E ⋆ Chapter 34

Yu Zhinian looked as though Yang Ke had exposed some enormous secret, appearing lost and forlorn, pitiful even, as if Yang Ke were bullying him.

Yang Ke watched Yu Zhinian’s ashen face and realized he had once again lost the ability to control his temper due to frustration and confusion. He felt that whenever he encountered Yu Zhinian, he was always messing things up.

But he truly did not know what was the right thing to do, or how he could make Yu Zhinian satisfied.

The two of them remained at an impasse for a moment. Yang Ke did not want to see Yu Zhinian wearing that expression any longer. He calmed down and said to him, “Forget it, pretend I didn’t say anything.”

Yu Zhinian still did not move, just watching Yang Ke. He was very slender and very captivating. Yang Ke stood up from the sofa and moved closer to him. Yu Zhinian took a few steps back, but did not run away.

In the end Yu Zhinian had nowhere left to retreat. His back pressed against the wall of the hotel sitting room. Yang Ke lowered his head, looking at Yu Zhinian’s eyelashes and lips.

“Yu Zhinian,” Yang Ke called his name, and Yu Zhinian looked up at him.

His eyes were very dark, opened very wide, and his gaze was somewhat complex. There was panic, but also clearly shyness. A sweet scent emanated from him. Yang Ke asked him, “So I can’t touch you anymore after this?”

Yu Zhinian paused slightly, momentarily stunned.

When Yang Ke was younger, he rarely thought this way, but as he grew older, he had always found the way Yu Zhinian looked when troubled or lost in thought to be extraordinarily endearing.

Because most of the time Yu Zhinian was precocious and considerate, receiving affection from many different people. He excelled in his studies, was steady and intelligent, always thinking of ways to solve problems, and rarely had clumsy moments. Only by Yang Ke’s side would he reveal such a face.

“I’m not drunk.”

Yang Ke raised his hand and very gently touched Yu Zhinian’s face, asking him, “Is this okay?”

Yu Zhinian did not speak. He raised his hand, hesitantly wanting to brush Yang Ke’s hand away, but Yang Ke easily caught his wrist and pressed it against the wall, then lowered his head and kissed Yu Zhinian’s lips.

“What about this?” Yang Ke asked.

Yu Zhinian did not struggle anymore. As if unaware of what was happening, he accepted Yang Ke’s exploration in a dazed, compliant manner, docile like when he had first moved into Yang Ke’s home.

He raised his left hand and pressed it very lightly against Yang Ke’s chest, saying softly, “Yang Ke.”

His trailing syllable was swallowed by Yang Ke between their lips. Yang Ke hummed in response, but Yu Zhinian said nothing more. From long ago until now, this was the first time Yu Zhinian had been willing to be so intimate with Yang Ke.

More than half a month after Christmas three years ago, on January twentieth, Yang Zhongyun passed away.

At the end of his life, Yang Zhongyun lost the ability to speak. He was almost never conscious, kept alive by medical equipment, his remaining time slipping away on a hospital bed.

Yu Zhinian kept vigil at his bedside and did not go home.

When Yang Zhongyun was resuscitated again, Yang Ke was at the company. After rushing over, he saw him one last time.

Yang Zhongyun’s eyes were vacant as he looked at Yang Ke. Yu Zhinian stood by his bed, head lowered, eyes rimmed with red.

Not long after, Yang Zhongyun lost his heartbeat and breath.

Yang Zhongyun’s funeral was held in Ning City. They returned home by plane.

On the day of the funeral procession, many dignitaries and officials came. Yang Zhongyun’s former subordinates and old friends made the funeral very dignified. Various media outlets issued their condolences.

After the funeral ended, Li Lu called the relevant personnel together and read Yang Zhongyun’s will in detail.

There were more than ten people present: Yang Ke, Yu Zhinian, and the company’s shareholders and executives.

Upon hearing the end, learning that Yang Zhongyun had left his shares to Yu Zhinian along with attached trust conditions, several shareholders were extremely dissatisfied.

One shareholder with a volatile temper named Fang Liang jumped up before he had even finished listening. He said that Old Yang was being absurd, that this will should have no legal validity, that he was treating such a large corporation as a joke. He pointed at Li Lu’s nose and said he would sue. The remaining shareholders stood to the side, watching and chiming in.

Yang Ke shielded the dazed Yu Zhinian behind him, preventing the conflict from affecting him. Yu Zhinian’s arm was pressed against Yang Ke’s back. Yang Ke turned his hand around and took hold of Yu Zhinian’s hand, telling him not to be afraid.

After the farce over the will ended, they returned to school.

Yu Zhinian continued his studies. Yang Ke went to the company. Yang Ke had originally thought that from this point on, life would begin to get back on track. But he had not expected that Yu Zhinian would gradually become different from before.

He came home very late every day and left very early.

In Yang Ke’s phone, the message thread from Yu Zhinian, scrolled upward, was filled entirely with messages like “not coming home tonight,” “don’t bother picking me up,” “I’m leaving first.”

Yang Ke received so many that he irritably cleared the messages. But clearing them only made him more irritable. He wanted to find Yu Zhinian and ask him clearly, but whenever he saw Yu Zhinian avoiding him, he did not know how to bring it up.

