WCHM Chapter 19

Late at night, way past ten o’clock, the city center was still ablaze with lights and noise. The back entrance of FOM sat in the middle of an alley, lit brightly by the overhead streetlamp. At the far end was a garbage station. Dressed in a waiter’s uniform, Gu Yanyan stood at the doorway, holding an empty tray, his expression cold as he stared down the group in front of him.

 

The man leading them ground his cigarette under his heel, smiling without warmth. “Little Gu,” he said. “Your uncle came to our casino last week and lost three games in a row. Our boss saw he was a regular, so he personally lent him two million. Who knew he’d have such rotten luck, losing the whole night through…”

 

Gu Yanyan cut him off: “I already gave you two hundred thousand the day before yesterday.”

 

The money the Lin family had given him hadn’t even warmed his pocket before this group barged in, smashed up the Gu home, and even threatened to chop off Gu Jie’s right hand. Terrified, Gu Jie had scrambled to dig through Gu Yanyan’s room and handed over his bank card. If not for Gu Yanyan’s foresight in having transferred three hundred thousand to his own private account beforehand, he wouldn’t even have been able to eat now.

 

The man shrugged. “Your uncle owes two million. Sure, you moved out overnight, but he bawled and begged us to come find you, swearing you definitely had money. So tell me, what should we do?”

 

Hearing his fake tone, Gu Yanyan sneered coldly. “The casino’s run by the Lin family. If they wanted him to lose, he’d lose,” he answered back. “Where am I supposed to get money to fill that bottomless pit? Whoever owes you, find them. Don’t come to me.”

 

With that, he turned to leave.

 

The man’s thugs immediately surged forward. One yanked his hair and wrenched him back without mercy. Before he could cry out, a sharp pain shot through the back of his knees.

 

Bang! He was kicked down, forced to kneel, and held in place with no chance of moving.

 

The leader stepped up, looming over him. “Gu Yanyan, we’re only being polite because you’ve worked for the Lin family. Don’t refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit. I hear you just got into A University this year, top of the admissions list for the Agricultural Engineering School?”

 

“Tsk, tsk. To think that such a remote place like Fangshan Village could even produce such an outstanding scholar.”

 

Hearing him recite his background so clearly, Gu Yanyan’s back went cold. His stomach felt like he had swallowed a block of ice, dragging his heart down with it.

 

After a long moment, he rasped out: “What exactly do you want from me?”

 

They’d gone to all this trouble to make Gu Jie rack up debts, forcing him into a corner where he had no choice but to find money. But where was he supposed to get two million?! Ordinary people couldn’t make that in a lifetime, much less a just-turned-adult student.

 

What did they really want?

 

The man grinned, saying, “That’s better.”

 

He then pulled out a stack of documents and tapped a photo with his finger. It showed Liang Jiashu, his expression cold as death, dark eyes staring through the lens with suffocating intensity. The thug lowered his voice, as if afraid of being overheard, whispering: “From now on, you’ll find this person. Then figure out how to get close to him.”

 

Gu Yanyan instinctively looked away, then froze as recognition struck. “This is… Liang Zhiyu’s cousin?”

 

“Cousin, my ass,” the man sneered. “Who knows how many generations apart? Liang Jiashu is the genuine young master of the Liang family. If not for those Liang branch people shamelessly latching on, how would they deserve to call themselves family?”

 

As soon as the words fell, a pleasant voice suddenly asked from the shadows: “Really?”

 

The man reflexively answered: “Of course. If our boss didn’t think Gu Yanyan could get the job done, he wouldn’t have sent him to approach this one…” Then, he snapped to his senses mid-sentence, whipping around in fury and shouting: “Who?!”

 

Not far away, beneath the streetlight, a stunning young man stood, with pale skin and blue hair, glowing like some ghost that had suddenly appeared.

 

He held an ice cream cone in one hand and his phone in the other, rear camera pointed at them. When they looked over, he even raised the phone closer and said into it: “Did you hear that, Liang Jiashu? They want Gu Yanyan to get close to you.”

 

Then, he took a bite of his ice cream, muttering like a prophet: “Told you so. He’s your ‘official pairing,’ after all.”

 

Only, in the original novel, the so-called “bitter unrequited love” turned out to be nothing more than forced, deliberate proximity.

 

There was silence for two seconds before a voice on the other end replied: “I’ll be right there. Don’t move. I’ll have Zhao Feng send protection.”

 

“Mm,” Lu Chi responded casually and hung up.

