Chapter 252: Homeward Journey (2)

It was not until the boy, the nurse and the doctor carried the bed into the ward that Li Ziyan realized that it was him who was "dead".

Yes, he remembered that when he was trying to save someone, he was hit on the head by a GG brand that fell from the building and was sent to the hospital.

Li Ziyan glanced at his translucent arm, then glanced at the boy lying beside his bed and already collapsed, and a sense of inexplicable melancholy and relief arose in his heart.

There is nothing wrong with death. At least he has nothing to worry about now. But who is this boy? He doesn't know him. Why would he cry for him and feel sad for him?

The boy was lying in front of his hospital bed. Li Ziyan was sitting next to him, looking at him. He wiped the wound on his face bit by bit, carefully, as if he was treating porcelain. He saw that the boy, who was obviously a big boy of 1.8 meters, was crying silently like a child, covering his face and crying as if he had collapsed.

"Don't cry. The dead cannot be resurrected. Why bother to shed tears for someone as worthless as me?" Li Ziyan sighed softly. He had thought that no one would be sad for him, but now that there was such a person, he felt an inexplicable comfort in his heart.

The ward was quiet, with only the boy guarding it. Not long after, the door of the ward suddenly opened and three people ran in. Li Ziyan was stunned. If he was not just a soul now, he would probably be stunned and not know how to react.

"Zi Yan! Yan Yan! Yan Yan!" Li Zi Han still had a stubble on his face, his face full of fatigue and collapse, his eyes full of bloodshot, extremely exhausted. He knelt on the ground as soon as he entered the room, and reached out his hand to touch Li Zi Yan's body on the bed in disbelief. "Yan Yan! Yan Yan! Wake up! It's your brother! Your brother is here, please don't ignore him, okay?"

"Zi Yan?! Zi Yan! Wake up! Mom is here, don't be angry with Mom, Mom will make you your favorite sweet and sour pork ribs, okay? Get up and stop teasing Mom!"

Li Ziyan's mother collapsed, wanting to touch Li Ziyan's hand but afraid of hurting him. She covered her face and cried, looking much older and weak. The middle-aged man who had come in with them, seemingly in disbelief, took a few steps back. If it weren't for Li Ziyan's instructor and mentor following behind, he would have collapsed.

"Mr. Li, Mrs. Li, please don't be too sad. The doctor said Ziyan still has a chance of waking up," the instructor's voice choked. He took a deep breath, afraid of crying, but his eyes still reddened. "The most important thing for us now is to take good care of the child, right? He will be fine. If Ziyan wakes up and sees you all so sad, he will be sad too."

"Thank you, teachers. I... I..." Father Li felt a surge of air in his chest, unable to exhale. He swayed a few times before being supported by the boy who had been sitting by Li Ziyan's bed. "I believe Ziyan will pull through."

"Yes, yes, it will be fine."

Everyone in the room was comforting each other. The teachers and leaders of the school also knew that they should not disturb them too much at such a time, so they left after staying for a while, leaving only Li Ziyan's parents and relatives, and the boy.

Li Ziyan stood there in a daze, his eyes filled with uncertainty and shock. His parents were so sad because of his injury, and his brother, who was such a proud and strong man, broke down in tears.

"Child, you are..." After everyone left, Li's father noticed the taciturn boy beside him. He looked up and was shocked by his condition. His blood-red eyes, tired eyes, and painful expression all showed his worry and reluctance to leave Li Ziyan.

"Hello, uncle. I am... I am Zi Yan's... suitor. I am Han Zhiyao."

"A suitor?" Li's father was stunned for a moment, but soon regained his composure. With red eyes, he sat down beside the bed and held Li Ziyan's hand that was not on the IV. "Aren't you together?"

"Zi Yan doesn't know that I like him yet."

"...Son, listen to your uncle's advice. Let Ziyan go for now." It wasn't that Father Li was against Han Zhiyao, or that he was dissatisfied with Han Zhiyao, or that Father Li hated homosexuality. He just didn't want to delay Han Zhiyao. Even though he hoped that Li Ziyan could wake up, the doctor said the chances of that happening were very small. He didn't want to delay Han Zhiyao's future and prospects. "Let him go while you're still young."

"My love for Ziyan is already deep enough," Han Zhiyao said, as if revealing a secret that had been hidden deep in his heart for years. Under the shocked gazes of the three parents, he half-knelt on the ground and touched Li Ziyan's hair. "It's been seven years, and my love for him is deep enough."

"What?!"

Several people, including Li Ziyan, were extremely shocked. They looked at the tall boy and didn't know what to say.

"Then why didn't you tell Ziyan?"

"Because he was afraid, I fell in love with Zi Yan when I first entered high school. At that time, he was a sophomore and I was a freshman. The first time I saw him, I wondered how such a gentle person could exist in this world. I had always secretly admired him and regarded him as my role model. He studied Mathematical Olympiad, so did I. He signed up for a group, so did I. But he fell in love with someone else. I knew I had no right to stop his feelings, so I just stood by and watched over him silently. But the person he liked was not a good person."

All three members of the Li family knew about this matter. The boy that Li Ziyan liked in high school played with Li Ziyan's feelings and made his sexual orientation public. It was only then that they knew that Li Ziyan liked boys.

Even though the same-sex marriage law had been passed for some time at that time, such a relationship was still not accepted by the older generation and the general public, so Li's parents were very opposed to it and even took Li Ziyan to a so-called detoxification center.

After Li Ziyan's sexual identity was exposed, he was ostracized by some of his classmates and suffered from school bullying. This led to a drastic change in his personality in his senior year of high school. He used to be sunny and cheerful, but he became more and more introverted and unwilling to talk to others. He also performed poorly in the college entrance examination due to family and external pressures and had to repeat a year.

"I was angry at myself for not being able to protect him. I was also angry at that person for betraying his feelings. He just liked someone of the same sex, so what? Zi Yan didn't harass him or disrupt his life. He only responded after the other person showed him affection. Why should he be insulted by others? I thought I might never see Zi Yan again in my life, but I didn't expect Zi Yan to come to my class the year he repeated his grade."

When Han Zhiyao said this, the anger and sadness in his tone turned into a hint of tenderness and love as he stared at the calm face of the person on the bed.

"But at that time, he was already afraid. He was unwilling to accept others, nor was he willing to accept himself."