In the evening, Xie Dongcheng returned to the small house in Fangjiayuan.

The house was quiet. Yu Zi’s coat still hung on the coat rack by the door, but the bedroom door remained closed for a long time.

Xie Dongcheng stood in the dark living room, not turning on the lights. There were faint sounds coming from the fish tank. He walked over and saw that the largest and most beautiful peacock fish had its tail broken.

He knew he had messed everything up. Perhaps he had messed up from the day he slept with Yu Zi.

Last autumn, he was picking up passengers in front of the motel when he saw Yu Zi dragging a heavy suitcase into the motel. He knew a little about the bankruptcy of the Yu family but didn’t expect Yu Zi to have no place to stay.

Xie Dongcheng had always had his former employer’s phone number, but after he quit, they never contacted each other again. That night, he kept recalling Yu Zi’s figure carrying the suitcase and eventually sent that text message, even though he knew Yu Zi might have forgotten who he was.

Their time together was brief, only a few months from autumn to winter. Before spring came, he left the Yu family and returned the key to the Bentley.

Before he left, they experienced a New Year’s Eve together. At that time, Yu Zi seemed to have had a quarrel with his family and refused to return to the western suburban villa until late at night.

He had to drive Yu Zi around the overpass for many rounds. Finally, he stopped at a green grassland outside the suburbs.

The terrain of the grassland was high, almost overlooking half of the city’s night view.

On New Year’s Eve, everyone in the city was having a reunion dinner at home. Only the two of them came to this high ground outside the suburbs.

Yu Zi got out of the car and leaned against the car door. The wind outside the car was strong, so Xie Dongcheng quickly got out of the car and stood behind him.

The cold wind blew Yu Zi’s hair, and he watched as his hair swayed in the wind.

Ten minutes later, they saw fireworks together. First, a golden flame shot towards the sky, then with a bang, it burst open, painting the dark night with a brilliant golden border.

At that moment, Yu Zi turned back to him and asked, “Is it beautiful?”

He remembered that the golden light happened to shine into Yu Zi’s pupils, making his eyes brighter than the night sky.

Xie Dongcheng didn’t expect him to speak to him.

He was stunned for several seconds, then said, “It’s beautiful.”

In Xie Dongcheng’s memory, this was one of the rare conversations he had with Yu Zi outside of work.

However, later on, unexpected events occurred in his life.

Uncle Wu passed away. He died from a sudden cerebral hemorrhage in this small house in Fangjiayuan.

Uncle Wu had raised him for over ten years, but he wasn’t his biological father.

On an ordinary day when Xie Dongcheng was five years old, so ordinary that he was playing with mud in the alley in front of his house with other children in the morning.

When the sun reached its zenith, his biological parents brought him to the gate of a large courtyard.

They said to him, “Mom and Dad are going to buy something, you stay here and don’t move.”

Then, Xie Dongcheng waited until it was dark, but they never came back. Eventually, he was found by a patrolling security guard and taken into the courtyard behind him.

From then on, his life was handed over to a group of caregivers in the welfare institution.

Compared to the other children in the welfare institution, Xie Dongcheng’s suffering was more tangible. Because at the age of five, he could vaguely understand the meaning of separation.

He envied Xiao Liu at that time. Xiao Liu came to the welfare institution before he turned two and didn’t understand what separation meant. He had already regarded the welfare institution as his true home. But Xie Dongcheng couldn’t convince himself like that.

There was a huge empty space at the entrance of the welfare institution. Every afternoon, the caregivers would throw the children who could walk here to let them play together. In young Xie Dongcheng’s eyes, that space was even larger than his former home. But he couldn’t find a place to hide.

He stood at the end of the little road where he had been abandoned, waiting for a couple to run towards him with a pleasant surprise expression, having recovered what was lost.

However, a month later, five-year-old Xie Dongcheng realized that it might have been a farewell.

He didn’t leave the welfare institution until he was twelve years old. The person who adopted him was surnamed Wu, and later Xie Dongcheng called him Uncle Wu.

Xie Dongcheng was grateful to Uncle Wu. Because for seven years, he was always chosen by someone, then abandoned by different people. As he grew older, he understood that an older child with a big appetite was never the first choice for adoption.

Most of them preferred babies who couldn’t walk yet. Just like they liked small cats and dogs, not only because they were cuter, but also easier to bond with.

And he always had a gloomy face, silently like a wary little wild dog in the welfare institution.

This house in Fangjiayuan was Uncle Wu’s only property, which he got from the shipyard when he worked there. He wasn’t good at arguing and didn’t like to get involved with others, so everyone left him with the worst top floor.

And the twelve-year-old Xie Dongcheng was already sensible and obedient. After he came to Uncle Wu’s house, he took the initiative to sleep in the living room and left the bedroom for Uncle Wu.

However, when Xie Dongcheng was twenty-one years old, Uncle Wu also left him. He suffered from illness in his later years, and Xie Dongcheng spent a lot of money on him. Most of the money he earned from work was used to support the family.

So after Uncle Wu passed away, he couldn’t gather enough money for the funeral expenses even after emptying his savings.

He had no one to turn to for help. In the end, he nervously asked Yu Zi for help and explained his difficulties. Yu Zi didn’t even ask what happened, he just took out five thousand yuan in cash from his bag in front of him.

Xie Dongcheng was extremely grateful, which gave Uncle Wu a more decent ending.

This also became one of the reasons why he later invited Yu Zi to live with him.

However, when Yu Zi moved into his home, he found that things always seemed to develop in a direction beyond his control.

