It would probably take a long time before An Tianming fully realized that he wasn’t actually dead—his body was simply in a coma. At this moment, he stood in a daze, watching Bai Wei.
Half a minute ago, Zheng Zhong had asked Bai Wei if he was willing to visit An Tianming.
Bai Wei had remained silent for a full thirty seconds.
Finally, he slowly lifted his head and looked at Zheng Zhong. “You know… I might not even want An Tianming to wake up.” His tone was calm. Even if this wasn’t a conclusion he had carefully thought through, he had clearly made up his mind. “Do you think I should go see him?”
Zheng Zhong, caught off guard by the question, studied Bai Wei with an unreadable expression.
Bai Wei continued nonchalantly, “If you were to threaten me using my family and friends, I would go. But tell me, what would be the point? Do you really think I could wake An Tianming up?”
Zheng Zhong’s gaze darkened as he looked at Bai Wei. “If you actually had the power to wake President An, what would you do?”
Bai Wei didn’t even need a second to think. “First of all, I would never believe that I could wake him up.”
“…And then?”
“There is no ‘then.’” Bai Wei said. “Whether I want An Tianming to wake up or not, what I want even more… is to never have anything to do with him ever again.”
Zheng Zhong remained motionless at the bedside for a long time.
Bai Wei raised his head and met Zheng Zhong’s scrutinizing gaze. “Maybe you could be the one to wake him up.” His words were casual, almost offhanded.
A flicker of emotion crossed Zheng Zhong’s face. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”
“I do.” Bai Wei’s tone softened slightly. “I know you like him.”
“No—” Zheng Zhong instinctively denied it.
This time, Bai Wei cut him off. “Whether or not that’s true, I just want to tell you… your decision back then, I can understand why you did it.”
Zheng Zhong’s face darkened. His expression turned cold. “I don’t need your forgiveness.”
Bai Wei was unfazed. “I know you do. Because you’re not a bad person. And precisely because you’re not a bad person, I hope you stop feeling guilty. An Tianming’s situation isn’t entirely your fault. Both he and I bear responsibility, just the same.”
Zheng Zhong stood frozen in place for a long time.
The heavy silence finally gave An Tianming enough time to process the situation. He still loathed Zheng Zhong for what he had done behind his back, but even so, he had to admit—whether it was out of love or something else—what Zheng Zhong did to him, or rather, what he did to Bai Wei, was nowhere near as despicable as what he had done to Bai Wei.
“I’ve said everything I wanted to say. Everything I could say. Mr. Zheng, I hope we never meet again.” Bai Wei politely, yet firmly, made it clear that their conversation was over.
Zheng Zhong snapped back to reality, but instead of leaving, he couldn’t help but ask, “If you can forgive me, why can’t you forgive President An?”
At last, Bai Wei’s composed, seemingly unshakable demeanor shattered in an instant. What remained was a raw, unguarded helplessness.
An Tianming, who had long since forgotten that he no longer needed to breathe, instinctively held his breath as he anxiously watched Bai Wei. Then, Bai Wei spoke—his voice so quiet, it was almost like he was talking to himself.
“How could I possibly have anything left to forgive him with?”
“Fear has taken up every last part of my emotions when it comes to him. Do you think I still have room to even consider whether or not I can forgive him?”
An Tianming had no idea when Zheng Zhong left. He also didn’t think about the possibility that if he left with Zheng Zhong, found his own body, maybe—just maybe—he could wake up.
Right now, the only thought in his mind was to stay by Bai Wei’s side. To remain close to the person who, apart from fear, no longer had a single shred of emotion left for him.
“If you don’t want me to wake up, then I won’t wake up. Is that okay, Xiao Wei?”
An Tianming’s voice echoed in the empty space, a meaningless monologue only he could hear. His emotions were spiraling out of control, yet he had no way to vent, no outlet to release them.
“Xiao Wei, I really regret it… Why did I become this kind of person…” Someone like me, who made a person with such a strong and beautiful heart despair to the point that all he could feel for me was fear…
“Xiao Wei…”
An Tianming listened to his own voice—raw and broken, like the final howl of a trapped beast. And then, at that moment, Bai Wei suddenly looked up, a flicker of panic in his eyes as he turned toward An Tianming’s direction.
“Xiao Wei?” An Tianming’s breath hitched as he blurted out in excitement.
But Bai Wei’s gaze quickly passed through him. After scanning the space around him and finding nothing, his expression gradually calmed, returning to its usual detached serenity.
An Tianming forced himself to steady his emotions, letting out a bitter chuckle.
“Xiao Wei, could it be that you do sense me… but because you don’t want to acknowledge me, you’re just pretending not to see or hear anything?”
At that moment, the door to the hospital room was pushed open.
The person who walked in was Li Lang.
An Tianming had genuinely wanted to match Bai Wei with Li Lang, yet now that he was here, An Tianming felt nothing but frustration.
—Perhaps it was because he noticed how Bai Wei’s entire demeanor shifted upon seeing Li Lang. The obvious sense of relief, the trust, the way his body instinctively relaxed.
