Starlight

When the Maybach drove out of the hospital parking lot, Lin Xingmian saw Lu Shiyan from the rearview mirror.

He stood in front of the window of the third-floor examination room with his white coat still on, hands tucked into his pockets.

At such a distance, his expression could not be seen clearly, but Lin Xingmian knew he was watching.

From childhood to adulthood, Lu Shiyan always watched him this way—standing at a position that was neither too close nor too far, taking in his every move with that gaze so gentle it felt suffocating.

“Reluctant to leave?”

Gu Hanzhou’s voice came from the side.

He sat on the other side of the back seat, looking down as he flipped through the physical examination report without looking at Lin Xingmian, but he clearly noticed the direction of his gaze.

“No,” Lin Xingmian retracted his gaze.

Gu Hanzhou’s fingers flipping the report paused for a moment, then he closed the report, set it aside, and turned his face over.

“He said you are sick.”

This was not a question.

Lin Xingmian’s fingers curled slightly.

“What sickness?”

“…It is nothing.”

Gu Hanzhou looked at him for a few seconds and did not press further.

But he reached his hand over and covered Lin Xingmian’s hand resting on his knee, his palm dry and warm.

It was not a grip, just covering it, his fingers gently closing to envelop his entire hand.

“Whether you are sick or not is not important,” he said, his tone as flat as discussing the weather.

“If you are sick, I will treat it. If you are not sick, I will still take care of you.”

Lin Xingmian turned his head to look at him.

Gu Hanzhou had already retracted his gaze and was looking down at his phone, his profile lines cold and hard like a sculpture.

It was as if that sentence, which sounded almost like a promise, had not come out of his mouth.

Outside the car window, the city streets receded rapidly.

The warmth from Gu Hanzhou’s palm still lingered on the back of Lin Xingmian’s hand, seeping into his skin bit by bit, climbing up along his blood vessels until it reached the position of his heart.

At three o’clock in the afternoon, Gu Hanzhou answered a phone call.

He stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window with his back to the living room, his voice pitched very low.

Lin Xingmian only heard a few fragmented words—”contract,” “as soon as possible,” “no need for his consent”—and then Gu Hanzhou hung up the phone and picked up his coat.

“I need to go out for a bit,” he said, changing his shoes at the entrance.

“I will be back later, there is food in the fridge.”

Lin Xingmian stood up from the sofa.

“Me alone?”

“What,” Gu Hanzhou raised his eyes to look at him, the corner of his mouth hooking into an extremely faint arc.

“Scared?”

“No.”

“That is good, the entry password is your birthday, do not run around.”

He paused and added a sentence.

“And do not let anyone else come in.”

There was no need to state explicitly who this “anyone else” referred to.

After Gu Hanzhou left, the apartment suddenly became quiet.

In this large flat of over two hundred square meters, Lin Xingmian sat on the sofa alone, able to hear the sound of his own breathing.

He turned on his phone, and a pile of unread messages had accumulated again.

Ji Beichen: [We are recording the variety show today, and I had them reserve a seat for you, are you coming?] — 12:15

Ji Beichen: [Xingxing???] — 12:30

Ji Beichen: [I am letting my assistant go pick you up.] — 13:05

Fu Xici: [Broadcasting live tonight, need urgent help, come be a guest, the bullet comments are going crazy.] — 11:40

Fu Xici: [It is fine if you do not come, I will put your photo in the live stream room as a benefit.] — 14:10

Shen Moting: [Seven o’clock in the evening, Wangjiang Pavilion, do not make me wait.] — 13:00

Shen Moting: [If that guy named Gu stops you, tell me.] — 13:01

Lin Xingmian looked at these messages, scrolling up one by one.

When he scrolled to the earliest one, his finger stopped.

That text message—from an unknown number, with only five words.

Rong Du: [Finally found you, wait for me.]

Two new messages were added below, sent last night and this morning respectively:

Rong Du: [Returning to the country next week.]

