The heavy rain showed no sign of stopping, falling harder and harder.
With the medication taking effect and Yu Ying asleep, the room became even quieter.
Yu Xun walked to the window, staring at the three unfamiliar messages for a long time, then he raised his hand, and the phone screen switched to the dial pad. He made a call.
“Beep.”
“Beep.”
“……”
The beeping stopped on the fourth ring.
The call was answered.
A disgusting yet familiar voice came from the other end.
The person seemed to have phlegm in his throat and laughed hoarsely: “Finally thought of calling your uncle?”
He continued on the phone: “I thought you all had almost forgotten me.”
He said each word clearly: “I have always missed you.”
Yang Wei was living in a cheap motel, surrounded by empty wine bottles. Years of heavy drinking had left him significantly thinner than before, and his skin was tanned and rough.
The home he once shared with Yu Ying was first abandoned by her and later auctioned off by the court due to debt issues.
Even selling the house couldn’t fill the financial hole he had dug.
He wandered back to this city with nowhere to stay.
Yang Wei never imagined he would be outdone by a child—Yu Xun was just a high school student back then.
Remembering this, his emotions surged, and he kicked over a pile of wine bottles, spitting: “You screwed me over, now I’ve lost everything, no house, no car.”
“No, I still have a wife,” Yang Wei added, “Do you really think I can’t find you?”
Yu Xun didn’t want to hear him refer to Yu Ying that way: “Since you’re back, take some time to handle the paperwork.”
Yang Wei: “Paperwork? What paperwork.”
Yu Xun: “Divorce paperwork.”
“……”
The phone line went silent.
Then Yang Wei actually laughed: “You want a divorce?”
“Not want,” Yu Xun said, “I’m informing you.”
Yang Wei cursed: “Damn it, now you’re in college, with new tactics.” He searched for another bottle of alcohol, his speech becoming slurred, “What are you studying, ah, I remember, law.”
This statement revealed what he had found out about Yu Xun during his recent investigation: “You studied this just to deal with me. Divorce, domestic violence, marital r*pe… don’t think I don’t know, you plan to get me one by one.”
As he spoke, the hoarseness in his voice grew stronger: “You just want to put me in jail, you want to put me in jail!”
Yu Xun had screwed him over once, ruining him as he was now.
Yang Wei knew very well that neither of them would let the other off easily.
“Figured it out?” Yu Xun’s tone was calm, his voice as indifferent as ever, but each word carried an extra weight, “If you’re not dead enough, I’m planning to send you on your way again.”
He didn’t want to see Yang Wei again.
But looking at the sleeping Yu Ying, he felt that some things still needed to be dealt with thoroughly, so he said, “Location, I’ll come over.”
Yang Wei should have been eager to meet him, but unexpectedly, he refused, saying, “I’m not available right now.”
The motel room was dim and old.
On the table was an envelope with a brownish-yellow cover, bearing three words: “Complaint Letter.”
Yang Wei kept laughing, his throat rasping: “Don’t worry, I won’t see you for now.”
Before hanging up, he suddenly said, “Ah, right, you’ve got a girlfriend, congratulations.”
“……”
Only a busy signal remained in the receiver.
Yu Xun’s fingers gradually tightened.
It seemed like the constant screaming in his left ear hadn’t stopped yet, and his right ear, pressed against the receiver, started to scream silently too, until it let out a “buzz.”
All his indifferent façade was finally torn apart by that sentence.
Yu Xun dialed the number again.
The other party had turned off the phone.
–
The lobby of the dormitory building at Nanda University was soaked by the rain.
After the dormitory closed, the old guard moved his chair to the entrance as usual. Unlike usual, this time he held an umbrella and wore a raincoat.
Luo Sifang’s class had a gathering, and they returned late, unfortunately getting caught: “It’s outrageous, he caught me in a raincoat, saying the rain was too heavy and sitting at the entrance would get him wet.”
Others chimed in: “Damn, it’s raining that hard.”
Wang Zhuang spoke up: “Where’s Yu-ge? He hasn’t come back yet. He wouldn’t still be working now, would he?”
“……”
Yun Ci was in the washroom, the door not fully closed.
He vaguely heard the discussion outside.
He was leaning on the sink with one hand, having just washed his face, his eyelashes still wet, looking down at his phone.
The black avatar showed no activity.
Their conversation had stopped at the two messages he sent during the day.
Outside, Wang Zhuang called: “Ci-ge? You in there?”
Yun Ci responded with a “Hmm.”
Wang Zhuang: “Oh.” Remembering the unexpected harmony between Yun Ci and Yu Xun on Yu Xun’s birthday, he casually asked, “Is Yu-ge coming back tonight?”
Yun Ci replied from inside: “Not sure.”
After a while, he added, “Probably not.”
Wang Zhuang didn’t know about Yu Xun’s family issues and just sighed: “…So diligent. Should I also find a part-time job?”
Yun Ci didn’t reply, reaching for the toothbrush cup on the shelf.
However, the shelf wasn’t stable, and the cup fell straight down.
It felt like some kind of omen.
The glass cup shattered on the floor.
Outside, Wang Zhuang asked: “What happened? What fell?”
Yun Ci said: “It’s nothing, the shelf isn’t stable.”
