Chapter 11: Grey_001

Translator: Abo Dammen

A storm gathered, poised to break.

During the afternoon break between classes, the sky blackened with bruising clouds as wind howled through the campus.

Deng Chengning was packing his schoolbag when his mother called. A heavy downpour threatened, she said. Uncle Zhang had generously offered to drive to school and pick him up and that he should contact Uncle Zhang when he reached the gate.

Deng Chengning clutched his bag and sat motionless at his desk, drifting, until a classmate jolted him back. “Why aren’t you moving? Rain’s coming.”

He shouldered his bag, rose with deliberate slowness, and exited the classroom.

The air already carried that pre-storm earthiness—damp, cloying, slithering across his skin like cold snake scales.

His stomach tightened, nausea coiling.

Zhang Rongya was his mother’s boyfriend of two months. Three years after his father’s death, Zhao Wanyi had finally, at friends’ urging, ventured into a new relationship. The fresh attachment worked wonders as her mood had brightened considerably.

Zhao Wanyi had always been pampered. She and Deng Chengning’s father were childhood sweethearts, together since their teens. He’d indulged her constantly; she graduated from dance academy and never worked a single day, marrying immediately.

Deng Chengning’s father possessed a sharp business mind, his enterprises flourishing. He doted on his wife, and their life brimmed with happiness. Even after a decade of marriage, their bond remained strong that everyone called them a fairy-tale couple.

Until the accident.

A torrential night. Late. A husband anxious to reach his worried family sped through the rain, never noticing the manhole cover washed onto the road.

Impact. Brakes locking. Tires skidding. The car flipped, shearing through a guardrail.

They said Deng Chengning’s father never drew another breath.

The Deng family’s world collapsed.

Grief and despair engulfed them needless to say. His father’s business empire drew circling relatives like sharks, exploiting Zhao Wanyi, a homemaker ignorant of commerce, her son still a minor, through every conceivable swindle. Zhao Wanyi clung to survival by her fingernails, seizing control of the company, cultivating loyalists, exhausting herself to the bone.

Within a year, anxiety disorder consumed her. Insomnia. Appetite vanished. Hair fell out in clumps. Weight plummeted. Zhao Wanyi finally sought psychiatric help, submitting to medication. Company rivals used her mental state as ammunition, arguing her unfitness to lead. Zhao Wanyi collapsed at home, sobbing to Deng Chengning: “Grow up fast. Study management. You’re your father’s son, you’ll run this company well.”

From then on, Zhao Wanyi’s demands on Deng Chengning sharpened to a blade. Even first-place exam scores rarely cracked her smile, unless he crushed the competition so thoroughly that second place lagged impossibly far behind. If he ever slipped from the top spot, Zhao Wanyi would weep silently, blaming herself—she lacked his father’s intelligence and education, couldn’t tutor him properly.

Those tears flooded Deng Chengning with crushing guilt. He was the family’s only man, yet he’d failed, as his father had charged him, to protect his mother.

Deng Chengning’s sleep fractured. Insomnia crept in.

He suspected he’d inherited his mother’s affliction—anxiety, or perhaps depression. A persistent bleakness clouded him, draining life of meaning.

By sophomore year, academic pressures intensified.

Deng Chengning could no longer routinely claim the top rank. His mother’s tears flowed more frequently.

At its worst: watching her sob in the living room, then retreat to her bedroom. He sat at his desk, as usual, preparing to study.

A sharp sting jolted him awake.

Somehow, without realizing, he’d seized scissors and sliced his forearm.

Blood beaded on his pale skin.

A strange relief flooded him, like the release of self-punishment.

Logically, he understood that his own mind had fractured. He needed help, a therapist. But he dared not tell his mother. How would she, already so fragile, bear knowing her son was breaking too?

So he feigned normalcy, while inside, the ground crumbled. The urge to hurt himself intensified daily.

Then his mother met Zhang Rongya.

Zhang Rongya had also trained in dance. After graduation, he taught briefly, then launched his own venture—a dance studio offering children’s classes, adult jazz, street dance—all thriving.

Three years Zhao Wanyi’s senior, Zhang Rongya cut an elegant figure: refined, tall, handsome. Their shared dance background sparked easy conversation.

Since meeting him, Zhao Wanyi’s spirits had soared.

Soon after they formalized their relationship, Zhao Wanyi introduced Zhang Rongya to Deng Chengning. Thereafter, the three often dined together.

The last time Deng Chengning missed first place, Zhao Wanyi didn’t weep but just chided him briefly, until Zhang Rongya intervened, praising Chengning’s excellence.

When Zhao Wanyi excused herself to the restroom, Zhang Rongya smiled solicitously. “You okay, Chengning? Your mother just wants the best for you because she’s overly anxious. You’re already exceptional.”

Deng Chengning muttered reassurances and thanks.

Zhang Rongya’s gaze lingered, unnerving.

Another time, Zhao Wanyi departed to refresh her makeup. Zhang Rongya fixed that strange smile on Deng Chengning again. “Bet you get a lot of admirers at school.”

Deng Chengning shook his head, unwilling to engage.

Zhang Rongya persisted. “Well, you’re gorgeous.”

Deng Chengning couldn’t tell if his isolation bred hypersensitivity. But from that moment, whatever slight fondness he’d felt for Zhang Rongya evaporated.

Almost every meeting, Zhang Rongya exploited Zhao Wanyi’s absence to ogle Deng Chengning openly, punctuating his stares with unsettling remarks.

For instance—

“More girls or boys chasing you?”

“Turned them all down? No one catches your eye, or haven’t you figured out what you like yet?”

