Pei Jingchen slammed on the brakes. The Koenigsegg lurched forward from inertia, nearly rear-ending the Mercedes ahead.
The light turned red.
Blurred by the snowy curtain, yet strangely blinding.
Su Qingci had thought he couldn’t say it. Those five words felt like razor blades slicing his throat. No need to speak—just rehearsing the words in his mind made him feel the searing pain of hot oil burning through his throat.
But when he actually said it, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as he’d imagined. He even breathed a sigh of relief, as if he’d unloaded the cross from his back and personally removed the shackles from Pei Jingchen’s wrists.
Look, he was so happy he nearly caused an accident.
“Oh,” Pei Jingchen said.
Su Qingci blinked.
He had imagined how Pei Jingchen might react on the day he set him free. Perhaps ecstatic joy, perhaps profound relief, perhaps gathering all his friends for days of revelry followed by half a month of citywide fireworks. Or, like now, a calm, unruffled response.
Pei Jingchen had matured early in life, and now he had cultivated an unflappable composure.
Pei Jingchen pressed his fingers to his temples. “Su Qingci, stop messing around.” He looked exhausted.
Su Qingci understood. No wonder he saw no relief on Pei Jingchen’s face—it was because of his own track record of broken promises. His words carried no weight.
As an outsider, Su Qingci never meddled in Pei Jingchen’s business affairs. Yet he had secretly followed developments, knowing Lingyue was competing with three rivals for a project. Pei Jingchen was under immense pressure, utterly exhausted.
Precisely because of this, he needed some good news to release the pressure and lift his spirits.
For Pei Jingchen, this “caged bird,” nothing could be luckier than the cage opening, allowing him to fly away.
Su Qingci emphasized, “I’m not making a scene. I’m serious.”
After passing through the traffic light, Su Qingci instructed Pei Jingchen to pull over, and he complied.
Su Qingci didn’t exit immediately. Spotting a conspicuous sticker on the passenger dashboard, he reached to peel it off. But it was stuck too firmly; after scratching at it for a while, he only managed to lift a sticky corner.
Back then, they’d used super glue to prevent it from falling off.
His fingers hurt from the effort, so he finally said, “There are lots of clever tricks online. I’ll look them up and send them to you.”
Pei Jingchen: “Su Qingci.”
His voice was uniquely pleasant—so much so that he’d been the school radio announcer from middle school through college.
He rarely called Su Qingci by name, and each time he did, it made Su Qingci’s heart flutter—even when tinged with impatience or reproach.
Su Qingci sensed a hint of anger, likely because he felt tricked.
Su Qingci felt a pang of sadness. In Pei Jingchen’s eyes, he was nothing but a shameless scoundrel with zero credibility. Of course, that wasn’t Pei Jingchen’s fault.
Some things needed to be said plainly, even if it meant self-flagellation: “Thank you for your patience and tolerance all these years. I deeply apologize for my selfishness and recklessness. I’m sorry, we…”
Like those two hundred and twenty-two paintings, which had captured his decade of mixed emotions, now reduced to ashes, vanishing without a trace.
Today was New Year’s Day, a fresh start. He was giving Pei Jingchen his freedom back, wishing him a life wrapped in happiness and joy, never to encounter someone like him again.
“It’s over.”
*
Su Qingci opened the door and stepped out, walking away with decisive strides.
Pei Jingchen found himself involuntarily chasing after his retreating figure. In the wind and snow, Su Qingci appeared frail. Whether it was an illusion or not, he seemed thinner than last month.
Pei Jingchen watched as Su Qingci hailed a taxi by the roadside and quickly vanished from sight.
The cold wind rushed in through the half-open window, lifting the corner of a sticker on the passenger dashboard. The glue residue beneath it resembled a gruesome scar.
Su Qingci had said the passenger seat held special significance—only the closest person could sit there.
He had written “Sovereignty” on the sticker, affixing it firmly with superglue. He declared that while he didn’t care about the company’s business vehicles, the passenger seat of Pei Jingchen’s personal car belonged solely to him.
Even if it was empty, outsiders were forbidden to sit there.
That irritable feeling returned. Pei Jingchen opened the glove compartment, pulled out a pack of slim blueberry-flavored cigarettes, and lit one.
He frequently negotiated business deals and drank heavily, but he didn’t particularly like cigarettes, smoking less than half a pack a month. Additionally, since Su Qingci was sensitive to smoke, he quit smoking altogether. Later, he learned that Su Qingci wasn’t sensitive to smoke at all—he simply hated the minty taste of cigarettes, including anything with a mint flavor.
The gum he carried was watermelon-flavored, his hand cream smelled of orchids, his energizing essential oil was jasmine, and even the toothpaste in the bathroom was lemon-scented.
He instinctively avoided mint in his daily life. Even though Su Qingci had never formally expressed dislike for mint, through his own observations, he had “thoughtfully” become a mint-free zone.
After finishing the cigarette, his restless mind found no relief.
The pressure from his career, the exhaustion from working day and night, and the constant anxiety caused by Su Qingci’s unpredictable behavior—all these uncertainties piled up, driving him to smoke through the entire tobacco he’d been denying himself for the past six months in one go.
Su Qingci may impose rules on others, but he lives by them himself. Every demand he makes, Su Qingci himself fulfills to an even more extreme and perfect degree. Take car rides, for instance—not only is the passenger seat off-limits, but even the backseat and trunk belong solely to Pei Jingchen.
No outsiders allowed, not even Su Qingci’s own father.
His phone buzzed. Pei Jingchen glanced at it—a clever tip for removing glue residue, reposted by Su Qingci from the internet.
Pei Jingchen tossed the phone aside.
He drove home, changed his shoes and clothes, set the robot vacuum to work, took a quick shower, and discussed work matters with his assistant. Before he knew it, the sun had set.
Finally free, his mind buzzed with fatigue yet remained eerily clear. Against his will, thoughts drifted to Su Qingci. He hadn’t seen him in days—his complexion had looked poor, as if he were ill. His spirit seemed low, likely from lack of sleep.
Forget it. Stop thinking about it.
Su Qingci would return once he’d had his fill of mischief.
Pei Jingchen opened the bedroom wardrobe, intending to grab some loungewear. His gaze, however, drifted involuntarily to the right side.
The bedroom had two wardrobes. They could have kept theirs separate, but Su Qingci insisted on sharing. The left side held Pei Jingchen’s warm-toned garments, while the right contained Su Qingci’s dark attire—from tops to pants to pajamas, all in somber hues.
Everything was in place, including the navy blue suitcase Su Qingci had brought when moving in.
Pei Jingchen closed the wardrobe doors, brewed a pot of coffee, and prepared to pull an all-nighter. On his way to the second-floor gym, he passed the studio door, which stood half-open.
Pei Jingchen intended to close it for him, but his hand on the knob shifted to push it inward instead.
The studio was spacious, flooded with light from two floor-to-ceiling windows.
Easels, canvases, and paints occupied their fixed spots. Brushes, palette knives, and mixing palettes were arranged methodically. For a professional painter, these tools were akin to life itself—and not a single one had been taken.
Only a large, empty space remained before the floor-to-ceiling window.
Pei Jingchen paused, then realized.
What was missing were dozens of pots of lavender.
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