Chapter 99: Bound by What One Desires

Bian Yang did not even lift his eyelids. “You got a damn problem?”

At last he had reacted, and Qin Mingyu let out a quiet breath of relief. Grinning shamelessly, he leaned in.

“So Little Rain really is the magic word.”

“Get the hell off me!” Before Qin Mingyu could crowd closer, Bian Yang had already kicked out a leg.

Qin Mingyu dodged with practiced ease and kept walking beside him. “Then don’t cut me off, Yang-ge. You can’t just not want me anymore!”

“Do you ever get disgusting.”

Bian Yang shifted a step away, his expression unchanged, putting some distance between them.

Qin Mingyu felt the weight in his chest drop. If he was willing to answer back, then it meant he had not taken it to heart.

Looking at the boy’s slightly worn face, Qin Mingyu figured he had not slept much. The faint shadow beneath his eyes was especially obvious.

“Yang-ge, are you leaving again after this trip back?”

“Why don’t we get together sometime? Those guys keep asking me about you every day. It’s been ages since we last saw each other. Want to go to the club and have some fun?”

“Yang-ge, say something. If not, I’ll contact Little Rain—”

Bian Yang abruptly stopped. He turned his head and looked at him with cool, distant eyes. Qin Mingyu immediately shut his mouth.

Bian Yang held out a hand. “Your phone.”

Qin Mingyu blinked, then obediently pulled out his phone, unlocked it, and placed it in the boy’s hand.

Bian Yang opened the contacts, found Tang Yu’s number, and deleted it. He checked WeChat as well; once he confirmed Tang Yu was gone from there too, he tossed the phone back to him, flagged down a taxi with a blank face, ignored Qin Mingyu’s calls after him, and rode off without looking back.

Qin Mingyu’s expression fell.

For the first time, he felt that the bond between brothers was beginning to show signs of collapse.

He hurriedly told the driver to follow, and they tracked him all the way to the airport, where he finally blocked him.

“Yang-ge, what the hell did I even do to you? You can’t let me die without knowing why!”

He was shouting so loudly that quite a few people around them were casting odd looks in their direction.

A vein throbbed at Bian Yang’s temple. He glanced at Qin Mingyu, who had both arms spread wide to stop him, and rolled his tongue against the roof of his mouth, very much in the mood to hit someone.

Qin Mingyu said, “If this were only about Uncle Bian and my dad, you definitely wouldn’t be this mad. But I didn’t do anything either. I ran to Liangcheng overnight for your sake, handled this and that, and I—”

Halfway through, he suddenly thought of something and asked cautiously, “Could Uncle Bian have found out about this too?”

Bian Yang remained calm, but the frost in his eyes deepened visibly.

Qin Mingyu saw it. He lowered his hands and pressed at his brow, explaining, “This wasn’t me who told him. Eight times out of ten it was my dad’s loose damn mouth.”

He jerked his chin toward the car outside and gave a self-mocking laugh. “You know the driver is one of my dad’s people. He’s basically a moving camera. Whatever I do, he reports it straight back to my dad. I have no privacy at all. I stayed in Liangcheng for so many days; my dad must have guessed it had something to do with you. Yesterday, when he was arguing with Uncle Bian, he slipped and said it out loud…”

His father’s mouth did not merely sabotage himself. It damn well sabotaged his son too.

“Yang-ge, I’m sorry. If this is because of me and made you fight with Uncle Bian, I really…”

Qin Mingyu felt guilty as well.

Bian Yang lowered his gaze and toyed with his phone in his hand.

After a moment, he said flatly, “I’ve got nothing to do with that old beast anymore. Don’t bring him up around me.”

Qin Mingyu drew in a sharp breath. This must have been a serious blowup, enough to break off relations completely. “You two cut ties?”

Bian Yang gave a faint “mm.” “I’ve paid him back everything, money and cards included.”

“Damn!”

Only for a moment did Qin Mingyu look shocked before he pulled himself together. Without another word, he reached into his jacket pocket, took out his wallet, drew out a black card, and handed it over.

“Use mine. Swipe however much you want!”

Bian Yang did not even glance at it. “What do you take me for?”

Qin Mingyu was left speechless. He also felt the gesture was a little odd, and muttered, “I’m just afraid you’ll have a hard time.”

Aside from lacking a little freedom, the whole lot of them had grown up in smooth, easy circumstances and had hardly ever known real setbacks.

Much less cards. When they paid, they never even looked at the amount.

If the money supply were suddenly cut off, Qin Mingyu, who had always spent without restraint, would certainly not be able to bear it. And let alone Bian Yang, who had never paid much mind to money in the first place.

