Chapter 73: “Yes, I Just Feel Sorry for You.”

During the time he spent standing outside the door, Duan Zhuxian had envisioned many possible reactions from Jiang Yao—shock, helplessness, or even feigned calmness. But he never expected Jiang Yao to cry.

To be so sad over his dark and solitary performances.

He could tell that the tears welling up in Jiang Yao’s eyes were not from being moved but from feeling unbearable sadness and a hint of obvious annoyance.

Yet the proud man in front of him, not wanting to lose face, stubbornly widened his eyes, glaring at him to prevent the tears from falling. His eyes were reddened from holding back, looking as if they were tinged with rouge.

If Jiang Yao were truly a little fox, he would undoubtedly lash out in wildness at this moment, pouncing on him and biting him to vent his anger.

Duan Zhuxian felt a pang of pain in his heart.

He stretched out his hand, wanting to pull and hug him, but Jiang Yao’s tense expression suddenly shifted. He lowered his head and brushed past Duan Zhuxian.

Duan Zhuxian turned around and smiled bitterly as he watched Jiang Yao’s back, “Yao Yao, are you going to run away again?”

In the hallway, Jiang Yao abruptly stopped his hurried steps, as if waking from a dream.

The overwhelming affection in the schedule book had already left him at a loss. After he saw Duan Zhuxian in person, and being gazed at by those tender, calm eyes, indeed made him want to escape and cool down temporarily.

But if he ran away, what would happen to Duan Zhuxian?

He had also taken Duan Zhuxian’s book with him, which held Duan Zhuxian’s past.

Jiang Yao sniffed.

How could he be so selfish and so irresponsible?

He should be comforting Duan Zhuxian, who had been a little bitter melon^[1]小苦瓜 (xiǎo kǔguā) = little bitter melon. It is a self-mocking term used to describe someone who often appears unhappy or gloomy due to ongoing troubles, depression, or unsolvable problems, … Continue reading in the past.

Jiang Yao took a deep breath, turned around, and slowly walked back to stand in front of Duan Zhuxian.

But his mind was still in a mess, like a jammed speaker, with all the beautiful sounds trapped inside, unable to be released. In the end, the only words that came out, with a slight sob, were, “How could the person you liked back then be me?”

Duan Zhuxian chuckled softly, “It was always you.”

From high school to now, you were the one who encompassed all his first experiences, understandings, and desires for love, bringing him unprecedented sweetness and the long, dark bitterness of the night.

“Sorry, I won’t keep anything from you anymore.”

Jiang Yao’s throat tightened and moved rapidly a few times. After a long pause, he finally said, “I thought back then, at most, you wanted to be my friend.”

Until today, he had always believed that the biggest conflict between him and Duan Zhuxian originated on that snowy Valentine’s night in their senior year of high school—

Duan Zhuxian had been angry because Jiang Yao downplayed their friendship, while Jiang Yao thought Duan Zhuxian didn’t want to be friends with him and saw him as a rival in love.

Because of this, they even fought, missing out on ten years of friendship.

On that night at the end of the year, when the misunderstanding was cleared up, Jiang Yao felt a mix of shock, regret, and emptiness. He and Duan Zhuxian, during the best years of their lives, lost a precious friendship due to tangled misunderstandings.

But in reality, Duan Zhuxian had been even more unfair than he imagined.

Duan Zhuxian never wanted just friendship.

Before Duan Zhuxian could speak, Jiang Yao continued his self-defense, “You can’t blame me for being slow. You didn’t say anything back then, not even a hint, and you started drifting further away from me…”

Jiang Yao paused, lowered his gaze, and suddenly felt unable to continue.

Expecting Duan Zhuxian to suppress his feelings while watching his crush show affection to someone else every day was too much to ask.

And he had done such things in front of Duan Zhuxian many times back then. Each unintentional act was like a thorn in Duan Zhuxian’s heart…

In the silence, a deep voice asked, “Why did you stop talking?”

Jiang Yao looked up.

The man standing so close in front of him was looking at him, with his eyes and the corners of his mouth filled with a gentle smile. This composed and effortless demeanor bore no resemblance to the conflicted boy in the schedule book.

Duan Zhuxian was always like this, hiding his thoughts deep inside, swallowing all the bitterness, and putting on an inscrutable facade. It made Jiang Yao forever unable to guess his intentions or know how to approach his soul. As a result, he could only charge ahead blindly, and often ended up making a mess of things.

Thinking of this, Jiang Yao felt a renewed sense of frustration, “You just want to hear me complain about you, don’t you?”

Duan Zhuxian ruffled his hair, “I love listening to whatever you say, especially if I’m at fault.”

Jiang Yao: “…”

Duan Zhuxian really is a masochist!

