The words weighing on his heart for days finally escaped his lips. Su Qingci expected to feel relieved, but instead, his fingers trembled with nervousness.
Pei Jingchen’s expression froze, clearly taken aback by those four words.
Silence fell in the million-dollar car as fine snow fluttered outside, landing without a sound.
Pei Jingchen suddenly asked, “What illness?”
Su Qingci opened his lips, hesitating. Though he’d baited his hook, and he’d taken the bait as he’d hoped, he found himself momentarily speechless.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell him. It was the sudden fear that revealing this terminal illness might terrify Pei Jingchen. Perhaps it would be better to skirt around it, to phrase it more delicately?
Yet the next moment, Su Qingci realized Pei Jingchen would inevitably be unfamiliar with this rare disease. He’d inevitably follow up with questions like “What kind of idiopathic?” or “And hypertension too?”
Su Qingci weighed his words carefully before saying, “It’s a cardiology condition…”
Pei Jingchen abruptly interrupted, “Think before you speak.”
Su Qingci paused, looking at him in surprise.
Pei Jingchen met his gaze, then shifted his eyes away with a light flick, speaking gently and considerately, “Make it a better story this time.”
In an instant, all the strength drained from Su Qingci. His hands could no longer steady the steering wheel. He slumped forward, too weak even to speak. Something lodged in his throat—neither expelled nor swallowed—causing unbearable agony.
The seat cushion beneath him was a French luxury brand, exceptionally soft. So soft, in fact, that he nearly sank into it, utterly unable to struggle free.
Those five words pierced his heart like a thousand arrows, more painfully than the doctor’s diagnosis had.
But one couldn’t blame Pei Jingchen for his cruelty. His harsh words were a response to Su Qingci’s long history of deception.
Su Qingci had used every trick to win Pei Jingchen’s body, but never his heart. To grab his attention, Su Qingci had resorted to all sorts of schemes—like feigning illness.
Today it was dizziness, tomorrow stomach pain. The wolf had cried too many times, so when the wolf truly came, no one pitied him anymore.
He had brought this upon himself.
Su Qingci felt suffocated, unable to breathe. Proving his truthfulness would have been simple—all he needed to do was fling the two large bags of medicine from the backseat in Pei Jingchen’s face.
But suddenly, Su Qingci no longer wanted to prove his innocence.
The contempt in Pei Jingchen’s eyes tore at his heart like a knife, while the casual indifference on his lips filled Su Qingci with dread.
He’d abandoned his pride, humbled himself, even feigned a terminal illness to elicit pity—all for a fleeting moment of warmth from Pei Jingchen.
But what if it backfired? What if, instead of pitying him for his short time left and offering mercy, Pei Jingchen gloated over his misfortune, finding it deeply satisfying?
Su Qingci didn’t believe his heart was strong enough to bear the latter outcome.
Pei Jingchen felt his pants pocket vibrate. He pulled out his phone—a document from his assistant requiring urgent review.
He scanned it rapidly, taking in ten lines at a glance. His peripheral vision caught Su Qingci straightening his posture. The strikingly handsome young man shrugged indifferently, his eyelids drooping as he remarked, Huh, you saw right through me.”
Pei Jingchen’s lips parted slightly, as if to speak, but Su Qingci frowned, his tone thick with irritation. “Let’s go. I’m heading home.”
Through the rearview mirror, Su Qingci watched Pei Jingchen walk away. He gathered all the pride he had left, his eyes now empty and desolate.
He wasn’t angry, nor did he have the right to complain. At this moment, he felt only relief—relief that he had stopped in time, preserving the last shred of his dignity.
Upon arriving home, Su Qingci buried his face in the pillow, wanting nothing more than to sleep it off.
Woken by his phone ringing as dusk fell, Su Qingci rolled over, ignoring the money-hungry Annelise. Only after the call came through for the eighth time did he answer lazily: “Three minutes.”
Only Pei Jingchen could ever receive gentle words from Su Qingci. Everyone else got nothing but his aloof, cold demeanor and a “Don’t touch me.”
As Su Qingci’s art broker for nearly a decade, Annelise had long grown accustomed to it. If Su Qingci ever actually became polite one day, she’d be so shocked she’d frantically dial 911.
“Your voice sounds so sluggish—are you still asleep?”
Su Qingci: “Two minutes and fifty-four seconds.”
“Hey, that’s not fair!”
“Two and a half minutes.”
“Fine, fine. I just wanted to remind you to attend next month’s exhibition. Also, Joseph wants to commission another painting from you. He’s been waiting since last year for a landscape piece.”
Su Qingci didn’t even lift an eyelid: “You know my rules.”
Annalise felt both pained and exasperated. Artists all had peculiar personalities, and child prodigies were especially eccentric and willful—take Su Qingci, for instance.
The rule was simple: no commissions. Paint what sells, buy what sells.
Market hype and endorsement from “high-end” tycoons across industries only fueled the young, famous Su’s increasingly lawless behavior. Annelise admired his capital for arrogance and recklessness, yet inwardly raged at the euros slipping through her fingers: “Do you know what price he’s demanding?”
Su Qingci sneered: “Do I need money?”
Annalise: “…”
The Sino-French beauty thought to herself: I sure do! Do you have any idea how many zeros that deal would bring me? I’ve even picked out where I’d buy my house!
Su Qingci hung up the phone.
Bathed in sunset glow, the city shimmered with golden light, radiating a sense of lonely desolation.
