Chapter 6

Chapter 6

When Zhou Yan found me, I was soaked to the bone.

He stood under the streetlamp with a black umbrella, his expression uglier than I had ever seen it.

It was the first time I had seen him lose control like this.

He wasn’t shouting.

He wasn’t losing his temper.

It was the layer of calm in his eyes that had cracked.

“Shen Que, are you insane?”

I looked up at him.

“Aren’t you?”

He draped his coat over me.

The movement was harsh.

“Get in the car.”

“No.”

“Stop making a scene in the rain.”

The corner of my mouth twitched.

“What do you care?”

Zhou Yan stared at me.

Rainwater slid down the edge of the umbrella.

Suddenly, he reached out, clamped his hand around my wrist, and pulled me under the umbrella.

“I don’t get to care?”

My heart lurched.

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that you called me.”

“I could’ve called someone else.”

“You didn’t.”

He shut me up with that.

Zhou Yan lowered his head and looked at me.

“You saw Liang Xu.”

“Yeah.”

“What did he say?”

“He said you like me.”

The air grew heavy.

Zhou Yan didn’t deny it.

I stared at him, unblinking.

“How long?”

My voice was shaking.

“Zhou Yan, I’m asking you how long.”

The rain was deafening.

He said, “Before you knew Liang Xu.”

My head buzzed.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did.”

“To Liang Xu.”

I froze.

Zhou Yan’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

“The day you joined the club, you handed your registration form to the classroom next door. I was the one who brought it back for you.”

“Later, he asked me if I’d taken a liking to you.”

“I didn’t deny it.”

“The next day, he asked you out to dinner.”

“And after that, he went to you with flowers I had picked out.”

“So you stepped aside?”

“Yeah.”

I was so angry I laughed.

“What the hell did you two take me for?”

Zhou Yan’s face went pale.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“It wasn’t?” I shoved him away. “Liang Xu chased me first, so you stepped aside. Liang Xu didn’t want me anymore, so you picked me up. You brothers sure do know how to follow the rules.”

Zhou Yan grabbed me.

“Shen Que.”

“Don’t touch me!”

My voice was too loud.

People on the roadside looked over.

I didn’t care.

All I felt was pain.

More pain than when Liang Xu dumped me.

Because Liang Xu’s badness was obvious.

He was proud, selfish, used to people giving way to him.

But Zhou Yan was different.

He hid everything beneath that calm surface.

I didn’t know which moments had been real.

I didn’t know whether his care had come from genuine affection, or from years of unwillingness finally finding an outlet.

Zhou Yan looked at me.

Rain soaked his shoulders.

At last, he said, “I didn’t pick you up.”

“Then what was it?”

“I couldn’t keep waiting anymore.”

His voice was very low.

“When you were with him, I had no right.”

“After you broke up, I still had no right.”

“You came to me because you wanted to get back at him. I knew that.”

“I should have pushed you away.”

He looked at me, something heavy in his eyes.

“But Shen Que, I couldn’t.”

My breathing turned ragged.

Zhou Yan said, “I’m not a good person.”

“You wanted to use me. I knew that.”

“I even thought that was fine.”

“As long as I was the one you needed, even if it was only for one night, even if it was just to make him suffer.”

He paused.

“I would accept it.”

In that moment, I suddenly didn’t know how to hate him.

It was too ugly.

Both of us were ugly.

One of us was using him to take revenge on an ex.

The other knew he was being used and still willingly stepped into the game.

This relationship had never been clean from the start.

But when he looked at me, I knew, with absolute clarity,

At least in this moment, he wasn’t lying to me.

I said, “Zhou Yan, you’re terrifying.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll regret this.”

“Maybe.”

“They’ll curse me out.”

“They’ll curse me out too.”

“Liang Xu won’t let you off.”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

My grip on his collar loosened a little.

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid that once you’re sober, you’ll think I’m filthy.”

That sentence shattered the last of my strength.

I lifted my hand and grabbed his collar.

“You were never clean to begin with.”

Zhou Yan lowered his head.

I said, “Neither was I.”

Amid the sound of the rain, he kissed me.

Very gently.

Like after restraining himself to the very limit, he had finally revealed a sliver of greed that couldn’t bear the light of day.

I closed my eyes.

I didn’t push him away.

That night, we didn’t go back to Zhou Yan’s place.

He took me back to my own apartment.

After we entered, I threw the wet coat onto the floor.

Zhou Yan stood in the entryway and didn’t come any farther in.

I looked back at him.

“What, regretting it?”

“You have a fever.”

“So?”

“Shower first, then medicine, then sleep.”

I stared at him.

“Zhou Yan.”

“Yeah.”

“You really don’t know how to act.”

He looked at me for a while, then suddenly laughed.

It was a faint smile.

But it made something inside me collapse.

He said, “Then teach me.”