“Duan Zhuxian, I won’t complain about you anymore.”

Jiang Yao said gruffly.

Being kept in the dark by Duan Zhuxian for so many years, Jiang Yao indeed felt quite wronged. But thinking about how Duan Zhuxian had endured even more made him feel especially heartbroken and unable to say a word of reproach.

Duan Zhuxian had always been a reserved person, growing up in the oppressive and stifling environment of the Duan family. Years of suppression made him instinctively adopt a wait-and-see approach to everything.

At that time, Duan Zhuxian was only sixteen or seventeen, not mature or stable enough, lacking the decisiveness to navigate complex situations.

He had his pride and couldn’t bear losing in matters of the heart to his childhood friend. He also had his fears, unable to face the unknown possibility of rejection.

Jiang Yao, who had been oblivious for ten years, had suffered the most from Duan Zhuxian’s coldness and distance, but he had repaid it all back to Duan Zhuxian. So how could he have any grounds to blame Duan Zhuxian for his silence?

“But Duan Zhuxian, I can’t understand.” Jiang Yao said in a low, urgent voice, “During those high school years, I wasn’t good to you at all. I always saw you as a rival, always thinking about how to surpass you…”

His words of self-reproach were cut off by Duan Zhuxian: “You were great. Being yourself was the best version of you. It was my choice to like you and to expect special treatment from you wasn’t fair.”

Duan Zhuxian smiled.

“Actually, I’m grateful that I had the identity of your ‘archenemy.’ Even if we couldn’t be friends or lovers, I could still consistently occupy your attention, even if it was as an opponent.”

“Is that why you always tried to surpass me?”

Jiang Yao’s eyes widened, and his breath, which he had barely calmed, caught again, slightly choked.

He had once wondered why someone as serene as Duan Zhuxian always accepted his baseless and even unreasonable provocations, competing with him fiercely in the arena, and never giving an inch. Sometimes, Duan Zhuxian would use sharp and concise words that left him speechless.

After their falling out, he finally concluded that Duan Zhuxian really disliked him.

“When did you start liking me?” Jiang Yao asked.

He asked Duan Zhuxian.

“I’m not sure,” Duan Zhuxian replied calmly. “Maybe it was during our first year of high school when I saw you watching a movie with your brother on Valentine’s Day and mistook him for your boyfriend. Or perhaps it was the day Duan Song transferred the house my mom left me to Duan Feiyi, and you kept me company by the pool and gave me a keychain. By the time I realized I liked you, those incessant thoughts were already unstoppable.”

Jiang Yao was stunned by his words.

The incidents Duan Zhuxian mentioned were blurry memories to him, long forgotten, but they were the prelude to Duan Zhuxian’s long and hidden affection.

He suddenly recalled Duan Zhuxian’s wedding vows—

[Admired for a long time, and so it will be for a lifetime.]

At that time, listening to those words made his heart flutter, and afterward, he marveled at Duan Zhuxian’s exceptional acting skills.

It was only today that he finally understood the weight of those nine words, incomparable even to a decade of time combined.

Jiang Yao opened his mouth, struggling to find his voice, “Since you liked me so early, why didn’t you say anything back then?”

Duan Zhuxian raised his eyebrow slightly, “At first, I didn’t reveal it because a certain little liar said he would never date in high school. Later, this little liar started having a crush on someone else and even asked me for advice. Then, this little liar cut ties with me.”

He paused, then said with a slightly hoarse voice, “I thought being confessed to by someone you disliked the most wouldn’t be a pleasant experience.”

Jiang Yao froze, feeling a pang of guilt and his face turning red.

When he read the schedule book, he had already deduced Duan Zhuxian’s emotional journey, yet he still felt the need to ask again now.

Caught in a difficult position and not used to admitting defeat, Jiang Yao raised his chin and continued questioning, “Then why did you change your university preference after the college entrance exam? It can’t be because I’m a liar too, right? I was waiting for you to go to B University with me, imagining countless times how we’d continue our rivalry in college. I even wrote ‘See you at B University’ on the graduation message board, and it all became a joke…”

He started saying this out of reflex to retort Duan Zhuxian, but the more he spoke, the angrier he became, and the redness in his eyes that had just faded returned.

Duan Zhuxian raised his hand, gently touched the corner of Jiang Yao’s eye with his fingertips, his Adam’s apple moving slightly.

Seeing Duan Zhuxian’s hesitant expression, Jiang Yao grabbed his hand and pressed, “You just said you wouldn’t keep anything from me anymore.”

After a long stare, Duan Zhuxian finally clasped Jiang Yao’s tense fingers and, as if in compromise, began to speak, “I originally chose B University because of you. Later, I went to Q University also because of you. I thought that if I was farther away, in a different school, and didn’t see you every day, my feelings for you would fade.”

