Chapter 94

From the bottom of his throat, Fang Yu uttered a hoarse and impatient cry…

Yang Lei stopped thinking. He was held in Fang Yu’s arms, and his mind was blank.

He didn’t move. By his ear, there was Fang Yu’s hot breath.

Fang Yu’s breath surrounded him, pressing close to his cheek. It brought almost a burning warmth and the heartbeats of both people…

In this bathroom, they were once still hostile and had fought; in this compartment, they had once hugged each other intimately because of a brief separation, with irrepressible passion… These distant memories, with the passage of time, solidified in places that they did not want to recall, but at this moment, they all poured into Yang Lei’s mind…

Fang Yu tightened his arms. He used a lot of strength, like he wanted to embed Yang Lei into his own body… Yang Lei didn’t move. He heard his own heartbeat, and he heard Fang Yu’s. In each other’s chests, the rhythm was erratic…

Fang Yu moved slowly. Fang Yu rubbed Yang Lei’s neck. Yang Lei felt that hot breath spraying his neck. Then, something fell on his neck and ear. That wet and hot feeling, accompanied by low and repressed breaths, followed along his jawline. He sucked on his face, with the caution of something that could not be touched, with the emotion and dejection that was out of control because of the alcohol…

That touch suddenly hurt Yang Lei…

“…!”

Yang Lei suddenly pushed Fang Yu away.

Fang Yu took several steps back before he regained his balance.

“…What’s with you?” Yang Lei looked at Fang Yu and asked.

“…”

Fang Yu’s drunken eyes were a little sober.

“What do you mean?” Yang Lei asked.

Fang Yu wiped his face hard.

“…Sorry…”

Fang Yu’s voice was heavy.

“…I drank too much…”

“Don’t fucking mess with me!!”

Yang Lei suddenly roared!

His eyes were red, and he stared right at Fang Yu. His chest rose and fell violently, emotions surged like an insuppressible wave in his chest, and his eyes were filled with pain and unbearable dejection!

He kept enduring and suppressing it. From the night of Lunar New Year’s Eve, when Fang Yu was lying alone on the bed in the darkness of the eighth-floor room, from when Fang Yu used hands that were purple from the cold to take out the hot dishes wrapped in his coat, from this night that Fang Yu got drunk, and from Fang Yu’s expression when the group of people urged him and Fang Mei…

He kept suppressing it in his heart, forcing himself to endure and suppress it. But right now, he could no longer suppress it. Like a wave, it pounded his heart overwhelmingly, making him suffocate!

“…Now you want to see me and call me? Where were you in the past three years? …Originally, you said that the two of us were wrong! Okay, I let you go… I helped you! But what are you doing now? Staying in that house alone! Drinking and making yourself like this! …What do you want me to think?? …Fang Yu, what are you doing? What do you take me for??…”

These words weighed in Yang Lei’s heart like a stone was blocking his words. These words hurt his heart. He was not a fool. He looked at Fang Yu’s eyes, looked at Fang Yu’s silence, and looked at Fang Yu’s expressions and actions. How could he still not understand?? But the more he understood, the more he was unable to bear it, and the more he felt burning suffocation and pain.

Just what was this? What was this??

“…Don’t make me think that you still have feelings for me!”

Yang Lei burst out this sentence with difficulty. The pitch of his voice had changed…

Hearing Yang Lei’s questions, Fang Yu suddenly felt a sharp pain in his heart…

There were footsteps outside. Someone came into the bathroom and pulled open the door.

Yang Lei turned and went out. He didn’t go back to the private room. He went straight to the hotel gate and rushed into the green park outside the hotel. The cold wind brushed his face. He wanted to allow the cold air outside to calm his mind.

Footsteps came after him. Fang Yu reached out his hand and pulled him hard.

“…I don’t want to do anything! …I just want to see you! …”

Fang Yu was in deep pain and couldn’t hold back…

“Why did I give up back then?!”

Yang Lei shook him off and shouted from the depths of his throat. His eyes were blurry when he looked at Fang Yu.

