HL 59

After an unknown amount of time, Ying Yusheng’s consciousness surfaced like sediment settling. The first thing he perceived was the cold, hard feel of the floor against his body.

His abdomen convulsed sharply, a searing, agonizing pain exploding outward and spreading rapidly to his limbs. He curled up, coughing harshly, and a warm, metallic taste rose in his throat—he spat out a mouthful of blood.

“I’d advise you not to move around.” Xu Nanxiao’s voice came from nearby. “I didn’t hit anything vital, but if you lose too much blood, that’s another story.”

Ying Yusheng struggled to look up and saw that Xu Nanxiao was still there, but he’d already packed his bags and was doing something on his phone. Ying Yusheng thought he was probably buying a train ticket.

Ying Yusheng, being as sharp as he was, had already understood everything. His eyelids half-drooped, and he asked with a faint, barely audible laugh, “Nanxiao, when Meng Zhao came for you, you didn’t leave with him—was it because you were afraid of getting him involved?”

“Could I have left then?” Xu Nanxiao said as he shrugged on his backpack. “Even if Old Meng had taken me away, you would definitely have sent people to follow. Then you’d have sorted out your mess, come out clean, and still found me.”

“That’s true.” Every word Ying Yusheng spoke felt like blood flowing back into his lungs, the pain unbearable.

He stared at the ceiling, fixing his gaze on a point in the void, as if pondering, or simply spacing out.

He said, “In the end, you still… won’t… yield.”

Hearing this, Xu Nanxiao looked back at him and said calmly, “If I yielded that easily, I’d have been beaten to death by my father when I was a teenager. I wouldn’t have made it this far.”

“…So in your heart, what I did to you and what your father did to you—they’re the same?”

“What else would they be?” Xu Nanxiao retorted.

Ying Yusheng pulled the corners of his mouth up but said nothing more. He only felt that something bloody and shapeless had fallen out of the hole in him, been thrown into a frying pan, and was being seared until his very guts were splitting apart.

Xu Nanxiao booked his train ticket and noted down the train number and seat. He figured his phone probably had a tracker installed, so he didn’t take it with him.

After packing everything, he walked over to Ying Yusheng, spread his legs, and crouched down. “One last question. If you tell me the truth, I’ll call an ambulance for you.”

“Mm.”

“Why did you choose this method to get revenge on me for killing your brother?”

Why not just have someone beat me up? Why not cripple one of my arms? Why not cut off my income like Old Liu did? Why not just lock me up and rape me outright—why go through all this elaborate trouble of putting on an act and deceiving me?

Xu Nanxiao still couldn’t understand it to this day.

“Then let me… ask you one… thing too.” Ying Yusheng was already having great difficulty speaking. He coughed twice more, and more blood came out. “When you said before that you liked me… was that also a lie?”

Xu Nanxiao hadn’t expected him to bring that up and froze.

Ying Yusheng hadn’t directly answered, but in a way, he’d answered everything.

Xu Nanxiao covered his forehead and suddenly burst out laughing—laughing and shaking his head, laughing for a long time until he was breathless. He found it absurd, found Ying Yusheng a little pitiful, and found himself pitiful too.

“What the hell.” He let out a long breath, his shoulders slumping as if all strength had left them. “After all that running around in circles, acting so high and mighty, and in the end you’re no different from those women I used to date.”

Still wanting to be loved, after all.

Without looking at Ying Yusheng’s reaction, Xu Nanxiao pushed himself up by his knees and stood. “I’m leaving. Oh, and by the way—I was lying. The ambulance was already called.”

“Nanxiao.”

Ying Yusheng called out to him with all the strength he had left.

Xu Nanxiao stopped in his tracks but still turned back to look at him.

Ying Yusheng coughed a couple of times and said softly, “I’m sorry… for making you all alone again.”

Xu Nanxiao paused, ultimately gave no answer, and simply turned away and left.

Backpack slung over his shoulder, Xu Nanxiao stood in the bustling train station and still felt a sense of unreality.

The murmur of voices, the rumble of suitcase wheels over the floor, the chaotic laughter from short videos—all of it swirled above the station.

People flowed naturally toward their respective platforms, while he was like a pebble spit out, abruptly stopped in the middle of the riverbed, unsure which direction the current would carry him.

But at least now no one was following him. He could go anywhere he wanted.

At least he was a free man, stripped bare of everything.

The destination on Xu Nanxiao’s ticket was Guangzhou.

It was already sweltering hot in Guangzhou by the time he got off the train. The heat rushed at him with murderous intensity. The air shimmered and warped, its edges blurry like melting cream.

Once there, Xu Nanxiao found a daily-wage job sorting packages at a delivery station. The sorting station provided room and board—work started at seven in the morning the moment you opened your eyes, and went until ten at night when you went to sleep. An endless assembly line, paid by the piece.

