Chapter 125: Have you ever liked anyone?
Huo Niansheng threw his towel onto the back of a chair and pulled the door open: “What’s wrong?”
Chen Wengang stood outside like a ghost, his expression equally hollow—he said he had tinnitus.
Huo Niansheng paused, genuinely looking toward his ear: “What happened?”
Chen Wengang suddenly reached out and hugged him.
Huo Niansheng didn’t move for a moment; Chen Wengang pressed his face against his chest. Since the living room was empty and Chen Wengang had just bathed in the bathroom, he carried the lemon scent of body wash, and Huo Niansheng could smell the damp, humid mist still clinging to his hair. From this angle, as Huo Niansheng lowered his head, he could see the scar on the side of the other man’s forehead.
Slowly, he raised his hand, patted Chen Wengang’s back, and lifted his face.
Chen Wengang made a desperate, all-or-nothing reach for his lips.
He kissed him tentatively, prepared to be pushed away, but Huo Niansheng held him and responded.
And so, as if by some strange fate, they ended up in bed again. Chen Wengang was pressed into the pillow by Huo Niansheng; when the other man kissed him, there was an subtle, underlying sense of caution. He hooked his arms around Huo Niansheng’s neck, a flash of guilt appearing in his heart, followed by a great deal of emptiness.
Just before opening that door, he hadn’t fully decided why he was seeking out Huo Niansheng, or what he hoped to gain.
But the door had opened, Huo Niansheng had looked at him with those peach-blossom eyes in that half-smiling way, and his body had made the decision for him, impulsively, a step ahead of his mind.
When people don’t know what to do, they subconsciously follow their instincts; seeking comfort from one’s own kind is an instinct, not a matter of logic. And Huo Niansheng couldn’t clearly explain what he was thinking, either. What he was doing now was undoubtedly irrational; he knew that in his heart.
Small, broken sounds filled his ears. He gripped one of Chen Wengang’s hands; the wrist was thin and delicate, with blue veins hidden beneath the skin.
But he couldn’t care about anything else.
By the second half of the night, the movement in the room had stopped. Chen Wengang lay prone at the head of the bed, his chin resting on his hands, watching the clock on the nightstand.
The slender second hand moved forward notch by notch—tick, tock, tick, tock. Before long, his eyes felt heavy with fatigue, his spirit somewhat withered.
Huo Niansheng pulled at the sheets, leaned over, and his fingers traced down Chen Wengang’s spine toward his shoulder blades.
Under the light of the wall lamp, Chen Wengang had several newly healed scars on his back. At first, he hadn’t realized it, but he subconsciously flinched. Huo Niansheng touched them anyway: “How did you get these?”
Chen Wengang turned his head to look back, seeing them: “Fighting with someone.”
There was a moment of silence behind him. Huo Niansheng measured the marks on his body with his thumb and forefinger.
As for when Chen Wengang had the opportunity to get into a fight and produce marks that looked suspiciously like cigarette burns, he didn’t press for details.
Instead, he laughed: “What’s the matter? Saw an old flame today and feeling out of sorts?”
Chen Wengang reached out, swept the box from the bedside table back into the still-open drawer, and closed it.
He didn’t answer the question. He turned his head and asked Huo Niansheng instead: “Do you have a girlfriend right now?”
“Nope.”
“A boyfriend, then?”
“None. I don’t even have those casual hookups that don’t count as relationships. What are you worried about? ‘Once bitten by a snake, ten years afraid of the well rope’?”
“…Yeah.”
“Then what were you doing just a moment ago? Why didn’t you think to ask then?” Huo Niansheng sneered, whispering against his ear, “Oh, you come to me when you’re in a bad mood, and then once you’re finished, you remember all this? What do you take me for?”
Chen Wengang was tongue-tied, unable to answer. He changed his position, sitting up slightly, and turned his body to the side. Huo Niansheng followed, teasing with his words, but stretched out an arm to pull his shoulder. The arm acted as a pillow behind his head, as if drawing him into an embrace.
Through his movements, a natural, casual intimacy emerged, so much so that Chen Wengang didn’t dare move recklessly for a moment, simply waiting to see what would happen.
