CH 84.2

TL: Hua

Shi Yunnan closed his eyes to adjust his breathing and emotions and answered the phone while pretending to be relaxed, “Hello, brother?”

“Yunnan, I just had a meeting at the Kaiyin Academy. It’s over now.”

Wen Yibei’s soft tone came from the other end of the phone, with a hint of intimacy unique to his brother, “Why did you suddenly call me? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. It’s just that I was bored this afternoon and wanted to chat with you.” Shi Yunnan made up an excuse.

“How old are you? Still afraid of being bored and looking for your brother to chat with?” Wen Yibei laughed at him.

Shi Yunnan clutched the invitation in his hand and still couldn’t resist asking, “Brother, I want to ask you something.”

“Huh? Say it.”

“Besides the birthday party, have you met Luo Lingsheng on other occasions?”

The phone conversation hid the lack of confidence in Shi Yunnan’s tone.

Wen Yibei had always trusted his younger brother. He thought Shi Yunnan was curious about Luo Lingsheng’s past, so he pondered for a moment and said, “I have been busy with my career abroad all these years, so I have not returned to China very often.”

“Occasionally, I met Mr. Luo when I returned to China to attend banquets, but Mr. Luo and I weren’t familiar, so we just perfunctorily greeted each other and didn’t communicate much.”

After Wen Yibei finished speaking, he remembered something, “But…”

“But what?”

“Mr. Luo actually came to my first solo concert overseas. I only heard from the staff when I was finishing up that there was a celebratory flower basket from him outside the door.”

Wen Yibei was popular in the music circle, and there were countless friends who sent flowers and blessings that day.

“…..”

Shi Yunnan’s eyes were sore and his mind was no longer on the phone call.

Because at the same time Wen Yibei answered, he saw the concert ticket in the drawer that was properly placed under the invitation letter.

Shi Yunnan recognized the English words on the ticket, which was the theme of Wen Yibei’s first solo concert.

“Yunnan, if you want to get to know your husband, you should go to his circle of friends to find out…”

Wen Yibei, on the other end of the phone, stopped speaking when he noticed a gasping sound. Then he asked, with a trace of nervousness, “Yunnan? Why are you suddenly not talking?”

“It’s nothing. I just feel a little sleepy all of a sudden.”

Shi Yunnan put the invitation back to its original position in the drawer and tried to suppress his emotions, “Brother, I’d better take a nap first, and then I’ll accompany you and Grandpa for dinner in a couple of days.”

“Are you really ok?” Wen Yibei asked worriedly.

“Why not? My life is rich and leisurely. That’s why I’m sleepy.”

Shi Yunnan tried to tease Wen Yibei out of his worries and doubts, and hung up the phone at the last second before his emotional breakdown.

——Isn’t the patriarch hiding someone in his heart? How can he just find someone to get married to?

——The patriarch used to have a crush, but before he could pursue that person, he had an accident and injured his leg.

——I guess he’s hiding the things left by his former crush.

——Shi Yunnan, you know Wen Yibei is many time better than you!

——Everything you have now is actually given to you by Wen Yibei!

At this moment, the dialogue he originally considered ridiculous actually formed the truth that Shi Yunnan had never thought of before.

“So this is the case?”

“Curiosity killed the cat, so that’s what it means.”

Shi Yunnan hummed twice in a self-deprecating manner. He had lost the curiosity to continue to look down, and quickly left the study.

The butler had already set off to pick up Little Goldfish, so Shi Yunnan took the opportunity to visit the wine room on the first floor to get some strong whisky, and shut himself in the bedroom when he returned to the second floor.

“Sorry, the number you’re calling has been switched off. Please try again later…”

Shi Yunnan couldn’t remember how many times he had dialed Luo Lingsheng’s number. He knew he was on the plane and couldn’t be reached, and he knew he wasn’t in a hurry to ask the truth, but he couldn’t help calling again and again.

Finally, the phone automatically shut down when it ran out of power.

Shi Yunnan looked at his own apathetic expression on the black screen of his mobile phone. He was used to holding back and finally failed to shed tears.

Anyone is fine.

