Fu Zhen had no idea what new scheme Tang Wanwan was up to. It didn't concern him anyway—she could flatter Fu Jianzhen to her heart's content.
Tang Wanwan noticed he was ignoring her and felt a dull irritation, like throwing a punch at cotton—not even the satisfaction of impact.
She thought for a moment, then said to Fu Zhen: 'I'm getting married next month.
At Aston Manor. If you have time, you should come.' Aston Manor.
Fu Zhen felt something shift in him—a dislodging, like a stone that had been sitting still for years. He remembered: around the time of his seventh birthday, his father had promised to build him an amusement park. The following spring, he had bought Aston Manor, intending to turn it into a castle for his little prince.
More than ten years later, that castle had been given to Tang Wanwan.
Fu Zhen had told himself he wouldn't let it affect him. But the body doesn't lie. He'd noticed something wrong with his heart for a while now—and today he'd been drawing all day without eating lunch. The heart was pounding badly. He couldn't get enough air. There was a weight on his chest, a dizziness in his head; his legs felt like they'd been filled with lead. If he hadn't been holding himself together through sheer will, he would probably have already collapsed.
Fu Zhen bit down on his lip and forced himself to stay present. He would not fall in front of these two people.
His back was still turned to them, so they couldn't see his face—now as white as paper. They could only wonder why he was standing there on the stairs, neither going up nor coming down.
Jiang Hengzhu returned from work and noticed Fu Zhen at the stairwell entrance, one hand on the wall. His eyesight was sharp enough to catch, from a distance, that Fu Zhen's calf muscle was trembling—an involuntary shudder, the kind that comes from trying to contain very bad pain. The veins on the back of his hand were raised. He was enduring something considerable.
Two people stood at the base of the stairs watching him—a man who looked to be in his late thirties, and a woman of about twenty. Both were striking-looking. Jiang Hengzhu's memory was good; he identified them immediately. He looked at them without pausing, without granting them a single additional glance, and crossed past Fu Jianzhen with a cool indifference. To Jiang Hengzhu, it made no difference whether the man was a legendary figure in the business world or a newly acclaimed actress in the entertainment industry—they were simply two of the billions of people in the world, no more and no less remarkable than anyone else.
Jiang Hengzhu stepped onto the staircase and continued upward, with no intention of stopping for anyone.
Fu Zhen heard footsteps coming from behind him. They sounded familiar—but he no longer had the energy to turn around and look. The sun had slipped behind the hills. Only the last thin brush of orange remained above the western skyline. His shadow, and the whole of him, were sinking into the surrounding dark.
He really should have checked his luck calendar before coming outside this week. Fu Zhen focused on regulating his breathing, but the pressure on his chest refused to ease. He felt like a fish that had been thrown up on the shore—gasping, drying out.
The footsteps drew close. As Jiang Hengzhu came level with him, Fu Zhen felt—just for a moment—as though he heard a call from somewhere deep in the ocean. A tall and beautiful god of the sea raised his trident high overhead, and cold mist wrapped around Fu Zhen's parched body. He couldn't hold on any longer. His knees buckled, and he went down.
Jiang Hengzhu reacted without thinking. He reached out and caught Fu Zhen before he hit the ground. Only once he had the slight, thin body gathered against his chest did Jiang Hengzhu register what he had done.
He stood still, looking at Fu Zhen in his arms. Fu Zhen's eyes were closed. His face was colourless, forehead cold with sweat. His fingers were shaking violently—and even
unconscious, he couldn't seem to settle. He trembled with the effort of enduring something that wouldn't release him even in the dark.
Perhaps Jiang Hengzhu's presence carried a familiar quality that offered some measure of comfort. Gradually, Fu Zhen's breathing steadied. His lashes trembled, like the wings of a butterfly about to open. He was close to waking. Jiang Hengzhu didn't know whether to carry him upstairs or stay here until he came around.
Below on the stairs, Fu Jianzhen had the impression of watching a farcical little drama—as he saw it, Fu Zhen had thrown himself into a strange man's arms. What was the meaning of this?
He watched Jiang Hengzhu hold Fu Zhen. After a long pause, he said: 'What is your relationship with him?'
The first thing Fu Zhen heard when he came back to himself was Fu Jianzhen asking that question. It struck him as so absurd that, for a moment, he forgot entirely that he was currently being held in Jiang Hengzhu's arms.
'How is that relevant to Mr. Fu?' Fu Zhen turned his face slightly where he lay. Fu Jianzhen could only see the edge of his profile. Fu Zhen laughed—softly, quietly. 'Don't forget: we severed ties two years ago.'
He had never been able to face this directly. He had always clung to some faint hope that things might return to how they once were. But now, saying the words to Fu Jianzhen's face, what he felt instead was a strange, perverse lightness.
Fu Jianzhen had nothing to say. Two years ago, he had thrown Fu Zhen out of the family and severed their relationship—for Tang Wanwan's sake. That was a fact known to everyone. He had no standing to ask Fu Zhen anything at all.