He wasn’t even sure if this playboy had such good manners with everyone he slept with.
It was strange—the two of them originally had a relationship that was miles apart. If not for the series of accidents, Chen Wengang might never have imagined that he would one day be taken in by Huo Niansheng and stay for so long. In the past, he had always held a stereotypical, shallow impression of Huo Niansheng. In any case, it was even more unimaginable that he would one day end up in bed with him.
Evidently, life is full of surprises, and fate plays tricks on people. Now that it had happened, he didn’t feel anything particularly special.
After a while, Chen Wengang suddenly asked: “Have you ever liked anyone?”
Huo Niansheng said: “Even less so. How about you?”
Chen Wengang said: “I have, but now I hate them.”
Huo Niansheng listened quietly as he poured his heart out. He said: “I should hate Zheng Yucheng—there seem to be many things I can hate him for, but if I try to count them carefully, it’s not clear. He was the young master; he was quite good to me when I was young, and the Zheng family raised me. I thought, ‘Fine, then let’s never see each other again.’ Bury all these debts in my stomach; a lifetime isn’t that long. I had already stopped thinking about it, until I actually saw him today, and only then did I feel that the rest of my life is still far too long. The deeper the feelings were in the past, the more I can’t understand them now. Since I can’t understand, I don’t want to see him again. Every extra glance is just painful.”
Huo Niansheng listened very seriously: “What should we do then? Hire someone to get rid of him?”
Chen Wengang couldn’t help himself: “Why don’t you just lend me a sum of money and let me fly far away?”
After hearing this, Huo Niansheng laughed: “Will you pay me back? How much do you owe, and can you pay it off?”
Chen Wengang also curled his lips in a smile: “Looking at you, you shouldn’t be short of this little bit. When I start a new life, I’ll pay you back slowly?”
Huo Niansheng naturally didn’t agree. He held Chen Wengang in his arms, and they leaned against the headboard, looking like a pair of lovers in the dim light.
Chen Wengang was truly tired and drifting toward sleep. He no longer spent time wondering why Huo Niansheng helped him. Occasionally testing him with such joking questions, and having the other party never truly answer, was proof enough that the man didn’t want to explain it to him.
Either way, Huo Niansheng knew that he had nothing, and that helping him was a profitless endeavor.
Just as he was about to fall asleep, Chen Wengang felt warm breath against his ear again.
It was Huo Niansheng lowering his head to kiss him. His lips touched Chen Wengang’s right ear. This ear had also suffered; because of the acid corrosion, it had lost its original shape, leaving behind only hard scar tissue and keloids.
Chen Wengang was immediately woken up. His reaction wasn’t intense, but he wasn’t accustomed to it either: “I won’t disturb your rest anymore.”
After saying that, he lifted the quilt and got out of bed. He said goodnight to Huo Niansheng, and the dew of the night ended there; they would not share a pillow for the rest of the night.
Huo Niansheng remained leaning against the headboard, saying nothing, watching him as he left the room.
Chen Wengang returned to the guest bedroom and got into his own bed. He lay flat, but within minutes, the door suddenly opened again. Huo Niansheng entered uninvited, glancing around the room as if looking for something. Finally, he reached out and took away the cigarettes and the lighter.
He said to Chen Wengang: “I advised you before and you didn’t listen, but wounds don’t heal easily. You should quit smoking and stop.”
After that, Huo Niansheng really did take charge of Chen Wengang, having the nanny watch him. Smoking was out of the question, and alcohol couldn’t be touched without restraint anymore. At most, when they went out for Western food, they would have a little wine with the meal; the alcohol content was low, and Chen Wengang had no objections.
As for their physical relationship, once there was a first time, the second became a matter of course—or at least, much easier. It was as if it had become an unspoken agreement. Half a month later, Huo Niansheng returned home late one day and found his way into Chen Wengang’s bedroom.
There were a few more times after that, but the two still lived in separate bedrooms, minding their own business.
It was a separation of space, and also a psychological separation. For Chen Wengang, the guest room he had stayed in for so long could be considered his room in terms of belonging, but the master bedroom remained the owner’s territory. His movement pattern in the apartment was very clear: his room, the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the balcony. Unless they were having sex, he wouldn’t trespass into Huo Niansheng’s space.