Rong Du: [Do not be afraid.]

Lin Xingmian stared at these two messages, his mind completely blank.

He did not know this person.

But this name—Rong Du—gave him an indescribable sense of familiarity, as if he had heard it somewhere long ago, or dreamed of it.

The phone rang suddenly.

The caller ID showed: Ji Beichen.

Lin Xingmian hesitated for a few seconds and answered it.

Before he could speak, a burst of noisy background sound came from the other end, followed by Ji Beichen’s lowered yet uncontrollably furious voice.

“Where are you?”

“…At home.”

“Which home? Gu Hanzhou’s home?”

Lin Xingmian did not answer.

Ji Beichen seemed to take a deep breath, and the background sound gradually grew quieter—he probably found a quiet place.

“I sent dozens of messages and you did not reply to a single one, I thought you were dead.”

“I did not look at my phone.”

“You never used to be like this.”

Lin Xingmian fell silent.

He indeed never used to be like this.

Before, when Ji Beichen sent messages, he replied almost within seconds.

It was not out of politeness, but because of Ji Beichen’s personality—if he did not reply, Ji Beichen would keep sending, keep calling, until he answered.

“Are you recording?” Lin Xingmian changed the subject.

“I saw your message just now—”

“Do not change the subject,” Ji Beichen interrupted him.

“Is Gu Hanzhou at home?”

“No.”

The other end of the phone went quiet for a few seconds.

Then Ji Beichen’s voice changed—shifting from anger into something more dangerous, deep, paranoid, and carrying a type of unrejectable stickiness.

“Then I am coming to find you.”

“No—”

“It is not a discussion,” Ji Beichen said, his tone turning lighthearted instead, as if he were stating something natural.

“I skipped the recording, I am already on the way now, and I will arrive in twenty minutes.”

He paused and added a sentence.

“Send me the entry password.”

The call disconnected.

Lin Xingmian held his phone, his mind racing quickly.

He could not let Ji Beichen come here—Gu Hanzhou had said not to let anyone else come in, and he did not want to challenge that man’s bottom line.

But he could not stop Ji Beichen either, as since childhood, no one had ever been able to stop Ji Beichen.

He thought about it and sent a message over: [Do not come, I will come out.]

Ji Beichen replied within seconds: [Location sharing.]

Lin Xingmian sent the location of a coffee shop, which was on the street next to Emerald Lake Bay.

He changed into a coat, closed the apartment door, and went downstairs alone.

What he did not know was that the moment he closed the door, the video doorbell at the entrance lit up—someone was viewing it remotely.

Gu Hanzhou.

On the monitoring screen on his phone, Lin Xingmian’s figure disappeared into the elevator entrance.

He watched for a few seconds, exited the screen, and made a phone call to his assistant.

“Follow him.”

There were not many people in the coffee shop.

Lin Xingmian sat in a corner seat by the window, ordered a latte, and unconsciously stroked the rim of the cup with his fingers.

Through the glass window, Emerald Lake Bay could be seen across the street, its gray high-rise building glinting with a cold light in the afternoon sun.

He had lived here for two days, yet it felt more like a dream than the nineteen years he spent in the Lin family.

A commotion came from the shop entrance.

There were screams from girls, the shutter sounds of phone cameras, and a familiar, slightly impatient voice: “What are you taking pictures of, can you move out of the way—”

Ji Beichen arrived.

He did not wear a mask or a hat, but just carried a face that the entire continent recognized as he swaggered into the coffee shop.

He wore a pink sweatshirt paired with ripped jeans, his hair dyed silver-gray, and a row of silver studs hung from his cartilage.

His entire presence was flashy like a walking star, lighting up wherever he went.

He locked onto Lin Xingmian in the corner with a single glance, strode over, and sat down opposite him.

“You have lost weight,” that was his first sentence.

It was not a greeting, nor a question, but a statement that sounded almost like a diagnosis.

