When Qing Yue's mother spotted Bai Qi and called him over here, her voice rang out before he could retreat.
"Bai Qi! Come here, boy."
He blinked, shaken from the storm of thoughts still circling in his mind. The guilt still burned behind his ribs, echoing like a curse he couldn't scrub away. But he forced a smile anyway, smoothing the guilt from his face.
"Yes, Auntie," he said quickly, descending the last step.
She moved forward, her hand warm as she placed it on his shoulder. "In just a few days you'll be married, yet here you are, wandering around like a restless child. Stop brooding and start smiling!"
Bai Qi lowered his gaze, laughter trembling faintly from his lips — the kind of laugh meant to hide something sharp beneath.
"Yes, Auntie," he murmured.
Across the table, Qing Yue flushed pink, ducking her head into her hands as her mother's teasing grew relentless. The laughter in the room brushed lightly over the edges of Bai Qi's silence, but never reached him. His smile was a mask that didn't quite fit.
---
Upstairs, Shu Yao finally rose from the bed. The motion sent a dull throb through his skull, and the word brother returned — sharp, relentless, echoing inside his mind like a cruel refrain.
Brother.
No.
I am not his brother.
Even if he treats me as one, I'll still love him — quietly, foolishly — until it hurts.
He turned toward the mirror. His reflection looked like someone else — hollow eyes, a tremor at the corner of his mouth. He spun away from it too fast, his vision swimming. In the bathroom, he splashed cold water onto his face until his skin burned. The towel trembled faintly in his grip.
When he returned to the room, his gaze fell on the desk. His old leather bag still hung from its side — untouched for days. He pulled the zipper open and drew out his secret diary, its edges frayed and soft with time.
It had been week since he last wrote in it.
He flipped to the first page, and the scent of paper and ink carried him backward — fourteen years, to a hospital room bathed in sterile light.
---
He had been eight years old, frail and feverish, tubes and wires like roots binding him to the bed. He could barely speak. He remembered whispering to his father, voice cracking:
"Water…"
His father, Shu Yuelin, had stood immediately — but froze in the doorway.
A child stood there. A boy — blinking curiously into the room.
Shu Yao remembered the moment vividly, even now. The boy's eyes — obsidian black — locked with his own, autumn-brown and fever-bright. Time stopped between them.
The boy didn't move, didn't speak. He simply stared at Shu Yao, as if he'd found something sacred.
Yuelin crouched down, voice gentle. "Hey, little guy, what's your name?"
The boy only blinked, silent.
Yuelin sighed, half to himself. "A child from a wealthy family, perhaps… wandering so freely." He lifted the boy carefully into his arms, setting him down beside Shu Yao's bed. "Stay right here, alright? I'll go ask around about your parents. Don't move."
He turned to his son. "And you, no sitting up by yourself. I'll bring your water."
Shu Yao nodded weakly.
The moment the door closed, the silence grew soft again. The boy — Bai Qi — turned to him, eyes fierce with strange intensity. Shu Yao felt a nervous flutter in his chest. No one had ever stayed with him like this.
Then came the touch — a small, tentative hand against his cheek.
He flinched. His breath caught.
"Are you in pain?" the boy asked softly.
Shu Yao stared at him, startled. Then, slowly, he nodded.
The boy's face softened. "It'll go away soon," he said. "I promise."
A smile — bright and unguarded — crossed his lips. Shu Yao, flushed from fever, felt something twist in his chest. No one had ever looked at him like that. As if he wasn't hurt. As if he mattered.
When his father returned, the room filled with footsteps and voices. Niklas followed behind him, stern and elegant even in agitation.
"Bai Qi!" Niklas scolded sharply as he seized the boy by the ear. "How many times have I told you not to run off on your own?"
Shu Yuelin chuckled, setting the glass of water on the bedside table. "He's fine, Mr. Niklas. Don't be too hard on him — he's only a child."
Niklas exhaled, shaking his head. "You don't know how much trouble this one causes me everytime."
Bai Qi pouted, glaring at his father through the reprimand — then turned back to Shu Yao, eyes wide and unwilling to let go.
That gaze lingered — wordless, searching — as Niklas thanked Yuelin and led his son away. Bai Qi looked over his shoulder one last time.
That was the last glance of Bai qi Shu Yao ever saw.
A small boy carried away in his father's arms, sunlight glinting off his dark hair.
Now, fourteen years later, Shu Yao sat in the stillness of his room, the diary open across his lap. His fingertips traced the ink of his younger self's words.
He smiled faintly — a tired, aching smile.
"This is where it began," he whispered. "From that one look…"
He closed the journal gently, pressing it to his chest.
All these years, Bai Qi had forgotten that day. But Shu Yao — he never could. Because even back then, when he was too weak to speak, Bai Qi had looked at him like he was something worth saving.
And that look had ruined him ever since.
The city had fallen under one man's spell.
It wasn't politics or power this time—it was the curve of a smile printed thirty feet tall above the streets. Bai Qi's face gleamed from every billboard, from perfume ads to the shining glass of watch boutiques. His eyes—sharp, smug, magnetic—seemed to follow the crowd wherever they went. And the world followed back.
A black car slowed to a stop before one of the giant posters. On it, Bai Qi's lips curved into that quiet, ruthless smile—the kind that looked like it could command oceans and have them obey.
Inside the car, a girl gasped. "Daddy! Look!"
Her father didn't bother lifting his gaze from the newspaper. "What is it this time, dear?"
"Bai Qi! Rothenberg's new model! Daddy, I want everything he wears."
Her father sighed the sigh of a man who knew resistance was futile. "You already bought half the store."
