On the first day his baby bear left, he missed him.
On the second day, he missed him even more.
On the third day, he missed him, missed him, missed him~
But in truth, it wasn’t entirely like that. At least on the first night after Ji Kai arrived in the neighboring city, Li Weidu definitely experienced a new kind of sweetness.
He answered the phone and closed his eyes. Listening to that deep, sultry voice and imagining the vividly described scene, it felt as if they were intimately entwined.
“The bathtub is silver, and the hotel bathrobe is soft, made of dark gray velvet. It rubs against my chest… it feels tight, just a single strap that loosens with a gentle pull.”
“…I’m not wearing anything underneath.” The deep, slow breathing, combined with the magnetic voice through the phone, was almost bone-tinglingly seductive.
“Weidu, think carefully… where do you want to touch me first?”
Every day, Li Weidu was teased across the distance until he could barely take it. In real life, he could always satisfy his baby bear completely, so why was it that in these moments, he was the one who got…
After the sweetness, after the closeness, after everything, they still couldn’t bear to hang up the phone.
“Let me sing you a lullaby, then.”
It was one thing that he could draw, but now Li Weidu discovered that Ji Kai could also sing!
The lullaby was especially soothing. Lying on the soft bed, Li Weidu felt like he was floating in the starry night sky, watching golden chubby stars fall one after another, twinkling brightly.
How could he be any less than a professional singer? If his baby bear ever took up singing, would Zhu Ling even have any work left?
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Li Weidu secretly thought that this kind of occasional distance might not be so bad after all.
But the next morning, cold reality hit him hard—without his baby bear around, nothing was good, not at all!
After breakfast, he arrived at the office. The glass window faced the bustling, dazzling landmark tower of S City. Just as he was gearing up to tackle the piled-up work, the secretary called to say someone was looking for him.
It was Fu Bo, the old butler.
Li Weidu’s father was always busy with work, and his mother often locked herself away in her room, consumed by her own thoughts. In his childhood, aside from Ye Yin’s company, it was the old butler, Fu Bo, who cared for him like a kind grandfather. He had brought some small amount of warmth and family feeling to Li Weidu’s otherwise bleak years.
So, Li Weidu would never refuse to show respect to the old man.
He took out his prized tea to brew for him; the fragrance filling the air, but Fu Bo trembled, not daring to sit, let alone drink.
“Young master, the master, and madam have asked me to invite you home for lunch today. Please, don’t make things difficult for this old Fu. The master specifically instructed that I must bring you back no matter what…”
Li Weidu was puzzled.
He gently comforted the deeply wrinkled and anxious Fu Bo, confused as to why he mentioned the word “madam.”
“Fu Bo, you’ve always referred to my mother as ‘madam.’”
As for the woman who came later, Fu Bo had always called her ‘miss,’ even when she was throwing temper tantrums. He had never addressed her differently, not even referring to Aunt Bai as anything but ‘Mrs. Bai.’
“Young master,” Fu Bo stammered, “It’s the madam, the madam has returned.”
Li Weidu furrowed his brows, not understanding.
“Young master, madam has returned! Even old Fu couldn’t believe it at first, but she really has come back! She’s returned to our house!”
……
The mountain road leading to the hillside villa was a bit bumpy. The weather was gloomy, and the air was thick with the tangy scent of an impending mountain storm.
Li Weidu could never forget the everlasting nightmare of his memories.
Inside the cold villa, the sound of rain and thunder couldn’t drown out the piercing cries, like those of vengeful ghosts. His small body trembled as he walked up to the second floor, only to see his mother collapsed there, surrounded by pools of crimson blood.
For all these years, his father had insisted that he remembered it wrong, saying Li Weidu had something wrong with his head, that he couldn’t distinguish between dreams and reality. But Li Weidu clearly recalled falling down the stairs in terror, scraping his ankle—there was still a faint scar there today.
Later, the ambulance arrived, and medical staff rushed in. From that moment on, his mother never returned home.
People whispered that his father had killed his mother in a fit of domestic violence and that the authorities did nothing because of his father’s wealth and influence. Twenty years ago, S City was still small, and the whole incident had been a topic of gossip on every street corner.
