Lan Yin applied force, and Zhi Li took a step backward. She grabbed everything within reach and threw it at him, her voice growing louder. “You can’t gamble, can you? You know our blood runs through you too, don’t you? Zhi Li, how far are you planning to go for him? Look at this body of yours, bound down by emotion. I hate it. I hate it!! Is he really that important?!”
Lan Yin’s fingernails dug viciously into the part of Zhi Li’s abdomen she had just kicked. “Brat. Fight back. Is this worth it? Ke Bu gave up on you just now, didn’t he? Fight back, you brat. You’re Mom’s most precious baby. I won’t agree to this. I won’t stand here and watch you get hurt.”
Lan Yin released him.
I have to make Ke Bu disappear.
But Zhi Li caught her wrist.
“There hasn’t been enough time yet. He’s still too fragile.”
“How much more time are you planning to spend on him?”
“Stop talking. Just hit me.”
“Forget this, baby. I’ll find you the most perfect woman.”
The corner of Zhi Li’s mouth lifted. “That’s Zhi Zuo Si’s hobby, not mine.”
“You just refuse to listen, don’t you? Fine. Then we’ll continue.”
Time inside the hotel room seemed to stop.
This was probably the period in Zhi Li’s life—past or future—when his body carried the greatest number of injuries.
These were the injuries that came with choosing Ke Bu.
Lan Yin tried everything she could think of, wanting nothing more than to make Zhi Li cry out in pain and say that he was wrong.
Smoke filled the room.
Lan Yin lay on the bed, the cigarette between her fingers nearly burned to the end. Zhi Li sat on the floor with his head resting against the wall and his eyes closed.
The cigarette slipped from Lan Yin’s fingers.
Her long hair slid over her shoulder and covered the side of her face. “I won’t agree. I absolutely won’t agree. If this was really for Ke Bu’s sake, you should have hidden him from me forever. Why did you tell me?”
Zhi Li didn’t open his eyes. His lips merely moved. “There’s one reason that’ll make your anger disappear, and another that’ll make you angrier. Which one do you want first?”
“The one that’ll make me angry.”
“That guy cares a lot about family. His family broke apart. I just want to give him a new one.”
His tone was so casual that it sounded as though he were talking about giving Ke Bu a glass of water.
Expressionless, Lan Yin sat up. She rolled one shoulder, crouched in front of Zhi Li, and lightly pressed one knee against his leg. “And the other reason?”
At last, Zhi Li opened his eyes and looked directly at her. “What else could it be? You’re my mother. I thought you were different from society. I thought you could accept it. I’m your son. What is ‘society’ anyway? One stranger, or a group of strangers?”
Lan Yin lifted her knee away and grabbed Zhi Li’s clothes. “You think that’s why I can’t agree? Then what are you going to do about your body?”
“It works well enough as it is.”
“There’s something even more important. How many times do I have to explain it before you understand? The way we love isn’t suited to ordinary people. An ordinary person may not be able to endure being treated that way. He’ll be afraid of you. He won’t understand you. When the two of you fight, he’ll leave. Then your emotions will collapse, and you’ll hurt too much. I don’t want that. I won’t let anyone blame you.”
Lan Yin pressed her forehead against Zhi Li’s chest.
Being feared and treated as monsters was the fate of their family.
It was a fate she and Zhi Zuo Si had passed down to him.
Zhi Li had never been able to have a normal childhood like other children. Everyone avoided him. Everyone feared him. Everyone said terrible things about him behind his back. That was why Lan Yin had never taught him ordinary common sense. If he didn’t know what those things meant, he wouldn’t be sad because of them. If he didn’t understand them, cruel words couldn’t hurt him.
But he had been so lonely.
So unbearably lonely.
Lan Yin remembered Zhi Li in elementary school. With his usual innocent expression, he had put down his schoolbag and asked, “Yin, what’s a monster?”
“Who called you that?”
“I don’t know. This hit me on the way home from school.”
In Zhi Li’s small hand was a stone with the word monster written across it.
He wasn’t angry.
Only puzzled.
Lan Yin looked at the arm the stone had struck. “They wanted to play with you, Zhi Li. When someone wants to play with you, you have to play back the same way—only much harder.”
One tear fell from Lan Yin’s eye.
Only one.
Zhi Li lowered his gaze toward her black hair. “If Ke Bu ever leaves me because of who I am, then that means I failed. When that happens, you can laugh at me for refusing to listen to you now. Wouldn’t that be great?”
“When that happens, I really will laugh at you.”
“So we have an agreement?”
After everything had gone this far, Lan Yin knew she couldn’t change Zhi Li’s decision.
She stood up, pulled a set of clean clothes she had bought for him in advance from her suitcase, and threw them over. “I still need time to think.”
Zhi Li pushed himself up from the floor and walked into the bathroom.
When he removed his shirt, bruises and scratches from fingernails covered his entire body except his face.
Lan Yin leaned against the doorway. “You can handle this much, right?”
“Better than I expected.”
Zhi Li shut the door.
Only after seeing Lan Yin off did Zhi Li return to school.
Ke Bu, whom he hadn’t seen for several days, was standing distractedly outside the convenience shop.
Zhi Li walked over, picked up a bottle of milk, and left. “He’ll pay.”
Ke Bu caught up not long afterward and smacked the bag in his hand against Zhi Li’s injured back. “Why am I paying?”
“Because I didn’t bring money.”
“You didn’t bring money, so that means I have to pay? What kind of logic is that?”
Ke Bu studied Zhi Li’s expression and murmured, “Are things between us okay now?”
Zhi Li inserted the straw into the milk. “There are still a lot of things between us.”
“I don’t understand. What does that mean?”
“What?”
“I’m the one asking you.”
“What?”
Zhi Li gave Lan Yin enough time to adjust.
As time passed, she gradually began to accept Ke Bu’s presence.
His existence wasn’t so terrible.
Zhi Li was no longer quite so lonely.
He had a group of friends.
He had Ke Bu.
The colors in his life were no longer only black.
After reading everything, Ke Bu couldn’t lift his head for a long time.
He had always thought Lan Yin had simply accepted the relationship after Zhi Li told her. He remembered how moved and overwhelmed he had felt when Lan Yin accepted him the first time they met in Yinguo Town.
Now that he thought about it, that acceptance had been a gift Zhi Li prepared for him long in advance.
Ke Bu couldn’t bring himself to say anything sentimental. His vision blurred slightly as he demanded, “Then why did Lan Yin pretend she didn’t know me? She’d already seen me before, hadn’t she?!”
“Maybe your face just isn’t memorable enough.” Zhi Li’s pen never stopped moving across the paper.
“The more I think about it, the creepier it gets. I didn’t notice her at all!”
This time, Zhi Li looked confused. “You didn’t know she was there? Then what were you angry about back then?”
“Don’t compare me to you as though we exist on the same level!”
Zhi Li was still Zhi Li.
Ke Bu had explained countless times why he loved him, but he still wanted to say it again.
I’m really not interested in some saintly perfect person. This is exactly the personality I love.
Their argument didn’t prove Lan Yin had been right.
Zhi Li’s flaws and Ke Bu’s flaws merely came out to cause trouble every once in a while.
Ke Bu suddenly hugged Zhi Li tightly from behind. “I absolutely, absolutely won’t let you fail and give Lan Yin the chance to laugh at you. So I guess my final boss is actually you.”
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