Alan lifted Gu Qingchi’s wrist. He sized up the scar disapprovingly as if it were a black blemish on white porcelain.
He had a bit of a British accent. It sounded elegant to the ear. He spoke like an old gentleman. He phrased his speech in a classical manner. He spoke quickly, but he was very, very articulate. His voice was like a cello. His manner of speaking was haughty, pretentious, and a little sarcastic.
“I’ve prepared nearly a hundred sets of clothing, and you are going to model these clothes over the course of the next couple of days. The photographer will take nearly ten thousand photos, and a select few of them will be published in magazines or commercial brochures. Those magazines and brochures will then be provided to high-paying customers for them to skim through. Out of all those sets of clothing, a great deal of them are sleeveless or short-sleeved designs.”
“Our contract also stipulates that you have an obligation to model some of these clothes on the runway. Media isn’t going to edit the photos for you. I also can’t guarantee that every runway outfit will have sleeves long enough to cover your wrists.”
His words took another turn, still as condescending as before.
“How have your parents been? Do you love them?”
Gu Qingchi couldn’t figure out what he was playing at. He answered the first question almost immediately.
“They’ve been very well.”
As for the second question, he hesitated a little but firmly responded.
“Yes, I love them.”
Alan didn’t pay Gu Qingchi’s hesitation any mind. He continued to ask.
“Do you have any siblings? How is your relationship with them?”
“I have an older brother. We have a pretty good relationship.”
Alan looked up at him.
“Do you have a lover?”
Gu Qingchi paused for much longer this time. His ears started to turn red. He dawdled for quite a bit, seeming somewhat shy.
“I-I guess you could say that.”
Alan didn’t hold on to this point for too long. He let go of the other’s wrist and clapped his hands twice. His tone of voice sounded rather sarcastic.
He shot a sidelong glance towards Gu Qingchi.
“Ha. Great. It was your parents, brother, and lover who covered for your stupid behavior. Now, everyone here has to cover for your mistakes.”
“I hope you don’t do something stupid like this again. Understood?”
“I believe I just asked a question.”
It seemed he wasn’t going to let it go without an answer from Gu Qingchi.
“Understood.”
Alan then turned towards the makeup artist and asked her a question.
“Can you cover it up?”
Ktf wjxfeq jgalra rqbxf tbcfrais.
“Pa’ii yf xlcv bo tjgv. Llr rxlc abcf vfolclafis kbc’a ibbx jr cjaegji.”
Cijc ufraegfv klat tlr tjcvr ab ifa tfg xcbk atja tf ecvfgrabbv. Lf vlvc’a aegc tlr tfjv. Lf rlwqis ujnf jc bgvfg ab tlr jrrlrajca.
“Xfa rbwf rmjgnfr, kglrayjcvr, ygjmfifar, ktjafnfg sbe mjc olcv. Po la mjc mbnfg tlr kglra, yglcu la tfgf.”
He then started urging the staff into action.
“Get moving. Quit standing in place.”
Alan then straightened his suit. He walked over to the person in charge and lowered his voice.
“Reduce today’s workload by half. Push it back. If all else fails, just drag it out a bit longer. Make sure to keep an eye on the model’s emotional state.”
After giving these orders, he once again started to complain.
“I’ve seriously had enough. Why am I always running into these kinds of problems? It’s not like I’m their dad. I’m not even married yet. Why am I worrying about these sorts of things?”
⁂
No matter how many times he was cued online, Xie Luyu didn’t respond. He didn’t even pick up phone calls from his friends or Pan Xiaocheng.
He wasn’t at home. He had made a trip to the so-called “marital home” that he had shared with Gu Qingchi.
Gu Qingchi had lived there during those two years.
Xie Luyu from two years ago was already financially independent. He could live wherever he wanted. If it wasn’t a place he liked, he wouldn’t go there even once.
However, Gu Qingchi couldn’t do that. If his life had gone the way it was supposed to, he would still be in school. He would still be a child living happily under the protection of his parents. He didn’t have any money. He hadn’t had any choice.
Xie Luyu was visiting here for the first time in a very long while. The surrounding environment was very nice. However, the tradeoff was that it was far from the city center. This isolated place was surrounded by villas. Most of them were empty, but it was typically elderly retirees living in the few that weren’t. Many of them were wealthy individuals living out the remainder of their lives in the suburbs.