“Don’t play with him. If you cross his family, be careful, you might end up fed to the crocodiles in the river!”
Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Li Weidu couldn’t make friends. His classmates and even teachers were fearful, keeping their distance from him—the “murderer’s child.”
After his mother disappeared, everything about her vanished from their home soon after, as if she had never existed at all.
As a small child, he had cried for his mother, but every time, his father, reeking of alcohol, either beat or cursed him. The woman his father later brought into the house followed suit, burning scars into his arm with her cigarette butts.
Gradually, he stopped crying, stopped making a fuss, and became numb, to the point where he could barely remember what his birth mother looked like.
Many years later, his father replaced one woman with another, again and again, until one day, it was as if he had received divine revelation and suddenly returned to his roots.
He turned the villa into a shrine, hanging a large portrait of Li Weidu’s mother and offering sincere repentance, displaying the depth of his emotions. It was said that from that point on, no matter how much he messed around outside, he never brought another woman home again.
All of this made Li Weidu feel a profound sense of mockery.
……
Fu Bo, the old butler, watched the young master leaning against the window, his gaze bleak and lifeless. His heart ached for him.
Having served others his entire life, Fu Bo didn’t know what to say to comfort him.
When the master brought the madam home recently, Fu Bo had been just as shocked as the young master. It was like witnessing the resurrection of the dead.
But there was no one to talk to about it. Fu Bo was the only one left in the household after twenty years of service. There had been a cleaning maid, who was also the master’s longtime mistress, but she was sent far away because of the madam’s return. All the outside “flowers and grass” had been cleared out as well.
He remembered that night, twenty years ago.
The madam had bled a lot and was screaming, hysterically insisting on leaving while at the hospital. The master had several people hold her down.
But the madam still escaped from the hospital. It was raining heavily outside, and the nearby river embankment had swelled. Several teams of people went out with flashlights to look for her, but they couldn’t find her. Later… they found the shoes she had worn that day, lying near a large rock by the riverbank.
For all these years, everyone believed that she had been driven to despair and had jumped into the river to end her life…
Who could have imagined that she would come back, alive and well!
……
“Yes, I stood by the water for a long time back then, but in the end, I didn’t jump.”
The woman ran her fingers through her stylishly curled hair, smiling without a trace of panic. Her eyes gleamed with a sharp and vibrant confidence, just like that day when she had walked barefoot through the cold, muddy streets in the rain, biting her lip and leaving resolutely without looking back.
Li Weidu carefully examined her.
The whole world seemed to spin silently in a surreal blur.
Her high-end dress, her delicately applied makeup, the red polish on her fingertips—she appeared to be living quite well. Her face looked much like the one in the black-and-white photograph. His father had aged, his face now marked by deep wrinkles, but she had maintained her appearance, as though time had spared her beauty, leaving her still full of charm.
But the mother he remembered had been elegant, pure, and artistic, a ballet dancer.
This dazzling woman before him resembled her but also didn’t.
……
Li Weidu didn’t call out to her, nor did he let her touch him.
His father was furious, slamming the table in anger, while the woman softly tried to calm him down. To Li Weidu, it was absurd, laughably contradictory.
…Have you all forgotten?
In his faint memories, there was indeed a gentle “mother.” One who peeled apples for him, fried chicken legs, and held his hand softly when the family doctor gave him shots.
But more prominent were memories that had twisted beyond recognition—her hitting him hard to vent her anger, scratching his face while crying, even threatening him with a knife—
He no longer remembered whether it was his father who had held the knife to his neck to threaten her, or if it was her who held the knife to his neck to threaten his father. Either way, it was yet another one of their endless arguments, and once again, he found himself crying and trembling, terrified that the cold blade would actually cut into him.
“Back then, I was just too young and too stubborn,” the woman said with a smile, dismissing the years of hatred as if they were nothing. “Being a housewife, stuck at home all day, gave me no sense of security. We had so many meaningless fights. But now I have my own business, I’ve matured a lot, and I won’t repeat the same mistakes.”
The woman spoke lightly about all the bitterness from those years, smiling. The man, holding her hand, looked at her with deep affection and sincerity. “Luo Rui, don’t say that, I was also at fault back then.”
