After Failing to Reverse the Plot, I Made My Escape - Chapter 19

“Take me with you, please. Do not leave me alone.”

“No!”

Yu Fuqiu jolted awake from his dream, his body twitching violently as if trying to break free from an invisible restraint. His heart hammered wildly against his ribs, nearly bursting through his chest.

He gasped for air, his forehead drenched in cold sweat. His clothes were soaked through by the icy perspiration, sending waves of chills across his skin. His eyes were sore and swollen. The tears shed in his sleep had already turned cold, leaving large, dark stains on the pillow. His fingertips felt numb, as if the warmth of Chang Tingzhi still lingered there.

Slowly, he raised his hand. His fingers, trembling with uncontrollable spasms, touched his own cheek.

“Do not go.”

Yu Fuqiu suppressed a sob, trying to hold onto that fading warmth.

“Take me with you, please. Do not leave me alone.”

But his skin met only the cold, wet reality of his own tears. He curled his body into a ball, hugging himself tightly as if he could preserve that fleeting moment of warmth.

The ajar door was pushed open slightly by a breeze, and a savory aroma drifted through the crack. With just one sniff, Yu Fuqiu knew it was his favorite dish: tomato and beef brisket stew. It was Chang Tingzhi’s signature meal.

Ignoring the pain in his body, Yu Fuqiu scrambled up from the floor. Even though he had fallen from the bed earlier, he forced himself to stand.

Was his Tingzhi back?

He moved carefully and with great difficulty toward the kitchen door. He saw a tall, upright figure standing with his back to him in front of the stove. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing sturdy forearms as he skillfully stirred the pot.

In that instant, time seemed to flow backward. The warm light, the bubbling stew, the lover wearing an apron calling him to dinner—everything overlapped with countless ordinary evenings from their five years together. An immense surge of joy and unbelievable heartache rushed to his heart, drowning all reason.

Yu Fuqiu’s eyes grew hot. He practically lunged forward, hugging the man’s waist from behind with all his strength and burying his burning face into that broad, warm back.

“You are back,” he choked out, like a lost child who had finally found home. “You are back, Tingzhi. I will tell Chun Chun right away to come back. He misses you so much too. Will you see him, please?”

He held him so tightly, as if trying to merge the man into his very blood and bone.

However, the body he held stiffened momentarily before tightening even further. There was no relaxation. Instead, a cold force took over.

Chang Tingzhi abruptly pried open the arms wrapped around him, showing no mercy or tenderness. He turned around and pushed Yu Fuqiu away forcefully. Looking down at Yu Fuqiu, who had been shoved to the floor, his face held none of the tenderness Yu Fuqiu had hoped for. There was only icy coldness and a flash of offended, deeply disgusted anger.

“Who allowed you to touch me?”

His voice was as cold as an ice cellar.

The marks left from the previous night had not fully faded. Because he had been kneeling for so long, his knees were red, swollen, and bruised. The sharp pain radiating from his tailbone hitting the floor made Yu Fuqiu feel instinctively aggrieved.

He looked up blankly, unable to understand why Chang Tingzhi had pushed him away. His eyes were misty. He instinctively reached out his hand toward Chang Tingzhi, acting pained. “Tingzhi, I hurt. You hurt me.”

A piercing pain suddenly rose in the depths of Chang Tingzhi’s heart. His muscles moved faster than his brain, wanting to reach out and hold Yu Fuqiu. But the bubbling sound of the stew behind him quickly brought Chang Tingzhi back to his senses.

He grabbed Yu Fuqiu’s chin firmly, forcing him to look up and gaze into those beautiful, watery eyes. “I said, I am not ‘Chang Tingzhi.’ Do not think that just because you used your body to seduce me and climbed into my bed, you can push your luck.”

Chang Tingzhi’s knuckles dug into Yu Fuqiu’s skin. Yu Fuqiu gradually regained his senses, and as he met those heartless eyes, his heart sank to the bottom of the abyss.

“No, Tingzhi, I did not,” Yu Fuqiu’s throat choked with sobs.

“If you did not, why are you making excuses? Who are you putting on this aggrieved face for?”

Chang Tingzhi’s gaze swept over the face that made his heart ache unbearably, and he let out a short laugh. “What, is this also a tactic you use to seduce other men? Since you have chosen to be my mistress, then act like one.”

