An Yi was momentarily panic-stricken.

That rainy night, which caused him to forever miss the last sight of An Ya, flooded him with emotions of shame, fear, regret, anger, and more, as if a gaping mouth wanted to swallow him whole.

His heart rate skyrocketed, and he scrambled into the darkness using both hands and feet, in a state of disarray.

Xie Nancang didn’t understand why his reaction was so intense. He grabbed his clothes to cover him, but as soon as he touched him, An Yi screamed and pushed him away with force.

He staggered backward, and An Yi turned and rushed naked toward the balcony.

This was the twelfth floor!

Xie Nancang’s heart almost stopped beating, and he rushed to stop him from climbing over the railing, grabbing him around the waist and pulling him back into the room.

“An An! Calm down!”

He held him tightly, his arms aching, and his voice trembling as he coaxed, “I’m Nancang, calm down, okay? Follow me, take deep breaths, shh… it’s okay, it’s okay…”

An Yi followed his deep breaths, but the presence of Yan Chen’s voice outside the door was too strong, and he couldn’t truly calm down.

“Let me go… let me go!” He shouted uncontrollably.

Xie Nancang agreed repeatedly, but he was powerless to do so. Afraid that An Yi would run to the balcony again and jump, he first carried him to the bedroom. The door temporarily blocked out the noise from outside, and Xie Nancang patiently comforted him for a while before An Yi’s trembling symptoms eased.

But Yan Chen’s patience had run out.

When he saw that Mercedes downstairs, his mind was engulfed in anger. He saw light through the crack in the door, but no one came to open it. The taut string of his reason was on the verge of snapping.

Just as he was about to kick the door, it suddenly swung open.

The first thing Yan Chen saw was Xie Nancang’s hateful face, and then his gaze fell on the misaligned buttons of his shirt.

Yan Chen’s mind exploded.

The pounding of his heart made his ears ache.

With a dark expression, he kicked open the door, although this was his first time in this apartment, he seemed to know the layout of the room like the back of his hand, and he went straight to the bedroom.

An Yi, wearing wrinkled pajamas, stood defensively by the bed, his face full of tears and his hair disheveled.

The flush on his cheeks had not yet faded.

A sharp knife seemed to pierce Yan Chen’s heart.

He ignored An Yi’s reprimands, and went straight over, grabbing the collar of his pajama shirt and tearing it apart, buttons flying off along with An Yi’s last trace of self-respect and shame.

The fair skin was extremely sensitive, and with just a gentle suck or a pat, vivid kiss marks and fingerprints could be imprinted.

These intimate red marks were like steel nails, deeply piercing Yan Chen’s eyes.

“What have you done?!!” Yan Chen’s eyes were bloodshot, and he gritted his teeth as he questioned, “What the hell have you done?!!!”

“You have no right!” An Yi choked, shouting, “Get out of here!”

“I have no right?!! Do you think I have no right when you cuckold me?!!!”

Yan Chen roared and tried to tear off An Yi’s pants. At this moment, Xie Nancang rushed over and pulled him back. Unable to bear it any longer, Yan Chen turned around and punched Xie Nancang.

What followed was a rather chaotic and violent ten minutes.

The small room was filled with two men fighting from one end to the other, with household decorations smashed to pieces, cries, shouts, curses, and the dull sound of fists and feet landing on each other mingling in between, like a passing typhoon returning again and again.

Yan Chen felt like he was going crazy.

For the past two months, he had been constantly reminding himself that An Yi’s bad mood was understandable, that he should coax and patiently wait for him when they met again. But who would have thought that he would jump off a building and travel across half the country overnight to find him, only to see him in a disheveled and dazed state!

How could he accept this!!

He had previously convinced himself that when An Yi said he slept with someone else, it was just a momentary indulgence in verbal jousting, but who would have thought it was true!

It was actually true!!

Just thinking about how he knelt and endured beatings at home to prove his love for An Yi, while An Yi was fooling around with other men in bed, made Yan Chen’s heart ache so much he wished he could explode on the spot!

Driven by extreme anger, Yan Chen didn’t hold back, determined to beat Xie Nancang to near death.

Amidst the chaos, a spray of blood arched, and An Yi’s palm gained a blurry wound. This absurd drama of ‘I’ll kill you or you kill me’ finally came to a halt.

“An An!”

Xie Nancang anxiously pulled out a cotton T-shirt and pressed it against An Yi’s palm to stop the bleeding.

“Get off him! Don’t touch him!!” Yan Chen trembled as he growled lowly.

“Can’t you see he’s injured? Go find the first aid kit!” Xie Nancang, usually composed, found it hard to maintain his composure in the face of Yan Chen’s unruly and selfish behavior.

The blood quickly soaked through the thin fabric, a horrifying sight.

“An An still has exams to take! If you still want to go crazy, we can fight it out later.”

Yan Chen finally calmed down a bit, but he still felt like a heavy stone was pressing on his heart, causing unbearable discomfort.

He impatiently went to the living room, and when he glanced at the trash can while searching for the first aid kit, he saw two tied-up condoms. His vision went black for a moment. He leaned against the TV cabinet for a long time, restraining the urge to kill someone that welled up from the depths of his heart.

There was only a bottle of iodine and a few adhesive bandages in the house.

