WT Chapter 58

Chapter 58: Early Winter, Try to Love Me Again.

Jiang Quanyu seemed not to expect Wen Shixi to ask such a straightforward question and stood there stunned for a moment.

Wen Shixi’s cold face showed no emotion, and he asked as if it were only natural: “Is gege a pervert? How old was I seven years ago?”

With Wen Shixi’s words, Jiang Quanyu paused slightly, and memories flooded into his mind.

Eighteen-year-old Wen Shixi, with his soft hair, fair skin, and clean scent hidden beneath his thin muscles, was perfect in every way.

What’s more, that was Wen Shixi who belonged only to him.

Jiang Quanyu could never deny that this young man, whom he had watched grow up bit by bit, possessed an unparalleled attraction for him.

Jiang Quanyu: “Seven years ago was impossible, but now it’s okay?”

Jiang Quanyu remembered everything after getting drunk last night.

When Wen Shixi responded to him, he implicitly agreed to his marking him.

But now, under the starry night, Wen Shixi turned his head again.

“No.”

Wen Shixi walked towards the path, leaving only a cold-faced sentence: “Stop talking big, let’s go.”

The starry night was quiet, and the black car returned to the city all the way, bathed in the glittering neon lights.

Jiang Lian’s deadline for Wen Shixi to move out of the apartment was before the end of the month, with only a few days left.

Wen Shixi sat in the car looking at houses on his mobile phone app. He still had money in his account, but it was far from enough to buy an apartment, so he could only find a place to rent first.

Not only the house, but Uncle’s Secretary Liu said in the message that his living expenses would also be cut off next month.

Having been raised by the Jiang family until he was twenty-five years old, Wen Shixi had to start supporting himself from now on.

In the silence, Wen Shixi silently comforted himself, it doesn’t matter, after all, Bach, Schubert, and Brahms all became legends after experiencing poverty.

Jiang Quanyu sat in the driver’s seat, driving while watching Wen Shixi looking at his phone, and asked, “What are you looking at?”

Wen Shixi didn’t even think: “It’s none of gege’s business.”

Jiang Quanyu frowned, his voice a little complicated: “Are you still more used to calling me gege?”

Wen Shixi heard the words and changed his tone: “It’s none of Mr. Jiang’s business.”

Jiang Quanyu narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at the traffic lights ahead, his voice full of pressure: “Wen Shixi.”

In the dimness, Wen Shixi put down his phone and closed his slightly sore eyes.

Wen Shixi: “I’m going to sleep for a while.”

He had provoked Jiang Quanyu, but he didn’t want to continue arguing with Jiang Quanyu about those issues and planned to go straight to sleep.

In the silence, Jiang Quanyu heard this, and suppressed the chaotic words in his heart one by one.

Then, a few seconds later, Jiang Quanyu reached out and turned up the temperature of the car’s air conditioner on the center console.

The warm air blew on Wen Shixi’s face, and the faint humming of the tires continued in the dimness, sounding both monotonous and dull, yet making people feel very secure.

The ocean scent of the car’s fragrance mixed in the warm wind, constantly and gently assaulting him, bringing a peaceful and gentle aura.

Wen Shixi closed his eyes and thought for a moment, then quietly opened his mouth when passing a fork in the road.

“Jiang Quanyu, I don’t love you anymore.”

The current Wen Shixi is used to clarifying everything at the beginning of a relationship.

Although he didn’t leave, he didn’t want Jiang Quanyu to misunderstand.

When he heard Jiang Quanyu’s wish to build an amusement park, he once thought that maybe he had misunderstood Jiang Quanyu, and Jiang Quanyu was a person worth loving.

But he understood that he no longer had the longing for Jiang Quanyu that he had seven years ago.

He would never return to being eighteen years old, nor would he love someone like that again.

He said that he didn’t need a beautiful sincere heart.

That was too false for him, he would only ruin it.

After a long silence, the car drove on an empty and quiet street.

Streetlights passed by one after another, the warm yellow light flickering, repeatedly, as if there was no end.

Jiang Quanyu never answered, just like his every evasion, as if there were many things he couldn’t face.

No one knew what he was thinking behind that tightly closed mouth.

Dozens of minutes later, the car drove into the apartment garage.

Jiang Quanyu woke up the sleeping Wen Shixi, and the elevator carried the two of them all the way up.

After reaching the floor, Wen Shixi stood at the familiar door of his home, blocking the keypad and pressing the password.

The door opened, Wen Shixi stepped into the room, and said “goodbye” very perfunctorily.

Then, he turned to close the door.

The door continued to close, and the light-colored figure gradually disappeared from sight.

At this moment, a hand suddenly lifted up, holding onto the door that was about to close.

Jiang Quanyu reopened the door and looked at the confused person inside.

To Jiang Quanyu, Wen Shixi seven years later was like an extremely difficult mystery.

Not to mention, there was still a dead knot left over from the past between the two.

Jiang Quanyu was neither gentle nor patient, overbearing and dictatorial, and originally couldn’t untie this dead knot.

