Chapter 40
Zong Nanze thought he had seen through Qi Wang’s heart, and through the nature of their relationship as well. With an air of complete ease, he even began confidently guessing what Qi Wang must be feeling right now.
Was it guilt at being exposed? Or anger from shame? Perhaps there would also be a trace of panic and helplessness, with Qi Wang half begging and half threatening him not to tell anyone.
But he was wrong about everything.
In the darkness, fire-like fury burned in Qi Wang’s eyes.
It was pure rage, the kind of rage an evil dragon would feel if someone dared touch and taint its treasure.
At first, Zong Nanze thought he had grabbed hold of Qi Wang’s weakness and had become the one controlling the atmosphere. But when he looked into Qi Wang’s dark eyes, he realized they did not reflect him at all. He seemed so tiny he was almost swallowed whole.
Only then did he finally sense something was wrong. Frowning slightly, all traces of his lazy, careless expression vanished. “You don’t like—”
The strength in Qi Wang’s hand only increased. The collar was jammed tightly against Zong Nanze’s Adam’s apple, making even swallowing difficult. The lack of oxygen made his head swim, and the danger of suffocation came crashing down on him from all sides.
Zong Nanze struggled once, trying to pull away.
But only now did he notice that Qi Wang’s arm was trembling faintly from the sheer force he was using. The joints in his fingers stood out so sharply the bones seemed ready to tear through the skin. Every sign showed the same thing—Zong Nanze had stepped right onto Qi Wang’s bottom line, and Qi Wang was furious to the point of nearly losing control.
He wanted to kill him.
Those words appeared in Zong Nanze’s mind out of nowhere. His pupils quivered slightly as he looked at Qi Wang—whose face, though furious to the extreme, had somehow only grown darker and calmer—and he had no doubt that Qi Wang truly had such an impulse at this moment.
He had never seen anyone lose it this badly. Forced into seriousness, he used a great deal of strength and even broke into a thin layer of sweat in the cool night air before he barely managed to free his collar and retreat awkwardly to the side.
He had only thought Qi Wang and Lin Huaixi’s relationship was unusual and had wanted to tease him a little. He had never expected to run into a lunatic. He was so angry he nearly cursed aloud. “If you’re sick, go take medicine. Don’t go wandering around like this—”
Qi Wang’s eyes swept toward him.
With a very strong survival instinct, Zong Nanze immediately shut his mouth and decided not to waste energy arguing with a madman.
“I’m warning you—don’t say disgusting things like that in front of Xixi, and don’t ever touch Xixi with your disgusting hands. And don’t let me catch you making filthy guesses in secret either!”
His possessiveness was so overbearing that even thinking wasn’t allowed.
Zong Nanze sized Qi Wang up from top to bottom, his brows drawing tighter and tighter.
If Qi Wang and Lin Huaixi were only good friends, then no matter how close they had been since childhood, no normal person could possibly react like this.
Qi Wang absolutely liked Lin Huaixi. And there was an unspeakable possessiveness mixed in, which was why he had been provoked into losing control so completely.
Then how could he still act so justified?
Zong Nanze could only think of one possibility—that Qi Wang was lying to himself, and doing it so skillfully that even he himself had failed to notice.
Zong Nanze couldn’t help clicking his tongue, deeply unable to understand.
He treated feelings like entertainment. Love came to him too easily and left too lightly. He had never truly placed anyone in his heart, nor had he ever allowed anyone to affect him. Even though plenty of fools around him had loved with all-consuming passion, not one of them had ever gone as mad as Qi Wang.
Beneath the surprise, a thread of curiosity was also hooked out of him.
“Don’t worry. I won’t say a word to Lin Huaixi. This was only a secret between you and me to begin with.” Zong Nanze paused, then couldn’t resist stirring the pot again. “Actually, it’s not that big a deal. If you like him, go after him. If you can’t catch him, then it just means fate hasn’t arrived yet. Split up, move on—there are all kinds of people in the world. Maybe later you’ll meet someone who makes your heart move even more.”
After all that, Qi Wang gave him only four stingy words:
“We won’t separate.”
Zong Nanze had wanted to keep digging into Qi Wang’s heart, but found himself locked firmly outside of it. Annoyed, he also couldn’t help noticing the information hidden in that answer.
Among “like,” “chase,” “fate,” and “separation,” the one thing Qi Wang cared most about was separation.
Just how important was Lin Huaixi to him, for him to want never to part, not even for a single moment, and to stay together forever?
And if Qi Wang really did like Lin Huaixi, then if he confessed and failed, even if the two of them could still remain good friends, it would be as though an invisible sheet of paper had come between them, and they could never go back to the way they used to be.
