Early the next morning, before Chen Mo had even gotten out of bed, he could already hear a commotion starting outside.
For a small class gathering, the Yang family had gone all out with the arrangements. However, perhaps because the old man had visited the day before, the Yang couple had left home early that morning instead of staying behind to show how much importance they placed on the event, as they had done in the past.
As nine o’clock approached, quite a few cars were already parked outside the villa.
Those who got along well with Yang Shule generally came from families that weren’t too badly off. However, he was popular, and quite a few of the classmates he had invited came from ordinary backgrounds. The moment they stepped through the door, they couldn’t help exclaiming in amazement.
The dazzling array of juices and desserts.
The enormous crystal chandelier in the living room.
The butler standing by to attend to their needs, and the servants bustling back and forth.
“Shule, are you feeling better?” Five or six young men surrounded Yang Shule as they walked, expressing their concern enthusiastically. “Don’t worry. During this time, we’ve all divided up the work and prepared two copies of all the class notes. We brought yours today.”
“Exactly! You have no idea how boring things have been without you around.”
“Once you come back, we can go watch a movie together again. A new escape room just opened in the south of the city. You’re so smart, so you’ll have to lead us through it.”
Today, Yang Shule had deliberately worn the formal outfit his mother had prepared for him.
A suit paired with a bow tie, and hair carefully styled with the same attention to detail as every birthday celebration he’d had in previous years.
Hearing these words, he finally relaxed a little from his uneasiness, and a smile appeared on his face.
Before today, he had been afraid that no one would be willing to come, that they would look down on him, and, even more, that people would point fingers at him and gossip behind his back.
But the facts had proved otherwise. He wasn’t the biological son of the Chen family living in Yuhuai Village. All those interest classes and tutoring sessions he’d attended growing up hadn’t been a waste. Even if some wealthy classmates had befriended him and followed his lead simply because of his family background, his parents’ affection for him was genuine. He still bore the surname Yang, and he was still living here. That was the reality.
His angry declarations that he would leave, and his claims in front of Chen Mo that he didn’t need anyone’s charity, had merely stemmed from his fear that his parents would no longer love him, and that he would lose everything overnight.
He didn’t even bother hiding his hostility toward Chen Mo.
What could someone like Chen Mo possibly gain by barging around recklessly in a family like the Yangs? Let him fight and compete all he wanted. At an occasion like today’s gathering, the slightest thing he did would inevitably turn everyone against him.
Yang Shule glanced around. Only after confirming that Chen Mo wasn’t anywhere in sight did he withdraw his gaze and nod in response to his classmates.
“I’m almost completely recovered. I’ll be back at school very soon.”
“That’s great!” Qi Li, who had a baby face and whose family was in the catering business, couldn’t compare with the Yang family’s wealth and influence. He seemed to be the closest to Yang Shule in their daily interactions. Looking around the entrance, he spoke with unconcealed envy. “Shule, your parents are really good to you. By the way, should we go greet your uncle and aunt?”
At those words, Yang Shule’s expression suddenly stiffened.
He couldn’t very well admit to everyone that his parents, who had originally promised to help him entertain his classmates at home, weren’t there at all today.
Without revealing the slightest hint of his feelings, Yang Shule replied casually, “My parents said they wouldn’t join us since this is a gathering for the younger generation. They were afraid everyone might feel uncomfortable with them around. The family business is busy, so they aren’t home today.”
“Oh, oh, that’s fine.” Qi Li changed the subject and asked again, “What about your eldest brother?”
Yang Shule privately looked down on Qi Li’s behavior.
Qi Li had visited the Yang family several times, and each time he had secretly tried to find out more about his eldest brother, both openly and discreetly.
His eldest brother’s marriage wasn’t something he could decide for himself. He was already in regular contact with a woman, so how could anything possibly happen between him and a male high school student?
Nevertheless, Yang Shule showed nothing on his face as he replied, “My eldest brother isn’t home either.”
“Oh, he’s not home?” Disappointment flashed across Qi Li’s face for a moment, but he quickly put on a smile again. “Then we can invite your brother to our next gathering. Back when we used to get together, he paid for everyone so many times and specifically asked us to look after you. A brother like that is hard to find even with a lantern!”
The others chimed in with their agreement.
Hearing this, Yang Shule felt rather proud, so he didn’t reject the suggestion.
As more and more people arrived, Yang Shule stubbornly remained outside, occasionally looking toward the entrance as though waiting for someone.
The two or three people accompanying him exchanged knowing smiles.
Qi Li was even more direct.
“Waiting for the class monitor?”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” Yang Shule said. “The Xi family and ours just have some business dealings. A-Yan and I only met a few times when we were children. Last Chinese New Year, our families discovered that we were in the same class. You all know that I tend to suffer from allergies and catch colds whenever the seasons change, so my parents asked him to look out for me a little more at school.”
“Ohhh, A-Yan!” Someone egged him on, deliberately asking the others, “Has anyone ever heard anyone else at school call him A-Yan?”
Yang Shule pretended to raise his hand to hit the person.
“His family calls him that. It’s not like I’m the only one.”