Yan Chen wanted to treat An Yi’s wound, but Xie Nancang wouldn’t allow it, sarcastically saying, “Young Master Yan must have never condescended to take care of anyone before, so I won’t trouble you.”

“Fuck you!” Yan Chen glared at him with hatred, his knuckles cracking as he clenched them. “What right do you have to say that! Make it clear, An Yi is mine, not yours!”

Xie Nancang didn’t respond to his provocation. He poured half a bottle of iodine on An Yi’s wound to disinfect it, but the wound was quite long, almost spanning his palm, so band-aids wouldn’t do, they needed a bandage.

“Let’s go to the hospital.” He suggested.

An Yi shook his head, the bleeding had stopped, there was no need. He lowered his head, sighed heavily, and said to Xie Nancang, “You go back first, I want to talk to him alone.”

“No, An An…” Xie Nancang usually obeyed him unquestioningly, but this situation was different, “An An…”

“I’m begging you,” An Yi choked up, “please.”

He didn’t want Xie Nancang to get involved in this mess. Xie Nancang had already saved him once, this time, he needed to seek his own liberation.

“…”, Xie Nancang compromised, “I’ll go buy a bandage, call me if you need anything, I won’t go far.”

An Yi glanced gratefully at him and said nothing more.

Even long after Xie Nancang left the apartment, the two people who sat or stood remained silent for a considerable amount of time.

At such moments, anything said seemed redundant, everything uttered was embarrassing.

An Yi bent over, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his palms, his nose sniffing the bloody smell emanating from the wound. His chaotic mind gradually became clear because of the sharp pain.

Yan Chen noticed his shoulders trembling.

He reached out his hand and said hoarsely, “Let me see your wound.”

Just as his fingertips touched, An Yi recoiled as if shocked.

Yan Chen was deeply stung by this evasive action. His heart physiologically throbbed in pain for two seconds, tears welled up in his eyes, and he towered over An Yi, demanding, “Do you hate me that much?”

An Yi didn’t answer, still maintaining his avoidance posture on the couch.

The fire smoldering in Yan Chen’s chest burst into flames once again. He was determined to extract an answer from An Yi’s mouth. “Speak! Do you hate me? Why did you sleep with him? Are you trying to get back at me?!”

An Yi hesitated for a long time before finding his voice. “I slept with him because I liked it, because I wanted to, it has nothing to do with you.”

This answer was even more cruel than a simple “yes.”

“You’re talking nonsense!” Yan Chen refused to accept it. He would rather An Yi hated him, resented him, as long as there was emotion, it meant An Yi still cared. He had come all this way, not for a flippant “it’s none of your business.”

“You lied to me! An Yi, why did you lie to me?!” Yan Chen hysterically accused, “You hate emotionless hookups, don’t you?! Admit it! Did he force you?! Speak!”

His accusations gradually turned into pleas, and a tremor crept into his usually strong voice. An Yi saw more tears falling from the man’s beautiful, mesmerizing eyes than that night.

An Yi averted his gaze, a bitter smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, as he said softly, “So you knew.”

Yan Chen was stunned.

“In the past, I always thought you were spoiled since childhood, didn’t understand empathy or how to care for your loved ones. It seems I was wrong.”

An Yi raised his head, the bloodstains on his face making his pale and fragile yet beautiful face look eerie.

“You actually understand everything. You know how to hurt people, you know my bottom line, but you still did it, over and over again. The truth I’ve been avoiding for so many years is simply that you don’t love me.”

“You wouldn’t fall in love with  me five years ago, and even less so five years later.”

Yan Chen couldn’t understand his sentiments. Right now, he was filled with heartbreak, resentment, and anger at being betrayed by his beloved.

“And you say you’re not doing it out of revenge! You fool around with Xie Nancang, isn’t that revenge?!”

Yan Chen suddenly dropped to one knee, grasping An Yi’s shoulder forcefully, forcing An Yi to meet his gaze, so that the other could see the sadness in his eyes.

“Did you ever think of me, An Yi?! When you were fooling around with him, do you remember saying you love me?! Or is your love so easily given to someone else?! Answer me honestly!”

His burning gaze was like a tangible force, boxing An Yi in, leaving him no room to maneuver.

He could hardly breathe.

One second, two seconds.

In the suffocating silence of their gaze, An Yi finally bid farewell to Yan Chen without changing his expression.

“In the past, I was too narrow-minded, Yan Chen. I used to see you as my entire world, but I don’t think that way anymore,” he saw tears streaming down Yan Chen’s widened eyes once again, and his heart twisted in pain, but his voice remained as calm and restrained as possible, “I think I’ll be better off without you.”

Yan Chen wept uncontrollably, his voice hoarse, “You lied to me again! You lied to me again!”

He hugged An Yi tightly, wishing he could envelop him entirely in his embrace, “You never used to speak to me like this before! You never let anyone else touch you!”

Yan Chen suddenly seemed possessed, wanting to kiss An Yi’s lips, his hand trailing down An Yi’s spine, trying to erase all the marks Xie Nancang left on An Yi’s body, but An Yi’s lips were cold, his heart even colder.

His eyes were covered with a layer of frost, as he calmly said, “Yan Chen, don’t make me lose respect for you.”

^[1]Author’s note:

Yan Chen: “The Five Stages of Grief – Anger!!!!!!”