“Xiaofan, be good and stay here. I’ll be back very soon.” The man wore a perfectly pressed suit, every strand of hair neatly arranged. His voice was gentle as he coaxed Ye Qianfan, and his eyes were filled with tenderness.
But faced with that tenderness, Ye Qianfan only felt sick. Dressed in pajamas, he stared expressionlessly at the man standing before him. “Wei Dongyan, if you have even the slightest shred of conscience left, let me go.”
“Xiaofan.” Seeing that Ye Qianfan refused to be persuaded, Wei Dongyan finally grew annoyed. He frowned. “Why can’t you understand me? I love you so much… Can’t you tolerate this one thing for me?”
“Love me?” Ye Qianfan was so infuriated by Wei Dongyan’s shamelessness that he laughed. He lifted the iron chain fastened around his ankle and sneered. “You love me, so you lock me up here? You love me, so you’re going to marry another woman right in front of me?”
“…” Wei Dongyan was momentarily speechless. On this matter, he truly had no ground to stand on. Even so, he could not accept the fact that Ye Qianfan intended to leave him just like that.
“Xiaofan.” Suppressing the unease in his heart, Wei Dongyan raised his wrist and checked the time. Realizing he was about to be late, he could only say, “Wait for me here. I’ll be back very soon.” With that, Wei Dongyan left without looking back. Before leaving, he did not forget to lock the front door.
Ye Qianfan watched in silence. The heart that had once been consumed by grief and fury was now unnaturally calm. He knew why Wei Dongyan had left in such a hurry. He also knew why the man was wearing that immaculate suit. A mocking smile tugged at Ye Qianfan’s lips. Without hesitation, he walked into the bathroom.
Ye Qianfan and Wei Dongyan had known each other for seven years and had been lovers for six. Once, they had been the couple everyone in their circle envied. Yet at some point, the man who had once been willing to give everything for him had changed.
He had become selfish, vulgar, and willing to stop at nothing for profit. Behind Ye Qianfan’s back, he had even gotten involved with the daughter of a business tycoon.
Wei Dongyan was a handsome man. At one meter eighty-seven, with a strong build and striking features, he drew women’s eyes wherever he went. And now, at thirty, he was in the prime of a man’s life.
Ye Qianfan had once marveled that being able to land a man like Wei Dongyan counted as his good fortune. Now, that thought had become bitterly ironic.
Unlike Wei Dongyan, who had entered the business world, Ye Qianfan was merely a chef. He was a well-known master of Shandong cuisine in C City, but he had neither power nor influence. In many people’s eyes, he had only gotten where he was by clinging to Wei Dongyan.
But now, Ye Qianfan no longer cared about any of that. The man he had once loved had locked a chain around his ankle and imprisoned him here—while that same man hurried off to attend his own engagement banquet.
The bathtub was nearly full. Ye Qianfan’s eyes were icy as he held a small fruit knife in his hand. Still wearing his pajamas, he stepped into the bath.
He would never compromise with Wei Dongyan. But knowing Wei Dongyan as he did, if he continued resisting, then his final fate would be to remain imprisoned here indefinitely.
Neither outcome was one Ye Qianfan wanted. Expressionless, he lay back in the tub and raised his wrist. One cut. Two.
Deep gashes opened mercilessly across his wrist. Ye Qianfan’s face remained numb as he watched bright red blood run down his arm and into the hot water.
He remembered hearing someone say that people who truly succeed in killing themselves by cutting their wrists are the ones who genuinely want to die. Ye Qianfan did not know whether that was true. At this moment, however, the pain of his wounds did not seem unbearable at all. His whole body felt numb.
Soaked in hot water, the wounds could not close. Ye Qianfan stared blankly at the ceiling. Steam filled the bathroom, turning everything hazy, and suddenly a tear slipped from the corner of his eye.
Ye Qianfan had always been alone. His parents divorced when he was three, and neither wanted the burden of raising him. The court eventually awarded custody to his father. After that, his mother quickly remarried and moved overseas, while his father soon built a new family of his own.
Ye Qianfan’s place in his father’s home became awkward. His stepmother did not treat him well. There was no obvious physical abuse, but the cold violence of neglect was constant. No one wanted to speak to Ye Qianfan. In an entire month at home, he might not say more than ten sentences.
If that life had continued, Ye Qianfan might have met a miserable end. Fortunately… he met his master.