Chang Tingzhi took a step back as if he had touched something filthy. He pulled a wet wipe from the kitchen counter and wiped the fingertips that had touched Yu Fuqiu. Suddenly, his expression darkened, and he questioned, “Who is Chun Chun?”

Yu Fuqiu froze. The pain in his chin had not fully subsided when his wrist was suddenly seized by Chang Tingzhi. The grip was so strong it felt as though his bones would shatter. Enduring the discomfort, he answered in a low voice, filled with a faint, undetectable hope, “He is, he is your child.”

He hoped this name, this proof of their shared blood, could pry open the closed doors of Chang Tingzhi’s memory, even if just by a crack.

“A child.”

Chang Tingzhi repeated the words. The trace of inquiry remaining in his eyes was instantly replaced by extreme mockery and icy loathing. It was as if he had heard the world’s greatest joke.

The next second, a loud, resounding slap landed mercilessly on Yu Fuqiu’s pale cheek.

“My child?”

Chang Tingzhi sneered. Looking at Yu Fuqiu, whose head had been snapped to the side by the blow, his own heart twitched painfully. Every breath he took felt like a suffocating pang of agony. The more his body’s emotions spiraled out of his control, the more he hated himself, and the more he loathed the culprit before him.

He forcefully suppressed the intense pain in his heart. He abruptly released Yu Fuqiu’s wrist and pulled a stack of photos from his inner pocket, throwing them violently at Yu Fuqiu.

The photos scattered across the floor. They were from a few days ago, showing Yu Fuqiu’s emotional breakdown during the audition at the school film set. In the photos, Director Hu Daoyuan was holding him in his arms to comfort him, and Yu Fuqiu was wearing Hu Daoyuan’s coat. The angle made the shots look extremely intimate; if they had looked up, they would have been close enough to kiss.

“Am I being too easy to talk to?” Chang Tingzhi’s voice was indifferent as he looked at Yu Fuqiu with sarcasm. “You were already nestled in his arms like that, wearing his coat. Do you dare tell me there is nothing between you? And now a child of mine suddenly pops up.”

His gaze was like a cold searchlight, sweeping over Yu Fuqiu’s entire body. “What, did you finally find a new provider and even produce a bastard? Is that why you are so eager to slap the title of father on me, so you and your lover can fly off together while you extort child support from me?”

As he watched Yu Fuqiu’s face grow paler, the pain in his chest nearly drowned him like a tide. He took Yu Fuqiu’s cherished memories of their child and reframed them all as calculated schemes and betrayal.

He let out a cold laugh, the disgust in his eyes nearly overflowing. “I really underestimated you. On one hand, you act deeply affectionate, willing to pay any price to maintain the status of ‘Mrs. Chang,’ while on the other, you are busy hooking up everywhere. Even a child has become a tool for you to use. You really are a master schemer.”

Yu Fuqiu froze in place. His entire body felt icy. His back was pressed against the corner of the wall, but he could not move. The pain on his cheek was not even one-ten-thousandth of the agony of his heart being torn apart.

He looked at the scattered, distorted photos. Chang Tingzhi’s icy words wrapped around him like vines, taking deep root in his blood and making it almost impossible to breathe. He opened his mouth, wanting to tell him it was not like that.

Chun Chun was the hope they shared when they were in love, the baby he had carefully nurtured after a premature birth. Chun Chun’s health was poor; he had stayed in the intensive care unit for several weeks. For that reason, Chang Tingzhi had gone to a famous temple, bowing every three steps until he had completed all three thousand stairs. He had prayed for two peace talismans: one for him and one for Chun Chun.

Holding Chun Chun, he had looked up at Yu Fuqiu, his eyes sparkling with starlight. He said that spring has vigorous vitality; it is the season when all things revive. He said that he and Yu Fuqiu’s child was born in winter, and they would wait for the arrival of spring together. He said that spring is the beginning of the four seasons, the season they met, and they would be together forever, even being buried together in spring when they grew old.

So, they looked forward to the arrival of spring. They named him Qichun.

But Yu Fuqiu slowly raised his head. Clear finger marks had appeared on his cheek. All explanations were stuck in his throat. When he met those eyes filled with coldness and disgust, everything became incredibly pale and powerless. Even breathing brought a heart-wrenching pain.

Chang Tingzhi threw a thick agreement onto the table and said expressionlessly, “Sign it.”