WHI – Chapter 39

Chapter 39

After learning that his college entrance exam scores had met the threshold, Lin Ting began planning to work.

Firstly, he calculated his remaining money. Without additional income, after deducting university tuition and rent, there wouldn’t be much left. If anything unexpected happened, he’d be in a tight spot.

Secondly, he realized how much he had let himself go. He, who used to sleep and wake early and make time for studying, had lost his motivation for ‘studying’. He became a night owl, completely颓废 (tuífèi – decadent/depressed). He only went out once a week to buy groceries and cigarettes.

He knew he wasn’t addicted to smoking, but when he smoked, it was as if the smoke could transport him to a vast, white, imaginary space. There, only the months spent with Wen Lan existed.

No Lin Fang, no marriage alliance, no Chen Song.

He became infatuated with that illusory feeling, as if he were addicted.

After browsing many job postings online, Lin Ting finally settled on this place—a cruise ship restaurant. The pay was good, and it wasn’t too strenuous. The only stringent requirements were for education, appearance, and height.

However, Lin Ting passed the interview smoothly.

Today, he arrived for work as usual, worked ordinarily, waited for the guests on the cruise ship to finish their banquet, and then ordinarily cleaned the tables with his colleagues. After disembarking, he prepared to go to the locker room to change and go home.

Soon, the shouts of passersby attracted his attention. He saw many people gathered on the shore. Some were trying to rescue a person lying on the ground, others were frantically calling 120, and a group of people, who likely couldn’t swim, were lying by the shore with a stick, trying to pull a floating figure in the water ashore.

Although the person in the water’s appearance was unclear, Lin Ting inexplicably felt that the person resembled Wen Lan.

Perhaps it was the lifeless movements, identical to the feeling he had during the incident at the abandoned villa.

Lin Ting stopped his steps towards the locker room, pushed through the crowd, and without hesitation, lunged towards the figure that was gradually sinking.

The neon lights from the shore scattered into the water, filtering out all the noise, leaving only quiet, light fragments of color floating in the water.

Lin Ting, using this faint light, saw the face of the person underwater.

“Wen Lan!” It was him.

He dragged Wen Lan ashore and was then pulled up by people on the shore. Without time to tend to himself, he reached for Wen Lan’s neck to check—fortunately, he was still breathing.

“Wen Lan! Wake up!”

The people around him were busy calling 120, and he didn’t know how long it would take for them to arrive. Lin Ting’s trembling fingers touched Wen Lan’s face. He hadn’t seen this face in so long, and he never expected their reunion to be under such circumstances.

Wen Lan’s eyelids opened slightly, his features still dazed, as if he hadn’t fully come to. Lin Ting couldn’t be sure if he was conscious, so he kept calling out to him.

“Wen Lan, wake up.”

“Wen Lan, I…”

Wen Lan’s lips moved slightly. Lin Ting stopped his voice and leaned his ear closer.

His voice was somewhat hoarse from being soaked. It was very quiet: “I miss you so much, Lin Ting.”

Then he closed his eyes and fainted.

Lin Ting waited until the ambulance took them away before returning to the locker room. Dressed in his soaked work clothes, he took out a pack of cigarettes from his locker, lit one, and stared blankly for a while before changing and going home.

He had thought he had moved on long ago, but the reality proved he hadn’t at all.

What happened to Wen Lan? Why did he fall into the water?

He didn’t even know who to ask.

Lin Ting walked home with heavy steps. The bright moon hung high in the sky, casting his shadow infinitely long.

Upon arriving home, he took out his phone and sent a message to the restaurant manager stating his intention to resign. The manager, thinking he was scared by the night’s events, didn’t keep him any longer. After explaining the details of the end-of-month salary payment and offering a few words of comfort, it was settled.

Lin Ting lay on his bed, opened the last message from Wen Lan on his phone, and gazed at it for a long time under the moonlight.

He had many friends when he was young, but unfortunately, they were all too young then, and they didn’t keep in touch. In junior high, he became solitary again. It was only in high school, thanks to Wen Lan, that he made some friends, but they drifted apart after graduation, and with everything that had happened between Wen Lan and himself, his connections to the world had also disappeared.

“Orphaned,” with no relatives or friends, he suddenly felt lost, that sense of emptiness both before and behind him.

He drove himself to attend university, drove himself to work, using a sliver of reason to learn to act like other souls in the world, donning the human skin named Lin Ting to wander about.

He thought this would be enough. Everyone else was like this. But the moment he saw Wen Lan, his soul screamed to break through his skin, wishing to devour the person in front of him to fill the void in his heart.

It was terrifying. When did he become such a monster?

Lin Ting slept and woke in his room. He didn’t look at his phone and didn’t even know if it was the next day. Feeling hungry, he ate something casually, took a shower, washed up, and then went back to sleep. He drifted through two or three days in a daze.

That night, he slept poorly. In his dream, he heard rustling sounds of someone trying to pick the lock. It sounded like a thin wire was fiddling with the old iron door’s keyhole, followed by a creaking sound.

Lin Ting disliked such dreams, so he struggled to wake up, but his dream body was completely unresponsive.

Crack!

The desk lamp on the bedside table seemed to have been turned on. The dim yellow light shone through his thin eyelids, making Lin Ting uncomfortable.

In his hazy consciousness, it felt like a pair of hands gently brushed his cheek, then traced along his jawline to his Adam’s apple, and finally unbuttoned his pajamas.

One by one.

