Quan Xiaoyu’s expression was extremely unpleasant. He had been doing everything he could to suppress the urge to punch someone.
“Who are you?” Chu Tian deliberately tightened his arm around Quan Xiaoyu, asking with a fake smile. He also took a small step forward, using his own body to put some distance between Jia Lunxu and Quan Xiaoyu.
His action wasn’t protective.
It was provocative.
Sure enough, males were all highly sensitive to provocation. Jia Lunxu immediately felt his scalp prickle and automatically went on guard.
He was extremely displeased by what Chu Tian had done. Over the past two months, he had grown accustomed to giving orders and having others obey them. As a supernatural ability user, he also felt that he should naturally be above ordinary people. Faced with such a provocation, he was both angry and excited.
Having an opponent who was too weak always made things feel boring, didn’t it?
“I’m Xiaoyu’s boyfriend. Who are you?” Jia Lunxu said, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows arrogantly.
Chu Tian put on a surprised expression, then turned his head toward Quan Xiaoyu and made an exaggerated face, as if saying: Your taste really isn’t very good, huh!
The anger filling Quan Xiaoyu was immediately defused by half.
He knew this person was deliberately trying to make him laugh. He couldn’t help feeling grateful, and his emotions settled down considerably.
He absolutely could not lose his composure first. Whoever lost their composure first would lose!
“I’m sorry, sir.” Quan Xiaoyu said coldly, “You mean my ex-boyfriend. Thank you.”
Then he turned to Chu Tian and said apologetically, “Sorry. I was blind before, and apparently my brain had been eaten by a dog. I only recently managed to find it again. You don’t mind, do you?”
Chu Tian hurriedly shook his head and answered with great seriousness, “Of course not, of course not. When you’re alive in this world, who can guarantee they’ll never get bitten by a dog?”
As he spoke, he turned his body and pushed Jia Lunxu farther aside, then put on another fake smile.
“Sorry, you’re blocking the way.”
With that, he turned and walked away with Quan Xiaoyu, returning to their group.
They left behind a furious Jia Lunxu and a completely bewildered Xie Mingxuan.
As soon as they returned to their group, Li Nan came over. He asked worriedly, “Brother Xiaoyu, who was that person? Do you know him? He didn’t look very friendly.”
Quan Xiaoyu gave a bitter smile.
Even Li Nan could tell that something was wrong between him and Jia Lunxu?
Li Nan was still a child. There were some things he simply couldn’t tell him, so Quan Xiaoyu only shook his head with a bitter smile.
But Chu Tian pulled him aside. Only after they were somewhere with no one else around did he say, “Do you want to find someone to tell your story to?”
As he spoke, he pointed at himself.
Quan Xiaoyu was amused.
Yes. Maybe it really was time to find someone to talk to.
He had kept so many things buried in his heart for so long. When his parents had still been alive, he had at least had someone to confide in.
After his parents died, he became even more withdrawn, until he no longer had anyone to talk to.
Thinking about everything that had happened between them over the past two months, perhaps Chu Tian really would be a good person to confide in.
Quan Xiaoyu leaned against the wall and slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor. He wrapped his arms around his knees and organized his thoughts.
Chu Tian imitated him and sat down beside him. The two of them sat pressed closely together.
“I’ve never been talkative since I was little, and I didn’t have any friends. But I had parents who loved me and a warm family. Actually, I’ve always been very insecure. I felt that I was different from everyone else and not very smart. I always felt like I was causing trouble for my parents. But my parents never thought I was a burden. They were always encouraging me. But…”
Quan Xiaoyu stopped for a long time.
“But then they suddenly left. A plane crash. It happened so suddenly, so suddenly that it didn’t feel real at all. For a very long time, I couldn’t accept it.”
“That person was named Jia Lunxu. Meeting him… for a long time afterward, I believed that he was an unexpected gift from heaven.”
“We first met at my parents’ funeral. At that time, I absolutely refused to accept the fact that my parents were gone. I didn’t want to grieve, and I didn’t want to cry even more. I always felt that if I cried, they wouldn’t come back.”
“All those so-called relatives from my family surrounded me, accusing me of being cold-blooded and calling me an ungrateful wretch. They said I wasn’t worthy of inheriting my parents’ estate.”
Quan Xiaoyu smiled faintly.
“Actually, I didn’t even know most of them. I had never seen them at home before. I had no idea why, as soon as my parents were gone, they suddenly appeared.”
“Then I heard them arguing over the inheritance. Actually, I didn’t care about it at all. Really. I didn’t care about the money, the shops, or the houses. As long as my parents could come back, I didn’t want any of it. If my parents were gone, those things didn’t mean anything to me anyway.”
“They were so noisy. Really noisy. They made my head feel like it was going to explode. I kept thinking, why couldn’t they just shut up? Why couldn’t they be a little quieter?”
“So I asked Uncle Li. Oh—”
Quan Xiaoyu explained, “Uncle Li is Xiaonan’s father. He was my father’s best friend when he was alive.”
“I asked Uncle Li how we could get them to leave. Uncle Li said they wanted to seize the property my parents had left behind, so we had to sue them. I thought it was such a hassle, so I told the lawyer that I only wanted the house I lived in. I didn’t want anything else.”
