Chapter 2 (2/2)

He used to be excellent in singing, his voice pleasing to the ear. Unable to control himself, Jiang Yishan placed down the wine glass and hummed along to the music flowing from of the television, but by the time the chorus played, his voice no longer had the clean and pure tone like before. After singing two lines, Jiang Yishan laughed. “Pooh.”

He drank another glass, muttering to himself, “I sound like dumb cymbals, horrid to the core.”

It took Qin Shaocheng an hour to wash the dishes, similar to the time Jiang Yishan spent lazing around on the carpet.

Having finished the bottle of wine, Jiang Yishan rested at the corner of the sofa, waiting for Qin Shaocheng to unwarningly appear and drive him out of the apartment. How he yearned for Qin Shaocheng to talk to him, even if all he did was curse at him out of anger.

He missed him dearly and he admitted he was wrong.

Yet, Qin Shaocheng ignored him, pretending as though he was nothing but air. Once he was done washing the dishes, he came out of the kitchen, heading to the balcony to put away the laundry. He then went to shower. Clambering up onto his feet from the carpet, Jiang Yishan staggered towards the bathroom door and gave it a knock.

“I want to use the bathroom.”

This old place did not have a separate space for the shower, and even then, the bathroom was small and narrow. Back then, after installing the bathtub that Jiang Yishan had wanted, there was hardly any space left to place the toilet. The door soon opened and a steaming, misty and wet Qin Shaocheng stood at the door.

With a faint smile, Jiang Yishan lowered his head. “I lied. Honestly, I was bored to death because I couldn’t see you.”

Qin Shaocheng’s brows twisted into a knot again.

Finally, he reacted. Jiang Yishan threw his arms around Qin Shaocheng’s waist and held him close, feeling the warmth and inhaling the scent radiating and permeating off his body. He then softly said, “Can we watch TV together, please?”

Qin Shaocheng forcefully pulled Jiang Yishan’s hands away from his body. “Don’t pretend to be drunk.”

“I’m not drunk. I’m good at drinking now!” Even when Jiang Yishan straightened up, he was still shorter than Qin Shaocheng by ten centimetres. “Why don’t we spend all night together to see the new year in?”

Qin Shaocheng ignored him.

“Can you talk with me, please?” Jiang Yishan trailed after him. “Shaocheng, please don’t ignore me.”

A soft ‘Click!’ sounded out in the air and Jiang Yishan was left outside the bedroom door.

The world was quiet at last.

Qin Shaocheng sat at the edge of his bed, switched on his cell phone to reply all the New Year’s greetings he received one by one. His colleagues were all heckling him for a New Year’s red packet, which Qin Shaocheng gave generously. Wei Feng soon gave him a call not even a minute later, and the first thing that came spouting out of his mouth was to ask, “Jiang Yishan’s at your place?!”

“How did you find out?”

“He uploaded a photo on Weibo.” There was an uncontrollable anger surging in Wei Feng’s voice. “Are you insane? You still care about him?! Did you forget about all those things he did?”

Qin Shaocheng was suddenly overcome with a splitting headache. He rubbed his temples and said, “He came by himself.”

Wei Feng cursed, “What a fucking cockroach.”

“Let’s not talk about it during New Year’s.”

Since Qin Shaocheng had put it like that, Wei Feng did not dare to say anything else apart from mumbling how wretched it was under his breath. The two of them exchanged new year blessings over the phone before ending the call.

Leaning back against the bed, Qin Shaocheng pulled up Jiang Yishan’s Weibo account.

His newest post only contained a photo he shot of the reunion dinner they had on New Year’s Eve. Just one look at the background, the coffee table and the familiar man on the carpet, and he could tell it was his home. The comments were in an absolute mess and all sorts of messages could be seen. A message that said, “It’s New Year’s and you lot are still shitting on him so horridly, I finally laughed out loud in relief.” got honored as the top comment.

Was his reputation this horrible now?

Qin Shaocheng threw the phone away and plopped back on his bed. His mind wandering back to the time he had asked Jiang Yishan “Why?” when they broke up.

With a calm expression, Jiang Yishan explained that he wanted to become famous. He could not bear to part with the satisfaction of being loved and worshipped by an audience as a celebrity. He had explained that he loved the attention he was showered with and he could not stand being criticised and accused of being gay by the people. He had also said, he was willing to abandon everything for the time being to continue being a star.

And yeah, the words he said, “abandon everything for the time being”, was not enough to kill Qin Shaocheng’s hope entirely. Instead, he still recklessly went to hopelessly entangle himself with Jiang Yishan after the breakup, utterly bewitched into being his secret lover for an entire year.

Compliant and always at his beck and call.