 

Across from him, the gangsters were already petrified by his sudden appearance, and Liang Jiashu’s voice coming from the phone. The leader had gone pale, struck dumb. At that moment, FOM’s back door swung open as a crowd of black-suited bodyguards poured out, circling around Gu Yanyan and quickly forming a protective barrier around Lu Chi.

 

Manager Zhao came trotting up, fawning anxiously: “Mr. Lu, are you alright?!”

 

Lu Chi gave him a half-smile glance, then slowly walked over to Gu Yanyan’s side. Raising a brow at the thug gripping his shoulder, he asked, “Still not letting go?”

 

The thug was dazzled by that beautiful face, shivered, and instantly withdrew his hand.

 

Lu Chi lowered his eyes, meeting Gu Yanyan’s dazed, bewildered stare. He bit into his ice cream again.

 

“Can you stand on your own?”

 

Gu Yanyan snapped back to himself, nodding as if in a dream.

“Y-yeah… I… I can get up.”

 

The poor child scrambled upright and stood beside Lu Chi like a stunned goose, dizzy in something like the “suspension bridge effect[mfn]In psychology, misattribution of arousal is the process whereby people make a mistake in assuming what is causing them to feel aroused. For example, when actually experiencing physiological responses related to fear, people mislabel those responses as romantic arousal. The reason physiological symptoms may be attributed to incorrect stimuli is that many stimuli have similar physiological symptoms, such as increased blood pressure or shortness of breath. You can read more about the “suspension bridge experiment” here[/mfn].” He hardly registered what had just happened around him, only that Lu Chi smelled wonderful, like he’d just stepped out of the shower, damp, cool, and fragrant.

 

Like a feverish night dream.

 

As for the thugs from the casino, they quickly scattered in fear.

 

Lu Chi, finding Manager Zhao noisy, waved for him to take the men back. Zhao Feng hesitated, staring into his dazzling eyes as he mumbled: “But Young Master Liang said we should…”

 

“I said to go back.” Lu Chi answered with a smile.

 

“…Yes, sir.”

 

And just like that, in less than three minutes, everyone was gone. Silence instantly descended on the alley, broken only by the faint hum of the city lights and nightlife in the distance.

 

Gu Yanyan seemed to wake from his dream. He turned his head, scanning the surroundings in a panic.

 

“Brother Chi, you should call them back! What if they come again?! You don’t know how vicious those thugs are… If they lay a hand on you, you can’t afford to get hurt!”

 

Beneath the neon lights, his hair was still dyed a faded shade of pink, his delicate face marked with traces of makeup that revealed faint exhaustion. Only the urgency and concern in his voice betrayed that he was, after all, just eighteen, a boy with little experience of the world.

 

Lu Chi looked at him and replied, unhurried, “I know.”

 

Gu Yanyan froze.

 

Crunching down the last bites of his ice cream, Lu Chi lazily sat on the steps at the back entrance, his voice casual as he continued: “Just last month, I owed five million. I got beaten up, too. Same Lin family casino.”

 

“It hurt plenty. Took me stripping more times than I can count before I paid it off.”

 

Gu Yanyan stiffened, and after a moment, he cautiously copied him, sitting down as well. The night was very still. Pressing his aching knee, he whispered: “They must have tricked you… Someone like you could never be a gambler. It had to be those bad people setting you up.”

 

With a gambler for an uncle, he knew exactly what kind of hollow, wrecked lives such people led. Lu Chi, so dazzling and beautiful, could have lived well on his face alone, so why would he ever need to gamble?!

 

Lu Chi tilted his head, smiling.

 

“And what kind of person do you think I am?”

 

Gu Yanyan sneaked a glance at him, ears flushing red. “Someone who can do everything… always composed, always strong,” he mumbled. “Even if the world were to end in the next second, it feels like you’d just smile and say it’s fine. Teacher Lu, you’re the kind of person I want to become.”

 

He called him “Teacher Lu” with complete sincerity.

 

Over the past week, during class, Lu Chi was witty yet serious; after class, he was gentle yet distant. He seemed to know everything, picking up instruments with ease, fluent in painting, sometimes giving them a burst of pop dance, and even taekwondo. He radiated inspiration and freshness without end.

 

Gu Yanyan had come only to see him, yet had truly learned so much. In the end, he couldn’t help but recall his first week at A University, the scorn, the exclusion, the ridicule…

 

But perhaps, it was precisely being alone that gave the boy courage. After a long silence, he suddenly raised his eyes, asking, “Teacher Lu, how are you so confident?”

 

Is it because of wealth, looks, or a life of constant adoration since childhood?

 

Lu Chi didn’t answer.

