TDH Chapter 15

T.N: This is a backstory chapter, we’re starting to get Li Que’s POV from now on, but the timeline is still a bit confusing

 

 

“So I’m going to send him away.”

 

Dr. Brown, a psychologist with twenty years of counseling experience, didn’t learn until a week after the incident that with just a couple of words, Li Que was planning to personally ship his husband off to Africa.

 

“Richard,” the white doctor said cautiously after a long silence, “I think I may need to start some psychological intervention for you.”

 

“Oh, whatever,” Li Que replied. “If you think it’ll help.”

 

He flicked the rubber band around his wrist absentmindedly, though in his mind he was already certain. There was no way he’d take those pills that would make him drift off like some innocent, dopey child.

 

The moment he stepped outside was the moment he would throw them all away.

 

Medication was useless for his condition. For someone whose every material desire had been satisfied, only something far more refined could save him from his weariness toward life.

 

It had to be love that filled the void.

 

“I have to see that person. Right now,” Li Que thought.

 

………………………

 

It was March, and the snow on New York’s streets had just begun to melt. Fresh back from a vacation in Hawaii, Li Que felt no trace of a good mood.

 

His husband was cheating on him.

 

Li Que never made baseless assumptions. Standing on the balcony, he called his mother to tell her about it, but only because he was one hundred percent certain.

 

The woman, whose work left her almost no personal life, postponed a meeting and listened patiently as her only son laid out the evidence of his partner’s infidelity. She didn’t interrupt once, nor did she even comment.

 

Only before hanging up did she respond, with calm logic: “My son, I’ll have the company’s legal team help you. As I recall, you and Ryan never registered in France, correct? That will make the property division easy to handle. You’ll win.”

 

Li Que understood in an instant. His mother was subtly saying that after seven years, she had finally been proven right. Seven years ago, when he had insisted on marrying Zhang Ruien, who at the time had nothing to his name, she had disapproved completely.

 

But faced with her only son, she had no leverage. Outwardly, she’d given the appearance of accepting his chosen partner, but had refused to let them register in France.

 

Because Li Que held French nationality and Zhang Ruien was Chinese, their marriage certificate from the United States, without notarization in their countries of citizenship, lacked full legal effect.

 

Of course, Li Que remembered that. And now, he had no choice but to admit to his mother’s foresight.

 

“Mom.” His voice was weary. “I can handle the divorce on my own. I called you because… that’s not what I wanted to hear.”

 

The voice on the other end finally caught up.

 

“Sorry, son.” The woman’s tone softened with guilt. “The soonest I can free up time is the nineteenth. I’ll fly over to see you and stay for two days, alright? Or… would you rather come back to Toulouse now?”

 

Li Que opened and closed the cap of his metallic lighter, again and again. For a long moment, he didn’t light the cigarette between his lips.

 

“Forget it, Mom. We’ll talk later,” Li Que said. “I can handle it myself.”

 

He hung up.

 

Standing on the balcony, Li Que could see the main road in the distance, where snowplows were at work. He lived on the best stretch of land in Long Island; with its proximity to the coast, the temperature stayed lower, and the snow melted more slowly.

 

The snowplow passed, revealing the reddish-brown bricks of the road beneath, streaked with muddy tracks.

 

A sudden wave of irritation welled up in him.

 

He returned to the bedroom, picking up the design drafts on the coffee table to study them once more with care.

 

The new maid didn’t realize the villa’s owner had returned. As usual, she opened the door to clean, but upon seeing Li Que, she quickly apologized and backed out, head bowed.

 

After closing the door carefully, she couldn’t help but feel a flicker of fear. Mr. Li had kept his head down, but his expression was grim. Hopefully, he wouldn’t take her intrusion to heart and fire her. She didn’t want to lose the well-paying job.

 

But inside the bedroom, Li Que paid no mind to the minor interruption. His return had been unplanned, so he hadn’t informed the housekeeper. It was only natural that she wouldn’t know he was in the bedroom.

 

And if he hadn’t come back early, he wouldn’t have stumbled so neatly upon the truth: that his husband, the man he’d spent seven years with, the man he had believed was immune to the “seven-year itch,” Ryan Zhang, had been cheating.

 

Seven years of a hidden marriage, and Li Que had always considered himself a good partner.

 

Men of his social stratus usually fell into one of two categories: either a playboy who lived for pleasure, sampling every shade of beauty before marrying a well-matched childhood friend; or a romantic loyal to the core, ruled entirely by his feelings.

 

Li Que was the latter.

 

However, it wasn’t as if he were the sort of fundamentalist you’d find in a soap opera, saving his virginity to be gifted to his partner on their wedding night. Indeed, Li Que came from a Christian family, but with his sexual orientation, his social circle, and the people who served him, there had always been more than enough willing candidates eager to become his “adult guide.”

 

Love, whether selfless or laced with ulterior motives, had come at him from all directions. And Li Que sifted through it, selectively allowing certain people to share his youth.

 

His first true boyfriend was a childhood friend who had pursued him for many years. On their first night together, the friend held him close and said with deep affection, “Baby, thank you for giving your first time to me.”

 

But Li Que suddenly burst into laughter, so hard that tears welled to the tips of his eyelashes.

 

The friend looked at him in confusion.

 

Wiping his eyes, Li Que told him, “Sorry, you’re not my first man.”