Su Qingci stood before the bedroom’s floor-to-ceiling window for a long while. He had once captured this scene on paper. The city under the setting sun, bathed in magnificent golden light, radiated a warm and tranquil beauty; pedestrians in the night were faintly visible, each stepping alone onto an unknown path, desolate and empty.
Only when darkness had fully settled did Su Qingci realize he’d been lost in thought for a full hour.
Pei Jingchen wouldn’t return until around ten. Dinner didn’t need preparing—Su Qingci wasn’t hungry anyway and couldn’t be bothered to eat.
Was it past 6:05 yet? Had Pei Jingchen finished work? Was he meeting friends? Old acquaintances or new ones?
Once these thoughts started, Su Qingci couldn’t stop them, and his head began to throb.
Neither hungry nor sleepy, he glanced at the clock once more. Taking his car keys and slipping on his down jacket, he stepped outside.
Driving from downtown to the suburbs took nearly two hours. Finally, he turned into the destination—Ankang Sanatorium.
*
The moment Pei Jingchen entered the private room, the crowd hoisted him up and forced him to down three shots of liquor.
This class reunion gathered everyone from the same department. Surrounding the large round table, they clinked glasses and exchanged toasts. The girls whispered among themselves, while the guys bragged to each other.
Pei Jingchen, honed by years of social engagements, could down half a bottle of high-proof liquor as if it were water. The crowd was utterly impressed, applauding and cheering, the atmosphere electric.
One girl, her cheeks flushed, shyly asked to add Pei Jingchen on WeChat.
Pei Jingchen glanced at her and gallantly pulled out his QR code. The girl was flattered and surprised, her face turning even redder.
After adding him, she unexpectedly smiled to herself and remarked to the oil painting of sunflowers, “Your profile picture is beautiful.”
Pei Jingchen smiled gently. “Thank you.”
The girl asked, “Do you like oil paintings?”
Pei Jingchen took a sip of soda. “They’re okay.”
Her heart fluttered. “There’s an exhibition next month at the XX Art Museum. I happen to have two tickets. Would you like to go?”
Before Pei Jingchen could answer, she added excitedly, “It’s a solo exhibition by the genius painter Su Qingci. It’s all the rage in the art world—tickets are impossible to get. Do you know him?”
The curly-haired guy next to her nudged her elbow. Confused, she asked, “What?”
A classmate in the distance roared with laughter: “You’re out of the loop, aren’t you? He’s married! Who’d have guessed?”
The guy interrupted: “Eat your food, eat your food.”
As the gathering neared ten o’clock, Pei Jingchen rose to leave. A classmate, drunk and slurring his words, teased: “Old Pei, even if your wife keeps you on a tight leash, you don’t have to be this scared of her!”
The crowd roared with laughter. The curly-haired guy protested urgently, “You’re drunk!”
He was indeed drunk. After speaking, he crashed face-first onto the floor and passed out cold.
The crowd dispersed in high spirits, trickling out one by one. Several classmates gathered around Pei Jingchen—a campus legend in his day—warmly urging him to join them again soon.
Once the car was out of sight, the curly-haired guy sighed, “Such a promising young man, ruined by being a rich kid.”
The person beside him grinned. “Is it really that bad?”
The curly-haired guy replied, “Not only were we in the same department, we shared a dorm room. Old Pei had a great personality—gentle, considerate, and a true gentleman. He’d never speak harshly to anyone, no matter how much he disliked them. But that spoiled brat forced him to learn sarcasm and biting remarks.”
Even outside their department, the name Pei Jingchen was legendary throughout Tsinghua and Peking Universities.
He was a renowned academic prodigy—top scorer in the provincial science college entrance exams, consistently ranked first in his major year after year, leaving others in the dust.
Though lacking a distinguished family background, he possessed the striking looks of a goddess and a brilliant mind, coupled with an indomitable spirit. Countless times, he was featured in newspapers as an inspirational role model. Most admirable was his complete lack of arrogance despite his talents. Approachable and humble, he radiated a divine grace that embraced all.
The curly-haired boy lit a cigarette: “A domestic wizard, an excellent cook, capable of both managing the household and earning a living—a ten-in-one perfect man. What a pity.”
A classmate ran back across the street, distributing coffee to sober everyone up.
The exquisitely packaged paper cups carried an air of classical elegance, their logo featuring a uniquely designed black cat. One sip released a rich, aromatic fragrance, transporting the drinker to an ancient forest imbued with millennia of history. Its distinctive historical charm proved utterly intoxicating, impossible to resist. The girl snapped a photo of her coffee and posted it to her social media feed.
An uninformed person asked, “I heard Su Qingci’s family is loaded?”
The curly-haired guy snorted with a smirk, lifting his coffee cup. “Here. His family’s.”
Everyone was caught off guard!
Wulin Coffee, a globally renowned coffee chain, had over ten thousand stores domestically. Its total market value exceeded eighty billion US dollars, repeatedly breaking records on the Forbes list.
The girl taking photos nearly dropped her phone in shock.
Someone asked, “Is this young master a real piece of work?”
The curly-haired guy replied, “He’s not just a jerk—he’s possessive, jealous, and controlling. He’s actually toned it down now. Before, he was constantly stalking Pei Jingchen. No exaggeration, he was a total psychopath.”
Another person chimed in, “Maybe it’s genetic.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rumor has it his mom’s a mental patient, locked up in a sanatorium!”