Ren Yizhuo dragged Gong Yingxian into the emergency stairwell in one breath. He organized his words for a moment, then said somewhat helplessly, “Actually, I’ve been wanting to find a chance to tell you.”
“When?” Gong Yingxian looked at Ren Yizhuo expressionlessly, his tone somewhat aggressive.
Ren Yizhuo was momentarily at a loss for words. He realized that Gong Yingxian’s reaction really was unusual, especially…cold and hard. It clearly wasn’t his imagination.
He thought for a moment, took out his phone, opened the photo album, found a picture, and showed it to Gong Yingxian.
Gong Yingxian looked closely, and his body immediately stiffened.
It was the photograph of Ren Xiangrong carrying six-year-old Gong Yingxian out of the fire. It had been taken eighteen years ago and published in the newspaper at the time.
Gong Yingxian looked at the date the photograph had been taken, and his expression became even darker.
“You knew two or three months ago.” At that time, the two of them had only just met.
Ren Yizhuo sincerely explained, “I didn’t tell you for two reasons. At first, it was because we really weren’t familiar with each other. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to use our connection to get close to you. Later, it was because of what happened to your family. I thought my dad should know something, but his condition is very unstable. I was afraid he might not remember anything at all, and if I told you, it would only give you false hope. So I wanted to talk to him first. This time, I really did get some useful information from him, which is why I planned to tell you.”
Gong Yingxian reached out and took Ren Yizhuo’s phone. He stared at it intently, his gaze growing increasingly gloomy.
“…Are you angry?” This was completely different from any reaction Ren Yizhuo had anticipated. Actually, he wasn’t even sure what kind of reaction Gong Yingxian should have had. After all, this photograph could bring back too many painful memories. It was just that the inexplicable anger made him uneasy and confused.
Gong Yingxian suddenly raised his head. His gaze revealed an indescribably sharp intensity.
“Your father…does he also have a mole on his nose?”
Ren Yizhuo froze for a moment. “I inherited it from him.” He couldn’t help touching his nose. This question was simply too strange.
Gong Yingxian said in a low voice, “I didn’t expect that we were already connected back then.”
“Yeah. There are really so many coincidences in this world.” Ren Yizhuo frowned. “I didn’t deliberately keep it from you, but you don’t have to get angry about it.”
Gong Yingxian’s expression was extremely complicated. “I don’t like it when you hide things from me.”
“I just never found the right opportunity.” Actually, after the two of them had become increasingly familiar with each other, this matter had become more and more awkward in his heart. If he deliberately brought it up, it would make him seem as though he were taking credit. He had always hoped that Gong Yingxian would discover it himself. He hadn’t expected it to come out of a third person’s mouth, making the situation even stranger.
Gong Yingxian took a deep breath, seemingly suppressing something.
“At the time, was your father the first person to enter the fire?”
“He should have been. He was the captain of the unit at the time, the position I have now. Whenever there was danger, he was always the first to lead the charge.” Ren Yizhuo asked, “Why did you ask about the ‘mole’?”
“…”
Chaotic images surfaced in Gong Yingxian’s mind. Over the years, with the help of a hypnotist, he had desperately tried to reconstruct his childhood memories, but large portions of them were still blank and blurred.
At the scene of the car-burning case, similar surroundings, temperatures, and smells had created an environment resembling that of back then. So when he saw the mole on the bridge of Ren Yizhuo’s nose, he suddenly relived fragments of his memories.
There was a person in those memories who also had a mole on his nose. That person seemed to be very important, but he couldn’t piece together anything more.
All this time, he had been suspicious of the firefighters who had responded to the scene back then. To fabricate evidence and distort a murder into a suicide, it would probably have taken more than one party’s power to accomplish it. About ten years ago, they had investigated the group of firefighters who had responded to the call at the time, but found nothing. So they hadn’t pursued it further. After all, their investigation had been focused on the police.
And at that time, he had no particular thoughts about the surname Ren, nor had the memory of the “mole on the bridge of the nose” been awakened.
