60 – Frustration

Chapter 60: Frustrated Desires

The next day, Xie Qingcheng returned to the dormitory.

Chen Man stayed by his side the entire time, though he was unusually quiet.

After escorting Xie Qingcheng to the front of the dormitory, Chen Man stood before the building, hesitating before finally speaking.

“Hyung…”

“…”

However, upon meeting Xie Qingcheng’s sharp gaze, he eventually mumbled and changed the subject.

“Um… get some good rest. Please contact me anytime if anything happens.”

Xie Qingcheng was simply puzzled as to why he was acting this way. Of course, the chilling possibility that Chen Man might have a crush on him never even crossed his mind. He merely assumed that Chen Man was shocked by the news that he had a one-night stand. It was a pathetic reason, but no more rational explanation came to mind when dealing with Chen Man.

As a proud man, he could never accept [Read on Read BL Novels]the reality that he had [stolen content]spread his legs [stolen content]for a man thirteen years his junior.

It was a grievance that Xie Qingcheng could suffer in silence, but never utter aloud.

After a short silence, Xie Qingcheng replied.

“You can go now. Thanks.”

Leaving those two words behind, he stepped onto the stairs.

At that moment, Chen Man, standing in the rain with an umbrella, called out to him again.

“Hyung.”

“…”

“Ah, no. Just take care of yourself.”

“…What is it you want to say?”

Biting his lip and enduring for a long while, Chen Man finally spoke.

“Are you still in contact with that woman?”

Xie Qingcheng paused at the question.

“Would you stay in contact with someone you had a one-night stand with?”

“No… I don’t do things like that, so…”

Now that he had said it, it sounded like he was criticizing Xie Qingcheng for being a promiscuous man. Chen Man quickly waved his hand and added,

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Right, you shouldn’t do things like this,” Xie Qingcheng said bluntly.

“I’m also regretting acting on impulse for a moment.”

Under Chen Man’s gaze, Xie Qingcheng continued.

“I’ll never do it again. It was disgusting.”

Having finished his sentence, he headed upstairs. Only after hearing Xie Qingcheng’s final words did color finally return to Chen Man’s pale face.

About a full week passed. While his body, which had been limp with fever, had improved, the hickeys still faintly revealed their presence. When lecturing at school, he checked if his sleeve buttons were properly fastened. This was because faint rope marks remained on his wrists.

It was evidence that Xie Qingcheng had been raped with both hands tied.

After that day, Xie Qingcheng cut off contact with He Yu. If He Yu had blocked him, he deleted He Yu entirely. Huzhou Medical University and Huzhou University were schools where it took half a day just to walk around the campus. If one set their mind to it, avoiding someone was a piece of cake.

Xie Qingcheng thought to himself: Let’s just treat it as if I had a nightmare.

Let’s never think about it again.

Many absurd and cruel things happen in the world. There are even times when one must bear the injustice entirely alone. No matter how disgusting it was, if he could avoid it, there was no result more valuable than that.

Having been through thick and thin, Xie Qingcheng knew this truth better than anyone.

And yet, there were more than a few times he woke up with a start in the middle of the night. His body healed, the fever broke, and the wounds slowly closed, but in contrast, his heart, which had long shunned lust, began to wither and sicken.

Dreaming of that night, Xie Qingcheng sat up abruptly in bed, seeing He visit our siteYu’s face entwined with hatred and desire. In his [unauthorized copy]private space, exposing his bewildered and panicked expression without reserve, he gasped for air and buried his face in his palms. His shirt was soaked with sweat.

Only after forcing himself to smoke and taking sleeping pills could he finally sleep peacefully.

One day, while showering, he realized that the marks remaining on his body had finally disappeared. He was clean, as if nothing had happened. Yet, his mind was not at ease.

A brand of a curse had been etched into his very bones. It was a curse where fear and loathing toward sex grew vigorously. The recurring memories reminded him that he had shown a pathetic side of himself before He Yu, and that he had released his suppressed desires in such a manner.

The memories of screaming, convulsing, and collapsing hideously insulted and tormented him incessantly, like whip marks.

Unable to endure it, he turned on his laptop and clicked on a video of jellyfish. He tried to divert his attention by watching the ancient creatures floating in the ocean.

While thinking that he must not become so deeply immersed.

A few days later.

The He family estate.

“You’re here.”

“…Yes.”

The lights of the estate were bright for once. When he entered the hall, He Yu frowned at the warm light, like a vampire accustomed to solitude. The silent darkness of this old fortress was what he knew.

However, Lu Zishu and He Jiwei were there.

After drinking with Xie Qingcheng, He Yu had returned to the estate in his own name. It was the day he had followed Xie Qingcheng to the hospital and realized there was nothing more for him to do.

