Chapter 79: Guess What I’m Thinking
“Ming’an, you were born with more than most people. So when you have the ability, try to help those who aren’t as fortunate.”
He still remembered his mother saying that to him when he was little.
They had just come out of a bakery. The warm sweetness lingering in the air was shattered by the cold wind outside. Across the street sat a ragged beggar.
In such freezing weather, the man wore only a thin, dirty hoodie, looking as if he belonged to a completely different world from them.
His mother took his hand and walked over. She placed the bread from their bag in front of the beggar, along with the down jacket she had just bought for him at the mall.
The beggar’s lifeless eyes suddenly lit up, like a candle being relit with a match.
He didn’t care much about the bread, but the coat had been bought for him by his mother. Now that the beggar was wearing it, he felt a strange discomfort.
He didn’t like it when things that belonged to him got too close to other people.
“But look at him. It’s about to snow and he’s dressed so lightly. Isn’t that pitiful?”
His mother crouched down, resting her hands on his shoulders so their eyes were level.
“If we want clothes, we can always buy more. But maybe that person really needs this coat to get through the winter.”
Under that gentle gaze, listening to advice that treated him not like a child but as an equal, he quietly absorbed her words and kept them in his heart.
Little by little, he ground away the possessiveness that had never been very admirable to begin with.
The aftermath of that incident was that his mother took him back to the mall and bought him several new coats.
His mother was a very kind person.
So kind that it bordered on foolishness.
Those were his father’s exact words.
As for giving bread to the beggar, his father had his own opinion.
Why give something edible? What if he ate it and something went wrong, and then he tried to blame us?
“That’s not going to happen,” his mother replied. “Don’t think so badly of people.”
His father pursed his lips, still clearly disapproving.
“Ming’an, don’t grow up to be like your mother.”
He didn’t take sides in their argument. He simply smiled, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
The small episode was soon buried under everyday life, just like every other day before.
He had heard from his father about how his parents met. They fell in love while studying abroad. Their family backgrounds were similar, and the process of marriage had gone smoothly.
At their wedding, they promised to spend their lives together with unwavering loyalty.
Like a fairy tale.
The princess met the prince, and they lived happily ever after.
If happiness had a template, their family probably fit it.
There were many unfortunate people in the world. Being poor was unfortunate. Being unloved was unfortunate too.
The ragged beggar on the roadside was pitiful. The child he met at a banquet who couldn’t even understand the most basic mother-and-son interaction was pitiful too.
He couldn’t measure which was more miserable.
To him, they were both unfortunate.
He had been born into comfortable circumstances, with loving parents. So he was always willing to help others—to meet his mother’s expectations and to satisfy the vague emotions stirring inside his heart.
—
It was during a heavy snowstorm.
Jiangcheng hadn’t seen snow that heavy in years. The whole city was wrapped in white, and all primary and middle schools were ordered to close for the day.
He remembered a friend had come to deliver something to him. It was close to dinner time, and he didn’t want the other person waiting too long, so he hurried out to get it.
When he opened the door, a servant handed him a scarf, reminding him of the madam’s instructions not to catch a cold.
The tag on the scarf hadn’t even been removed. It was obvious the servant had been lazy and grabbed it straight from the box in the living room instead of going upstairs.
He didn’t say anything. He just wrapped it around his neck and hurried outside.
The temperature was extremely low, and it was already dark. The cold seemed to pierce straight into his bones. He buried his face in the scarf.
When he reached the roadside, he saw two people standing under a streetlight.
One was a slender woman with curled hair, holding a phone and arguing heatedly with someone on the other end. He wasn’t interested in listening, only slightly surprised.
At that time he didn’t even know about things like thermal stockings. All he could think was that anyone wearing a short skirt with bare legs in heavy snow had to be superhuman.
The woman shouted sharply, repeating the same lines over and over—demanding an explanation, threatening the person on the phone. She circled the lamp post and kicked it from time to time.
Beside her stood a child about the same age as him.
The child wore an oversized down jacket that hung loosely over a thin cotton shirt. His completely exposed neck made anyone looking at him feel cold.
If his mother were here, she would definitely be fussing about how the child was being taken care of.
The child looked up.
Perhaps he was already frozen numb. When their eyes met, his gaze looked dull and lifeless.
His body trembled nonstop. His nose was red, and it looked like he had been crying.
Meanwhile, the woman’s argument seemed to reach its climax. She screamed hoarsely, scolding the other person for being shameless.
She didn’t spare a single bit of attention for her own child.
He hesitated.
In the end, he sighed softly in his heart and took off his scarf, handing it to the child.
The moment he removed it, he regretted it from the cold, but it would have been awkward to pull his hand back.
When the child didn’t move, he stepped closer and tied the scarf around his neck himself.
“This should be a little warmer. Go home soon. Don’t stand here.”
Seeing the boy’s eyes regain a hint of life, he felt he had done another good deed.
He silently planned to tell his mother about it when he got home.
“I’m at Tianqin Harbor right now! Believe it or not, I’ll come make a scene!”
