Chapter 5

Ji Heyi changed the lock on his home door, replaced the overly soft bed with a hard one, and added some beautiful aquatic plants and stones to the fish tank. A light blue and a deep purple peacock fish swam happily inside.

He once wanted to raise a cat. He had the habit of returning home on time. During university, he read many cat-raising books and felt ready to bear the life and death of a cat.

But before he could consult his roommate about this plan, Chi Yan suddenly wanted to raise two fish, and the idea of raising a cat was completely shelved.

Chi Yan picked the fish at the aquarium, called Ji Heyi over with a phone call, and had him listen to a half-hour introduction from the breeder. In the end, he chose two peacock fish.

Everything about the peacock fish was good. They were brightly colored, beautiful in appearance, and particularly easy to raise.

Except for their short lifespan, only two to three years.

“That’s the one.” At that time, Chi Yan stared at the two fish for a long time, seeming particularly satisfied. He turned his head and introduced the names he came up with in three seconds to Ji Heyi, “One is called Little Blue and the other is called Little Purple.” He pointed at their black and white T-shirts, “Now you guys go home with Little Black and Little White.”

Later, Ji Heyi grew fond of these two fish. He always easily developed a liking for things he was accustomed to.

A three-year relationship, he was as accustomed to Chi Yan as he was to changing the water and feeding the peacock fish.

So, does he still love him?

The question even made him light a cigarette.

He doesn’t smoke, but there are always a few packs of Chi Yan’s cigarettes on the balcony. Chi Yan would smoke away from him, but not completely. Occasionally, he would pull him over and force him to take a puff. He seemed to enjoy seeing him slightly flustered by the smoke.

After a few times, he had actually gotten used to the taste, but he would still cough twice under Chi Yan’s enthusiastic gaze.

Does he still love him?

Probably not. Feelings are mutual, and love needs to breathe in an atmosphere where there is mutual echo. The other party has already clearly stated that they have moved on. The words spoken out loud seem to be more powerful than body language, eye contact, or even kisses.

Or maybe he does. After all, some people can rush into the fire without any response, like Chi Yan in the beginning.

Ji Heyi is not the type to drag things out. His previous rejections were as solid as a copper wall and iron barrier. Because of his absolute indifference, before he truly wavered, he couldn’t recall much of what Chi Yan had done or said.

The answer is not very important. The Chi Yan of the past is different from now, and the answer now will not coincide with a certain day in the future.

The smell of smoke on the balcony was already too strong. He examined the cigarette butt and extinguished it in the ashtray. It was his first time doing this, but he was quite adept.

He returned to the living room, turned up the temperature of the fish tank a bit for the night, observed for a moment, and determined that the two fish were sleeping. So, he gently closed the bedroom door. These two peacock fish had been raised for nearly two years. He decided to wait until they passed away naturally, and then get a cat for himself.

May ended, and after a few rare leisurely days, Ji Heyi returned to his busy life trajectory.

In his spare time, he didn’t forget to send a WeChat message to Chi Cong, asking about the cat his ex-girlfriend left him. If it wasn’t neutered and the owner didn’t plan to do so in the future, he wanted to reserve a kitten from that female cat.

He had seen that cat in Chi Cong’s circle of friends and liked its blue eyes.

“Okay, I’ll remember. I’ll save a kitten for you when she has them.”

On this side, Chi Cong was driving. He replied to the WeChat message at a red light, and just as he put down his phone, the light turned green.

There was also an ancestor sitting in his passenger seat.

Chi Cong saw from the corner of his eye that the ancestor was leaning against the back of the chair, his gaze falling on the phone he had thrown into the storage grid, his eyelids drooping as if he hadn’t woken up.

He broke the silence in the car: “I heard that you called Ah Yi to the bar again last week.”

Chi Yan maintained his lazy posture, as if he hadn’t heard the question at all. After a while, he casually replied, “Who told you?”

He grabbed the toy in front of Chi Cong’s steering wheel, didn’t play with it in his hand, just put it on his leg, and poked it intermittently, “Did Ji Heyi tell you?”

Chi Cong was annoyed by his evasive attitude, intentionally not responding to him for a while, but in the end, he didn’t have his patience, and after holding back for a while, he still spoke: “I don’t need him to say, I heard that he entered the bar with his front foot, and you followed with your back foot.”

Chi Cong had seen his tricks of following people around a few years ago, “Did you follow him?”

