HSS CH25

Chapter 25: All a Lie

Little Zheng parked the car and, as he walked upstairs, saw Huo Yuchuan standing motionless at the entrance of his office, holding a cake. He approached and noticed Lin Miao standing in front of Huo Yuchuan’s desk, clutching a familiar notebook with red eyes glaring at Huo Yuchuan.

Little Zheng paused for two seconds, then, realizing the situation, felt like a robot experiencing a short circuit. “Uh……”

Huo Yuchuan didn’t look at him but stared at Lin Miao’s reddened eyes and said, “You should leave.”

Little Zheng immediately turned around and left.

Huo Yuchuan took a step closer, pulled the notebook from Lin Miao’s hand, and flipped through the pages one by one.

Lin Miao’s nose turned sour, and he bit his lip, questioning, “You said you couldn’t sleep, all of it was a lie, wasn’t it?!”

Huo Yuchuan closed the notebook, lowered his eyes, and spoke in a low voice, “Yes.”

Lin Miao’s nose grew even more sour. He remembered the day they reunited, when Huo Yuchuan leaned on his shoulder, his eyes filled with exhaustion; he recalled the nights they slept together, the long, slow breaths they shared; and the Friday night when he worried that Huo Yuchuan couldn’t sleep and foolishly ran to the hotel…

He clearly saw Huo Yuchuan sleeping soundly without him, yet he was still deceived by a few words, like a self-important clown. He blamed himself for being too naive, for believing everything Huo Yuchuan said, even the absurd reason of being a “sleep aid pillow,” without doubting it, and convincing himself that the world was full of strange ailments and that Huo Yuchuan wasn’t lying to him.

“Why did you lie to me?! Is it that amusing?!”

He looked like an angered young leopard, his chest heaving, but he appeared so hurt, as if he was about to cry.

Huo Yuchuan slowly raised his hand, intending to touch his cheek, but Lin Miao swatted it away.

Huo Yuchuan was pushed back a step, and the pristine cake smashed onto the floor, the delicate frosting instantly turning into a mess.

Huo Yuchuan looked down at it for a while before speaking in a hoarse voice, “Lin Miao, I’m not that bored.”

He said, “I just wanted you… to stay by my side.”

“Didn’t you keep asking me who I liked?” He raised his eyes, hands braced on the table behind Lin Miao, trapping him against the edge, “Lin Miao, no one sleeps with their brother.”

Lin Miao’s lower back pressed against the table edge, and Huo Mingzhe’s words, “He likes you,” buzzed in his ears like molten lava, scorching his heart.

His breathing quickened, “You……”

Huo Yuchuan slowly approached him, “I said, I’ve never kissed anyone else, and it’s all true.”

“The one I like isn’t someone else,” the deep voice resonated in Lin Miao’s eardrum, and he heard Huo Yuchuan say, “It’s always been you, and only you.”

Warm lips pressed down, and Lin Miao’s thoughts momentarily ceased. His palms clutched the table edge, and in his daze, he recalled that night in the hotel when Huo Yuchuan woke from a dream and pressed over like this, the familiar breath enveloping him……

Then Huo Yuchuan told him it was because his lips itched.

Lin Miao abruptly pushed Huo Yuchuan away, “Is it okay to lie just because you like someone?”

He shouted with a tearful voice, “I hate it when people lie to me the most!”

Lin Jianxing was strolling in the lobby downstairs, humming a tune, when he saw Lin Miao, with his school bag on his back, rushing out of the elevator like a little rocket.

“Son?”

Lin Jianxing was puzzled—what was going on? Who was he racing?

Huo Yuchuan stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in his office, watching Lin Miao run out of the company and disappear around the street corner.

He hadn’t initially planned to use insomnia as an excuse. Those days, the company had some issues, and he indeed hadn’t slept well for several days. When he saw Lin Miao in the hospital, exhaustion overwhelmed him.

From as far back as Huo Yuchuan could remember, he knew he was an illegitimate child. The other kids around him ridiculed and looked down on him, saying he had no father, that his mother was a homewrecker.

His mother, however, always told him that his father was very wealthy and would come to take them back, daydreaming daily about becoming a phoenix that flies up to a higher branch.

But year after year passed, and his so-called father never even glanced at them.

His mother, immersed in her fantasies about his father, hardly paid attention to him.

Thus, young Huo Yuchuan learned to skip school and fight… He wandered alone on the fringes of society, always sleeping in class.

In the first year of junior high, he went to a middle school in town. Life didn’t change much; he just switched from walking to school to riding a bicycle.

One morning, as he dozed off with his head on the desk, a boy approached, carrying a stack of exercise books, and stammered, “C-classmate, it’s time to hand in the homework.”

He irritably opened his eyes and saw that the boy had very fair skin, a clean school uniform, and his collar buttons were neatly fastened—probably the kind of well-behaved student teachers liked.

Unlike him, whose collar buttons were missing and whose clothes were loose and disheveled.

He remembered this was their class monitor, who seemed to be called… Lin Miao.

He understood the boy’s stammering because few people in the class liked or spoke to him; most were afraid of or disgusted by him.

Huo Yuchuan turned his head and continued sleeping, “No.”

Lin Miao was taken aback and asked, “Why not?”

Huo Yuchuan: “Burned it.”

Lin Miao was even more stunned, “Ah, but it has to be handed in…”

Huo Yuchuan closed his eyes and ignored him.

After a while, the footsteps faded, and the boy seemed to have left.

But soon, Huo Yuchuan’s shoulder was poked.

He looked up and saw Lin Miao holding a new exercise book in front of him, “I got this from the teacher. You should at least write something.”

He sincerely and quietly suggested, “Don’t burn it again.”

Huo Yuchuan: “……”

Mind your own business.

Huo Yuchuan coldly said, “I don’t know how to write.”

Lin Miao seemed to have anticipated that he hadn’t been paying attention in class and took out a notebook from behind him, his eyes bright as he said, “Then I’ll lend you my notes. They’re very detailed.”

The cover of the notebook had a simple drawing of a big-eared dog head, looking very childish.

Huo Yuchuan lay back down, not wanting to talk.

But the person beside him didn’t give up, muttering, “If you don’t write it, the teacher will scold you.”

Huo Yuchuan was like a porcupine with quills raised, “If he scolds me, what’s it to you?”

Lin Miao hesitated for a moment, leaned closer, and whispered, “Every time the teacher scolds you, you lie on the desk. Are you secretly crying?”

Huo Yuchuan: “……”

Two seconds later, Lin Miao saw Huo Yuchuan tear off a piece of paper, scribble a few words, and slap it in front of him, staring at him with a deep gaze.

Lin Miao looked closely and saw that the paper read: “If you don’t leave, I’ll beat you until you cry.”

Lin Miao: “……”