“You once said that if I ran into trouble again, maybe you wouldn’t show up next time. Look at you—not keeping your word at all,” Bai Wei teased with a bright smile.
Li Lang responded with a matching smile, though his eyes remained earnest. “That wasn’t a promise—just my concern.”
At his words, Bai Wei’s initial expression of happiness faded slightly, as if realizing something. With a deliberate air of distance, he gently reminded, “Ah Lang, thank you. You’re a really good friend.”
For a split second, Li Lang’s smile wavered, a hint of bitterness flashing across his face. But it disappeared just as quickly. He shrugged nonchalantly. “I just thought that if you somehow managed to injure yourself at home so badly that you ended up hospitalized, I had to come see it for myself.”
“This wasn’t my fault,” Bai Wei retorted stubbornly. “I told you, my place is haunted.”
Li Lang gave him a thoughtful look. “And what are the chances this is just an excuse?”
“Fifty-fifty, I’d say.” Bai Wei mused, his tone growing a bit uncertain. “Lately, I’ve been noticing that some things in my house aren’t where I originally placed them.”
Li Lang instinctively furrowed his brows. “Maybe you just misremembered?”
“Once or twice, sure, I wouldn’t think much of it. But there have been times where I deliberately placed something in the center of the table, and the next time I looked, it had moved.”
An Tianming froze.
He had been using Bai Wei’s pen to practice writing.
But he had assumed Bai Wei never noticed—at least, he acted as if he hadn’t noticed.
Then, Bai Wei’s next words clarified everything.
“I don’t even dare show that I’m suspicious,” he admitted. “I’m afraid if my ‘good buddy’ realizes I’ve noticed, things might get worse. I don’t even dare to watch horror movies about exorcisms at home.”
After a brief silence, Li Lang didn’t try to argue whether Bai Wei was being paranoid. Instead, he got straight to a possible solution. “If you really think something’s wrong with that place, why not just move?”
Bai Wei shook his head almost instinctively. “If something is wrong with that house, moving would just mean I’m setting someone else up to deal with it. Besides, I didn’t rent that apartment. I bought it. When I bought that place, I considered it my home. And I take responsibility for my home—I wouldn’t just abandon it so easily.”
Li Lang’s eyes dimmed with a mix of sadness and sympathy. His voice was gentle with concern. “Xiao Bai… you do realize that a home isn’t just a physical place, right? It’s the place where you truly belong. A real home is something you find—not just a room you own.”
Bai Wei let out a soft chuckle and raised a brow at him, amusement flickering in his gaze. “You rich people wouldn’t understand the importance of financial stability. The moment you’ve experienced being kicked out of a rented apartment with nowhere to go, you’d understand how important it is to at least own a place of your own.”
An Tianming listened to the once-spoiled young master speak so naturally about “you rich people”, and he wasn’t sure how to feel.
Then, realization struck him like a lightning bolt.
Bai Wei’s so-called “experience”—he finally remembered what it meant.
A year ago, when he had reunited with Bai Wei, An Tianming—desperate for an excuse to bring Bai Wei under his roof—had bribed Bai Wei’s landlord to evict him. At the time, he had been too blinded by the thrill of luck, convinced that Bai Wei’s memory loss was his second chance to re-enter his life. The thought that what he was doing might be wrong had never once crossed his mind.
Later that night, he had pulled up in his car and found Bai Wei dragging his suitcase aimlessly down the streets. Homeless, with nowhere to go. And he had taken him in. Not for a single second—before, or after—had he stopped to consider how Bai Wei must have felt.
For two years, Bai Wei had built a life for himself, carved out a small place of belonging. That rental apartment had been his home. And An Tianming had ripped it away from him. It was the second time he had taken Bai Wei’s home from him.
“Xiao Wei…”
How many times could he say sorry before it lost all meaning? An Tianming didn’t even think he had the right to say it anymore.
On the other side of the hospital bed, Li Lang quietly watched Bai Wei for a long time. After careful consideration, he cautiously asked, “Do you know why you were suddenly kicked out back then?”
Bai Wei answered without hesitation. “I ran into An Tianming that same day. I think I know why.” His tone was light, almost indifferent, as if it were something insignificant.
An Tianming listened in silence.
The young master who had once worn his every thought openly on his face—he had known all along. From the very beginning, Bai Wei had been aware of what An Tianming had done after their reunion.
Yet, he had acted as if he hadn’t noticed a thing. He had allowed An Tianming to inch closer, little by little, never revealing a single trace of suspicion or wariness.
An Tianming realized… he could no longer see through Bai Wei at all. Perhaps it was because Bai Wei had already gone too far ahead.
The Bai Wei who had wanted to leave him had, through sheer will, already walked so far away that he was beyond his reach.
Like a dying animal, An Tianming struggled against the overwhelming tide of regret, desperately trying to escape from it. Because he knew—he knew—that he would not survive the agony of truly understanding just how irreversibly he had lost Bai Wei.
