Chapter 4: The Pursuit and The Spark

The second half of Lu Xiye’s sentence lost the faint trace of amusement it had carried at first, sinking uncontrollably into a quiet gravity.

Silence settled over the phone for a brief moment. On the other end, Lin Jun even softened his voice slightly as he called out, “Lu Xiye?”

“Mm,” Lu Xiye responded.

Lin Jun called again, “Lu Xiye?”

“It’s me,” Lu Xiye couldn’t help but chuckle softly. “And it’s exactly what you’re thinking.”

“Well, now I’m actually curious,” Lin Jun said, finally digesting the news. “What kind of person could possibly make our Young Master Lu so consumed by gain and loss? Is it a guy or a girl?”

“A boy. An exceptionally extraordinary one,” Lu Xiye said.

He then added, “I’m afraid I might not be good enough for him.”

Fearing he wasn’t good enough might not have been entirely true, but fearing he would scare the boy away was completely real.

This emotion had been suppressed for far too long, having already merged into his flesh, blood, and life. Yet to Jiang Suifeng, that was not the case at all.

He didn’t even know him.

Therefore, no matter how desperate and urgent his heart felt inside, his exterior had to remain all the more restrained and patient.

He could not bear to lose him a second time.

Even though he had never truly possessed him.

An ordinary person would have been thoroughly shocked to hear his words, but Lin Jun was not.

He was a very straightforward person who approached emotions with absolute sincerity and seriousness.

He never acted high and mighty simply because his own circumstances were exceptionally superior.

Thus, he didn’t spout phrases like “Lu Xiye, how could there possibly be anyone you’re not good enough for?” Instead, he very earnestly started brainstorming strategies for his close friend.

“Among the countless people who have pursued you,” Lin Jun asked, “wasn’t there any particularly interesting way of courtships you could draw inspiration from?”

“None of them had any technical merit,” Lu Xiye subconsciously held that scarf in his palm, gently stroking it. “And none of it could move a heart in the slightest.”

“That’s only because you didn’t like them,” Lin Jun assumed a posture of rich experience. “If you truly like someone, your heart will flutter even if that person does absolutely nothing.”

Grievances aside, he still couldn’t help recalling those little tricks Fu Jiujiu used when pursuing him in the past, and as he thought about it, a smile slipped out.

The laughter carried through the receiver, highly infectious.

“What is it?” Lu Xiye asked.

“Nothing,” Lin Jun said. “Just thinking that Xiao Jiu is really cute.”

Lu Xiye: …

“Though Xiao Jiu’s tactics wouldn’t suit you,” Lin Jun continued. “Stalking, acting cute… those are all games for kids.”

Lu Xiye: …

Ever since his rebirth, he had frequently gone to secretly look at Jiang Suifeng. He wondered if that counted as a kid’s trick, too?

He pursed his lips, listening as Lin Jun asked from the other end: “Who is this person you like? Someone we both know? Did you finally let go of that kid from back then and stop searching for him?”

When Lu Xiye returned from H City back then, he had told Lin Jun about Jiang Suifeng at the very first opportunity.

Unfortunately, they had never been able to find him afterward.

“It’s still him,” Lu Xiye said.

“What?” Lin Jun froze.

“It’s still him,” Lu Xiye repeated. “I found him.”

“How did you find him? Didn’t you say you didn’t even know what he looked like, only seeing his eyes?” Lin Jun’s astonishment couldn’t even be contained by the phone receiver.

“Mm,” Lu Xiye’s throat sounded as if fine sand had settled into it. “But even with just a pair of eyes, I still recognized him at a single glance.”

This was a regret he had been unable to let go of until his death in his past life.

In the vast whirlpool of overwhelming regret, he had imagined such a scene countless times:

In that year, when Qin Moyang introduced the Qin family’s illegitimate son living outside, Qin Moyan, into their social circle, he had recognized him at the very first glance.

After all, that was the person he had searched for for nearly five years.

In reality, back then, although he had been shocked that the boy’s eyes were almost identical to that person’s, he had quickly dismissed the thought that they were the same person.

Because the youth he had met had lived a very impoverished life.

It was a life an illegitimate child of the Qin family would never live.

