ITC Chapter 41

“Why? Weren’t we doing fine before?” Wen Ruqing sounded anxious, and a little confused.

Why did it have to be a romantic relationship? That kind of connection—built on adrenaline and infatuation—wasn’t reliable at all. Eventually, it would wear out.

Why turn a stable relationship into something unstable? Things between him and Bai Xizhou were perfectly fine the way they were.

Bai Xizhou looked up at him and saw the glimmering mist in Wen Ruqing’s eyes. He didn’t say anything at first—just stood up, tidied away the medicine, threw the used swabs into the trash, and then walked over to Wen Ruqing.

He knelt down on one knee in front of him.

“But I can’t ignore the feelings I have for you. And you can’t pretend not to see them either,” he said, gently holding Wen Ruqing’s hand, eyes locked with his—serious and sincere. “Right?”

Wen Ruqing’s hands were cold from being out in the wind too long, but Bai Xizhou’s were warm. His voice was soft, like a breeze sweeping over a lake, stirring up ripples and brushing lightly against the heartstrings. So tender, it could lull someone into gentle surrender.

But Wen Ruqing stayed sober. Bai Xizhou was right. There was no going back. Wen Ruqing was only lying to himself. And yet—he didn’t know how to handle this relationship. He didn’t want to date, but he didn’t want to lose Bai Xizhou either.

Why wasn’t there a way to have both?

The hand being held was gradually warming up, but it made him feel uneasy. He struggled slightly, trying to pull it back. When he failed, he shifted to grabbing his own pants leg.

He felt fidgety. That wasn’t a good sign. His eyes drifted to the box of medication on the nightstand.

“Qingqing, you know… growing up, most of the love I received came with conditions. But you’re different. You’re pure. Being with you feels safe. You make me feel like I belong. I love the way you look at me.”

Bai Xizhou kept talking, unaware that the hand in his grip was trembling. He assumed Wen Ruqing was just nervous.

“I know the love I didn’t get from my family can’t be replaced by romance. But that’s okay. I’m not chasing after what I never had anymore. I want you. You burst into my world like a little sun. So I want to hold on to you, have you, make you my own sun.”

“Stop talking!” Wen Ruqing suddenly stood up, yanked his hand away, and shouted, “I’m not the person you think I am! It’s all fake, do you understand? What you see isn’t the real me! The real me is selfish, inconsiderate, boring. I don’t know how to take care of a partner’s feelings. I’m not a sun, and I never will be!”

Stop it.

He couldn’t handle feelings this intense. He didn’t deserve to be called something as bright as the “sun.”

The outgoing personality he showed was just a mask—because he knew only then could he function “normally” in society.

Since childhood, teachers told him: You have to fit in with the group. If you don’t, it’s your fault. Friends told him: You have to smile. Always. If you don’t, something’s wrong with you. Parents told him: Say nice things to the elders. If you don’t, you’re just rude.

So to make others happy, he hid his true self. He smiled, socialized, said all the right things—just so everyone would believe he was “normal.”

He had tried to be himself.

Back when he was with Song Yang, he once tried revealing his true personality. It ended in a breakup. That’s when he realized—no one really liked the real him.

No matter how much he told himself Song Yang’s words were crap, he still took them to heart. That’s why, even with Bai Xizhou, he chose to pretend. If it was the fake version of him that Bai liked, then he could never live up to that love.

He was dim by nature. How could he ever be someone’s sun?

“And I have severe anxiety. I need medication just to stay stable. I’m constantly terrified that someone will discover the real me. Because the real me isn’t a sun. I’m just a dim shadow living in the night. So please stop liking me. I don’t deserve it. You can find someone better—someone healthier, brighter, who really can be your sun.”

Wen Ruqing was spiraling. He grabbed the box of pills from the table, shoved it in Bai Xizhou’s face, then—fearing he wouldn’t believe him—broke off two pills and swallowed them with water on the spot.

Bai Xizhou frowned as he read the large letters on the box: Fludiazepam. Of course he knew what it was for. He just never thought he’d find it in Wen Ruqing’s possession.

Anxiety. That part had caught him completely off guard. From Yunzhen Town to Xincheng, he hadn’t noticed anything wrong.

No—that wasn’t true. Maybe deep down, he had noticed. He’d seen the scars. But Wen Ruqing had brushed them off, and Bai Xizhou had believed him—thought it was just momentary stress, not a clinical issue.

Wen Ruqing had hidden it too well. So well that, if he hadn’t seen this medicine, he might’ve never known at all.

The room fell silent.

They stood there, facing each other, thousands of words stuck behind closed lips.

Wen Ruqing felt a wave of nausea in his gut. He hadn’t eaten dinner, and now he’d taken two pills. He felt awful. He stumbled into the bathroom and vomited violently.

The noise finally snapped Bai Xizhou out of it. He grabbed a water bottle from the table and followed him in.

How had it come to this? He’d just wanted Wen Ruqing to acknowledge his feelings. Instead, he uncovered a much heavier secret.

Wen Ruqing kept giving him “surprises.”

Bai Xizhou squatted beside him, twisted open the water bottle, and handed it over for him to rinse his mouth.

“Qingqing, you could’ve told me earlier.” He sighed. “I can accept all of this. I’m not going to walk away just because of a diagnosis. If you think a single illness would make me leave, then you’re underestimating me. But I also want you to ask yourself—do you really just want to be friends with me?”