“…It was so that you could live well!! …But look at what you are like now?! …”

On the evening of New Year’s Eve, when he saw Fang Yu alone in the empty room on the eighth floor, with the lights and the air conditioner off, without a hot meal in the cold and dark house, how did he feel?? Seeing Fang Yu’s frozen and purple hands from the cold when he brought food back, seeing that Fang Yu still had a buzz cut like he had just gotten out of jail, wearing black clothes, and his lonely figure, how did Yang Lei feel??

Yang Lei kept telling himself that he was already calm. From the moment that Fang Yu came back, from the moment that he saw Fang Yu in the taxi in the snow, Yang Lei told himself this. He thought this way, and he acted this way. No one could maintain a passion forever. The honing of reality and time could make any deeply engraved feelings pass. Yang Lei thought that he had done it. He had to do it. But people can’t deceive themselves. Only he knew how he felt. Some things could pass, but some things would exist, even if they weren’t touched!

He had originally already made up his mind to maintain this calmness. Later, he would be brothers with Fang Yu again. But seeing Fang Yu like this, all of Yang Lei’s calmness was shattered. His heart was pulled together. Seeing Fang Yu make himself drunk one glass after another, seeing Fang Yu’s pallid face and red eyes, Yang Lei’s heart hurt dully like it had been injured by a blunt knife. Even breathing was painful, so painful that it was unbearable!!

When he quit back then, it wasn’t for today’s outcome!

“…I went to Guangzhou to look for you. You wouldn’t see me. You didn’t want to make me upset face to face. I don’t blame you! …The letter that you told them to give me, in the letter, you said that you only realized in those four years. We should both take a normal path. You said that you have someone in your heart, that you want a family and you want to live a normal life! …I accept all of this!”

Three years ago, when he went to Guangzhou to find Fang Yu, he only saw Ying-zi and the two veteran friends, and he only saw the letter that Fang Yu left him. After reading every word, whether or not Yang Lei saw Fang Yu already had no meaning.

“In these last three years, I kept telling myself that you’re doing very well, better than if you were with me! …The things that I can’t give you, others can give you! Only that way could I give myself a reason not to hurt you anymore! …But the way you are now, what was that back then? …What was the point of letting you go?!”

Fang Yu was not doing well. There was no brightness or happiness in the corners of his brows and eyes. Seeing Fang Yu in front of him, Yang Lei felt that his past few years had completely lost their meaning. His heart hurt and ached. If it were for how things turned out today, then what did his giving up back then count for??

“…I’m sorry…”

Fang Yu’s voice was extremely hoarse…

“Do I want to hear sorry?!”

Yang Lei was in pain.

“I want you to be well!”

“…I’m pretty good!”

Fang Yu said suddenly. In the darkness, Fang Yu’s expression was blurry…

“Pretty good?! Are you pretty good when you’re fucking like this?!”

It had been three years. Yang Lei was no longer a young man who lived off feelings. He understood that there were too many things in life, not just feelings. There were too many ways to love, not just having the other person. Right now, he only hoped that the person he loved could live well and live happily, could live openly and honestly under the sun, and could be surrounded by love and blessings. He only hoped that several decades later, when they entered into the final stages of their lives, they could still say to each other without hesitation: You say the word, my life, I give to you.

“…We can’t go back anymore! Fang Yu! …”

Yang Lei said, word by word.

“…After you’ve chosen the path, go back and walk it well until the end! …Don’t make me look down on you! …”

Fang Yu stood in the icy cold air of the winter night, and his figure was like a statue…

“What’s the matter, you two?”

Fang Mei came out. Seeing that Yang Lei and Fang Yu hadn’t come back for a long time, she was worried and came out to look for them.

Yang Lei wiped his face hard and turned away.

“…He’s drunk. Call a taxi to take him back,” Yang Lei said. He turned around and left.

“Yang Lei!”

Fang Mei called to him. Yang Lei didn’t look back. He strode away…

Although Fang Mei didn’t hear what they were saying, she still guessed the general idea.

