In the end, Yi Wan did not stay the entire night at Yu's house.
The sky was dark. He walked back along the tree-lined path. Halfway through, it became light behind him.
And the sound of horns.
"After thinking about it, I decided to take you back." Yu Qichen's face appeared in the lowered car window, "Come in."
The face that looked like Yu Rongshi was now pursing its lips.
Yi Wan got into the car without hesitation. He saw Yu Qichen pulling at his tie several times when the car stopped, as if he had something to say but couldn't say it.
Yi Wan: "Yu Qichen..."
Yu Qichen: “What?”
Yi Wan: "The shoulder here is white, you can pull over."
If you want to say something.
Yu Qichen: …
"You are really considerate, damn..." Yu Qichen finally couldn't help it, "You are smart, you are noble! You..."
Yi Wan: "Are you angry at me for looking through Yu Rongshi's things, or are you angry at Yu Rongshi for writing your observation file?"
"… Can't I be angry?" Yu Qichen cursed loudly, "Do you two have a world that belongs to you two? The kind that only you two weirdos can enter and no one else can? Fuck…"
He pulled over to the right and applied the brakes.
"In your eyes, are we just a bunch of idiots? Yes, I am an idiot in your eyes..."
A fool who wants to win the table tennis game by "giving in".
An idiot who would get mad and cause trouble for everyone around him if he didn't win the table tennis match with his brother's concessions.
That feeling is terrible, isn't it? I know that I am the one who can never surpass my brother. I also know that I am the one who gets jealous and angry about this. But why do I still get angry when he deliberately gives in
In fact, Yu Rongshi had no idea why Yu Qichen was angry.
He buried his head in the steering wheel for a long while, his breathing changed from rapid to calm. Finally, he said sullenly: "Actually, I want to know..."
"In fact, this world is fake." Yi Wan said.
"Damn! I don't want to know these. Do you think I can't see it? Well, I certainly can't see it by myself, but I grew up with Yu Rongshi after all. Of course I know that something is wrong with this world, but I don't care." After Yu Qichen finished speaking, he noticed that Yi Wan had a shocked expression on his face.
It was as if an "exclamation mark" suddenly appeared on the robot's head.
Yu Qichen: … He looked shocked that there are people who would not be interested in such a thing.
Yi Wan pondered for a moment and said blankly: "Then what do you want to know?"
"Do you like my brother?"
Yi Wan blinked: "...Huh?"
"… I know your world is very exciting, so I can only ask this." Yu Qichen smiled bitterly and scratched his head, "There is no other way. A vulgar person like me can only care about things that vulgar people can care about, right? Care about some happiness that only vulgar people care about, right?"
"… "
The happiness of ordinary people
"I just want to tell you not to lie to my brother too much. If he gets hurt, he will remember it for a long time. Can't you tell? Although he loves to give and meddle in other people's affairs, he can't stand being lied to. Even though he only reads newspapers, reads news, and makes chicken soup at home..." Yu Qichen said, "In fact, a person who can do everything well will be very lonely, right? It's a pity that I realized it too late."
"... I have never thought about being with anyone. Unless I can get absolute freedom with him." Yi Wan stroked the car seat with his fingers, "and I don't think..."
Some people will like "Yi Wan".
"When he was in the detention center, he specifically asked me to tell you not to worry," Yu Qichen said. "You didn't expect it, did you? I didn't expect it either. Logically, you haven't known each other for long, and you haven't shared many stories together. Maybe he is just like this. Once he decides to accept someone, he will open up everything he has to him."
Yi Wan: “Oh…”
Yu Qichen: “…Forget it.”
"I'll go see him when I have time." Yi Wan said seriously.
Yu Qichen didn't believe in these "free"s. Everyone knows that in the adult world, "free" is always just an excuse to show friendliness.
He continued driving. Yi Wan said, "I think I hurt you just now, didn't I?"
