Chapter 23: Confrontation

CW: there’s a very transient, non-specific reference/joke about sexual assault on this chapter, and a concrete, non-detailed reference to sexual abuse of a minor by a guardian determine later within the chapter. Additionally, there’s a transient description of a suicide. I’ve lightened the font of those spots so you’ll be able to doubtlessly skip over it. Please, if you’re delicate to those issues, both skim by them or cease studying. 

Lu Hui sat down, however didn’t sign his compromise. 

He’d been by himself for much too lengthy. For seventeen years, from the age of fifteen to thirty-two, he’d been alone. He’d walked amongst folks of all totally different varieties, detested the world and its methods, grow to be bitter and sarcastic. Particularly at this second, on the balcony’s divan with sheets of rain curtaining the background, his wolf-like eyes projected the icy-cold sheen of glass. He drew out all of his thorns and used them as lances to assault the light younger man in entrance of him: “This morning, I didn’t simply transfer out. I additionally gathered some data.” He raised the corners of his lips, “Made a couple of calls to get an understanding of some issues.”

“Referred to as who?” Ji Fanyang lifted his head and his expression shifted, “You wouldn’t name…”

“Your ex-girlfriends, sure.” Lu Hui stated smugly, “I’m actually grateful for Captain Wei’s help. I obtained three telephone numbers. As a result of it was so way back, it wasn’t handy for me to verify with the primary girlfriend.”

Ji Fanyang stopped his massaging actions and frowned: “What did you inform them?”

“I didn’t inform them something. I solely obtained two calls, and once I introduced up your title—” Lu Hui drawled, as if telling a mischievous joke, “They instructed me every little thing. I didn’t anticipate that our little angel would draw so many complaints.”

Ji Fanyang silently sat down. His tawny eyes checked out Lu Hui. Even when Lu Hui introduced out all of his ridiculing sarcasm, his limid, clear eyes held little indignation. He smoothed out his lips and stated considerably embarrassedly: “So, what did they inform you?”

“That you just’re somebody with a bizarre savior advanced.” Lu Hui raised his proper hand and rubbed his index finger alongside the stubble alongside his jaw. He tilted his head and checked out Ji Fanyang rigorously, like he was restoring an historical relic or was objectively assessing a bit of porcelain, “You discover people who find themselves struggling, people who find themselves in ache, people who find themselves tragic, and also you get near them, you information them. You need to make them see the sunshine.”

“In our squad, you and Rao Feifei are about the identical age. She’s candy and fairly, her temperament is free and open, and she or he’s from household. As a heterosexual man, if you walked into that workplace, the primary one it is best to have observed was Rao Feifei, not a thirty-something, unsociable, eccentric man like me.”

“You selected to observe me round from daybreak until nightfall. If the Public Security Bureau hadn’t been paying you, I’d’ve thought my sister had employed a nanny for me. You belief in your emotions, and also you observe your emotions. You met your enormously problematic ex-girlfriends and also you guided them to see the fantastic thing about the world, after which they threw you away immediately.”

“It seems like a case of requiting kindness with enmity, however it’s truly not. They didn’t throw you away. It was you who distanced your self from them, making them haven’t any selection however break up with you. That is your modus operandi: you treatment somebody, then go away to search out the subsequent sob story.”

“Wounded individuals are particular to you. While you focus your consideration on guiding these tragic folks, your coronary heart is freed from different considerations and also you’re wholeheartedly targeting them. This makes them see you as somebody totally different from others. When the sob story turns into an precise drama, or an overstated rom-com, you take a look at. You deal with all of them so warmly that the entire ‘sob tales’ begin to blur collectively. They grow to be commonplace.”

“Merely put.” Lu Hui smiled odiously, “For you, the freshness solely lasts till a treatment is discovered. Afterward, you not have the inclination to concentrate to them, and also you grow to be Mr. Goody-goody, a person who treats his girlfriends with detached kindness[1]. They didn’t really feel they had been particular they usually suspected that you just didn’t love them, and so, they selected to interrupt up.” Lu Hui bent his proper leg, “They stated that they didn’t really feel your affection and had no selection however to interrupt up. Your love has a brief shelf life.”

“I didn’t…” Ji Fanyang tried to refute him. He opened his mouth, however he couldn’t discover any causes he may use to defend himself. 

“It’s a disgrace that they don’t know. Your love doesn’t have a brief shelf life. You simply by no means cherished them in any respect.” Lu Hui stated, patting the younger man’s shoulder out of pity, “You simply take pleasure in giving steerage and the happiness of discovering a treatment. Their dependence on and gratitude towards you’ll be able to fulfill your hypocritical messiastic coronary heart.”

Ji Fanyang supported his brow on his left hand and pinched the bridge of his nostril forcefully: “So, you suppose guiding others to search out hope in life is mistaken?”

“Discovering hope isn’t mistaken. What I imply to say is that, you’re a hidden piece of human scum.” Lu Hui relaxed on the divan, “You treatment particular person after particular person, lend your ear to hearken to their secrets and techniques, and also you get a heap of gratitude. You then abandon them, transfer on to the subsequent pitiful woman, and get one other spherical of compliments. You’re twenty-five now. Wait till you’re sixty-five. You can have forty ex-girlfriends by then, or you may be fortunate sufficient to get a lady or two to marry you. You then’ll be much more depressing. You’ll divorce them, then must pay separate alimonies.”

