WAM CH45

“Do you know to knock before entering?” Shao Si pointed at the door. “Get out, close the door, and try again. I’m counting to three: two, one…”

Li Guangzong: “…”

Shao Si rarely ordered people around, but whenever he adopted that imperative tone, he was exceptionally intimidating.

With that expressionless yet thoroughly righteous demeanor of his, if you weren’t paying attention, you’d end up completely led by the nose.

So, out of pure reflex, Li Guangzong took two steps back, shut the door, and immediately knocked twice: “Hello, may I come in?”

Shao Si locked the door back up with crisp efficiency. Accompanying the click of the lock, he replied, “…No.”

Ah! Really!

Li Guangzong was left outside in total bewilderment, looking like a pitifully lonely child.

Li Guangzong’s sudden appearance softened the atmosphere inside the room. Ye Xuan calmed down, her attitude toward Zhou Weiping no longer quite as sharp.

Just as Zhou Weiping had said himself—he had the right to choose his own life. He didn’t need to ‘remain a widower’ for Ye Qing; he had no obligation to satisfy everyone’s romantic expectations that he would spend a lifetime unmarried just to cherish his memory.

Ye Xuan was simply angry with him for lacking even the courage to admit that he was ‘Zhou Jianguo’.

To admit that he was once Ye Qing’s lover, the penniless writer who couldn’t even afford rent. The Jianguo who, in the dead of winter, when his knuckles froze stiff while holding a pen, would laugh and press his cold hands against Ye Qing’s face as a prank.

“When I make lots and lots of money, I’ll buy a big house just for the two of us. We won’t care about anyone else. If you don’t want to go out, you won’t have to; just stay home peacefully and be my Mrs. Zhou. You cook and I’ll wash the dishes. You can disturb me while I’m writing and I won’t get mad. But you have to sing opera for me every day—I love listening to you sing.”

Every promise Zhou Jianguo had ever made to him was recorded word-for-word in Ye Qing’s journal.

He must have been in a great mood when writing it, even adding a sentence at the end: The sun will rise very soon, I believe it.

But where was the sun? For the next four years, Ye Qing lived in a living hell on Earth.

“I think we should excuse ourselves,” Gu Yanzhou said, feeling he had no business standing there for this. Personal romantic matters should be resolved by the parties involved. “You guys chat; Shao Si and I will head out first.”

Shao Si was extremely reluctant in his heart: If you want to leave, leave on your own; why drag me into it?

“I might be able to offer some help,” Shao Si wracked his brain for an excuse, ultimately settling on a somewhat flimsy reason: “Senior Ye has always been someone I respect deeply… Hearing her say these things, I feel there’s more to the story, and I can’t just ignore it.”

Fortunately, Ye Xuan didn’t care whether they were present or not. Her objective was merely to track down the people involved and, through them, locate another specific individual.

The events of back then had transpired too long ago; she had no way to investigate them from scratch.

“I just want to know who the high-ranking official’s son—referred to as Fourth Master thirty-three years ago—really was.” Ye Xuan’s hands clenched tightly at her sides. She tried her best to state calmly and concisely: “I want to avenge Ye Qing. Why should a heartless beast like that get to live a good life? On what grounds?”

Director Ou sat up from the bed, his movement so abrupt that the IV needle stuck into the back of his hand crooked violently, nearly slipping out: “What nonsense are you talking about?! Ye Qing committed suicide—what do you mean, revenge?”

Ye Xuan looked up, her expression sharp and laced with bitterness: “Do you really believe he committed suicide?”

“What else could it be if not suicide?”

Director Ou’s lips were pale. He uttered these words almost to convince himself, yet after saying it aloud, he felt this unbelievable assumption might not be absolute. He trembled in his raspy, smoker’s voice: “What proof do you have?”

“June 12, 1994. Filming on set today—I feel very happy, yet also sorrowful. I can only find freedom in a fake world. Last night Jianguo promised to come see me, so I arranged to meet him in the woods behind the mountain. He brought me scallion pancakes, saying he was worried I was too busy to eat properly.” Ye Xuan knew Ye Qing’s journal by heart. Even though her tone lacked fluctuations, the bitter-sweetness between the lines remained fully exposed.

“His clothes were a bit old, the cuffs frayed. I laughed and kissed him with my oil-stained mouth; he kissed me back, pressing me down onto the grass to kiss me. The sky was so blue, and I closed my eyes. I really love this reckless intimacy, as if all of this were completely normal and there was nothing to worry about… Let me hold you a little longer, so we can keep fighting the world together.”

Ye Qing’s journal was softer and more fragile than the man himself—he was even somewhat pessimistic. These words were certainly written over countless quiet, deep nights, when complex, indistinguishable emotions flooded his chest all at once. Yet Shao Si believed he must have been a resilient person; waking up the next day to face his lover, he possessed more courage to persevere than anyone else.

