Chapter 60 Friends
The black sedan smoothly drove away from the twilight-shrouded Nanshan Cemetery and merged into the traffic heading toward the city. The interior was silent, with only the low hum of the engine and the gentle whirr of the air conditioner. The afterglow of the setting sun had completely sunk below the horizon, leaving only a glimmer of its afterglow on the horizon. The streetlights gradually lit up, casting a shifting shadow on the car window.
Chu Yan drove intently, his profile appearing calm in the flickering light and shadow. Gu Ye sat in the passenger seat, his gaze somewhat unfocused as he watched the rapidly receding street scene outside the window. His fingertips seemed to still hold the warmth of Chu Yan's skin, and an indescribable sense of security enveloped him.
At this moment, the quiet inside the car was broken by the sudden vibration of a cell phone. It was Chu Yan's phone, which was placed on the center console.
Chu Yan glanced at the screen and saw the caller ID: Shan.
He held the steering wheel with one hand and pressed the answer button on the car's Bluetooth with the other.
"Hello?" Chu Yan's voice was soft, a touch that was unique to when facing a lover.
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, and then Gu Xu's voice was a little hoarse, with an obvious lazy nasal tone as if he had just woken up: "Hello. Haven't you come back yet?" There was no questioning in the voice, only a sense of confirmation, and a hint of imperceptible dependence.
"Yeah, I went to school to fill out my application, and it just finished." Chu Yan answered naturally, his eyes still looking at the road ahead.
"Oh..." Gu Xu didn't seem surprised. He woke up and saw the text message from Chu Yan, knowing that he had gone to deal with school matters. "Is everything going well?"
"It went pretty smoothly." Chu Yan lowered his voice, with a gentleness that was almost coaxing. "Are you hungry? I'm almost done here and ready to go back. What do you want to eat? I'll pack something to take back."
Gu Xu on the other end of the line seemed taken aback by the homely question. Chu Yan rarely spoke to him in such a tone, so full of the mundane details of life. He subconsciously hummed a "hmm," his voice tinged with the gentleness of someone being petted.
After a brief pause, Gu Xu's voice rang out again, this time with a subtle hint of inquiry that even he himself might not have realized: "Who's next to you?"
The question was a bit abrupt. The car's speakers were amplified very well, and Gu's voice echoed clearly throughout the car.
Chu Yan's fingers gripping the steering wheel paused for an imperceptible moment. Then, a playful smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, and his voice, with obvious teasing, clearly hit Gu Xu's eardrums:
"What's up, checking up on us?" The tone was filled with a hint of smirk, as if teasing a nervous big cat.
Gu Xu on the other end of the line clearly realized he'd asked a stupid question, and one could even imagine him frowning in frustration or holding his forehead. After a brief silence, he abruptly changed the subject: "Ah, nothing much. How long will it take you to get back?"
Chu Yan didn't insist and followed up on his topic, "It's almost there, about half an hour. Send me a WeChat message when you decide what to eat." He paused, remembering Gu Xu's original question: "Don't worry, Brother Yu is not here. Next to me is Gu Ye."
The other end of the line fell silent again, as if even breathing had stopped for a moment. Gu Xu didn't say anything else, just a low "hmm" and quickly said "I'll wait for you to come back" before hanging up.
"Beep, beep, beep..." A busy tone sounded, and the car returned to silence again, but the atmosphere became a little subtle.
From the moment Gu Shi asked, "Who's there?", Gu Ye's ears perked up like a rabbit on alert! The silence inside the car amplified the sound of the speakers. Gu Shi's raspy yet unique voice, though slightly distorted over the phone, gave him an indelible sense of familiarity. It felt like he'd heard it somewhere before, but he couldn't quite place the specific voice. He desperately searched his memory for a similar sound clip.
It wasn't until Chu Yan said casually, "Next to me is Gu Ye," that Gu Ye's heart seemed to be suddenly tightened by something.
That voice...who is it?
Gu Ye's heartbeat inexplicably accelerated, and an inexplicable feeling of irritation and vigilance quietly grew. He pretended to be calm and adjusted his sitting position. He still looked out the window, but secretly glanced at Chu Yan's profile out of the corner of his eye.
Chu Yan hung up the phone with a normal expression, even leisurely tapping the beat to the jazz music coming from the car stereo.
Gu Ye couldn't hold it back any longer, and finally couldn't hold it back any longer. He cleared his throat and tried to make his voice sound casual, as if asking casually, "Who was that? The voice sounds familiar."
Chu Yan heard this and turned his head to look at Gu Ye with a half-smile. His eyes were full of knowing amusement, as if to say: Why are you pretending, little guy? You've been listening attentively for a long time.