Ji Fanyang steadied himself, then began to fireplace again: “Sure, I admit it. I’m very grateful that you just helped me dissect why I’ve so many break ups. What about you, then? Since Yu Feiyang died, you’ve became this. You’ve chosen a dim, lightless path for your self, you selected to have such a repellant persona. You abhor individuals who commit suicide, however you’re fascinated with your personal self-destruction. Each day, you want for nothing greater than to exit on the battlefield and die a martyr. This doesn’t sound just like the conduct of a coward, however did you ever consider your sister? Did you ever take into consideration the individuals who care about you? You didn’t, you egocentric coward.”

“You investigated my information once I was at college and the Provincial Bureau?” Lu Hui sat up violently, “You emptied out your financial savings, simply to assist an underaged assassin and look into my previous? Are you sick within the head?” 

“You wasted a day arranging a kennel and harassing my ex-girlfriends. Who’s actually the sick one right here?” Ji Fanyang turned the query round, “And I didn’t empty my financial savings. I solely used four-fifths.”

“Oh, four-fifths. Have you ever used up the entire belongings you introduced with you if you left house?” Lu Hui sneered, “Simply due to your messiastic coronary heart and curiosity, you’re so consideration searching for[2]?”

“I’m extraordinarily consideration searching for. Now, inform me about that manufacturing unit.” Ji Fanyang pressed Lu Hui’s proper leg down to forestall him from operating, “That manufacturing unit within the suburbs, the yet one more than twenty kilometers from your house. You had been lacking for 2 and a half days. What occurred?”

Lu Hui shrank again, desirous to extricate his proper leg. Ji Fanyang unswervingly continued to press down on his leg. The younger man revealed a triumphant, faint smile: “You may’t run, previous bastard.”

Lu Hui kicked his legs out twice, then his shoulders collapsed in defeat. Heaviness shrouded him as soon as once more. He cleared his throat: “In case you don’t let me go, I’ll name out…”

“Violate a thirty-two-year-old man. I may do it. Actually.[3]“ Ji Fanyang smiled barely.

Lu Hui stared on the younger man, dumbstruck. He desperately drew again his proper leg. Proper now, he was like a wild canine caught in a entice: “Let go, you little bastard.”

“Communicate, or we’ll be like this till morning.” Ji Fanyang caught his ankle. 

The 2 of them glared at one another, their gazes like an evenly matched recreation of tug of conflict. Time appeared to solidify, every minute and every second ticking by sluggishly. 

Lastly, Lu Hui launched a resigned breath and commenced to inform his story, that bitter, previous story: “There was slightly boy…”

“It’s you, proper.” Ji Fanyang laughed, “This type of storytelling is manner too overdone.”

Lu Hui shot a take a look at the younger man: “Are you listening or not?”

“I’m listening, I’m listening.” Ji Fanyang cleverly readjusted his expression. 

Lu Hui switched from third particular person narration to first particular person narration: “My good pal, Yu Feiyang, was an particularly open and optimistic particular person. He was additionally the primary particular person courageous sufficient to speak to me. My solely pal, again then.”

Lu Hui lowered his head, his gaze falling to an strange nook of the balcony: “His dad and mom had gotten divorced earlier, and he’d been left in his mom’s custody. We had been acquainted in elementary faculty. Within the second 12 months of center faculty, he began to cry simply, grew to become passive, and I didn’t take note of his uncommon conduct.”

“We went to highschool collectively, sat on the identical desk, however I didn’t take note of the change in his temper. He would out of the blue cry, not need to go house, and I’d deliver him house with me and provides him a spare bed room to sleep in. It was often like this. His mom would come to the college the subsequent day to select him up.”

“This went on for 2 years till we graduated center faculty on the finish of July. I don’t bear in mind the actual date clearly. He got here to my home and instructed me to return out, saying he discovered a great spot to mess around. I went with him. We glided by taxi to the manufacturing unit on the outskirts of town, greater than twenty kilometers away.”

“It was doubtless a paper mill. I’m not too certain. I used to be dragged by him into the manufacturing unit constructing, up two tales right into a small, slim room. He got here in with me. I had been inwardly suspicious and on guard, however as a result of he went into the room with me, it made me interested in what he needed to do.”

“After he locked us in with an infinite, iron gate and threw the important thing out the window, he instructed me every little thing.”

“He laughed as he defined that, for a whole two years, he had been coerced by his mom. Then, he pulled out a knife and slit his wrists.”

“I watched his blood stream out. Have you learnt how a lot blood folks can lose?” Lu Hui stated expressionlessly. He gestured, “Sufficient to dye the ground crimson.”

“The manufacturing unit’s ceiling was very tall, and the window was slim. There was no electrical energy. Within the darkness, I sat there for a day and regarded on the useless Yu Feiyang’s corpse. The second day, I did my finest to climb the wall, hoping to flee from the window.”

“I efficiently climbed as much as the window. The room was on the second flooring. I smashed the glass, jumped off of the second story, and broke my leg.” He rubbed his proper leg, “I crawled to the freeway. I don’t know who took me to the hospital, however once I awoke, the one one accompanying me by my bedside was my older sister.”

“What about your dad and mom?” Ji Fanyang requested. 

“They.” His voice lacked each sorrow and pleasure, “They had been most likely nonetheless on the lab engaged on some analysis challenge.”