“June 13, 1994. Fourth Master called me over. I don’t know the reason, but I don’t like this person. He told me he knows my secret.”

Ye Xuan continued: “This was the entry for the 13th—just a single short sentence written in very messy handwriting. Then for half a month, he didn’t write anything at all.”

Shao Si had a faint premonition.

Could this high-ranking official’s son known as Fourth Master… be the key to Ye Qing’s death?

Gu Yanzhou rarely interrupted when others were speaking. Shao Si nudged him surreptitiously: “Do you know any Fourth Master?”

“How could I know?” Gu Yanzhou raised an eyebrow. “Thirty-three years ago I was still in my mother’s womb.”

Ye Xuan didn’t recite the later entries, offering only a brief summary instead.

Back then, Ye Qing and Zhou Jianguo’s romance was discovered. Had it been anyone else, it might have been manageable, but this Fourth Master was a notorious pervert.

He liked playing with people—men or women made no difference to him.

However, the men he encountered previously were all coerced into selling themselves; Ye Qing was the first actual homosexual he had met… and he was remarkably good-looking.

Ye Qing naturally refused. Though he appeared gentle on the outside, his bones were unyieldingly stubborn. After several failed attempts at forcing him, Fourth Master found it tedious and resorted to threats.

“As long as you behave and serve me well, nothing will happen…” In the shabby room with only a single wooden table, Fourth Master’s upper body remained neatly dressed while his pants were undone, his manhood buried deep inside Ye Qing. He leaned down and whispered in Ye Qing’s ear, “You should know that for fairy boys like you, putting you in prison for re-education is far too easy. Even after you get out, you’ll never wash the stain off for the rest of your life.”

“Ah—” That repulsive long sigh was uttered whether from the pleasure of being tightly squeezed or something else. Fourth Master paused for a moment, then added, “You have a little lover too, right? Writes books, doesn’t he? What was his name, Zhou something… How about I send him in along with you so the two of you can keep each other company?”

Yet after Fourth Master grew tired of playing with him, he didn’t let him off as promised.

They had a small inner circle where they regularly shared bed partners. The first time Ye Qing was taken there, he didn’t return until two full days later.

October 14, 1994. Overcast.

They are all beasts.

Ye Qing wrote those five words in his journal.

For a long time, no one in the hospital room spoke.

Until Zhou Weiping slowly squatted down, clutched his head, and choked back tears after a long silence: “I should have noticed earlier… I…”

During those years, he had been Ye Qing’s pillow partner.

He knew better than anyone how Ye Qing felt.

Yet he had never proactively asked.

Squeezed into a tiny, dilapidated room with Ye Qing, neither his romance nor his career showed any future. His manuscripts were repeatedly rejected, and at times they couldn’t even meet basic needs, relying entirely on Ye Qing’s modest acting income. He couldn’t walk in and out of places with him, avoiding eye contact on the street, living in constant anxiety every day. Day after day, he gradually grew exhausted.

When he noticed the changes in Ye Qing, truth be told, he harbored a shameful wisp of expectation in his heart.

He thought: It looks like Xiao Qing can’t hold out either. Why don’t we just give up and return to normal life?

…

They ultimately broke up.

January 3, 1998. Ye Qing sat by the window, picked up his pen, and wrote: This is the best outcome. Jianguo, please stay safe and healthy.

That same day, after Zhou Weiping packed up all his belongings, he carried his luggage to the train platform at the crack of dawn, leaving Nanyang City forever.

In April of the same year, Ye Qing fell to his death.

The journal stopped on April 14, 1998—a completely ordinary day—pausing at that line: Why am I this kind of person.

Shao Si snapped back from the story, discovering that Director Ou was crying.

A man of his age was weeping tears all over his face, sobbing uncontrollably: “No wonder… no wonder… The night of the wrap party, I jokingly asked him to sing a piece for me, and he sang a segment of Yutang Chun.”

Director Ou and Ye Qing had met through a production back then, which also happened to be the final film Ye Qing made during his lifetime.

At that time, Director Ou was merely a nobody making his debut in the directing world. He liked Ye Qing, but due to his inferiority complex, that unrequited crush ultimately ended without a sound.

…The grievances in this scene are hard to speak of. Now the heavens have opened their eyes; blood for blood, wrong for wrong, I return to the hall with a face full of spring breeze.

For so many years, he had failed to understand the meaning of these few lines, treating them merely as a ordinary memory to sing and think of him when the night was quiet.

“Fourth Master—do you still have any impression of who he was?” Ye Xuan pressed on. “You were in the same crew back then, you must know.”

Sometimes when people are overcome with grief, they don’t make overly drastic moves instead.

For instance, Director Ou’s fingers were tightly curled into the bedsheet as he calmed his emotions and said:

“He was the investor for that film, Wang Shan.”