Ren Yizhuo’s entire body stiffened. His mind exploded with a boom, as if a bomb had taken everything around him away, leaving nothing but a blank void.
Qi Xiao’s gaze moved back and forth between their faces, and he immediately understood. Thinking back to the two times he had encountered Doctor Gong, as well as the “blind date” Ren Yizhuo had mentioned last time, he really should have figured it out sooner.
Qi Xiao gave a self-mocking smile. Ren Yizhuo had tried to save him face, yet he had insisted on throwing it away himself. It was simply too embarrassing.
Everything happening before Gong Yingxian’s eyes made his heart and lungs feel as though they were about to explode. He had never experienced such fury before. He felt the hatred of being deceived, betrayed, and robbed, as well as the pain of having something that absolutely no one was allowed to touch defiled.
Gong Yingxian slammed the things in his hands hard onto the floor. His expression was rigid and twisted, and the way he glared at Qi Xiao was sharp and icy. Gritting his teeth, he spat out one word:
“Get out.”
Qi Xiao was intimidated by Gong Yingxian’s ferocity. His spine went cold, like a jackal fighting a tiger over food, his heart filled with fear. He instinctively took two steps backward.
“I don’t want to touch you.” Gong Yingxian snarled viciously. “Get out!”
Qi Xiao’s shoulders jolted in fright, and he turned and ran.
In the empty corridor, only the two of them remained, silently facing each other. The cold air seemed to freeze along with the agonizing passage of time.
Ren Yizhuo’s mind was in complete turmoil.
Remaining calm in a crisis was a basic quality for a firefighting commander. Throughout his career, Ren Yizhuo had proven his professionalism countless times. Yet whenever something involving Gong Yingxian happened, he had lost his composure several times.
At this moment, he didn’t even dare look at Gong Yingxian. He was afraid of seeing disgust on the face he loved so deeply.
There was only one thing left in his mind:
Gong Yingxian knew.
Gong Yingxian knew that he was a “disgusting” “pervert.”
Gong Yingxian walked toward Ren Yizhuo step by step and said coldly, “Look up at me.”
Ren Yizhuo closed his eyes for a moment and gathered his courage before looking up. But when his eyes met Gong Yingxian’s storm-filled gaze, he couldn’t stop himself from trembling and looking away.
“You are…” Gong Yingxian found those three words unexpectedly difficult to say.
Ren Yizhuo drew in a sharp breath and said quietly, “I am.”
He didn’t want Gong Yingxian to know, but he also wouldn’t deny it. If he denied it, that would be indirectly admitting that being gay was a sin. He didn’t believe he had committed any sin. He had simply fallen for someone he shouldn’t have fallen for.
Gong Yingxian clenched his fists and struggled to ask the next question.
“Qi Xiao is your boyfriend.”
He finally understood what the unusual atmosphere between Ren Yizhuo and Qi Xiao had been about. Everything suddenly had a reasonable explanation.
Just when he had been delighted that he was Ren Yizhuo’s “best friend,” Qi Xiao and Ren Yizhuo had actually had a relationship that was even more intimate and important.
They embraced. They kissed. They said things to each other that only lovers would say. In places Gong Yingxian couldn’t see, they would do even more intimate things and say even more intimate words.
The Ren Yizhuo that Qi Xiao possessed was far more than the one Gong Yingxian possessed—more, for longer, and more completely.
The moment he imagined that there was another person in this world who could freely touch Ren Yizhuo’s body, kiss Ren Yizhuo’s lips, spend every day with him, laughing and talking, Gong Yingxian hated him so much that he wanted to kill someone.
Only now, when he had personally witnessed someone else doing the things he wanted to do to Ren Yizhuo, did he finally understand what Ren Yizhuo meant to him.
All those moments of happiness, all those desires, all those impulses suddenly had a reasonable explanation.
It wasn’t that he was simply ignorant.