Wait—wasn’t that where he lived?
What a coincidence.
At the intersection he saw the car waiting there. The window rolled down, revealing a round, pancake-like face squeezing out, smiling at him before even speaking.
The man’s fat cheeks pushed his eyes into narrow slits.
He returned a polite smile with a face almost frozen stiff and took the book from him.
Because the roads were blocked by snow and school was cancelled, a book he had left at school had homework in it. He had only asked his deskmate to send him a couple of photos of the pages.
He hadn’t expected the boy to go all the way to school to retrieve it for him.
He attended the elementary school owned by his family. Even elementary students understood how to read the situation.
But goodwill taken too far became flattery.
After finally finishing the polite exchange, he walked home even faster than before.
He counted the houses one by one. When he saw the unique courtyard his mother had carefully decorated, his steps became lighter.
Warm light glowed through the slightly open door.
Inside were freshly cooked dishes, comfortable heated floors, and his parents waiting to eat with him—
All of it was suddenly torn apart by a sharp female voice.
The woman he had seen earlier was now standing in the living room, shouting with the same piercing volume. His parents stood on the other side of the room, their faces grim.
He didn’t know what had happened.
His mother, who had looked as though her soul had left her body, finally came to her senses and hoarsely told him to go upstairs.
The woman, who had been ranting nonstop, finally revealed her trump card.
She grabbed the child hiding behind her and shoved him forward again and again, shouting loudly.
“This is your son! Are you really abandoning your own son?”
The gazes that had been level now slowly lowered.
He Yihong hadn’t even had time to speak before his mother’s expression changed drastically.
She finally spoke her first words that entire night.
“Who gave you this scarf?”
Caught in the center of the storm, the boy looked helplessly—instinctively—toward him.
He could barely remember what he had felt at that moment.
He only remembered the eyes looking at him.
Eyes filled with shock, as if looking at a stranger.
And the expression of shock and heartbreak.
“You father and son worked together to deceive me—”
It was a nightmare he would never wake from.
—
The courtyard now looked completely different from the one in his memories.
Although gardeners still came regularly, their meticulous craftsmanship couldn’t replicate the warmth and personal touches the former lady of the house had once put into every corner.
He Ming’an looked at the small room beside the courtyard.
Years of marriage had intertwined both families’ interests so deeply that divorce couldn’t happen on a whim.
After the unexpected scandal was dealt with, He Yihong tried to reconcile.
But Madam He refused to turn back.
She spent most of the year in a temple practicing meditation. Even when she occasionally returned, she lived only in this small room.
She refused to see her so-called husband.
And she refused to see her son.
He Ming’an knew that in her eyes, he was a traitor standing on He Yihong’s side.
He had once wanted to explain.
But every time he remembered that gaze—the one that looked at him like a stranger—he found it hard to breathe, unable to say a word.
Time dragged on like that.
By the time he finally had the courage to step inside, those explanations had already become meaningless.
He had once thought himself strong, always helping others from the position of a giver.
But when everything burst like a bubble, he realized his cowardice.
He had simply hidden in his comfort zone, playing at kindness like a child playing house.
In the first few days after the scandal broke, rumors about his family spread wildly through their social circle.
Apparently the collapse of a model couple was far more entertaining than the quarrels of an unhappy pair.
Women who had once benefited from his mother’s kindness whispered and gossiped, covering their mouths as they laughed.
The most innocent person became the one judged the most.
Meanwhile, the men surrounding He Yihong joked knowingly about keeping a mistress.
Their expressions suggested that everyone understood.
When the false tide receded, the world finally revealed its true face.
It felt like he was seeing everything around him clearly for the first time.
He went to the restroom to wash his face and calm down.
In the mirror, his face was covered in water. Drops fell one after another.
He had meant to calm himself.
Instead he felt worse.
He smashed the mirror with his fist.
It was probably the most violent emotional outburst he had ever had.
“Did that mirror offend you or something?”
A boy about his age appeared behind him.
His pale, gloomy face made him look like a drifting ghost.
For a moment he almost thought he had seen a ghost in broad daylight.
Then he realized it was the boy he had seen at the banquet earlier.
The boy stood silently behind him until his emotions were completely interrupted, forcing him to ask what he wanted.
“I need to wash my hands.”
“….”
The faucet turned on.
Water flowed continuously through the boy’s fingers.
The cracked mirror reflected the boy’s lowered face, overlapping with the blood smeared on the glass, creating a shocking sight.
Only then did he notice the cut along the edge of his palm.
The pain arrived belatedly.
He didn’t leave.
He just stood there motionless.
He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for.
Perhaps he hoped the person in front of him would notice the injury and show even a little concern.
It was laughable, really.
Not long ago, he had thought this boy was someone unfortunate who needed his help.
After washing his hands, however, the boy simply tidied his clothes in the mirror and prepared to leave.
As if his eyes had an automatic filter.
For a moment, he wondered if the boy was color-blind.
Before the boy could leave, he grabbed the back of his collar and, looking troubled, showed him the wound on his hand.
