The Popular/Charismatic Beta Always Thinks They Are Universally Disliked - Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Eternal Friendship

Why, out of all times, did he choose to hand this videotape to Wen Zhiyi two years later?

He chose a time when Wen Zhiyi no longer loved Chen Que, a time when Wen Zhiyi would no longer feel a heartbreaking pang for Chen Que’s tears.

Wen Zhiyi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He slowly calmed down and called Zhu Qiao.

“…Did Chen Que ask you to give this to me?” The Beta, who was cold and composed in a crisis, looked out at the luxuriantly green magnolia trees outside the window. These gracefully upright deciduous trees quietly provided patches of dense shade. He knew Chen Que also lived in this complex but hadn’t run into him for a while.

Zhu Qiao used a hairpin to tuck the silver strands of hair that were falling over the wound on his cheek. He silently processed the emotions in Wen Zhiyi’s words, but the other’s calm and indifferent voice gave him no insight: “Yes, but he asked me to give it to you two years ago. At that time… at that time, I didn’t want to give it to you. I didn’t want him to have it too easy. It’s that simple.”

An S-class Alpha’s genes, the background of a top entertainment family, astonishing artistic talent, and even a partner who loved him wholeheartedly… Why did Chen Que have everything? Why did he have to just watch Chen Que possess it all?

An indescribable malice, like an aggressive tumor that suddenly erupted, was parasitic in Zhu Qiao’s body. He knew he had gained much more than he originally had, but if he had never seen a wider world, then a complacent mediocrity and nothingness would not have been unacceptable.

Besides, Chen Que never treated him as an equal friend. To Chen Que, he was just a piece of slightly shining trash.

“You are an absolute bastard, do you know that?” The Beta, who usually smiled sweetly, lowered his voice slightly, like a quiet, low tremor of a string lightly covered in rosin. “He treated you as his best friend, and yet, for such a ridiculous reason, you made him—”

Wen Zhiyi did not continue the rest of the sentence.

What could he say? On what grounds could he say those things?

The fingers gripping the phone tightened until they were faintly blue, veins popping out on the back of his hand, just emerging from the tendons. Zhu Qiao, who had been openly accepting the accusations with a penitent attitude, suddenly let out an extremely calm, short laugh:

“A friend who is summoned and dismissed at will? Or a friend who is naturally superior? Wen Zhiyi, do you really think Chen Que treats everyone the way he treats you?”

But, but—

“You didn’t meet Chen Que yesterday,” Wen Zhiyi shook his head in disappointment, ruthlessly, unhesitatingly, and mercilessly tearing off the last shred of pretense. “He is manic, irrational, incapable of empathy, and doesn’t give people an easy out, but Chen Que has always been like this. You can’t just accept the part where you benefit and then use the other parts to deny the friendship.”

The words, sharp as a snow-bright knife point, deeply sliced open the heart Zhu Qiao had hidden in the crevices of guilt and baseness.

Wen Zhiyi rubbed his temples, finally speaking a memory he once thought he would never recall.

He said: “Chen Que once told me that if his and my wedding needed a best man, he could only think of you.”

A typical Chen Que thought process.

He completely disregarded whether Zhu Qiao, as the rejected suitor, would be willing to undertake the duty of Best Man. He simply took it for granted that if the most important scene of his life required a witness, it would be served by Zhu Qiao, the only person he considered a friend.

This was unrelated to what he had given Zhu Qiao; it was only related to the decade-plus friendship between them.

The loud, giant clang that had rung in Zhu Qiao’s mind when Chen Que was punching him on the ground roared back, deafeningly.

The dark, suffocating obsession buried deep in Zhu Qiao’s heart for years was thus directly exposed by Wen Zhiyi. He gasped rapidly, feeling completely exposed, pushed onto the beach by a giant wave. Anything he wanted to say felt utterly pale.

Regret? Shame? Self-loathing?

He felt all these emotions capable of tearing a person apart, but he felt more than just these.

Zhu Qiao belatedly realized he was feeling a sense of consolation.

He wasn’t the only one who cared about this unequal friendship. Chen Que cared, and Wen Zhiyi cared. All three people who had shared the happiest two years together cared, and the one who committed the first betrayal was paradoxically the one who appeared to care the most.

Three people who once cared for each other and whose fates were intertwined ultimately did not get what they wanted.

Chen Que lost his lover and his only friend. Wen Zhiyi lost the possibility of the unreasonable love that could have existed and witnessed the betrayal of his former lover’s friendship. And Zhu Qiao ultimately failed to gain the equal friendship and Wen Zhiyi’s love he desired.

