The Long Night - Chapter 41

“Are you standing so close because you want me to kiss you?”

Yan Liao hadn’t thought of that, but when he heard the question, his cheeks flushed and his ears felt a little hot. It was one thing to just kiss him, but to ask about it… Yan Liao pouted in a disgruntled way and said, “I don’t want to,” against his true feelings.

“Then what if I want to kiss you?”

Tang Shaocheng held Yan Liao’s hand, his thumb rubbing against his palm. A slight itch traveled from his palm to his scalp, causing a tingling sensation like snowflakes. Yan Liao’s ears visibly reddened, hidden under his soft, dark hair. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He didn’t argue again and said dryly, “Okay.”

Yan Liao looked up, his expression a little tense, as if waiting for something. Tang Shaocheng lowered his head and slowly moved his lips to lightly touch his cheek.

Tang Shaocheng held him and slowly brought him to the sofa. Yan Liao lay down, curling up like a small shrimp, and then was held by the waist and slowly stretched out. Tang Shaocheng’s lips covered his dry ones, sucking and licking gently like spring rain moisturizing everything.

The long kiss was wet and soft. Yan Liao felt as if he was holding a lemon-flavored effervescent tablet in his mouth, and his entire oral cavity was boiling and burning. He felt like a person who had been walking in the desert and had to think of plums to quench his thirst for a long time, and was finally able to crawl into a bountiful water source.

The living room window was open. The thin white curtains billowed in the evening breeze. Cool moisture seeped in and collided with their hot breaths, seemingly condensing into a rising mist.

Their hands were still intertwined. Tang Shaocheng’s fingertip on his middle finger lightly brushed against Yan Liao’s palm.

Yan Liao jolted and let out a hum from his nose, instinctively grabbing the mischievous finger.

When they separated, he gasped for several breaths, his eyes as dark as a lake full of water. His numb lips were moist and swollen from the kiss. Tang Shaocheng looked down at him and smiled. “Wipe your mouth.”

“…You’re annoying.”

Superhero movies have very similar narratives.

Due to an alien invasion, genetic mutation, or a laboratory gas leak, a troublesome villain appears. They want to attack Earth, conquer Earth, and destroy Earth.

But don’t worry, a hero with superpowers will soon appear to save the world and the ordinary lives of ordinary people.

And so, those who were almost dead could go back to work again.

After a brief period of ups and downs, Yan Liao seemed to enter a new stage of life without any desires.

It is said that couples who kiss often start to look more and more alike. He and Tang Shaocheng didn’t look very similar, but after this incident, Yan Liao’s personality did become a little closer to his.

In the past, when Tang Shaocheng drank tea, played chess, went for walks, or went fishing, Yan Liao would ridicule them as old people’s hobbies. Now, sometimes he would go with him.

He went a few times and realized that he wasn’t as calm and peaceful as he had imagined.

Tang Shaocheng’s opponent in the park was an old man named Wang. His biggest hobbies were smoking and playing chess. Every time Yan Liao walked next to him, it felt like he was participating in the Humen Opium Destruction, smelling the pungent smoke. Other old men would advise him, “You should go to the smoking room,” but old man Wang would shake his head with a decisive look. “I’m not buying tomatoes.”

When Yan Liao was watching, he would often complain that Tang Shaocheng’s moves were wrong and try to get him to retract them, which would anger the old man and make him puff out his cheeks. Tang Shaocheng and another old man who loved playing chess would get scolded along with him. The eighty-year-old old man Wang would point at the sixty-year-old old man and the two of them and loudly shout, “You three little rascals.”

The two of them slowly adjusted their routines to the same frequency. Yan Liao would go for a morning run with Tang Shaocheng every day, take the dog for a walk in the park in the evening, and go swimming on weekends. Sometimes, he felt like he was about to sign up for an Olympic triathlon.

But before he could enter the field of competitive sports, there was a very important matter. On an early summer evening, Tang Shaocheng picked up the puppy. “Give it a name.”

