Chapter 73 "Yes, I just feel sorry for you."
During the time he stood outside the door, Duan Zhuxian thought of many possible reactions of Jiang Yao: shock, helplessness, or pretending to be calm, but he never thought that Jiang Yao would cry.
I would be so sad about his dark one-man show.
He was sure that the tears flashing in Jiang Yao's eyes were not from being moved, but from being reluctant and sad, with a hint of obvious anger.
But the handsome man in front of her was a person who never gave up. In order not to make herself look too ugly, she opened her eyes wide and stared at him, trying to stop the accumulated tears from dripping. The corners of her eyes were red, as if she had applied rouge.
If Jiang Yao was really a little fox, he would definitely become wild at this moment and pounce on him to bite him to vent his anger.
Duan Zhuxian felt a pain in his heart.
He stretched out his hand, wanting to embrace Jiang Yao, but Jiang Yao's tense expression suddenly moved. He lowered his head and ran past him.
Turning around and looking at Jiang Yao's back, Duan Zhuxian smiled bitterly: "Yaoyao, are you going to run away again?"
In the corridor, Jiang Yao suddenly stopped his hurried steps, as if waking up from a dream.
The overwhelming affection in the diary was enough to make him feel helpless. When he saw Duan Zhuxian himself and was stared at by those affectionate and calm eyes, he really had the urge to escape from this earth temporarily and calm down.
But if he ran away, what would Duan Zhuxian do alone?
He also snatched Duan Zhuxian's notebook, which belonged to Duan Zhuxian's past.
Jiang Yao sniffed.
How could he be so selfish and irresponsible?
He should coax Duan Zhuxian, the former bitter kid.
Jiang Yao took a deep breath, turned around, and slowly walked back to Duan Zhuxian.
But his mind was in a mess, like a stuck speaker, with all the beautiful sounds blocked inside, unable to be released. In the end, all he could say was a sentence with a slight sob: "How could the person you liked at that time be me?"
Duan Zhuxian chuckled: "It's always been you."
From high school to now, throughout his first taste, understanding and desire for love, it has brought him unprecedented sweetness and bitterness as long as the night.
"I'm sorry, I won't hide it from you again."
Jiang Yao's throat moved rapidly for a few times, and after a while he said, "I thought that back then, you just wanted to be my buddy at most."
Before today, he had always believed that the biggest conflict between him and Duan Zhuxian was born on the snowy Valentine's Day night in his senior year of high school.
Duan Zhuxian was angry because he described their friendship as too superficial, and he felt that Duan Zhuxian didn't want to be friends with him and regarded him as a love rival.
Because of this, he had a big fight with Duan Zhuxian, and missed ten years.
On the night of the end of the year, when the misunderstanding was clarified, besides shock, what he felt most was regret and emptiness. He and Duan Zhuxian lost their precious friendship in the best years of their lives because of some complicated misunderstandings.
However, in reality, Duan Zhuxian was even more foul than he had imagined.
What Duan Zhuxian wanted was never friendship.
Before Duan Zhuxian could speak, Jiang Yao continued to defend himself: "You can't blame me for being slow about this. It was you who didn't say anything back then, not even revealing the slightest clue, and you became increasingly distant from me..."
Jiang Yao paused, lowered his eyes, and suddenly found himself unable to continue.
It would be too much to ask Duan Zhuxian to restrain his feelings and watch his secret crush showing affection to others all day long.
He had done many such things in front of Duan Zhuxian in the past, and every unintentional act was like a thorn in Duan Zhuxian's heart...
After a moment of silence, a low voice asked in my ear: "Why don't you talk anymore?"
Jiang Yao raised his eyes.
The man standing right in front of him was looking down at him, a gentle smile in the corners of his eyes and eyebrows. How could this relaxed expression be compared to the young man who was struggling in the diary?
Duan Zhuxian was always like this, hiding all his thoughts in his heart, swallowing all the bitterness, pretending to be unfathomable in front of him, so that he could never guess what he was thinking, and he didn't know which direction to approach Duan Zhuxian's soul, which made him rush around recklessly and make a mess of things in the end.
Thinking of this, Jiang Yao became a little angry again: "You really want to hear me complain, right?"
Duan Zhuxian ruffled his hair and said, "I like to listen to whatever you say, especially since I was the one who made the mistake first."
Jiang Yao: "..."
Duan Zhuxian is indeed a masochist!
"Duan Zhuxian, I don't blame you anymore."
Jiang Yao said in a muffled voice.
