Chapter 121: Let’s Just Forget It
This time, Cheng Shangshi didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
Wen Yan subtly pulled away from his hand, keeping his head down, not daring to meet his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Cheng Shangshi gave a bitter smile and withdrew his hand.
Wen Yan apologized to him again. In truth, he didn’t need to apologize to someone who had no right to interfere with his choices.
Wen Yan took a deep breath. “It’s too cold out here. Go back early and don’t overthink things.”
He didn’t let Wen Yan see him off; he walked away alone, his silhouette disappearing around the corner.
Wen Yan didn’t go upstairs immediately. He sat alone on a bench, his head bowed.
The bench beside him dipped slightly, and a familiar, cold presence enveloped him. A coat was draped over Wen Yan’s shoulders.
He didn’t need to look up to know who it was.
“Don’t be unhappy,” Pei Zhouye’s voice sounded beside him. He sounded none too pleased himself. “He confessed to you. He touched you.”
They were two declarative statements. Pei Zhouye’s brows were knit tight as he stared at a pile of fallen leaves.
“Yes!” Wen Yan’s reply was heavy with suppressed rage. “What are you going to do about it?”
The dejection of becoming estranged from a friend who had stayed by his side during his lowest point, combined with the shock and anger of a years-long friendship turning into something else, caused his emotions to overflow.
As Wen Yan’s angry words fell, the man beside him pulled him into an embrace.
The hug was so sudden that Wen Yan could only feel the arms locking tightly around him as Pei Zhouye rested his chin in the crook of his neck.
“Nothing,” the low voice whispered in his ear. “I just can’t stand him touching you. I can’t stand you being sad because of him.”
“Wen Yan, I’m not good at changing,” he said, his tone sounding muffled and stifled. “But I won’t do things you don’t like.”
At first listen, the words sounded almost aggrieved, but Wen Yan found it truly difficult to associate a word like “aggrieved” with Pei Zhouye.
This momentary peace did not last.
Hasty footsteps approached from the distance. Before Wen Yan could see who it was, he had already pushed Pei Zhouye away.
He jerked his head up, his entire body freezing.
It was his parents.
Mother Wen was livid. She had barely stopped her pace before her hand was already raised.
Wen Yan shut his eyes tight, preparing himself for the blow.
Slap! The sound was crisp and loud.
The expected pain never came. Wen Yan opened his eyes in shock to see Pei Zhouye’s head tilted to the side.
The slap hadn’t been meant for Wen Yan at all.
Mother Wen’s eyes were brimming with tears, but her face was a mask of fury.
“Go! Get away from my son! Don’t you ever come back as long as you live!” Her roar was punctuated by falling tears.
A person as dignified as her was rarely this enraged. The hand that had delivered the slap was still suspended in mid-air, trembling violently.
She and Father Wen had intended to sneak a peek at Wen Yan’s interaction with Cheng Shangshi, but they had found Pei Zhouye instead.
The cold wind blew against Pei Zhouye’s rapidly reddening cheek, but he seemed unable to feel the pain. He slowly turned his head back, his gaze calm as he looked at Wen Yan’s parents, even giving a slight nod.
“I’m sorry.” The first thing he said was an apology—an apology for everything in the past.
“We don’t want your apology!” Father Wen’s face was flushed with anger. “If you really want to apologize, then get lost! Never show your face again!”
“I can’t do that. I can’t give up on Wen Yan.”
As soon as he said this, Father Wen was so enraged he moved to strike Pei Zhouye. Wen Yan finally snapped back to reality and scrambled up to hold his father back.
Restraining his father, Wen Yan looked back and signaled to Pei Zhouye. Seeing that he wouldn’t budge, Wen Yan knit his brows and mouthed two words:
“Go. Now.”
Wen Yan practically pushed his parents out of the garden.
The three of them walked toward the elevator in silence. It was the Wen family custom to discuss matters behind closed doors. All the way up, the atmospheric pressure was so low Wen Yan could barely breathe.
Finally, they reached the suite.
The three of them sat on the sofa, his parents’ faces set in grim lines.
“Dad, Mom,” Wen Yan began cautiously, his voice trembling.
His tears began to fall, and his parents couldn’t hold back their own.
Reunion after a long absence, anger, disappointment, heartache—all these complex emotions piled up into tears.
Seeing Wen Yan cry broke Mother Wen’s heart. she turned her head away, sobbing uncontrollably.
Father Wen got his emotions under control and patted his wife’s shoulder to comfort her.
He let out a heavy sigh. “Wen Yan, your mother and I aren’t saying you have to be with anyone specific, but it absolutely cannot be him.”
They didn’t know all the details, only that Wen Yan had been with Pei Zhouye for a long time, and when he had called them from Country D, he had been as thin as a sheet of paper. How could they let him walk back into that fire?
Mother Wen tried to steady her voice. “Wen Yan, what is it about him that you can’t let go of?”
They rarely called him by his full name; they were truly disappointed this time.
Their gaze felt like it was scorching him. Wen Yan opened his mouth several times, but no sound came out.
What was so good about Pei Zhouye? Why couldn’t he let go? Money, power, looks—he didn’t care about those things. Pei Zhouye was unreasonable, unscrupulous, and had a list of character flaws a mile long.
Seeing his silence, Mother Wen suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm. Wen Yan instinctively tried to pull away, but his mother gripped him even tighter. She shoved up his sleeve, ignoring his attempts to hide, and unfastened the watch that always covered his wrist.
On his fair skin, several scars where new flesh had grown sat there, jarring and shocking to the eye.
The atmosphere grew even more stifled. Mother Wen’s warm tears fell, one by one, onto Wen Yan’s wrist.
“Wen Yan,” Father Wen called out his name, but said nothing else.
“He saved me. Many times,” Wen Yan said softly, his head bowed, no longer trying to pull away.
The rainy night during the summer after his junior year of high school, the car accident behind the school gates in his sophomore year of university… time and again, Pei Zhouye had saved him with absolutely no regard for his own life.
He hadn’t intended to tell his parents these things to avoid worrying them.
He simply wanted an ordinary life, but Pei Zhouye had left a mark far too deep to erase.
Inside the car, the lights were off. The steering wheel glinted with a faint light.
In the darkness, a crimson ember flickered.
The passenger door was suddenly pulled open. Pei Zhouye knit his brows and looked over, seeing a face he hadn’t expected.
Wen Yan let out a cough, choked by the smell of smoke in the car.
Pei Zhouye instinctively moved to stub out the cigarette, but a cold hand caught his palm. While he was frozen in surprise, Wen Yan’s other hand reached into the cigarette pack nearby and pulled one out.
He watched as Wen Yan leaned in close, a cigarette held between his thin lips. The two cigarettes touched, and then Wen Yan’s lit up, the dim glow illuminating his silhouette.
Before Pei Zhouye could react, Wen Yan had already sat back in the passenger seat. His slender fingers held the cigarette skillfully as he exhaled a small cloud of smoke.
He never expected Wen Yan to smoke; after all, Wen Yan had always hated the smell.
As he was thinking, Wen Yan spoke.
“Pei Zhouye. You saw it for yourself.”
“Let’s just call it quits.”
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