Wen Ruqing lifted his head and looked at him. He didn’t understand. Why wasn’t Bai Xizhou giving up, even after everything he’d just said?

“I don’t like you. Do I really need to say it that clearly?”

His lips moved, and the words came out—but the moment they did, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his heart. Like a thousand needles driving into his chest, suffocating him.

Bai Xizhou reached out to wipe away Wen Ruqing’s tears, but he dodged. Bai didn’t care. He gently held his face in place and wiped the corners of his eyes.

“Then why are you crying?” he asked. Tears were the most fragile form of honesty—and yet, here Wen Ruqing was, crying in front of him. “Why did you unblock my number today? Why did you wait for me when I told you to? Why did you hug me when you saw me? Why are you crying now?”

His hair was a mess from all the chaos that night, clinging to his forehead. Bai Xizhou brushed it aside and pressed his own forehead to Wen Ruqing’s. They were so close they could’ve kissed.

“I’ll give you time to think. Give me your answer when I return to Xincheng. I’ll wait.” He helped Wen Ruqing back to the bed, picked the pill bottle up off the floor, and set it on the nightstand. “I’ll go now. Get some rest.”

By the time Wen Ruqing came, Bai Xizhou was already gone. There was no trace of him left in the room—except for the lingering warmth on his forehead, proving that it hadn’t all been a dream.

His phone chimed.

It was a message from Bai Xizhou.

[I ordered food for you. Eat before you sleep. Don’t forget to put ice on your eyes.]

Wen Ruqing stared at the message for a long, long time without looking away.

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After listening to Bai Xizhou’s words, Wen Ruqing applied a cold compress to his eyes before bed. The swelling the next day wasn’t too exaggerated. There were too many messy things yesterday, and Wen Ruqing was very tired. He only regained a bit of energy after sleeping until the afternoon.

As usual, he went to open the curtains and only then realized it was raining today. The raindrops hitting the window produced a rhythmic sound, which was a good aid for sleep—but Wen Ruqing wasn’t very sleepy now.

Wen Ruqing read a bit in the room and received a message from Ye Yin, saying she wanted to treat him to a meal to thank him for yesterday. He originally wanted to refuse, but after thinking for a moment, he still agreed.

Considering Wen Ruqing’s injuries, Ye Yin didn’t choose a place too far—it was just across from the hotel. The dishes were only served after Wen Ruqing arrived.

At the dining table, Wen Ruqing casually asked the reason for the breakup. Ye Yin told him her ex-boyfriend was a PUA expert. Wen Ruqing wasn’t very familiar with this term and asked her what it meant. After Ye Yin explained it to him, he understood a bit better.

Basically, it’s something like elevating oneself while belittling others to achieve the purpose of psychological control. Ye Yin said that if she hadn’t been blind at the time, she wouldn’t have fallen for him. Wen Ruqing nodded in agreement, but his mind was thinking of something else.

It seemed that from childhood until now, no matter what he did—whether right or wrong—whenever something went wrong, he would always be asked to find the reason within himself. It was the same when he was with Song Yang.

The root of the conflict was always blamed on him. Once or twice he could ignore it, but after being told too many times, it was hard not to be affected.

Maybe, he had already, subconsciously, accepted their point of view. Maybe, the environment he lived in all along was just a large-scale PUA.

His doctor had told him before that his current condition wasn’t good. Learning to recognize himself was the first step to recovery—but Wen Ruqing couldn’t do it.

After saying goodbye to Ye Yin, he returned to the hotel, moved a chair over to the window, and looked at the sky after the rain, clear and blue.

Suddenly he remembered something, turned his head to look at the chair beside the bed, where the clothes he changed out of yesterday were piled. Wen Ruqing stood up and hurriedly rummaged through the clothes. He was looking for something, but wasn’t sure if he could find it.

In the end, at the bottom of the pile, he found a dark blue jacket—Bai Xizhou hadn’t taken it with him last night.

The phone suddenly rang, startling Wen Ruqing. He stood up, answered the call, and turned on the speakerphone. Bai Xizhou’s jacket had been slightly wrinkled from being squashed. Wen Ruqing laid it on the bed and tried to smooth the wrinkles out with his hands.

“Ruqing, I heard Xizhou went to see you. How are you two doing…” Teng Yuan’s voice came through the phone, then paused for a moment, a bit cautiously, “Are you two together now?”

“Why are you asking that?”

Wen Ruqing’s barely recovered emotions were easily disturbed again by Teng Yuan’s question.

“Just because he likes me, I have to be with him?”

“No, I just think… you’re not completely uninterested in him. You might not feel it, but as outsiders, we can see it more clearly. I feel like… your love is inevitable.”

Is love inevitable?

Wen Ruqing listened to Teng Yuan’s voice while folding Bai Xizhou’s jacket into a neat square and placing it into his suitcase.

Last night, lying in bed, he thought very clearly. The reason he refused to accept Bai Xizhou was simple: he didn’t want Bai Xizhou to become like Song Yang one day. He was afraid that someday, he’d see boredom and fatigue in Bai Xizhou’s eyes. Rather than that, it was better to never start.

Maybe the first love had left a shadow on him, with aftershocks still lingering in some corner. He never believed that friends turning into lovers would have a good result.

Was that a little unfair to Bai Xizhou?

“Why do you think… I like him?”

Wen Ruqing picked up the phone and asked the question he most wanted to ask.

“Don’t you like him?”

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Frozen Starlight
“I revised the outline a bit—trying to get them to start dating sooner.”