He found it baffling and did not want to lower himself too much.

After formally graduating and entering the company, Yang Ke was very busy with work. Sometimes he wanted to ask Zhai Di for advice, but Zhai Di was a confirmed anti-marriage type with no such experience whatsoever. Yang Ke could only tell himself that perhaps after getting married, the relationship would improve.

On the second Christmas Eve that Yu Zhinian had lived in Yang Ke’s home, after Yang Ke had subtly probed a female subordinate for advice, he decided to take Yu Zhinian out for dinner.

Yu Zhinian did not want to go, but Yang Ke found some ways to bring him out the door.

During dinner, the two did not speak much. Somehow, Yu Zhinian drank all the wine and finished all the food. Yu Zhinian had a small appetite, and after finishing everything, his whole body looked stuffed and dazed, and he said he was very full.

Beside the restaurant was a street-side park. After dinner, seeing that he was indeed very full, Yang Ke took him for a walk in the park.

Yu Zhinian had recently been getting around by public transportation. He was wrapped up in a large, long down jacket that covered his whole body, making movement very inconvenient, and he looked like a balloon.

They walked through the park, which was strung with colored lights and dusted with patches of snow, empty and quiet. Their feet made very soft sounds as they stepped on the snow.

Halfway through their walk, they encountered a squirrel, its tail swaying as it hopped across the snow.

Yu Zhinian, perhaps finding it cute, crouched down to look. He crouched on the ground, a puffy little bundle. The squirrel ran away. He could not stand up on his own. Yang Ke pulled him to his feet, saying he was wearing too much.

He laughed and said “thank you” to Yang Ke, and he seemed not so different from before.

It made Yang Ke feel that if the future were like this, sometimes intimate and sometimes distant, he could accept it.

The next day, Yang Ke went on a business trip.

In the boutique arcade on the ground floor of the hotel, there was a jewelry store. As Yang Ke passed by, he saw a couple selecting rings inside. He could not explain why, but he walked in as well.

The male sales clerk had a build similar to Yu Zhinian’s. Yang Ke asked him to help try on some rings. In the end, he bought a pair, wanting to find an opportunity to casually give them to Yu Zhinian and see if he liked them.

If he liked them, he could wear them.

Only, Yang Ke seemed never to find the opportunity to take out this pair of rings.

As cohabitation approached two years, Yang Ke decided to show the rings to Yu Zhinian before their registration. But because Yu Zhinian had returned to his home country, this attempt also failed.

Later, Yang Ke found ways to bring Yu Zhinian back home, and the pair of rings seemed even less appropriate to present.

So Yang Ke decided to give up on them and took Yu Zhinian to a store of the same brand.

Yu Zhinian tried on the rings, which fit perfectly with the image Yang Ke had in mind. He carefully put on each ring that Yang Ke had selected, one by one, taking them off and putting them back on.

Yang Ke discovered that after more than a year, his taste had not changed at all. In the end, he still bought the same pair as before. He thought this was fine too, allowing him to publicly reveal his secret without anyone knowing.

In the marriage registration office, Yang Ke placed the wedding ring on Yu Zhinian’s finger, believing in his heart that all mistakes had been corrected and everything was back on track.

But perhaps the right track was only an illusion, something Yang Ke had imagined.

Yang Ke had no experience whatsoever in matters of the heart. Sometimes he suspected that Yu Zhinian might have suddenly stopped liking him and had come to like someone else instead, because Yu Zhinian had many choices. Sometimes he felt that was not the case, because Yu Zhinian seemed to truly like him.

Yang Ke did not know where he had gone wrong, or when he had started going wrong. He felt that if Yu Zhinian could make proper demands of him, he might not be incapable of changing.

Yang Ke and Yu Zhinian kissed for a very long time.

Yu Zhinian’s body went soft. He needed Yang Ke to hold him so he would not slide down. His lips had been kissed very rosy by Yang Ke, his eyes innocent, making Yang Ke reluctant to reproach him any further.

Yang Ke said to Yu Zhinian, “Try staying a while longer.”

He did not receive an answer from Yu Zhinian before his phone rang. It was Li Lu calling.

Yang Ke originally did not want to answer, but the phone kept ringing, so he picked up.

As soon as he answered, Li Lu told him in a tone more serious than he had ever used before: “You’ve been sued, Yang Ke.”

“Lin Kai, that real estate agent,” Li Lu said, “I told you before that as long as he can get money, if he can find you, he can go find other shareholders too.”

Observation Analysis Diary (Five)

Topic: Caught secretly looking at Yang Ke’s notes

(Recorded by: Yu Zhinian / Date: 2016.10.13)

Not canceling the management mathematics modeling course after the trial lecture was an erroneous decision. Many mathematical concepts I can no longer recall. During class I listened in a complete daze. It happened that I was sitting right behind Yang Ke, and together with two classmates beside me, I secretly looked at the notes Yang Ke was typing on his screen.

Some of the formulas were written too densely together. I was concentrating too hard and was caught by Yang Ke. Yang Ke is quite generous when it comes to academic exchange. He enlarged the font of the formulas on his screen by several sizes, making it convenient for the several struggling students behind him to reference.