Chapter 50

?!

Bai Wei only realized at this moment that large drops of tears had fallen from the corners of his eyes.

And he hadn’t noticed it at all.

He pushed Lu Sen’s hand away, awkwardly turned his face, and blinked hard. At that moment, even wiping away his tears in front of Lu Sen seemed too embarrassing, let alone leaving the room.

He could only squint his eyes and pray that the tears would dry quickly.

But Lu Sen embraced the version of him that desperately wanted to hide his embarrassment.

“Mm…”

“You can wipe your tears on my shoulder,” Lu Sen said. “That way, when you lift your face, we can both pretend you haven’t cried.”

“…”

“I can also block my ears and pretend I didn’t hear anything, if you feel embarrassed to cry in front of me…”

This isn’t fair, Bai Wei thought.

Lu Sen had seen his medical records, so he knew he wasn’t the perfect Bai family young master.

Lu Sen knew about his childhood and work experiences in Black Harbor City, and understood that he hadn’t been successful.

Lu Sen knew he had no friends.

But he… knew nothing about Lu Sen’s past.

Other than that Lu Sen was a monster, he knew nothing.

Bai Wei turned his head sharply, and through the friction, left his tears on Lu Sen’s shoulder.

When he lifted his head, Lu Sen said, “Baby, you’re pressing so hard, don’t rub your eyelashes off.”

Bai Wei: …

He turned his head to the other side.

After a while, Lu Sen said, “Baby.”

“What are you looking at me for? Keep making up your story,” Bai Wei replied quickly.

Lu Sen: “Oh.”

While Lu Sen was bent over his documents, Bai Wei, suspicious, reached up to touch his eyelashes.

They were thick and intact, without any sign of being rubbed off.

While Bai Wei fiddled with his eyelashes, Lu Sen asked, “Darling, how did you feel about Black Harbor City later? Did you like living there?”

In truth, Bai Wei didn’t hate living in Black Harbor City.

Though it was lonely and chaotic, Bai Wei, like an animal who loves its home, stubbornly stayed in the city he considered home. Even though many years had passed and the past of Black Harbor City had long since disappeared, Bai Wei could still see the library, which had not been torn down for over ten years, or a deserted, never-redeveloped residential building that had once been bustling with life.

In his first year in Black Harbor City, the city was unfamiliar, and his grandfather hadn’t passed away yet. He had constraints, attachments, a twisted obsession with his self-image. He hadn’t yet come to harbor extreme hatred for the place, hadn’t started to let go of his nature to pursue his own “happiness,” and hadn’t made up his mind to become someone who broke all the rules, taking pleasure in the pain of others.

He simply disliked the streets of Black Harbor City, loathed the ineffective government, and hated the “villains” who came and went. He thought the place shouldn’t be like this, and that he should correct it.

Perhaps, with time, after his grandfather passed away, he would destroy it, or it would destroy him… if he hadn’t left there prematurely due to an accident.

“You hate the trash there, hate the noise… I understand now, you wanted to find a home for yourself there,” Lu Sen said.

Bai Wei suddenly looked up: “What did you say?”

“You wanted to find your home in Black Harbor City, just like the fantasy you wanted to have in your memories. But you were disappointed. From the start, it could never become the home you imagined,” Lu Sen’s eyes were a deep blue. “Luckily, we came here.”

“The scenery here is beautiful, the people are honest, the streets are clean, and it exists in the present. You’ll like settling here. Fortunately, we made it here.”

…Lu Sen is really stupid, he doesn’t even know that he wants to kill him and then leave here.

“Then why did you leave Black Harbor City?” Lu Sen asked cautiously. “Did you encounter something really bad, something terrible for you?”

Lu Sen nervously tugged at his pants leg. Over these past few days, he had learned some basic knowledge about humans. As a result, he was now even more anxious.

“Because…”

That should have been the first murder of Bai Wei’s life.

—-

After repeatedly reporting to the government with no results, Bai Wei finally made up his mind to take out a gambling homeless man downstairs from the TV station. He followed the man’s life route, who was addicted to gambling and used excessive amounts of banned substances, and ultimately decided to drown him in a rundown motel on the outskirts, creating the illusion that the homeless man had died in the bathtub from winning money and overdosing on drugs.

Once he made up his mind, Bai Wei felt a sneaky sense of pleasure. It wasn’t until he had the man packed in a bag, heading to the motel, that Bai Wei realized he had grabbed the wrong person.

Lying on the floor was an unfamiliar, withered face. The man first drank two bottles of water, then stumbled into the bathroom as if he had been thirsty for a long time.

This person, too, was a homeless man polluting the environment of Black Harbor City. Bai Wei finally decided to take him out the same way he had planned to with the original man.