Chen Que was domineering, manic, and lacked empathy. The same delicacy of feeling he had for Wen Zhiyi could be matched by an equal amount of cold indifference toward others. Zhu Qiao was base, jealous, and highly sensitive. He both yearned for Wen Zhiyi’s love and allowed this yearning to fuel his resentment toward Chen Que. Both of them were at fault.

But what did Wen Zhiyi do wrong?

What did he do wrong to have to lose again?

What did he do wrong to be forced to confront such distorted love and obsession?

Gaining and losing never seems to be a logical proposition. It neither rewards you for doing right nor ceases its cruel deprivation because you did no wrong.

Wen Zhiyi said one last sentence before hanging up: “I won’t accept this videotape. You know better than I do that it’s meaningless now. So, just like you have for the past two years, keep it with you, and constantly remind yourself.”

Constantly remind yourself what kind of person you truly are, and how you personally betrayed the friendship you valued most.

Zhu Qiao did not speak. He quietly waited for Wen Zhiyi to hang up, then looked down at the videotape he had unconsciously placed in his palm.

He knew this was a genuine, irreversible loss.

Both Wen Zhiyi and Chen Que were lost to him. They would absolutely never forgive him.

Then why didn’t he just hide this matter forever?

Electroconvulsive therapy, deep brain stimulation modulation… Chen Que had undergone scientifically effective treatments over the past two years. Although these extremely cutting-edge therapies were accompanied by unspeakable pain, they did stabilize Chen Que’s condition initially. When Chen Que was granted freedom of movement, the first thing he did was return to the country to search for the increasingly blurred figure in his mind.

This person, he felt, was the one he absolutely must not forget or lose.

You must find this person. You must get this person back.

You must put the ring on this person’s finger.

Chen Que returned home alone with this happy and beautiful fantasy. He knew he would always love this person. Therefore, he never mentioned Wen Zhiyi’s silence regarding the videotape two years ago. He didn’t say that he had waited for a long time in the hospital for a reply, nor did he say that he had been truly miserable for those two years. He thought it was normal for Zhizhi to be scared by the videotape, and normal for Zhizhi to be unable to accept that version of himself.

Yes, Wen Zhiyi had searched for him for a long time and sent countless messages after Chen Que disappeared, but these messages all occurred before the videotape was handed to Zhu Qiao. The disheartened and highly self-respecting Little Wen, amidst the lack of any response, stopped messaging Chen Que. In Chen Que’s eyes, this silence became a silent rejection.

He thought this was normal.

Zhizhi couldn’t become completely exhausted for him, and he didn’t have the courage to personally expose his vulnerability to Wen Zhiyi.

A typical Chen Que mindset. Aside from gender and appearance, he was nothing like his father, yet he strangely inherited the Chen family’s tradition of “fear of one’s wife” in another form. Chen Que certainly didn’t fear Wen Zhiyi, but a sick, mentally and physically compromised Chen Que would feel inferior in front of Wen Zhiyi.

How could he still be like an S-class Alpha?

He was a monster, a patient, a self-incapable waste; the one thing he couldn’t be was Wen Zhiyi’s lover.

Chen Que’s cowardice ultimately led him to learn the news of Wen Zhiyi’s marriage.

It hurts so much.

It really hurts.

Under the effects of intravenous anesthesia and muscle relaxants, he should have felt no pain. But why did it still hurt like his heart was being completely cut open?

An S-class Alpha’s physical constitution had reached the human limit. The maximum safe dosage of muscle relaxants injected could not make Chen Que completely give up resistance, failing to completely sever the signal transmission between muscles and nerves. The deeply ingrained instinct for combat and vigilance made his fingers stubbornly react to external stimuli.

This was a normal Alpha survival instinct; they could not tolerate losing control of their body.

However, as this intolerable pain surged like a tide, Chen Que suddenly felt so tired, so exhausted that he no longer wanted to struggle. He thought that person might never be found again.

The fingers that had been continuously twitching and struggling slowly curled up. His palm opened, fingers slightly bent, like a soft, powerless heart that had lost its pumping ability, no longer reacting.

It was as if all the struggle, all the fear and anger, survival and expectation, pain and unwillingness, had been completely drawn out of this body by the drugs. The survival instinct failed to overcome the overwhelming bitterness and despair in his will.

Perhaps, in that instant, he truly died.

At this point, the truth behind the sudden breakup two years ago has been completely laid bare before Wen Zhiyi. He got the answer he had sought day and night, yet he was no longer willing to offer any evaluation, nor could he react to it.

Just as Chen Que had once “died,” the heart of Wen Zhiyi, which had wholeheartedly loved Chen Que, has also completely died.

They did not have good luck, nor were they favored by fate. To continue protecting each other required a courage more refined than the cruel fate itself.

Unfortunately, the sick Chen Que lacked this courage, and unfortunately, the twenty-two-year-old Wen Zhiyi no longer charged into walls.