“Exactly. It’s a nickname only his family uses!”
“A-Yan, A-Yan, A-Yan! That’s Xi Siyan we’re talking about! He’s so tall that whenever he walks past me, I practically forget to breathe.”
“Is it really that exaggerated? Those people in the experimental class ask him questions all the time. And whether it’s basketball, track and field, or just the boys and girls at school, everyone says he’s got a good personality and is a nice person.”
“He’s all right, but you haven’t seen him give someone the cold shoulder. He looks like the King of Hell. When he sits at the podium during self-study, the classroom feels like a cemetery. You could hear a pin drop.”
“Shule isn’t afraid of him, though, right?”
Yang Shule thought to himself that he still felt some pressure around Xi Siyan.
Although Xi Siyan had indeed never been cold toward him, their relationship wasn’t as close as their classmates imagined. It wasn’t even particularly special.
Yang Shule took every exam seriously, never allowing himself to fall below third place in the grade rankings, all so that his name could appear alongside Xi Siyan’s on the grade’s honor roll.
Every time he asked Xi Siyan a question, or even the two occasions when he had used his driver’s unavailability as an excuse to hitch a ride home in the Xi family’s car, or the long holiday greetings he’d sent only to receive the simplest replies in return, each of these things was enough to make his heart race for a long time.
If it hadn’t been for the upheaval a little over a month ago, he could have had many more opportunities to see him.
Someone asked, “So, is he coming today?”
“Yes.” At this point, Yang Shule’s smile looked genuinely sincere. “When I sent him the invitation, he said our homeroom teacher had asked him to bring me a competition-intention form to fill out, so he’ll be coming.”
“Right, you’re good at physics. You’ll definitely be included in this year’s competition registration.”
“Doesn’t that mean you and the class monitor will get to go away for training together?”
The entrance was bustling with activity.
Teenage boys and girls had gathered in their respective groups, chatting about all sorts of things. The girls discussed trendy manicures, outfits, pop songs, and idol dramas, while the boys talked about various esports and sports matches, as well as whose smelly socks in the boys’ dorm hadn’t been washed the previous week and had earned them a punishment of cleaning the toilets from the dorm supervisor.
Everyone who had come here today must have been harboring some curiosity.
After all, something major had happened in the Yang family, and the buzz surrounding it was still going strong.
However, since a certain person hadn’t appeared, everyone tacitly avoided the subject. No one would be so tactless as to spoil the mood by bringing it up in front of the host of the gathering.
“Why aren’t you going downstairs?” Chen Mo asked the person beside him as he leaned against the railing on the second-floor mezzanine balcony.
Gou Yiyang held a drink identical to his own and glanced downstairs.
“If even the main character of today’s drama isn’t going, what would be the point of me going down there to watch?”
Chen Mo clinked his drink can against the other man’s.
“You really are… so straightforward that it’s impossible to dislike you.”
“Likewise.” Gou Yiyang said, “Before I met you at the internet café, I never expected you to be such an interesting person.”
“Interesting?”
“Am I wrong?” Gou Yiyang raised an eyebrow. “Some people have practically described you as a village tyrant, claiming that now you’ve returned, you’re bound to turn the Yang family upside down. But from what I can see, you’re so lazy that I can’t detect even the slightest bit of fighting spirit in you, my friend.”
Chen Mo burst out laughing.
“I used to be hardworking, too,” he said.
It was just that he’d put his efforts into the wrong things. When he was in his teens, the Yang family’s power had seemed like an enormous force he couldn’t possibly shake, so all he could do was push himself harder. Later, when he grew up, he decided he had to climb high enough to make those people look up at him, and so he struggled relentlessly to rise through the ranks.
As it turned out, being at the top didn’t necessarily make life any more satisfying.
Chen Mo turned slightly, resting his arms on the solid wooden railing as he watched the lively scene below.
“I still prefer my life now. I can lie around and have more money than I could ever spend. I don’t have to work too hard, and I won’t starve in the future. And when I get really bored, well… I can still watch other people enjoy their passionate youth.”
As soon as he finished speaking, several more people arrived at the entrance downstairs.
When Xi Siyan entered, he was still wearing a simple black-and-white tracksuit with sneakers. He looked clean and striking, as though he’d merely happened to be passing by. Several boys who appeared to be on good terms with him had already gathered around him as he stepped inside. The distinctive, vigorous energy of teenage boys seemed to rush toward everyone present.
Every boy and girl in the hall paused to look, drawn toward him.
Chen Mo saw the figure following closely beside Xi Siyan. He watched as the person gently tugged at the hem of Xi Siyan’s clothes. Xi Siyan stopped, then lowered his head to accommodate the other person’s height when he recognized him, exchanging a few quiet words.
Finding the scene boring, Chen Mo turned around and asked Gou Yiyang, “I need to wake myself up a little. I was woken up too early. Want to come?”
Five minutes later, Gou Yiyang stood beside the enormous swimming pool, looking utterly miserable.
“Wouldn’t playing games together have been a perfectly good way to wake ourselves up? Why are we swimming? Did you even ask a guy who can’t swim what he thinks?”