But if this knot was Wen Shixi, as long as Wen Shixi didn’t leave him… he was willing to try to untie it.

Just now Wen Shixi said that he didn’t love him anymore.

Jiang Quanyu slowly opened his mouth: “That only means you don’t love me now, right?”

Wen Shixi paused slightly upon hearing this, his breathing silent.

An expensive suit wrapped Jiang Quanyu’s cold heart, and dark pupils expanded with hidden undercurrents.

Jiang Quanyu: “Then starting from tomorrow, or the next second, try to love me again.”

As he said this, he seemed very unaccustomed, and gently exhaled.

Then, Jiang Quanyu didn’t want to wait for Wen Shixi’s answer, he grasped the doorknob, and while closing the door, slowly said.

“I’m going back, rest early, good night.”

As the door closed gently, Wen Shixi stood inside the door, stunned for a moment.

Later, as if after a long time, the sound of footsteps outside the door came through the door panel, getting farther and farther away, until it slowly disappeared.

–

Since the beginning of winter in the harbor, the first snow has fallen early with the autumn rain, and the sunny days have lasted for several days.

Wen Shixi contacted the moving company the next day and wanted to cancel the grand piano transaction.

He quickly received a reply that the buyer gladly agreed and said that he liked the piano very much, so he hoped that Wen Shixi could contact him directly if he wanted to sell the piano again.

Later, Wen Shixi got the buyer’s contact information from the moving company’s person in charge and sent a thank you text message.

Then, he contacted the agency to look at houses, and was very busy.

After learning that Wen Shixi hadn’t left, Teacher Liang Min chatted with Wen Shixi for a long time, and then recommended a suitable orchestra for him to observe. She also spent half a day especially to help Wen Shixi choose competition pieces for the piano competition at the end of next month.

And in the midst of his busy schedule, Jiang Quanyu would call him every night, as if to confirm Wen Shixi’s existence.

The calls were not long, each lasting about a few minutes.

Most of the time, he asked Wen Shixi what he was busy with all day, or if there was anything he needed help with, or how the competition preparations were going.

It was like guarding a well-behaved line, or like not knowing anything about the line, just simply being not good at it.

On a weekend evening, in the Bedoste Theater in the center of Harbor City, Wen Shixi sat on the side of the second floor of the opera house, watching tonight’s opera “Don Carlo.”

At the same time, in the Jiang’s headquarters building, Secretary Gu was working overtime, following Jiang Quanyu’s instructions, after several rounds of valuation, sending investment explanation letters to all symphony orchestras in Harbor.

Chen Jiale sat on the sofa playing a game console, feeling that Jiang Quanyu should still see a psychologist.

Chen Little Young Master had just been beaten by his family for stealing wine, and he didn’t even dare to imagine such behavior of pouring money into the Huangpu River.

But the only thing that reassured Chen Jiale was that Jiang Quanyu seemed to have finally returned to normal.

This was simply too good, spending a little money was fine.

In the opera hall, the orchestra was resonating in a chilling high note.

“Don Carlo” has a total of four acts. Because the entire play is in Italian, Wen Shixi could only watch the performance while reading the subtitles.

Spanish Prince Don Carlo and French Princess Elisabeth fell in love at first sight in Fontainebleau. But Princess Elisabeth was eventually forced to marry Don Carlo’s father, Philip II.

Don Carlo cared about the people of Flanders, but precisely because of this, he became even more opposed to his father.

The contradiction and opposition interwoven with emotion and politics forged a three-hour tragedy.

Although it was the weekend, there were not many spectators in the entire theater, and there were even fewer people in the second-floor stands.

It wasn’t until the end of the performance that it was already night.

While the actors were taking their bows, Wen Shixi clapped and noticed that the old man sitting next to him seemed to have been watching him for a long time.

Wen Shixi turned his head in confusion, looking at the old man’s kind smile.

Being discovered, the old man didn’t look away, but kindly said to Wen Shixi: “It’s the first time I’ve seen a young person come to see old-fashioned opera alone.”

Wen Shixi was inexplicably approached, and felt that the old man’s accent sounded strange.

He thought for a while and asked: “Are you a foreigner?”

The old man smoothly said a sentence in Japanese, indicating his origin, and then asked: “Are you an actor?”

Wen Shixi shook his head: “I’m just simply interested in opera.”

The two were talking, and before long, the opera ended, and they got up and walked towards the exit.

The old man seemed very easy to get along with, and when talking about opera, he could be said to be verbose: “Compared to the Italian “Don Carlo,” I still prefer the original French version of “Don Carlos” that Verdi originally created, but the original five acts are indeed too long and wordy.”

Wen Shixi didn’t really want to talk to strangers, so he was just talking to the old man one sentence at a time, planning to sneak away immediately after leaving the theater.

The old man said and asked: “How could you be interested in opera at your age?”

Wen Shixi casually said: “The person I liked a long time ago, his mother was a soprano singer.”