Why does it have to be Wen Yibei?

Shi Yunnan asked desperately in his head.

If the “white moonlight” hidden in Luo Lingsheng’s heart was any other person, Shi Yunnan was confident that he could take the other person’s place, but Wen Yibei was the only one he couldn’t.

No matter how crazy or irrational Xie Keyue was, Shi Yunnan had to admit that he was right–even if they were twins, Wen Yibei was very different from him. He couldn’t be compared to his own brother.

Shi Yunnan never resented Wen Yibei, but trusted and relied on him. However, this didn’t affect his deep-rooted perception.

Since his choice at the age of seven, his life has completely diverged from Wen Yibei’s.

From childhood to adulthood, Shi Yunnan could pretend not to listen to outsiders’ ridicule or learn to encourage himself, even pretended to, but he was inferior and sensitive to the bones.

Therefore, he understood Yuan Rui and the pain of the other party, who thought he was living under the shadow of his “brother”.

Right now, Shi Yunnan can trust Luo Lingsheng and Wen Yibei, but he can’t trust himself.

If Luo Lingsheng’s white moonlight was Wen Yibei, then he could never have surpassed him in this lifetime.

…

When the butler knocked on the door, Shi Yunnan didn’t respond; when Little Goldfish knocked on the door, Shi Yunnan didn’t answer.

The drunk Shi Yunnan curled up on the sofa, letting the alcohol burn in his body. The pain that had been suppressed for many years raged in his body until his reason was eroded and engulfed little by little.

An unknown amount of time later, the door was sharply kicked.

The drowsy and confused Shi Yunnan was awakened again. He slowly looked up and a familiar figure came into his sight.

“…Are you back? I-I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

Without the previous provocation, the question carried a tragic sense of inferiority.

Seeing Shi Yunnan’s reddened eyes, Luo Lingsheng felt like his heart had been suddenly squeezed by a pair of invisible hands, and it hurt so much that he could hardly breathe.

As soon as he got off the plane, he saw hundreds of caller IDs popping up frantically on his phone.

From that moment on, Luo Lingsheng asked Yuan Meng to rush home, almost like a madman. He called the butler halfway, but only got ambiguous news—Mr. Shi had locked himself in his room since last night for some unknown reason.

Luo Lingsheng rushed home as fast as he could, only to see the scene in front of him now: the lover, whom he held dear at the tip of his heart, was cowering on the sofa, surrounded by empty wine bottles.

Luo Lingsheng approached him immediately, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Shi Yunnan habitually inclined his head and nestled against Luo Lingsheng’s palm, “Luo Lingsheng, do you love him or me now?”

“Who?”

Luo Lingsheng frowned.

Seeing his reaction, Shi Yunnan shook his head with a wry smile.

He lowered his head to hide his tears and asked in a muffled voice, “Are you still hiding from me? I, I already knew…”

Shi Yunnan noticed that there was no wheelchair beside Luo Lingsheng and gave a laugh with teary eyes. He then began to stubbornly state, “You used to have a person you liked a lot, but you didn’t go after him because of the inconvenient legs.”

“Now that your legs are almost healed, do you still want to chase him?”

“I’ve thought about it. If it’s other people, I’m not willing to let go, but if it’s him, I can quit.”

“I, Shi Yunnan, am not a person who can’t let go. A-at worst, I’ll continue to hide abroad and never come back.”

The bitter feelings surrounded Shi Yunnan from the inside out.

Hearing his lover’s intention to leave, Luo Lingsheng’s expression suddenly changed, and he directly imprisoned his lover in his embrace, “You are not allowed to go anywhere!”

Perhaps his tone was too serious and it made Shi Yunnan subconsciously tremble.

Luo Lingsheng felt distressed and restrained himself in an instant. Instead, he asked in an extremely helpless tone, “Who said I liked someone else?”

Seeing that he was trapped in his embrace and unable to break free, Shi Yunnan shouted after the alcohol got to his head, “You don’t have to deny it; I just know that you have a white moonlight hidden in your heart!”

“If you still love him to death, don’t come and mess with me!”

“…..”

