Ren Yi scratched his head, looking thoroughly troubled. Seeing how genuinely upset Gong Yingxian seemed, he found himself unable to say what he had originally intended—to hand over the recording and tell him to hurry back.
“Um, let’s go inside and talk.” Ren Yi pointed toward the reception room nearby.
The two of them entered the room and closed the door. Ren Yi sighed. “What is this thing?”
Gong Yingxian took a gift box out of the paper bag and opened it. Inside was unmistakably a… broken skeleton.
“…”
“It was the first bearded dragon I ever raised. Its name was Lily.” Gong Yingxian said dejectedly, “It passed away of old age a while ago, so I made it into a specimen. I wanted to give it to you.”
The specimen had originally held a special meaning, but now its shape had been ruined. It was practically impossible to tell what it had looked like anymore.
Ren Yi had long expected that anything Gong Yingxian gave him would be unusual, but he had never imagined it would be an animal specimen. Still, the skeleton was clean and white. Although its spine had now been broken into several pieces, he could still imagine what it must have looked like intact. Gong Yingxian had clearly put a great deal of care into preparing it.
“Can it be glued back together?”
“Yes, but there will be visible marks.” Gong Yingxian thought of Yan Jue, and anger immediately appeared on his face. “I shouldn’t have let him leave!”
Ren Yi frowned. “It was wrong of Yan Jue to kick it and break it, but you were the one who started this.”
Gong Yingxian glared at Ren Yi. “You’re even taking his side?!”
“This isn’t about taking anyone’s side. You were the one who insulted him first. Even if you dislike Yan Jue, he’s still the captain of a special operations firefighting squad. The two of you should show each other mutual respect. The way you keep targeting him, over and over, is neither how a police officer should behave nor how an adult should behave.”
“Didn’t he target me, too? He kept provoking me. The way he looks at you is wrong. The way he talks to you is wrong. Even his presence beside you is wrong.”
“What kind of twisted logic is that?” Ren Yi rebuked him softly.
“Fine. What I say is twisted logic.” Gong Yingxian gritted his teeth. “Just like your deputy squad leader said, there’s something wrong with my personality. I’m difficult to get along with. I treat everyone badly, and no one can stand me. Is that it?!”
“Gao Ge was just trying to break up the fight. He was saying whatever he could to calm things down.” Ren Yi’s words lacked conviction, however. Because he loved Gong Yingxian, he was willing to accept all the unusual things about him. But what about everyone else? Thinking back to the countless times he had been driven crazy when he first met Gong Yingxian, perhaps other people really did think the way Gao Ge did.
“But he meant it, didn’t he?” Gong Yingxian’s lips trembled slightly. “Everyone around you thinks that way. Do you think that way, too?”
“I don’t.” Ren Yi answered without hesitation. “But that doesn’t mean I agree with everything you do. For example, what you did to my father, and what happened today.”
He took a deep breath. “I’ll still have to apologize to Yan Jue later.”
“What gives you the right to apologize to him?!” Gong Yingxian snapped angrily. “Does he like you?”
“No.” Before he had even decided how to answer, Ren Yi had already denied it outright. He immediately felt conflicted about the instinctive lie.
Gong Yingxian clearly didn’t believe him. “You really can’t tell?”
“I said no, so no. You’re overreacting.” Ren Yi gritted his teeth and stubbornly denied it. He knew admitting the truth would only bring more trouble—for all three of them.
He continued, “Besides, what does any of this have to do with you?” He took out the recording and tossed it to Gong Yingxian. “You should go back now.”
Gong Yingxian demanded sharply, “What do you mean, it has nothing to do with me?!”
“It has nothing to do with you in the first place.” Ren Yi suppressed the grief and indignation surging inside him. “What are we to each other, huh? We’re nothing more than fuck buddies. No promises, no feelings. We can call it quits at any time, and we can find someone else whenever we want.”
“How dare you!”
Gong Yingxian was absolutely furious. Hearing Ren Yi say those words made his scalp practically explode.
“You dared to use me and my father. What is there that I wouldn’t dare to do?!”
Gong Yingxian planted his large hand against Ren Yi’s chest and shoved him backward, pinning him directly against the wall. The bridge of his tall nose nearly collided with Ren Yi’s. Staring at him with bloodshot eyes, he gritted his teeth and said, “I won’t allow you to call it quits with me! I won’t allow you to find someone else!”
Ren Yi tried to push Gong Yingxian away, but Gong Yingxian clamped both his wrists in an unyielding grip. The two glared furiously at each other, both hoping to find something in the other’s eyes, yet neither knew exactly what it was they were searching for.
“Let go,” Ren Yi said quietly.
“No.” Gong Yingxian’s voice was hoarse. “Why are you so nice to Yan Jue, but treat me like this…? He ruined the gift I wanted to give you, and you’re still going to apologize to him.”
“If you knew how to apologize when you did something wrong, I wouldn’t have to apologize on your behalf.”
“How can you say I don’t know how?” Gong Yingxian demanded anxiously. “I’ve never lowered my head to anyone in my entire life, but no matter how I apologize to you, you still get angry.”
“That’s because you don’t actually think you’ve done anything wrong!” Ren Yi snapped. “Whether it’s my father or Yan Jue, you don’t think you’re at fault.”
