After He Yu and Xie Qingcheng finally managed to calm Xie Xue down and get her to sit on a stool to rest obediently with the other survivors, they received a stern tongue-lashing from the head of the firefighting squad.
Thoroughly reprimanded, the two of them walked off to the side. Out of the corner of his eye, He Yu shot a glance at Xie Qingcheng, who was lighting a cigarette that he'd gotten from a police officer, of all people.
Unable to fathom the reasons for Xie Qingcheng's actions earlier, He Yu asked, "Xie Qingcheng, why did you run into the fire with me?"
"The area you entered hadn't become too dangerous yet." Xie Qingcheng took a drag from the cigarette, then slowly let it out. Only then did he fully relax.
The embers glowed and dimmed between his fingers, the ashes drifting down like a whisper of snow.
"Tell me about your condition." Xie Qingcheng flicked the ash away and gazed straight ahead. "When did it start?"
He was asking about the blood toxin.
"Shortly after you left," He Yu replied after a brief pause. "When I went to a private psychiatric hospital for another checkup, I ran into a mentally ill patient and found out by accident. When I used my blood as bait, they would listen to me. You knew about this condition?"
"I did." Xie Qingcheng coughed softly and took another drag as he tried to describe it as indifferently as possible. "Blood toxin is a mutant variant of psychological Ebola." He hesitated. "You haven't told anyone else about this, have you?"
He Yu smiled, his eyes a bit dark. "You're the only one who knows."
Xie Qingcheng let the information sink in before replying.
"If I wanted to silence all the witnesses someday, all I would need to do is kill you."
Xie Qingcheng rolled his eyes at He Yu. "I'd like to see you try."
The police officer's cigarette didn't suit Xie Qingcheng's tastes; it was too effeminate and contained a menthol-flavored capsule. Such was his distaste for it that Xie Qingcheng choked several times while he smoked, so he stubbed it out in irritation.
"Don't tell anyone else about this. Not even your doctors."
"I'm not that stupid, Xie Qingcheng," He Yu said mildly. He really was one hell of a rich young master; despite having gone through so much, he was still the most immaculately dressed one in the crowd, looking unbearably handsome and refined. Some of the rescued people nearby were even sneaking looks at him.
"Psychological Ebola is already an exceedingly rare disorder. Now, with this ability that allows me to force mentally ill patients to obey me, I can forget about living a peaceful life. But remember this, Xie Qingcheng…"
He Yu suddenly drew closer to Xie Qingcheng, slowly assessing him through apathetic almond eyes. "Those eyes of yours are the only pair to have personally witnessed it all."
He was very close, his lashes on the verge of brushing against Xie Qingcheng's own. That low and unhurried voice whispered into Xie Qingcheng's ear; amid the chaos, the words that He Yu wanted only this one person to hear sounded like a murmur, but also like a threat.
"This mouth of yours is the only mouth that can reveal the truth."
His soft gaze fell on Xie Qingcheng's thin, pale lips, as if caressing them as it sought out something unknown. But the menace hidden within the depths of his eyes was anything but light.
As He Yu stood before Xie Qingcheng, staring into his face, he reached out to adjust the collar on the shirt the older man was now wearing courtesy of the firefighters. The way in which He Yu straightened out Xie Qingcheng's clothes might have seemed courteous to onlookers, but only the two men themselves knew how much force He Yu used as he smoothed out Xie Qingcheng's shirt and silently pulled his collar taut, the warning and coercion communicated in his actions.
He Yu finished straightening out Xie Qingcheng's clothes and smiled in an extraordinarily gentle and refined manner. "Therefore, about this secret…you'd better hold it safely in your mouth. Hold it in there nice and tight. Don't let it fall out."
"You're threatening me?" Xie Qingcheng retorted icily.
"I wouldn't dare. This is just a reminder." He Yu's hands slid down from Xie Qingcheng's collar as he sighed. "I just want to live a normal life."