“It doesn’t have a name yet? What did I call it before?”

“…You called it, ‘doggy, doggy.'”

Yan Liao squinted at the dog. He thought it was easy to name small animals. If it was a cat, he would call it “Mimi.” If it was a dog, “Wang-wang” or “Wang-wang” would be fine too. But if he wanted to call the cat to come over, he could shout “Mimi, Mimi.” How would he call the dog to go out and play? “Wang-wang, Wang-wang”? He suddenly imagined what it would be like to look for a lost dog in the neighborhood and closed his eyes, starting to think of a new name.

He thought for a long time but couldn’t come up with anything.

Life’s encounters are strange. Yan Liao has been having this thought recently.

For example, he found extra dog food in his packages. For example, he thought his chess skills had improved by leaps and bounds, but he could only beat an old man with Alzheimer’s in the entire neighborhood.

For example, he was briefly successful and was proud that he could make Tang Shaocheng see him in a new light, but in the end, he realized that he was just one of the many preys that had fallen into the trap. Fortunately, his superhero brought his life back on track. Although it was a bit boring to be back on this track, it wasn’t a bad thing.

Life’s encounters are strange and wonderful. Yan Liao also learned to be like Tang Shaocheng, with a good attitude of letting everything happen naturally.

He didn’t think about whether there was any connection behind these wonderful coincidences. He just felt that the inevitability of life was made up of many coincidences. As for these coincidences, they were not something that a person could accurately calculate.

Tang Shaocheng also thought this way, so when he heard Qin Yun-qi say casually, “I’ll also take this opportunity to clean up some disobedient pawns,” he only thought that Qin’s Group, with its all-knowing and all-powerful connections, was just cleaning up some small companies that were fighting for industry resources.

Qin Yun-qi also didn’t connect many of the details. He only remembered seeing Chen Zheng-xi’s name at a meeting before. As for whether he was fired or resigned voluntarily, it was not within the scope of what he needed to remember.

It wasn’t until a few months later that Qin Li asked him calmly, “If something like this happened to Yu Xing, could you handle it so easily?”

Everyone seemed to be trapped in a chaotic fog. From beginning to end, there were only two people who saw things clearly from the outside.

Ge Dong-lin took his ticket and, under the guidance of the security guard, walked into the audience section.

With the sound of a bell, the fourth round of the boxing match began.

Lu Xiao lowered his body and waited for an opportunity. The competition was now about physical strength, but he was still charging forward fiercely like in the first three rounds. A series of punches hit his opponent’s face, forcing him to retreat. The opponent could only raise his arms to protect his head and face, and was defeated all the way to the edge, where he leaned against the ropes and gasped heavily.

Lu Xiao was still full of energy. The heavy punches, like a torrential downpour, never stopped hitting his opponent’s face. He was taller, but his agility and technique were not inferior. The opponent had no way to fight back except to passively defend. His physical strength was exhausted, and he could only hug Lu Xiao’s waist like he was holding on to a piece of driftwood in a turbulent tsunami, not letting go no matter how much he was hit.

The referee blew the whistle and stepped forward to separate the two, gesturing for them to start again. Lu Xiao threw a left hook that hit his opponent’s face, and with a backhand, a right punch that was as fast as lightning hit the opponent’s chin. He took advantage of his victory and lunged forward. The boxing gloves collided with a heavy thud, forcing his opponent to retreat step by step. The opponent turned his head and spit out a mouthful of blood. The adrenaline of the audience in the first few rows immediately surged. They instantly stood up and applauded loudly, with deafening applause and cheers rising and falling.

Ge Dong-lin sat in the middle of the best viewing area of the stadium. Along with the gazes of hundreds of people, he calmly watched the person opposite Lu Xiao get punched and almost sent flying before heavily falling to the ground. The referee stepped forward to count down, and the passionate audience also shouted the final countdown loudly.

