Chapter 21
Zhuang Wei woke very early the next day. Qu Tongqiu was still in his arms, sleeping deeply, his breathing steady and even. One benefit of being stupid was having no worries—no insomnia.
Zhuang Wei watched him for a while, kissed him, then pinched his nose to wake him up.
“Time to get up.”
The man sat up, looking dependent in his confusion. Zhuang Wei picked out his own clothes from the wardrobe for him to wear, found them unsuitable, changed them again—handling him like a dress-up doll. Even though he was older now, and neither his personality nor his looks were especially cute, Zhuang Wei didn’t know why, but he didn’t feel bored at all.
Today he had to go to the magazine office. There were still a few things to wrap up before the New Year, and Zhuang Wei didn’t want to leave this man in anyone else’s care, so he took him out with him.
Anyway, he was very quiet. Wrapped in a dark Alexander McQueen coat, he didn’t look particularly ill-fitting. With the hood pulled a bit lower, at most people would think he was just aloof. No one could tell there was anything wrong with him.
When Zhuang Wei got busy, he had him sit off to the side, placed a magazine on the table in front of him, and gave him a cup of hot tea. That way, his silence didn’t seem too strange.
When it was finally time for a break, Zhuang Wei turned around to check on him—only to find the man gone.
He felt a flicker of panic and went looking. Fortunately, he soon spotted a small corner of his own coat peeking out from behind a display shelf.
“Qu Tongqiu?”
At some point, the man had taken a black-haired Barbie doll from the shelf. It was an old prop that had once been used for photos, long since outdated. Yet he held it like a priceless treasure, gripping it with both hands, sitting curled up in a corner, his expression dreamy and dazed.
“Qu Tongqiu.”
There was no response. Like a sleepwalker, he stayed peacefully in that false calm, looking genuinely happy.
Zhuang Wei let out a breath and sat down beside him, pulling him into an embrace and kissing his neck. Being kissed, the man still focused single-mindedly on the doll, content and satisfied.
“If you want it, I’ll give it to you. I’ll get you a box for it.”
But when Zhuang Wei tried to take the doll from his hands, the man’s fingers tightened around it. He didn’t make a sound, just clutched it desperately, a trace of panic showing. After tugging for a long while without success, Zhuang Wei ground his teeth and cursed, “Qu Tongqiu, stop being stupid. This is fake.”
From beginning to end, Qu Tongqiu didn’t look at him even once. In that world of his, he couldn’t hear anything at all.
As the standoff dragged on, Zhuang Wei began to feel a chill creeping over him. He let go for the moment and wiped the sweat from the man’s face. “I don’t care what you think you’re seeing. None of it is real.”
Clutching the doll, the man grew even more docile, as if he’d been given a reassurance pill. Even that vague sense of helpless emptiness vanished, replaced by a feeling of being filled to the brim with happiness. Zhuang Wei took him to the car, carefully fastened his seatbelt, and only then started the engine.
The car stopped some distance from the villa. At the gate stood a little black-haired girl in a pink princess coat, looking around as if waiting for someone. Zhuang Wei asked the man beside him, “Do you see her?”
Through the car window, the man looked at the little girl, then at the doll in his hands, then back at her. Confusion was obvious on his face. Before he could look any longer, a tall man came out from inside, took the girl’s hand, and led her in.
Zhuang Wei looked at the man who, just moments ago, had been so blissfully satisfied, and said with a cruelty that wasn’t entirely malicious, “Qu Tongqiu.”
He forcibly dragged him out of his escapist illusion. That dim, blurred existence—thin as a shadow—suddenly began to tremble.
“Qu Tongqiu, this is what’s real.”
After coming back, the man fell ill. It was nothing more than a fever from being chilled for days, but Zhuang Wei knew how much he was suffering. Going from numbness back to feeling pain took only an instant; healing those raw, bloody wounds would take far longer. Though he never spoke of his pain, his lips were covered in blisters, and even sipping water made him tremble.
