Chapter 13: This relationship will never have a future

At the end of the second year, the school held a year-end party in the auditorium, just like before. All of School A’s students would attend.

There were several times more people than last time.

Xu Lin sat in the same corner reserved for out-of-district students. This time, Yi Wei wasn’t beside him.

Yi Wei’s theater group was performing one of the many acts, and it was the only performance from the out-of-district students. They were backstage preparing.

There were too many people in the auditorium. Xu Lin discreetly scanned the crowd a few times, trying to spot the person he wanted to see. He didn’t succeed.

Ji Jixuan hadn’t come.

After realizing he might have developed feelings for Ji Jixuan, it took him three days to accept that reality.

And then it took him a week to accept that he would probably never see Ji Jixuan again.

It was an odd feeling, like biting into an unripe persimmon. At first, there’s a hint of sweetness, but once it fades, your mouth is filled with bitterness and astringency.

He hadn’t fallen for a girl, nor for a fellow Beta. Instead, he’d fallen for an unattainable Alpha from the main city.

If someone had told him this would happen, Xu Lin would never have believed it.

Being with Ji Jixuan was undeniably happy and comfortable. He’d naturally assumed they would grow closer, that they’d get along well, have endless conversations like in his dreams, be intimate, be close, be inseparable.

Who knew that just as the clear water began to boil, the fire fueling it would die out?

Ji Jixuan never appeared again. He vanished from Xu Lin’s world without a trace, without warning, without giving him any time to prepare. Only then did Xu Lin wake up and remember that he and Ji Jixuan had always belonged to two different worlds. If it hadn’t been for those chance encounters by the embankment, they would never have crossed paths in this lifetime.

If Ji Jixuan wanted to, he could completely disappear from Xu Lin’s life forever.

After that autumn rain, it had been nearly half a year since Xu Lin last saw him.

He’d hoped that maybe, with this year-end event, he might run into him. But his luck had always been this bad.

Yi Wei’s group was the fifth from the last performance. By then, the audience had been sitting for a long time and had little patience left, especially for an out-of-district student performance. So even though Yi Wei and his companions performed with tremendous effort, hardly anyone in the audience was actually watching.

Xu Lin could see that Yi Wei was disappointed. He waved at him from the audience, and Yi Wei spotted him, sneaking a smile back. At least he managed to finish the performance with almost no audience.

After Yi Wei’s performance ended, Xu Lin couldn’t sit still anymore. He got up and went outside for some air.

The air outside the auditorium was fresh. Xu Lin took a deep breath. Seeing no one around, he leaned against the railing by the greenery and lit a cigarette.

Halfway through, he suddenly heard footsteps approaching.

“How’s your health now?” An unfamiliar male voice.

“Mmm.”

The moment he heard that voice, Xu Lin whipped his head around.

Two men were walking side by side toward the auditorium.

One he didn’t recognize. The other was Ji Jixuan, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time.

Xu Lin’s smile immediately appeared on his face.

He was standing not far from the auditorium entrance. Ji Jixuan would see him as he came closer. But Ji Jixuan walked past without a sideways glance. Just as he was about to step through the door, Xu Lin couldn’t help but call out, “Ji Jixuan.”

The man walking with Ji Jixuan glanced over at Xu Lin, then looked away.

But Ji Jixuan didn’t even turn his head. He didn’t spare Xu Lin a single glance.

Xu Lin’s smile froze, his body stiffening as if turned to stone for two full seconds.

The two men walked into the auditorium, and their figures disappeared.

Xu Lin couldn’t keep the smile on his face. It fell.

The cigarette ash burned his finger. He looked down and rubbed the little red mark where it had singed him. Strangely, it didn’t hurt.

Something was churning violently in his chest, like needles pricking him. This overwhelming discomfort easily outweighed the insignificant pain on his finger.

Had he… not heard him?

But the man with him had turned around. There was no way Ji Jixuan hadn’t heard. Then why…

Did he not want others to know they were acquainted?

Xu Lin bit his lip. He didn’t go back into the auditorium.

That was their last meeting.

When Yi Wei went home for the New Year holiday, Xu Lin wrote his usual letter to Pu Sha and asked Yi Wei to mail it. The letter contained the usual mundane details of his school life. He didn’t mention meeting Ji Jixuan.

This New Year was even lonelier than the first.

Xu Lin folded paper dragonflies one after another by the embankment. In the boundless, silent night, he was the only one there.

Xu Lin continued as before: working his part-time job, studying, repeating the same full but monotonous days. He did nothing else.