It was difficult to even get a taxi here.
Xie Luyu knew that Gu Qingchi couldn’t drive. In that case, Gu Qingchi must’ve had no choice but to stay in the house most of the time.
The house was so big that it made one feel flustered. The house was so tidy that one could hardly tell that someone had once lived here all alone for two years.
He also went to see the garden. Gu Qingchi had once tilled a small patch of land and planted roses there. However, the roses had long since withered away, and the weeds had overgrown everything.
The garden seemed far too big for that small patch of roses.
He walked through each and every room, trying to find a trace of Gu Qingchi.
In the end, all he found was a patch of withered roses in the garden, an open book in the study, and a marriage certificate in the living room.
Gu Qingchi hadn’t taken the certificate with him. It had already been stamped with a rectangle shaped seal, deeming it null and void.
Xie Luyu sat in the living room with the little red book on the coffee table in front of him.
He sat there, his entire person crumpled on the sofa. He rested his head on the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. He seemed to have lost all his energy, and his eyes were bloodshot. His entire person was despondent, devastated.
He couldn’t help but imagine how Gu Qingchi must have lived at that time.
Gu Qingchi was forced to terminate his studies at that time. He’d been torn from his campus and relied on him entirely.
However, he chose to take out his anger on someone else, he chose to take it out on another victim, Gu Qingchi. Gu Qingchi, who had just entered society at the time, had no choice but to take it.
Xie Luyu was his only bridge into this new environment, so, once his initial fear and anxiety had passed, he instinctively clung to this bridge.
However, this bridge had been closed to him from the very beginning.
He called for help many times, but it wasn’t of any use. Hence, he began falling deeper and deeper into the abyss as the days went by.
Later, this bridge broke, they divorced, and he was once again thrown into another unfamiliar environment.
Thus, he learned how to survive in society, he learned how to work, and he learned how to make money. These were things that were never taught in school.
Xie Luyu had once thought that Gu Qingchi’s depression was genetic. However, he saw the video of Gu Qingchi at a sports competition. He looked so happy at that time, like a little sun. He’d been the center of his classmates and friends.
Now, however, he could slit his wrists open without the slightest hesitation.
There were many perpetrators in this incident, and he was among them. This was the worst part of it for Xie Luyu.
He’d spent all this time trying not to be like his parents, fickle towards love and irresponsible towards family.
He was going to cherish his lover. He was going to take on family responsibilities.
However, the reality was that he’d already messed everything up himself.
His phone suddenly rang. It was also on the coffee table, sitting right next to the annulled marriage certificate. Xie Luyu blanked for a moment before picking it up.
“Hello?”
Pan Xiaocheng was quiet for a while. Xie Luyu’s voice didn’t sound quite right, so he tentatively asked.
“You’re crying?”
Xie Luyu looked up at the ceiling, blinked back his tears, and quickly responded.
“No.”
“Here’s the situation. A woman named Mrs. Gu wants to talk to you. I wasn’t sure if you knew her or not. Should I agree … ”
Pan Xiaocheng didn’t even have a chance to ask him when he was free.
Xie Luyu instantly became tense and sat up.
“Yes. Ask her what time would work for her.”
Pan Xiaocheng was stunned for a moment. He was starting to suspect that Xie Luyu had cried himself silly. Usually, the inviter would ask for the invitee’s schedule and work around them. He was calling to ask Xie Luyu what time would be convenient for him.
“I called to ask what time would work for you.”
Xie Luyu refused.
“No, no, no. I’m free anytime. You should ask her.”
Pan Xiaocheng agreed.
⁂
Mrs. Gu had developed a habit of surfing through Weibo because of Gu Qingchi. She knew about everything that happened online almost as soon as it happened.
She watched that one variety show once. She then took a screenshot of the texts and read them many times over.
The more she read the texts, the more distressed she felt. Those words were so stifling and so heavy. These were only a small portion of what her little boy had written down.
Once her distress had passed, she was left with nothing but burning anger. Mr. Gu had been scolded several times over the past couple of days.
His investigation had been a bit of a rush job. He’d been focused on what went wrong at the hospital and the general trajectory of Gu Qingchi’s life, so all he knew was that Gu Qingchi hadn’t completed his studies and was once divorced.