Zhuang Wei pushed the door open with a tray. The man curled up at the corner of the bed startled and moved, pleading softly, “Don’t… don’t turn on the light…”
Zhuang Wei sat down beside him in the darkness and reached out to touch his face. His skin was still burning hot.
“Another nightmare?”
The man was drenched in sweat, but it felt cold to the touch.
“What did you dream about? If it hurts, say it.”
“…Me…”
“Hm?”
“I dreamed about… myself, back when I was in college… He was sitting right there…”
“…”
“I had so many things I wanted to say to him…”
“…”
“I wanted to tell him some things…”
He had once had the only serious love of his life, a wife who had loved him, a little daughter who carried all of his paternal affection, and Ren Ningyuan.
With all that, no matter how hard life was, he had endured it. Life was brutal, but because of them, he had been full of courage and hope to go on living.
And then, suddenly, a man’s voice whispered softly in his ear: “It was all a lie.”
Like a nightmare of falling off a cliff, he jolted awake in a cold sweat, heart pounding in terror—
Only to find that reality itself was the nightmare.
Zhuang Wei stroked his head, brushing aside his sweat-soaked hair.
“Qu Tongqiu, it’s too late. No one can go back to the past. But your life isn’t over yet. Don’t think yourself into a dead end.”
Indeed. He was only in his early thirties. He could still live just as many years again. It seemed as though there was an endless future ahead, full of infinite possibilities.
It was just that the best, most important years of his life were already gone.
In his dreams, he wanted to live it all over again, to reclaim the dozen-plus years trampled by lies, to warn that foolish, slow little chubby boy of so many things. Waking up, all that remained was a few tears under the haze of high fever.
“Have some congee. I added a bit of lotus leaf,” Zhuang Wei said, wiping his face with a cool towel to ease the heat. “If you even think about eating meat, tell me.”
Qu Tongqiu leaned against the headboard and struggled to sit up, like a rag that had been wrung dry and used to ruin—wrinkled, old, utterly worthless.
“Don’t force yourself to hold the bowl. Just open your mouth.”
In silence, the man swallowed some of the warm congee. The pain in his mouth made his movements slow. Then, indistinctly, he murmured, “Thank you.”
Zhuang Wei felt a little awkward. He knew the man remembered, at least somewhat, the things he’d been subjected to. Two bowls of congee and a handful of pills couldn’t even count as half a measure of kindness compared to the humiliations he’d suffered naked. All he said was, “I’m just fulfilling the duty of an old classmate.”
After a while, the man went quiet again, then said softly, “I should leave tomorrow.”
Zhuang Wei looked at him. “Go where?”
The man didn’t answer. After some time, he said, “I… I’ll go back to my hometown.”
Though he didn’t say it outright, Zhuang Wei could feel the weak signal beneath it all: anywhere but here. He couldn’t stay here. He was like a sheep that survived on dry stalks, yet this was a world of carnivores. He wasn’t anyone’s friend, family, or lover here—he was just food.
“Are you running away?”
The man didn’t respond. Calling him a coward was hardly a provocation compared to what he was already enduring.
“You don’t care about getting justice from Ren Ningyuan?”
He no longer had any expectations of “justice.” Even if Ren Ningyuan compensated him, it wouldn’t give back what had been destroyed. Maybe there would be some money—rich people often settled things that way.
“And it’s fine to leave your daughter with him?”
The man trembled slightly. “She’s not my daughter…”
“Even if she’s not biologically yours, can you really bear to leave her?”
“…”
The man’s eyes were red as he struggled to endure it, looking increasingly pitiful. Zhuang Wei loosened the button at his collar and suddenly felt irritable.
“Let me put it this way. Your daughter knows nothing. She’s been waiting every day for you to come back and celebrate the New Year. If you don’t care, forget I said anything. But if you can’t bear to leave her, I can help you.”
