Chapter 1

The phone screen lit up.

WeChat messages popped up one after another.

His thumb swiped the screen, and a lock screen with a photo of two people was replaced by a WeChat chat with someone named Li Yan, who was one of the people in the photo.

【Li Yan: Our relationship of more than half a year can’t even withstand this small setback.】

【Li Yan: Mi Zhao, do you know how sad I am?】

【Li Yan: Since you’re so determined to break up, I won’t say much more. Remember to check the bill I sent you earlier and transfer the money to me after you see it. After all, my money didn’t come out of thin air.】

The warm sunlight shone on Mi Zhao, and the breeze messed up the strands of hair on his forehead, revealing his full, fair forehead. His eyelashes were lowered, silently looking at the messages continuously updating on his phone.

There was no emotion visible on his expressionless face.

After a long time, the other party stopped sending messages.

Then a message arrived—

【Li Yan: Where are you?】

Mi Zhao finally reacted, a sarcastic curve appearing on the corner of his mouth.

He didn’t reply to the message. His long fingers quickly swiped upward, skipping over a bunch of nonsense, and finally tapped.

He opened an Excel file Li Yan sent half an hour ago.

-2.14 Ferrero chocolates 120 + roses 435

-2.26 Li’s private restaurant for two 850 (A down 425 each) + movie tickets 108.6 (A down 54.3 each)

……

-5.20 Red envelope 520 + 1314

……

-6.5 Travel expenses for mountain climbing + food and lodging + miscellaneous expenses 2600 (A down 1300 each)

-6.6 Took a pack of dumplings from my house, calculated as 100 pieces, 10 yuan each, total 1000

……

-8.31 Birthday gift 1399

-Total 48712.8 yuan.

Mi Zhao thought he would get furious as he had before, but surprisingly, he was strangely calm.

No anger, only dead silence in his heart.

He switched to Alipay and found his chat with Li Yan.

Transfer amount—50000.

As he entered the last digit of his password, his finger suddenly paused, his chest tightened with seven or eight beats, and after a moment, he regained his composure, quickly closed Alipay, and made a phone call.

It was picked up instantly.

Li Yan answered excitedly: “Xiao Zhao? You finally replied! Where have you been? Why aren’t you at school? I couldn’t find you at your rented place, and I asked Yan Qingting, but they wouldn’t say anything.”

Mi Zhao’s head started to hurt as soon as he heard Li Yan’s voice, and those images he didn’t want to recall surged in his mind—a pair of overlapping figures in a small forest, Li Yan’s terrified expression while pulling up his pants, and Lin Qiuzu’s nonchalant glance while being half-dressed.

Li Yan kept talking: “I know you can’t bear to part with me. Can we sit down somewhere and talk properly? Actually, there’s no need to break up—”

“Li Yan, do you have no shame? Why should I give you money? You want to settle money matters with me, right? Fine, let’s settle it once and for all.”

Li Yan was stunned: “Xiao Zhao, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I gave you a phone worth more than 10,000 yuan, bought you two pairs of shoes, both over 2,000 yuan. Oh, and by the way, the 3,000 yuan you borrowed from me last month, I wasn’t planning on having you pay it back, but let’s add it all up.”

Li Yan was clearly panicking: “Xiao Zhao!”

“I’ve heard about your past affairs. I’m not someone with a purity complex when it comes to relationships, and I don’t want to dwell on the past. But now, I realize an old saying is very true—” Mi Zhao paused and slowly said, “That’s—dogs can’t change their nature.”

“……”

“Li Yan, you’re truly disgusting.”

Mi Zhao finished speaking, hung up, and blocked all of Li Yan’s contact information in one go.

He opened his phone’s memo and several payment apps, switching back and forth, recording all the expenses from their six-month relationship.

When he finished the last entry, dated July 14th at 8 p.m., it showed he had an appointment with Li Yan for a farewell dinner before the summer break.

Mi Zhao suddenly smiled.

As he smiled, his eyes stung, and tears unexpectedly streamed down.

He realized Li Yan was selfish and never even realized where he went wrong. Perhaps, in Li Yan’s mind, finding someone to satisfy his physical needs was just a normal thing.

