Chapter 34 – Xing Baichuan 1.6

I woke up in the morning and saw that Jiangluo’s door was open. Initially, I thought he had woken up and was ready to wash up, so I planned to call him out. But when I stood at the doorway, I found that the guy was still asleep, with the little one snuggling and wriggling on his chest.

The scene was adorable, captivating my gaze.

I reached into the pocket of my pajama pants, but my phone wasn’t there. I didn’t want to waste time fetching it, so I gave up on taking a photo and instead focused on engraving the scene in my mind.

Jiangluo woke up soon after, gasping for breath with his mouth wide open. He must have been having a nightmare. Seeing the little one, he wore an expression of helplessness.

He looked particularly amusing when he was half-asleep, like a student who wanted to stay in bed but was forced to get up.

I told him to wash up and then eat breakfast. He was about to get out of bed, but then he retreated back under the covers.

I had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Holding the little one, I left and closed the door behind me.

As I went downstairs, I kept thinking about whether Jiangluo’s physical reaction indicated that Yi Li’s treatment was working.

I immediately turned around and headed back to my room. I had to call Yi Li right away; I couldn’t afford to delay for even a moment.

It took a long time for Yi Li to answer the phone, and when he did, he sounded groggy. “Why are you calling so early in the morning…”

“Jiangluo had morning wood. Does that mean the treatment is effective?” I got straight to the point, sounding somewhat anxious.

“Huh?” It seemed like he took a moment to process it, then burst out laughing. “Xing Baichuan! What’s wrong with you? Paying so much attention to someone else’s morning wood? Are you a pervert?”

“…Don’t change the subject, answer my question.” I felt embarrassed by his comment, realizing that I might indeed be acting a bit excessively.

“Of course not!” Yi Li said. “Jiangluo has sexual aversion, not erectile dysfunction. He can get an erection; it’s just that he can’t tolerate sexual intercourse.”

“But he wasn’t—”

“Xing Baichuan, have you ever studied the clinical manifestations of sexual aversion?” He chuckled lightly. “Is this how you care about Jiangluo? You don’t even know what his condition is all about! Well, you’ve disturbed my sleep early in the morning. I’m not talking to you anymore. I’m going back to sleep!”

He hung up the phone right after that. I tried to ask more questions, but he simply refused the call.

He was right. I hadn’t truly understood Jiangluo’s condition, which was indeed my oversight.

Since he had hung up on me, I opened my browser and started searching for information about sexual aversion. Online sources stated that most patients with sexual aversion had normal sexual arousal, with only a minority experiencing erectile dysfunction or orgasmic function disorders alongside it.

Sneakily searching for such things in my room made me feel as though I was losing my mind.

I didn’t notice when the little one had run out. By the time I put down my phone and went downstairs to eat, my parents and Jiangluo were already seated at the dining table.

“What are you dawdling for?” My mother picked up her bowl and started eating, telling Jiangluo, who was getting up to serve me porridge, “Jiangluo, don’t bother with him. Let him serve himself.”

I pressed Jiangluo’s shoulders to make him sit back down and served myself a bowl of porridge. Then I came over and sat next to him.

“I’ll be working overtime tonight,” I said. “Jiangluo, you’re coming with me.”

Upon hearing this, Jiangluo seemed pleased, while my mother said unhappily, “If you have to work overtime, then do so. Why drag Jiangluo along?”

She now treated Jiangluo as if he were her own son, while I felt like an outsider who had intruded.

“It’s my duty,” Jiangluo said with a smile to my mother. “There are a lot of things going on at the company again, and we’re short-staffed. I should help out more.”

That silenced my mother. After some thought, she told Jiangluo to make sure he ate well that night.

On our way to the company, we talked about this matter. Jiangluo laughed, a bit shyly. “Maybe it’s because I was the one accompanying Auntie whenever you weren’t around. She got used to it.”

“You can’t accompany her forever. Stop indulging her. Look, even Dad doesn’t revolve around her.”

Jiangluo softly murmured, “Yes, I can’t be with you all my life.”

In that instant, he seemed particularly dejected. I felt that I might have said something wrong again. Just as I was about to explain, Jiangluo said, “Brother, I’ve been looking at houses recently. They’re quite close to the company, so it’ll be convenient later on.”

“Huh? What’s going on with the house? Did the landlord say something or did the real estate agent contact you?” I subconsciously assumed that there was a problem with our current residence that prompted him to look for another place, but I never expected him to say, “No, I’m planning to move out.”

I had never imagined that one day Jiangluo would propose moving out on his own.

Moving out meant leaving us.

For the rest of the day, I could barely focus on anything. All I could think about was him moving out.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask him why he wanted to move out, nor could I find the words to persuade him to stay, although I had repeated those words countless times in my heart.

I seemed to lack both the position and the right to demand anything from him. When I asked him to live with us initially, he didn’t refuse. We supported each other through the most painful period, and now, things were gradually improving. If he wanted to leave, I had no right to object.

But I was troubled.

Just the thought of not seeing Jiangluo cuddling with the little one on the couch watching TV with my mother when I returned home bothered me. The idea of not seeing him when I woke up in the middle of the night to smoke on the balcony upset me. The thought of not being able to spend almost every waking hour with him frustrated me.

