Chapter 12#
Offering the Crematorium to a Homophobic Straight Man 12#
When Shen Youli came out of the bathroom, Qiao Qing was already lying back down.
With his eyes closed, his thick eyelashes cast a small shadow under his eyelids, making him look quiet and fragile.
Shen Youli lightened his steps, put the water basin away, and adjusted the brightness of the bedside lamp, allowing a dim, soft light to envelop the room.
He didn’t leave immediately; instead, he sat down on the chair by the bed, took out his phone, dimmed the screen, and quietly handled some work emails.
In the ward, only the sounds of their shallow breathing and the occasional faint noise of fingers touching the screen remained.
After an unknown amount of time, Qiao Qing suddenly spoke softly.
“You… don’t have to keep watch over me like this. It’s just a fracture, not an inability to take care of myself.”
Shen Youli looked up from his phone screen at him.
Qiao Qing’s eyes were still closed, but his slightly trembling eyelashes betrayed the fact that he wasn’t asleep.
“I know.” Shen Youli put away his phone, leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on his knees.
“But I promised the platform to be responsible until you’re discharged. I can’t neglect my duties.”
He lightheartedly found an excuse.
Qiao Qing was silent for a moment before saying, “Given your identity, doing these things… isn’t appropriate.”
“Identity?” Shen Youli raised an eyebrow, his tone carrying a bit of self-deprecation.
“Here, I’m just Shen Youli, someone who wants to take care of you.”
The meaning in these words was too direct, leaving Qiao Qing unsure of how to respond for a moment.
He opened his eyes, turned his head, and looked at Shen Youli sitting at the boundary of light and shadow.
The aloofness of his identity as a doctor had faded, and the cynical teasing from before was also reined in.
At this moment, his gaze was focused and calm, carrying a sincerity that couldn’t be ignored.
“Why me?” Qiao Qing couldn’t help but ask again; this question seemed to trouble him.
“Over ten years… it’s too long. Long enough that it doesn’t even sound real.”
Shen Youli sighed slightly, his gaze turning to the bright moon outside the window, as if reminiscing about something.
“Sometimes, liking someone can just be a matter of a single moment.” His voice was low and steady.
“For me, that moment might have been… when you were carrying me on your back, soaked to the bone, teeth chattering from the cold, yet still gripping my hand tightly, telling me over and over ‘hold on, we’re almost at the hospital’.”
He paused, withdrew his gaze, and looked back at Qiao Qing:
“At that time, I felt like this person’s back could carry the whole world.”
“Pretty silly, right?”
“But that feeling just took root in my heart.”
“Later… watching you do so much for someone else, giving so much, I would feel heartache, I would be jealous, but I also knew more clearly what a good person you are.”
“This feeling, without knowing it, accumulated for so many years.”
He smiled, with a bit of helplessness:
“I also tried to let it go. But every time I heard news about you, or saw you by chance, that feeling came right back.”
“So, when I knew something happened to you, knew that you… might need help, I came.”
“I didn’t think that much; I just felt that this time, maybe I could get a little closer to you.”
Qiao Qing listened quietly, his heart feeling as if it were soaked in warm water, aching and soft.
He had never imagined that in a corner he didn’t know about, there would be such a long and persistent gaze.
He, who was used to outputting feelings to others, was receiving such intense and sincere emotions for the first time.
Qiao Qing was a bit overwhelmed by the favor and a bit at a loss.
“I… might need a long time.”
Qiao Qing lowered his eyelashes, his voice very soft.
“I might never be able to move on for a lifetime, or maybe… I won’t be able to give you an equal response.”
He didn’t want to deceive, nor did he want to give Shen Youli false hope.
“I know.”
Shen Youli’s answer came quickly; he smiled, a very calm smile.
“I didn’t expect you to accept me immediately. Qiao Qing, I just want to tell you that you deserve to be treated well. You can take your time; I can wait.”
“Even if in the end… you still can’t come to like me, at least, let me accompany you through this most difficult time as a friend, okay?”
His posture was very low, with an earnestness that was almost humble, yet strangely, it didn’t make one feel pressured.
Qiao Qing looked at him for a long time.
The moonlight outlined the clear contours of Shen Youli’s profile; in those eyes that always carried various emotions, only openness and determination remained now.
Finally, Qiao Qing gave an almost inaudible “mm.”
It was very soft, but in this quiet night, it was clear enough.
A trace of genuine joy instantly rippled in the depths of Shen Youli’s eyes, like a lake surface into which a stone had been thrown, spreading gentle ripples.
He didn’t say anything more, just softly instructed: “Sleep, it’s very late.”
Qiao Qing closed his eyes again.
This time, his chaotic thoughts seemed to have calmed down a lot.
His body still pained, and a large part of his heart was still empty.
But at least, on this night, he no longer felt so lonely and helpless.
Shen Youli watched his gradually steady breathing, knowing he was truly asleep.