“He said you were mentally ill, that you had completely lost your mind,” Li Weidu could no longer hold it in, immediately tearing apart their false display of affection. “He also said that insanity runs in the family, that I’d end up crazy too, locked in a mental institution, with no cure!”
Li Weidu’s father quickly tried to explain, “Luo Rui, I was young back then, I didn’t know how to raise a child. He didn’t listen, so I had to scare him a little. But no one would actually believe something like that, right?”
……
Li Weidu had no idea how he left that house.
His fingers dug so hard into his palms that they bled, but he didn’t feel relieved by the fact that he was “not crazy.”
Yes, maybe he wasn’t crazy.
But those two certainly were. At the very least, he was sure his mother had been truly sick. Leaving like she did back then, and after all these years, she still had the nerve to come back?
“Your father has changed.”
Changed? Nearly driving you to your death doesn’t count?
He couldn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend what kind of nonsensical logic this messed-up world was operating on.
……
“Weidu! Weidu?”
On the other side of the video, Ji Kai leaned closer to the screen, concerned. “What’s wrong? You look like you’re in low spirits.”
“I’m fine, maybe just tired from working overtime today.”
Ji Kai immediately sounded worried. “You’re not feeling unwell again, are you?”
Li Weidu shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, don’t worry.”
“Okay, but if you’re tired, don’t push yourself to keep chatting with me. Go, take a shower, and rest early. And remember to eat something, you can’t leave your stomach empty, otherwise…”
“Mm.” Li Weidu, his face pale, stared blankly at the computer, absentmindedly reaching out to gently touch the face on the screen. “Ji Kai, baby.”
“Hmm?”
“I miss you. I really miss you.”
“I miss you too. Are you sure you’re okay, Weidu? If something’s wrong, you can tell me.”
“No, I just suddenly feel… really glad you broke up with Zhu Ling early on.”
Honestly, I’m so glad you left him early.
They’re all first-class liars, first-class actors. Of course, my dad is even better at it, pulling off this act of deep love and repentance so well that the woman he nearly killed twenty years ago came crawling back to him.
…Thank goodness, my baby bear was determined and not that foolish.
It’s so good that you left him, so he can’t hurt you anymore. And I’ll make sure to treat you well, never letting you suffer, not even a little bit.
……
He desperately wanted to become stronger, to be someone he could rely on sooner, and to protect him well in the future. He kept encouraging and cheering himself on, but still, night after night, as soon as he lay down, overwhelming thoughts weighed him down.
He hated himself for sharing the same blood with that kind of man, unable to ever escape it.
Sometimes, he thought of that woman. She probably did suffer a lot back then. On that rainy night by the river, if she had just taken one more step forward, she might have ended up like Ji Kai’s gentle sister.
But if you chose to live, then live with brilliance. Why turn back and be with the devil?
And why… why didn’t you take me with you back then?
After a few days, his face turned ashen, his voice weak as if it would fade at any moment, and his emotions were spiraling out of control.
Li Weidu knew that, in the eyes of many, someone like him should have no worries.
How could he have any? From childhood, a chauffeur in a Cayenne drove him to school. At nineteen, he founded his own company, built it into something big, and made it onto the Young Rich List.
If someone with a life like that had anything to feel bad about, it must be self-inflicted. What’s there to be unhappy about? If you’re sad, just buy stuff! If the person you love doesn’t love you back, find someone else!
And he did find someone else—someone rare, like a one-in-a-million, perfect, super-handsome little sunshine. Truly… it couldn’t get any better.
But…
Li Weidu wasn’t a typical depression patient. He had never fallen into long bouts of illness, but sometimes, it hit him out of nowhere.
Many people seem to think depression makes someone cry, scream, and have emotional outbursts. But from Li Weidu’s experience, it wasn’t like that at all.
It was more like a passive rejection of life, feeling half-dead. As if he had been tossed into the deep sea, moving through a mechanical world where there was no reason to keep living.
But he didn’t feel like crying.
As for the baby bear on the other side of the screen, full of concern… He still knew that the bear was cute and warm, but reaching out to touch the bear’s paw through the screen felt like pressing against cold aquarium glass—there was no feeling.
