After Reuniting, My Beautiful Ex-Lover Fishes for Me Every Day - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The Glamorous Ghost

Despite draining an entire glass of liquor in one go, Yan Xu showed no signs of intoxication. His face appeared even paler under the cold light, though his lips were a few shades more vivid than usual, looking as if they had been kissed.

Seeing him prepare to pour another, Wei Changli spoke up to stop him: “Yan Xu.”

The man’s gaze shifted over. Deep within those habitually bottomless pupils, a ripple of slight inebriation surfaced, silently shattering the cold sense of order that usually defined him.

“You, tonight…” Wei Changli frowned. Combining the other’s string of bizarre behaviors, he asked, “What is actually wrong with you?”

Yan Xu silently pressed down on the phone in his palm. He didn’t speak, but simply closed his eyes quietly, looking as though the alcohol had gone to his head.

Wei Changli leaned back against the sofa, thinking to himself that asking was a redundant gesture.

The lights on Ke Hui’s ceiling rotated slowly. His gaze lingered on Yan Xu’s face with a complex intensity, while his breath—quite honestly—hitched for a moment.

Wei Changli had always known Yan Xu was good-looking; otherwise, he wouldn’t have followed so closely behind this man back in his teens. However, he hadn’t expected that years later, he would still feel a sense of impact from this face.

Perhaps it was because Ke Hui, an old place where everything remained unchanged, stirred up many of his past memories. At this moment, Wei Changli suddenly and dully experienced a taste of “reunion after a long separation.”

In truth, based on the level of his infatuation with Yan Xu three years ago, even though the man had pulled the ridiculous excuse of a “hidden illness” out of thin air to stage a cliff-style breakup during his proposal, Wei Changli’s first reaction hadn’t been the embarrassment of rejection. It was tension—a kind of genuine anxiety that something was actually wrong with the man’s health.

But when he tried to probe deeper, Yan Xu never breathed another word.

Wei Changli had persisted many times, even trying every possible way to force him to speak, lowering his stance, or asking outsiders indirectly—all to no avail.

It wasn’t until Wei Changjun saw how deeply he was stuck that his brother used his connections to obtain a personnel medical examination file from the Municipal Science Institute. Yan Xu’s physical examination records were among them.

The standards for medical exams at the Research Institute were far stricter than normal entry-level exams. Every type of check-up was meticulous, and with the official seal present, the possibility of forgery was miniscule. And that report for Yan Xu, excluding a few indicators slightly lower than the reference range, showed that his overall condition was entirely normal.

A “hidden illness” was nothing more than a flimsy, dismissive lie.

Consequently, Wei Changli’s days of unrequited worry became a confirmed joke. At the end of the day, the other party had simply found a random excuse to terminate the relationship.

Later, Wei Changjun couldn’t help but point out that Yan Xu was too young; even with the support of the Yan family, if he wanted to move higher, he had to accept overseas assignments. Furthermore, many fields were strictly scrutinized regarding reciprocity between officials and businesses. If he wanted to go a step further, he had to ensure his relationship with merchant and official families was spotless.

Moreover, the Wei family happened to be embroiled in an economic investigation at the time. Although the follow-up was a close call without actual disaster, the influence was negative regardless.

Only then did Wei Changli realize in hindsight that he might have been standing in Yan Xu’s way. And the facts indeed mirrored his brother’s description: three years later, the returned Yan Xu rose rapidly, reaching a height unattainable by his peers.

So what was this now? Remembering him after securing his “empire”… or simply finding him too pitiful now that he was homeless.

Wei Changli stared at the face that had made him lose his focus, attempting to read more emotion from the details of the man’s relaxed expression under the influence of alcohol. But he had to admit, even though they had known each other for many years, even though their past relationship was closer than anyone else’s, he still couldn’t see into Yan Xu’s heart.

In the past, he couldn’t see through it or understand it; now, he simply couldn’t see it clearly or see it at all.

An impulse to leave surged in Wei Changli’s heart. He thought quite maliciously and with a distinct desire for revenge: If I just leave abruptly without saying goodbye right now, would Yan Xu also get a taste of what it felt like to be abandoned back then?

But he remained sitting in his seat, not moving. He didn’t know why, just as he didn’t know why he had so easily allowed himself to be brought here.

“I’m sorry,” Wei Changli suddenly heard Yan Xu say.

He froze, his eyes meeting Yan Xu’s. Those eyes held a slight drunkenness, appearing more fervent than usual, like alcohol lighting a fire in a deep, cold pond—burning slowly but endlessly.

“These days have been very hard,” Yan Xu said. “Right?”

Wei Changli’s breath hitched.

In reality, the collapse of the Wei family was a subversion and destruction that happened overnight for Wei Changli. Many things happened too fast; before he could fully understand why, he had already been pushed into his current predicament by the tide of fortune.

As a wealthy young master completely excluded from family affairs by his brother, Wei Changli was like a flower grown in a greenhouse. As for what exactly happened to the Wei family, he didn’t entirely know.

The friends who once surrounded him disappeared simultaneously; his flesh-and-blood relatives all became fugitives on the run. Everything in the past was like a dream from which he had suddenly been jolted awake. Even now, Wei Changli couldn’t fully process it.

So, when he heard this sentence from Yan Xu, he should have been angry. But an uncontrollable bitterness rushed straight into his nose. This child, who had been pampered since birth, finally showed a hint of feeling wronged before quickly stiffening his neck and turning his head away, refusing to let even a trace of tears be seen.