“Playing games strains your eyes.” Chen Mo picked up a small yellow duck-shaped swim ring nearby and tossed it to him. “If you don’t start exercising now, by the time you’re thirty, you’ll really have a swim ring around your waist. Except yours will be flesh-colored.”
“Get lost! I’ll still be a handsome young man at thirty!”
Chen Mo sneered but didn’t bother crushing his delusion. He walked over to the lounge chair where the bath towels had been placed and casually pulled off his shirt.
Gou Yiyang glanced at him and was stunned.
“Holy shit, you’re this pale? And your legs are ridiculously good-looking! You don’t notice it when you’re dressed, but once you take your clothes off, those proportions are enough to make me bleed from the nose!”
“Keep acting,” Chen Mo said, completely unmoved.
The only time Gou Yiyang had ever gotten a nosebleed was after staying up all night for surgery and getting overheated, then seeing a woman with an exceptionally sexy figure when he accompanied Chen Mo to a bar the next day. He’d even gone out of his way to get her phone number because he wanted to pursue her. He’d been ridiculously innocent about the whole thing, only to discover that she already had a boyfriend. The entire incident had been an embarrassing misunderstanding.
Gou Yiyang was actually a genuine straight guy who simply didn’t sound like one. His mouth just had a tendency to run wild.
Seventeen-year-old Chen Mo was thin, but the years he’d spent before this hadn’t been easy. He had a layer of lean muscle, giving him a very well-proportioned and attractive figure. However, once Gou Yiyang moved closer, he could see scars of varying depths across Chen Mo’s back, legs, and feet.
Some were long, thin marks that looked as though his skin had been split open by a blow. Others were burns about the size of a little fingertip, along with cuts of varying depths. Some had already faded, leaving behind only faint marks, but they were still painfully conspicuous.
Gou Yiyang opened his mouth, but when he looked at Chen Mo, he suddenly found himself unable to say anything.
Chen Mo, on the other hand, still had the presence of mind to glance at the scars he could see and remark casually, “What’s so strange about that? The man in the Chen family is a gambling addict. He beats people whenever he gets drunk, and as far as he’s concerned, beating his son is perfectly natural. But he hasn’t dared lay a hand on me for a long time now, because I once broke one of his hands.”
“Do your biological parents know?” Gou Yiyang asked.
Chen Mo casually tossed the shirt he was holding onto a chair and began loosening up his wrists and ankles.
“They’ve heard a little from the police.”
“Fuck. What a bastard.”
It was hard to tell whether he was cursing the man surnamed Yang or the one surnamed Chen.
Chen Mo didn’t tell Gou Yiyang that scars would eventually heal. People who had never seen flesh torn open and blood flowing freely, who had never experienced the painful, itchy process of a wound gradually forming a scab, could easily forget such things.
Letting something go in one ear and out the other could mean not caring enough. It could also mean deceiving oneself because one couldn’t face the truth.
Whatever the reason, Chen Mo no longer cared.
“Get in the water. I specifically told the servants not to let anyone else come in here.”
Since he had already arranged for no one else to enter, naturally, no one would come in and throw him into the pool either.
It really was peaceful and quiet.
Chen Mo plunged into the water and swam toward the opposite side at remarkable speed.
His swimming form was textbook-perfect as he glided through the water, rising and dipping with each stroke. Watching from the poolside, even Gou Yiyang began to feel tempted to give it a try.
Unfortunately, a non-swimmer was still a non-swimmer. Wearing such a childish swim ring was embarrassing enough as it was.
Chen Mo hadn’t even completed two laps before he noticed a dull ache coming from his knee.
The problem with Chen Mo’s knees wasn’t too obvious yet this year. He guessed it was because he had suddenly come into contact with cold water. To be safe, he decided not to continue swimming and headed toward the edge of the pool.
Just then, a commotion suddenly broke out at the pool entrance.
“Why won’t you let us in?”
“Shule, can’t we use your family’s pool? It’s so hot today. This would be the perfect time to play in the water.”
Next came Yang Shule’s puzzled voice as he questioned the servant.
The servant was caught in an extremely difficult position.
Everyone knew that Chen Mo had been acting differently over the past two days. The Yang family’s old master had also just visited, nearly costing them their jobs. Since Chen Mo had said no one was allowed in, the servants truly didn’t dare let anyone through.
“Young Master Shule, Young Master Mo is inside,” the servant said quietly.
Yang Shule’s expression turned terribly ugly on the spot, especially since the commotion had already attracted quite a few people.
“Open the door,” Yang Shule ordered.
The servant didn’t move.
Yang Shule felt that Chen Mo was deliberately humiliating him. He rarely lost his temper with the household servants, but at this moment, his face flushed with anger.
“I said, open it!”
The servant trembled with fear. After hesitating for a long time, he finally pushed the door open.
The gate slowly swung open before everyone’s eyes.
They saw a figure suddenly emerge from the water with a splash, water streaming down his body as he climbed out of the pool.
The person standing on the poolside bent forward slightly and raised his head. His dark eyes were filled with utter impatience as he spoke slowly.
“Anyone who dares to step through this gate today, go ahead and try me.”