Chapter 107: Wouldn’t someone living here alone feel lonely?
The glossy black sports car drove up the mountain road. The vegetation was dense, exuding the scents of various plants, and the sky was draped in slate-blue clouds. Beneath the cloud banks opposite were mountain forests, their color like deep-green dai. Through his sunglasses, Chen Wengang observed this world that had been coated in a layer of black.
Huo Niansheng stepped on the gas. The sports car couldn’t show off its performance in the downtown area, but out in the suburbs, it was in its element.
The speed whipped up a strong wind, blowing against them with a fierce, rhythmic fluttering.
Before he realized it, Chen Wengang had taken off his sunglasses. He rested his arm on the open window, pressing the temple of the glasses against his lips.
Huo Niansheng looked for a topic to chat about: “It just so happens I haven’t been to see…” He glanced at Chen Wengang, “Wengang?”
Chen Wengang didn’t respond. Huo Niansheng’s peripheral vision caught his profile. He was gently biting the tip of the temple, revealing a subconscious anxiety, before suddenly reacting: “What did you say?”
Huo Niansheng smiled: “Though this place is remote, there are actually quite a few people living around here. There’s a horse ranch nearby, and a reservoir—you can go camping or fishing. And this road we’re on now? At night, a bunch of young hoodlums with dyed hair come out to drag race.”
Chen Wengang nodded: “They must have taken a liking to this place because there are no traffic police.”
Seeking thrills was a temptation young people couldn’t resist. Throughout the four seasons, this mountain road was a paradise for heavy-motorcycle enthusiasts. The drivers were all youngsters, like wild creatures that hid by day and emerged at midnight.
Their modified engines roared deafeningly, and their car stereos were cranked to the maximum. Death metal music would blanket the sky as they yelled and shrieked, sometimes even trespassing on private property. Chen Wengang, sleeping in the middle of the night, would occasionally be woken up by the distant clamor.
Thrills aside, danger was unavoidable. One year, Chen Wengang heard about a car accident outside; a racer had been tripped by a protruding tree root, and the man and his bike flew off the road. By the time they were found, his head had been crushed flat. He had his girlfriend in the car with him; she had luckily survived. In this dull, uneventful place, the nannies had returned to discuss it with sighs for days.
The “half-mountain villa” wasn’t just an isolated house; it included vast surrounding gardens, making it no exaggeration to call it a small manor.
After driving past a stretch of loose wire fencing hung with “Private Residence, No Trespassing” signs, they had to drive for another ten minutes before reaching the villa gate. The courtyard was enclosed by low stone walls covered in evergreen ivy.
Chen Wengang got out of the car at the gate.
This was the place where he had been imprisoned for several years in his previous life.
He stared subtly at Huo Niansheng’s back. Huo Niansheng seemed unaware, throwing the car keys aside in the courtyard and walking inside as soon as he closed the gate.
A group of angels stood in the fountain pool at the entrance. Huo Niansheng glanced into it as he passed, as if confirming its maintenance status. The water in the pool was clear and odorless, showing it was regularly changed, but the fountain mechanisms were turned off—after all, there was no one to watch when the master was away, and electricity costs could be saved. The entire manor was devoid of a single ghost of a shadow, like a no-man’s land hidden in a dimension within the mountains.
Chen Wengang was also looking around, and before he could withdraw his gaze, he bumped into Huo Niansheng’s back.
Huo Niansheng was waiting for him on the steps, turning to take his hand: “Why don’t you look where you’re walking?”
“Nothing… I just saw a squirrel run into the window.”
“Wasn’t it a mouse?”
“It had a big tail, it must be a squirrel. No one lives here, so the little thing probably thinks the house is its territory now.”
Huo Niansheng’s lips curled up, and he pulled him toward the door: “Let’s go in and see if it’s still there. If it is, we’ll catch it.”
The squirrel was sharp; hearing the commotion, it scurried away, leaving a trail of rustling sounds. Catching it was impossible.