Bian Yang gave a cold snort. The sharp planes of his face held no smile, only faint mockery. “You think I look like someone short on money?”

At that, Qin Mingyu seemed to remember something. He awkwardly put the card away.

Right. Unlike him, Bian Yang had been involved in the financial world since he was twelve.

When he first played with Bitcoin, one coin was only a little over seven hundred dollars. Now one had climbed to more than sixty thousand.

And the amount of Bitcoin he held was enough to make him a name in the entire crypto world.

Qin Mingyu had regretted more than once that he had not listened to him back then and bought in with him. Otherwise he would already have achieved financial freedom through it.

“Fine, I won’t try to talk you out of it anymore. Actually, it’s pretty good for you to stay in Liangcheng. At least when you’re there, you’re truly happy.”

“Yang-ge, among all the brothers we grew up with, the one I envy most is you, because it seems like you’ve always known exactly what you want…”

Qin Mingyu curved his lips, lowered his head, and gave a bitter little laugh.

Unlike the rest of them, drifting like boats on the current, pushed forward by whatever tide came next.

Bian Yang raised a hand and patted his shoulder. He said nothing, only turned and walked into the boarding gate.

Even after the figure had gone far away, Qin Mingyu was still standing there in a daze.

Just from this alone, even if Bian Yang said nothing, there would forever be a gap between them…

Uncle Chen came over to call for him. Qin Mingyu gathered his thoughts and turned back to ask, “Uncle Chen, did you tell my dad about what happened in Liangcheng?”

Uncle Chen’s expression stiffened. He looked troubled. “When the master asked, I couldn’t do anything about it…”

He knew it.

Qin Mingyu could not even say what he felt. Was it the familiar disappointment, or the inevitable bitterness?

In the end, whatever one wanted always came tied to something else.

It was all a road he had chosen himself. There was no need to demand everything at once; that only made him seem petty and absurd.

But bringing the matter up to Uncle Bian was crossing a line far too far.

Qin Mingyu immediately called him. The moment the other side answered, before a word was even spoken, he started cursing.

“You old bastard have no friends of your own, and now you want to make sure I have none either!”

“From today on, if I ever visit you in the hospital even once, I’ll write my name backward!”

—

The lawyer had contacted her that morning, and Tang Yu had returned to the county seat by noon.

She spent the afternoon in the hotel discussing things with the lawyer. It was already six in the evening by the time she got back to the apartment, but Bian Yang was not there.

Tang Yu first cleaned the entire apartment, mopping the floor, wiping down the table, tidying the wardrobe, and arranging the magazines Bian Yang had left scattered around onto the study shelf in date order. At last, she simmered tomato and beef brisket in the kitchen.

Leaning against the table with her lower back, she glanced at the time on her phone.

It was already eight o’clock.

Bian Yang still had not come back.

Rain in Liangcheng came without warning. Wind had picked up outside, and the rain was fine and sticky, beating in thin threads against the window before finally drawing into lines.

Tang Yu stood before the floor-to-ceiling window and looked out. The horizon was gradually being swallowed by a black tide.

When she heard the knock at the door, she thought it was Bian Yang and immediately slipped on her house shoes and ran to open it.

It was not Bian Yang, but an auntie with permed wool curls.

The woman said, “Young lady, I’m with the neighborhood committee. Are you the owner living here? This is last month’s water and electricity bill. It says the fees are overdue. If you don’t pay soon, the water and power might get cut off. Be sure to remind your family to pay, all right? You can pay online, or go to the utility payment point downstairs in our community.”

After thanking her, Tang Yu accepted the bill.

She sat cross-legged on the sofa with the paper in hand, entered the household account information from the bill into her phone, and paid the water and electricity charges online. She then saw there was also a prepayment function.

The money she had transferred to Bian Yang before, which he had not accepted, she deposited there instead.

Then she crumpled the bill and the rough calculations into a ball and tossed them into the trash.

The rain outside grew heavier and heavier. Tang Yu called his number, only to hear that his phone was switched off.

The apartment’s only umbrella was still at the dormitory with her, and she had not brought it back. Could he be outside getting soaked in the rain?

A faint unease rose in her chest. She changed her shoes, tucked the key into her pocket, and went out.

She bought an umbrella from a small shop downstairs, then began looking for Bian Yang nearby.

The street was hazy with gray mist. The rain had come suddenly, and many pedestrians hurried along with their heads down.

Tang Yu gripped the umbrella handle with both hands and walked to the gate of the residential complex, where she finally saw that familiar figure.

Bian Yang was walking this way in the rain, exposed to it without any cover at all, head lowered.

He was soaked through. Water from his wet hair dripped from his forehead, and he seemed to be shrouded in a surging black mist.