As he spoke, he gave another self-deprecating laugh and asked Chu Tian, “Was I stupid?”
Chu Tian shook his head.
“Ordinary people will never understand that a precious emotional bond is worth far more than those material possessions. If they’re willing to fight over them, then let them have them. It’s no big deal.”
He reached out and rubbed Quan Xiaoyu’s head.
Quan Xiaoyu froze for a moment, then smiled and continued.
“I really didn’t think that much about it at the time. I only wanted those people out of my life. I wanted to stay at home and quietly wait for my parents to come back.”
“Actually, although I refused to admit it, deep down, I knew my parents would never come back. So I was actually very sad.”
“I left the funeral and found a corner, just like this, and sat there quietly. Then I met Jia Lunxu.”
“The first time I saw him, he handed me a tissue. He bent down, standing against the light, and said to me, ‘You’re crying.’”
“At that moment, when I saw him, I felt that this person was filled with sunshine. He possessed something I could probably never have in my entire life. That first encounter left a deep impression on me.”
“After that, whenever I went out, I would run into him. I often couldn’t manage my own life properly, and he would come help me. As time went on, we just ended up together.”
Quan Xiaoyu shook his head, his mocking tone unchanged.
“Looking back now, my brain really must have been eaten by a dog back then.”
He glanced at Chu Tian.
“His approach was so obvious and deliberate, yet I didn’t notice it at all back then. Slowly, I fell in love with him, and then I became even more stupid.”
“Grief clouded your judgment, and love blinded you,” Chu Tian said with a smile.
“Thank you for finding the perfect excuse for my stupidity.” Quan Xiaoyu covered his forehead. After saying it all out loud, he felt much better.
“You’re welcome.” Chu Tian raised an eyebrow. “You can continue.”
He stretched out a hand and made an inviting gesture.
By now, Quan Xiaoyu felt much more relaxed. He continued, “After that, there wasn’t much more to it. Just a cliché, melodramatic story. Before the apocalypse, I discovered that he was only after my money and my house. I just don’t know how he found out about my circumstances. Maybe it was those relatives with ulterior motives. Who knows?”
“Then, before I even had time to feel sad, the apocalypse came. After that, I was busy killing zombies and surviving, so I had long since thrown this person to the back of my mind. I never expected to run into him today.”
“Actually, when I look back now, there were so many obvious holes in everything. For example, he never mentioned his family and never talked about his past. Two or three nights a week, he wouldn’t come home, saying he was working overtime. Yet I didn’t even know where he worked. Tell me, how could I have been so stupid back then?”
Actually, for Quan Xiaoyu, all of those things had happened several years ago.
In his previous life, he often went over certain details in his mind and gradually discovered all the inconsistencies and things that hadn’t been right. Now that he was suddenly talking about them again, however, everything felt incredibly vivid.
Apparently, they really had been buried in his heart for far too long. All the sadness and pain had never had the chance to be released.
Now, although he was still sad, he could finally talk about it calmly.
It was like a malignant growth that had been growing inside your heart for a long time. You were afraid to touch it, always thinking it would hurt terribly if you did.
But when you finally made up your mind to cut it out, you discovered that throwing it away was actually that easy.
“Because…” Chu Tian shifted his body slightly, his eyes fixed directly on Quan Xiaoyu.
“Because you’re a pure-hearted person. So when you trust someone, you turn into an idiot.”
“But…”
Chu Tian suddenly moved his face close to Quan Xiaoyu’s.
“I actually quite like this kind of stupidity of yours.”
“Really. If you’re not opposed to men, would you be willing to be my idiot for a while?”
His voice suddenly became low and magnetic, instantly filled with temptation.
This was a side of Chu Tian that Quan Xiaoyu had never seen before.
The sudden confession-like words startled him. He became extremely flustered and tried to scramble to his feet, but Chu Tian immediately pressed him back down.
At this moment, Chu Tian seemed somewhat domineering, completely unlike his usual gentle, mild-mannered self.
“I’m not forcing you to agree,” he said, “but you have to take me seriously and think about it carefully.”
His gaze was somewhat forceful.
Quan Xiaoyu was a little dazed.
He had never seen Chu Tian like this before, but he could see the seriousness in Chu Tian’s eyes.
He struggled a few times, but Chu Tian held him down tightly, as if he were afraid Quan Xiaoyu would run away.
Chu Tian knew very well that with someone like Quan Xiaoyu, once the right opportunity presented itself, he had to seize it immediately and push things forward. Otherwise, this big blockhead might never figure things out for the rest of his life.
Author’s Note:
I was too tired today, so I didn’t proofread this chapter before posting. There may be quite a few typos. Please forgive me.
P.S. Thank you to all the sweet readers who expressed concern. I was actually struggling with writer’s block today, but I managed to force myself to update. I’m not particularly satisfied with it myself, so please forgive me.
If I end up not updating tomorrow, it means I’m taking a day to adjust my condition. At most, it’ll only be one day. I’ll do my best not to skip an update.
Send the next excerpt whenever you’re ready.