The half-mountain villa actually had staff managing it—a security guard, a gardener, and a housekeeper. They usually only handled basic maintenance. If the master were to move in formally, a handful of people like this wouldn’t be enough.
The housekeeper had received a call in advance and was waiting to greet his employer.
Chen Wengang shook hands with him, knowing that maintaining such a large house required enormous costs in labor and repairs. Even for a smaller house, like the one Zheng Bingyi had given him, living in it required five or six people to manage. That was also why he had been forced to sell it—either it would sit idle and depreciate, or he would have to support a house full of help, a lifestyle he couldn’t afford to keep up.
The interior was paved with diamond-patterned tiles, and the vaulted living room was three stories high. Standing in the middle made a person feel insignificantly small.
The sun had set, and evening was approaching, filling the air with a peaceful and subtle atmosphere.
Dinner was prepared by the housekeeper. He had culinary skills and served as the cook here; it was said the three employees solved their dining needs through him. However, this middle-aged man was best at Western cuisine: char-grilled pork ribs, red wine braised beef brisket, squid ink pasta, and seafood baked rice.
It was more than good enough. Chen Wengang jokingly said he was overqualified, that he could clearly be a chef outside instead of wasting his time looking after a house here.
The housekeeper smiled modestly: “I just like to study recipes from different countries when work isn’t busy. Researching cooking is just a hobby; I’m still far from being a proper chef.”
He didn’t sit at the same table as the masters, returning to the rear building to eat with the security guard and the gardener.
When Chen Wengang turned back, only he and Huo Niansheng were left in the dining room.
The meal felt a bit heavy.
Whether it was a matter of mood or something else, there was an indescribable barrier somewhere. Usually, they ate together at the apartment or the old mansion, and the two would be affectionately huddled together. Here, their thin conversation felt like it couldn’t even fill the vast space.
Moreover, Chen Wengang felt an extra layer of unease in his heart. He wasn’t sure of the reason Huo Niansheng had brought him here.
The trip was completely inexplicable, and there was nothing worth playing with. It wasn’t until they went to the study and Huo Niansheng slid open a bookshelf to reveal a safe that Chen Wengang understood.
Huo Niansheng didn’t avoid Chen Wengang, inputting the code and showing him what was inside—
The most eye-catching items were the stacks of gold bars and nuggets; they were heavy and gleaming, quite breathtaking.
But besides these precious metals, there were many paper documents locked inside the safe. Each one was presumably important.
Chen Wengang pressed his lips together tightly; his throat felt like it was blocked with cotton. He was speechless for a moment.
Huo Niansheng hugged his waist, pressing his chin onto his shoulder: “I just felt that it was time for you to see some things. If…” He rubbed against his hair, “if one day I meet with misfortune, you need to know which documents exist and where to find them.”
Chen Wengang closed his eyes: “I don’t know.”
Huo Niansheng tried to reason with him: “The heavens have unpredictable weather. It’s not that an accident will definitely happen, but one must guard against them.”
Chen Wengang gritted his teeth: “I have never thought about such unlucky things! Should I go find a lawyer to write a will when we go back, and worry in advance about what to do after I die?”
Huo Niansheng looked at him calmly: “You could.”
Chen Wengang took a deep breath, his chest heaving violently.
Huo Niansheng observed his reaction: “It’s a good habit to write a will early. Everyone should have that awareness.”
With one hand still around Chen Wengang, he took out a document folder: “Whether you accept it or not, I am seven years older than you. It may be that one day I will have to leave before you do. When that time comes, you have to know what to do.”
Chen Wengang couldn’t bear to hear it: “I know what to do when that time comes.”
Huo Niansheng fell silent, staring at him seriously without a word.
Chen Wengang threw the folder onto the floor, enunciating every word: “You don’t need to worry; when that time comes, I’ll just die.”
He hadn’t wanted to lose his temper with Huo Niansheng, but his head was throbbing painfully, his brain humming. He could only use overwhelming anger to cover the panic in his heart, as if only by saying something cruel could he stop the other person from saying another word. Consequently, this burst of anger was inexplicable and unreasonable. For anyone with assets, handling inheritance issues early was a wise choice.