However, the man overturned him onto the bed and licked the sweat off Bai Wei’s body.

What started as a murder turned into an absurd one-night stand. What terrified Bai Wei was that, in the face of this man’s strength, he couldn’t resist at all. They almost went all the way, but before that happened, the man, as if he had drunk enough water, fell into a deep, satisfied sleep.

Filled with anger and humiliation, Bai Wei strangled him and threw him into the trash.

However, it wasn’t the need to escape or loathe this dark history that ultimately caused him to leave Black Harbor City.

“Frustration,” Bai Wei said. “I felt like I didn’t have the ability…”

To be a serial killer and a city cleaner in Black Harbor City.

Nor the ability to…

Clean up the monsters in Black Harbor City for the government.

And not even the ability to return to the old house, to the old room.

And now, he couldn’t even succeed in killing.

Toxic seeds grow twisted branches, but even so, it’s still a form of growth. And right now, Bai Wei didn’t even know in which direction he should sprout.

Besides returning to Bei Du, he didn’t know where else he could go.

“Frustrated?” Lu Sen’s tone carried a hint of confusion. “It’s because of frustration…”

This was completely different from what Lu Sen had originally thought—the reason Bai Wei left Black Harbor City.

He had assumed it was due to the psychological shadow he left on Bai Wei. He considered that Bai Wei might be afraid, sad, or disgusted, but never thought it was frustration.

—It seems he doesn’t know Bai Wei well enough. There must be another reason for him to have such thoughts.

“You’re already very impressive, baby. You’re even better than you think,” Lu Sen said.

…No, not at all. The fact that you’re still across from me is proof of my failure.

“Are you acting as my psychologist?” Bai Wei almost laughed. “Aren’t you planning to open a guesthouse? You’re thinking about opening a psychological clinic instead?”

If Lu Sen opened a psychological clinic, he’d have to be on duty every day, and couldn’t earn income from both a guesthouse and a repair shop. After thinking for a moment, Lu Sen replied, “Darling, I still want to open a guesthouse.”

Bai Wei: …

“Then go ahead,” he said with a sour tone.

“After leaving Black Harbor City, what happened in Bei Du… Hmm, I know, you were writing in Bei Du and occasionally helping out at the library,” Lu Sen said. “During that time, your writing state was good. After two works, you signed a contract with a new publisher. You told me this, and you were actively preparing new drafts… so there was no time for a trip.”

Bai Wei’s face darkened a bit. “Hmm.”

It wasn’t because of Lu Sen, but because of the publisher at that time.

Lu Sen continued, “During that time, you had a lot of external activities. There was no chance to fit a trip into our story. It was a gap period. How should I explain it? Hmm, I could say I was busy with my graduation project, and my phone broke, the SIM card got lost, and I lost contact…”

“We could say we broke up then,” Bai Wei found himself having the leisure to help Lu Sen fabricate a story.

“No,” Lu Sen firmly responded, “Even in a made-up story, we can’t break up. Not even once.”

His tone was so resolute. Bai Wei, feeling inexplicably baffled, felt uneasy, unsure of where to place his fingers. “Then do whatever you want, they won’t ask in detail anyway.”

“Here’s how we could say it—when we first met, we never thought we would always be in each other’s lives,” Lu Sen pondered. “You know, in the future, you’ll have a well-matched fiancé. Your grandfather will like him more than a foreign stranger who nearly drowned on the beach.”

“And I… I know I’m just a wanderer. I don’t belong to this city, nor any city. I think, if you knew the rumors about my past… you’d probably think I’m a bad person. And I’m afraid I can’t give you a future. So… we’re just good friends interacting with each other,” Lu Sen said.

“This sounds no better than a breakup,” Bai Wei countered. “On the contrary, it makes both of us sound even worse.”

“…Is there anything worse?”

“Full of flaws, dark thoughts, an escapist personality, and still secretly maintaining a relationship under these circumstances. It’s no different from infidelity and greed that can’t control human weaknesses,” Bai Wei evaluated.

“But isn’t it even more precious and great that, despite all that, we’re still trying to love each other?” Lu Sen said.

“I don’t think so,” Bai Wei said. “Who would believe that these two people love each other?”

The atmosphere in the room seemed to cool instantly, and frost even formed by the window frame. Bai Wei had spoken these words in a panic, but his anxiety did not ease after expressing his opinion.

On the contrary, it grew more and more unsettled, as if his heartbeat had become irregular.

“… Alright,” Lu Sen said. “Let’s skip this part when we tell the story.”

“Mm. They’ll fill in the gaps themselves,” Bai Wei replied.

At that moment, Bai Wei felt he shouldn’t have said that. Because Lu Sen lowered his eyes and went back to looking at his documents.

