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“No, there’s a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding, Yan Chen,” Gu Huai stammered, his voice trembling as he walked toward him, his legs feeling weak and unsteady.
Yan Chen’s face was shrouded in a dark shadow, and he stood silently with no reaction.
Gu Huai, panicked, reached out to touch his cheek, but as soon as his fingers made contact, Yan Chen nonchalantly pulled away.
Yan Chen turned his face aside, his eyes deep and dark, his voice heavy with gravity. “Give me an explanation.”
Gu Huai looked at him, his eyes red, his voice rough and trembling. “I—I couldn’t help it. I just wanted you to forget him. You know, you’ve been messaging him recently, and you signed a contract with Song’s group to collaborate on a project for him. I couldn’t control myself.”
He repeated that he couldn’t help it, his dark lashes fluttering, tears visible under his eyelids, giving him a pitiful appearance with his fair skin and light-colored eyes.
Normally, Yan Chen would have held him close, comforting him and wiping away his tears, but something was different this time.
The man just stood there, unmoved, his gaze meeting Gu Huai’s with a deep, stormy calmness, as if his heart was frozen in an icy pond.
Gu Huai, avoiding his gaze, felt a trace of hatred but spoke with a tone of innocence. “Besides that, you also invited him out for dinner that night and even sent him home. I was so jealous that I did this outrageous thing.”
Yan Chen’s eyes were filled with shadow, his lips pressed into a tight, sharp line. He bit out each word with difficulty, “Because of jealousy, you thought it was acceptable to hire a hitman?”
Gu Huai had never seen him this fierce, biting his lip nervously. “I—I did it because I love you too much. Yan Chen, you…”
Yan Chen remained unmoved, his coldness undiminished, his narrow, dark eyes fixed on him, surrounded by an unspoken pressure.
Gu Huai’s tears flowed freely, and he reached out his pale fingers to gently touch Yan Chen’s brow, eye corner, and finally his soft lips, his voice sincere and earnest. “I really did it out of love. Believe me, I wanted us to be happy in the future.”
Yan Chen watched impassively, his face cold as he allowed Gu Huai to touch him without saying anything.
Seeing that Yan Chen did not respond, Gu Huai embraced his cold body, feeling unbearable pain inside. “These days, you always wake up in the middle of the night staring at his photos, waiting for his emails, endlessly refreshing his social media. I couldn’t control myself. You always say you love me, but I really don’t feel it.”
His voice grew choked with tears, revealing deep sorrow.
Yan Chen’s almond-shaped eyes were dark and indifferent as he replied hoarsely, “If I didn’t love you, why would I have left him to send you home and get medicine?”
Gu Huai shook his head, resting his forehead against Yan Chen’s shoulder, eyes closed. “I don’t know. You always put me first, treating me as if I’m the most important, doing everything for me, but I never felt that you really liked me.”
“You would never wait all night for a text from me or wait for hours downstairs to see me, but you would do that for him.”
“I secretly went through your phone. Your call logs are full of his missed calls, and your drafts folder is filled with unsent messages to him. Even though the contents are just simple greetings, you edit them almost every day and night. You said you two were done, but the truth is, you can’t forget him at all!”
“Yan Chen, I’m really not willing to accept this. If… if he were dead, you wouldn’t be like this anymore. I just want him to disappear from your world.”
He kept talking in a broken voice, saying things he’d held back for so long, hoping that Yan Chen would understand how hard it was for him, and perhaps offer him even a tiny bit of comfort.
But Yan Chen’s eyes were filled with a dead stillness, his expression despairing. “No matter what I feel for him, what you’ve done is utterly unforgivable.”
From the moment they first met until they got married, he had always imagined the other as the perfect lover—elegant, pure, gentle, like a noble gentleman, as pure as a white lotus, untouchable by any impurity.
But after hearing that phone call, everything changed.
From a few meters away, he saw Gu Huai cursing vulgarly, his eyes filled with a bone-deep hatred, which, combined with the contents of the call, made him seem like an ugly, repulsive demon, stirring up an inexplicable disgust.