Yu Qichen: "You didn't hurt me."
He didn't notice that Yi Wan became even more silent.
He dropped Yi Wan off at the entrance of Lushan Sanatorium, which looked like a glowing fortress in the dark night.
"I have another question about those investigation boxes." Yi Wan said as he got off the car, "I noticed that the dust around them was uneven, as if they were put back there recently..."
Yu Qichen looked at him and suddenly smiled.
He smiled with his teeth showing, which was even more dazzling in the dark night. "You didn't expect it, did you? In fact, he had thrown those files into the storage room a long time ago."
"… ah?"
"He dug them out because of you," Yu Qichen said. "He had been planning to keep them all sealed up for a long time, right? He is more social than you and knows that he can still live well and normally in this world by putting them in his memories. This was his original decision and compromise."
Just like a school of fish sinking into the deep sea.
“… Forget about the ‘protagonist’, forget about ‘Xie Ziyu’, forget about the past, and enjoy your own talent and freedom, just like a more privileged person. Think about useful things every day, talk about useful topics every day. Use your little ability to do something for the institutions that need him, but don’t take more responsibilities, don’t rob the rich to help the poor. I am very satisfied, the director is very satisfied, and all his friends and fans will be very satisfied. Because he is a genius who conforms to the interests of the most people and adapts to this society.”
"Until he dug up those things and began to regress from his socialized self. After meeting you, he and you became a pair of freaks again."
"… "
Yi Wan drooped her eyelashes.
"And this pile of information is actually about Lan Guang's tax evasion." Yu Qichen winked at him, "In addition, there is also Xie Ziyu's... The big counterattack is about to begin."
"Oh..." Yi Wan said.
"Guess why Xie Ziyu was so anxious to put him in jail?" Yu Qichen pointed upwards, "Because he sent a letter to them on x month x day."
xth of xth month was the day after he reunited with Huigong.
The car lights flashed. Yu Qichen drove away. Yi Wan said from behind him: "Don't talk about Xie Ziyu loudly outside of home..."
"I am still vigilant, even though I don't know what you are doing." Yu Qichen waved his hand.
"Okay." Yi Wan said, "And you may not have seen it clearly just now..."
"?"
"The photo of you on the resume in your file is a Q-version pencil drawing. There are two other things tucked into the file box."
"A graffiti that you may have drawn of two brothers standing together. Considering that you said before that you and him took a painting class together when you were young and were beaten, you never went back. This picture may have been drawn by you at that time."
"… Depend on."
"There's also a certificate for winning first place in a table tennis competition for your middle school. I don't know why you didn't go to collect it."
Yu Qichen's throat suddenly choked. He picked up the thermos cup beside him and took a sip of the tea inside.
So sour.
Too sour.
It was so sad that tears were about to fall from his eyes.
"Actually, what you just said is not accurate. He did integrate into this world, but this was brought about by his sacrifice of his own subjectivity." Yi Wan said, "He also wants a home."
"He has them." Yu Qichen said vaguely, "He has me as his brother, and you as his... uh, confidant."
A bosom friend? Yi Wan said: "I have never really felt sad for him."
"Maybe you just don't know it. Bye!" Yu Qichen waved his hand, "I'm going to deliver the documents!"
Yi Wan said: "It looks like the two brothers have reconciled their past grudges."
Yu Qichen: "… Stop talking like that! It's disgusting!"
The car left.
Yi Wan stared at the taillights of the car until they disappeared. He felt that his reaction was unusual because he was actually happy that the two brothers had completely reconciled.
Worldly pleasures, eh
"Am I being too high up?"
"Yi Wan!"
An Yelin's voice called out from a distance. Yi Wan gathered his thoughts and walked towards An Yelin.
Everything is moving in a good direction.
Whether it was Yu Rongshi's case or the relationship between the Yu brothers, everything was like this.
Isn’t it…
…
Yu Qichen was driving on the viaduct, he turned on the radio and tuned to his favorite music channel.