The one who was truly foolish was himself, still clinging to a shred of hope and tangled up with Li Yan.

Rizhao Villa had been built for less than five years. Though the food and accommodation were surprisingly expensive, the environment was quiet and elegant.

Mi Zhao arrived in A City half a month in advance, intending to surprise Li Yan. However, the surprise turned into a shock, and he didn’t want to play hide and seek with Li Yan in A City. He decided to come to the villa to paint instead.

The villa had a large artificial lake, and both the accommodations and restaurant were built around it. The trees by the lake were lush, and the scenery was great.

Mi Zhao came to the lake every day to pass the time, but unfortunately, after several days of sitting, he still couldn’t produce a satisfying piece of work.

He put his phone back into his bag, took a long time to calm his emotions, glanced at the unfinished painting on the easel, and expressionlessly tore it down.

He stretched a new canvas, picked a few paints.

Mi Zhao’s hands were busy, but his gaze was fixed on the two people who had been in a standoff for a long time on a low slope not far away.

He recognized them.

Due to the limited number of guests at the resort, Mi Zhao didn’t know many people, but these two had left a deep impression on him.

They lived in the villa next to his. Every evening, the tall man would push the man in a wheelchair outside for fresh air. The tall man had an ordinary appearance but an icy demeanor. The man in the wheelchair’s height couldn’t be seen, but his facial features were sculpted, with deep-set eyes and a memorable face.

Mi Zhao thought they were a couple.

However, it seemed their relationship was now in crisis.

This guess was not unfounded. Last night, when Mi Zhao went to the restaurant, he saw the tall man with a woman, and their behavior was extremely intimate.

It seemed the tall man was cheating.

Mi Zhao’s eyes darkened, his lips pressed into a thin line, and he suddenly felt a sense of sympathy for the man in the wheelchair.

The brush with paint dropped onto the canvas. Mi Zhao, feeling the inspiration, moved fluidly, occasionally glancing at the two.

On the canvas, a man in a wheelchair was sketched. The invisible wind ruffled his black hair and white shirt. He turned his head towards the shimmering lake, and the half-painted face, with no features, inexplicably conveyed a sense of melancholy.

Mi Zhao leaned back slightly, admired the painting for a moment, then picked up the brush to draw the tall man who had been babbling.

At that moment, the tall man stopped talking.

The man in the wheelchair stubbornly turned his head away, not even sparing a glance for the other. The tall man, looking down from above, stared at him for half a minute, then suddenly turned and walked away.

Mi Zhao: “?”

He blinked, not reacting immediately.

This is…

Did they break up?

But the tall man just left like that? Leaving the disabled person by the lake without a care?

Mi Zhao was a bit shocked, and after a while, he placed the brush into the bucket to clean it.

After cleaning, he picked up another brush and began to enrich the background.

For him, painting scenery was much easier than painting people. Moreover, the framework and filling were already done, so adding the finishing touches was a simple task.

When he finished, Mi Zhao had time to glance toward the low slope.

The man in the wheelchair was no longer there.

“What are you waiting for? Are you expecting Li Yan to write you a three-thousand-word reflection essay? You’re overestimating him. If he even knew where he went wrong, he wouldn’t be Li Yan,” Yan Qingting’s chattering complaint came through the phone.

Mi Zhao walked absent-mindedly, occasionally replying with a “mm.”

In August, the days were long, and by 7 PM, the sky was still filled with large orange fire clouds stretching across the horizon. They were arranged in layers, casting a fiery hue across the lake.

Mi Zhao had just come out of the restaurant, carrying only his phone. The gentle breeze made him feel a rare sense of relaxation.

“What exactly are you planning?” Yan Qingting asked. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking about getting back together with him!”

Mi Zhao furrowed his brow and immediately retorted, “That’s impossible.”

Seeing Mi Zhao’s decisive attitude, Yan Qingting sighed in relief. “That’s good. Remember, if you let love cloud your mind, you’ll end up digging wild vegetables on the mountain for eighteen years!”

