Chapter 35 Ah Xi's Secret
The car finally stopped at a quiet cemetery far away from the city.
The afternoon sun filtered through the lush green pines and cypresses, casting dappled shadows. The air was filled with the scent of grass and earth, a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of the city. Huo Shen walked ahead without saying a word, while Su Yan followed silently behind him, his mind filled with doubts. He had a vague idea of who he was meeting, but why had he been brought here?
Finally, they stopped before a meticulously maintained tombstone. Embedded within the white marble tombstone was a black-and-white photograph—the very young man, Ah Xi, whom Su Yan had seen in the studio and the safe. His smile remained as radiant as ever, frozen in the prime of his life. The inscription was simple: Tomb of My Beloved Brother, Huo Xi.
It turns out his last name is Huo. Is he Huo Shen's... younger brother?
This realization shocked Su Yan. He had always thought that Ah Xi was Huo Shen's love interest, and never thought that they were blood relatives.
Huo Shen stood quietly in front of the tomb, his back looking somewhat lonely in the sunlight. He did not show any outward sadness like he did in the studio, but remained silent. However, that silence was heavier than any cry.
"He's my brother." Huo Shen finally spoke, his voice low and calm, as if stating a fact that had nothing to do with him, yet with a weariness etched into his bones, "We have the same father but different mothers."
Su Yan held his breath and didn't dare to disturb him.
"Ten years ago, he was kidnapped." Huo Shen's voice was flat, but Su Yan could see his hands hanging by his side, his knuckles slightly white from the force. "The kidnappers wanted money, and they also wanted a piece of core technical information in my father's hands."
Su Yan's heart suddenly sank, and he had a vague premonition of something.
"My father... chose the technical data." Huo Shen's voice remained calm, but Su Yan seemed to hear a turbulent undercurrent beneath the surface. "He thought he could solve it with money, that the other party wouldn't dare... By the time I found Ah Xi, he had already..."
Huo Shen didn't say anything more. But the cold date on the tombstone and Ah Xi's forever frozen youthful face said it all.
Su Yan's body went cold. He finally understood why Huo Shen was so sensitive, even violent, about "technology leaks," and why he was so intolerant of "betrayal." This wasn't just a business loss; it was a trauma etched deep in his soul, stemming from the betrayal and tragic loss of his loved ones!
He also instantly understood Huo Shen's obsession with the face of "Su Yan." Losing Ah Xi was probably a wound Huo Shen would never heal. His appearance was like a distorted light, illuminating his long-frozen emotional wasteland.
"I brought you here," Huo Shen turned around, his gaze fixed on Su Yan's pale face, which was filled with complex emotions that Su Yan couldn't understand. "I want you to know why I am like this now."
His tone was almost cruelly honest. "In the beginning, I kept you by my side because of your face. Seeing you is like seeing him still here... It makes me feel that perhaps there's still a little bit of that dirty past that's been preserved."
Su Yan's heart sank to the bottom. Although he had guessed it long ago, hearing Huo Shen say it so bluntly with his own ears still made him feel a sharp pain and humiliation.
"But," Huo Shen changed the subject, took a step forward, approached Su Yan, and locked his eyes sharply, "You and him are not alike at all."
Su Yan raised his head suddenly and looked into Huo Shen's deep eyes.
"Ah Xi is like sunshine, pure, warm, without a trace of haze." Huo Shen's voice was low and clear. "But you, Su Yan, you are afraid, you pretend, you are unwilling and stubborn in your bones, you even try to be clever under my nose..."
With every word he said, Su Yan's heart tightened a little. He felt as if all his disguises had been stripped off and he was exposed naked in the sun.
"But," Huo Shen's fingers gently brushed the corners of Su Yan's eyes, which were slightly red due to tension and humiliation, "you like this are more real, and more..." He paused, as if looking for the right words, and finally said with a tone of almost resignation, "...it makes me unable to look away."
boom--!
Su Yan's mind went blank.
Huo Shen wasn't looking through him to see Ah Xi. He saw clearly that he was Su Yan, a Su Yan completely different from Ah Xi, full of flaws and little thoughts.
He said… he couldn’t look away?
This isn't an obsession with the shadow, this is... an interest in him personally?
A huge shock and an indescribable throbbing swept over Su Yan like a tsunami. He had always thought that he was a stand-in, a fake, but Huo Shen told him that what he saw was always the real thing, even if this real thing was so "unbearable".
"So," Huo Shen withdrew his hand, his tone returning to its usual sense of control, but with a hint of something different, "Stop trying to imitate anyone. Be yourself and stay where I can see you."
He brought Su Yan here today, not to reminisce, but to say goodbye. Saying goodbye to the self who had regarded Su Yan as a substitute out of obsession, he was also declaring to Su Yan - I see you clearly, and I choose to keep you.
On the way back, the two remained silent. But the atmosphere in the car was completely different from when they came. An invisible thing seemed to have quietly changed between them. Su Yan looked at the rapidly receding scenery outside the window, feeling a mixture of emotions.
He originally thought he was glimpsing a romantic past, but he didn't expect to uncover a bloody family tragedy and the twisted roots of a man. What made him even more disturbed was that the man who caused all this tragedy seemed to be trying to pull him out of the cage of "double" and into a more complex and dangerous unknown situation.
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