Have you ever experienced electroshock therapy because of your sexual orientation?
"Brother Zhou, I have a question, but I'm not sure if I should ask it."
"You ask."
Wen Zichuan thought of the photo on the campus network where Cheng Sizhou and Liu Shixing were kissing on the stage, and the knot in his heart that had just been suppressed came back to him.
"How did you and him get together?" Noticing Cheng Sizhou's movement stiffen, he immediately changed the subject, "I'm not questioning you, I just want to know. You can tell me anything you want, but... don't be sad, and don't apologize."
"It's nothing. I'm just afraid that you'll be unhappy after hearing it." Cheng Sizhou rubbed his hands. It was too hot in the bed and his palms were full of sweat.
"I might have been upset before, but not now. It's all in the past, right?" Wen Zichuan lay on his side, his eyes bright. "Brother Zhou, we met when we were kids, but we didn't grow up together. What a pity. That's why I've always wanted to understand your past, piece it together bit by bit, to build a complete, real you."
Cheng Sizhou also leaned over to him and kissed his forehead: "Real things are often ugly."
Wen Zichuan copied his actions: "It's okay, I have a filter for you."
"What filter?"
“A blind filter.”
"ah……?"
Wen Zichuan snuggled into his arms and clung to him: "No matter what, Brother Zhou is the best in the world."
Cheng Sizhou smiled, but felt a little sad. Apart from Wen Zichuan, who else in the world would think he was good?
What's more, it is the "best in the world" that surpasses everything else.
He sighed, feeling like a person who had been floating in the air for a long time and finally found a soft cloud to land on. From his chest to his back, he felt unprecedented comfort and stability.
"Do you still remember Jiang Anyi?"
"Yes, I remember."
"Back then, they arranged a marriage between me and An Yi."
"If nothing happened to An Yi, then you..."
"What ifs? After An Yi left, I grew up. From elementary school to middle school, many girls confessed their love to me, but they only made me think of An Yi over and over again. Apart from fear and guilt, I couldn't feel any love at all. It wasn't until I went to college that I realized that I might only like the same sex."
"No, no, I don't think the two things are related. You like the same sex because you like the same sex anyway, not because An Yi's passing made you unable to accept girls and so you turned to boys."
"Yeah, but my parents don't think so. About six years ago, they took me to see a psychiatrist, but it didn't help. They also tried electroshock therapy, but that didn't work either."
"Electroshock therapy?? They...shocked you?!"
"Well, my parents both work in hospitals, so they were exposed to those methods earlier than most parents. Even now, when I go home, I can still see books or academic reports at home about whether homosexuality is a disease."
"So you'd rather rent a house?"
"Since we can't convince each other, at least we can separate and not quarrel all the time."
Wen Zichuan knew that his body was covered in wounds, but those scars were invisible. "Electric shock... where did it hit? Did it hurt?"
Cheng Sizhou smiled calmly: "It doesn't hurt, just once. My mother can't bear it, so forget it."
Wen Zichuan stopped talking and buried his head in his neck. He wanted to cry but didn't dare.
The person who was really hurt was laughing. Why should he, who was just listening to the story, cry?
Cheng Sizhou gently stroked his hair and recounted the story. In short, he'd been struggling with his sexuality when he met Liu Shixing. Liu Shixing was close to a group of musicians and said homosexuality was common in the art world and nothing unusual.
"He is also gay, he likes you, so you are together?" Wen Zichuan asked sullenly.
"Well, at least when I face him, I won't think of An Yi anymore." Cheng Sizhou frowned, his eyes full of loneliness.
In the campus singing competition in the second semester of his sophomore year, Liu Shixing won the first place. As her future boyfriend, he had to express his gratitude.
A group of "bad friends" cheered and pushed him onto the stage. Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, he had no way to retreat and could only walk towards his lover holding a big bouquet of flowers.
Under the spotlight and amid the cheers of millions of people, they hugged each other and kissed passionately, leaving behind this enduring love story on the campus of Dengshi Normal University.
But four years later, they broke up.
The last words Liu Shixing said to him were: "Cheng Sizhou, you are the most cowardly person I have ever met. If you hadn't been pushed onto the stage and publicly admitted our relationship, I wouldn't be with you."
Looking back now, it’s really a bit ridiculous.
It was his first time to fall in love, and although he was clumsy, he tried his best to fulfill his obligations and responsibilities as a boyfriend. But with Liu Shixing, it seemed like nothing, and a light word wiped out everything.
Just like back then, he could start whenever he wanted to, and he could end whenever he wanted to.
"Zichuan, I know I have no right to ask anything of you. As long as you don't despise me, I'll be very satisfied." Cheng Sizhou kissed the swirl on the top of his head. "I admit that I'm a coward, but I'm trying to find a way to convince my parents."
Wen Zichuan raised his head and kissed him back on the corner of his lips: "In front of family, that's not called being cowardly, that's called being filial. Just like when my mom tells me to go east, I never dare to go west."
Cheng Sizhou was amused by his reasoning: "Little New Year is coming in a few days. Can you come with me to Master's house and meet my Master and his wife?"
"Can I...?" Wen Zichuan was a little surprised. From his observation, Cheng Sizhou could still do what he wanted in front of his parents, but his master and mistress didn't know his sexual orientation, and there was also the relationship between them and An Yi. How would Brother Zhou introduce himself then?
"Of course, we can just have a meal and get to know each other first."
"Okay, I'll go with you."
Although he felt uneasy, Wen Zichuan still agreed.