Of course, these didn’t sound like pleasant experiences. Mr. Gu was concerned, but he never questioned Gu Qingchi about it. He’d been absent from Gu Qingchi’s life for so many years. He hadn’t been able to guide Gu Qingchi like he should have. Regardless of what really went down, he had no right to comment.
Moreover, Gu Qingchi and Xie Luyu’s marriage had been very, very secret. Mr. Gu had looked into it at the time but found nothing, so he simply assumed that the child had been young and ignorant and had rushed into marriage.
He was satisfied to just have the child by his side. Now that his son was back, his only priority was to study up on how to properly raise him. He’d also been busy dealing with Gu Cheng and the others. As more and more things started to pile up, he slowly stopped clinging onto the past.
However, he’d never expected there to be an arranged marriage.
Mrs. Gu had probably been of the same mind, but that didn’t prevent her from venting her anger on Mr. Gu.
“What kind of a father are you? How could you not know about this? What are you even here for?”
“Trash! Trash! How dare they ruin my child! I want them to pay!”
The more she spoke, the more upset she became. Her emotional state had fluctuated too much. She grabbed the front of Mr. Gu’s clothes and buried herself in Mr. Gu’s embrace.
“Gu Jiu! Gu Jiu!”
Mr. Gu had been quiet as she cursed at him, silently accepting everything, but he piped up at this moment to comfort her.
“Don’t worry. None of them will escape.”
Her little boy might be an adult already, but, in her mind, he was still a child. She didn’t ask Gu Qingchi about his divorce or dropping out of school, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t care. She did care. She cared very, very much.
She had never imagined that one of her children would one day drop out of school, get married, and get divorced.
However, her thoughts were the same as Mr. Gu’s. She hadn’t been there to guide him, so, no matter how opposed she was to some of the choices he made, she had no right to interfere.
Still, she never imagined that Gu Qingchi’s life would be destroyed by someone else like this. He turned out to be very good even in that sort of environment.
No one had cared for him, yet he had still grown up so well. He’d ranked at the top of his school. He’d made the school honor’s list. He also liked sports. He was popular with his friends. He’d been liked by everyone.
He had also laughed happily among his friends once.
Alan lifted Gu Qingchi’s wrist. He sized up the scar disapprovingly as if it were a black blemish on white porcelain.
He had a bit of a British accent. It sounded elegant to the ear. He spoke like an old gentleman. He phrased his speech in a classical manner. He spoke quickly, but he was very, very articulate. His voice was like a cello. His manner of speaking was haughty, pretentious, and a little sarcastic.
“I’ve prepared nearly a hundred sets of clothing, and you are going to model these clothes over the course of the next couple of days. The photographer will take nearly ten thousand photos, and a select few of them will be published in magazines or commercial brochures. Those magazines and brochures will then be provided to high-paying customers for them to skim through. Out of all those sets of clothing, a great deal of them are sleeveless or short-sleeved designs.”
“Our contract also stipulates that you have an obligation to model some of these clothes on the runway. Media isn’t going to edit the photos for you. I also can’t guarantee that every runway outfit will have sleeves long enough to cover your wrists.”
His words took another turn, still as condescending as before.
“How have your parents been? Do you love them?”
Gu Qingchi couldn’t figure out what he was playing at. He answered the first question almost immediately.
“They’ve been very well.”
As for the second question, he hesitated a little but firmly responded.
“Yes, I love them.”
Alan didn’t pay Gu Qingchi’s hesitation any mind. He continued to ask.
“Do you have any siblings? How is your relationship with them?”
“I have an older brother. We have a pretty good relationship.”
Alan looked up at him.
“Do you have a lover?”
Gu Qingchi paused for much longer this time. His ears started to turn red. He dawdled for quite a bit, seeming somewhat shy.
“I-I guess you could say that.”
Alan didn’t hold on to this point for too long. He let go of the other’s wrist and clapped his hands twice. His tone of voice sounded rather sarcastic.
He shot a sidelong glance towards Gu Qingchi.
“Ha. Great. It was your parents, brother, and lover who covered for your stupid behavior. Now, everyone here has to cover for your mistakes.”
“I hope you don’t do something stupid like this again. Understood?”
“I believe I just asked a question.”
It seemed he wasn’t going to let it go without an answer from Gu Qingchi.
“Understood.”