"It is nothing." She flipped her glossy hair, eyes locked on Bai Qi's face above the crowd. "I want all of it. Every single thing."
The father groaned, but his tone was indulgent. "Fine. Do whatever you want."
The car door clicked open, and she stepped into chaos.
Rothenberg's flagship store was a battlefield of silk, cologne, and obsession. Women stood in serpentine lines, men tried on cufflinks with trembling hands, and clerks moved like dancers in a storm. Someone whispered, "That's the same suit Bai Qi wore in the ad—he made it sell out in a day."
The girl laughed, a triumphant sound. "Out of my way. I'll take everything."
She didn't notice that the city had gone strangely quiet beyond the store windows. That every glossy poster and flickering screen bore the same smirk.
Bai Qi hadn't asked for fame. But the fame had asked for him—and refused to take no for an answer.
His smile owned the skyline now.
And the world, dazzled and breathless, didn't even realize it had surrendered.
Shu Yao sat in his room, staring blankly at the pale curtains fluttering against the window. The air was too heavy to breathe. The walls pressed in, and somewhere in the house below—Bai Qi's voice could be Heard.
That was enough to make him rise.
He closed his journal, left it on the desk without its usual carefulness, and walked to the door. Each step down the stairs sounded like a weight he couldn't carry anymore.
From the living room came laughter—his mother's bright and teasing tone.
"Bai Qi, when are we finally going to hear wedding bells?"
Bai qi, scratching back of his neck, with nervous and weary smile, but his blush is visible to Qing yue.
"Mom!" Qing Yue's flustered voice followed, half embarrassed, half shy.
Shu Yao froze mid-step. The conversation sank into his chest like glass dust. He didn't wait to hear more. He simply moved, silent and invisible, past the laughter that didn't belong to him.
Outside, the evening light was soft—too soft for the ache it illuminated.
He lowered his head, the corners of his mouth trembling into something that wasn't quite a smile. It's no one's fault, he told himself. Not Bai Qi's. Not Qing Yue's. Just mine—for loving too fiercely where I shouldn't have loved at all.
The gate clicked behind him.
He walked without direction, hoping the wind might rearrange the mess inside him. But it only brought more reminders.
A few streets down, a poster caught his eye—a massive print of Bai Qi and Qing Yue, smiling side by side beneath the glowing letters of Rothenberg Industries. Bai Qi's charm was everywhere now—on wrists, in windows, even in the air.
Shu Yao stopped.
His gaze lingered on Bai Qi's face, the same face that once bent close enough for Shu Yao to feel his breath. The same eyes that once looked at him—not with love, perhaps, but with something dangerous enough to hope for.
He lifted a trembling hand, his fingers hovering near the glossy surface.
"Was it ever love?" he whispered. "Or just… a dream I mistook for?"
Around him, people gushed.
"That's him! Rothenberg's heir—look at that smile."
"His fiancée must be the luckiest woman alive."
"ahhhh too bad that he has already a cute fiancee, but she winked at her friend, too good that he is breathtaking."
Their laughter stung more than it should have.
Shu Yao turned away. The city had become a shrine to a man who'd already forgotten him. Every corner, every billboard, was another blade turned inward.
By the time he reached the café at the end of the street, dusk had begun to settle—gold fading into violet. He pushed open the door, the bell above it chiming softly. The scent of coffee and roasted sugar wrapped around him.
He ordered without thinking and sat by the window. For the first time in hours, the world seemed quiet.
But outside, a car slowed to a stop.
A man sat behind the wheel, cigarette burning low between long fingers. Smoke curled around his face, blurring the edges of a pair of violet eyes—cold, unwavering, predatory.
Lu Zeyan watched the figure inside the café, his jaw tight, his expression a storm of restrained violence. The ashes fell onto his palm as he crushed the cigar and hissed through his teeth.
"You think laying your filthy hands on my boss makes you untouchable?" His voice was low, venomous.
He had been patient for days—waiting for a glimpse, a chance. But patience was not his virtue. The memory of Shen Haoxuan's cheek, marked by Shu Yao's slap, was enough to ignite something raw in him.
"I swear," Lu Zeyan muttered, eyes narrowing to a blade's edge, "you'll pay for that."
Inside, Shu Yao lifted his cup, unaware of the man outside, unaware that his life was about to shift—quietly, mercilessly, and forever.
Shu Yao lifted the cup to his lips and drank the final, lukewarm sip of coffee.
It was bitter now—too bitter to taste.
He set the cup down, placed a few folded bills on the counter, and murmured a quiet thank you that the barista barely caught. His voice had gone soft again, the way it did when exhaustion began to sound like grace. then stepped outside into the street.
The air had shifted.
Above him, a swarm of black clouds rolled across the sky, heavy and restless, pressing down on the city like an unspoken warning.
He drew his jacket tighter around himself. The fabric clung to his thin frame, the collar brushing the edge of his jaw. The wind was colder now — sharp enough to bite through thought.
"I need to hurry," he murmured under his breath, eyes flicking toward the gathering storm. "the rain will start sooner."
He started walking.
The streets glimmered faintly under the flicker of shop lights. His reflection swam across the windows, half-there, half-vanishing — a man walking beside his own ghost.
He didn't notice the sleek black car moving a few paces behind him, its engine too quiet, its presence too patient.
The world had narrowed for Shu Yao into a tunnel of small thoughts: the rhythm of his footsteps, the pulse of his heart, the ache still blooming behind his ribs.
He never looked back.
Not once.
The car followed like a shadow that refused to detach — gliding, precise, predator-smooth.
And Shu Yao, lost in the maze of his own sorrow, walked deeper into the storm without realizing that another, far darker one, was already closing in behind him.