Now, this piece of information connected several suspicious points, leaving him unable to decide what to think for the moment.
Why had Ren Yizhuo hidden this from him for so long?
Ren Yizhuo looked at Gong Yingxian in confusion, waiting for his answer.
Gong Yingxian avoided the main point and said, “I have a vague impression.”
“About this mole?” Ren Yizhuo said. “So much time has passed, and you were so young back then. It’s normal that you don’t remember someone’s appearance but remember certain features.”
“What clues did your father give you?” Gong Yingxian asked again.
“He said the dispatch report from back then must contain more information than what he remembers now. He also had some doubts about where the fire started and told me to investigate.”
Gong Yingxian secretly clenched his fist.
“When are you bringing your father here? I want to meet him personally.”
“After we finish dealing with the concert.” Ren Yizhuo gave him a warning beforehand. “But my dad is unconscious or confused half the time right now. If he has an episode, don’t take it personally.”
“…I won’t.” Complicated thoughts churned in Gong Yingxian’s eyes.
Ren Yizhuo felt somewhat stifled inside. He always felt that Gong Yingxian’s series of reactions was extremely unusual, and that there was something he was hiding from him. Since he was straightforward by nature, he simply asked, “What exactly is wrong with you?”
“I’m just very shocked.” Gong Yingxian suddenly remembered something. “If your father responded to the call for the fire at my house back then, then he should also have participated in the rescue at Baosheng Chemical Plant, right?”
“Yeah. Thirteen units were mobilized at the time. My dad even received a second-class merit for that rescue.” Ren Yizhuo frowned. “Yingxian, is there something you haven’t told me?”
Gong Yingxian pressed his lips together. How could he tell him that he was suspicious of Ren Yizhuo’s father?
He didn’t want to suspect him. He was unwilling to suspect him. But he could hardly control his thoughts from spreading in every direction.
After pondering for a moment, he said, “I just remembered a lot of…bad memories.”
Ren Yizhuo let out a soft sigh.
“Your father saved me. I should thank him.” Gong Yingxian also felt that he was thinking too much. At the very least, he trusted Ren Yizhuo, and he shouldn’t baselessly suspect Ren Yizhuo’s father.
Only then did Ren Yizhuo relax slightly. “No need to thank him. That was my dad’s duty.”
Gong Yingxian stared at Ren Yizhuo. “Don’t hide anything from me again in the future.”
“Yes, sir.” Ren Yizhuo wanted to ease the atmosphere, so he joked, “Look at us. To put it in a more literary way, we’re practically bound by fate. If this were a TV drama, we’d end up getting married in the end, hahaha.”
Gong Yingxian’s heart stirred. “Mm. It really is fate.”
“So it’s pretty appropriate for me to call you ‘Old Gong’ too.” Ren Yizhuo blinked mischievously. “But don’t let anyone else call you that.”
“No one dares.” At first, Gong Yingxian had thought the nickname was extremely stupid, but he couldn’t be bothered to argue with Ren Yizhuo about it. Yet he increasingly felt that having a name exclusive to Ren Yizhuo wasn’t a bad thing. Besides, those two words carried an intimacy that ordinary people could not presume to have.
Ren Yizhuo’s heart began to race. He couldn’t help saying, “Yingxian, I especially like…the feeling of being together with you.”
Gong Yingxian narrowed his eyes slightly, as though a tiny electric current had brushed across his skin.
He could only use this kind of wording to conceal what he truly wanted to say. Ren Yizhuo’s heart felt both sour and sweet. He grinned.
“It’s all fate, haha.”
“You’ve had many friends from childhood until now. Are your other friends also like…us?” Actually, he couldn’t even explain whether the “like this” between them really meant “like that.” He only vaguely felt that there was something different between them.
Or rather, he hoped there was something different between them.
To put it even further, he absolutely could not tolerate Ren Yizhuo being like this with anyone else.
Ren Yizhuo answered without hesitation, “No. You’re different from everyone else.”
Gong Yingxian stared deeply into his eyes. His tone became urgent, without even realizing it himself.
