The person who was called an idiot stiffened noticeably.
Then he pretended to laugh as if nothing had happened and said, "How fierce! I was just joking."
His arm dropped, and a small blue five-petal round flower fell on the dark ridge of the field. Chen Youhan's lips curved upwards reluctantly. What the hell was he talking about? What was he pretending to be deeply in love with?
Ye Kai really didn't want to watch his clumsy performance anymore. He glanced at his face indifferently, turned around and walked away.
The two walked very slowly on the nearly one-kilometer long winding mountain road, occasionally startling the barking of dogs. The lights in each house were gradually turned off, and the village was silent under the starlight.
When we arrived at Tashi's house, the animals were asleep, and the living room on the second floor was lit. Tashi sat in front of the stove, wiping his Tibetan knife with a soft cloth. Ye Kai stopped and asked, "Do you have any wine?"
Zhaxi put the blade back into the beautiful and majestic scabbard. His long smiling face looked even darker and redder under the yellow electric light. He wiped his hands and said, "Yes, we have barley wine."
Ye Kai put his hands in his pockets and smiled: "Give me four bottles."
Chen Youhan took the cigarette out of his mouth, stunned and surprised: "What are you doing?"
Ye Kai ignored him. After a while, Zhaxi brought out four glass bottles of one-pound highland barley wine. Ye Kai took them and threw two bottles to Chen Youhan. Chen Youhan caught them in a panic, looking as if he had seen a ghost.
Ye Kai turned around and went downstairs: "Zaxi, hold the door open for us."
Zhaxi nodded and sat back down by the fire to polish his precious silver knife.
The noise of someone coming downstairs startled the livestock and caused a commotion.
Ye Kai held two glass necks in one hand, and was grabbed by Chen Youhan as soon as he entered the yard: "Are you sick?"
"Brother Youhan, you must not know how much I can drink now." Ye Kai looked at him gently and calmly: "Don't you still have feelings for me? I'll give you a chance."
Chen Youhan reflexively wanted to deny it, but after moving his lips, he didn't say a word.
"I'm really troubled by your behavior." Ye Kai unscrewed the bottle cap and took a sip. His expression remained motionless, as if he was drinking water.
"You know, sometimes you really can't hide the way you look at me." He took another big sip, raised the back of his hand to wipe the corner of his mouth, his posture was lazy, calm and beautiful, "What should I say to you. Is it because you haven't seen each other for two years that your mentality has aged? That's why you do such a stupid thing as looking back for your ex-lover. Or is it that you have realized too late in middle age that you think you have found love and want to pick it up again?"
Chen Youhan managed to force a faint smile. The embarrassment of being exposed in front of him was nothing compared to the intense panic in his heart. The concern that crossed the line at any time, the vague ambiguity in the words... As long as Ye Kai didn't make it clear, he could still continue to deceive himself. After being exposed and made clear, how could he continue as if nothing had happened? Even dogs are not so mean.
"I told you, I was joking, don't get me wrong." He remained calm.
Ye Kai raised his lips sarcastically: "What did I misunderstand? Did I misunderstand the way you looked at me, or did I misunderstand the screensaver of your iPad?" He shook off Chen Youhan's hand, pushed open the courtyard door, walked towards the dark and quiet meadow under the night sky, and headed towards the distant snow-capped mountains bathed in starlight, "... Did I misunderstand your hints and tests one after another, or did I misunderstand that you were so humble in front of me that you were not as cautious as you thought?"
Chen Youhan turned around and walked back in panic: "I don't know what you are talking about."
The phone rings.
Ye Kai picked up the phone: "Hello."
Chen Youhan's steps froze. As the night deepened and the temperature grew colder, he began to shiver.
"Yes, of course I do." Ye Kai turned his back to Chen Youhan and said in a low voice, "There's still a week left before we go back. ... Japanese food? Okay, ... nothing special. Looking at the snow-capped mountains. Yeah, I can watch it at night too... Feeling excited? Don't lie to me, you don't have the time... Of course I'll be disappointed."