“…”
“I’ll go talk to Ningyuan for you. If that doesn’t work, we’ll see each other in court. Leave it to me—you won’t have to worry.”
The man tried his best to restrain himself, but his tensed shoulders still wavered.
Zhuang Wei looked at the faintly reddened nape of his neck showing above his collar. “If you take Qu Ke with you and don’t want to stay in T City, then come to the U.S. I can make the paperwork easy.”
“…”
“In the U.S., you can start over. Didn’t you want a fresh start? I have plenty of places to live. I’ll help arrange schools and jobs for you. You won’t have to worry about life.”
“…”
“Just live peacefully. No one will bother you again.”
The man’s chest rose and fell violently. Just looking at the tremor in his fingers, Zhuang Wei could tell how tempting this was to him. A weak man, fully aware of the danger, yet struggling uselessly between temptation and fear—it made one’s heart itch, breath grow heavier.
With a faint sense of his own baseness, Zhuang Wei repeated, “I’m just fulfilling the duty of an old classmate.”
Zhuang Wei pushed the door open, letting in a trace of damp, rainy air. The sound was very light, yet the man lying on the bed facing inward still stirred, propping himself up under the covers and turning his head. His face was flushed with fever, and in the dimness, there was a faint glimmer in his eyes.
That held-breath anticipation made Zhuang Wei pause for a moment before speaking.
“He didn’t agree.”
After a while, the man let out an understanding “ah,” then, after another pause, said softly, “You worked hard… Thank you.”
“Don’t lose heart. It’s fine. There’s still room to fight for it.”
“…”
But both of them understood that once it went to court, things would become far more complicated and difficult. There would be no way to keep Qu Ke from facing the real world of adults. After all, she was still just a child.
“There’s one more thing, though. You should see it as good news,” Zhuang Wei said, walking to the bed and sitting down. “He wants Qu Ke to come see you. What do you think?”
The man’s eyes flew open. He opened his mouth and breathed hard, but no sound came out.
Zhuang Wei was a little surprised. “You don’t want to see her? Take your time and think it through. If you don’t want to, I’ll turn him down tomorrow.”
Qu Tongqiu made a vague, gurgling sound in his throat. His face flushed red, his expression twisting slightly.
He couldn’t answer.
Beyond the joy of reunion, there were too many other emotions mixed in. He didn’t even know whether he could control himself.
Regaining clarity of mind was not healing—it was only the hardest beginning. He was still being tormented by those wounds, numbing the pain only with the faint, distant hope of a better future that Zhuang Wei described to him. He didn’t even dare look back.
If Qu Ke were pushed in front of him, he had no idea what kind of expression he could use to face her.
His little daughter was what he treasured most, his only wealth. She was also the most vivid proof of a life that had been humiliated and damaged.
He would surely be unable to stop himself from crouching down and holding her tightly, but at that moment his chest would also be pierced by the knife he held in his arms. That tiny bit of a father’s happiness was mixed with immense pain.
And no one knew.
After taking a shower, Zhuang Wei threw the man’s sweat-soaked clothes together with his own into the laundry basket, took a pillow and a blanket, and slept on the sofa.
After what they had been through, sharing a bed would not only be awkward—it would be a challenge. For Qu Tongqiu, this consideration and generosity were something to be deeply grateful for, and he couldn’t help thanking him repeatedly.
“Because you’re a patient. When you get better, you can go sleep in the bathtub.”
“Thank you…”
In the middle of the night, Zhuang Wei checked the glowing hands of the clock, turned over irritably on the sofa, and called out, “Qu Tongqiu.”
“Mmm…”
“Still can’t sleep?”
“Mmm…”
“Just sleep. I won’t do anything to you. Relax and rest.”
The man was silent for a while, then said softly, “Thank you…”
Zhuang Wei stared at the ceiling. Long after, he could still hear the faint sounds of the man being tormented by insomnia.
