TF01 100

By the time Ying Ming got home, Kou Jing and Wang Yiqi were already waiting at the door. It was unclear how long they had been there, but as soon as he opened the car door, they rushed over.

Seeing the state he was in, both of them froze. “What the fuck?”

The injuries weren’t life-threatening, but the pain hadn’t faded yet. Just driving himself home had taken everything out of him. As soon as he stepped inside, he collapsed on the couch and couldn’t move. Kou Jing asked where the first-aid kit was and found it, then the two of them patched him up as best they could.

“You sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”

His arms and legs were bleeding. Bruises were the least of it, and who knew if any bones were broken.

“I’m fine,” Ying Ming waved them off. “These’ll heal in a couple of days.”

Kou Jing let out a sigh. “If you knew it’d come to this, why even go that far…” He trailed off, then glanced at Ying Ming. “Was it Shi Yi’s family?”

The injured man tugged at the corner of his mouth and didn’t answer.

“How’s Shi Yi?” Wang Yiqi, unusually quiet today, suddenly cut in with a question.

Ying Ming let out a long breath and leaned against the couch, shaking his head faintly.

He closed his eyes for a while, trying to rest, and only after a good stretch of silence did he manage to recover enough to speak. “When did you two get here?”

“He was already here when I arrived,” Kou Jing said, pointing at Wang Yiqi.

News of Shi Yi’s father had even made it to the TV. The two of them had seen it and tried to reach Ying Ming, but he hadn’t picked up. Eventually, Kou Jing couldn’t take it anymore and decided to come check on him. He ran into Wang Yiqi already waiting outside, so the two waited together for Ying Ming to get home.

At a time like this, there wasn’t much friends could do. But at the very least, they had to make sure he was still in one piece.

Ying Ming didn’t say a word. He frowned slightly. The last forty-eight hours had been like a waking nightmare. His ears were still ringing. Everything had happened too fast, so fast it had knocked the air out of him. It still didn’t feel real. It was like the world had warped overnight.

Once Ying Ming’s wounds had been tended to, Wang Yiqi offered to go get some food. The two of them had been squatting there for hours without eating, and from the look of Ying Ming, he probably hadn’t had so much as a sip of water. No one objected, so he left to pick something up.

After the door closed behind him, Kou Jing finally spoke.

“Wang Mengqi passed away.”

They had gone around in a giant circle, only to arrive at this ending anyway. And of course, no one could have known in advance.

Ying Ming frowned but didn’t know what to say.

“When the two of us were waiting here for you just now, Wang Yiqi cried pretty hard. He really didn’t expect something like this to happen…” Kou Jing trailed off and couldn’t keep talking. It wasn’t just Wang Yiqi. None of them had imagined things would spiral this far. Haozi just happened to be out of town, otherwise he would have rushed over too. But even if more people had come, what difference would it have made? It wouldn’t have changed anything.

Ying Ming gave a wry smile at Kou Jing’s words. “If I had known this was going to happen, even if I was really forced to break the law, I wouldn’t have agreed to Du Zihua’s demands.”

Tracing it all back now, there was no one he could really blame.

If Shi Yi hadn’t hired someone to beat up Mao Yu. If he had just lent Mao Yu the money back then. If he had asked a few more questions about Wang Yiqi’s condition at the time. If he had pushed harder when Shi Yi refused to go home. Maybe things wouldn’t have ended up this bad. But all those “ifs” were useless now. Time wouldn’t reverse, and the people who were gone wouldn’t come back. Choosing to compromise with someone like Du Zihua was supposed to be a way to minimize the damage. Who would’ve thought that in the end, the price they paid would be the steepest of all. So heavy it was almost impossible to bear.

He let out a frustrated grunt and covered his eyes. He didn’t even know where it hurt more. His whole body ached like it had been stretched too tight.

Kou Jing and Wang Yiqi didn’t stay long. They kept him company through a few bites of dinner, then left. On the way out, Kou Jing told him to call if anything happened. Ying Ming just waved a hand, which counted as a thank you. Wang Yiqi looked like he wanted to say something, but swallowed it back in the end. He knew that right now, Ying Ming would rather be alone.

Because no one could really understand how he felt. Not this kind of mess. Not this kind of misery. Even with friends around, it wasn’t something he wanted anyone to see.

Once Ying Ming was finally alone, he made a call home. Things had blown up so badly by now, his family had definitely heard about it. The reason they hadn’t called him might have been because they knew he was probably in no shape to talk.

The line barely rang once before it was picked up. His dad’s voice came through, heavy and low. “Ying Ming…?”

“Dad…” The moment he spoke, his voice cracked. He gripped the phone tightly, trying to sound as normal as possible. “Is everything okay at home?”

There was a short silence, which sounded like a sigh. It took ten seconds before his father responded, “We’re fine. Don’t worry about us.”

Ying Ming sat slumped on the sofa, phone in hand, feeling that chill in his chest start to creep in again. Neither of them knew what else to say. They just sat there holding the line in silence. After a long while, his father finally spoke again, sounding worn out. “Ying Ming, if you get the chance, come home for a bit. Your mom and I have something we want to talk to you about.”