At the time, he felt uneasy and terribly empty. After being drenched in extreme stimulation, a sudden void rushed in when he became alone. Feeling complicated, he decided to return to the villa. After all, the butler and servants would be by his side.

However, upon arriving at the villa, he found he could not return to his own estate. That was today’s situation.

He knew his parents would soon return to Huzhou. He just thought they wouldn’t stay long. Until then, he had intentionally stayed away from home because he didn’t want to see his parents while he was distressed.

Who would have known that as soon as he returned to the villa, he would encounter Lu Zishu and He Jiwei? It was an incredibly awkward welcome. Looking at the scene before him, He Yu thought, This might be a fake created by my fantasies.

But thinking about it again, he had never even dreamed of an image where his parents returned home and cooked dinner for him.

No, regardless of what delusions he had, his parents were always the exception.

“Is it cold outside? Mom made some soup. I put in mushrooms, seafood, and various things…”

“Mom.”

He Yu paused for a moment. He spoke stiffly, like a pseudo-human learning a language for the first time.

“I have a seafood allergy.”

The hall suddenly fell silent.

Feeling awkward, Lu Zishu quietly looked at He Jiwei.

Then, He Jiwei cleared his throat and spoke.

“It’s okay, eat something else. I told the chef to prepare cabbage soup. It’s boiled with rich bone broth, so it should taste good. You used to love it the most.”

Though they weren’t a particularly close father and son, at least He Jiwei, unlike Lu Zishu, knew what He Yu liked.

At his father’s words, He Yu remained silent and sat at the table with the two of them.

The atmosphere became even more awkward.

He couldn’t even remember when the three family members had last eaten together; it was so long ago that his memory was hazy. Looking at his parents’ faces at the table felt almost foreign.

To He Yu, parents were two profile pictures in a chat app contact list and flat voices heard through voice messages.

“When are you planning to return to Yenzhou?”

“I have no immediate plans.”

When He Yu asked, Lu Zishu answered promptly. A gentle smile was piled high on her plump face. It was a smile piled so high it looked as if it might collapse at any moment.

“Your younger brother has entered the school dormitory, so there’s no need to stay by his side to take care of him. And He Yu, you. Mom almost fainted from shock because of you. Don’t do such dangerous things in the future. If something were to happen to you, Mom and Dad would…”

Surprisingly, she trailed off, sounding like someone on the verge of tears.

He Yu merely watched her with indifference. It was because his heart had frozen cold, unlike before, after experiencing the control tower incident.

He didn’t even feel like talking back uselessly. He Yu smiled and said,

“It’s okay. I’m all better now.”

Various conversations passed across the table. Beneath the seemingly heartwarming scene, a dark tide was surging.

“I’m finished eating. May I go up first?”

“Ah, go ahead. Go on up.”

Though she was dissatisfied with He Yu’s indifferent attitude, Lu Zishu, like a thorough businesswoman, performed a perfect act even in front of her son.

“Get some good rest. Should Mom make chicken soup tomorrow?”

“…Anything is fine.”

Answering calmly, He Yu immediately stood up and went upstairs.

Lu Zishu followed his retreating figure, disappearing deep into the upstairs hallway, with complex eyes.

Soon, He Jiwei spoke.

“Why are you suddenly acting so attentive? It’s awkward for me, let alone He Yu.”

“What’s wrong with taking care of one’s own son? It’s only natural. Being his biological mother…”

Hesitating, He Jiwei swallowed the words that had risen to his throat and instead stood up.

“I have work at the company, so I have to go to Qingdao tomorrow.”

“When are you coming back? I’ve been thinking, and I feel I’ve been too lacking for He Yu until now. I need to properly make up for what I couldn’t do. Don’t stay away too long. It’s all for money anyway. What could be more important than a child?”

At that, He Jiwei let out a sigh.

“…It’s been a long time since you said something like this.”

“…”

“I think you said the same thing when I first had He Yu.”

Saying so, He Jiwei managed a smile. His deeply sunken eyes looked unexpectedly pained.

“It’s already been a long time.”

“Honey…”

After leaving that one word, He Jiwei turned and left.

Meanwhile, He Yu returned to his room and lay on the bed. Once he no longer needed to put on a facade in front of Lu Zishu, his gaze clouded over like the eyes of a dead fish.

He stared at the ceiling. Just as he had for the past week, whenever he was alone and blank, he habitually chewed over past events.

Dong, dong, dong…

The large grandfather clock of the old house chimed.

The heavy resonance beat relentlessly against He Yu’s heart. Just like that night of his thirteenth birthday, when he had waited endlessly for someone to stand by his side and celebrate with him.

Thinking of that night, Xie Xue also came to mind.

Not only had he lived amidst the indifference of his parents, but even that Xie Xue was a figure he had partially imagined while suffering from severe loneliness and illness. His heart became complicated upon realizing that while Xie Xue was real, she wasn’t completely real.