Xie Qingcheng really couldn't be bothered to waste his breath on this nutcase.
Why did He Yu bother going to such lengths? If Xie Qingcheng had really planned on telling others about He Yu's symptoms, he wouldn't have reminded him not to reveal it to anyone else to begin with.
But He Yu didn't think that way. He didn't trust Xie Qingcheng that
much. He only felt that Xie Qingcheng's mouth had become a threat that he
badly wanted to silence. It would be best for something to be savagely
shoved inside, reducing him to garbled incoherency like a bound hostage,
unable to spill his secret.
Xie Qingcheng looked at him. "You say you only want to live a normal life. In that case, why did you take the risk of entering the fire and using your blood toxin to save those patients when time was not on your side?"
"Because what you want and what you are are never the same," He Yu said. "I want to be a normal person, but I've always been a madman. However, first of all, there was never a danger of time as the flames had not yet reached that side of the building. Secondly, do you remember what I said to you? That humans will never be able to understand nor empathize with each other? Just like two completely different species. I feel that, compared to all of you, those people are more like my kin. The only way I differ from them is that I wear a better disguise."
He Yu continued impassively, "If even I thought that their lives were insignificant and expendable, then who else would treat them as living, breathing humans?"
All humans—in any society, community, righteous coalition, or nefarious alliance—craved to be with their own kind, regardless of the type of person they were.
Because absolute solitude would drive one insane.
He Yu was an overly solitary person. No one could understand what ailed him; they could only listen to his words and see the suffering he revealed on the surface. All three of the patients who had been afflicted with the same disease as him, his true kin, were already dead. Thus, he could only hope to enter similar communities and try to find a shaky, floating bridge that could link him to the rest of the world.
Yet, He Yu was dangerous because he could bewitch those who were his kin. His blood was a reward to the mentally ill, and his words were commands that they could never disobey. He could even use his ability to commit crimes if he desired, so it was no wonder that he didn't want others to know of this.
So it was no wonder that he wished to seal the lips of the only other person in the world to know his true power.
"Is kinship really so important to you?" Xie Qingcheng asked. "To the point that you would even put your own life at risk?"
"Doctor, you wouldn't understand us," replied He Yu coldly. "One cannot see the dark night while standing in the light."
Xie Qingcheng sighed. Discussing this topic was proving fruitless. "Final question," he said. "Since you have blood toxin, why didn't you use it earlier with Jiang Lanpei?"
"Because it's unstable," He Yu replied. "There's a possibility that my blood would make the patients go even more insane. Under those circumstances, I couldn't afford to take that risk, unlike you…"
He Yu's words came to a sudden halt, before shifting gears and starting again. "You're really something else. You'd already fallen into that person's hands but still had to mention Cinderella. You took such a big gamble—weren't you afraid that I wouldn't catch on?"
"I took that gamble because I consider you to be quite clever," Xie Qingcheng said lightly. "Besides, wasn't Cinderella the very thing you wanted to bring up that time when I went to your dorm to change?"
He Yu fell silent for a while before finally dropping his head with a sneer. Feeling the tension ease, Xie Qingcheng pressed his hand against his forehead. At this juncture, the two finally felt some degree of the relaxation and ease that came with surviving a calamity, and their minds drifted to the past.
Yes, both of them still remembered that event that happened when He Yu was about eight or nine years old. Therefore, it had unexpectedly become their secret code for calling the police in the nick of time.
Back then, Xie Qingcheng felt that, aside from the basic regimen of medical treatment, He Yu also needed to get outside more, get some sun and fresh air, and relieve his boredom. Many doctors believed that treatment for the mentally ill should prioritize medication, but Xie Qingcheng took a different approach. He believed that a patient's mental illness was a product of their environment and that one shouldn't isolate and cut a mentally ill patient off from society. Therefore, mental illness was not a battle to be won with medication but with rehabilitating patients to rebuild the bridges linking them to their family and society as a whole.