After a long time, he said a light sentence: “Coincidence – bumped into him, had to say hello.”

Chi Cong didn’t continue to ask, the other party’s attitude clearly didn’t want to talk.

He, as an older brother, is only three years older than his younger brother, and didn’t grow much tolerance and steadiness. When he was a child, facing his untouchable and unscoldable younger brother who seemed to have come to collect debts, he would often go to the toilet to stand quietly and vent his anger. At that time, people at home didn’t understand his affection for a mere toilet, but in fact, he was just thinking about one day when they were not paying attention, throwing this annoying little devil into the toilet and flushing it away.

From childhood to adulthood, Chi Cong’s temper was not very good. As he grew older, the sharp edges in his bones were smoothed out by a third, and Chi Yan contributed a lot to this.

But recently, he has been finding it more and more difficult to understand his younger brother.

No, it’s not just recently. Perhaps it started when Chi Yan, who had been away from home for several years, graduated and returned to the country. At some point, their conversations seemed to always be separated by something.

Or maybe it was even earlier, during Chi Yan’s rebellious adolescence, when every bone in his body was shouting defiance. At the age of fifteen, he carelessly and resolutely came out to his family. At that time, the whole family thought he had found a new way to challenge the elders – at your age, you haven’t even had a crush yet, do you know what sexual orientation is to say you’re gay?

Later, when he became an adult, he brought one partner after another home, all men, physically demonstrating to the whole family his clear understanding of himself. Among those various people, the shortest relationship might not have lasted more than a week. In the end, his parents’ request changed from “you should date someone of the opposite sex” to “no matter the gender, you should have a serious relationship.”

Chi Cong sighed in his heart, thinking that the three years he spent dating Ji Heyi might have been the three years when the least hair fell out in the Chi family.

However, this peaceful and joyful period seems to be coming to an end.

He then turned to talk about serious matters: “I had someone finish decorating your house in Tianhai Residence, it’s modelled after my house, since the layouts are similar. You’ve been living here these past few days and seem quite comfortable, so you should be able to adapt.”

“The company has approved a three-month leave for me. Once the film I’m working on is released, I’ll go abroad to hide by the sea for three months. I won’t check my phone or email.” Chi Cong paused for a moment, then said, “Chi Yan, you’re not young anymore. Stop messing around like you did when you were seventeen or eighteen. You know I was just dumped by someone I was about to marry in a very ugly way. I really don’t want to deal with your on-and-off relationships. If you’re not tired, I am.”

Chi Yan grunted, glanced at him sideways, “It’s obvious, you’re exhausted, and disheartened.”

He hooked the corner of his mouth and laughed, “So tired that after all these years, your unyielding attitude has loosened. So tired that you even want to take a detour, ‘try men’, huh – have you found someone to take over?”

Chi Cong was puzzled for a while, then remembered the few sentences he had chatted with him on the day of the breakup, “I casually mentioned it and you took it seriously. Can sexual orientation change just like that?”

Who do you think is as malleable as Ji Heyi? He didn’t voice the sarcastic remark, knowing that his younger brother had no clue about these things, otherwise he wouldn’t have provoked Ji Heyi, a straight man, in the first place.

“And what do you mean by ‘take over’? Who are you insulting? Am I some unsellable goods?”

Chi Yan chuckled, “You, a heartthrob.”

Chi Cong closed his mouth, always feeling that he was being mocked for being dumped time and time again.

The car entered a familiar road, and after turning a corner, there was a large shopping mall.

Chi Cong remembered the empty refrigerator in Chi Yan’s house: “I haven’t filled your refrigerator at home yet. What should we buy at the mall? Or you can make a list, and I’ll have my assistant buy it and send it to you. I’m also planning to ask him to buy some things for me to take on my trip.”

“Forget it.” Chi Yan sarcastically declined without any courtesy, “If I ask your assistant for a bottle of lubricant, he might give me some oil for my tires. If I ask for a dry white wine, he might bring me a bottle of Wuliangye liquor.”

“…..”

Chi Cong was shocked, “When did—” He remembered the few days when he was running up and down at Ji Heyi’s house, “Damn, can’t you buy that kind of thing yourself!”

Chi Yan was indifferent to the shouting next to him, rubbing the fluffy texture of the toy in his hand, and leaning his head against the car window.

The shopping mall was slowly left behind by the car.