It was because of what he had experienced as a teenager. He had always rejected this group of people, so from beginning to end—whether consciously or unconsciously—he had never included this possibility among his options.
But now he understood it more clearly than ever.
His impulse toward Ren Yizhuo was sexual.
He didn’t merely regard Ren Yizhuo as a friend.
He wanted to have him, possess him, and obtain everything this person had to give.
Yet the very thing that had made him understand all of this was the fact that Ren Yizhuo did not belong to him at all.
Ren Yizhuo opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He didn’t dare answer the question.
If he said no, what would Gong Yingxian think?
Being gay was already something extremely unacceptable in Gong Yingxian’s eyes. If he said that he and Qi Xiao only had a physical relationship, then given Gong Yingxian’s innocence and obsession with cleanliness, wouldn’t that be even more, even more unacceptable?
Gong Yingxian’s cold, vicious, resentful gaze had already pierced his heart like a sword. He was afraid of enduring anything more. He wished with all his heart that everything happening right now was only a nightmare. Then, at least, he could deceive himself and continue staying by Gong Yingxian’s side as his friend.
“Are you or aren’t you!” Gong Yingxian roared.
He wanted Ren Yizhuo to deny it.
Even though he had seen it with his own eyes, he still wanted Ren Yizhuo to deny it.
If Ren Yizhuo denied it, then he… perhaps…
But Ren Yizhuo’s silence, in Gong Yingxian’s eyes, was an admission.
Gong Yingxian viciously grabbed Ren Yizhuo by the collar. His tall body cast a shadow over Ren Yizhuo like a mountain. In a hoarse voice, he said, “Then what about me? You’re gay. You have a boyfriend. Then what am I? You’ve hidden this from me for so long. What did you take me for?”
Ren Yizhuo avoided Gong Yingxian’s eyes, feeling as though his heart were being cut apart. He said quietly, “I… hid it from you because you… you wouldn’t accept it. But I never had… any disrespectful intentions toward you. I only regarded you as a friend.”
By the end, his voice was trembling badly, and he had to force himself not to cry.
It had already reached the point where everything was practically obvious, yet he still had to stand before the person he loved and insist that he didn’t love him.
He had never known that telling a lie could feel like betraying himself.
He was betraying his instincts with his reason.
He was stabbing himself.
Again and again.
Every stab drew blood.
Gong Yingxian stared blankly at Ren Yizhuo’s pale face. Once his mind had completely absorbed and interpreted those words, his eyes turned bloodshot.
The hand gripping Ren Yizhuo’s collar made a crackling sound from the excessive force, as though what he was holding in his hand were Ren Yizhuo’s neck.
He said viciously, “You’ve never had any feelings for me.”
“…”
“When you went to my house, when we ate together, when we were under the ruins, when we were in the hospital, these past few months when you hid your sexual orientation and interacted with me—you’ve never had any feelings for me. Never, ever?!”
Ren Yizhuo’s lips trembled. He felt as though he were being executed. Gong Yingxian’s gaze and every word he spat out were blades slowly cutting him apart.
Gong Yingxian’s large hand suddenly clamped around Ren Yizhuo’s jaw, forcing his face upward to face him. He ordered, “Look into my eyes and say it.”
Ren Yizhuo was finally forced to look directly into Gong Yingxian’s eyes.
Those deep, beautiful eyes had once held happiness, concern, trust, and tenderness because of him.
Now all of it was gone.
The thing he had feared most had happened.
After learning the truth, Gong Yingxian’s eyes held nothing but coldness, viciousness, and anger.
Ren Yizhuo endured his overwhelming sorrow, hoping he could salvage even a little of what remained.
As long as Gong Yingxian stopped looking at him with that expression, he was willing to betray himself. He was willing to compromise on everything.