An old English song is playing on the channel.
The lyrics tell the story of a pair of brothers, who went from not understanding each other, chasing each other, quarreling, to finally supporting each other. He remembered that this song was popular when he was in elementary school, but every time he pretended not to like it and walked past any occasion where this song was played with a sour face.
In fact, he never hated his overly perfect brother... maybe a little.
actually…
Perhaps all he wanted was for Yu Rongshi to laugh naturally and laugh at him when he defeated him, and to comfort his younger brother who always lost to him.
There is no such thing as winning or losing among family members.
Yu Qichen felt very happy, like a floating note, flying out of the small car. He brought the documents prepared by Yu Rongshi. The car was his warhorse, he would ride it to capture cities and start his own battle.
Then he would tell Yu Rongshi that they were a family, they...
"Wait for me, brother." He said, "You are my brother after all."
hiss.
It's the sound of electric current.
Hiss.
It was the noise coming from the radio.
Yu Qichen didn't notice that it was getting brighter behind him, as if something was illuminating him. The noisy sound of electricity in the radio made him very unhappy. He stopped at the red light and focused all his energy on turning off the radio.
But this sound is really strange.
It didn't sound like an irregular electric current, but more like the voice of someone on the street... Yu Qichen listened attentively.
'where are you going?'
'Who do you think you are to control me? You are not my brother. If you want to find me, go up the mountain...'
'If I didn't have a brother like you...'
"Shh."
It was the sound of the truck's tires slipping.
At the other end of the intersection, a truck that should never have skidded rushed toward a car stopped at a traffic light in a way that almost violated the laws of physics. The driver stared blankly ahead, as if he had lost consciousness.
"call!!!"
Yu Qichen looked up.
At the moment before the truck hit him, he did not look up at the truck, but turned back and looked at the extremely bright light source.
His pupils dilated.
"What the fuck..."
He looked into the moon's eyes.
"boom!!"
The truck hit it.
A moment later, there was a scream from a car on another street.
“There was a car accident!!”
…
"That's basically the situation. Bo Jiang also found Chi Jixia and brought him back to the door of the ward. I'm not completely sure, but I think we can give it a try... What do you think?"
An Yelin swallowed and looked at Yi Wan nervously.
Yi Wan: “Ah, I think that’s the case.”
An Yelin: …
"You should at least show a shocked expression! Your attitude makes me look incompetent!" An Yelin angrily shook Yi Wan's shoulders, "I finally used my unique 'past and present life' association skills..."
While being shaken by him, Yi Wan opened his mouth and made an "o" shape.
Only then was An Yelin satisfied.
They walked up the stairs of Lushan Sanatorium side by side. An Yelin knew that their teammates Chi Jixia and Bo Jiang were inside the sanatorium.
"This is the first time I've felt this way..." he said.
Yi Wan: "What does it feel like?"
An Yelin: "It's hard to describe. Suddenly I became the salvation of others. Both of my teammates are closely related to this matter, and they are waiting for me upstairs. Whether it's Bo Jiang or Chi Jixia. In a while, the four of us will solve this problem together..."
He closed his eyes and said with some emotion: "It would be great if Ding Biehan was here too."
An Yelin is still too emotional.
Yi Wan then kindly fulfilled An Yelin's sentimentality: "You can pretend that Ding Biehan is accompanying us in the bathroom of the sanatorium."
An Yelin nodded with more satisfaction: "I can totally imagine the feeling of five people being together..."
… The entire boy band was imagining something weird.
When they arrived, Chi Jixia was sitting on a bench, fidgeting like a cat with chili oil on its butt. After Yi Wan and An Yelin arrived, he jumped up and said, "What do you want to tell me... I say, let's go back and record the album!"
"Why haven't I seen you so actively working normally?" An Yelin complained.
Chi Jixia looked at Yi Wan for help. Yi Wan also said, "Your business is more important."