Alan then turned towards the makeup artist and asked her a question.
“Can you cover it up?”
Ktf wjxfeq jgalra rqbxf tbcfrais.
“Pa’ii yf xlcv bo tjgv. Llr rxlc abcf vfolclafis kbc’a ibbx jr cjaegji.”
Cijc ufraegfv klat tlr tjcvr ab ifa tfg xcbk atja tf ecvfgrabbv. Lf vlvc’a aegc tlr tfjv. Lf rlwqis ujnf jc bgvfg ab tlr jrrlrajca.
“Xfa rbwf rmjgnfr, kglrayjcvr, ygjmfifar, ktjafnfg sbe mjc olcv. Po la mjc mbnfg tlr kglra, yglcu la tfgf.”
He then started urging the staff into action.
“Get moving. Quit standing in place.”
Alan then straightened his suit. He walked over to the person in charge and lowered his voice.
“Reduce today’s workload by half. Push it back. If all else fails, just drag it out a bit longer. Make sure to keep an eye on the model’s emotional state.”
After giving these orders, he once again started to complain.
“I’ve seriously had enough. Why am I always running into these kinds of problems? It’s not like I’m their dad. I’m not even married yet. Why am I worrying about these sorts of things?”
⁂
No matter how many times he was cued online, Xie Luyu didn’t respond. He didn’t even pick up phone calls from his friends or Pan Xiaocheng.
He wasn’t at home. He had made a trip to the so-called “marital home” that he had shared with Gu Qingchi.
Gu Qingchi had lived there during those two years.
Xie Luyu from two years ago was already financially independent. He could live wherever he wanted. If it wasn’t a place he liked, he wouldn’t go there even once.
However, Gu Qingchi couldn’t do that. If his life had gone the way it was supposed to, he would still be in school. He would still be a child living happily under the protection of his parents. He didn’t have any money. He hadn’t had any choice.
Xie Luyu was visiting here for the first time in a very long while. The surrounding environment was very nice. However, the tradeoff was that it was far from the city center. This isolated place was surrounded by villas. Most of them were empty, but it was typically elderly retirees living in the few that weren’t. Many of them were wealthy individuals living out the remainder of their lives in the suburbs.
It was difficult to even get a taxi here.
Xie Luyu knew that Gu Qingchi couldn’t drive. In that case, Gu Qingchi must’ve had no choice but to stay in the house most of the time.
The house was so big that it made one feel flustered. The house was so tidy that one could hardly tell that someone had once lived here all alone for two years.
He also went to see the garden. Gu Qingchi had once tilled a small patch of land and planted roses there. However, the roses had long since withered away, and the weeds had overgrown everything.
The garden seemed far too big for that small patch of roses.
He walked through each and every room, trying to find a trace of Gu Qingchi.
In the end, all he found was a patch of withered roses in the garden, an open book in the study, and a marriage certificate in the living room.
Gu Qingchi hadn’t taken the certificate with him. It had already been stamped with a rectangle shaped seal, deeming it null and void.
Xie Luyu sat in the living room with the little red book on the coffee table in front of him.
He sat there, his entire person crumpled on the sofa. He rested his head on the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. He seemed to have lost all his energy, and his eyes were bloodshot. His entire person was despondent, devastated.
He couldn’t help but imagine how Gu Qingchi must have lived at that time.
Gu Qingchi was forced to terminate his studies at that time. He’d been torn from his campus and relied on him entirely.
However, he chose to take out his anger on someone else, he chose to take it out on another victim, Gu Qingchi. Gu Qingchi, who had just entered society at the time, had no choice but to take it.
Xie Luyu was his only bridge into this new environment, so, once his initial fear and anxiety had passed, he instinctively clung to this bridge.
However, this bridge had been closed to him from the very beginning.
He called for help many times, but it wasn’t of any use. Hence, he began falling deeper and deeper into the abyss as the days went by.
Later, this bridge broke, they divorced, and he was once again thrown into another unfamiliar environment.
Thus, he learned how to survive in society, he learned how to work, and he learned how to make money. These were things that were never taught in school.
Xie Luyu had once thought that Gu Qingchi’s depression was genetic. However, he saw the video of Gu Qingchi at a sports competition. He looked so happy at that time, like a little sun. He’d been the center of his classmates and friends.