For example, his heartbeat always seemed to inexplicably fluctuate, sometimes beating fast, sometimes heavy, making it difficult to discern a pattern.

Yu Zi would squint his beautiful eyes and make slightly over-the-top jokes with him, lean against his back and wrap his arms around his neck, or look at him with moist eyes after drinking.

Xie Dongcheng gradually discovered the abnormalities in his body. Every move of Yu Zi seemed like a huge meteorite that couldn’t be observed, suddenly landing in his world, causing massive sound waves and disturbances.

He couldn’t distinguish the source of this restlessness, but he would reunite with Yu Zi in his dreams.

In his dreams, Yu Zi would wrap his legs around his waist, press his nose against his forehead, and then drop soft kisses between his eyebrows.

In his dreams, his body would tingle like an electric shock. When he woke up, he found himself having an irresistible desire for Yu Zi.

If he hadn’t received that overseas call on a winter night, he might have fantasized that he and Yu Zi would continue like this forever, even if it was just as friends.

It was an overseas call. Xie Dongcheng’s first reaction was that it was a scam call, so he hung up directly. However, shortly after, his phone kept vibrating persistently.

He picked up the phone and heard a somewhat familiar male voice on the other end.

Five seconds later, he knew who the owner of the call was.

It turned out to be Yu Qing. Yu Zi’s occasionally mentioned father.

At that moment, he was extremely nervous. He thought Yu Qing had discovered his filthy thoughts, and wanted to confront him.

Even at that moment, Xie Dongcheng frantically recalled in his mind whether he had inadvertently revealed his thoughts to someone, which then reached Yu Qing’s ears.

But the melodramatic plot of a prime-time drama didn’t happen. Yu Qing didn’t throw out a million dollars to make him leave his son.

He just asked, “How is Yu Zi doing?”

“I know he’s somewhat resentful towards me, so I had someone find your phone number.”

“But you can reassure him that I’ll settle down and come find him.”

Yu Qing’s tone was calm, and he mentioned their life overseas, even mentioning how Yu Ziheng occasionally missed his half-brother.

Xie Dongcheng couldn’t tell which of his words were true and which were false.

He could only go along with his words and listen in silence.

Yu Qing didn’t ask a single thing about Xie Dongcheng. As if he was just an ordinary messenger.

Xie Dongcheng realized his foolishness and arrogance on that late night.

In Yu Qing’s eyes, he was nothing at all. Yu Qing didn’t care about his relationship with Yu Zi, nor did he mind Yu Zi staying at his house. Even if they did have something, Yu Qing was confident he could easily take Yu Zi away from him.

Just like he said in that voicemail he left for Yu Zi.

It was a kind of firm, arrogant demeanor typical of wealthy people.

And it was only when he hung up that call did Xie Dongcheng understand why he felt so enraged when Xu Zhuo said those words to him that night at the Southern Suburbs party.

He wasn’t angry at Xu Zhuo’s arrogance and sarcasm, but rather he knew deep down that perhaps what Xu Zhuo said was right.

-“Yu Qing went overseas, you should know that. His stepmother’s family has some properties overseas as well. So the Yu family will rise again, it’s just a matter of time. Will he still stay here to run this shabby restaurant then?”

It was easy for them to make a comeback, but Yu Zi might leave at any time. Even if it wasn’t Yu Qing taking him away, it could be Sheng Chuan.

This was a truth Xie Dongcheng gradually came to understand.

And as the New Year’s Eve of last year approached, when he saw Yu Zi answer that familiar call on the balcony, his anxious heart rose to his throat once again.

Xie Dongcheng had always known that Yu Zi couldn’t sleep on his small wooden bed; he often heard him tossing and turning in the living room at night. Yu Zi also couldn’t get used to his cramped bathroom; he always hurriedly washed himself and came out hastily. He had said more than once that he hated being exposed to the wind and rain, that he wanted to make money and get away from this environment.

Yu Zi was right, they weren’t protagonists in a CEO romance novel. And he didn’t even have the qualification to be a named supporting character in such a novel.

He was the kind of person who, when the protagonists were kissing in the back seat of the car, would kindly turn on the stereo for them; the cannon fodder who would sacrifice himself without hesitation when the protagonist had an accident.

The same gender was already the weakest barrier between them.

Yu Zi couldn’t possibly be like him, always confined to this less than sixty-square-meter small house.

When Yu Zi straddled him, his figure overlapped perfectly with the one in his dreams.

The next morning, he stared at Yu Zi’s face for a long time. Then, before Yu Zi woke up, he chose to retreat.

Yu Zi was a free butterfly, while he was left cocooning himself alone.

Xie Dongcheng was not the kind of person to seize the moment and love freely. He was always too cautious about love because he didn’t know if at the next intersection, he would be the one left behind.

For seven years after the age of five, Xie Dongcheng had been wondering if he had done something wrong, if he had made his parents stop loving him, which led them to abandon him there.

He wondered if it was because he ate one more egg in the morning, which upset his mother; or because he walked slowly past a cake shop, blocking his father behind him; or because he didn’t wring out the washed clothes properly, causing water droplets to spill on the floor, which displeased them.

Xie Dongcheng clumsily recalled every mistake he made, trying to find the answer to the problem. But he still couldn’t determine at which moment he lost their love. Perhaps it was these moments accumulating together that finally made them decide to abandon him on that afternoon.

And this time, he watched helplessly as Yu Zi forcefully pulled away from his hand and walked into a night that had nothing to do with him.

It was then that he suddenly realized that perhaps he was truly born foolish, always destined to have things go against his wishes.