Actually, there were all signs.

He used to think Xie Xue had a poor memory. Because she would stubbornly insist she didn’t know things that he remembered vividly.

So he had even teased her, saying he didn’t know how she got into university with such a memory.

He had never dreamed that these trivial things were all vanities, like a flower reflected in a mirror or a moon reflected in a pond.

That ‘Xie Xue’ was a fake who had never existed.

Even He Yu’s subconscious knew that he was deceiving himself as a defense mechanism.

Even the script he had submitted as an assignment before was like that. The boy who visited the professor’s dormitory and knocked on the door sat on the sofa, eating snacks and drinking ginger tea. However, the professor, waking up the next day, found biscuits piled high on the table and ginger tea that had frozen solid.

The boy had never come in the first place. He was merely a false soul without substance.

Did this brain invent such a story by projecting himself imagining Xie Xue’s appearance?

Untouched cookies. A birthday cake that never existed.

Ginger tea that had frozen [unauthorized copy]before [unauthorized copy]he knew it. A heart frozen so stolen contentsolid that even beating felt burdensome.

His subconscious knew it all.

At the very least, looking back now, he was someone who could distinguish between dreams and reality.

While in a dream, he might not know if it was a dream or real life, but once he opened his eyes, he could clearly distinguish between the real and the fake.

As Xie Qingcheng said, Xie Xue’s kindness was not unique. It wasn’t an infinitely springing fountain of goodwill. Xie Xue considered He Yu a close friend. And for her, close friends were not just one or two.

He Yu had never once been a special person.

This was a truth more terrible than the fact that Xie Xue liked someone else. That his emotional pillar was, in fact, merely a fantasy.

Emotions that would be perfectly normal for an ordinary person were applied to He Yu as an excessive desire.

His mind became tangled like a ball of yarn. He Yu had not been able to rest properly for a long time. Just as Xie Qingcheng had spent a painful week, He Yu’s situation was the same. The human body cannot withstand continuous, strong stimulation. Feeling miserable, he swallowed a few pills and slowly closed his eyes. It was the first time he had slept deeply since that night at the club.

That night, He Yu had a dream.

A pair of charming peach blossom eyes appeared in his dream. [visit our site]Charming eyes that had plunged him into a peach unauthorized copyblossom spring time and again. [Read on Read BL Novels]Naturally, he thought it was Xie Xue.

Another fantasy? Is my shallow hope transforming into Xie Xue’s image again to comfort me? He Yu thought.

However, as the dream became clearer, he saw that those peach blossom eyes were not beautiful eyes holding a smile.

Cold, sharp, resentful, and poisonous eyes.

Eyes containing a sliver of frustration and helplessness.

Only then did He Yu suddenly realize. Those peach blossom eyes were the eyes of Xie Qingcheng, intoxicated by strong liquor.

All dreams originate from the consciousness. Upon realizing this fact, everything in the dream began to become concrete.

He could once again see Xie Qingcheng’s body buried deep in a soft cowhide sofa. That pale skin was as transparent as a crystal placed in a pitch-black velvet box.

The clean hem of the shirt was soaked in wine. The fabric clinging to the skin traced the firm chest muscles rising and falling.

Xie Qingcheng, who had been brutally violated, was wet like someone just pulled out of the water. A clean, strong, and fiery body with well-placed muscles squirmed, holding a damp moisture.

Unable to endure the terrible effect of the drug, Xie [unauthorized copy]Qingcheng struggled to lift his head and reached out as if trying to grab something, [visit our site]gripping visit our sitethe sofa. On his exposed left wrist, thin letters were written.

[Here lies one whose name was written in water.]

The clearly visible lettering gradually blurred, and in the end, nothing was visible. That single line of tattoo seemed to suck in the soul like a curse. He Yu moved forward like someone possessed by a ghost.

Then, Xie Qingcheng suddenly grabbed his hand.

The pair of peach blossom eyes blurred turbidly.

An erotic and husky moan, the likes of which he had never heard before, echoed once more in the dream.

Lips bursting with shallow breaths and eyes with blurred focus. The veins bulging in the neck were twitching like snakes. The snake, transformed into a monster, shed its skin and revealed its vulgar desire to stimulate the man, then roughly bit, swallowed, and melted even the bones.

It was a nightmare so terrible that not even a bone would remain.

Waking up from the sleep paralysis, He Yu was panting heavily.

The cold watch on his wrist enveloped his arm, which was drenched in sweat. A distinct, cool scent of bamboo wafted from the summer mat laid on the walnut bed.

A blue dawn light spread across the sky outside the window. At 4 AM, before the morning sun Read on Read BL Novelshad risen, the villa [Read on Read BL Novels]servants were all deep in sleep. Only He visit our siteYu had just woken up, sweating through his back after wandering in a dream.