“…” Mi Zhao didn’t know where Yan Qingting had picked up such a strange joke, but he was already used to it. “I’m going to take back all the money I spent on him. Once I get it back, we’re even.”

Yan Qingting thought for a moment. “That’s true, better than having him use those little things to slander you later. By the way, you need to be careful. He’s been asking around about your whereabouts.”

Mi Zhao chuckled. “Got it.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have come back with my dad. Now my grandparents want me to accompany them every day. I can’t get away for a while, and when I offered for you to stay at my place, you wouldn’t do it,” Yan Qingting grumbled for a while, then suddenly remembered something. “Didn’t you mention those two guys to me before?”

“Mm?”

“I don’t think they’re a couple. Maybe the disabled guy is being kept at the villa,” Yan Qingting said. “Considering what you said, it’s likely that he’s about to be dumped.”

Mi Zhao stopped in his tracks in shock. “You mean…”

“Kept, you understand? You’re not from here, so you wouldn’t know about the nature of the Rizhao villa,” Yan Qingting spoke seriously. “So you need to be cautious there too.”

Mi Zhao hadn’t expected there to be this layer of relationship between the two. Upon reflection, the assumption of a couple relationship was just his first impression based on his own situation.

After a long pause, Mi Zhao simply said “Okay.” He was about to say something else when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure sitting in a wheelchair.

After four or five days, he saw the man in the wheelchair again that evening.

The man had parked his wheelchair by the lake, staring at the water with an expressionless face. The fiery clouds on the lake reflected on his attractive side profile.

Before, the tall man had always been with him, but today, he was alone, looking rather lonely.

Mi Zhao’s path back happened to be behind the man. After saying a few words to Yan Qingting, he hung up and hurriedly passed by the man from behind.

After walking a distance, he couldn’t help but turn back and glance.

To his surprise, their eyes met.

The man had turned his head at some point.

The two locked eyes.

It was the first time Mi Zhao was so close to the man, and he realized that the man was even more handsome than he had imagined—big eyes, thin lips, a high nose, with somewhat Western features, but his skin was fair and clean, giving off a gloomy aura.

The man’s eyes were very beautiful, with deep-set sockets, making his gaze appear focused and affectionate.

Even though the man was expressionless at the moment.

They stared at each other for a while, and Mi Zhao quickly looked away, almost running away.

Back at his place, Mi Zhao replayed the conversation with Yan Qingting in his mind. He didn’t think he had said anything particularly obvious, so even if the man had heard it, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Mi Zhao wasn’t sure.

What he was sure about was that he couldn’t gossip about other people’s business like that in the future. If the person found out, it would be really awkward.

Although he knew the problem wasn’t serious, Mi Zhao still felt guilty. The next day, after finishing his meal at the restaurant, he headed straight for the hot spring.

There were several hot springs in the villa, and Mi Zhao deliberately chose the one farthest from his room. It was rarely visited, so he took the largest one by himself and stayed there until 9 PM before getting dressed to leave.

The hot spring area had many branches, with winding paths.

Mi Zhao followed the green directional lights. When he reached a fork in the road, he suddenly bumped into two figures entangled with each other. They were both startled by his unexpected appearance and immediately jumped apart, as if their bodies were loaded with springs.

Mi Zhao quickly apologized and was about to turn away when, thanks to the light from the lamp, he saw one of their faces.

It was the tall man!

He froze for a moment and instinctively glanced at the other person—

It wasn’t the woman from last time.

However, both were in disarray, and it was easy to guess what they were doing.

Mi Zhao suddenly felt this scene was eerily familiar, and a wave of disgust rose within him. He quickly looked away and walked off.

On his way back, he had to pass the small path by the lake. He had initially thought he wouldn’t run into the man in the wheelchair so late, but after what had just happened, it didn’t seem surprising if he did.

So, when he saw the figure by the lake, Mi Zhao wasn’t shocked.

There was no one else on the path but him. His footsteps disturbed the man, who was lost in thought, and the man turned to look at him.

Mi Zhao originally intended to pass by quietly, but once again, he accidentally locked eyes with the man. He hesitated for a moment, and perhaps out of a sense of sympathy, he walked toward the man, almost as if on impulse.