“Three, two, one!”

The victory music sounded. The referee raised Lu Xiao’s arm and shouted the winner’s name. The audience also shouted enthusiastically. Confetti and a small-scale fireworks show exploded from the four sides of the boxing ring. The air was filled with the pleasure of victory.

Lu Xiao shook the sweat from his hair. He spit out his mouthguard, and his thumb wiped away the almost dried blood on the bridge of his nose, which added to his charm like a medal. He walked down the ring to the sound of cheers.

Ge Dong-lin had been watching him. Lu Xiao seemed to feel that gaze and looked up, giving him a smile.

It felt like he had tasted the carbonated bubbles that first stimulated his taste buds after opening a can of soda.

The butterfly in the rainforest flapped its wings, and a tornado appeared in his body.

“You’re a boss now, and you’re still fighting yourself.”

After the noise died down, Ge Dong-lin handed him a bottle of iced water on a bench in the hallway outside the locker room.

Lu Xiao had just changed his clothes and came back. There was a cut on the bridge of his nose. The crimson blood had already clotted, adding a touch of charm like a medal.

When he wasn’t in the boxing ring, a smile always seemed to be on Lu Xiao’s face. “Watching them fight on stage makes my hands itch. Besides, I can make money if I win. The club’s business hasn’t been great recently.”

His voice was very clear. Even when he was saying things that others might find difficult to say, his expression was still open and honest. When Ge Dong-lin heard him say, “I can make money,” he almost blurted out, “Are you short on money? I can give you money.”

The early summer sun was still gentle. The temperature was gradually rising, staying at a comfortable twenty degrees Celsius these days.

Ge Dong-lin’s hand pressed on his thigh, pinching his skin hard, as if warning himself not to say anything inappropriate.

“I’ve always thought you were very good at planning your life. You’ve gotten so many certificates, you’ve been a volunteer, you’ve gotten scholarships, you’ve interned at such a great entertainment company, and now you’re a big star’s assistant…”

Lu Xiao was amused by him. “How do you know so much? Did you look at my resume?”

“No,” Lu Xiao also smiled foolishly. “Didn’t you tell me all this when we were chatting in school?”

“Your memory is pretty good then.”

Lu Xiao scratched his head. “Not that good.”

The two of them were silent for a while. Ge Dong-lin suddenly spoke slowly. “I wasn’t like this before, remember? When we first met,” he smiled in a forced, casual way, “I was like an idiot.”

“You weren’t.” Lu Xiao hurriedly denied it, as if he were stamping a seal.

Ge Dong-lin reached up and touched his ear, continuing to speak to himself. “But when the college entrance exam was approaching, I seemed to have a sudden realization. I felt that I couldn’t go on like that, living in a daze. If I did, I would get further and further away from… what I wanted. Fortunately, in the last half of the semester, I applied to my teachers to study at home. No one came to bother me, and I was able to go to the exam smoothly.”

Lu Xiao sighed repeatedly. “If you had met me earlier, those people wouldn’t have dared to bully you.”

“Yeah, I think so too,” Ge Dong-lin didn’t know why he was in the mood to reminisce today. He usually tried his best to avoid thinking about these things. “Even though I seem like a pretty good person now, right?” He said this and then pursed his lips in embarrassment. “But sometimes, I always feel like the life I have now was stolen from somewhere.”

“You are a very good person,” Lu Xiao said firmly. He relaxed his posture and leaned back with his strong arms, a slight smile in his voice. “So, you’re close to what you want now, right?”

Ge Dong-lin turned his face to look at him, the corners of his mouth curving up. He nodded lightly. “Yes.”

If the conversation ended here, it would just be a story about two high school classmates who were close friends, went to different cities for college but kept in touch intermittently, and were now reuniting to catch up. Ending it here would be at least decent, if not heartwarming.