He chatted calmly with Lucas on the phone for three minutes, and the "good night" at the end was unusually gentle.
"Brother Youhan, I'll only give you one chance tonight." Ye Kai slowly walked into the meadow, "Let's talk."
The soil was soft, and the low shrubs on the edge of the pasture were hard and prickly. The tall barley stalks looked strange and intimidating in the moonlight. Ye Kai walked for nearly 20 meters, one foot deep and one foot shallow, and finally the soft green grass stretched under his feet. The night dew wet his boots and trouser legs, but he didn't care. He sat on the ground and waited quietly for more than ten seconds, and Chen Youhan knelt down beside him.
"After I went to Beijing, no one cared about me, so I drank every night. I met Jiang Yan in a bar. You won't believe it, I didn't make a single friend in the whole semester. Jiang Yan was the first one. I had a fight with someone, and he helped me out." Ye Kai took a sip from the bottle. "He is a senior and has only been in school for a short time, but he would pull me along whenever he had time. Without him, I don't know how far I would have fallen."
"I met Lucas when I was skiing in France. I spent my holidays in Vancouver for the past two years. Coincidentally, he is also from Vancouver and lives very close to my grandmother's house. He often jokes that maybe he and I have met each other a long time ago. Brother Youhan, there are many ways to interpret fate. I used to think that you and I were a perfect match made in heaven and destined to be together, but later I didn't think so. You see, Lucas and I can also be said to have a lot of fate."
"You asked me why I didn't go abroad to study. It was because my mother didn't let me. I had made up my mind not to tell you before, but now that I'm trying to let it go, it doesn't matter. After leaving your house that day, I became mute." Chen Youhan turned his head to look at him, and saw Ye Kai lowering his head and laughing at himself. "For more than a month, I had stress aphasia. I couldn't hide it for more than half a month, and my mother almost had someone kill you. She didn't dare to leave me alone abroad anymore, and she said she would make me stay in China. Fortunately - fortunately, I really tried my best to get into Tsinghua University for you."
Chen Youhan clenched the wine bottle tightly, his stomach twisted into a ball.
"I almost ended up in a mental hospital - it's almost over now, the psychiatry department is optimistic about it anyway. Medication, hypnosis, counseling and language rehabilitation - never mind, don't be scared, it's not that scary." Ye Kai's eyebrows were gentle, the starlight dimmed, and the emotions in his eyes were calm and deep, "It's all over now, I'm fine now."
Without waiting for Chen Youhan to speak, he took a deep breath and said, "I lied to you when I wrote that letter. What about 'we all have to move on'? I'm not as carefree as I thought. I almost died. I was sick all the time. I missed you even when I was sick. I wondered why you didn't come to see me. Being sick was really painful. Every day I looked at the door of the ward and dreamed whether you would come to see me. Even if we're not in a relationship, I'm still your brother, right? We've been together for more than a year, but we've known each other for eighteen years. Eighteen years, even if a dog you've raised for so long was to die of illness, you'd still feel bad."
Chen Youhan gritted his teeth, his jawline was as stiff and tight as stone. He said hoarsely and painfully: "I don't know... Baby, I'm sorry, I really don't know."
"You can know." Ye Kai was silent, "Have you looked for me? You just didn't look for me, and you didn't ask me whether I was doing well or not."
Chen Youhan seemed to have something to say, but finally closed his eyes in pain.
"I'm not saying this to tell you how pathetic I was back then. Looking back now, I find it incredible...Brother Youhan," Ye Kai almost suffocated, took two breaths, and then continued, "How could I have loved you so much back then."
The two words "at the beginning" made Chen Youhan bleed.
"If it was just an exchange of 20 billion, I wouldn't be so hurt. I understand, I really understand. I'm not deceiving myself when I say I would make the same choice. If the positions were switched, I would really do the same. No one knows you better than me. I fell in love with you because I know all about you." He pursed his lips and looked at the grass foam on the upper of his shoes. "...It's just that I thought you loved me as much as I loved you. I never doubted it. It turns out that you really will get tired of me."