 

In the darkness, his gaze shifted toward the boy’s jacket pocket, where a corner of a card was sticking out. An A University library card.

 

Pointing at it, he asked: “The A University library, is it big?”

 

Gu Yanyan stilled, then lowered his head to look at the card he carried everywhere.

 

The stickers on it had curled from overuse, evidence of a heavy borrowing record. Bullied and ostracized by his roommates, in the past week, his only refuge outside of work and classes had been the library, where he drowned himself in books.

 

But it hadn’t helped.

 

The more time he spent in the library, the more obsessively he scrolled through posts on the university forum. Posts about his roommates’ so-called “normal” lives, drenched in excess and indulgence. Every word filled his heart with poison until he wished all those rich brats dead.

 

Only when he came across posts about Lu Chi could he breathe for a moment. Gu Yanyan had joined many chat groups, all filled with young masters and heiresses singing Lu Chi’s praises. His heart ached with sour jealousy, but he also found it natural.

 

Someone as beautiful as Lu Chi deserved to be adored by everyone.

 

Gu Yanyan lifted his head, forcing a smile. “It’s huge… I’ve read a lot of books in there.”

 

Lu Chi met his eyes. In the neon glow, his light brown irises gleamed clear and beautiful, as if they could see straight through everything.

 

Gu Yanyan instinctively clenched his hands, then heard the man’s voice drift through the scattered lights, calm and even: “Getting into A University from Fangshan Village wasn’t easy. I’ve read your file, you’re the only student in decades to make it out of there. The village committee even received a government commendation because of you. The award money was only twenty thousand, but your grandmother made the newspaper. Her smile was really cute.”

 

Gu Yanyan had been chosen to be pushed forward by A University as a model success story. Yet, in the mouths of those who despised him, it became just another reason to mock him.

 

He froze. It had been so long since anyone had praised him that his first instinct was to deny it.

 

“It’s nothing, really. A University is full of hidden talents… There are too many better than me. And what’s the point? No matter how good you are, you’ll never match up to the rich…”

 

Lu Chi didn’t interrupt, quietly listening as Gu Yanyan stumbled through his bitter words. The night breeze carried the scent from his body. His face, eyes, and voice were as light as the wind as he tilted his head, asking with a smile: “But when you got into A University, weren’t you proud?”

 

“…”

 

Gu Yanyan fell silent.

 

Lu Chi hadn’t asked whether it had been hard. He’d asked whether he’d been proud.

 

As if he, too, had once known such a time.

 

A time of poverty, of struggle, of improper days.

 

When all one could do was grit their teeth, fix their eyes on the one goal ahead, and pour every ounce of time, energy, and effort into it. And when that goal was finally reached, every tear and drop of sweat shed for it became part of the sweetness.

 

Because while it was hard, it was also something to be proud of.

 

Gu Yanyan tightened his fists, and after a long pause, he spoke very softly: “…Yes. I was proud.”

 

He had been proud.

 

In that backward place, with his parents dead and his grandparents too old to care for themselves, let alone him, he’d learned from a young age to cook and go to school alone, the kind of school where village teachers taught English in a heavy local dialect. And yet, he was still lucky enough to glimpse the bright short videos that scrolled on their mobile phones, seeing scenes more glamorous than anything he’d ever known.

 

But still, Gu Yanyan was terrified of poverty. He studied with desperation, even dreaming of reaching the city, finding his uncle, and living a life of success. Before the college entrance exam results came out, he’d even thought that if he failed and couldn’t escape, he might as well drown himself in the river.

 

And he had done it.

 

On the day he left, his grandmother tried to carry his luggage to send him off. He shoved her aside in disgust, threw all twenty thousand yuan at her, and snapped in dialect, “I’m never coming back. Take the money and live on it. At most, I’ll send you some more once a year.”

 

“Remember, don’t you dare come looking for me! I don’t want anyone to look down on me.”

 

He hadn’t looked at their faces. He’d rushed onto the bus, eager to leave the place that had raised him, convinced his life was about to be rewritten by his own hands. He’d been thrilled.

 

Gu Yanyan drifted in thought, dazed. What had he been like then?

 

Proud. Arrogant. Full of spirit.

 

Then Lu Chi’s voice came as it carried on the cool night air, stripped of emotion: “Your pride was the joy of holding your fate in your own hands.”

 

Can studying really change one’s fate? Gu Yanyan had believed it, doubted it, then discarded the thought altogether. But those swallowed by poverty had nothing else, so when they mistakenly believed effort alone could alter destiny, the pride that welled up in them needed no words; it was in every movement, every breath.