When Huo Niansheng wasn’t home, Chen Wengang became a man with nothing to do.
He had plenty of time to kill, and Huo Niansheng didn’t restrict him. He could do whatever he wanted—read books, watch movies, play games, tend to plants to cultivate his mind, or simply ponder life and plan for the future; there should have been something meaningful to fill his life. But for some reason, he couldn’t muster any interest in anything, and he lived each day just to get through it.
The TV was on all day, from morning news to eight o’clock soap operas, and then to midnight variety show reruns. Aunt Meng thought Chen Wengang was always watching TV and sometimes came over to nag him about not overusing his eyes. In truth, he just kept the screen on, jumping frame by frame.
Especially on nights when Huo Niansheng wasn’t home, the nanny went home too, and the house was empty. The TV would stay on all night.
Chen Wengang would take his quilt and sleep on the sofa in the living room. He turned the volume down very low. The hosts and guests of the midnight programs opened and closed their mouths, the camera switching back and forth on their faces. They kept talking, bursting into exaggerated laughter, but the sound was kept very low, becoming background white noise to help him sleep. When the program ended, it turned into long commercials.
Once, in the middle of the night, the door suddenly clicked. Somehow, Huo Niansheng had suddenly arrived, and as he entered, he ran straight into this scene.
He paused, softening his footsteps, thinking Chen Wengang had fallen asleep watching TV, and came over to find the remote to turn it off.
In the shifting light and shadow, half of Chen Wengang’s face flickered. Then, he sat up from the sofa, his expression clear, and asked Huo Niansheng why he had come, if he had a social engagement nearby, and if he needed some honey water.
Huo Niansheng asked: “You weren’t asleep?”
Chen Wengang said: “I was asleep.”
In this state, every day from morning to night felt long. But once it was endured, he found that time actually passed very quickly.
In the blink of an eye, it was almost Lunar New Year. This Spring Festival, Chen Wengang spent it in the hospital.
Aunt Meng skillfully helped him pack his hospital things. Over the past few months, going back and forth to the hospital had become a daily routine—sometimes for check-ups, sometimes for follow-up visits. This hospital stay was for auricular reconstruction surgery.
Compared to Chen Wengang himself, regarding his physical disability, Huo Niansheng’s attitude was that he hadn’t yet given up hope. He had even hired quite a few specialists for consultations—some flying in from all over the country—attempting to patch Chen Wengang up. He was still performing a final “rescue” on this flawed piece of work.
With such a medical lineup, it was hard for the surgery not to succeed. But the process was inevitably accompanied by the pain of needles and scalpels, which the patient had to endure alone.
On New Year’s Eve, Aunt Meng took the day off, and Chen Wengang sent the caregiver away too. This was a day for family reunions; even for the most serious patients, as long as they weren’t in intensive care and immobile, most would try every method to return home for the New Year.
Chen Wengang left the ward and walked around the building, but from the first floor to the sixth, it was cold and deserted, having lost every trace of “smoke and fire” (liveliness).
He went to the nurse’s station to chat with the nurse on duty for a while, joining them around a tablet to watch some of the New Year’s Gala programs.
Then, when he returned to his room and prepared to sleep, Chen Wengang noticed many missed calls on his phone.
This mobile number was one he’d gotten later, and few people knew it. Every single call had been made by the same person.
He dialed Huo Niansheng back and heard the other man ask on the other end: “Why didn’t you answer the phone? What were you doing?”
Chen Wengang counted all the activities of the evening for him. In the middle, he was interrupted once; someone shouted Huo Niansheng’s name on the other end. Huo Niansheng seemed to have moved to a different place before continuing to talk to Chen Wengang, chuckling on the other side: “Why does that sound so boring?”
Chen Wengang said casually: “It is a little boring.”
Unexpectedly, Huo Niansheng said: “I’ll come to see you tomorrow.”
Chen Wengang was stunned: “No need. Don’t you need to spend the New Year at home?”
Huo Niansheng said: “It doesn’t matter. It’s boring anyway; I might as well come find you. You go to sleep first; I’ll be there in the morning.”
:(((((((
Thank you for the translation.