He did feel aggrieved that Duan Zhuxian had kept the secret from him for so many years, but when he thought that Duan Zhuxian was even more aggrieved than him, he felt particularly distressed and could not utter a word of blame at all.
Duan Zhuxian was a man used to being silent. Growing up in the cannibalistic and oppressive Duan family, years of forbearance made him subconsciously remain unchanged in the face of any changes.
Duan Zhuxian was only sixteen or seventeen years old at that time. He was not mature enough, not steady enough, and lacked the courage to strategize.
He also has his pride and can't stand losing to his childhood friend in love. He also has his timidity and dares not face unknown rejection.
As a person who had been ignorant for ten years, the greatest suffering he had endured was Duan Zhuxian's indifference and alienation, and he had returned all of this to Duan Zhuxian double. How could he have any right to blame Duan Zhuxian for his silence?
"But Duan Zhuxian, I can't understand." Jiang Yao said in a low and anxious voice, "During those years in high school, I clearly wasn't nice to you at all. I always treated you as my rival, thinking all day about how to surpass you..."
The rest of his self-blaming words were interrupted by Duan Zhuxian: "You are very good. You are the best when you are yourself. I took it upon myself to like you and asked you to give me special treatment. That doesn't make sense."
Duan Zhuxian smiled.
"Actually, I'm glad that I still have the identity of a sworn enemy. Even if we can't be friends or lovers, I can still steadily occupy your attention, even if it's on the opposite side."
"Is this why you always put me down?"
Jiang Yao's eyes widened, and his breath, which had finally calmed down, was choked again in an instant.
He once wondered why Duan Zhuxian, such a calm and indifferent person, would always accept his unprovoked and even unreasonable provocations, fight with him in the arena, and never give in, and sometimes use some concise and harsh words to make him speechless.
After that breakup, he finally came to the conclusion: Duan Zhuxian really hated him.
"When did you start liking me?"
He asked Duan Zhuxian.
"I don't know." Duan Zhuxian said lightly, "Maybe it was during my freshman year of high school when I saw you and your brother watching a movie on Valentine's Day and mistook him for your boyfriend. Or maybe it was the day Duan Song transferred the house my mother left for me to Duan Feiyi. You talked to me by the swimming pool and gave me a keychain. In short, by the time I realized I liked you, it was too late to stop those endless thoughts."
Jiang Yao was stunned when he heard this.
What Duan Zhuxian talked about were all the vague past that he had forgotten, but they were also the preface to Duan Zhuxian's long secret love.
He suddenly remembered Duan Zhuxian's vows at the wedding -
I have loved you for a long time, and it will be the same throughout my life.
After listening to it, I felt my heart was beating fast in a trance. After coming to my senses, I was impressed by Duan Zhuxian's extraordinary acting skills.
Only today did he finally understand the weight of these nine words, which even ten years combined would not be enough to compare to.
Jiang Yao opened his mouth and tried to find his voice: "Since you liked me so early, why didn't you tell me when we were in school?"
Duan Zhuxian raised his eyebrows slightly: "I didn't bring it up at first because a little liar said he would never fall in love too early. Later, this little liar started to have a crush on someone else and even asked me for advice. Later, the little liar broke off our friendship."
He paused, his voice slightly hoarse, "I think it would never be a pleasant thing to be confessed to by the person you hate the most."
Jiang Yao paused, feeling guilty and blushing.
When he was looking at the diary, he had clearly deduced Duan Zhuxian's mental journey, but now he had to ask about it unnecessarily.
Unable to back down, and not used to admitting defeat, Jiang Yao raised his chin and continued to question, "Then why did you change your major after the college entrance examination? It can't be because I'm a liar, right? I've been waiting for you to go to University B with me. I've imagined countless times that we'd continue to battle wits and courage in college. I even wrote 'See you at University B' on the graduation message board. In the end, it all became a joke..."
He said this out of reflex to criticize Duan Zhuxian, but the more he spoke, the angrier he became, and the redness under his eyes, which had finally faded, turned red again.
Duan Zhuxian raised his hand, gently touched the corner of Jiang Yao's eyes with his fingertips, and his Adam's apple moved slightly.
Seeing Duan Zhuxian seemed to be hesitant to speak, Jiang Yao grabbed Duan Zhuxian's hand and pressed him: "You just said that you will not hide it from me again."
After staring at each other for a long time, Duan Zhuxian gripped Jiang Yao's tense fingers and finally said in a compromise tone, "I originally wanted to choose B University because of you, and then I chose Q University because of you. I thought that if we were farther away, not in the same school, and couldn't see you every day, my love for you would fade."
