” Ren Ningyuan sat down beside the man, studying his expression. “What happened that made you come here to find me?”
Qu Tongqiu’s face was pale with a bluish tinge, yet his eyes were red. His hands were clenched tight.
“I want to ask you about Yang Miao.”
Ren Ningyuan paused, set down the glass he had just poured. “Yang Miao. What about her?”
“You knew her well. You knew her earlier than I did, knew more than I did.”
Ren Ningyuan looked at him and gave a quiet “Mm.”
Qu Tongqiu spoke with difficulty. “Back then… was she seeing someone else too?”
Ren Ningyuan frowned at this, looked at him for a moment, and said softly, “You’re asking me this?”
The man who had been hunched over all this time spoke with a trembling voice. “I don’t believe you wouldn’t know.”
The more Qu Tongqiu lost control of his emotions, the calmer Ren Ningyuan became. “What exactly happened? Bringing up something from so long ago—what’s the point now?”
Under Ren Ningyuan’s steady gaze, Qu Tongqiu’s face slowly flushed purple.
“Little Ke… she isn’t my daughter.”
Ren Ningyuan was taken aback, but he was a self-controlled man. Compared to Qu Tongqiu, his reaction was quite calm.
“How are you sure?”
“The blood type doesn’t match.” Qu Tongqiu trembled slightly, feeling ashamed, yet the thing stuck inside him felt as if it were about to smash through his chest and explode. “I—I also know I couldn’t have fathered her… I just wanted a clear answer…”
“I don’t know either.”
“… ”
His hands curled on the table, as if unsure where to put them. Disappointment, shame, sorrow, and anger burned him red and flustered.
His trembling, almost spasming hand was suddenly grasped by Ren Ningyuan.
“Ren Ningyuan…”
Ren Ningyuan reached out with his other arm and pulled him into an embrace.
From that silent hug, Qu Tongqiu sensed sympathy. The tip of his nose reddened, but he held it in. “She can’t treat me like this. This is too much…”
“Don’t rush.”
“It’s really… too much…”
“I know. I’ll help you.”
Qu Tongqiu clenched his teeth, sobbing through them. He felt pathetic and furious, yet he had been weak his whole life and had never cried in front of others. Once a man sheds tears, he becomes completely worthless.
“If you want to vent, then vent. Later, go back and get a good sleep. I’ll stay with you.” Ren Ningyuan’s voice was gentle, his arm around him, soothingly patting his back. That familiar scent brought back memories, leaving him dazed and sad, and he couldn’t help tightening his embrace around Ren Ningyuan.
Qu Tongqiu didn’t like drinking. But they said alcohol could drown sorrow, and he just wanted to get rid of that gut-twisting agony as quickly as possible.
He drank himself into a mess and threw up several times, yet the alcohol didn’t do what it was supposed to. Ren Ningyuan took him home. He had been lying on the bed for a long time, weak all over, yet his mind was still buzzing, painfully awake.
Ren Ningyuan sat by the bed watching him, waiting for him to fall asleep, his hand holding Qu Tongqiu’s beneath the blanket—warm, dry, and strong.
The man with gray-white lips lay quietly for a while, but still couldn’t help it. He opened his eyes with difficulty. “Ren Ningyuan.”
“Mm, I’m here.”
“I—I suddenly thought of something. I’ve looked it up. That man’s blood type could have many possibilities. Finding him would be very troublesome…”
“It’s fine. It won’t be troublesome.”
Qu Tongqiu was quiet for a moment, then spoke softly. “But… if we do find him, maybe he’ll want to take Little Ke away. I need to think about that…”
“You can’t bear to part with her?”
“I don’t know…” Tormented by illness and alcohol, he looked small and haggard under the covers. “I—I’ve raised her for so many years…”
Even if she wasn’t his by blood, she was closer than blood. She was his everything.
“Don’t worry. You won’t have raised her for nothing. You’ll get the most reasonable compensation.”
“It’s not about that.” Qu Tongqiu’s voice grew even smaller. “All these years, I’ve had nothing left. Only her…”
“Mm.”
“If even she is gone… then I…”
Ren Ningyuan watched him for a while, then lifted the blanket and lay down beside him, pulling him into his arms so that he could rest his head against Ren Ningyuan’s chest in a more comfortable position.
“You don’t need to worry about anything. I’m here. Sleep.”
Listening to the strong heartbeat coming from Ren Ningyuan’s chest, a sound that seemed to lull him, the headache gradually felt less severe. In his haze, outside the window was blue sky and sea; next door Zhuang Wei and Chu Mo were asleep; the heart that had felt about to split finally steadied.
Like in his youth long ago, he clung to Ren Ningyuan like an octopus, as if that alone could bring peace and security, contentment, the clearing away of old burdens, and, with his eyes closed, the recovery of all the lost years.