I was so distressed that I didn’t want to do anything.

He handed me a business plan, and I didn’t say anything. I told him to leave it here and dismissed him.

The sight of Jiangluo’s back as he left reminded me of the day his watch strap suddenly broke. I instinctively looked at his wrist, but his sleeve was covering it, so I couldn’t see if he was wearing the watch I gave him.

My lack of focus on work caused everything to fall behind schedule.

I had originally planned to work overtime that evening to finalize the last details of the project, but given my current state, I couldn’t concentrate properly. So, I let everyone go home, including Jiangluo.

“You go home first. I need to meet a friend.” As we went downstairs together, once we reached the ground floor, he left the elevator and went out the front door to hail a taxi, while I went straight to the B1 level to fetch my car.

What friend did I have to meet? Apart from Jiangluo, the only person I could turn to was Yi Li, but I didn’t want to see him.

That man was always chattering incessantly, and I just wanted to be alone.

I found a teahouse and drank tea by myself.

While savoring the tea, I pondered about Jiangluo.

We had known each other for roughly half a year, from late autumn to spring, and we had gone through quite a few experiences together.

Perhaps, the vast majority of people in this world would never experience a half-year period as intense as ours in their entire lives.

I recalled the first time we met, when he looked haggard, wrapped in an oversized black windbreaker, as if a gust of wind could blow him over.

I remembered when we first met, and he wanted to jump off the balcony on the twentieth floor of the hotel, scaring the living daylights out of me.

I remembered him holding Bolin’s suicide note, sobbing uncontrollably, and I remembered him hiding away to smoke all night.

Later on, we began to forget the pain, deliberately so, because no one wanted to live in the gloomy past.

I didn’t know if we had truly moved on yet. Every time I saw Bolin’s photo, I would still feel heartache, but I wouldn’t be suffocated by unbearable pain as I used to be.

Perhaps I had indeed transferred my love for Bolin onto Jiangluo, and that was why I was so devastated when he mentioned moving out.

Everything finally made sense.

My feelings for Jiangluo were like this.

I sent Yi Li a WeChat message, confiding my confusion. I had regarded Jiangluo as a substitute for Bolin, and now that he was moving out, it would probably affect not only me but also my parents.

Yi Li replied with just one sentence.

He said, “Do you really just see him as a substitute?”

I frowned tightly, feeling a headache coming on.

When I returned home that night, it was already past eleven o’clock.

My parents were asleep, and Jiangluo was smoking on the balcony again.

“Aren’t you quitting smoking?” I asked him as I approached.

He shook his head. “Can’t quit.”

“There’s nothing you can’t quit,” I said, taking the half-smoked cigarette from his hand and extinguishing it on the balcony. “Everything in this world can be quit.”

I didn’t know if I was saying this to him or to myself. Perhaps I was too reliant on him, relying on the illusion of a complete family that he provided.

If I could quit my misplaced reliance on him, perhaps everything could be resolved.

I turned around and headed back to my room, suddenly wanting to ask him when he was planning to move, but I opened my mouth and still couldn’t bring myself to ask.

Once again, I realized how cowardly I was, lacking the courage to face separation.

The matter of Jiangluo moving out seemed to have been put on the agenda, but I never knew why he suddenly had this idea.

He continued to seek treatment from Yi Li, but still lacked confidence.

His illness remained a secret to my parents, and now, he had another secret—the move.

I kept thinking about finding the right opportunity to tell them, allowing them to mentally prepare themselves, fearing they wouldn’t be able to handle it if it happened suddenly.

However, there never seemed to be a suitable opportunity. I didn’t think there was ever a good time to hurt them.

On weekends, when I had nothing else to do, I still revolved around Jiangluo, accompanying him to his treatments. He would go inside the building, and I would wait outside for him. Then, we’d have a meal together, and I’d accompany him to look at houses.

The one-bedroom apartments he found online were all near the company. The rent was cheap, and the houses were relatively clean—not bad at all.

But every time we finished viewing a house, I would find a multitude of faults that would lead to the rental falling through.

Either the windows were too small, resulting in poor lighting, or the facilities were outdated and not worth the price. In short, there wasn’t a single house that satisfied me.

After another exhausting day, on our way back, Jiangluo said, “Actually, the house we saw earlier was pretty good. I don’t necessarily need a double bed if I’m living alone.”

Suddenly, a wave of sadness washed over me, and I didn’t want to speak.

He fell silent for a moment and then said, “We’ve seen so many. Why don’t we settle on this one?”

“No,” I said. “Let’s keep looking. There must be something better out there.”

It started raining, the first rain of the year.

Pedestrians either covered their heads with bags and hurried along or held umbrellas and leisurely strolled through the rain.

Raindrops hit the car window, seemingly lowering the temperature inside the vehicle.

“Brother,” Jiangluo said, looking out the window with a calm tone. “Do you not want me to move out?”

I didn’t know how to respond. Indeed, I didn’t want him to, not at all.

“I’m afraid Mom and Dad won’t be able to handle it.”

After a long pause, he softly said, “Yeah, I understand. I’ll talk to them.”

The rain grew heavier, more intense than expected. The first rainfall of the year was fierce, and I had a feeling that this summer would be even more unbearable.