 

The friend’s face froze. He didn’t dare provoke Li Que, but couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Then… who was your first man? What was he like?”

 

“Not him. It.”

 

Li Que slowly lifted his hand. Back then, he had been young and beautiful, and, like any teenage boy, keen to try new things. Just a couple of days earlier, he had treated himself to a manicure.

 

The youth spread his long, elegant fingers, lowered his eyes in a languid gaze, and slowly drew his middle and ring fingers together. Then, he brought them to his lips, sliding them inside, his mouth tightening around them as a wet sucking sound filled the air.

 

He kept his eyes fixed on his childhood friend’s flushed face. After a long moment, Li Que withdrew the fingers, their red nail polish gleaming.

 

“This,” he said with a light laugh and a hint of mockery, “was my first ‘man.’ No one has ever taken my first time. It will always be mine alone. You’re merely lucky enough to share in it now.”

 

Li Que couldn’t even remember why he’d broken up with that boyfriend. In his youth, he’d never been stingy about rewarding those who pursued him.

 

Which was why, even years after breaking up, his exes still thought about him.

 

Looking back now, Zhang Ruien was like the delicate white flower of a TV romance. Appearing at just the right time before the young master, fulfilling the “love-struck” role in Li Que’s personal narrative, as if it had to be him.

 

As if marrying him was inevitable.

 

Even when Zhang Ruien had an organic case of erectile dysfunction, Li Que hadn’t considered it much of a problem, since there were plenty of ways to find pleasure without being limited to purely physical penetration. Besides, Zhang Ruien had been fully aware of his shortcomings and knew how to satisfy his partner in other ways.

 

What’s more, Li Que had never been hard to please. His single periods had always been longer than his relationships, so he knew his own body well and took joy in pleasuring himself and teaching his partners how to do it.

 

And in their seven years of marriage, thanks to Li Que’s privileged upbringing, they’d never experienced the struggles of poverty. And, as a devout believer, he held himself to strict standards; even in adolescence, he’d never been wanton. After marriage, no matter the kinds of people he met, he’d kept himself in check.

 

He thought Zhang Ruien had, too.

 

But the truth was more humiliating than Li Que could have imagined.

 

All along, Zhang Ruien had been straight.

 

The man who had actively pursued him, entered into a de facto marriage with him, and whom he had never despised even for being useless in bed… was straight.

 

He liked women.

 

It was a crushing insult to the genuine affection Li Que had given, nothing short of complete exploitation and deception.

 

A week earlier, while sunbathing on a Hawaiian beach, Li Que had spotted something suspicious in a credit card statement. The details, like threads unraveling, pointed to trouble in his marriage.

 

Many of Li Que’s playboy friends had open marriages, so he’d long been familiar with the sorts of situations that could arise.

 

At first, he hadn’t imagined the worst. Seven years of investment, if nothing else, at least deserved the dignity of a proper conversation.

 

So from the Hawaiian Islands, he called his therapist, Dr. Brown, for a quick chat.

 

Dr. Brown had likewise advised him to stay calm, find a chance to sit down with his husband, and talk about how to move forward with the marriage.

 

Li Que took the advice. To keep his temper in check, he bought a rubber band from a local girl selling fresh coconuts, paying one hundred dollars for the “souvenir”, and wore it on his wrist, snapping it a few times whenever he felt the urge to tear Zhang Ruien apart.

 

And a week later, with his wrist swollen red, he returned home to New York.

 

Zhang Ruien knew that after each intense work stretch, Li Que would vacation alone to recharge. After seven years of playing the perfect husband, he had grown careless and let his guard down.

 

He brought a woman home.

 

Li Que didn’t know how far his impotent husband and the woman had gone. When he arrived, Zhang Ruien was no longer there. Perhaps they’d left in a hurry, but in any case, Zhang Ruien had forgotten to delete the security footage.

 

Rage surged in Li Que’s chest.

 

That was when he stepped onto the balcony and called his mother.

 

Zhang Ruien had never expected Li Que to cut short his month-long vacation. There were far too many loose ends he hadn’t yet tied up.

 

Among them was the one thing in the whole sordid affair that had calmed Li Que enough to keep from snapping the rubber band until his wrist bled.

 

A couple of design sketches.

 

They were clearly not Zhang Ruien’s work. Li Que had known even in their best years that his husband’s talent for fashion design was mediocre at best.

 

These sketches, however, were brimming with creativity, unlike some of today’s so-called avant-garde designers who use flashy materials for shock value, producing outlandish silhouettes with poor wearability that risked splitting at the seams during an event.

 

The creator of those sketches seemed more academic in style, with a focus on practicality and a meticulous dedication to tailoring.

 

As a professional supermodel, Li Que had a sharp sense for fashion, though he wasn’t a technical master of cutting like a designer.

 

The only reason he could instantly tell that these garments were superbly constructed… was because the sketches made it easy for him to picture exactly how the finished clothes would look once worn.

 

Worn on him.

 

Because the figure modeling the garments in the sketches was masked, but unmistakably based on Li Que’s ownmeasurements.

 

A supermodel who knew his own body as intimately as he did would recognize that in an instant.

 

Somehow, Zhang Ruien had acquired design drafts featuring a model with Li Que’s exact proportions.

 

Was it a coincidence?

 

Li Que decided to set aside his cheating husband for the moment. He needed to find out who had drawn those sketches.

…………………………