“Are you going alone?” He suddenly asked, as if casually.

Chi Cong was stunned: “What?”

“Healing, huh.”

“You said it’s healing, do I need to bring someone to watch the wound?” He glared at Chi Yan, “I remember your ex might also need to relax, ask him if he wants to join.”

“Sounds good, sunny beaches.” He flicked the head of the toy with his finger, “With the atmosphere just right, why don’t you two pair up.”

Chi Cong was immune to this kind of sarcasm: “What kind of atmosphere, the atmosphere of cuckolded heroes sympathizing with each other?”

“Perfect match.”

“Get lost.”

“No.” Chi Yan leaned his face against the car window, rolled up the window, and then rolled it down again.

After a while, he replied in a deep voice: “——You get lost.”

Chi Cong frowned at his tone, looking at his inexplicably frosty face: “You… your mood has really been unstable lately.”

He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye for a while, also getting a bit irritable, “With your inexplicable behavior, Ji Heyi has no reason to manage you now. I’m really afraid that once I leave on the plane, you’ll cause some trouble. Whatever the situation is, you’d better talk to me about it.”

“Get lost!” This time, the response was like a lit firecracker.

Chi Cong also flared up: “What the hell is wrong with you!”

Ever since he found out about Chi Yan’s infidelity and breakup, he had been holding in a breath of anger, so he decided to settle the score with him: “I’ve been seriously dating for over ten years, and in the blink of an eye, I was dumped by trash, and this trash is my own brother! I was part of the matchmaking process in the beginning, and I couldn’t even lift my head at the time. And who is this new person you found – the younger brother of my ex-girlfriend who cuckolded me, who the hell are you trying to provoke!”

The person in the passenger seat also had a heaving chest, and in his barrage of words, he glanced sideways. That glance was full of sarcasm and anger, as if he would retort in the next second, blocking every word.

It was as if his anger was laughable, he didn’t even bother to listen to two sentences, and coldly spoke for himself: “Open the door, I’m leaving.”

A light and heavy voice, as if he had already calmed down.

“Fine.” Seeing that he was ignoring his questions, Chi Cong stepped on the clutch, pulled the car over to the side, and pressed the door switch, “You get lost.”

As soon as the words fell, he saw Chi Yan unbuckle his seat belt, push the car door, not take his wallet, not take his keys, grab his toy and get up.

“Bring Mao Mao back!” The golden retriever puppy that he had finally gotten from Ji Heyi’s car, he hadn’t had enough fun with it yet!

“Why?” Chi Yan slammed the car door, “It’s mine!”

Chi Cong honked the horn several times, but didn’t see the figure walking away pause. He ruffled his hair in irritation: “Damn!”

The lights on the thirty-second floor of the high-rise building were bright.

When his secretary brought over his personal phone, Ji Heyi was working overtime. It was late at night, and it was rare for his phone to ring at this time.

The ringtone had already stopped. The secretary held up the phone, pretending not to have looked at the screen, but still hesitated to speak under the boss’s instruction to “put it aside first”: “It’s… Mr. Chi, five missed calls.”

Obviously, this Mr. Chi referred to Chi Yan.

Ji Heyi and the secretary looked at each other for a moment. Just as the secretary was about to put the phone away, the ringtone suddenly rang again.

Ji Heyi took the phone, looked at the caller for three seconds, and finally answered the call.

The voice on the other end of the phone was not familiar: “Hello, this is the North Star Club. May I speak to Mr. Ji? Sorry for the disturbance, but Mr. Chi’s phone only has this one number – would it be convenient for you to come and pick up Mr. Chi…….”

Ji Heyi spoke with the manager of the club for two minutes, asking about the location and the private room, as well as the situation around Chi Yan.

He then dialed Chi Cong’s number, asking him to pick up his brother.

On the other end of the phone, Chi Cong laughed coldly: “I don’t care if he dies!”

With a click, he hung up the phone, his anger hitting Ji Heyi through the phone screen.

Ji Heyi silently stared at his phone for a while – this unexpected guest during overtime.

He called over his secretary, took a look at the secretary’s seemingly excellent psychological quality and determined appearance, and asked like a gentleman: “Can I lose my temper at you?”

The secretary was taken aback: “Huh?”

“Never mind.” Ji Heyi closed the file, rubbed his temples, “It’s late, let’s stop here for today, you can go now.”