Covering his waist with an autumn blanket, he stared at the ceiling with copper bolts. The bolts reflected He Yu’s image like copper mirrors.

Without blinking, he swallowed dryly. He looked like a physical shell just vomited out by a nightmare.

But there could be no desire in a physical shell. The young man became conscious of his own hot member hidden under the thin blanket. The dream, which had felt distant, crossed the line and approached as reality.

He desperately craved a humid, soft, and warm consolation.

His fingertips twitched on the bed. Am I really crazy? He Yu thought.

How could I dream of Xie Qingcheng looking like that back then?

He Yu had been confident that he had felt no lust while having sex with Xie Qingcheng at the time. He had simply chosen sex because there was no better way to break Xie Qingcheng’s pride. At that time, his reason had been completely burned away. Even if mud stained his own body, he had to plunge Xie Qingcheng into the abyss and crush his pride.

He had intended to put a period on their relationship with a revenge committed while drunk.

Since that night, he had even blocked Xie Qingcheng’s account, like a trashy man who lived drifting from one-night stand to another.

But why did Xie Qingcheng, and that moan that [unauthorized copy][visit our site]makes my waist tingle, appear in my dream again? Even if I’m not gay, how can such a subconscious manifest?

He Yu closed his eyes and raised his hand to cover his forehead. The more he tried to ignore it, the more the memories kept floating up. The desire hidden under the thin blanket writhed, fully informing him of what his primal nature was.

He had to endure.

Beads of sweat began to break out, and his breathing grew heavy. He tried to resist the loathsome instincts of a male, but eventually, he surrendered completely and collapsed onto the floor.

The instinct that once craved only blood had, on that particular night, been seized by a lust for a man.

It was his first time kissing or hugging another man. He had never even held a woman in his arms.

For a virgin youth on the verge of twenty, tasting such pleasure was nothing short of fatal. At this age, boys had nothing but overflowing stamina, curiosity, and time. One only had to look at the myriad of motels clustered around university districts to know this. No matter how special a case he was, He Yu was still an inevitable nineteen-year-old boy. Human desire, like that of the humans who succumbed to the serpent’s temptation in the Garden of Eden, is unstoppable.

Now that he had tasted pleasure—.

He couldn’t help but think of it.

He couldn’t help but want more.

Unable to endure the desire, He Yu flung back the blanket and roughly grabbed his phone.

Soon, the click of the screen unlocking echoed.

Perhaps because the surroundings were so silent, it sounded almost like a clap of thunder.

After hesitating and struggling for a long while, he finally moved his finger to press the gallery icon.

There were several photos of Xie Qingcheng asleep in bed from that time saved in the album. The moment he looked at the screen, the scenes from his dreams overlapped with reality.

The resolution was clear enough to see the faint hickey on the collarbone. In an instant, the burning emotions of that day, when he had roughly ravished Xie Qingcheng, rushed back to him. It felt as if the wet, squelching sounds of their tongues intertwining were still lingering in his ears.

These were photos he hadn’t opened since leaving the club that day.

Because it felt disgusting that he still harbored some kind of desire for Xie Qingcheng even after the sex was over.

But now, a strange thought drove him to open the encrypted photos. He Yu stared at the screen, holding his phone while lying on the canopied bed of the villa. He felt as if a heavy object had flown toward him and was crushing his chest. The hot, damp screen pinned him in place and tore apart his nature as a man.

In the photo, Xie Qingcheng was stark naked, without a single stitch of clothing. Disheveled hair clung to his forehead, and a purple bruise spread across the corner of his mouth—the result of He Yu biting him while they kissed.

Shifting his gaze, He Yu suddenly closed his eyes and turned off the phone.

Hot sweat poured down.

Am I crazy?

…….

His heart hammered violently.

Along with the frantic beating of his heart, a wave of disgust surged.

Are you out of your mind… you’re not even gay!

Yes, he must have had another episode of madness because he hadn’t slept properly.

His complexion turning pale, He Yu tossed the phone aside, climbed out of bed, and walked barefoot into the bathroom. He turned on the faucet and subjected himself to a cold shower for over thirty minutes.

When he finally returned to the room, he picked up his phone, exited the gallery, and lay on the bed with damp hair, checking social media to change his mood.

The internet world in the middle stolen contentof the Read on Read BL Novelsnight was not lonely. This was because sleepless people everywhere visit our sitewere busy setting off sparks of their souls.

After scrolling for a while, He Yu found himself unconsciously typing three characters into the search bar: ‘Xie Qingcheng’.

“…….”

It is human nature to unconsciously write whatever is lingering in one’s mind whenever they zone out. Typing is no different.

However, He Yu could not understand why he had unconsciously searched for Xie Qingcheng’s name. He wasn’t possessed by a ghost; what on earth was this?

Just as he snapped back to his senses and was about to press the back button, a certain post suddenly caught his eye.