 

But now, comparing himself to Lu Chi, with cheap dye clinging to his hair, heavy makeup on his delicate face, and his brows filled with inferiority and resentment after fate had toyed with him, Gu Yanyan could only see something twisting in himself.

 

A beast on the verge of madness.

 

Lu Chi lifted a hand, brushing Gu Yanyan’s hair lightly as if he couldn’t bear to look directly at him, noticing how the boy’s fingers clenched tight in reflex. He smiled faintly. After a pause, he said, “Gu Yanyan, you must always remember the feeling of pride.”

 

Remember the feeling that carried you forward when you had no one else to rely on.

 

Lu Chi never played savior. But as he passed through others’ lives, standing at their crossroads, he couldn’t help recalling what had once sustained him: the first time he’d been returned to the orphanage, he got lost and started weeping on the roadside until the Dean found him. The old lady silently crouched down and handed him an ice cream cone…

 

…When he’d played piano in a restaurant to earn tuition, he was beaten up by a lecherous customer, and was forced to apologize, but his manager had stood her ground and defended him…

 

…When antis had doxxed his background and flooded him with abuse, his former teachers and classmates went live one by one, solemnly testifying how diligent and outstanding he had been…

 

…His lovely fans that started crying in the comments, shouting: “Exactly! My brother is amazing! Those bastards are just jealous, why insult him?!”

 

Lu Chi’s whole person was built from those scraps of warmth, those steady, unending kindnesses. But as an abandoned newborn without family, he too grew addicted to such warmth. Which was why he tolerated, even welcomed, love so intense it twisted into obsession.

 

In a sense, he even vaguely longed for it.

 

Lu Chi knew, in some corner of himself, that he was abnormal. He worked desperately to be the best, to be recognized, almost savoring the wounds on his body, proof to those who loved him that he could endure, could conquer.

 

Strong and gentle, unbreakable, invincible.

 

He could be all of that.

 

So now, he merely arched a brow, reached out casually, and lightly patted the “Protagonist Shou” standing at the fork in his life, telling him to move forward.

 

Ahead, the road was wide and flat, and if you fell, you could always get back up. But behind, the path was steep, and even a slight stumble would plunge you back into the abyss.

 

In the night, Gu Yanyan stood stunned, as if struck on the crown of his head, staring blankly at Lu Chi. The man looked a little tired. He leaned lazily back on the steps, long legs sprawled, waving a hand like an emperor dismissing a servant.

 

“Alright, go on in. I’m waiting for someone.”

 

Who he was waiting for, Gu Yanyan knew. How high that person stood, he knew as well.

 

But at that moment, as if waking from a fog, his old courage and impulsiveness surged back into his body. He clenched his fists, suddenly reached out, and yanked the unguarded Lu Chi into his arms, holding him tight against his own thin but determined shoulders.

 

The boy’s hands trembled, his whole body shaking. But his voice was firm and loud, professing: “Teacher Lu, I like you! If you don’t mind, I can be your personal ATM! I’ll work hard and make money so you can live a good life!”

 

Lu Chi tilted his head, dumbstruck, and let out a Donald Duck–like squawk: “Huh?!”

 

At that exact moment, the roar of an engine cut off.

 

From the darkness, a tall, handsome young man finally arrived at the back door of the club. He walked slowly toward them, his expression faint, his shadow spreading like a black fog over the “intimate embrace” before him.

 

From above, he gazed down at them, like a vengeful demon about to claim their lives.

 

Lu Chi met those pitch-black eyes. He froze, then quickly turned back, and with the great kindness of his life, advised Gu Yanyan: “Go home, child.”

 

“Just… Go home, alright?”

 

………………………..

Enjoyed this chapter of WCHM? You can support me and read up to Chapter 27 here, with 5 new chapters coming next month! Happy Reading!

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Lines That Weren’t Written for Me

 

Two ex-friends. One stage. Zero chance of keeping things professional.

Li Zhen, a stoic Alpha sculptor, wanted a quiet return to his alma mater. No drama. No gossip. No ghosts.

Unfortunately, the faculty had other plans, plans that involved Xu Jinli, the flamboyant Omega, ex-actor turned drama teacher, and the only person who had ever accused Li Zhen of betrayal while wearing full mourning attire at a public event.

Now, with a fake dating scandal spiralling out of control, whispered campus gossip, and an end-of-year gala that forces them together, Li Zhen and Xu Jinli find themselves trapped on the same stage once more.

They were the right people at the wrong time. But maybe, with masks slipping and old wounds resurfacing, this second chance will finally stick… if they can survive each other first.