“Qu Tongqiu.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I’m a bad person?”
“…”
“Maybe I’m not the way you think.”
“…”
“That DVD you lent me back then—one of the discs was a homosexual porn disc. I don’t know why you lent it to me.”
“…”
“Since you didn’t want it that time, I’m sorry for violating you. Maybe you’re not the way I thought either.”
The man made no further sound, as if even his breathing had stopped. In the silence while waiting for a response, Zhuang Wei gradually fell asleep.
For some reason, when he woke up—probably only an hour later—it was still deep night. Zhuang Wei shifted his gaze. The large bed across from him looked empty, with only slightly rumpled bedding left.
“Qu Tongqiu? Qu Tongqiu?!”
Bathroom, living room, kitchen—no one was there. The coat and shoes were gone too. Zhuang Wei cursed “FUCK,” threw on some clothes, grabbed an umbrella, and rushed out. At the elevator, he saw the number already showing the first floor. He cursed as he hammered the down button on the wall, while the elevator moved as slowly as ever.
By the time it went down more than twenty floors, that man might already be far away. Just thinking about it made Zhuang Wei furious. As soon as he reached the lobby, he rushed outside—only to see a thin black silhouette sitting on the steps.
Zhuang Wei clenched his teeth. “Qu Tongqiu!”
The man’s feet were on the rain-soaked ground. Though he sat under the eaves, half his body was still wet. Seeing how wretched he looked filled Zhuang Wei with anger. He scolded, “What the hell is wrong with you? Running out here to get soaked in the rain? How old do you think you are? A grown man, still acting so affected!”
The man was stunned by the scolding. After a while, he said, “I… I couldn’t sleep… I wanted to come out for a walk…”
“What walk in the middle of the night? If you can’t sleep, take a sleeping pill. Making trouble this late—who are you trying to scare?” Zhuang Wei angrily yanked him. “And standing in the rain—do you think being sick isn’t troublesome enough?”
“I… I feel a bit better like this…”
“Better my ass! What, are you in puberty? Still into this kind of thing?”
Under the venting tugging, the man bent over as if his stomach hurt, clutching his hair, and said in a low voice, “Zhuang Wei… I feel terrible.”
“…”
“I can’t sleep… I wanted to come out… I have no way… I…”
Zhuang Wei couldn’t see the man’s face buried between his knees. He could only see the curved back and the trembling, thin hands with veins standing out.
“Qu Tongqiu…”
Halfway through the words, Zhuang Wei suddenly shut his mouth. In that instant, he abruptly realized that he thought he understood the man’s pain—but in fact, he didn’t.
Other people’s pain was like a small puddle. You saw it, you knew what it was, but you didn’t know how deep it went. The suffering endured by the person inside it was something he could never truly experience.
In a bystander’s eyes, any accident looked light and distant. Even in sympathy, he had despised the man’s reactions, thinking that after grief one should recover, that still being unable to let go was simply weakness.
It was only being sexually assaulted by a friend.
Only being deceived by a friend.
Only being cheated on.
Only raising someone else’s daughter.
Only—yet all these “onlys” added up to the man’s entire world. He had nothing left.
Zhuang Wei stood there for a while, then sat down on the steps. In the unbearable silence, he spoke. “I’ll stay with you.”
“…”
“I brought an umbrella. Want to walk over to the grassland?”
Touched on the back of his head, the man finally lifted his head with effort. Because of the tears in his eyes, he didn’t really dare look at Zhuang Wei.
“If it hurts, just cry. It’s nothing.”
Crying didn’t make someone a coward. He had already endured far too much.
“Cold?” Zhuang Wei gave him his own coat as well and opened the umbrella.
“If you want to say something to someone, I can listen. It’s fine.”
In his trembling, the man’s hand was held. In the end, he didn’t pull it back.
He was in too much pain now. Even a little gentleness felt especially soothing—the only bit of coolness his wounds could receive.