And so, he gave his recommendation to Lü Zhishu.
Lü Zhishu, who was in the middle of attending to a flurry of business calls, looked up at Xie Qingcheng and gave him an embarrassed laugh. "I don't have the time, Doctor Xie. Why don't you take him?"
Xie Qingcheng forced down his anger. "He's your son."
Having grown accustomed to talking business, Lü Zhishu didn't even bother to look up as she countered, "I'll give you a raise."
Xie Qingcheng was at a loss for words.
Lü Zhishu then took her phone and left in a whirl of arrogant, idle chatter. It was as though she was a businessperson first and a mother second; from start to end, the chubby and wealthy matron remained smiling as she addressed "Executive Zhang, Executive Li" over the phone, her line of sight never once landing on Xie Qingcheng.
Never mind He Yu, who stood behind him.
Xie Qingcheng turned around and looked down only to see that He Yu didn't appear to be troubled much at all by his mother's actions. He seemed to be accustomed to this kind of mother-son relationship. Sitting on the sofa, he didn't even bother looking up as he peeled a large, golden-yellow navel orange for himself.
That orange was bigger than his hands, and He Yu lost his grip halfway through. It fell to the floor and rolled under the tea table. He hopped off the sofa and went to pick it up only to see a glistening Christmas apple appear before his eyes.
"You're going to eat something that's fallen on the floor?" Xie Qingcheng let out a sigh, unsure as to why his heart had grown soft. He passed He Yu the Christmas apple and picked up the dusty orange. "I'll take you to the amusement park tomorrow," he said.
Thus, Xie Qingcheng brought his little sister and He Yu to the amusement park the next day. Xie Xue had a sweet disposition, smiled often, and was good at looking after the younger boy. As a result, He Yu's entire condition seemed to improve significantly.
But on their way back, it suddenly started to pour.
By the time they finally managed to catch a taxi, the three of them had already become ridiculously soaked. However, the He family's villa was quite a distance away in the outskirts of the city, so Xie Qingcheng brought the two children to his medical school dormitory first.
Xie Qingcheng's university housing was the same as He Yu's present dorm, a four-person room. His roommates were all busy working on their projects in the lab, so he and the two drowned rats had the place to themselves.
"Gege! Your cactus is blooming!" As soon as she walked in, Xie Xue pounced over to Xie Qingcheng's desk like she owned the place, smiling brilliantly and poking at the ball cactus that was crowned with a circle of small, goose-yellow flowers inside its egg-shaped pot. "Whoa…so pretty."
This was clearly not her first time visiting her brother's dorm.
Xie Qingcheng poured hot ginger tea for the children and firmly shoved the cups into their hands. "Drink it while it's hot."
Xie Xue liked spicy foods and began sipping away as soon as she got the ginger tea in her hands, quickly finishing off the drink. But He Yu was not so eager. The young master couldn't stand strong flavors, so he sat with his head down and cradled his cup, hardly able to force himself to take even a single sip.
Xie Qingcheng went to the bathroom to wash his hands. Just as He Yu was trying to figure out what to do with this cupful of pungent spiciness, Xie Xue let out a satisfied sigh beside him. "It's so good."
He Yu turned, flabbergasted, and assessed her with a calm expression.
Sensing his gaze, Xie Xue turned and giggled at him with her eyes fixed on his cup. "If you don't like it…"
"No, I like it very much," He Yu said, his voice bland.
"No way! Look, you've only had a tiny bit of it after all this time!"
He Yu smiled. "It's because I like it that I can't bear to drink it."
"…Oh." Apparently convinced, Xie Xue nodded regretfully as she moved to look away.
It was only then that He Yu passed her the mug he'd long since been ready to give away. "Here."
"Ah? B-but I thought you liked it?"
"If you want it, I'll give it to you."
The fucking idiot's eyes widened as she gratefully accepted the hot ginger tea.