Almost everyone in the circle knew that the Qin family paid a huge sum of money to that illegitimate child and his mother every year—it had practically become a running joke unique to the Qin family.

Even so, back then he had still confirmed with Qin Moyang whether he had any other names.

Yet Qin Moyang had told him that he never did; he had always been called Moyan.

From then on, he never thought in that direction again.

How wonderful it would have been if he had recognized him at first glance back then.

That was a possibility he had imagined over and over again for the rest of his life.

If he had recognized him back then, would their future have been completely different?

Every time, he dared not think too deeply, fearing he would sink into such fantasies and never wake up again.

He would still have to visit his grave, pray for his soul’s release, sit by his tombstone to chat with him properly, and give him many, many roses…

He had never spoken these fantasies aloud, nor could he speak them aloud.

They were the sharpest thorns piercing his own heart for the remainder of his life.

Yet now, he had returned to the past, back to a time when everything could still be remedied, and he could finally speak this fantasy out loud.

The moment he spoke it, there was no imagined sense of relief; instead, the pain reached an absolute extreme.

If only…

If only “what ifs” truly existed in this world.

The thin wisps of smoke expanded bit by bit until the cigarette finally burned down to its end.

He skillfully raised his hand, snuffing out the faint spark between his fingertips.

Amidst a pain that felt somewhat indistinct in both body and mind, he heard Lin Jun say: “Send flowers. Whether it’s a boy or a girl, everyone likes flowers. Xiao Jiu loves sunflowers.”

When Jiang Ying woke up in the morning, Jiang Suifeng had already cooked the noodles.

Using stir-fried tomatoes as a flavorful broth base, he added green vegetables and poached two eggs.

As mother and son sat at the humble desk eating noodles, Jiang Ying suddenly thought of Qin Moxun.

Back then, her due date had originally been November 22nd, nearly a month apart from Gu Qingrong’s due date.

Yet in order to send Qin Moxun into the Qin family, she had been forced to undergo a premature C-section when Gu Qingrong gave birth.

Her child had been forced to be born early, yet she had never even been able to cook a bowl of longevity noodles for him…

Her eyes grew red. She raised her gaze and saw Jiang Suifeng’s still red and swollen cheek.

He kept his eyes lowered as he ate his noodles, his eyelashes casting long shadows over his high bridge of the nose. From the side profile, he bore a striking resemblance to Gu Qingrong.

A surge of uncontrollable disgust welled up in her heart, yet she still reached out her hand, seemingly wanting to stroke that red, swollen cheek.

Before her fingertips could make contact, Jiang Suifeng seamlessly avoided her touch as if sensing it beforehand.

Jiang Ying’s tears fell. Whenever she shed tears, this child would inevitably soften his heart and compromise.

Over the past eighteen years, this method had never failed her.

Tears, combined with his reliance on maternal affection, were the magic formula through which she kept him tightly held in the palm of her hand, shaping and breaking him at will.

“Mother shouldn’t have hit you,” her tears fell directly into her noodle bowl. “But Mother was terrified at the time. I only have you left. If something were to happen to you, I wouldn’t know how to go on living.”

“It’s fine,” Jiang Suifeng finally raised his eyes, the corners of his mouth curving up into a faint, comforting smile. “Mother, don’t worry. If Qin Moxun dares to cause trouble for me again, I promise to break one of his legs. If he causes trouble twice, I’ll break both.”

In his past life, she had used their mother-son relationship to manipulate him; now, he would use the same relationship to pay her back.

Sure enough, Jiang Ying’s face turned visibly pale at a speed noticeable to the naked eye, and the hand holding her chopsticks clamped tight as if cramping.

In his past life, he had fulfilled his ultimate obligations to her, and there should no longer have been any ties between them.

In this life, he didn’t want to accommodate her, or anyone else, ever again.

Jiang Suifeng lowered his head and finished his noodle soup, then stood up and picked up his backpack: “Mother, I’m heading to school. Leave the bowl there after you finish eating, and I’ll wash it when I get back.”

Before Jiang Ying could react, Jiang Suifeng was already walking up the narrow basement stairs.

“By the way,” he stopped after a couple of steps, “how many days are you staying this time?”