The boy’s expression finally changed.
Cold hands carefully held his palm, gently blowing on it.
“Does it still hurt?”
They were rare gray eyes, like mist gathering before bad weather, carrying an indescribable heaviness.
Under that gaze, he slowly said,
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Even though blood was still seeping from the wound.
But it still needed to be bandaged.
He held tightly to the boy’s hand, afraid that if he let go, the boy would disappear.
The hall was filled mostly with adults, and no one paid attention to the two children weaving through the crowd.
Along the way, he still overheard bits of gossip about his family.
He endured it coldly, only wanting to leave as quickly as possible.
Soon the conversation shifted to the Gu family.
They were discussing the woman from the Gu family who had recently passed away.
“What bad luck—dying so young. Women like that shouldn’t be married into a family. They ruin fortune…”
Before the sentence finished, a scream rang out.
He saw a glass of red wine splash directly onto the man’s expensive suit.
The topic naturally ended there.
His eyes widened slightly.
He remembered now.
This boy’s name seemed to be Gu Yang.
The man who had been gossiping glared over.
Instinctively, he stepped in front of the boy protectively.
Gu Yang hid behind him and said innocently in a flat voice,
“My hand slipped.”
“I’m still a child, Uncle. You wouldn’t argue with a kid, right?”
Curious eyes turned toward them.
But most of the scrutiny fell on the man—no one blamed a child first.
The man lost face and could only leave resentfully.
Watching the man’s retreating figure, the boy behind him muttered coldly:
“Idiot.”
Perhaps the signs had already appeared then.
A-Yang had always been a little braver than him.
Although he seemed to dominate the relationship—having a wider social circle, understanding social etiquette better, and managing relationships more smoothly—
there was always a membrane separating A-Yang from the world.
Most of the time he simply accepted things passively and rarely took the initiative.
But that was fine.
Perhaps that was exactly what he wanted.
He only needed to keep giving.
He didn’t need any response.
Responses would only leave him unsure how to deal with them.
He continued giving kindness to others.
But now he understood the essential difference between his actions and his mother’s.
For his mother, helping others was enough in itself.
But for him, what he really wanted to see was the reaction of the person being helped.
All his kindness—all his goodwill—was merely self-satisfaction, filling the empty fortress within his heart.
But now, A-Yang was the one who had taken the initiative to walk toward him, pushing open that rusted iron gate.
He Ming’an let out a long breath and laughed self-mockingly.
—
“Where are you now?”
He answered by sending his location.
He had driven Gu Yang back to the Gu residence and was now lying on his own bed.
Xiao Huang had already quit.
With one person and one cat gone, the entire mansion suddenly felt lifeless.
He felt dispirited.
The back of his hand rested against his forehead, blocking the ceiling light. But a little light still slipped through his fingers, stinging his eyes until they felt damp.
“Can I come visit your house?”
Another message.
Gu Yang made a call and told the servant downstairs to let the visitor in.
After a while, there was a knock on the bedroom door.
The person who walked in was Song Yinxing.
“Why aren’t you lying in the hospital? What are you doing here?”
Gu Yang turned over, presenting his back to him.
Song Yinxing could hear the lifeless tone in his voice and couldn’t help asking,
“Are you feeling unwell?”
Gu Yang ignored him.
So Song Yinxing walked to the other side of the bed.
Too lazy to turn again, Gu Yang looked at him gloomily and pointed to his chest.
“My heart is sick.”
“Your heart hurts?” Song Yinxing’s expression darkened immediately. “Is it a squeezing pain or a stabbing pain? Intermittent or constant? Have you had a CT scan? Has this happened before? Any family history?”
The barrage of questions left Gu Yang stunned.
He blinked twice and asked uncertainly,
“Are you planning to study medicine in the future?”
Song Yinxing: “……”
“Probably not.”
Considering his family background, he had never planned on a field with such high costs and slow returns.
The topic had drifted too far.
He had to pull it back himself.
“I heard you ran into some trouble, so I came to check on you.”
He had just had his IV removed, and there was still a bandage on his hand.
“Heard from who?” Gu Yang asked lazily, still lying in bed with absolutely no hospitality.
“…Your classmate?” Song Yinxing said uncertainly.
Yu Bai had eventually called him.
But he couldn’t explain the situation clearly, so he vaguely said Gu Yang might be in trouble and asked Song Yinxing to keep an eye on him.
The more uncertain Yu Bai sounded, the more anxious Song Yinxing felt.
So he pulled out the needle and left the hospital immediately.
“Is that so?” Gu Yang said lightly.
“Well, the trouble I ran into was actually caused by them. What should we do about that?”
Song Yinxing didn’t know what had happened between them. His expression stiffened slightly.
But Gu Yang had already climbed up from the bed.
Propping himself on his elbow, he moved closer to Song Yinxing.
“Let’s play a little game.”
“What game?” Song Yinxing knelt beside the bed and looked at him.
“Guess what I’m thinking right now.”
“If you guess correctly…”
“I’ll agree to do anything you ask.”