As he spoke, Duan Zhuxian let out a self-deprecating laugh.

“But even so, I still couldn’t help but inquire about you.”

Jiang Yao was stunned, then suddenly remembered something, “So on Christmas during our first year of college, when I arranged to meet Shen Tang and you showed up first, and then had Shen Tang bring his girlfriend, it was because you wanted to see me. You used that as an excuse and not intentionally to make me realize Shen Tang was in a relationship and completely break my heart?”

Duan Zhuxian gently interlocked his fingers with Jiang Yao’s, the movement tender and lingering, but his words were unusually calm: “No, I did it on purpose. I wanted you to see clearly that you and Shen Tang would never be possible.”

As he said this, a hint of obsession flashed in Duan Zhuxian’s eyes, startling Jiang Yao.

But in the next moment, those eyes were covered with gentleness again: “I think my feelings for you had been suppressed for too long by then, and they had become somewhat twisted. If it continued, I wasn’t sure what uncontrollable things I might do.”

Jiang Yao: “So you left the country without a word?”

Duan Zhuxian responded with a soft “Hmm.”

No matter what efforts he made, the subtle desire to possess Jiang Yao had never been extinguished.

Everything related to Jiang Yao could easily ignite the fire in his chest. Any interaction could spark flames, burning his heart with unbearable pain.

There was a time when he woke up from a dream, stunned by what he recalled. In the dream, he had locked Jiang Yao in a small room where only the two of them existed.

So, he chose to escape again, to go to a place even farther away.

This was the most complete avoidance he had ever undertaken in his life.

Those years abroad felt surreal, day after day, a repetitive cycle, as if he was trapped in a long nightmare that only slightly abated with the forced sleep each night.

He methodically continued his studies, traded stocks, started a company to gain experience, accumulated capital and connections, took over Hua Yan’s industry in North America, and saw a psychologist weekly.

Until the day the nightmare ended, he finally abandoned his facade of restraint and morality, boarded a plane without hesitation, and crossed the expanse of memories, boiling love, and ten thousand kilometers of torment and horizon to see the person he couldn’t let go of.

No matter how much the other person didn’t want to see him.

These were his scars, now being slowly revealed to Jiang Yao. Though it hurt him, Jiang Yao’s expression was more fragile than ever, as if he might break at any moment.

When Jiang Yao rested his forehead on Duan Zhuxian’s shoulder, Duan Zhuxian softly asked, “Do you not want to hear anymore?”

Jiang Yao buried his face and shook his head.

He didn’t want to stop listening; he was just too afraid to continue.

Because it hurt and made it hard to breathe.

Duan Zhuxian was such a proud person. For the sake of liking him, he tormented himself, even though Jiang Yao, as the other main character, was completely unaware.

“It’s okay, it’s all in the past.” Duan Zhuxian raised his hand and gently squeezed the back of Jiang Yao’s neck. “Our Mr. Jiang can’t be that lacking in resilience, right?”

Duan Zhuxian was trying to lighten Jiang Yao’s mood, intentionally teasing him. Usually, this would work, but surprisingly, Jiang Yao didn’t take the bait this time.

In a muffled voice, Jiang Yao said, “Yes, I just feel sorry for you, and I feel it’s not worth it. If I hadn’t heard all this from you today, I wouldn’t have known how much of a coward I am, how weak my ability to handle things is.”

He initially intended to comfort Duan Zhuxian, but in the end, it turned into Duan Zhuxian comforting him.

Can’t Duan Zhuxian give him a chance?

Jiang Yao looked up at Duan Zhuxian and said, “On your seventeenth birthday, I ruined your mood by telling you I liked Shen Tang. That was my fault, so now you can make a birthday wish. I’ll do my best to fulfill it.”

He spoke earnestly, with his mind filled with thoughts on how to make it up to Duan Zhuxian.

Duan Zhuxian glanced at the half-packed suitcase in the bedroom and pulled Jiang Yao back into his arms.

It was a strong, very strong hug, so strong that it was a little trembling.

After a while, he whispered in Jiang Yao’s ear, “Yao Yao, please don’t ever mention divorce again in this lifetime, okay?”

Jiang Yao hugged Duan Zhuxian back. “Nonsense, I’m not going to divorce you. Can you not waste a birthday wish? Make another one!”

Duan Zhuxian responded with a soft “Hmm,” but said nothing more.

After a moment, Jiang Yao suddenly felt a slight warmth on the back of his neck.

It was only after a long while that he realized these were Duan Zhuxian’s tears.

Falling in a place where he couldn’t see.

Author’s Note:

Dear readers, I have some real-life matters to attend to, so the updates will be every other day for the next few days. Thank you for your understanding. Bowing deeply.