Luo Lingsheng caressed his cheek to soothe him. As for the question, he was at a loss as to how to answer, “White moonlight? Are you jealous of ‘that person’?”

“Jealous? What am I jealous of? Do you think I care?” Shi Yunnan held back his tears, but his voice was trembling, “But why do you all like him?”

“Luo Lingsheng, why do you all like my brother?”

When Luo Lingsheng heard the latter half of the sentence, he suddenly realized the reason for Shi Yunnan’s pain.

Before he could open his mouth to explain, Shi Yunnan fell into a complete meltdown and asked, in a thick, crying voice, “Why doesn’t anyone like me?”

“Grandpa doesn’t like me, and Dad doesn’t like me either. They all just want Yibei to stay in Shi’s house. On the surface, they let us choose, but everyone wants my brother, and they don’t want me.”

The young Shi Yunnan remembered Wen Min’s words before her death: the Wen family was a good place to study music.

Obviously, I was also very good as a child. It was me. I was the one who gave up my favorite violin before my brother did.”

“Luo Lingsheng, do you know? I won an award when I was a child. I could have done as well as my brother, I also want to hold my own concert!”

“If I had chosen the Wen family back then… maybe, maybe…”

Luo Lingsheng’s hand tightened around Shi Yunnan’s body, “Maybe what?”

“If you attended the birthday party in my name and watched the concert in my name, you might have fallen in love with me.”

“…..”

Luo Lingsheng heard these intermittent remarks and suddenly understood, “Have you been to the study?”

Shi Yunnan was so immersed in his despair that he paid no attention to Luo Lingsheng’s question.

He was too tired.

He was really tired after being on his own all these years.

“I don’t want to go to a foreign school, I don’t want to be bullied by that group of foreign students, I don’t want to be locked up in a warehouse so dark that I can’t see anything, and I don’t want to earn my own salary in the summer by handing out flyers in a doll suit….”

“Why do I have to be the one that nobody wants! Why didn’t Shi Houde and Shi Sheng want me!”

“Where did I fail? Where did I fail!”

“No one ever tells me what I didn’t do right; they don’t even give me a chance to change it, and then they all don’t want me.”

Luo Lingsheng was very upset. He didn’t stop the hysterical Shi Yunnan, but let the other party vent in his arms.

Luo Lingsheng knew it better than anyone.

Whether it’s Shi Yunnan who was drunk at the age of eighteen or Shi Yunnan who was now lying in his arms, these only two painful cries were enough to prove the grievance he hid deep inside.

Time passed until Shi Yunnan quieted down in his arms.

Luo Lingsheng took the opportunity to kiss his lover’s forehead, stroking his head, cheeks, and neck, and then patted his back again and again to comfort him.

“Yunnan, they don’t want you, but I want you, I’ve always wanted you.”

“You lied…” Shi Yunnan raised his head. Only the grievance remained after the hysteria, “You hid the invitation letter for the birthday party and the concert ticket. I saw it all.”

Luo Lingsheng leaned closer and asked, “You only saw those two things?”

Shi Yunnan pursed his lips and said, “Aren’t these two things enough?”

Luo Lingsheng bit his ear punishingly and replied word by word, “Shi Yunnan, listen clearly.”

“At the eighteenth birthday banquet, the one I noticed was you.”

“I guessed that you would go to Wen Yibei’s solo concert, so that’s why I went as well.”

“The ticket for that concert was not something I wanted to keep as a souvenir for Wen Yibei, but you left it on the seat after the concert and I picked it up.”

“There are not only drawers in the study, but the things hidden in other places are also related to you. If you want to see it, I will show you one by one slowly.”

Shi Yunnan didn’t react for a while. He missed the warmth of Luo Lingsheng’s arms and was reluctant to move, “You, you don’t like my brother?”

I despise looking for a substitute to satisfy my feelings and have always made a clear distinction between you two brothers.”

Shi Yunnan gradually realized he’d made a mistake and let out an embarrassed snort, only to hear Luo Lingsheng solemnly say—

“Shi Yunnan, from the very beginning, the person hiding in my heart was you.”

The author has something to say:

Little Fox: Pah! The white moonlight is actually me.