“Oh?” The old man smiled: “Then his mother must have liked you very much, you must have gotten along well.”

Wen Shixi: “His mother passed away a long time ago, and I wasn’t with him either.”

The old man heard the words and showed an embarrassed expression of knowing that he had spoken out of turn.

Seeing this, Wen Shixi quickly explained: “You don’t need to mind, I’m just very interested recently, so I came to see it.”

Wen Shixi had loved reading the stories behind every piece of classical music since he was a child. The composer’s experiences left in those music, as well as the joy or sadness at that time, could be fully presented only through notes and rhythms, which was even more interesting than fairy tale books.

To him, opera was more like a magnificent and graceful world created with music.

At the entrance of the theater, Wen Shixi found an excuse to leave and said goodbye to the old man.

The old man was very happy and said goodbye to him in oddly-toned Chinese: “I’ll be back to see “Rigoletto” next Saturday, if you come, we’ll chat again then.”

The night in early winter was very cold. Wen Shixi walked dozens of meters in the parking lot and felt a chill before he reached the car.

Wen Shixi quickened his pace, came to the car, sat in the car, and put his hands in front of his mouth to breathe into them.

At this moment, the phone in his coat pocket vibrated.

Wen Shixi took out his phone and saw a text message from a stranger.

“No need to thank me specifically, I hope I have the opportunity to hear you play this piano in the future.”

Wen Shixi opened the dialogue box and found that it was the very talkative piano buyer.

But he was a little strange, because the other party only replied after two days.

Wen Shixi thought for a while and replied politely: “If there is a chance.”

In the message notifications, in addition to the text message, there were also two missed call reminders, both of which were made when he was watching the opera just now.

The “Jiang Quanyu” in the same location, which called him, made Wen Shixi a little headache.

Immediately, he simply stuffed the phone back into his coat pocket, pretending he didn’t see it.

The engine started and drove out of the theater parking lot all the way.

Then, as soon as Wen Shixi turned out of the toll booth, he saw the old man who had watched the opera with him earlier, huddled and standing on the cold roadside.

The old man seemed to be waiting to hail a taxi, and had been looking towards the road. But although it was the city center, there were no residential areas near the street where the theater was located, and it was very desolate at night.

In the biting cold wind, the white Bentley on the lane hesitated for a moment, and finally swerved to the right, stopping steadily on the side of the road.

Wen Shixi operated the glass to lower it and shouted at the old man.

“Are you taking a taxi? There are not many cars here, let me take you to the intersection ahead.”

The place where the old man was going was not far away, just at the international hotel two streets away.

Because of a strange act of kindness, Wen Shixi had to make two more turns, taking the old man directly to the entrance of the hotel.

By the time he drove home, it was almost late at night.

Pushing open the door, Wen Shixi didn’t turn on the lights out of habit and walked directly into the room.

He turned past the entrance and looked into the room while taking off his coat.

At this moment, a shadowy figure sitting on the sofa came into view in the darkness.

Wen Shixi paused, even his breathing stopped.

After a moment, he stood there, looking at the man sitting in the moonlight.

Wen Shixi spoke, his voice mixed with a hint of faint anger.

“How did you get in?”

Jiang Quanyu sat in the silence, the striped tie on his collar was loosened and draped over his chest, the top button of his shirt was not buttoned, and the neckline was slightly open to both sides, revealing a small patch of honey-colored skin.

The danger belonging to an alpha overflowed in the dark night, but at a glance, his whole body was scattered with uneasy and anxious overlapping confusion, like dim noise in a black and white movie.

It was the first time he had appeared in days since Jiang Quanyu had said those words and left last time.

Soon, Jiang Quanyu got up, walked towards Wen Shixi, and asked in a muffled voice: “I called you, why didn’t you answer?”

Wen Shixi: “I was watching opera.”

Jiang Quanyu couldn’t help but frown.

Talking about opera, Wen Shixi clearly had time to reply to text messages from strangers, but he kept ignoring him.

Seeing that Jiang Quanyu didn’t speak, Wen Shixi asked again: “How did you get in? Did you ask someone to tamper with my lock again?”

Jiang Quanyu walked up to Wen Shixi, his brow furrowed slightly.

In the silence, Jiang Quanyu endured it again and again, before answering Wen Shixi’s question: “No need to pry, your password, I guessed it the first time I heard you press it.”

Wen Shixi was surprised: “Guess?”

Jiang Quanyu didn’t speak, and raised one of Wen Shixi’s hands.

The warm and broad palm held the long fingers that were slightly cold from just coming in from outside, and held them up in front of the two.

Then, Jiang Quanyu gently tapped Wen Shixi’s palm with his fingertips.

The fingertip of the index finger had a thin soft callus, touching the thin skin of the palm, one tap at a time, itching to an indescribable degree.

Da da, da da, da da, da——

With the action, Jiang Quanyu recited: “11-55-66-5.”

Wen Shixi often adapted and played it when he was a child.

Jiang Quanyu: “”Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.””