Yan Xu quietly watched his profile, illuminated by the light, emotions flickering deep within his gaze.

He wanted to take him away, regardless of the reason or method, to take him out of this chaos filled with filthy blood and protect him under his own wings… just like a long time ago. This impulse had been rooted in his heart for too long, long enough to be entangled with the very beat of his heart, tugging painfully at his chest at any moment.

Thus, even though he knew the timing wasn’t right, Yan Xu still spoke up with the help of the alcohol. He softened his voice as much as possible, like a superior person of high status devoutly bowing their head—bowing and kneeling at the young man’s feet: “If it’s very hard, do you want to…”

Wei Changli’s gaze trembled, and he immediately interrupted him: “I don’t want to.”

Yan Xu’s voice got stuck in his throat, mixed with a hint of the bitterness of sobering up, and he swallowed it silently.

“I am not… I am not some little toy that comes when called and leaves when waved away, to be rubbed and toyed with whenever there’s time, and kicked away with a random excuse when you don’t want to take responsibility. I wasn’t before, and I’m not now.”

Wei Changli’s eyes were slightly out of focus from staring at one spot for too long, but he didn’t care. He only gave a slight sniff and, after a long silence, gave a rather self-deprecating laugh.

Yan Xu: “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Then what did you mean?” Wei Changli turned his head, waiting a few seconds before speaking. “Actually, after meeting you, I suppose I’ve been waiting for you to say something. Now you’ve finally said it, but Yan Xu, I don’t want to.”

The corners of his lips hooked: “As you can see, I’m miserable enough. Don’t ruin me further.”

With those words, the young man finally made a certain resolution. He stood up from the soft, soul-sinking seat and walked toward the door of Ke Hui. His figure was thin yet upright, and his footsteps quickly merged into the rainy midnight.

Yan Xu sat stunned in his seat, no longer calling out to stop him. His fingertips traced the fine glimmers on the rim of the glass, but he restrained himself from drinking more.

Before long, Boss Yun of Ke Hui came out from behind the bar while wiping a glass. He leaned casually against the sofa chair and said, half-jokingly, half-sighing, “Didn’t negotiate well? This little kid from the Wei family has quite a fiery temper.”

Yan Xu ignored Yun Hui’s teasing. He sent a message telling the driver to follow and send him back, and then deployed more people to infiltrate the surroundings of that peril-filled rental house to secretly ensure his safety.

Boss Yun noticed his actions and tactfully shifted the topic to business, asking: “Any news from the Bureau of Investigation?”

“The enemy is in the dark while I am in the light,” Yan Xu replied. “It’s difficult to carry out the work.”

Yun Hui wasn’t surprised by the current situation and shrugged. “Understandable. It is a ‘Joint’ Bureau of Investigation, after all, led by several major countries. The Wei family has ties to many overseas financial syndicates. There might be more people in the Bureau who don’t want an investigation than those who do.”

Yan Xu turned around: “And here?”

“The same, no progress,” Yun Hui shook his head, drawing out his tone. “Wei Changjun… that’s a venomous snake that has dived into the deep sea.”

Both men fell into a simultaneous silence.

“However,” Boss Yun, not used to letting the conversation fall flat, changed the subject. “The item the ‘Lutanist’ asked me to give you arrived today. It’s frozen in the freezer. You might as well take it.”

The last trace of drunkenness vanished from Yan Xu’s eyes. He watched Yun Hui open the heavy door of the kitchen’s cold storage. After a while, Yun Hui emerged carrying a metal box with a combination lock and placed it on the table in front of him.

“Number 21, the latest one.” Yun Hui’s knuckle rapped against the metal box.

The place where Boss Yun’s hand landed was special. On the originally smooth metal surface, there were indistinct indentations and protrusions, with rising and falling lines that looked like meticulously carved hidden patterns of birds.

Their gazes both fell upon it, a tacit understanding shared between them. No more words were needed.

Returning home, Yan Xu came out wearing a bath towel after showering. He sat alone in the empty villa, the box called “Number 21” by his side. He lifted his hand to enter the code, and the contents inside popped out in an orderly fashion—

A row of transparent injections, matching needles, and several bottles of medicine covered in foreign text.

Yan Xu watched them silently for a long time before taking one out and tearing open the protective sleeve. After assembling the syringe, he used a sterile cotton swab dipped in iodine to wipe the inner side of his forearm, injecting the transparent liquid into his body.

Throughout the process, there was no expression on the man’s face. The pale moonlight was mostly blocked by the floor-length sheer curtains; the remaining ghostly light filtered through the fluttering gaps, falling amidst his waterfall of black hair. His lips were illuminated, revealing a vivid red steamed by the bathroom vapor.

He pulled out the needle, no longer caring about the bead of blood emerging from the puncture. He closed the box, stood up, and carried it into the stairwell at the end of the first floor.

The setting of this stairwell was very clever. It had no windows; the only light source was a long chandelier hanging from the ceiling nearly ten meters down. Within the spiral crystal lines, translucent birds swirled, silently drawing one’s gaze upward. At the end of the birds, it was entirely dark; if one didn’t look closely, they wouldn’t realize there was also a downward entrance in this stairwell.

The end of the descending stairs was shrouded in darkness. Further down, there was a security door.

Yan Xu stood alone before the closed door, his long hair as black as ink, looking like a lonely, glamorous ghost.