So, with the last of his composure, he armed his expression against the cracks threatening to split it apart and insisted, “No. Yingxian, I know what happened to you when you were young. I understand you. But I’m not the kind of person you think I am. I won’t harass anyone, and I won’t commit crimes, and even more so, I won’t… I didn’t want you to have any prejudice against me or feel uncomfortable, so that’s why I hid it from you. I only regard you as a friend. I only want to be your friend. I absolutely don’t have any… inappropriate thoughts.”
After saying all of this, Ren Yizhuo felt as though his heart had been hollowed out.
Liking someone was originally such a beautiful thing.
It was he who had turned his feelings into something shameful, something he was embarrassed to speak about.
But he had no choice.
Today, he had finally become completely clear-headed.
He would no longer fantasize about there being any future between him and Gong Yingxian.
Then, at the very least, he wanted to protect Gong Yingxian and protect their memories. He wanted to prove that pure friendship existed in this world, and that all the beautiful moments between them had never been a repetition of the “disgusting” experiences Gong Yingxian had suffered in the past.
But these words only made Gong Yingxian even more furious and resentful.
He even developed an urge to tear Ren Yizhuo apart and devour him, so that this person would never again say the things he didn’t want to hear, never do the things he didn’t want to see, and never tell him that everything that had happened between them in the past meant nothing, that none of it had any meaning.
He leaned close to Ren Yizhuo’s ear and whispered, “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
Ren Yizhuo suddenly felt a chill run through his entire body.
“I may not understand the conventional rules of human relationships very well, but I’m not stupid.” Gong Yingxian’s voice could not conceal the resentment of having been deceived and betrayed. “You’ve always had a boyfriend. So what were you thinking when you called me ‘Old Gong’? What were you thinking when you got a hard-on because of me? What were you thinking when you lay in the same bed with me? When he wasn’t around, I was just your entertainment, right? Watching me get played by you like an idiot must have made you feel pretty proud, didn’t it?”
Ren Yizhuo’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“No! No!”
He felt completely unable to defend himself.
How had he become this kind of person in Gong Yingxian’s eyes?!
“You make me feel disgusted too.”
Gong Yingxian spat the most cruel and vicious words into Ren Yizhuo’s ear.
Whether he was speaking without thinking or simply venting his anger, at this moment, his instinct for self-preservation only wanted to use every possible means to stop the pain tearing through his heart.
He hated Ren Yizhuo.
He hated the Ren Yizhuo who belonged to someone else.
He hated that Ren Yizhuo had made him, a dignified police officer, develop the impulse to lock someone up and make that person belong exclusively to him.
There was no longer any light in Ren Yizhuo’s eyes. His entire person seemed to have been emptied of his soul.
Those words had almost pushed him straight into the deepest hell.
Gong Yingxian thought he was disgusting.
The person he loved most thought he was disgusting.
Gong Yingxian released him.
If he stayed here any longer, if he kept looking at Ren Yizhuo, he was afraid he would do something irreparable.
So he walked away without looking back.
His back was no longer as straight as it normally was, and his shoulders seemed to be carrying a burden weighing a thousand jin.
Ren Yizhuo raised a hand and covered his eyes, but tears still escaped uncontrollably through the gaps between his fingers.
He should have known this day would come.
It was his own wishful thinking, his own overconfidence.
Gong Yingxian had only regarded him as a friend, yet he had become greedy and wanted more.
In the end, he had brought the consequences upon himself—and worse, he had hurt Gong Yingxian.
He had made Gong Yingxian lose the only important friend he had and forced him to remember painful experiences he wished he could forget.
Gong Yingxian already carried so much suffering, and Ren Yizhuo had only added to it.
He had hurt the person he had wanted nothing more than to protect.
He was a selfish, useless bastard.
Suddenly, the walkie-talkie in Ren Yizhuo’s pocket crackled.
“Captain Ren, something’s happened. Get to the monitoring room, now!”
Ren Yizhuo struggled to straighten himself up. He wiped his face, pressed the talk button, and said in a low voice,
“On my way.”