BFILWY CH 54

Chapter 54: Rolling Thunder

Angrily, An Yue drove Ye Qinghe home. As usual, Ye Qinghe kept quiet in the car, not wanting to disturb him. However, even after they arrived home, An Yue still remained silent.

Ye Qinghe walked to the kitchen, fumbling around until he found a glass. He poured half a cup of warm water and returned to the living room. Carefully, he called out, “An Yue, have some water to soothe your throat.”

“Go take a shower first.” An Yue took the glass stiffly and placed it on the dining table. “Once you’re done, I’ll help you apply medicine.” After saying that, he turned away and began searching for the first aid kit in the dining room cabinet, paying no further attention to Ye Qinghe.

Ye Qinghe didn’t push further. Everything that had happened tonight was too sudden, and he wasn’t sure how to explain himself. So, he simply obeyed and slowly made his way to the bedroom to take a shower.

As the warm water cascaded over him, he replayed the events of the evening. Everything had been a chaotic blur. His mind had been entirely focused on the fear that Xu Yang and the others would say things they shouldn’t. His whole body had been tense, his nerves tightly wound. He was so preoccupied with Xu Yang that he barely even registered An Yue’s furious outburst against him. It wasn’t until they were alone in the car, with An Yue silent the entire way home, that Ye Qinghe gradually processed what had happened.

This usually reserved and indifferent person had, without hesitation, thrown himself into battle for his sake—shouting, arguing, and standing up against strangers, all to protect him.

Now that he had fully grasped the situation, Ye Qinghe was both a little frightened and deeply moved. He had never seen this side of An Yue before—aggressive, unrelenting, even cursing. His fighting spirit had been at a hundred percent.

It was no wonder Xu Yang had been concerned. After witnessing Ye Qinghe’s past behavior firsthand, seeing someone so wholeheartedly defending him must have seemed absurd. It would be hard not to suspect that this naïve young man had been utterly bewitched by Ye Qinghe—trapped under some sort of spell that made him blindly devoted.

Ye Qinghe truly felt touched. But more than anything, he felt guilt and heartache. He knew Xu Yang had been right about him, and because of his past mistakes, he had left An Yue in a position where he had to defend him without any solid ground to stand on. While An Yue had bravely lashed out, yelling at their opponents, all Ye Qinghe could do was lower his head and plead for mercy.

No wonder An Yue was angry.

Sighing in resignation, Ye Qinghe dried himself off. As he draped a towel over his head to wipe his hair, he accidentally brushed against his wound, letting out a small cry of pain.

Outside the bathroom, An Yue’s alert voice rang out. “What happened?”

It turned out he had been waiting inside Ye Qinghe’s bedroom.

“It’s nothing,” Ye Qinghe quickly responded. Not wanting to keep An Yue waiting, he hastily wiped himself dry, threw on a bathrobe, and hurried out of the bathroom.

“What’s wrong with you? Your forehead is already injured, yet you still washed your hair?” An Yue frowned as soon as he saw the wound start bleeding again. “Even if you had to wash it, couldn’t you be more careful? Now it’s bleeding again. Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?” He pulled Ye Qinghe down to sit on the bed.

“There’s really no need. It’s just a small wound—it’ll heal in a few days,” Ye Qinghe said.

“Whatever.” An Yue sounded irritated. He pulled up a chair and sat in front of Ye Qinghe, opening the first aid kit. He took out some iodine and a cotton swab, carefully disinfecting the wound.

They were very close. Ye Qinghe could smell the fresh scent of water lingering on An Yue’s body from his own recent shower, mixed with a faint warmth of neroli.

“You already showered too?” Ye Qinghe asked, trying to make conversation.

An Yue didn’t respond.

Although he remained silent, the rustling sounds of him searching through the first aid kit were loud. Even though his movements were gentle, it was obvious his anger hadn’t dissipated.

“Those people tonight… they were…” Ye Qinghe hesitated, trying to find the right words to explain what had happened at the night market. “They were people I knew back in… my reckless days. We used to drink together.”

An Yue still didn’t speak.

Ye Qinghe could only brace himself and continue, “Back then, I tried to pursue one of them. That guy, Xu Yang—the one you yelled at tonight—he saw through me. He knew I wasn’t sincere, so… so we had some conflicts.” He kept the explanation vague, avoiding the worst details.

An Yue  glanced at Ye Qinghe’s pale face, recalling what he had mentioned before about being beaten up. A thought crossed his mind. “Did they hit you?”

“…Mm.” Ye Qinghe responded softly.