Anyway, Ding Biehan has finished all the work.
Chi Jixia: …
Even Bo Jiang, who pushed the most, seemed to have given up completely. He looked at everyone and said calmly, "Let's solve Chi Jixia's problem first."
"Something's wrong. It's totally wrong. It's fine if other people say so, but even Bo Jiang says so. Have you been possessed by someone?" Chi Jixia circled around Bo Jiang twice and started to talk trash, "For example, there was a ghost that jumped off a building hundreds of years ago..."
An Yelin died by jumping into the sea, so hearing the word "jump" was quite embarrassing.
"Don't talk trash." Yi Wan said, looking at Bo Jiang a little worriedly.
Bo Jiang didn't react at all.
Yi Wan:
He had a hunch that something was wrong.
"… Then let's be brief, Chi Jixia." An Yelin said, "In short, you have a…"
He didn't know how to start.
Chi Jixia: "Child?"
“Brother, it’s my brother!”
Chi Jixia: ...
"But he has passed away," Yi Wan added.
"But he is a hero," An Yelin added.
"You... I..." Chi Jixia was stunned. He looked at Yi Wan blankly, then at An Yelin.
An Yelin waited for him patiently and was ready to offer his shoulder for Chi Jixia to cry on.
Chi Jixia: "... What?! I got the wrong baby too?"
An Yelin, who was taken away by mistake: … Damn it.
Chi Jixia: "So am I originally the rich one or the poor one?"
Chi Jixia: "Before I was taken away by mistake, did I also have a fiancé or something like that? Now that the fake young master has died of a terminal illness, so I have to bring the real young master home to inherit the marriage contract?"
… This is really a case of someone who has acted in too many melodramatic dramas. This has completely gone off topic.
It was just that An Yelin's emotions were a little out of control. He looked at the nagging Chi Jixia with spitting fire in his eyes.
Yi Wan patted Chi Jixia on the shoulder and said, "...Don't read out your teammates' life stories in public."
Chi Jixia shrugged and glanced at the doctors and nurses who were watching from the side: "Oh, I'm sorry... But I didn't know your life story was like this, An Yelin. I only knew that you were taken away by mistake. I didn't know you needed to inherit your fiancé..."
An Yelin turned to Yi Wan expressionlessly: "Would you object if I killed him now?"
Yi Wan squeezed An Yelin's shoulders hard again.
…
"… No, are you kidding me? Chi Xu, you are my brother??"
"That's basically the situation," An Yelin said. "I know it's hard for you to accept."
Chi Jixia: "... I might as well be a mistaken child. If that doesn't work, an illegitimate brother who comes back and says 'I want to inherit not only the family fortune but also my younger brother' and then imprisons me and forces me to love him will also work."
… He can still come up with bad jokes at this time. It seems that he hasn't been mentally stimulated enough. An Yelin thought with empty eyes.
As for the matter of Chi Jixia reading out to him the story he had experienced again... An Yelin no longer wanted to bother with him.
Bo Jiang stood aside and watched them quietly.
"This incident is still too sudden for me, haha." Chi Jixia laughed dryly, "Okay, now I know about this incident, then what?"
"What then?" An Yelin couldn't understand.
Chi Jixia's current reaction was obviously beyond his expectations.
He originally thought that Chi Jixia would be shocked, collapse, or even cry bitterly after knowing the truth - this would be in line with the image of a distraught brother who had lost his loved ones.
But he didn't.
Not at all.
He even spread out his hands and stated the pros and cons very coldly: "Even if he is my brother... he is already dead, isn't he? What use is this in the current situation?"
"You can at least tell your mother that Chi Xu really exists and he is not a lie she imagined..."
"Ha, so what? No one except us believes that Chi Xu ever existed. Even if she knows that he existed, so what? People who have disappeared will not come back to life. The law will not recognize it, and the media will not recognize it either."