But the conversation that followed was like a chopstick that bent in water. Ge Dong-lin lowered his eyes and suddenly continued with what Lu Xiao had just said. “I have a very good job now. I can support myself and have the ability to handle risks. My personality is also fine. I don’t get angry when I encounter difficulties, and I’m not a pushover like I used to be. I can cook, drive, and I don’t smoke, drink, or gamble. I don’t have any bad habits.”

He listed these things slowly. Lu Xiao couldn’t help but keep a smile on his face. Just now, he was saying that he was like looking at his resume, but now he was getting worse, making it sound like a blind date.

Lu Xiao was about to make fun of him and ask him if he had joined some dating website and needed to fill out his personal information.

He sat up straight and was about to speak when he heard Ge Dong-lin continue in his unhurried tone. “So, liking me shouldn’t be a very difficult thing, right?”

It rained at noon.

Ge Dong-lin had planned to treat Lu Xiao to lunch at his place. Just as he finished cleaning the dishes, there was a flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder outside. The sound of raindrops hitting the window was very hypnotic. Lu Xiao looked a little tired, so Ge Dong-lin naturally asked him if he wanted to sleep in the guest room for a while.

After settling Lu Xiao in, Ge Dong-lin stood in the living room for a while, feeling a little lost about what to do. At that moment, his phone in his pants pocket suddenly vibrated.

Ge Dong-lin’s phone had a dedicated line marked with the number “1.” As long as that number appeared on the screen, he would immediately put down everything he was doing and be on high alert.

There were only two words on the screen: “Tonight.”

Ge Dong-lin immediately put on his jacket and walked out the door without hesitation, quickly replying, “Okay, Mr. Qin.”

The sky was pitch black, and it was still drizzling. The silvery moonlight was hidden behind a thick layer of clouds. Only a few scattered people were still walking on the street, moving slowly as if they had nowhere to go.

Such a cold and desolate night was safer for Yu Xing. A tall man was standing next to him, holding an umbrella for him. The black umbrella was slightly tilted toward Yu Xing.

The streetlights flickered on the wet ground, looking like a shaky moon.

Ge Dong-lin stared at the puddles on the ground in a daze. The moon was already on the ground. Where else could it fall?

He was in a daze for a moment before he stared at the two figures in front of him again. He saw Yu Xing get into a black sports car. The license plate had six of the same consecutive numbers, making it easy to identify the owner of the car.

He was about to follow when he suddenly heard a faint meow. A small, abandoned cat was struggling in a garbage can on the side of the road, eating leftovers from a bag. Its body temperature seemed to be dissipating in the cold wind, as its voice became weaker and weaker.

Ge Dong-lin hesitated for a moment, but the weak meow was like a fierce force, tearing at his wavering will.

His fingers on the steering wheel relaxed for a second, then held on even tighter. The noise of his heart beating slowly quieted down, and he quickly followed the black sports car in front of him.

Ge Dong-lin suddenly remembered what he had said to Lu Xiao on the chair outside the locker room today. “But sometimes, I always feel like the life I have now was stolen from somewhere.”

It wasn’t stolen. It was picked up. He thought that Qin Li had calmly thrown a bone with some meat still on it, and he was the cat that treated the leftovers as a feast.

“Tsk, that little assistant of yours is like a tail, following you around all day.”

The warm yellow streetlights on the side of the street passed by one after another. Qin Yun-qi’s narrow eyes were in the flickering light and shadows.

Yu Xing glanced in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, it’s okay. He’ll pick me up and take me home tonight.”

Qin Yun-qi’s voice unconsciously had a hint of dissatisfaction. “You still have to go back tonight?”

“I have a variety show to film tomorrow morning.”

Sensing the ingratiating tone in the other person’s voice, Qin Yun-qi still felt a little annoyed, even though he was looking straight ahead. “You’re really busy now. You’re in movies, music, and variety shows.”

Yu Xing curled the corners of his mouth, revealing his sharp canines. “Thank you for supporting me, Little Mr. Qin.”