At that moment, it was as if something collapsed in his mind, and those emotions he had stubbornly clung to were suddenly gone.
He felt like he never really knew this person. What were those things that had been with him, making him think of them for all these years?
Who did he really love? If it wasn’t Gu Huai, if it wasn’t the person in reality, was it just that online avatar from back then?
Yan Chen bowed his head, questioning his own heart, a deep furrow forming between his brows, and unconsciously took a few steps back.
Gu Huai saw the increasingly distant and cold look in his eyes, and felt his heart turn cold. With tears streaming down his face, he pleaded, “No, Yan Chen, don’t go. I did it all for you. I just wanted you to stop thinking about him, that’s why I did something so stupid. Please forgive me this time; I won’t dare do it again.”
As he spoke, he stepped forward and hugged Yan Chen tightly around the waist, his face pale with fear that Yan Chen would leave him and never return.
Yan Chen snapped out of his thoughts, looked at him with deep caution, and said through gritted teeth, “Just because I missed him, you went and tried to have him killed. How cruel can you be?”
Gu Huai frantically shook his head, his voice choked with sobs and resentment, “No, don’t think of me that way. Since birth, I’ve never wanted to harm anyone, but for that b*stard, every time I think of him, I hate him to the point where I wish he were dead.”
Yan Chen was repulsed by this hysteria, his voice cold as if he were speaking to a stranger. “Even now, you still hate him and wish he were dead, with no remorse. It seems you really want to be arrested and sentenced to death.”
Those few cold words instantly jolted Gu Huai awake, making him panic and tremble with fear. “No, I can’t be sentenced. Yan Chen, you… you will lend me the money, right? As long as the police don’t find out, you’ll lend me a million, right?”
Because he was unsure, he asked several times, his usually fair face now deathly pale.
Yan Chen’s face was stiff. After a long while, he revealed the dark, ruthless side of his nature. “No, I won’t lend you that money.”
Gu Huai was stunned. He looked up at him in disbelief, his eyes filled with deep terror.
Yan Chen gave him a cruel glance, his profile shrouded in gloom and darkness. “This mess you’ve made, you clean it up yourself.”
Gu Huai felt as if he had suddenly fallen into an abyss. He trembled as he spoke, “No, you can’t do this to me. How could you not help me?”
The sudden shift from years of pampering to a cold, bottomless cruelty left him in shock, unable to recover, his gaze fixed on the man before him.
Yan Chen turned his head away, refusing to look at him, his expression cold and resolute, showing no intention of compromising.
Gu Huai bit his lip so hard that it started to bleed, “Do you remember what you promised me when we got married?”
Yan Chen remained silent, saying nothing.
Gu Huai’s eyes were red with grievance, “You promised to be good to me for the rest of your life, to stay with me no matter what happened, and never leave me!”
Each word was as solemn as the original vow, but with a completely different heart.
Yan Chen looked at him coldly, his dark eyes growing even more hollow and deep, numb and ruthless, without a trace of grief, only a heavy air of death.
Gu Huai’s chest ached as if suffocating. He couldn’t help but grasp Yan Chen’s hand, intertwining their fingers, “Please, help me, Yan Chen. I’m begging you. I don’t want to go to jail. I don’t want to be sentenced to death. Please, help me.”
Yan Chen did not respond, his fingertips cold as ice, his pale, slender fingers involuntarily tightened, causing Gu Huai’s bones to ache.
Gu Huai felt the pain, but he didn’t let go. He raised their hands in front of him, “Even if you don’t think of anything else, you should think of these rings. Remember? You spent a whole year designing and crafting them for me.”
The rings on both of their hands gleamed brightly, as if testifying to the love and sweetness of the past, making his once firm and determined heart falter for a moment.
Yan Chen closed his eyes, his Adam’s apple moving, his thoughts momentarily chaotic. After a moment of silence, he resolutely pushed Gu Huai away and stormed out the door.
“Bam!”
With a loud crash, Gu Huai stared blankly at the closed door, and the tears he’d held back for so long finally fell.