He didn’t want it to be like this, but he was so tired, so heavy, unable to pull himself out. He wanted to fight back against that force dragging him into the abyss, but it was in vain.
The only fortunate thing was that his basic sense of reason was still intact. He still knew how to lie to him: “I’m really just tired from work lately.”
“Weidu, listen to me, you look terrible. Be good and go to the hospital, okay? Right now?”
“Mm, okay.” Using his last bit of effort, he smiled and nodded at the screen. “I’ll go right away, really. Don’t worry, I’m heading there now.”
Then his phone fell to the ground, and he didn’t have the strength to pick it up.
He sat in the chair, utterly drained, his reason speaking one final sentence: This isn’t okay.
…It really isn’t.
How many days has it been since they separated? How could he be this fragile? Like this, how could he ever talk about being independent, or about giving him peace of mind, happiness, or support?
Like this, it’s definitely not okay… I want to protect my baby bear.
Ji Kai was the kind of person who always appeared strong, even to the point of being impenetrable, flawless. But people like that hid their wounds well—no matter how deeply infected or life-threatening, it didn’t show on the outside.
Li Weidu felt a bit proud, even smug, that he had noticed something Zhu Ling hadn’t.
He wanted to protect him. He had to protect him…
He wobbled as he got up and went to the medicine cabinet. He hadn’t taken his antidepressants in a long time, but taking seven or eight at once wasn’t too much. He remembered that these pills worked better than sleeping pills. Sleeping pills didn’t work at all—he couldn’t sleep, no matter how many he took. But these pills often knocked him out quickly, letting him sleep through until morning.
This time, though…
Because it had been three days without sleep, and he was so exhausted. He should just take some pills and sleep, and when he woke up, everything would be better.
When his baby bear came back, he would make up for all the hugs and kisses they missed, greet him with energy, and make sure he didn’t notice a thing…
……
Qi Yang received Ji Kai’s call in the middle of the night.
“What’s wrong?”
“Can I ask you to go and stay with Li Weidu? I have a feeling something’s off,” Ji Kai said while hurriedly packing his suitcase.
The meeting report had already been done, and the closing ceremony tomorrow didn’t really require his presence. It was better to just rush back home early.
He had to go home early! He felt increasingly uneasy, like a very bad premonition was looming.
Hearing the seriousness in Ji Kai’s voice, Qi Yang didn’t dare delay. His orange sports car roared down the street, speeding straight to Li Weidu’s house in the dead of night.
The streetlights were dim, and the house—usually lit by its warm little lamps—was eerily dark and silent. The shadows of the trees swayed, creating an ominous atmosphere. Qi Yang shivered as he pulled out the key, unable to help glancing over his shoulder and around the sides of the house several times.
It felt like the perfect setting for one of those crime shows he’d been watching recently, where some crazed killer commits murder and hides the body.
Could it be… Li Weidu had already been killed? Was the murderer lying in wait inside, ready to strike again, one after another? Ugh, how terrifying!
He regretted not calling Wei Xuan or Zuo Yan to come along!
The more he thought about it, the more afraid he was to open the door. Thankfully, Li Weidu’s house had large floor-to-ceiling windows, and one of the curtains wasn’t fully drawn. He quickly turned on his phone’s flashlight, casting a sharp beam of white light inside.
The sofa was askew, and the floor was littered with empty bottles and pills. A person lay on the ground, their messy bangs obscuring their face. But after knowing each other for so many years, there was no mistaking who it was.
Holy—! No way!!!
Qi Yang fumbled with the key, dropping it several times. Eventually, he couldn’t even pick it up anymore. Luckily, there was a shovel leaning against the fence. Breathing heavily, he grabbed it and swung it hard at the glass, smashing through it.
Immediately, the blaring sound of the alarm echoed across the empty neighborhood.
……
……
Ji Kai was on the verge of losing his mind.
He tossed his luggage aside in the hospital lobby, not caring about it, and his suit felt constricting as he rushed toward the hospital room. When he saw the person lying in bed, with dark circles under his eyes and looking deathly weak, Ji Kai’s throat tightened. He almost wanted to embrace him right away, offering warmth, but at the same time, he had the urge to slap him hard across the face.