Ye Qianfan’s master was surnamed Jia. His full name was Jia Yuxing, and he was a highly respected master of Shandong cuisine in China. It was a matter of sheer coincidence, really… So many things in life depended on something as intangible as fate.
If Ye Qianfan had never met his master, perhaps he would have lived an ordinary, dim life. But then he would never have met Wei Dongyan either, and he would never have encountered the obstacle that ultimately broke him.
Misfortune may contain the seed of fortune, and fortune may conceal the root of disaster. With many things in this world, no one can know the ending until the very last moment.
The loss of so much blood made Ye Qianfan increasingly light-headed. Fragments of memories between him and Wei Dongyan drifted before his eyes, while the shadow of death slowly clouded his pupils. “Did you ever really love me?”
Even before dying, Ye Qianfan still had no answer to that question. He simply could not understand why Wei Dongyan had driven him into such a dead end. Wei Dongyan knew perfectly well that Ye Qianfan could not tolerate betrayal, yet had still hoped, by some miracle, that he would accept reality.
Ye Qianfan could neither accept it nor change it, so his only choice was escape. He slowly closed his eyes. The metallic scent of blood filled his nose. Death was like the warm lips of a woman, pressing a gentle kiss to Ye Qianfan’s soul. “…Why am I not dead?”
Ye Qianfan had always believed that when a person died, everything simply went dark. Yet just when he had prepared himself to leave the world, he discovered that he was somehow floating in midair.
“Do you truly want to die?” A voice as cold as ice came from the darkness above. “Is it really worth dying for someone like that?”
“…” Ye Qianfan’s eyes widened in shock. “Who are you?”
“Who I am isn’t important. What matters is…” The voice did not answer his question and instead continued, “You thought that once you died, he would regret it…? How pitiful. Other than grieving the people who truly love you, what will your death leave behind?”
“…What are you talking about?” Ye Qianfan frowned. The situation was unbearably strange.
“Then take a look. See exactly what your death will bring you.” The instant those words fell, Ye Qianfan’s vision went black. Then scene after scene appeared before him, leaving him utterly dumbfounded.
In the vision, Wei Dongyan sat on a park bench with a three- or four-year-old girl in his arms. Holding an ice cream in his right hand, he smiled as he teased her. “Youyou, don’t tell Mommy that Daddy gave you ice cream again. Otherwise Daddy will get scolded.”
“Okay…” the little girl said in a soft voice, wrapping her arms around Wei Dongyan’s waist. “Youyou will keep Daddy’s secret.”
“Good girl.” Wei Dongyan stroked her hair. Not long afterward, a woman approached with a little boy beside her. She clearly knew the man in front of her all too well. “Did you give Youyou ice cream again? I told you she can’t eat that. How many times do I have to say it before you listen?”
“All right, honey. Youyou insisted.” A look Ye Qianfan had never seen before appeared on Wei Dongyan’s face—indulgent, helpless, and faintly guilty. “I definitely won’t do it again next time…”
“Daddy, I want ice cream too!” Hearing that, the little boy beside the woman immediately protested. He plopped himself into Wei Dongyan’s lap and began to cry. “You only give it to little sister… Waaa…”
A happy family. There was probably no better phrase to describe the scene before him. Ye Qianfan watched, yet felt cold all the way to his bones.
“Well?” The icy voice sounded again. “Did you really think he would spend the rest of his life feeling guilty over your death?”
Ye Qianfan’s face went blank. He watched the little boy squirming in Wei Dongyan’s arms, watched the woman pretend to be angry while fighting a smile, watched Wei Dongyan’s expression of utter indulgence. It was as though he had sunk into an abyss filled with piercing ice.
“No one but you will take responsibility for your life,” the voice said. “If you cannot even cherish yourself, what right do you have to demand that others cherish you?”
Ye Qianfan said nothing. He did not know what he could say.
“You still don’t regret it?” Malice slipped into the voice. “Then let’s see exactly whom your death managed to punish.”
What Ye Qianfan saw next was something he would never forget. He saw the master who loved him weep until he was inconsolable. In a very short time, the old man’s health completely collapsed, and he was eventually admitted to the hospital.
He saw friends who had been close to him attend his funeral. Their faces were blurred, but their words were painfully clear. “Xiaofan killed himself over scum like that… It wasn’t worth it.”
He saw his father and mother remain utterly indifferent to his death, as though he were a stranger.
He saw his death bring grief to those who loved him and satisfaction to those who did not.
Suicide was probably the worst choice Ye Qianfan had ever made in his life. There was no second place.