“Okay.”

He responded quietly.

In his memory, his parents rarely used that tone with him. Even though they weren’t in front of him, he could still picture their expressions and mood right now.

As a son, he really was the worst.

Choking down the self-disgust rising in his chest, he heard his father say simply, “That’s all for now. Go do what you need to.” It sounded like a parting remark, but before he could answer, the call had already ended.

That silent reproach tugged hard at something inside him. He stared at the call log on his screen, unmoving for a long time.

He wiped his face roughly, as if trying to scrub off the uneasy frustration churning inside him. Then he let out a long, heavy breath and slowly looked up, staring at the blank TV in front of him. His own disheveled face reflected faintly in the screen. As he thought back on everything that had happened over the past few days, a dizzying pressure built in his head.

There was a time when he was full of arrogance, thinking he’d never regret any decision he made in life. As long as he believed in something, he would charge ahead, even through fire or mountains. Even back when he had thrown everything away to take that role in a Category III film, he had gritted his teeth and held on for years without regret. But standing outside the hospital room watching Shi Yi’s father die, at that moment, he really did wish time could turn back.

Even that phone call with his family just now had left him drowning in guilt, like a knife had been driven straight into his chest.

The weight of it was unbearable. There was no way to shake it off.

He stared at the phone on the coffee table for a long time. In the end, Ying Ming still picked it up and dialed Shi Yi’s number. The clock on the wall showed ten o’clock at night. The warehouse was as quiet as a grave.

Shi Yi’s phone kept ringing, but no one ever picked up.

The stretched-out tone looped again and again, but Ying Ming didn’t want to hang up. He let it ring until the automated message finally kicked in saying the call could not be connected. Only then did he pause and turn off the screen.

Smoke Ring darted over from beside the sofa and curled up at his feet, flicking him lightly with her tail. It didn’t get any response.

Time passed, but it held no meaning.
Most of the time, Ying Ming just sat on the couch staring into space, letting the hours waste away. He didn’t dare let his phone die, so once in a while he would get up to charge it. As for eating or drinking, he grabbed whatever was within reach. Ever since Wang Yiqi and the others had left, he hadn’t stepped outside. When he turned on the TV, he could still catch news about Shi Yi’s father. Changing the channel would show the photos of him and Shi Yi that had been leaked. It was ridiculous, but he couldn’t stop staring and refused to change it.

He had been in this industry for so many years, seen its ups and downs, and had always thought he could handle anything.

This was the first time he truly hated the media that thrived on stirring up chaos.

If he weren’t an actor, then even if Du Zihua had managed to catch something on camera, it never would have blown up like this.

Looking back now, it felt like everything and everyone had been wrong from the very start.

“Fuck!” He suddenly threw the remote control hard against the wall. Watching it shatter into pieces made him feel like it was a reflection of himself. That outburst, all that pent-up rage, finally gave him an outlet. After that, he went straight for the punching bag and started throwing punches with everything he had. Pain flared across every inch of his body, but it was the kind of raw, almost hysterical pain that finally gave him a tiny sliver of relief.

When he was exhausted to the point of collapse, he would lie on the floor to rest for a bit. As soon as he caught his breath, he went back to hitting.

The wounds on his body tore open again and again. Eventually, his fists were flinging off droplets of blood. He just bit down on the bandages and pulled them tighter, the burning sting all over his skin mixing with sweat he couldn’t even tell was from fatigue or pure stress.

Anyone who knew him would never have believed that Ying Ming would one day fall apart like this, resorting to something so extreme just to feel alive.

In truth, maybe ever since he met Shi Yi, these changes had been piling up. He didn’t even need anyone else to point it out. He could feel it himself. But awareness didn’t mean control. Right now, all Ying Ming wanted was to feel a little relief inside, even if nothing he did felt like him, even if none of the things he said sounded like something he would ever say.

The first person to sense that something was truly wrong was Kou Jing.

Later, when he called to ask Ying Ming what he planned to do next, Ying Ming said something that caught him completely off guard.

“If things really reach that point, I might give up acting altogether.”

Shi Yi’s family had never been under media scrutiny before. This time, it was all because of Ying Ming’s profession. If being an actor meant Shi Yi’s family would have to keep suffering this kind of harassment, then it would eventually come down to a choice between the two.

Kou Jing was stunned. “Mingzi, you’ve held on to this career for so many years. Are you really going to give it up?”

Even at the lowest point of Ying Ming’s career, when he had nearly nothing left, Kou Jing had never once heard him say anything about giving up.

He hadn’t walked every step of this road with Ying Ming, but he knew exactly how much Ying Ming had given for it. For years, all he’d wanted was recognition, to prove himself. That fierce resolve had always been rooted in that desire.

And now he was ready to walk away from it.

Kou Jing didn’t know what to say for a long time.

For the first time, he had the sinking feeling that because of what had happened with Shi Yi’s family, both Ying Ming and Shi Yi might already be broken beyond repair.