After he finished speaking such a long paragraph, he took a long breath, raised the bottle and clinked it with the one in Chen Youhan's hand, "I've said so much, it seems like it's all nonsense, just listen to it casually."
The snow-capped mountains were really glowing. He looked up at them from afar. The wind blew through the black wilderness like a sobbing shepherd.
The cold liquid slid down my throat into my stomach. The burning sensation belatedly surged up from my limbs and bones. ...Wine is really a good thing.
"What about you? Have you found someone you like in the past two years..." Ye Kai smiled, "Probably not, otherwise you wouldn't come back to me now. How long did it take me to forget you? Every time I get drunk, I imagine who you are with now, whether you are tall or thin, male or female, good-looking, cute, gentle or not. Will you fry steak for him, will you take him home, have new fingerprints been recorded in the fingerprint database? You won't call him baby, will you also tell him that you really want to see you every day. Will he help you tie your tie, will he help you fold your pocket handkerchief, will he be frank or shy when going to bed, will he fascinate you so much that you will never think of me again from now on-" Ye Kai lowered his head, his palms pressed tightly against his tightly closed burning eye sockets, "It's so painful, Chen Youhan, it really hurts. It hurts more than when you rejected me outside your door, it hurts so much that I finally dare not take chances."
"I have no other intention in telling you this - I was very angry when I saw your iPad screensaver today. It was ridiculous and irritating."
Chen Youhan responded hoarsely: "I'll change it when I get back."
Ye Kai seemed to find it funny and laughed briefly, "Aren't you going to ask me why I'm angry?"
"Because you think I'm shameless." Chen Youhan tilted his head back and took a big gulp of wine: "After causing you so much pain, how can I still have the nerve to show that I still miss you."
Ye Kai said "hmm" softly, and then said: "I would rather see you hugging me left and right next time we meet, being promiscuous and ruthless like before, than seeing you unable to let go of me at all."
Chen Youhan smiled bleakly: "So that's how it is."
The bottle was empty, and he unscrewed another one. His personal doctor had repeatedly warned him not to drink too much, and his stomach simply couldn't bear it anymore. But it was cold enough tonight, and only by drinking continuously could he warm the coldness in his limbs and stop the trembling that seeped from the depths of his bones.
"I understand." Chen Youhan's voice trembled. "Xiao Kai, you are not going to give me a chance today, but to issue a death notice - I am no longer qualified, right?"
Such a small school building project would not take up more than two days of his time, so it would be okay for him to leave early.
"I'm leaving tomorrow."
Ye Kai bent his knees and buried his face deeply.
"In the past two years you have--" His voice was muffled, as if it came from his chest.
"I've been fine these past two years, much better than you," Chen Youhan said softly and in a hoarse voice, "I was the one who broke up and said I was tired of you. Although I feel regretful, it's not as painful as you. You're right that I regret it now. It's the delusion and novelty that came with seeing you again suddenly. I'm sorry for being so abrupt."
Ye Kai shuddered. He wanted to hear this answer, this was the answer he was expecting. He was determined to let it go. He hated that the last bit of love he had for Chen Youhan had ignited a spark of reluctance in just a few days of contact. He came here today to break up... but why did his chest feel tight?
"Did you bring him home and introduce him formally?" Chen Youhan held Ye Kai's slender hand. His palm was large and warm, and Ye Kai was so familiar with it that he almost collapsed.
He didn't say anything, so Chen Youhan took it as his consent.
"I didn't make it to your twentieth birthday, so as your brother, I'll give you this as my last gift," Chen Youhan squeezed Ye Kai's palm. Ye Kai raised his head, his drunken eyes blurry and dazed, and saw Chen Youhan's lips opening and closing in front of him, and his voice rang in his ears: "Grandpa knows your sexual orientation, he won't stop you."
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