Duan Zhuxian said this with a self-deprecating laugh.
"But even so, I still can't help but ask about you."
Jiang Yao was stunned, then suddenly remembered something: "So on Christmas Day of my freshman year, I asked Chen Tang to meet up, but you showed up first. You even asked Chen Tang to bring his girlfriend along. It was actually because you wanted to see me that you made up a random excuse. You didn't deliberately want me to know about Chen Tang's relationship and then be completely heartbroken?"
Duan Zhuxian gently squeezed his five fingers into Jiang Yao's and clasped them together. His movements were lingering and affectionate, but his thin lips uttered unusually calm words: "No, I did it on purpose. I just want you to see clearly that there will never be a possibility for you and Shen Tang."
When he said this, a hint of paranoia flashed in Duan Zhuxian's eyes that frightened Jiang Yao.
But in a flash, those eyes were covered with tenderness again: "I think I suppressed my feelings for you for too long, and they have become a little distorted. If I continue, I'm not sure what uncontrollable things I will do."
Jiang Yao: "So you left the country quietly?"
Duan Zhuxian said "hmm".
No matter how hard he tried, the faint desire in his heart to possess Jiang Yao never went out.
Everything related to Jiang Yao could easily ignite the fire in his chest. Any collision could produce sparks, burning his heart bit by bit, causing him unbearable pain.
Until one day, he woke up and recalled with shock the dream he had just had. In the dream, he locked Jiang Yao in a small room where only the two of them were.
So, he chose to escape again and go to a farther place.
This was also the most complete escape in his life.
The years I spent abroad were a blur. Day after day, copying and pasting, I felt like I was trapped in a very long nightmare that was only slightly interrupted by forcing myself to fall asleep every night.
He continued his studies step by step, traded stocks, started a company to gain experience, accumulated funds and connections, took over Huayan's businesses in North America, and visited a psychologist regularly every week.
Until the day he woke up from the nightmare, he finally threw away his high-sounding restraint and sense of morality, and got on the plane without hesitation, passing through the spreading memories, through the boiling love, through ten thousand kilometers of torment and the horizon, to meet the person he could not let go.
No matter how much the other party doesn't want to see him.
These were his scars, which were now revealed to Jiang Yao bit by bit. Although he was the one in pain, Jiang Yao showed an unprecedented fragile expression, as if he would break at the slightest touch.
When Jiang Yao knocked his forehead against Duan Zhuxian's shoulder, Duan Zhuxian asked softly, "Don't you want to listen anymore?"
Jiang Yao buried his face and shook his head.
It's not that he doesn't want to listen, it's that he doesn't dare to listen
Because it hurts and makes breathing difficult.
Duan Zhuxian is such an arrogant person. Just to like him, he tortured himself to such an extent, even though he, as the other protagonist, was completely unaware of it.
"It's okay, it's all over." Duan Zhuxian raised his hand and pinched the back of Jiang Yao's neck. "Could it be that our President Jiang can't even bear this little bit?"
Duan Zhuxian wanted to calm Jiang Yao down and teased him on purpose. He had always succeeded in the past, but for the first time ever, Jiang Yao didn't take the bait this time.
He muttered, "Yeah, I just feel bad for you. I just feel it's not worth it for you. If I hadn't heard you say this today, I wouldn't have known I was so timid and had such a poor tolerance."
He originally wanted to comfort Duan Zhuxian, but in the end, it was Duan Zhuxian who coaxed him.
Can't Duan Zhuxian give him a chance?
He looked up at Duan Zhuxian and said, "On your seventeenth birthday, I told you that I liked Chen Tang. I ruined your mood, but I was wrong. So now you can ask me for a birthday wish, and I will do my best to fulfill it."
He spoke seriously, his mind full of thoughts on how to make amends to Duan Zhuxian.
Duan Zhuxian glanced at the half-packed suitcase in the bedroom and took Jiang Yao into his arms again.
It was a very strong hug, so strong that it was almost trembling.
After a while, her lips fell on his ear: "Yaoyao, don't mention divorce again in this life, okay?"
Jiang Yao hugged Duan Zhuxian back and said, "Nonsense! I'm not divorcing you. Can you please not waste your birthday wish? Make me a new one!"
Duan Zhuxian hummed, but said nothing more.
Jiang Yao waited for a moment, and suddenly felt a slight warmth on the back of his neck.
It was a long time before he realized that these were Duan Zhuxian's tears.
It fell where he couldn't see it.
【Author’s words】
My dears, I have some three-dimensional things to deal with, so I will update every other day for the next few days~Bow
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