"But it is a comfort to your mother, isn't it?" An Yelin advised him, "Besides her, her son also remembers her other son. Her eldest son's life is not meaningless. He is a hero. He sacrificed his life to protect other people..."
Chi Jixia was silent.
He sat on the bench with his head down, his back hunched, his entire face sunk into shadow.
What is Chi Jixia thinking about
Nobody knows.
So no one expected that Chi Jixia would finally say this: "If it wasn't me, but you guys who told her..."
An Yelin said: “Ah?”
"There's no difference between the two, right? It can both let her know that there are people in the world besides her who remember him and who are grateful to him. Isn't the final effect the same?"
"Are you kidding me?"
"What else? What do you want me to do? To go to her, hold her hand, play some kind of role, and read to her with great emotion? I can't do such a performance..."
"We didn't tell you to do anything!" An Yelin was furious, "You were the one who wanted to 'do' it! Don't you have any sense at all?"
"What does it feel like?"
"That was your biological brother. He died saving someone. In the world before he died, he grew up with you. He was also your brother and your friend when you were lonely. When he left, he was also thinking of your name..." An Yelin was shaking with anger, "How can you be indifferent..."
A hand stopped him.
It was Yi Wan’s hand.
"Let Chi Jixia do what she wants to do," he said.
"But… "
"You can't make him do anything for you. Even if you think it's better this way." Yi Wan said, "Let's go out. Let him be alone."
He grabbed An Yelin with one hand and Bo Jiang with the other and led them out of the corridor.
Chi Jixia was the only one left in the empty corridor. The light projected his shadow on the wall, stretching it very long.
He was like some shadowy monster living alone.
"I really don't understand..." An Yelin said in a low voice.
He kicked the can under his feet. Yi Wan picked it up and was about to throw it into the trash can.
"For Chi Jixia, it should be easy to play a role that is suitable for the performance of a loving father and a filial son in this occasion."
Yi Wan stopped.
The person who said this was none other than Bo Jiang. He sat on a chair by the window, looking up. The moonlight flowed over his beautifully contoured chin and neck, casting a white patch on his collarbone.
"… "
"You can obviously do everything, but you just don't do it." Bo Jiang said softly, "Hehe."
All three of them were silent.
Suddenly, Bo Jiang stood up, kicked the can in front of him hard, and turned to walk upstairs!
Neither of them had time to hold him back. Yi Wan looked at his back and said, "Is Bo Jiang going to persuade Chi Jixia?"
"It looks more like beating than persuasion..." An Yelin was also stunned.
…
Third floor, corridor.
"So you don't remember I have a brother either, do you?"
The system was silent for a long time: "... Hmm."
"It's really weird. Everyone remembers it, Yu Rongshi remembers it, Liu Chen remembers it, my mom remembers it, but I don't remember it." Chi Jixia laughed as if she was mocking herself, "What does this mean? Does it mean that the relationship between the two of us is just like that even in another world?"
System: "Don't think too much."
"In fact, it's the same in this world. Apart from being a little acting genius, I have nothing else." Chi Jixia said, "You see, everyone treats me as a fool, funny and harmless. They seem to think that throwing me over and letting me play any role will solve the problem."
The system looked at him sympathetically: "… If you lack warmth, why not ask your fans to raise funds to buy you a big screen in Times Square."
Chi Jixia: "... Damn it. This is too immoral. No."
"Why don't you go in? Just go in and say a few words, and the problem can be easily solved." The system continued to persuade him, "Everyone will be happy then. It will only take a few minutes and you can go back soon."
"… "
Chi Jixia leaned against the wall and slowly slid down.
"But I don't want to..."
He said it as if he was sighing.
"I've played other people enough that I don't know how to play myself anymore."
He paused and continued.
"It's so annoying. There are no more bad jokes to play now. I don't want to talk seriously like this at all."
"Speaking other people's lines at least makes me feel safe."!