He wants to be with Cheng Sizhou for a long time, so sooner or later these two families will have to face each other.
The worst that can happen is that they will look down on me again because of my poor family background. There doesn’t seem to be any difference between being looked down upon once and twice.
Since there is no way to retreat, it is better to let go of the knot and move forward with him.
As the night deepened, Wen Zichuan, taking advantage of his drunkenness, acted coquettishly towards Cheng Sizhou, holding his head and kissing him like a chick pecking at rice, saying that his injuries had healed.
Cheng Sizhou grabbed the hand that was groping around under the quilt and refused to agree, saying that he had just seen the bruises on his elbows and knees had not healed yet and that he couldn't do anything rash.
"Brother Zhou, are you, not feeling well..." Wen Zichuan smiled at him with his face close to his.
"It's not going to work," Cheng Sizhou pushed him back under the quilt and covered the exposed part. "This one is enough for the family. If there's one more, we won't be able to handle it."
"You want one more? Who do you want?!" Wen Zichuan was so angry that he bared his teeth and wanted to bite him on the neck, but when he thought of his scar-prone physique, he retracted his teeth.
"Don't move, there's no heat at all!" Cheng Sizhou twisted his body to avoid being tickled by him, "Hey, you know them all, Mi Xiu, E Qimai, Ning Lie, Wen Hao, Yun Fengyu..."
It was like reading out the names of dishes, he mentioned all the roles he had voiced, and even the order of their appearances was correct.
"Do you like me that much?" Wen Zichuan said awkwardly, but his heart was filled with joy.
"Yes, now that you have caught me, I am yours." Cheng Sizhou held his hand with deep affection in his eyes.
The word "grab" was too ambiguous. On a superficial level, it was Wen Zichuan's pleasant voice that caught his ear; on a deeper level, the thing he handed over and he grabbed, wasn't that...
Wen Zichuan suddenly turned over, turned his back to him, reached under the pillow, took out a cell phone, then crawled into the quilt and didn't move.
"Hey, at least hold the phone correctly, it's mine." Cheng Sizhou took out another one, and sure enough, he took the wrong one again.
"It depends on you."
"Look at me? Are you checking up on me?"
Wen Zichuan opened the photo album, scrolled through a bunch of photos of cultural relics, and found the record from August last year - Cheng Sizhou had indeed saved Wen Hao's makeup photo.
Although "Hao Xue Xing Ge" was only performed once, "Wen Hao" was the only role he played with makeup and in ancient costumes.
Brother Zhou loves stage performances and traditional culture so much. He must have liked himself since he played "Wen Hao", right?
It’s so early.
"Be careful, you'll get bored. Come out!" Cheng Sizhou saw that he didn't move and patted him through the quilt. "What's so funny? Stop laughing and come out."
Not only did Wen Zichuan not come out, he was also pushing and turning inside like a naughty child.
Cheng Sizhou was helpless. The quilt had been tucked in three times tonight. Zichuan didn't usually do this. It showed that alcohol was not a good thing. People would make trouble when they drank too much.
"I'm telling you, if you stay under the covers for too long, your brain won't have enough oxygen. If you can't remember your lines later—!"
Before he could finish his words, he was suddenly enveloped by a soft cavity, and he couldn't remember a single word of what he was going to say next.
"Brother Zhou, how could I dislike you? You don't even know how much I love you."
Some people say that love is the deep sea, the destination of rainwater, rivers, and countless mud and sand.
So in love, there is joy and happiness, but also hardships and trials. If you only want benefits and do not accept the difficulties that come with them, then there is probably no such thing as a pie falling from the sky.
If so, it's most likely a scam.
The 24th day of the 12th lunar month, the Lunar New Year’s Eve, is Tuesday.
According to the rules, Cheng Sizhou had to work until the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month. Fortunately, the second day of the lunar year had already been a holiday, so he asked Wen Zichuan to choose gifts for his master and his mistress.
"Master is very picky. He doesn't have any other hobbies besides drinking tea. Master's wife, on the other hand, rarely goes out, so I don't know much about her preferences over the years. Look at what your mother likes and buy her something based on that."
Cheng Sizhou left him a message, transferred another three thousand yuan, put on gloves and started working, and no longer paid attention to his phone.
Wen Zichuan looked at the screen, hesitated for two seconds, and did not accept it.
It was his first visit, so he should show his appreciation, but using Brother Zhou's money to buy a gift and then giving it away together didn't seem right.
As the New Year draws to a close, shopping malls and supermarkets are packed with people buying New Year's goods, making the scene a bit overly lively.
Wen Zichuan asked himself if he was very good at buying gifts for elders, and he had never bought a gift worth more than four figures for his mother. As soon as he entered the mall, he was dazzled by the dazzling array of gifts.
He went to the tea shop first. Fortunately, he had dubbed for a tea-themed mobile game not long ago and knew a little about tea. So he selected reasonably priced Anji white tea and Zhengshan Xiaozhong for Mr. Jiang.
As for Mrs. Lin, it was even harder to choose. As for his mother's preferences, it was probably because she had worked in a silk factory for more than ten years and had a lot of silk products at home, and perhaps all female elders liked these.
Carrying a gift box of tea and a silk scarf, Wen Zichuan got on the subway and went to the Beijing International Lighting Expo to pick up Cheng Sizhou after get off work.
There were many people on the subway, so he carefully protected the corners of the gift box. It would be too embarrassing if it was broken or wrinkled.
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