He still sat in the chair, not leaving.
The moon outside the window moved its position quietly; the night was gentle.
Quite different from the gradually softening atmosphere in the ward.
On the other side of the city, in a private box of a high-end bar, the air was so oppressive it could almost be wrung out.
More than half a bottle of whisky in front of Lin Jinbai was gone. His eyes were unfocused, his tie pulled loose and messy, completely losing his usual elite appearance.
Li Wenjie sat opposite him, watching him pour glass after glass, and couldn’t help but reach out to press down on the hand that was reaching for the bottle again.
“Enough, Jinbai! If you drink any more, you’ll really end up in the hospital!”
Li Wenjie’s brows were tightly furrowed. “What on earth happened? You and Qiao Qing… still haven’t made up?”
“Make up?”
Lin Jinbai sneered, shook off Li Wenjie’s hand, and poured another glass for himself, the amber liquid swirling against the glass wall.
“How could he possibly make up with me… He has someone else by his side now…”
His voice was thick with drunkenness and hoarseness.
“Someone else?” Li Wenjie was stunned for a moment. “Who? That caregiver?”
“Caregiver?”
Lin Jinbai acted as if he had heard some great joke, suddenly slamming the wine glass onto the table with a dull thud.
“Bullshit caregiver! That guy is a fake; he’s a doctor in the cardiac surgery department of the Beijing First Hospital, named Shen Youli!”
“A doctor?” Li Wenjie was also shocked.
“A doctor posing as a caregiver to get close to Qiao Qing? This… what’s the situation?”
“I fucking want to know what the situation is too!”
Lin Jinbai growled, his eyes bloodshot from alcohol and anger.
“He just watched that guy surnamed Shen feed him, talking and laughing with him… Qiao Qing… he actually smiled at that outsider!”
He gripped the wine glass tightly, his knuckles turning white.
“He used to… only smile like that at me…”
By the end, his voice carried a sense of grievance and a sob that even he hadn’t noticed.
Li Wenjie looked at him like this, his heart full of mixed feelings.
He had known Lin Jinbai for so many years and had never seen him lose his composure like this for anyone.
Even when his mother passed away back then, he only became more silent and gloomy, rather than being in so much pain so… obviously, like now.
“Jinbai,” Li Wenjie sighed, trying to calm him down.
“Don’t be in such a hurry first. Even if that Shen Youli is a doctor and has designs on Qiao Qing, so what?”
“The key is what Qiao Qing thinks. Qiao Qing has liked you for over ten years; how could he change just like that?”
“How could he not?!” Lin Jinbai suddenly looked up, both eyes red.
“He said he’s moving out, he said he wants to keep his distance from me in the future, for that guy surnamed Shen… he kicked me out!”
He seemed unable to accept this fact, repeating it over and over.
“He kicked me out… Wenjie, for someone he hasn’t even known for two days… he kicked me out…”
Li Wenjie looked at him, silent for a moment, and finally couldn’t help but speak, his tone carrying a trace of complexity:
“Jinbai, calm down and think. Why did Qiao Qing do that? Is it because you… hurt him too deeply?”
Lin Jinbai was stunned, a flash of bewilderment appearing in his drunken eyes.
Li Wenjie continued:
“I understand you rejecting him; feelings can’t be forced.”
“But your words were too harsh. Anyone who has been liked for so many years and then spoken to like that by that person would have their heart die.”
“Now that someone who is good to him has appeared by his side, it’s only natural for him to waver.”
“Then what should I do?!”
Lin Jinbai looked at Li Wenjie urgently, as if catching a life-saving straw.
“I can’t be without him… Wenjie, without Qiao Qing, I…”
His subsequent words were stuck in his throat, unable to come out.
That huge sense of panic, as if the whole world had been hollowed out, seized him again.
Li Wenjie looked at his painful expression, hesitated for a bit, but still spoke the most cruel reality:
“Jinbai, if you can’t accept Qiao Qing’s feelings, then… perhaps letting go would be better for both of you.”
“You can’t… neither give him what he wants, nor expect him to keep watch over you for a lifetime like before, can you?”
“That’s too unfair to Qiao Qing.”
“Let go?”
Lin Jinbai murmured these two words, as if truly understanding their meaning for the first time.
He imagined a life without Qiao Qing.
No those gentle smiles, no those concerned words, no that figure that would accompany him no matter what happened…
A wave of nausea churned in his stomach.
He suddenly slumped on the table, burying his face in his arms, his shoulders trembling slightly, letting out suppressed whimpers.
“I can’t do it… Wenjie… I can’t let go…”
But if he didn’t let go, what could he do?
He was trapped in his own cage, in a dilemma.
He could only use alcohol to numb the heart-piercing pain.
Li Wenjie looked at his trembling back and could only sigh helplessly, picking up the wine bottle and pouring a glass for himself too.
Some hurdles can only be crossed by oneself after all.