Fu Zhen reached out and lightly touched Jiang Hengzhu's sleeve. 'Let's go.'
The person in his arms made no move to get down of his own accord. Jiang Hengzhu's lips moved. In the end he said nothing, and carried Fu Zhen up the stairs until both of them disappeared from Fu Jianzhen's sight.
Tang Wanwan looked at Fu Jianzhen, still standing in place in a slight daze, and tugged his arm. 'Dad—we should go.'
Fu Jianzhen came back to himself and nodded. 'Let's go.'
His mood on the drive back was subdued. Tang Wanwan did her best to think of something to say, then settled on: 'Dad, don't be too upset. A friend of mine told me a while back that he'd seen Fu Zhen working in a gay bar. He probably really does like men. Society is so open now—it's really not such a big deal.'
She hadn't entirely believed it when her friend mentioned it—she'd thought he must have seen wrong. But it turned out Fu Zhen actually was one of those people.
A flash of disdain crossed Tang Wanwan's eyes. She linked her arm through Fu Jianzhen's. 'Dad, I want cake.'
'Have the driver stop at the patisserie on the way.' 'Thank you, Dad.'
Fu Jianzhen made a sound. Silence followed—deep and settled, the kind that goes on for a long time. Eventually, he turned to look out the window, expression unreadable.
Tang Wanwan's hand rested on his arm. A small, satisfied smile curved her lips. She seemed to be in a pleasant mood.
In the dim stairwell, Jiang Hengzhu carried Fu Zhen upward at a careful, unhurried pace. It was very quiet. Fu Zhen tilted his head back. In the amber light, Jiang Hengzhu's jawline looked somehow softer than it had the day before. His blue eyes, in the dark, were bright and still—the morning star, the brightest point in the sky just before dawn.
He should tell Jiang Hengzhu to put him down. He knew that. But he was too greedy for this. He wanted to stay here a little longer.
From below came the faint creak of a door opening. Something like a demon whispering in his ear—Fu Zhen raised his hand. Slowly. He brought it up, and wrapped his arm around Jiang Hengzhu's neck. He pressed his face into the curve of his shoulder. In the half-dark, dimly, he heard the beating of the heart inside that chest—strong and unhurried. Fu Zhen felt his eyes begin to sting.
Jiang Hengzhu's footsteps hesitated. He looked down at the person in his arms, and something moved in his eyes—a flicker of something. He said nothing. He only lifted his
arms a fraction, adjusting his hold, and continued up the stairs as though nothing had happened.
At the sixth floor, Jiang Hengzhu stopped outside the door to their shared flat. The noise of their flatmates playing cards drifted through the wall. He lowered Fu Zhen carefully and asked: 'Can you walk?'
Fu Zhen nodded. In Jiang Hengzhu's even, quiet voice, he thought he heard—just barely—a thread of gentleness. He also felt, at the same time, a small twinge of guilt for the selfishness of a moment ago. He said: 'Thank you. For just now.'
'It was nothing,' Jiang Hengzhu said—coolly, as though the person who had come back down the stairs to help was someone else entirely.
Jiang Hengzhu pushed open the door. The worn hinge gave its usual long, protesting creak. Fu Zhen followed him inside, and they parted toward their respective rooms.
Fu Zhen got back to his room and looked at the woven bags in his hand—and remembered that he'd gone out and come back with nothing. He was too tired to make another trip down. After a brief hesitation, he pulled out his phone and ordered a bowl of plain congee through a delivery app.
He ate very little. When the weight on his chest had eased a little, he picked up his drawing tablet and continued the character illustration he hadn't finished that afternoon. He worked until well past midnight.
The bedside clock ticked on—tap, tap, tap—like a small dwarf from deep in a forest, tapping for buried treasure. Fu Zhen closed the laptop, climbed into bed, turned off the light, and lay down. But in the silence of the long night, sleep dissolved away by degrees. From the other side of the wall, the softest sounds of movement.
Moonlight had crept in through the curtain gap and left a pale line on the floor, bright as snow. Fu Zhen lay on his side, looking at the faint blur of the opposite wall—and felt something stir in his chest. What was Jiang Hengzhu doing right now?
But the thought came to him again almost immediately, and with it came the sadness: why couldn't the person Jiang Hengzhu liked be him?
Was there really no hope at all—for someone like him?
Fu Zhen bit his lip until it went pale. After a long moment, he let out a slow breath, pulled the pillow close, and closed his eyes.
He liked Jiang Hengzhu so much.
In the dream, Fu Zhen asked the person he loved: 'What does the one you like look like?'
Jiang Hengzhu's blue eyes reflected back a perfect image of him. Gentle water flowed in from far away, unhurried. He bent forward and pressed a quiet kiss to Fu Zhen's lips. Fu Zhen heard his voice, very low:
'Like you.'
1191260-73753Author's note: There are approximately three or four more difficult chapters ahead. If you're sensitive to angst, you may want to wait and read them together later.
── End of Chapters 10–16 ──