At the dinner table, she also saw everything. Fang Mei looked at Fang Yu, who was standing in the dark. Fang Mei wanted to say something, but she didn’t know how to say it.

Yang Lei had told her not to let Fang Yu know that she knew about them. He was afraid that Fang Yu would be uncomfortable.

Looking at Fang Yu, Fang Mei could only sigh. Fang Yu must be responsible for a woman and a family. Even if Yang Lei had old feelings again, what could be done? Even if Fang Yu had really separated from that woman and come back to find Yang Lei, that would be too meaningless. Even Fang Mei felt that it was meaningless.

“…Go back,” Fang Yu said to Fang Mei. In the cold night wind, Fang Yu was already sober.

“Where do you live now? I’ll call a car for you.”

Fang Mei saw Fang Yu’s expression, and Fang Mei inexplicably felt upset.

“I’m fine.”

Fang Yu paused for a moment and looked at Fang Mei.

“I may not be able to come to the wedding. I wish you both happiness.”

“…Thank you.”

Fang Mei was also sad.

Fang Yu raised his hand, flagged down a car, and opened the door.

He didn’t go in. He stood there, was silent for a moment, and turned around.

“Treat him well,” Fang Yu said. He lowered his head and closed the door…

Yang Lei returned to the house on the eighth floor. For the entire night, he locked himself in there and smoked.

Yang Lei thought that he had matured, but when he met Fang Yu, he knew that he had made no progress at all. He was still the same as in the past. Once he met Fang Yu, he was completely unable to be calm and clear-headed. His mind was even blank, and he lost the ability to think.

He didn’t know whether he had said those words to Fang Yu or to tell himself forcefully.

If time could go back, he would like to go back to Bright Billiards Room, when that young man wearing a white shirt slapped a brick on his forehead. At that time, they could do anything. They didn’t have responsibilities that they had to bear, and they didn’t have to face anything because of the choices that they made. They could date freely. They could do whatever they wanted without any worries…

If there was a chance and they had to choose again, he would choose a proper path, instead of paying the price and causing harm to the person he loved the most…

Yang Lei didn’t want Fang Yu to regret this path that he had chosen himself. Regret would bring pain. This pain would be buried deeply in Fang Yu’s heart and ferment. Gradually, it would torment Fang Yu. Yang Lei knew what it felt like. He also once regretted it like that. He once deeply regretted choosing to leave Fang Yu seven years ago, going to the military academy, and not always staying by Fang Yu’s side. He even regretted urging Fang Yu to turn himself in back then, that they would have these years of separation. He once thought countless times, if he had gone far away with Fang Yu back then without caring about anything, even if they had to hide this whole lifetime and couldn’t live under the sun, it would still be far happier and worthwhile than right now…

This regret, like a vine of thorns, wrapped him tightly. Reason could force him to mature, but emotion made him suffer. He didn’t want to see Fang Yu burned with morality and responsibility, yet enduring such emotional suffering. In Fang Yu’s heart, responsibility was more important than heaven. Fang Yu was such a person, but the more he was like this, the more he would hurt himself!

The pain, grievances, and injuries that he had been holding in his heart for the last few years surged into his heart, but the way that Fang Yu looked in front of him made him hurt even more!

Yang Lei knew in his heart that he was angry with Fang Yu, but he was even more angry with himself!

At first, he told himself that this was for Fang Yu’s own good, but was Fang Yu really doing well? In the past three years, there had been no news from Fang Yu at all. Yang Lei always thought that Fang Yu was hiding from him deliberately. He kept telling himself that Fang Yu would be better off than if he were around him. He kept forcing himself not to disturb his life, not to ask where he was and what he was doing. But in the past three years, he hadn’t learned the true situation about just what Fang Yu had experienced and why he would become like this. Now, the questions poured out more!

Seeing Fang Yu right now, Yang Lei’s heartache, remorse, self-reproach, all of his pain, and all of his complex emotions that he didn’t know how to express, burst out like a flame from the intensity of the alcohol reaching his brain. It burned him, and it burned Fang Yu.

Yang Lei smoked alone. He smoked in the cigarette smoke for a long time, then took out his phone.