Seen that way, Qi Wang truly did not dare take that risk, even though he liked Lin Huaixi.
Zong Nanze had been rejected before, and he had also been dumped before, but he had never truly suffered a setback in love. To someone like him, Qi Wang’s behavior looked like cowardice.
But when he looked at Qi Wang standing before him, Zong Nanze’s mind drifted to the way the two of them got along. Lin Huaixi would smile with two dimples, his eyes sparkling like they held stars, giving Qi Wang all his trust and dependence.
And that version of Lin Huaixi had never once appeared before Zong Nanze.
More accurately, Lin Huaixi had never once shown his real self in front of him.
Then what about everyone else?
Zong Nanze had only just broken up, but when he tried to picture his ex-boyfriend’s face, he couldn’t. It was terribly blurred, as though it had been pieced together from five or six different faces and wasn’t truly a real person at all.
On the surface, he seemed experienced enough to look down on someone as inexperienced as Qi Wang. But standing before Qi Wang now, Zong Nanze felt uncomfortable all over, like some lecturer on a stage who had suddenly been exposed. It was the kind of scorching discomfort that came from having one’s inner self laid bare under the sunlight.
For someone like him, who loved wandering through fields of flowers, being hit in the face with pure, serious love was almost a direct strike to the heart.
Zong Nanze clicked his tongue again, brushing back the hair the wind had blown across his face and revealing brows and eyes laced with impatience. His left foot tapped the ground once, then he shifted his weight to the right and kept moving restlessly, clearly irritable.
“How unlucky. Let’s just pretend we never saw each other tonight.”
Then a thought suddenly came to him.
Qi Wang cared this much. No matter how strong his self-control was, there would come a day when he slipped and exposed himself. Zong Nanze wanted to see him panicked and helpless. Naturally, that meant he couldn’t be allowed to prepare himself in advance.
The more he thought about it, the better his mood became. He even decided to let Qi Wang’s warning go.
“I won’t interfere in things between the two of you again. It doesn’t do me any good anyway. But Lin Huaixi really is my type, so I’m going to pursue him seriously.”
Before Qi Wang could explode, Zong Nanze quickly continued, “As his good friend, if you truly care about Lin Huaixi, then you shouldn’t interfere in his normal social life, right? No matter how close the two of you are, you can’t stay bachelors forever and stay together for life, can you?”
After saying that, he looked at Qi Wang with open delight, wanting to see how he would react.
Violent hostility churned in Qi Wang’s eyes. Feeling that dangerous aura from him, Zong Nanze’s muscles tightened uncontrollably, and he instinctively prepared himself for a fight. But even though Qi Wang was holding himself back to the verge of collapse, he still protected the false image that he and Lin Huaixi were only childhood friends.
“As long as you don’t hurt or deceive Xixi, I won’t interfere.”
Zong Nanze: “…”
He can really endure this much.
Zong Nanze tried imagining himself in Qi Wang’s place and realized he could never manage it. For a brief moment, he even felt a little admiration for him. Yet his words remained poisonous. “Fine. I hope you mean what you say.”
By now, he had gathered more than enough information from Qi Wang. The two of them had become immensely interesting to him. In a very good mood, he raised a hand and waved at Qi Wang, convinced that sooner or later he would get to watch an excellent show.
That thing called love—suppression only made it worse in the end.
…
Only after Zong Nanze’s figure had completely disappeared did Qi Wang finally move. His joints felt as though they had gone stiff, and a sharp crack sounded from them.
Qi Wang slowly let out a breath. The image of Lin Huaixi just now, saying he wanted to transfer to the new school with him, rose in his mind. Only then did his heart slowly settle, and he became the old Qi Wang again.
Even though Lin Huaixi had been gone for quite some time, the mere thought of him still made Qi Wang let out a quiet laugh.
Actually, Zong Nanze had guessed wrong.
Qi Wang was not lying to himself, nor was he cowardly.
Zong Nanze had never experienced anything like this, so he could not possibly understand him, and even less could he understand what existed between him and Lin Huaixi.
Qi Wang had been born into wealth, but wealth was only a symbol of money. It had nothing to do with love.
In the middle of endless darkness, he met Lin Huaixi.
Lin Huaixi was like a little sun, constantly giving off warmth. Even when frustrated, he never left. Qi Wang was drawn toward him and couldn’t help wanting to get closer.
This was the first time he had ever understood what love was. And even something as supposedly natural as motherly love—something every child seemed meant to have—was something Qi Wang could only feel because of Lin Huaixi.
His family, his friends, all his memories, all his emotions—every part of who he was had Lin Huaixi woven through it.