Lin Xingmian looked down to drink coffee: “It is fine.”

“What do you mean by fine? Look at your wrist.” Ji Beichen reached out and directly gripped Lin Xingmian’s hand resting on the table, pushing his sleeve up a section.

The wrist was revealed, the bones distinct, and the skin was thin enough that the green veins underneath could be seen.

Ji Beichen stared at that section of wrist for a few seconds, then raised his head, a thin layer of hidden anger pressing in his eyes.

“I have not seen you for two months, and you turned yourself into this?”

“There have been quite a few things going on lately—”

“I know,” Ji Beichen interrupted him, his voice turning cold.

“The true young master returned, you are the fake one, you were kicked out, and the Lin family does not want you anymore.”

He spoke directly without any buffer, like a knife stabbing directly into the wound.

But with the next sentence, the knife turned back into a hand, clumsily trying to cover that wound.

“But I have not abandoned you.”

Lin Xingmian looked up at him.

Ji Beichen’s ears looked a bit red—this top star, who could sing and dance in front of tens of thousands of fans in a stadium without changing his expression, actually had red ears at this moment because he spoke such a sentence.

“When you sent me the message, I was signing an endorsement contract,” Ji Beichen continued speaking, his voice still sounding fierce, but his ears grew redder and redder.

“Seeing the message, I threw the pen down and ran away, and my manager chased me for three blocks behind me.”

He flipped Lin Xingmian’s hand over and stuffed something into his palm.

It was a key.

“I have an apartment in the west of the city that no one knows about, you stay there first.” He turned his face away to look out the window.

“It is not charity, you helped me write lyrics before, so this is the payment.”

Lin Xingmian looked down at the key in his palm, which was silver and hung with a small star pendant.

“Ji Beichen…”

“Do not call me by my full name.” Ji Beichen turned back and stared into his eyes, his voice lowering to a volume that only the two of them could hear.

“I am three years older than you, call me brother.”

Lin Xingmian clenched that key tightly.

Outside the window, a familiar black Maybach slowly stopped across the street.

The car windows were tightly shut, making it impossible to see the person inside clearly.

But Lin Xingmian knew who was in that car.

His heart skipped a heavy beat, and he subconsciously wanted to pull his hand back from Ji Beichen’s grip.

But Ji Beichen gripped it even tighter instead, his fingers sliding through his finger gaps, interlocking their fingers.

“What,” Ji Beichen leaned a bit closer, his silver-gray bangs falling down and brushing past Lin Xingmian’s forehead.

“What are you afraid of?”

He followed Lin Xingmian’s gaze to look out the window and saw that Maybach.

Then he smiled.

That was not the kind of bright and cheerful smile Ji Beichen usually showed on variety shows, but a wilder, more dangerous smile that carried an aggressive nature.

“Oh, that one is the guy named Gu?”

He released Lin Xingmian’s hand and stood up.

He did not hide, nor did he leave.

Instead, he walked around to Lin Xingmian’s side, bent down, and propped one arm on his chair back, wrapping him halfway into his embrace.

Then he tilted his head, his lips approaching Lin Xingmian’s ear, speaking in a voice that only the two of them could hear.

“Didn’t you say he was at home? How did he come?”

Lin Xingmian did not say anything.

His entire body froze up, because looking from this angle, the posture between him and Ji Beichen was ambiguous to the extreme—Ji Beichen looked almost as if he were kissing his ear, while he did not move away.

Across the street, the door of the Maybach opened.

Gu Hanzhou walked down.

Separated by a street, the afternoon sunlight, and the traffic flow, Lin Xingmian could not see his expression clearly.

But he could feel that wave of chilliness—like cold water washing over his ankles, moving upward bit by bit, swallowing him completely.

Gu Hanzhou crossed the road and walked toward the coffee shop.

When he pushed the door open, the wind chime on the door rang out, sounding crisp enough to be piercing to the ear.