He adapted quickly. He adapted to his feelings for Ji Jixuan, to the bone-chilling cold after the summer ended, to the empty embankment, to the extra lunchbox he no longer needed, to the frequent appearances of Ji Jixuan in his dreams.

He would also adapt to a life without Ji Jixuan.

Only the paper dragonfly folded from the cigarette pack remained on his desk, sitting quietly. If it could truly fly, it would surely have been startled away by the intensity of Xu Lin’s gaze, falling upon it day after day.

There was no shame in liking someone. Especially when that person was exceptionally outstanding—of course they’d possess an extraordinary appeal. There was nothing embarrassing about it.

But liking was one thing. From beginning to end, he never forgot his original purpose.

He hadn’t forgotten why he’d come to Danshi.

Meeting Ji Jixuan was an accident. His feelings for him were too. Xu Lin was clear-headed, and more than anyone else, he understood one thing: this relationship would never have a future.

He didn’t need it to have one either.

After graduation, he would take what he came for and return to Yanyu Township. He would cut all ties with Danshi.

And naturally, he would be separated from Ji Jixuan by thousands of miles.

That was reality.

People had to accept reality.

His feelings were like a seed buried in the soil, taking root and sprouting only on Danshi’s land, destined to wither quietly.

When he first arrived in Danshi, he’d hoped the years would pass in the blink of an eye. But after meeting Ji Jixuan, time no longer moved that way. It passed more slowly than ever before—so slowly that Xu Lin could see the clouds drifting across the sky, see the leaves on the branches turn from new green to withered yellow to falling.

So slowly that his heart grew covered with sores called longing.

He let his feelings for Ji Jixuan run their course. Since there would be no outcome, he might as well let the buds of emotion grow slowly and bloom freely. One day, those feelings would die quietly, just like the gland in his nape that couldn’t absorb any nutrients.

Until then, he would let them be.

By the time the envelopes Pu Sha had sent him, tucked under his pillow, had stacked up to three, Xu Lin had entered his fourth year at School A.

There were two months left until graduation.

It had been two years since he’d last seen Ji Jixuan.

Two years wasn’t a long time, but it wasn’t short either. It was enough to forget someone who had only briefly appeared in his life. He’d thought he would forget. But that shadow only grew deeper in his dreams each day, like a chronic illness etched into his bones—incurable, inerasable.

During that time, Xu Lin occasionally caught snippets of news about Ji Jixuan from classmates.

Some said he had completed his studies early and was now helping manage the Ji family’s business affairs. It was a pharmaceutical company called Boli Pharmaceuticals, founded by Ji Jixuan’s late father. They had research and development centers all over the world, staffed by top pharmaceutical scientists, developing and producing potent injectables and various oral medications exclusively for Alphas. Once their products hit the market, they monopolized most of the pharmaceutical industry.

The KW-02 suppressant, exclusively supplied to the military and high-ranking government officials, came from Boli and was developed by Ji Jixuan’s grandfather.

Ji Jixuan’s biological father had passed away over a decade ago. His grandfather was consumed by research. Naturally, the family business fell into Ji Jixuan’s hands. So he was probably too busy to spare the time.

Because he had more important things to do, the embankment had become an abandoned place, not worth visiting.

Xu Lin thought this was the end of his and Ji Jixuan’s story—abrupt, sudden, yet entirely reasonable.

Ji Jixuan would remain in Danshi, an untouchable deity in the nine heavens. Xu Lin would return to his hometown with his diploma. They would live in two different corners of the world, never to meet again.

But he had underestimated fate’s determination to toy with him.

Two months before graduation, the school organized a camping trip.

The participants included not only the out-of-district students from his cohort but also the graduating local students from Danshi.

Just like the opening ceremony, they participated in the same activity, but they were assigned to two different mountains and would have no contact with each other.

It was a mountain range on the outskirts of Danshi. Their bus stopped at the halfway point of a mountain called Yuehua Mountain. Their campsite was at the summit.

Across a parking lot, on another mountain, was the Danshi students’ campsite.

This was Yi Wei’s first time at such an event. He was as excited as a kid on a school field trip. He shared a tent with Xu Lin and even set it up himself without asking for help.

Xu Lin let him be, seeing how happy he was.

The viewing platform at the summit had a great view. Standing there, you could see the entire landscape below. Xu Lin leaned on the railing and looked into the distance. The opposite mountain was far away. The Danshi students moving around on its summit looked like tiny black dots, impossible to distinguish.