The Qi Wang of today could be said to have been born because of Lin Huaixi. If he lost Lin Huaixi, then Qi Wang himself would “die.”
A person’s instinct is to flee danger and seek survival. But Qi Wang’s instinct was to move toward Lin Huaixi, protect Lin Huaixi, and remain by his side forever. Human beings do not act against their instincts. Neither would Qi Wang. Feelings like “liking” carried too much risk, and before he had even consciously realized them, they had already been rejected deep inside him.
The only pity was that liking and love did not appear out of nowhere, and even less could they disappear for no reason.
Qi Wang frowned tightly. Zong Nanze had already left, yet his chest still ached with a dull pressure. The anger and other complicated emotions made his heart beat so hard that his whole body seemed to shake with it.
When Lin Huaixi had previously received a love letter, Qi Wang’s emotions had already been stirred. But because of Lin Huaixi’s assurance, his possessiveness had been pressed down. Now, although Zong Nanze had temporarily backed off, he had also exposed the key point, making Qi Wang vaguely aware of something.
Yet he and Lin Huaixi had grown up together from childhood. They were very good friends. When Lin Huaixi was little, he had even once wished they could become real brothers. Older brother, friend, brother, childhood friend—there should be no other possibility beyond these.
Qi Wang slowly lowered his eyes and forcibly pressed down the surging emotions and thoughts in his heart, retreating with restraint back to the place where he believed he ought to stand.
After returning, Lin Huaixi immediately called his mother.
He had still been a little nervous at first, but his mother agreed in one breath and was even more excited than he was, to the point of wanting to come and pick Lin Huaixi up immediately so the mother and son could go back to living together like when he was little.
Lin Huaixi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and had to spend a great deal of effort coaxing his mother into calming down.
His mother took care of the food and lodging arrangements, while all the transfer procedures were left to Qi Wang. Lin Huaixi didn’t have to worry about anything and slept soundly through the night.
Now that he was about to transfer, Lin Huaixi couldn’t even be bothered to keep pretending to be the cold and aloof disciplinary committee member anymore. The next day, as soon as he walked into class, he greeted his classmates with a bright smile. They all stood there dumbfounded for a while, unable to react, staring at him as though he had become a different person.
But Lin Huaixi’s personality was simply too good. It was hard for anyone not to like him. In a single day, he smoothly completed the transition of his persona and quickly became one with the whole class.
Although he wouldn’t be staying here much longer, he still didn’t neglect his duties. He continued checking rule violations seriously, only he no longer followed Zong Nanze around. As long as Zong Nanze wasn’t blind enough to walk right into him, Lin Huaixi couldn’t be bothered to care.
Zong Nanze waited in the little grove for several days but never saw Lin Huaixi come. So he took the initiative himself. He never expected Qi Wang’s sense of crisis to be so strong, or his speed to be so frighteningly fast. Before the weekend even arrived, the transfer procedures had already been completed.
When Zong Nanze came looking for Lin Huaixi, Lin Huaixi was packing his schoolbag. The other students crowded around him, full of reluctance as they said goodbye.
Zong Nanze raised a brow. From their conversation, he learned that Lin Huaixi was leaving, and a look of surprise crossed his face.
He hadn’t known Lin Huaixi for very long, and most of what they had left each other were unpleasant memories. Now that Lin Huaixi was about to go, a strange feeling rose in Zong Nanze’s heart. He lowered his eyes and glanced at his own empty hand.
He didn’t think deeply about it, only taking it as the regret of losing a new source of entertainment far too soon. Seeing the other classmates still chattering endlessly, he leaned against the doorframe with folded arms and gave a light cough.
The sound of that cough was especially abrupt in the quiet classroom.
Everyone looked over in confusion. Seeing this famous figure from school, their expressions varied.
Zong Nanze behaved very politely. With a courteous smile, he said, “Hello, everyone. I’d also like to say goodbye to Lin Huaixi. Could you leave us a little private space?”
The classmates’ gazes moved between the two of them. Seeing that Lin Huaixi didn’t object, and under Zong Nanze’s silent pressure, they gradually filed out.
The classroom became empty and still, with only the two of them left.
The lively atmosphere from before immediately froze over. The two stood far apart, their gazes colliding in midair—one with slightly furrowed brows, the other with smiling eyes. The wind stirred the curtains, sunlight spilled into the room, and left a hazy trail of light. The whole space was dyed a warm gold, fixed into a picture that would never fade.
Lin Huaixi’s beautiful brows and eyes reflected in Zong Nanze’s gaze, and his own heart softened as well. Gone was the teasing and mockery from before. In a low voice, he simply asked:
“When are you leaving?”