“Yang Lei, you brat. It’s so late. What’s the matter?”

The loud voice of the political cadre came through the telephone.

“Lao Lu, let me ask you something. After the annual leave, I want to take a long vacation. The longer the vacation, the better. Help me see how many days I can take off.”

“Asking for leave right after the New Year? Why, for a marriage leave?”

Lao Lu knew that Yang Lei was getting married.

“No. I’m going to the south.”

Yang Lei pressed out the cigarette end and said…

The next day, Yang Lei called Fang Yu.

Yang Lei had left the paper that the orderly had given him with Fang Yu’s number written on it on the desk without touching it, but he remembered the number.

“…Yesterday, I spoke too harshly. Don’t take it personally.”

Yang Lei was silent over the phone for a moment, then said.

“You also know that once I’m anxious, I act unreasonably. I didn’t mean to hurt you. My words went too far,” Yang Lei said.

“I understand,” Fang Yu said. Fang Yu’s end of the line was very noisy.

“Where are you?” Yang Lei asked.

“At a friend’s place. Helping him with something.

Fang Yu was living with a friend in Jianghai.

Yang Lei held his phone and walked to the balcony. He looked at the tall buildings outside, which were different from the Jianghai of the past.

“I haven’t asked how you have been in these past years. I know that you don’t want to mention it. If you wanted to mention it, you wouldn’t hold it in all the time. If you really don’t want to say it, I won’t ask you more. But just one sentence, Don’t bear it alone. You won’t be able to bear it, and you can’t bear it…”

Yang Lei said, controlling his voice…

Over the phone, Fang Yu didn’t respond…

“What are your plans?”

Yang Lei guessed that Fang Yu was leaving.

“Going back and finding some connections to do some business.”

Fang Yu paused for a moment and responded.

Yang Lei was also silent for a moment.

“If you really want to do business, come back to Jianghai,” Yang Lei said. “Don’t worry about me. I can separate the two matters.”

“Businesses require people. Here, there are many people who can help. Don’t bother fighting outside. Come back, and the brothers will support you. Outside, no one will really help you.”

Yang Lei flicked his long cigarette butt.

“Yesterday, there was something that I didn’t have time to say. I have a friend who set up a company and does management. He’s looking for partners. I have restrictions in the army and couldn’t do it. I’ve learned about that company. The project is good. If you don’t have any better ideas for the time being, you may as well stay and have a look. If it’s okay, you can form a partnership and become a shareholder…” Yang Lei said.

Yang Lei said that he was helping a friend, but Fang Yu understood.

This time, Fang Yu came back to Jianghai silently. He hadn’t met any old brothers.

He now lived in a place far off, with a friend from the past. This friend wasn’t from the streets, and didn’t have connections with that circle. After he arrived in Jianghai, Fang Yu stayed with him. He was far from downtown. Other than the two days when he helped drive the taxi at night, Fang Yu rarely showed up downtown.

But now, the news of Fang Yu’s return soon spread all over Jianghai.

Guo-zi saw Fang Yu on the evening of the Lunar New Year. When he went back, he talked about it. There were connections all over the streets, and any news spread quickly. It was difficult for such news to spread slowly. In the past, Fang Yu had many brothers and many little brothers. Although some had made a fresh start and taken the proper path like Er Hei, and they were doing pretty well, there were many people who were still at the bottom, and they were not doing well. These little gangsters on the streets didn’t have a diploma or a way out. They relied on big brothers and backing, but now the world had changed. Big brothers were not supporting them, but they were being provided for. Guo-zi’s situation was common. These people recalled how glorious it was to follow Luo Jiu and Fang Yu in the past. They had long hoped that someone who believed in justice would lead them to new achievements again. Now they heard that Fang Yu had come back, and they couldn’t sit still.

Meanwhile, Fang Yu’s brothers, who hadn’t heard news about Fang Yu in recent years, were shocked to suddenly hear that Fang Yu had come back.

“Yu Ge!!”

Fang Yu had just left his lodgings, when he was hugged tightly by someone.