He Yu made sure to calmly remind her, "Drink it quickly. We can't let your big brother find out I gave mine to you. Otherwise, he'll scold you again."
"Yes, yes." Xie Xue, who was so pure she'd help her kidnapper count her ransom, gratefully chugged the hot tea in one gurgling gulp. She nearly choked on it and broke into a flurry of coughs.
Smiling, He Yu patted her on the back.
"I love ginger tea." Having regained her energy, Xie Xue cupped her hands around the still-steaming mug and told He Yu quietly, her eyes suffused with a gentle brightness, "Back when I was little and it snowed outside, we lived in the little alley and didn't have anything to help us keep warm, so my brother would make this for me…"
It was clearly a difficult memory filled with heartache, but when she spoke, her eyes shined as though she were recalling some incomparably fun event from the past.
When Xie Qingcheng returned, he looked at the two children sitting next to each other on the edge of his dorm bed. "Are you two done drinking?"
The children glanced at each other and exchanged a secret look. While He Yu was very calm, Xie Xue was a little flustered and nodded quickly. It could be that she'd drunk too much, so she couldn't help but open her mouth a little to quietly let out a small burp as she was nodding.
Xie Qingcheng turned to fetch a change of clothes from his closet. The little girl's kickboxing lessons were located close to the medical school, so Xie Qingcheng always had a few sets of dry clothes on hand for when she'd inevitably show up soaked with sweat after class. They came in handy this time around as well.
While poking around in the closet, soft fairy-tale princess names passed through the elder brother's thin lips. "Do you want Belle or Cinderella?"
The little girl was delighted. "I want Belle!"
Xie Qingcheng passed her a light-yellow princess dress. Xie Xue cheered with glee, grabbing the clothing before scampering into the bathroom to change.
He Yu remained standing by the edge of the bed, dripping wet as Xie Qingcheng continued digging around in his closet for a bit. In the end, he sighed, collected himself, and did something extremely inhumane.
"Why don't you wear this, then?"
He Yu took the proffered clothes and unfolded them to take a look. Calmly, he said, "Doctor Xie, you've made a mistake."
"I have not."
He Yu froze for a moment, then slowly looked up, his eyes narrowing as a chilly undisguised darkness gradually stole over his features.
"You've given me a dress."
More importantly, it was a baby blue Cinderella princess dress. It was unclear whether Xie Qingcheng had done this on purpose, but faced with He Yu's suppressed fury, a slight smile spread over Xie Qingcheng's lips. However, it was hard to tell if he was mocking He Yu or being sincere, even when there was a smile on that frosty, cold face of his.
"You don't get to choose. This is all I have in your size."
"I think I can wear one of your dress shirts," He Yu said.
Xie Qingcheng crossed his arms and leaned back against the ladder of the bunk bed as he looked down at him loftily. "Little devil, my dress shirts are too big for you."
He Yu was silent.
"Don't want it? Then you'll have to walk out naked."
He Yu still said nothing.
Outside, the rain continued to fall, its pitter-pattering becoming the background music for that bygone conversation…
The firefighters gradually contained the fire at Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital. They continued their efforts while the police officers busied themselves with the investigation. Xie Qingcheng and He Yu exchanged a glance, seeing reflections of the past in each other's eyes.
"Back then, you even told me that I wasn't losing out on anything, that there was even a piece of candy in the pockets of that princess dress," said He Yu. "You suggested that I check the pockets and consider it a form of psychological reparation. But I said what you gave me was poison and that I wouldn't eat it at all. Looking back on it now, you really were evil."
"…I don't remember anymore," Xie Qingcheng replied. He turned to leave.
"You're full of crap." He Yu reached up to block his way, setting his hand on the large tree behind Xie Qingcheng. He narrowed his eyes. "You don't remember? If you don't remember, then why did you mention Cinderella's candy when you had me rifle through your pockets for your phone as Jiang Lanpei held you hostage?"