Chen Wengang didn’t dare to look at Huo Niansheng’s face again, and realizing his loss of control made him feel even more frustrated.
He left the study and stood in the corridor, stunned for a while, his thin figure looking somewhat pathetic. Actually, he was familiar with the layout and structure of every part of this place. Seeing the living room nearby, he turned the doorknob and walked in slowly.
The living room had a home theater. Chen Wengang had no heart to choose a movie, but he needed a little noise, so he reached out and turned on the television.
After a while, someone pushed the door open. He was curled up on his side on the carpet, tears running from the corners of his eyes into his ears and hair.
Huo Niansheng approached and leaned over him: “Why are you crying?”
Chen Wengang didn’t move.
Huo Niansheng sighed, reaching out to hug him. He turned over, his chest heaving silently, soaking Huo Niansheng’s shirt.
Huo Niansheng didn’t mention what had just happened, or any of his inexplicable reactions. He just sat on the floor, back against the sofa, watching the big screen on the wall with him. The movie channel was playing a very old classic film set in the 1920s, telling the tragic love story between a French girl and a wealthy Chinese heir in Saigon, Vietnam. The girl from a poor family meets the only son of a tycoon. The heir likes the white girl, and she wants to try being with a rich man. He picks her up and drops her off in a black car and takes her to his mansion; the two live a life of “hiding a beauty in a golden house” for a while.
They met in secret, made love, and bathed. The heir loved her and thought of marrying her, but she never admitted that she could love a foreigner. The heir’s wish was cut off by his father; forced by paternal duty, he married a woman of equal status whom he didn’t love. She boarded a ferry to France. Perhaps when she stood at the bow of the ship, the girl was no longer confident that she hadn’t loved this lover deeply.
The black car drove past the pier, and the twilight swallowed her up.
Nearing midnight, the roar of heavy motorcycles reached the bedroom again.
They shouldn’t have been audible, but the wire fence was in disrepair. Some racers, thinking the place was uninhabited, had destroyed parts of the barricades and blatantly incorporated parts of the manor into their path.
Chen Wengang threw on a robe and got up.
He went around the first floor. There was a small liquor cabinet in the living room, but it was locked, and most of the wine was stored in the cellar. No matter where, the keys should be with the housekeeper. He could only sit in the living room in silence for a while.
When he returned to the bedroom, Huo Niansheng had woken up: “Where did you go?”
Chen Wengang lay down with his back to him: “Nothing.”
Huo Niansheng grabbed his shoulder: “Is there anything you can’t tell me?”
Chen Wengang felt a mix of bitterness and tenderness in his heart. He sat up, placed his hand on Huo Niansheng’s face, and rubbed his temples, cheeks, and lips with his thumb. Chen Wengang lowered his head and gently pried open his lips and teeth. Huo Niansheng hummed, gripped him tightly, and soon took the lead.
In the darkness, clothes were strewn across the floor, and low, hoarse sounds seemed like both torture and pleasure.
By morning, it was as if nothing had happened yesterday. Chen Wengang said he didn’t know what to do, so Huo Niansheng took him fishing at the reservoir.
Since they were already there, they spent the day playing in the area, chatting with fishermen they had just met. At noon, they went to a nearby house, scaled and gutted their catch, and braised the fruits of their labor. In the afternoon, they went to the horse ranch for a ride.
Returning to the villa at night, the pool ripples shimmered. Chen Wengang changed his clothes and sat on the edge of the pool.
He watched Huo Niansheng swimming in the night, the white splashes glowing brilliantly under the lights. Huo Niansheng reached the other side, swam back, and tried to exit the water when he reached Chen Wengang. Chen Wengang reached out to pull him, but Huo Niansheng took the opportunity to pin him to the ground.
He suddenly asked: “What do you think of this place?”
Chen Wengang propped himself up against his chest: “Think of it how?”
Huo Niansheng looked at him deeply: “Wouldn’t it be lonely living here alone?”
I cried a lot at this chapter……