Gong Yingxian bit his lip. “I know I was wrong about the former squad leader. My mistake was hypnotizing him deeply without your consent. But I wasn’t wrong to suspect him and investigate him. I can’t apologize for something I don’t believe I did wrong.”
Ren Yi was so angry he couldn’t speak. He knew that, from a professional standpoint, Gong Yingxian’s argument wasn’t unreasonable. But on a personal level, the entire affair had been an act of exploitation and betrayal.
Gong Yingxian gazed at Ren Yi. “Yan Jue is the same. He’s obviously interested in you. I don’t know whether you really can’t tell or whether you’re pretending not to notice.”
Ren Yi said wearily, “Let go of me. I don’t want to keep talking about this.”
With red-rimmed eyes, Gong Yingxian said, “He kicked and broke my Lily, and you’re still taking his side. You’re still ignoring me. Do you… do you hate me, too? Does everyone really hate me?”
Ren Yi realized that he really was someone who softened at tenderness but resisted force. The moment Gong Yingxian acted all pitiful, his heart softened.
He let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t hate you. You’re just different from most people, and most of the people around you can understand that. That’s not the problem between us.”
“Then how do I solve the problem between us?”
“You…” Ren Yi felt that he and Gong Yingxian weren’t even communicating on the same wavelength. After thinking for a moment, he said, “Let go of me first.”
Gong Yingxian looked at Ren Yi’s lips, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. But in the end, he reluctantly released him.
Ren Yi looked at the little lizard lying there in pieces and felt a pang of sympathy. “I have some superglue upstairs. Let’s glue it back together first.”
Gong Yingxian’s eyes lit up.
A month had already passed. The earth had weathered the lingering chill of early spring in the first lunar month, and the ice and snow had begun to melt. At last, Ren Yi was starting to respond to him directly instead of constantly avoiding him as though he were something to fear.
The two returned to Ren Yi’s dormitory. Ren Yi dug out some 502 superglue and found a few toothpicks, intending to piece the specimen back together. However, the skeleton was so badly shattered that there was no way to reassemble it in a short time.
As they worked on it, Ren Yi said, “Let’s talk about Yan Jue first.”
“Mm.” Gong Yingxian answered reluctantly.
“You have to promise me that if you see him again, you’ll treat each other with mutual respect. He’s not a suspect you can order around at will. He’s a firefighting squad captain who deserves respect, just like me.”
Ren Yi lowered his voice. “You’re not as indifferent to social interactions as you think you are. You still care about how other people see you, don’t you? If that’s the case, then you need to make some changes.”
Gong Yingxian looked as though he wanted to say something but stopped himself. What he really cared about was how Ren Yi and the people around Ren Yi viewed him. As for everyone else, if he’d wanted to care about their opinions, he should have started doing so over the past twenty-odd years.
Still, he didn’t deny it. He merely muttered, “Got it.”
“Now, about my father.”
Ren Yi’s hands noticeably slowed.
“The biggest problem between us is that you have too little empathy. Since you can’t feel what I’m feeling, I’ll explain it to you. Yesterday, I spoke to my father on the phone. Do you know what he told me?”
Gong Yingxian remained silent.
“He said that lately, he’s been constantly dreaming about and thinking of his old comrades from back then. He feels that he might soon be going to join them.”
Gong Yingxian froze.
“I told you that the year nineteen years ago was the one year he had always avoided revisiting. That was his mind’s self-protection mechanism at work. But now, memories of that year keep resurfacing. He’s confused and heartbroken, and he’s suffering. He’s even beginning to suspect that he might be dying. This is all because of what you did. Do you understand?”
As Ren Yi spoke, his voice began to tremble again.
Gong Yingxian said despondently, “I’m sorry.”
“He’s my father. He’s the most important person in the world to me. That’s why I can’t come to terms with what you’ve done. It has nothing to do with how much history we have together.”
Gong Yingxian pressed his lips together and said nothing.
Ren Yi looked at him and said calmly, “I’m going to ask you a question now. You must answer honestly. Don’t lie.”
“Ask me.”
“Did you really only find out that my father and I were father and son when we were at the hospital, or did you already know and deliberately approach me?”
“I only found out at the hospital.” Gong Yingxian answered with absolute certainty.
Ren Yi looked into Gong Yingxian’s unwavering eyes and nodded. “All right. I believe you on that point. I don’t object to you investigating the case. Just like you, I want to uncover the truth about what happened back then. Not only for the sake of your revenge and the pursuit of justice, but now also to clear my father’s name. However, I firmly oppose the methods you’ve been using. Since you’re so desperate to know what happened back then, why not ask my father directly, face-to-face?”
Gong Yingxian looked at Ren Yi in surprise.
“I’ve thought about this for a long time. If I keep hiding the fact that his dreams and his feeling of being transported back to that year are caused by hypnosis, he’ll keep worrying and imagining all sorts of things. It won’t do his health any good, either. I might as well tell him. Perhaps that will help bring back more of his memories from that time. Then you can ask him your questions directly, face-to-face, and in an entirely proper manner.”
Ren Yi paused.
“Then apologize to him.”
“All right.” Gong Yingxian answered solemnly.