“Oh,” Jiang Ying snapped back to reality. “I’ll leave in a bit. Things are very busy over there; I missed you so much that I begged the employer for a single day off.”

Jiang Suifeng nodded, and after a moment said: “How about you don’t go back? I’ll earn a little more, so we mother and son won’t have to be separated anymore.”

“How could that be okay?” Jiang Ying hurriedly said. “Your future studies, getting married—which of those doesn’t take money? Mother needs to save more for you.”

Jiang Suifeng smiled faintly, lowered his head, and gave a soft “mm.”

That night, when Jiang Suifeng appeared at the bar again, a dandelion tattoo sticker was applied to his usually cold face.

The floating seeds of the dandelion dusted the outer corner of his eye like little umbrellas, blooming with an ethereal beauty under the stage lights.

He could feel numerous gazes concentrating on him.

Yet gradually, all other gazes were filtered out by the most burning one.

The entire venue seemed to have only that single gaze remaining, sticking tightly to him and causing an unusual warmth to rise across his back.

Upon returning to the backstage dressing room, he rarely rolled up his sleeves a few folds, revealing a section of his fair, delicate wrist.

There were light coffee-colored spots on his wrist—scars left from hot oil splashing out of the large pot when he had just started running the breakfast stall.

As time passed, those scars had long ceased to hurt, yet they remained permanently etched onto that wrist and even further up his forearm.

He had long grown accustomed to them and didn’t care much, merely lowering his head to tap out a cigarette and hold it between his lips, though he forgot to light it.

He simply held the drumsticks in his hand, subconsciously wiping them clean time and again.

He didn’t know how many times he had wiped them when his vision suddenly brightened.

A wisp of fire abruptly lit up in front of him, held by a very handsome hand that gradually approached his lips.

Without looking up, he simply took a drag off the approaching flame, watching bright sparks bloom on the tip of the cigarette like tiny fireworks that had failed to detonate.

The flame died out, and the hand was pulled back.

He raised his eyes, his vision meeting Lu Xiye’s gaze.

Lu Xiye was looking at him with a gentle and focused expression, completely devoid of aggressiveness.

It was entirely different from what he had felt while on stage.

Lu Xiye looked first at his wrist, then shifted his gaze to the side of his cheek where the tattoo sticker was placed.

It no longer hurt there, but a faint sensation of swelling still lingered.

“It looks very nice,” he said, his voice deep. His gaze lost its initial softness, darkening noticeably.

A moment later, he asked again: “Does it still hurt?”

Jiang Suifeng’s fingers tightened abruptly.

He didn’t know which spot he was asking about, but instinctively pulled his sleeve back down.

Lu Xiye didn’t press further; he remained standing there, looking down at him with a steady and dashing presence.

“I apologize for yesterday, for offending you,” after a brief quiet, he spoke again: “Shall we grab a meal together?”

The offense he mentioned likely referred to wrapping the scarf around him.

That was his own issue, hardly counts as an offense.

He raised his eyes to decline, but before the words could leave his mouth, they were interrupted by a voice coming from the doorway.

“Go ahead,” Lin Fang walked in and said to him: “This young friend is well worth making friends with.”

Jiang Suifeng glanced at Lin Fang in surprise; there were truly not many people who could earn such high praise from Lin Fang.

The cigarette between his fingers was nearly burned down. His gaze had only shifted slightly upward when Lu Xiye reached out, took it from his fingers, and extinguished it in the ashtray.

His movement was so natural that it gave Jiang Suifeng the illusion that Lu Xiye had been staring at the cigarette butt in his hand the entire time.

Jiang Suifeng blinked, looking at his empty fingers in slight astonishment.

Lu Xiye seemed to think he was very cute, or perhaps found him a bit silly, as a soft, gentle smile surged uncontrollably in those eyes of his.

“Go on,” he spoke again, his voice very soft, sounding as if he were coaxing a child.

It carried both the authority of an elder that left no room for refusal, yet was brimming with patience and doting affection.

Jiang Suifeng had never heard Lu Xiye speak in such a tone, nor could he imagine a person like him possessing such a tone.

That voice brushed against his ear like a feather, tickling gently.

In that moment of stunned silence, the best opportunity to refuse had already quietly slipped away.