Now, however, he could slit his wrists open without the slightest hesitation.
There were many perpetrators in this incident, and he was among them. This was the worst part of it for Xie Luyu.
He’d spent all this time trying not to be like his parents, fickle towards love and irresponsible towards family.
He was going to cherish his lover. He was going to take on family responsibilities.
However, the reality was that he’d already messed everything up himself.
His phone suddenly rang. It was also on the coffee table, sitting right next to the annulled marriage certificate. Xie Luyu blanked for a moment before picking it up.
“Hello?”
Pan Xiaocheng was quiet for a while. Xie Luyu’s voice didn’t sound quite right, so he tentatively asked.
“You’re crying?”
Xie Luyu looked up at the ceiling, blinked back his tears, and quickly responded.
“No.”
“Here’s the situation. A woman named Mrs. Gu wants to talk to you. I wasn’t sure if you knew her or not. Should I agree … ”
Pan Xiaocheng didn’t even have a chance to ask him when he was free.
Xie Luyu instantly became tense and sat up.
“Yes. Ask her what time would work for her.”
Pan Xiaocheng was stunned for a moment. He was starting to suspect that Xie Luyu had cried himself silly. Usually, the inviter would ask for the invitee’s schedule and work around them. He was calling to ask Xie Luyu what time would be convenient for him.
“I called to ask what time would work for you.”
Xie Luyu refused.
“No, no, no. I’m free anytime. You should ask her.”
Pan Xiaocheng agreed.
⁂
Mrs. Gu had developed a habit of surfing through Weibo because of Gu Qingchi. She knew about everything that happened online almost as soon as it happened.
She watched that one variety show once. She then took a screenshot of the texts and read them many times over.
The more she read the texts, the more distressed she felt. Those words were so stifling and so heavy. These were only a small portion of what her little boy had written down.
Once her distress had passed, she was left with nothing but burning anger. Mr. Gu had been scolded several times over the past couple of days.
His investigation had been a bit of a rush job. He’d been focused on what went wrong at the hospital and the general trajectory of Gu Qingchi’s life, so all he knew was that Gu Qingchi hadn’t completed his studies and was once divorced.
Of course, these didn’t sound like pleasant experiences. Mr. Gu was concerned, but he never questioned Gu Qingchi about it. He’d been absent from Gu Qingchi’s life for so many years. He hadn’t been able to guide Gu Qingchi like he should have. Regardless of what really went down, he had no right to comment.
Moreover, Gu Qingchi and Xie Luyu’s marriage had been very, very secret. Mr. Gu had looked into it at the time but found nothing, so he simply assumed that the child had been young and ignorant and had rushed into marriage.
He was satisfied to just have the child by his side. Now that his son was back, his only priority was to study up on how to properly raise him. He’d also been busy dealing with Gu Cheng and the others. As more and more things started to pile up, he slowly stopped clinging onto the past.
However, he’d never expected there to be an arranged marriage.
Mrs. Gu had probably been of the same mind, but that didn’t prevent her from venting her anger on Mr. Gu.
“What kind of a father are you? How could you not know about this? What are you even here for?”
“Trash! Trash! How dare they ruin my child! I want them to pay!”
The more she spoke, the more upset she became. Her emotional state had fluctuated too much. She grabbed the front of Mr. Gu’s clothes and buried herself in Mr. Gu’s embrace.
“Gu Jiu! Gu Jiu!”
Mr. Gu had been quiet as she cursed at him, silently accepting everything, but he piped up at this moment to comfort her.
“Don’t worry. None of them will escape.”
Her little boy might be an adult already, but, in her mind, he was still a child. She didn’t ask Gu Qingchi about his divorce or dropping out of school, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t care. She did care. She cared very, very much.
She had never imagined that one of her children would one day drop out of school, get married, and get divorced.
However, her thoughts were the same as Mr. Gu’s. She hadn’t been there to guide him, so, no matter how opposed she was to some of the choices he made, she had no right to interfere.
Still, she never imagined that Gu Qingchi’s life would be destroyed by someone else like this. He turned out to be very good even in that sort of environment.
No one had cared for him, yet he had still grown up so well. He’d ranked at the top of his school. He’d made the school honor’s list. He also liked sports. He was popular with his friends. He’d been liked by everyone.
He had also laughed happily among his friends once.