"My girlfriend." Chu Yan answered straightforwardly without any concealment, and even with a sense of matter-of-factness.
Gu Ye felt his breathing hitch. He suppressed the throbbing and bitterness in his heart and continued to ask casually, his tone deliberately filled with curiosity, as if it was just between friends: "Oh? Does your boyfriend know me?"
Chu Yan turned the steering wheel with one hand and turned a corner. His eyes swept over Gu Ye's profile, which was pretending to be calm. The playful smile on his lips deepened. He deliberately dragged out his tone: "Of course I know. I told him about you." He paused, and as Gu Ye's eyes slightly lit up, he lightly threw out the second half of the sentence, like a bucket of cold water poured over his head:
"I told him you are my friend."
Gu Ye felt his blood run cold, and his hands clenched on his knees suddenly tightened, his nails almost digging into his palms. A huge feeling of bitterness and grievance surged up without warning.
Friends? Just friends?
He thought he was close enough to Chu Yan. They studied together, trained together, lived under the same roof, shared their most embarrassing moments, and exposed their vulnerability to each other. He even thought he was somehow special to Chu Yan. He was the one who could be solemnly introduced at his mother's grave, the one who could make him say, "I can't bear to leave."
But now, in Chu Yan's eyes, he is merely defined as a friend?
Gu Ye felt a tightness in his chest, an indescribable sense of loss surging through his chest. He stared intently at the neon signs speeding past outside the window, feeling that the colorful lights were particularly dazzling.
Chu Yan seemed completely oblivious to Gu Ye's gloomy mood, or perhaps he noticed it but chose to ignore it. He seemed to suddenly remember something interesting and chuckled to himself, breaking the somewhat stagnant atmosphere in the car.
"Come to think of it," Chu Yan's voice was filled with a lighthearted smile as if he were reminiscing about the past. "Gu Ye, do you still remember the dinner we had after the placement test? The one where you got completely drunk and I had to carry you back home?"
Gu Ye's thoughts were forcibly pulled back, and he hummed in a muffled voice, not knowing why Chu Yan suddenly brought this up.
"That night, that kid Aliang," Chu Yan said with a hint of teasing in his tone, "while you were almost drunk, he sneaked up to me and said to me in a serious face: "Brother Yan, you are the first friend that Brother Ye is willing to bring out to have dinner with us. No matter what happens in the future, can you please not stop being friends with him so quickly?" Chu Yan imitated the solemn tone of Aliang at that time.
Gu Ye: “?” He felt his face freeze, and a strong sense of shame rushed to his head. Ah Liang, that idiot, when did he tell Chu Yan all this? How come he had no recollection of it at all?
"And then?" Chu Yan's voice was filled with obvious laughter, as if he was recalling an extremely interesting scene. "I saw that Aliang was so sincere, so I..." He paused deliberately, turned his head, looked at Gu Ye's instantly flushed face, and added slowly:
"I solemnly assured him: 'Don't worry, Gu Ye and I will always be friends.'"
This sentence was like the last straw that broke the camel's back, crushing Gu Ye's shaky sanity!
"Haha," Gu Ye turned his head abruptly, forced a fake smile at Chu Yan, and squeezed out a few words from between his teeth, the sound almost grinding out from his throat: "Then he is really quite good, ha!"
Every word was thick with gnashing of teeth. He just wanted to rush to Aliang's house right now, immediately, and drag this idiot who had been asking for a promise out of nothing out of nothing out of his mind out to give him a beating. No, beating him up wouldn't satisfy him. He wanted to have a solo fight with him, to beat him up in the game until he doubted his life.
Chu Yan looked at Gu Ye, so frustrated that he had nowhere to vent his anger and could only take it out on A Liang, and finally couldn't help but laugh softly. The laughter was particularly clear in the quiet carriage, with undisguised joy and bad humor.
"Yeah," Chu Yan nodded, his tone sincere, the smile in his eyes almost overflowing, "Aliang is indeed a warm-hearted brother. He has worked so hard to protect you, the boss."
Gu Ye felt his vision go black, and a mouthful of blood blocked his throat. He glared at Chu Yan fiercely, but unfortunately, in the dim light, his lethality was greatly reduced, and he looked more like an impotent and furious puppy.
A Liang had already been heavily noted in his mental notebook, and he immediately began to calculate which heroes he could use to kill A Liang the fastest a hundred times tonight. The light from the street lamp quickly passed over Gu Ye's angry face, flickering, just like his current mood.
Chu Yan continued driving in a cheerful mood, his fingertips tapping rhythmically on the steering wheel. Well, it's fun to tease this easily irritated little dog once in a while. As for Ah Liang? Chu Yan silently lit a candle for him in his heart. Good luck to you, brother.
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