“How are we different?”
“…You’re more important than anyone else.” Ren Yizhuo’s gaze was clear and open.
Gong Yingxian’s breathing instantly became heavy, and his heartbeat accelerated to the point of discomfort.
It was happening again.
There was something that wanted to break through the restraints of his body and the shackles of reason. It boiled his blood and set his thoughts ablaze. It wanted to pour itself onto Ren Yizhuo all at once, without holding anything back.
Even Gong Yingxian couldn’t explain what it was. He could only describe it as an enormous impulse and desire.
Again!
The first time had been inside the fire truck. The second time had been beneath the ruins of the hospital. And this time…this time it was merely because Ren Yizhuo was looking into his eyes, smiling at him with a sincerity as pure as flawless jade, a smile that made every cell in his body tingle, and telling him that he was more important than anyone else.
What was wrong with him?!
A vague suspicion had begun to form in his heart, but that suspicion made his scalp prickle and left him utterly flustered. Just as a tiny spark of light had begun to appear, he ruthlessly extinguished it.
But the little self-control he had left was already struggling to handle both sides at once. He suppressed his soul, and his body moved unconsciously.
As though possessed, he suddenly reached out, pressed a hand firmly against Ren Yizhuo’s chest, and shoved him hard against the wall.
Caught completely off guard, Ren Yizhuo was pinned to the wall by Gong Yingxian’s powerful hand. Trapped between the wall and Gong Yingxian’s tall body, he couldn’t move.
He stared at Gong Yingxian in shock.
What came through his palm was Ren Yizhuo’s hot, vigorous heartbeat.
Gong Yingxian leaned closer to Ren Yizhuo. His unfathomably deep eyes roamed over Ren Yizhuo’s face. When they settled on those crimson lips, his heart trembled, and he immediately remembered the softness and warmth of those lips.
“…Yingxian?”
Ren Yizhuo was frightened by Gong Yingxian. He had never seen this person show such an expression before. It was as if…as if a wild beast were staring at its prey.
Those eyes, which were calm and even cold for most of the time, now flickered with a wild, primal light, as though he might suddenly pounce and attack in the very next second.
Dangerous tension filled the air, making Ren Yizhuo afraid to move even an inch. Because he was too shocked, he didn’t even notice how ambiguous their current positions were, or how Gong Yingxian’s body was continually pressing closer.
That call awakened Gong Yingxian.
Like someone under a spell, the instant he came back to himself, he broke out in a cold sweat. As if he had been burned, he immediately pulled his hand back and took a step backward, saying stiffly, “I…I just wanted to remind you that you can’t lie to me.”
“…I didn’t lie to you.”
“You said I’m more important than anyone else, so I must be the most important person in your heart.” Gong Yingxian avoided Ren Yizhuo’s puzzled gaze. The hand he had placed behind his back clenched into a fist, his short fingernails barely digging into his palm, all so that the pain could force him to regain some clarity.
Was he crazy?
Or was he sick?
Although he was not good at socializing, he had still interacted with all kinds of people, all sorts of people. Not one of them was like Ren Yizhuo, capable of drawing him into such an unfamiliar emotional state and consequently producing unfamiliar physical reactions.
What was wrong with him?!
Completely unaware of Gong Yingxian’s inner struggle, Ren Yizhuo remained resolute.
“Yes. You’re the most important person in my heart.”
He screamed silently in his heart: Because I fucking like you. I like you so much.
His surging feelings of love had already poured out through his eyes, but he had to keep his mouth tightly shut.
Gong Yingxian only felt that this tiny stairwell, this stairwell filled everywhere with Ren Yizhuo’s presence, voice, scent, and breath, was somewhere he could not stay for even another second. Otherwise, he might do something completely out of control.
He turned around.
“Let’s go back.”
After saying that, he forcefully opened the door and strode out.
Ren Yizhuo let out a long breath and gently licked his lips, a trace of bitterness rising in his heart.
He was already almost unable to suppress his desire to have Gong Yingxian as his own.