Chapter 18

Jing Miao slept soundly on the bed behind him.
Xi Siyan sat on the floor, eyes burning red.
The phone finished booting and played the startup sound. Afraid to wake Jing Miao, Xi Siyan hurried over, muted it, and sat down to examine the phone.
No password.
The wallpaper was a photo of Jing Miao with the old director.
A kind, gentle elderly woman and a young, beautiful boy—both smiling—standing by the well in the orphanage.
Xi Siyan opened WeChat and Moments. There was almost nothing.
He checked the photo album. There weren’t many photos either.
Half of them were blurry, low-resolution candids of… Xi Siyan.
Then he opened Notes.
Besides daily reminders, there was one note titled “Summary,” locked with a password.
Xi Siyan didn’t hesitate.
He unlocked it using his own birthday.
There were only three lines:
— I like him so much, so much, so much. I like Xi Siyan, the materials school grad student from our university.
— Xi Siyan doesn’t eat in the cafeteria. When he plays basketball, lots of girls bring him water.
— He probably doesn’t like boys. Don’t get too close.
That night, Xi Siyan held the phone and cried over his desk for a long time.
When he woke the next day, he found it hard to share the same space with Jing Miao.
Xi Siyan began a period of violence toward himself—and cold violence toward Jing Miao.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t accept homosexuality.
He was afraid of Jing Miao.
In the year Jing Miao had secretly liked him, Jing Miao had never even entered Xi Siyan’s field of view.
Yet Xi Siyan was still afraid.
Just because he liked him, Jing Miao had saved him without hesitation—
and Xi Siyan hadn’t even known him.
Xi Siyan kept thinking of that seven-second countdown at the crosswalk, as if it had been the accident’s prophecy.
He had been trapped by the flashing numbers.
Jing Miao had made a choice inside them.
Jing Miao and Xi Siyan—
Jing Miao had chosen Xi Siyan without thinking.
Around that time, the TV at home was replaying the CCTV broadcast of *Legend of the White Snake* starring Liu Tao and Pan Yueming.
Xu Xian said:
“Do you really think I don’t know what you are?”
“You’re too beautiful, and you treat me too well—how could there be such love in this world, love that asks for nothing?”
Xi Siyan felt as if he’d been struck by lightning.
He ran to the bathroom and retched.
The pressure crashed down like an avalanche.
Why?
Why had Xi Siyan given nothing, why was it one-way love—yet Jing Miao had given him a life, a whole future?
Jing Miao stood behind him, worry all over his face.
“Gege… what’s wrong, gege?”
Xi Siyan was startled.
In that instant, looking at Jing Miao, he felt a terrible premonition—like being pinned under a mountain, like sinking into deep sea, left with only suffocation.
Jing Miao was terrifying.
He wore a body made to deceive, and he wove a net around Xi Siyan with secret, unspeakable devotion.
With Jing Miao’s intelligence and effort, Xi Siyan had no doubt that one day Jing Miao could work alongside him.
And then, holding a life and a blank soul that had forgotten everything, gripping the rope of “morality,” Jing Miao would hunt him.
Sooner or later, Xi Siyan would be devoured until not even bones remained.
A body that could collapse at any time.
A mind that couldn’t stand alone.
Jing Miao would be chained to him forever.
Everything would be destroyed.
Xi Siyan fled through the door.
His resistance grew more violent—pushing Jing Miao away, calling him a fool, shouting at him—trying to make Jing Miao hate him and stay away.
But it was like punching cotton.
Called a fool, Jing Miao cried and apologized and promised he would study hard.
Called a burden, he went to learn household chores from the staff, and hot oil splashed onto the back of his pale hand, blistering it.
Pushed away, he squatted outside Xi Siyan’s door all night.
Rejected, he reached carefully for Xi Siyan’s hand and begged, “Gege, don’t be angry.”
In Jing Miao’s normal life, besides the old director, there had only been Xi Siyan.
Why, after becoming “foolish,” was there still only Xi Siyan left?
That night, Jing Miao reflected in the freezing snow outside.
Inside the door, Xi Siyan mocked himself:
“You’ve been hunted successfully, Xi Siyan.”
It was hard not to fall in love with this “fool.”
Jing Miao’s hard, resilient past was a virtue.
His stubborn effort was a virtue.
His gratitude was a virtue.
His kindness and loneliness were virtues.
Even his easy tears were a virtue.
The thin body in his arms was soft.
Those wet eyes begged to be pitied.
His shoulder blades and collarbones were beautiful.
His pale skin made you want to touch him.
Once you loved him, everything about him became good.
The best of all was this:
Jing Miao liked only Xi Siyan—from before, to now, to after.
Yes—so why had Jing Miao liked him?
Xi Siyan could no longer ask the Jing Miao of today for the answer from three years ago.
Xi Yucheng knew that Jing Miao had saved Xi Siyan because he liked him. Xi Yucheng had seen the diary too. It wasn’t hard to imagine how a bright, proud boy in sunlight could attract a child who had grown up soaked in bitterness.
“Miaomiao never even spoke to you,” Xi Yucheng said gently. “He didn’t know your personality. He liked you only because of how outstanding you were at school.”
“Siyan, have you ever thought that, compared to simply spending time with you, he might have hoped even more that you would keep shining?”
“You were his light, Siyan.”
Xi Siyan couldn’t speak.
Suddenly he missed Jing Miao fiercely.
He wanted to go back to the room and hold him.