Xie Qingcheng didn't back down at all. With a cold expression, he answered, "A coincidence."
He Yu's anger flared. He felt like Xie Qingcheng had gotten off far too easily when he had taken him back to his dorm and given him a T-shirt to wear. Now, it seemed like even if he'd had to use the one-hour delivery option, he should've bought him a wedding dress instead—the sexy kind complete with a lace garter belt. He should've gotten him stockings too, and if he refused, then he could've handcuffed him, tossed him onto the bed, and forced it onto him! Anything less than that wouldn't be enough to humiliate Xie Qingcheng; after all, he had no shame!
"You don't remember, huh?" He Yu lowered his head, warning Xie Qingcheng, "Then you'd better be careful not to get yourself so wet in the future…" He Yu's gaze slid over Xie Qingcheng's eyes as he added softly, "Otherwise, the next thing I give you to wear might not be an old T-shirt."
"You don't remember, huh?" He Yu lowered his head, warning Xie Qingcheng, "Then you'd better be careful not to get yourself so wet in the future…" He Yu's gaze slid over Xie Qingcheng's eyes as he added softly, "Otherwise, the next thing I give you to wear might not be an old T-shirt."
"Naked?" A police officer walked over. Upon seeing that it was the two lunatics who had run into the fire earlier, he immediately said, "You can't go in there naked again! That's so dangerous! No, wait, I mean, even if you're not naked, you can't go in there…"
He Yu smiled warmly, his eyes gentle. "Yeah, I was just telling him. That's so dangerous, right, Xie-ge?"
"Why are you scolding him? Didn't your ge run into the fire because you rushed in first?" The little police officer stared at them. "Ah, forget it. Have your wounds been treated? If so, then please come back to the station with us. We have much to sort out tonight."
Due to the grave severity of the case and the amount of people involved, the police had a long night ahead of interviewing and recording the testimonies of each person in writing. As there were far too many people to handle at once, the witnesses were divided into groups to be taken back to the station in police cars. Several break rooms at the station were also set up as makeshift bedrooms so that those who had yet to be questioned about the chaos could spend the night.
Xie Xue arrived shortly after Xie Qingcheng and the others. Since she was a woman, she was assigned to a room with a female nurse while He Yu and Xie Qingcheng were given the room next door.
Xie Xue had already calmed down quite a bit before she went to take a nap. Due to the fact that she'd been unconscious the whole time and didn't see much blood, she wasn't too shaken up and was instead comforting that panic-stricken nurse.
"It's all right now. You'll certainly have good fortune after surviving such a catastrophe. Let's get some rest now, and the officers will come and get us when it's our turn."
"I can't fall asleep, waaah…" the nurse whimpered.
"I can sing a song to help you sleep. Drop, drop, drop the hanky…"
"Aaahhh. Don't sing that hellish song!!"
Oblivious to why the nurse had such a reaction, Xie Xue said, "I don't know why this song appeared in my head. I feel like when I was passed out, someone kept singing it next to me… Anyway, I'll switch to another song. In the blue, blue sky and the Milky Way, there's a little white ship…" Xie Xue began to softly chant another children's song.
The nurse was visibly unsettled.
Dismayed and confused by the nurse's reaction, Xie Xue apologized. "I'm a little out of it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay, let me tell you a joke instead."
Meanwhile, Xie Qingcheng and He Yu arrived at their break room.
"You two can sleep here. The conditions aren't very good, but you'll have to make do. Come find us any time if you need anything. Someone will come for you when it's your turn," the little police officer explained in a hurry before he turned on his heel and left. There were still plenty more witnesses to sort out.
Together, Xie Qingcheng and He Yu pushed open the doors only to freeze upon seeing the layout.
This really was a break room that had been rearranged at the last minute…
There was only a single fucking sofa bed inside.
How were they supposed to sleep?!