It wasn’t until he lay in bed that the fine, aching pain seeped through his exhausted muscles and joints. He didn’t want to feel it too closely, so he turned over and fell asleep.

His coworkers were all curious about him.

After all, with a face like his, in today’s society, he could be successful in almost any field—why subject himself to such grueling manual labor?

But Xu Nanxiao looked unapproachable and barely spoke to anyone, so after a while, people stopped trying to strike up conversations.

A few weeks later, Xu Nanxiao disappeared again. When they asked the foreman, they learned he’d quit.

Guangzhou had never been Xu Nanxiao’s intended stop. He was afraid Ying Yusheng would track him down, so he drifted through many cities. In each new place, he’d work odd jobs for a few weeks, then take the train onward.

In truth, he did have a destination in mind—a place he’d always planned to go. He just refused to admit it, as if acknowledging it meant admitting defeat. So instead, he chose to wander aimlessly.

Four months passed in a blur. One day, after unloading the last batch of cargo, he wiped the dripping sweat from his face with a cotton glove. The heat in the warehouse was like an airtight lid, suffocating him until he felt dizzy and feverish.

Maybe it was the haze in his head that made him suddenly decide. He tossed his gloves onto the boss’s desk, quit on the spot, and bought a ticket to Hebei.

He spent all his savings from that month on a soft sleeper. The trip from Chongqing to Hebei would take over twenty hours, and he didn’t want to suffer too much—especially since he still had five or six hours of bus and tuk-tuk rides ahead of him.

The train car swayed at the rail joints, the motion becoming dizzying over time. His stomach first felt a dull drop, then began churning with something rising, each wave pushing up toward his throat.

To kill time, Xu Nanxiao ate, slept, ate again, and tried to keep his mind blank. In a daze, he felt as if he’d returned to those days locked up by Ying Yusheng.

The thought made him shudder.

He’d already escaped—why would he think that? Was there really no difference between being inside the walls and being outside?

Half-asleep, Xu Nanxiao heard the train announcement: “The train has arrived at Luoyang Station. Please gather your belongings and exit through the doors after the train comes to a complete stop.”

Suddenly, the noise outside the compartment swelled. Passengers lugging suitcases boarded, wheels clattering and scraping against the floor.

Then, the door to Xu Nanxiao’s compartment slid open, and harsh light flooded the dim little space.

Xu Nanxiao’s eyes stung from the brightness. Annoyed, he turned over and looked toward the door.

Then he saw a familiar silhouette, backlit, features blurred into an indistinct mass.

Blood rushed to his head, freezing solid in the next instant. Xu Nanxiao shot up, his back slamming against the bunk’s partition and shaking the whole bed.

He’d recognize that shadow even if it turned to ash!

He was here!

Ying Yusheng had actually tracked him down!

Xu Nanxiao stared fixedly at the figure, a choked gasp barely squeezing out of his throat.

Four months of hiding, hundreds of days and nights of living in fear—all of it shattered into dust in an instant! After running this long, he was still going in circles!

“Fuck…” Xu Nanxiao ground the word out between his teeth. He suddenly lunged up, grabbed the water bottle by his bedside, and hurled it with all his might. “GET LOST!!!”

The figure was caught off guard and hastily raised an arm to block. The bottle smashed into his elbow with a loud bang and clattered to the floor.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

The voice didn’t belong to Ying Yusheng.

Xu Nanxiao froze.

“What’s going on?” Immediately after, a female companion leaned half her body into the compartment, looping her arm around the man’s.

“This lunatic threw a bottle at me the second I walked in!” the man complained angrily.

Only then did Xu Nanxiao get a clear look at him—he only shared a similar height and build with Ying Yusheng; their faces were completely different.

“Why did you suddenly throw something at us?” the woman demanded, pointing at Xu Nanxiao.

“No, I’m sorry, I mistook you for someone else…”

“Don’t bother with him—he seems unhinged. I’m going to talk to the conductor about switching berths.” The young man cut off Xu Nanxiao’s explanation and pulled his companion away to find the conductor.

The compartment fell quiet again, except for a few curious onlookers glancing in.

Xu Nanxiao propped himself up and sat upright. He covered his forehead, then pressed his temples.

He cursed himself for being a coward—scared out of his wits just by seeing someone who slightly resembled Ying Yusheng.

But what he cursed himself for even more was that, after realizing the person wasn’t Ying Yusheng, besides relief and relaxation, why did he feel just a little—though only a little—

Empty?

Author’s note:
I’m taking this opportunity to wish everyone a happy New Year in advance! May everything go your way!
Thank you all for your support of 119. Let’s stay together for the coming year too!