Deng Chengning locked Zhang Rongya’s strange behavior in the same vault as his self-harm, terrified to expose it to his mother.

What if his oversensitivity destroyed the first relationship that had genuinely lifted her spirits?

Yet his aversion to Zhang Rongya deepened. He avoided being alone with him at all costs.

Now, realizing Zhang Rongya waited at the school gate, Deng Chengning could barely force his legs forward.

But his mother….

“Mom’s cooking your favorite salt-and-pepper ribs at home. Uncle Zhang loves them too. Come back quickly, before they get cold!”

How long since his mother’s voice held such warmth?

The storm hovered, ready to break. Within minutes, the vast campus emptied.

Only Deng Chengning remained, battling the wind, inching toward the gate.

No matter how slowly he walked, he finally arrived.

His eyes snagged on the BMW wrapped in garish purple, a hue so aggressive it churned his stomach at first glance.

He intended to slip into the back seat. But Zhang Rongya spotted him, bustled over with exaggerated courtesy, and pulled open the passenger door, gesturing him in. Deng Chengning stared at that smiling face, nausea rising, and forced himself inside.

Zhang Rongya slid behind the wheel and started the engine. “You look pale. Feeling unwell?”

The cloying car air freshener intensified Deng Chengning’s queasiness. He shook his head.

The car crawled forward, then turned into a narrow lane behind the school—and stopped.

Zhang Rongya unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned over, and murmured, “Something bothering you? Tell Uncle. It’s okay.”

What followed fragmented in Deng Chengning’s memory—shattered shards of image and speech.

Zhang Rongya babbled incessantly, spewing vile words in a rushed, predatory whisper. His labored breathing rasped, gusting hot against Deng Chengning’s ear, churning his stomach.

“You don’t look well. That bothers me too.

“So beautiful. Prettier than your mother. Seventeen suits you.

“So young. Can’t date yet, understand? It’d hurt your grades, upset your mother. But Uncle can help. Show you what love means. Okay? I knew it the moment I saw you that you like boys. Don’t lie. You do.”

“You don’t know pleasure yet. Look at your mother, she was broken, but with my help, see how much better she is!”

Zhang Rongya’s hands roamed from his face, hair, then tugging at his uniform, sliding to his waist, finally yanking at his pants.

Deng Chengning shook violently, paralyzed.

Zhang Rongya outweighed him, but he could have shoved him off.

In that moment, something pinned him—a terror so immense it immobilized his limbs.

Fear of Zhang Rongya’s actions. And terror of what would happen if his mother discovered them.

Would she shatter beyond repair?

“Tears? Shh. Uncle will treat you right…”

That cold, snakelike hand slid lower, grasped, began moving.

Deng Chengning shuddered and gagged, trapped in nightmare.

Outside, wind screamed.

Then—

A thunderous CRASH rocked the entire vehicle.

Zhang Rongya froze, terrified.

Through tear-blurred eyes, Deng Chengning turned. Someone was battering the driver’s side window, accompanied by a roar of fury.

“FUCKING PERVERT! I’LL KILL YOUR WHOLE FAMILY!”

Blows landed with terrifying force. The window shattered inward. A huge hand reached through, yanked open the door.

A towering figure in Experimental High’s uniform, gripping a dumbbell, snatched Zhang Rongya’s collar and hauled him out.

Zhang Rongya, seeing only a student, regained some composure and blustered. “You damaged my car? That’s a BMW! Can you afford that?!”

The giant didn’t waste words. He dropped the dumbbell, clenched his fist, and swung.

“I’ll not only trash your car, I’ll beat you to death, you sick bastard!”

Zhang Rongya crumpled, nose streaming blood, discarded like trash.

The giant leaned into the car, urgent. “You okay?”

Deng Chengning stared blankly, eyes swollen.

“Deng Chengning?!” Recognition flared.

The giant was his freshman-year homeroom’s sports monitor: He Ruifeng.

They’d shared a class, nothing more.

He Ruifeng popped the locks, sprinted to the passenger side, wrenched open the door, and helped Deng Chengning out, even remembering to straighten his clothes.

In that brief window, Zhang Rongya scrambled back into the car, slammed the broken door, locked himself in, and hurled threats through the cracked window.

“I’ll sue! You’re finished! Vandalism, assault! You’ll be expelled, you’re done! You’ll pay for my car!”

He Ruifeng guided Deng Chengning to the curb, settled him on the edge. Then he retrieved the fallen dumbbell and charged back, bellowing, “I’ll smash this pervert’s car to pieces! Sue me, motherfucker! You think you’re above the law?!”

The heavy dumbbell crashed into the hood, each impact cratering metal, flaking paint in sheets.

He Ruifeng fought like a demigod, possessed of monstrous strength. Within a minute, the once-pristine luxury car lay battered and pitted.

Zhang Rongya, surely terrified the dumbbell would next crush his skull, scrambled to start the engine and floor the accelerator, heedless of He Ruifeng standing before the car.

He Ruifeng leaped aside, then sprinted after the fleeing vehicle, building momentum, and launched the dumbbell with perfect shot-put form.

THUD!

The rear window exploded into a spiderweb of cracks.

Zhang Rongya, beyond threats now, just fled.

Deng Chengning sat on the curb, stunned, watching chaos unfold.

Wind howled. He Ruifeng walked toward him, backlit.

“You okay?”

Deng Chengning’s heart raced, his head throbbed—and in that instant, a profound trust in this stranger flooded him.

The suspension bridge effect, he recognized.

Author’s Feed:

No BMW hate intended. Apologies for the late update. I’d started writing White_011, then suddenly felt this Grey chapter needed to come first… hence the delay.