The car stopped at the gate of a villa clubhouse. Four or five security guards stood outside in a respectful line, watching the two people walk in arm in arm.

“They’ve arrived.”

Ge Dong-lin typed quickly. After the message was sent successfully, he pressed the lock button. The black screen reflected his expressionless face.

Yu Xing was wearing a black jacket, and his exposed face and neck were as white as snow. When people see a clean patch of snow, do they all have the urge to leave their footprints on it?

The tall buildings in the park on the side of the road were still lit with a few scattered lights, like the embers of an extinguished fire flickering in the wind.

Ge Dong-lin held a mint candy in his mouth to refresh himself. He watched the people filing into the clubhouse and suddenly thought of the earthworms that crawled out of the soil after the rain.

The worm he hated the most was the earthworm. It was very difficult to kill. Even if half of its body was chopped off, it would still writhe in the foul-smelling mud.

When he was in school, some people liked to put worms in his backpack and pencil case. He remembered Li Yi holding his head down and saying he was going to stuff a centipede in his ear. Later, when Li Yi was dying, his ferocious look was also like that struggling centipede.

He didn’t have that much ability. He was just helping Qin Li and could also get some leftover bones. Maybe he should be grateful to those who once trampled on his dignity so wantonly, so now he could also be a glorious, shady henchman.

From the day Qin Li found him, he had no other choice. Refusing would be a dead end. If he were really tired of living, he might as well pour gasoline all over his body and throw a lighter on himself.

In the early morning, Ge Dong-lin returned home, dragging his tired body as if he had just completed a mission.

As the elevator went up, his hand was pressed firmly against his temples, as if he was afraid that snakes and worms would crawl out from there and bite his brain. It wasn’t until he pushed the door open and saw the lit living room that his expression became blank and his hand dropped. Lu Xiao hadn’t left yet and was holding a watering can, watering the potted plants on the floor.

“I couldn’t get a hold of you. I wanted to wait for you to come back and say goodbye before I left. I didn’t know you would be working so late.”

Lu Xiao’s reason was a bit far-fetched, but the deep affection in his eyes looked more like concern.

Ge Dong-lin took out his phone and saw a few unread red dots on his call log.

“I accidentally put it on silent,” he paused and asked tentatively, “Then why don’t you go back tonight?”

“Okay… But won’t I be bothering you?”

Ge Dong-lin smiled. “Of course not.”

Lu Xiao still subconsciously bent his index finger and rubbed the injured spot on the bridge of his nose with his thumb. The bloodstain that had finally clotted oozed a crimson color again.

In the past, Ge Dong-lin would always follow Yan Liao to various arcades and internet cafes to play games. When they were students, their time was not free, so they often had to go home in the middle of a game. But fortunately, some games at that time had save and load functions, so no matter where or when they stopped, they could continue playing.

As an adult, he would often wish that life could be the same.

The unfinished things that were stopped midway could be continued as if there had been no interruption, naturally and smoothly.

“Does it hurt here?”

Ge Dong-lin’s finger pointed at the bloodstain on Lu Xiao’s nose. Before he could hear the other’s answer, he leaned in, his lips lightly touching the spot.

It was as if he had easily poked through a paper window in the dark.

The two of them seemed to be wrapped in a shared, confined space, as if a zipper was slowly closing over their heads.

Lu Xiao’s lips were very soft. The fleeting kiss had a cool minty scent. The pressure on his skin was also very cold, like a heavy snow.

Sounds, smells, and body heat seemed to surround him from all directions. All the blood in his body sped up, and a wave of dizziness like a continuous flash flood rushed through his nerves.

It felt like he was standing on an excessively steep slope and was about to slide down, wanting to climb on to something to get to the top.

Ge Dong-lin half-closed his eyes. At a certain trembling moment, he seemed to have a hallucination of a weak meow. Then, the dazzling fireworks in front of him suddenly turned into a decaying piece of ash and fell down, a bloody mess.