Wang Zhuang: “Oh, that shelf is pretty wobbly. The dorm leader wanted to replace it, but it’s the end of the month and everyone’s out of money. He said, ‘I highly recommend stainless steel cups, they’re shatterproof. You could drop them a million times and they wouldn’t break, just like our solid dorm friendship—want me to send you a link?'”
“……”
At lights out, the dormitory soon quieted down.
Nothing seemed different from usual, except the lower bunk was empty.
Yun Ci had some insomnia that night, thinking about Yu Xun’s words before leaving on his birthday about “moving out next semester,” and curled up in his bed, looking up rental listings near the school.
[Quality Housing]
[One bedroom, one living room, one bathroom, nice community environment.]
[500 meters straight-line distance from Nanda, very convenient for classes, a blessing for 8 AM students.]
[……]
These listings were all targeted at students. Many Nanyang University students opted for off-campus housing starting sophomore year.
He browsed several listings and saved two of them.
–
Yu Xun didn’t sleep all night.
His phone screen was lit, displaying the message history between him and Yang Wei.
The message records were all sent by him.
—What exactly do you want.
—Meet
—Talk
—Don’t play dead, come at me if you have something.
The last message he sent to Yang Wei was:
—Don’t touch him.
At 7:30 in the morning, Yang Wei finally replied with his first message: [Mention your little boyfriend, and you get anxious?]
Then the second message.
[I really didn’t expect you to be gay.]
And the third.
[Does Yu Ying know you’re into men?]
[If she knew, she’d probably never recover from her mental illness.]
[What can I do to him, there’s no point in targeting a college student.]
[……]
Yu Xun was sitting in the living room, in the same spot as last night, not having moved. Besides Yang Wei’s messages, his gaze also fell on the time the messages were sent.
7:30.
Yang Wei was an alcoholic, always staying up late and often sleeping till noon when he was home.
Why was he up so early?
……
Moreover, the time of 7:30 had a particular significance for Yu Xun in the past few years, making it hard for him not to draw connections.
This was the start time for classes at West High.
At West High, the first class began at 7:30 every morning.
Yang Wei’s last message was a photo.
[/image]
The photo showed an envelope with the words “Complaint Letter” scrawled crookedly.
The next line read, “Real name report against your school’s director of education Yan Yue for corrupting students.”
In the lower right corner, the recipient field was filled out as: To the leadership of West High.
Yu Xun sat in the living room, feeling the blood in his body gradually turning cold.
His first instinct was to rush out to West High, intercept that letter from the complaint box, and then find Yang Wei to ask why he wasn’t dead yet and if he wanted to die with him.
The distance from here to West High wasn’t far.
He was acting almost on instinct, hailed a cab, and told the driver to hurry up.
The driver, seeing that although he wasn’t wearing a school uniform, he still looked like a student, understood and said, “Going to West High? Running late for school, huh… it’s already past seven, by the time you get there, the first class will be over.”
He didn’t catch much of what the driver said, only knowing that the temperature outside had turned scorching overnight. After getting off the cab, no matter how fast he ran, the stagnant air couldn’t stir up a breeze.
He had walked that road to West High for three years.
Returning graduates needed to apply in advance, but he hadn’t applied. He climbed in through the back gate, standing out among the uniformed students.
He ran into Yan Yue just like that at the foot of the teaching building.
Yan Yue was standing quietly not far away. When he saw him, there was no surprise in his eyes, only a deeper emotion.
His gaze shifted downwards, seeing that Yan Yue was holding not a textbook but a very thin envelope.
Yan Yue was standing very tensely, as if barely managing to stay upright.
People came and went around them.
After who knows how long, he heard Yan Yue squeeze out a sentence: “Come to my office with me.”
There was no one else in Yan Yue’s office.
A desk, a chair, and a calligraphy painting on the wall.
In the three years of high school, he had been scolded here, written self-reflections, and stood against the wall as punishment.
Yan Yue closed the door and locked it.
The office fell into a long silence, almost suffocating, with no one able to utter a word.
Yu Xun stood for a long time, breaking the silence: “Mr. Yan.”
Yan Yue put down the envelope in his hand, only then realizing his hand was shaking: “Are you and Xiao Ci in a relationship?”
“……”
He remembered every word in the letter, unable to forget once he had seen it.
It felt like a nightmare. From the moment he entered the school, the first class bell rang, and a teacher handed him this absurd complaint letter.
The twisted handwriting said: I am Yu Xun’s uncle. I am filing a real-name report against your school’s director of education, Yan Yue. The students taught by your school’s teacher are all homosexuals. He made my nephew homosexual too.
I am reporting him. He teaches students like this, otherwise, my nephew wouldn’t have turned out this way, getting involved with his son.
……
His first reaction was that this person was spreading rumors.
But Liu Jiayu’s words kept echoing in his ears.
——He has a partner in college.
At that time, he thought, when did Yun Ci start dating in college?
Was it that he didn’t want to tell him, or just hadn’t had the chance?
What kind of girl was Yun Ci dating?
He didn’t stop him from dating, as long as it didn’t affect his studies.
……
He thought he’d ask Yun Ci the next time he came home for vacation.
But he never expected this situation.
“You and my son,” Yan Yue asked again, despite the absurdity of the question in his eyes, “are you in a relationship?”
After a long time.
He heard Yu Xun say: “Yes.”