Now that An Yue had his answer, he felt even more unsettled. He knew Ye Qinghe had already suffered back then, and yet, tonight, he had still been so submissive—pleading humbly in front of those people. It made An Yue feel both frustrated and pained. At the same time, he couldn’t help but think that Ye Qinghe had brought this upon himself.

The iodine lingered on Ye Qinghe’s skin for nearly sixty seconds before An Yue opened a bottle of sterile saline and wiped it off. Then, using a cotton swab, he applied a thin layer of antibiotic ointment over the broken skin.

As he smoothed out the ointment, he reached for a piece of gauze and asked, “What was he about to say just now that made you so desperate to shut him up?”

Ye Qinghe’s hands, resting lightly on his knees, unconsciously clenched into weak fists. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

An Yue waited. He waited until the ointment was fully absorbed into the wound, but Ye Qinghe still didn’t give him an answer. Disappointment flickered in An Yue’s gaze as he lowered his eyes, pulling out a piece of breathable medical tape and securing the gauze over Ye Qinghe’s forehead.

“All done. Get some rest and sleep early tonight. Good night.”

After packing up the first aid kit, An Yue stood up, ready to leave.

“An Yue, don’t be mad. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you.”

Ye Qinghe reached out, grasping the corner of An Yue’s shirt with a slightly anxious expression. “I already told you how much of a b*stard I used to be. You know that. You even said it yourself just now.” He swallowed with difficulty, trying to moisten his dry throat. “You told Xu Yang that you know I’ve done bad things, but those are all in the past. Now, I’m doing well, living seriously. Isn’t that enough?”

His throat tightened, a sour ache spreading in his chest. “Isn’t it enough? Huh?”

“You know why I said that. There’s no way I’d just stand there and watch you get insulted,” An Yue forced down his anger. “But right now, I need some time to cool off.”

He took several deep breaths, and when he spoke again, his voice was almost gritted through his teeth. “I knew you had a messy past, but I didn’t expect it to be so bad that we’d run into someone from it just by walking down the street.”

“Fine. If you don’t want to talk, then don’t.” An Yue yanked his shirt free from Ye Qinghe’s grip, grabbed the first aid kit, and walked out of the room.

Ye Qinghe sat alone at the edge of the bed, his empty palm faintly reddened from the friction of the fabric. It hurt a little. The wound on his forehead hurt too. Even his temples throbbed, the pain spreading to the back of his head.

But compared to all of that—disappointing An Yue hurt the most.

Feeling awful all over, Ye Qinghe sat there for most of the night. It wasn’t until the latter half that he finally drifted into a restless sleep.

An Yue didn’t have it any better. Even downing a large glass of cold water in the kitchen couldn’t put out the fire inside him, so he stormed back to his room. The warmth from his earlier shower had long faded away, leaving him wrapped in a suffocating chill as he burrowed into bed. No matter how he turned, he couldn’t get warm.

In his dreams, thunderstorms raged through the night. Panic, fear, shock, and despair tangled together in the darkness, swirling endlessly. He couldn’t fully wake up, yet he couldn’t sleep soundly either—he just kept struggling in the nightmare’s grip.

Finally, a deafening clap of thunder jolted him awake.

He sat up abruptly, gasping for breath, momentarily unable to distinguish between dream and reality.

Turning to look out the window, he saw that dawn had just broken. He had forgotten to close the curtains the night before, and now, soft morning light poured into the room, casting a silvery glow on the floor near the window.

The glass was dry. The sky in the distance was bright and clear.

It seemed there had been no storm last night—no wind, no thunder. Everything had been just the storm inside his own mind.

An Yue flipped over and went back to sleep. By the time he woke up again, it was already close to noon.

Frowning, he stared at the time on his phone, unable to believe he had actually slept that long.

He had been convinced he hadn’t really slept at all—his mind had been restless the entire time. Even now, it felt like the echo of that thunder still rumbled in his chest, refusing to fade.

Sighing, he got up, washed up, changed out of his pajamas, and stepped out of his room. As he passed by the door across from his, he shot it a glare, still irritated.

Just as he was about to walk away, his ears caught the faintest of sounds.

A weak, almost inaudible groan.

It came from inside Ye Qinghe’s room.

His brain, still sluggish from sleep, hadn’t even processed what the sound was yet, but his body had already reacted.

In the next instant, he swiftly pushed open the door and rushed inside.

And the moment he stepped in—

He finally understood where that thunder from this morning had come from.

(To be continued…)