His wrists were taken out from under the covers by the other person. The touch was gentle, as if afraid of waking him. The red string on both his wrists was threaded through a piece of yarn, tickling him.

The next second, Lin Ting realized something was wrong. His hands were fixed to his sides, unable to move.

Lin Ting finally struggled to open his eyes.

Wen Lan’s features, in the dim light, appeared even more three-dimensional. The side shrouded in shadow held an indescribable darkness.

It was clearly Wen Lan, yet somehow different from usual.

Right, this was a dream. His dream.

“It’s good to dream of you,” Lin Ting watched the man in front of him take off his shirt and then unbuckle his belt. He couldn’t help but mock himself for having such a dream, truly…

Wen Lan remained silent, focused on his actions. His fingers were long, tracing along Lin Ting’s muscles, then hooking onto the waistband of Lin Ting’s pajama pants.

Lin Ting tried to move, but his hand was pulled. Only then did he glance down and see his hands tied to the headboard with red yarn threaded through the red string. A ball of red yarn lay on the floor.

“What are you doing?” Lin Ting, realizing it was a dream, felt much more relaxed. He curled one corner of his lips and teased Wen Lan, who had an unhappy expression on his face, “Even if we’re going to do this, I should be on top, right?”

As he spoke, Lin Ting tried to break free from the red yarn—this kind of yarn could be snapped with a gentle tug.

“Don’t move, or it will break.” Wen Lan finally stopped his actions, looked at Lin Ting, and pressed down on his wrists, restraining Lin Ting’s flailing hands.

“Fine, but shouldn’t it start with a kiss?” Lin Ting felt the dream was becoming increasingly real. He couldn’t help but feel his body heat up.

Wen Lan finally stopped facing Lin Ting with his fierce expression. Instead, he curled one corner of his lips, threw the clothes and blankets on the bed onto the floor, and leaned down.

The kiss started gently, as if he were carefully trying not to disturb Lin Ting’s sleep. Then it inevitably deepened. Lin Ting could clearly hear Wen Lan’s breathing around him.

As he kissed, Wen Lan ran his hand through Lin Ting’s hair, gently rubbing the top of his head, then moved down to pinch his earlobe and caress it.

Lin Ting’s earlobes were very sensitive, and his breathing hitched. The person on him quickly noticed this, stopped kissing, and moved to kiss the other ear tip, then the earlobe, and the outer ear.

The sound of wetness near his ear sensually tugged at Lin Ting’s nerves. His breathing grew heavier, and his hands were still restrained. He could only curl his knees and rub against Wen Lan’s waist with his side: “Stop messing around, are you going to do it or not?”

Wen Lan paused at his words, stopped holding back, and began to bite Lin Ting’s collarbone, Adam’s apple, and neck. He then moved to the sensitive area of his waist, biting and kissing.

The subsequent actions were almost devoid of the usual gentleness and tenderness. Lin Ting then realized that this person’s strength was much greater than he had imagined. The cold air in the room was dispelled by the heat in this corner, and the outdoor air conditioning unit hummed.

Lin Ting began to sweat, but the person on him wasn’t much better. Large beads of sweat rolled down Wen Lan’s jawline, making Lin Ting tremble with the heat.

Is this dream a bit too real?

He woke up groggily, instinctively thinking it was a dream. What if this wasn’t a dream?

The moment Lin Ting reacted, he tried to push the person on him away. But Wen Lan, as if prepared, grabbed Lin Ting’s arm and said with a cold smile, “Finally realized? I thought a top student’s brain was supposed to be sharp.”

“Let go.” Lin Ting’s body seemed to disobey his reason, and he said with a trembling voice.

Wen Lan had no intention of obeying Lin Ting. The next second, Lin Ting felt a pain he had never experienced before.

“Get off me quickly.” Lin Ting gasped and raised his hand, trying to break free from the red yarn.

“Shh, don’t say things like that at a time like this.” Wen Lan smiled sinisterly, “If the rope breaks, I’ll be very angry, and then I might be even less gentle.”

Lin Ting looked at the person in front of him, who was almost unrecognizable from his past self. But he didn’t have time to think. The pain from below continued to surge, blocking his thoughts.

From resistance to pleading, and finally to a dazed gaze, everything in front of him seemed shrouded in mist. His mind couldn’t overcome his body, and Lin Ting couldn’t help but cooperate with Wen Lan, letting out shamefully inaudible moans.

Wen Lan was no better. His previously dim gaze became unfocused, but his strength was greater than usual. He was almost like a beast, tasting every corner of Lin Ting.

The bedsheets were soaked with sweat and crumpled into balls. The iron frame of the bed was pulled by the yarn, making creaking sounds as it rubbed against the floor. Soon, the yarn broke.

Lin Ting, finally able to relax his hands, fiercely grabbed the back of the person on him and forcibly stopped the biting on his collarbone, then kissed him.

The love he hadn’t seen in a long time, mixed with the sins of two generations’ life and death, was all returned to Wen Lan at this moment.

Lin Ting’s actions were not gentle. He bit Wen Lan’s lips, then ground his teeth against the tip of his tongue, and then fiercely probed inside, venting.

The harder he kissed, the stronger Wen Lan’s force became. Their gulping sounds mingled in their mouths, becoming clearer and louder, and silver threads dripped from the gaps between their lips, staining the light gray pillowcase a dark gray.

It wasn’t until the outside turned pale blue that this absurd, unwilling love affair ended.