He wondered if one of those dots was Ji Jixuan.

That night, Yi Wei and Xu Lin sat at the entrance of their tent, looking up at the stars.

“It’s the same sky, but the night sky here feels so different from the city,” Yi Wei mused. “You can’t see this many stars in the city.”

“You can see even more in my hometown,” Xu Lin said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. On summer nights, my teacher and I would sit in the yard, eating half a watermelon each. We could hear the frogs and cicadas. And when you looked up, the sky was full of stars.”

Yi Wei listened with longing. “Then after graduation, I’ll visit your hometown.” He paused, then added, “Would you welcome me? If I go there, you’ll have to protect me.”

Xu Lin laughed. “Of course. I’ll protect you.”

“Good brother! You’re the best.”

In the middle of the night, Xu Lin tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

Beside him, Yi Wei was already sprawled out, mumbling in his sleep. Xu Lin got up, left the tent, and walked down the mountain.

He remembered there was a 24-hour convenience store at the halfway point parking lot.

The parking lot was quiet late at night. Xu Lin walked into the convenience store, picked out a pack of cigarettes, and paid. As he was walking out, a man walked in.

The man was around forty years old. As they passed each other, Xu Lin paused, casting a suspicious glance at the man’s retreating figure.

The man didn’t notice him. He walked behind a row of shelves and began browsing.

“Is something wrong?” the cashier asked, seeing him frozen at the doorway.

“…No.” Xu Lin shook his head and left.

Outside the parking lot, Xu Lin lit a cigarette and exhaled a plume of white smoke. The scent of nicotine dissipated into the air.

He rubbed his nose.

The scent from the man earlier still lingered in his nostrils.

It was pungent, bitter with a hint of fishiness. It smelled familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

Never mind.

The next day, Yi Wei and some others went fishing in the stream. Xu Lin didn’t go. He stayed in the tent to catch up on sleep. By the time they returned, it was already dark. Yi Wei brought Xu Lin some food and also brought back a bundle of small fireworks.

“Where’d you get those?”

Were there even fireworks for sale in these mountains?

Yi Wei set up the fireworks in an open space, tearing off the packaging to look for the fuse as he explained, “On our way back, we ran into a driver delivering supplies to the other camp in the parking lot. Man, those Danshi students have way more activities than we do. They even get fireworks! We asked if he had any leftover, and he sold us these.”

He suddenly got excited. “Oh, and guess who I saw?”

“Who?”

“Ji Jixuan’s driver! So Ji Jixuan is here too!”

Xu Lin froze.

…So he was here after all.

Xu Lin unconsciously pinched his fingertips and asked, “How did you know it was Ji Jixuan’s driver?”

“I didn’t recognize him myself, but someone else did. Ji Jixuan only has a few drivers. So many people are always watching him—it’s not surprising someone recognized one of his drivers.”

“Too bad I didn’t see him in person.”

“His driver was probably here to pick him up. I think Ji Jixuan is probably leaving soon.”

Yi Wei finished his rambling. He lit the fuse with a lighter, then ran back and crouched beside Xu Lin, looking up with eager anticipation. “I’ve never seen Danshi fireworks before. They must be beautiful.”

The sparks bloomed, and one after another, fireworks burst across the night sky. Below them, students sat scattered around, looking up at the display, their expressions relaxed and content.

Only Xu Lin, beneath the colorful fireworks, suddenly changed his expression.

In an instant, he recognized the scent that had been bothering him all night.

He finally knew what the scent on that man in the convenience store had been.

Gunpowder.

“Ji Jixuan’s car is so flashy. I looked it up after taking a picture, and it nearly scared me to death. It’s worth a fortune—probably the only chance I’ll ever get to see one. Here, take a look. Absorb some of that wealth.”

Yi Wei showed Xu Lin the photo on his phone.

On the screen was a black business car. The driver was sitting inside, half of his face visible through the windshield.

Xu Lin’s eyes widened.

He grabbed Yi Wei’s shoulders and almost shouted, “Where did you see him?”

“What? Who?”

“The driver!”

Yi Wei winced in pain. “In the parking lot down the mountain! He’s probably leaving soon!”

Without looking back, Xu Lin rushed down the mountain.

Yi Wei called after him, “Where are you going?! Xu Lin!”

Xu Lin took the stairs two at a time, descending as fast as he could. A growing sense of dread filled his heart, his ears pounding.

The man he’d brushed past in the convenience store yesterday—that was Ji Jixuan’s driver!