But he also felt he hadn’t said anything wrong. Even if he hadn’t said it today, sooner or later, his opinions would show through in his actions.

When did he start feeling that there could be a “sooner or later” between him and Lu Sen?

Lu Sen: “The differences between our countries made it impossible for us to stay connected. Then we reunited, exchanged our real names, and got engaged. Who would’ve thought that we, who fell in love at first sight, would end up being each other’s fiancés? The red string of fate that had been cut off by a lost SIM card was reconnected at this moment. How could there be such a perfect coincidence? We went back to Qinghe to get engaged, and then we ran away…”

He paused here: “Many people also asked us why we ran away. Was it because our families opposed it?”

Of course, it wasn’t because their families opposed it. The Bai family members were all infatuated with Lu Sen as a son-in-law, and within a week, everyone in Qinghe had fallen under the same spell.

This couldn’t be separated from Lu Sen’s hard work. During that week, he had managed to brainwash the entire city. After that, he was to inherit a Bai family estate, several factories, hundreds of shops, thousands of acres of fertile land, and the admiration of tens of thousands of Qinghe residents who saw him as a beacon of humanity.

(Although, to the players, the city seemed like a terrifying dungeon where everyone had been brainwashed by a cult.)

Bai Wei lifted an eyelid: “Why do you think so?”

Lu Sen: …

“Alright, I don’t know why either,” Lu Sen said sincerely.

Bai Wei: ?

“I thought you had some plan or idea when you decided to run away with me,” he said, incredulously.

Lu Sen: “Uh… why did you agree to elope with me?”

Bai Wei: …

“I don’t know either,” he mumbled.

To the people of Qinghe, they seemed like the perfect couple. They were healthy, young, handsome, and wealthy. They should have walked into marriage amidst everyone’s blessings, with Bai Wei’s grandfather handing Bai Wei’s hand over to Lu Sen. They had already completed the legal formalities at the Qinghe civil affairs office and had their marriage certificate. A highly publicized wedding was just a formality, a mere step before they officially became husband and wife.

But just before that final step, they ran away together.

Looking back, Bai Wei realized that when he brought Lu Sen back to Qinghe and to the Bai family, he had the intention of putting him in a difficult position.

Before returning to Qinghe to prepare for the wedding, Lu Sen had just recovered from a car accident. Bai Wei took him on a plane and reminded him to be careful as they went down the stairs. Lu Sen said, “Dear, you’ve been so careful with me on this whole trip.”

Bai Wei thought to himself, I had no choice but to do that. Lu Sen is so fragile, he could die at any moment. If something happened to him before the wedding and delayed it, the Bai family couldn’t afford to lose him.

Moreover, he wanted to see how his grandfather would act towards Lu Sen, to see if his grandfather would express dissatisfaction or make things difficult for him. Lu Sen had met his grandfather a few times before, but each meeting was brief, and they hadn’t lived together. Bai Wei secretly hoped—he wanted Lu Sen to make a mistake in front of his grandfather, for his grandfather to pick out some flaws.

After all, his grandfather was famously strict.

But the reality was, his grandfather was extremely satisfied with Lu Sen. From his habits to his social conduct, his grandfather not only didn’t find any fault with Lu Sen, but even praised his appropriateness. During this process, Lu Sen turned back to glance at Bai Wei, as if he thought Bai Wei would be even more pleased with him.

But Bai Wei wasn’t. He watched the two of them from a distance, feeling cold and unfamiliar.

At that moment, he felt that he and Lu Sen were even more distant, as if they came from different worlds.

They were clearly a pair of strangers, yet Lu Sen seemed so strange to him.

As the wedding date approached, the Bai family decorated the house with balloons and fairy lights. Bai Wei, however, found it increasingly difficult to sleep in his room.

Before the wedding, Bai Wei couldn’t live in the same room as Lu Sen. Lu Sen stayed in the guest room, while Bai Wei stayed in his mother’s old bedroom—the room with a view of the wisteria.

Thus, in the middle of the night, when he couldn’t sleep, he could get up alone and sit by the window.

His grandfather hoped that they would stay in Qinghe from then on, and Lu Sen agreed. His grandfather hoped they would focus on managing the family business, and Lu Sen fully supported that. His grandfather wanted them to maintain the Bai family’s century-old reputation and continue to be loved by the residents within a hundred miles, and Lu Sen also agreed. Lu Sen said, “It’s a great fortune for me to have my name recorded in the Bai family’s family tree.”

His grandfather thought that Lu Sen was very agreeable. Bai Wei thought so too. This was also the life goal Bai Wei had been taught since childhood. But at this moment, under the moonlight, he inexplicably felt a sense of sorrow.

Is this really the life he would lead from now on?

At that moment, he suddenly realized someone was standing under the window. And that person had been watching him for a long time.