Why…?
Did I do something wrong? Was I not caring enough, not loving enough?
Why would you do something like this?!
What if Qi Yang had been a moment too late? What if you couldn’t have been saved?
“Kai-ge, Kai-ge, don’t be like this,” Qi Yang scrambled to calm him down. He had heard from Zuo Yan and the others that, after knowing him for so long, none of them had ever seen Kai-ge cry, except Zhou Yian once.
Yet here he was, witnessing it for the second time!
Sitting by the bed, waiting. All sorts of emotions—worry, anxiety, sadness, anger—swirled within him. When the person finally woke up, Ji Kai couldn’t hold back his fury: “If you ever do this again, I’ll break up with you!”
His voice was low but harsh. Even Qi Yang, standing by the door, felt a chill down his spine.
“…”
The person in bed, like a little puppet, seemed to shatter.
For a moment, he stared at Ji Kai with a blank expression, his eyes slowly filling with mist, and then the tears started to fall, streaming down his cheeks in a dramatic display.
“…No breakup.”
“I won’t break up!”
And after that, he couldn’t say anything else. Every breath felt labored, and the pain was unbearable. He gripped the bedsheet so tightly his knuckles turned white, looking as if he’d been unjustly punished like a child slapped by a parent for no reason.
Ji Kai gritted his teeth, feeling just as aggrieved.
You’re always saying you love me… but the moment I’m out of sight, you go and pull something like this?
All my care was wasted on you!
Cry! Go ahead and cry—what right do you have to feel wronged? I’m not going to coddle you like a dog just to indulge your bad habits!
But barely two minutes later, Ji Kai couldn’t bear it anymore.
The person kept lying there, sobbing, looking like an empty shell about to drown in tears. Ji Kai fought the urge to intervene but finally gave in. “I didn’t mean I’d break up with you right now! Why are you crying?!”
What he’d said was, “If you ever do it again,” right? There were conditions, after all!
……
Li Weidu had no idea what was happening from the moment he opened his eyes.
All he felt was immense discomfort—dizzy, nauseous, but with an empty stomach. The smell of disinfectant filled the air, and before he could even make sense of where he was, he groggily saw Ji Kai.
He hadn’t even had time to smile before the bear of a man suddenly snapped at him, threatening to break up?!
Was this a nightmare? What a terrible dream, it was making him feel so awful…
A devastating blow.
About ten minutes later, Li Weidu was curled up in Ji Kai’s arms, clutching him tightly, finally understanding the full story.
“I didn’t!”
“When did I ever say I wanted to kill myself? What are you even thinking?!”
Qi Yang: “…”
“Before you rushed me here for emergency treatment, couldn’t you have checked the situation first? I cried so many tears for nothing, got my stomach pumped for no reason, and I think I even woke up during the process. It was too unbearable, so I passed out again.”
Qi Yang: “What the hell, no matter how much I shook you, you didn’t wake up. I slapped you dozens of times, and you didn’t react. All I saw were a bunch of pills scattered on the floor, with foreign labels I couldn’t read. And since Kai-ge said you were acting strange, how was I supposed to know it wasn’t a suicide scene? Anyone would’ve thought it was a suicide!”
“Those were regular meds! I’m not sick of living. My life is going well—why would I want to kill myself? Ugh…”
As he took a deep breath, his stomach churned and ached again. Ji Kai held him tightly with one arm, and with the other, he gently placed a warm hand over him. Li Weidu buried his face into Ji Kai’s neck and, in a burst of frustration, bit him lightly.
It was a sharp bite, but he still felt incredibly wronged.
The emotional blow was too much to bear. Talking about breaking up… Have you had enough of living, wanting to break up with me? I’ll turn you into a bear trophy, believe it!
Qi Yang: “So, is this my fault then?”
It really felt like a thankless job. Trying to be the hero, saving someone’s life, and instead of getting a medal, he was getting blamed. So unfair—he was on the verge of tears!
Translator: Lynn
Translations are not 100% correct. Please let me know if there are typos/mistakes in the chapter.
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