Luo Jun received a call from Ren Chenbai.

…

Before the caller ID suddenly appeared on the phone screen, a video was playing.

It was a short clip filmed on a phone. The angle was not good, and the picture was very blurry. It should not have been filmed through normal means.

Indeed, it wasn’t. Gong Hanrou’s film crew quickly handled the matter and pursued accountability.

The uploader quickly deleted the video, but a copied version had already spread thoroughly online. The popularity was very high, and it was impossible to delete it completely.

Ren Chenbai in the video had clearly gone mad.

A person with normal thinking ability and the most basic logic and reason would not be able to do those things.

Ren Chenbai was paralyzed on the floor of the filming room used for interviews by the film crew.

Ren Chenbai was constantly talking to everyone.

Those words had no logic, were chaotic and reversed, slurred and vague, yet spoken quickly and urgently, as if afraid of any rebuttal.

…He said he had a younger brother.

Ren Chenbai told everyone he had a younger brother, very smart, very outstanding, who was brought home from the seaside by his mother.

Ren Chenbai actually knew Luo Zhi better than they did.

Because of that completely twisted and paranoid, almost neurotic gaze, Ren Chenbai did indeed know Luo Zhi better than most people.

Ren Chenbai knew that Luo Zhi liked to paint in a room with sunlight, knew that Luo Zhi no longer sang because severe tinnitus and hearing loss interfered with his judgment and grasp of music—this deterioration was largely due to the influence of his emotional and physical condition.

Ren Chenbai knew that Luo Zhi had been actively seeing a doctor, but many problems were difficult to cure simply with medication.

Ren Chenbai kept talking. Luo Zhi’s use and grasp of color was praised even in professional fields. Later, when he couldn’t paint well, it was just because he was in a bad mood. Luo Zhi actually had three songs that hadn’t been released. Just the lyrics, music, and demo had several music companies competing to offer high prices to buy them. The reason they weren’t released was just because he wasn’t satisfied with his own singing…

As Ren Chenbai was talking, he saw Luo Cheng.

He looked at Luo Cheng, as if he had been briefly sober for a moment. The intense fear of reality made him appear particularly ferocious and terrifying, yet a dazed, malicious pleasure suddenly appeared.

He suddenly told Luo Cheng that Luo Zhi’s eye for scripts was also outstanding. In the end, a film and television company relied on ratings. Huaisheng Entertainment had made a comeback against the odds thanks to the scripts Luo Zhi had chosen.

Luo Zhi’s talent was all in these things. Luo Zhi had a natural, keen perception of emotions. The paintings were beautiful because of the passionate emotions contained in the colors. The songs were beautiful because the melodies seemed to flow from a long-lost dream. Even his intuition for choosing scripts relied on this.

But Luo Cheng no longer had the chance or qualification. Luo Zhi hadn’t even left this script for her—after Luo Cheng helped Jian Huaiyi take away the company, Luo Zhi had put the script up for sale online.

“Do you see this as revenge? This isn’t revenge. You’re not worthy of his revenge.”

Ren Chenbai stared at Luo Cheng, as if he had seen through her thoughts. A cold smile that mocked both others and himself slowly twisted on his face. “He just… no longer cares about you.”

…

When the call came in, Luo Jun was looking at this sentence.

Perhaps because his state in the video was too abnormal, hearing Ren Chenbai’s voice on the phone, Luo Jun was subconsciously stunned for a moment.

“Where are you?” Ren Chenbai’s tone was relatively normal compared to the video, but his voice had a strange hoarseness. “Where are you? Are you looking for him?”

Luo Jun slowly put down his phone.

He looked at where he was.

A small room in an extremely shabby, cheap, black-market hotel. He was sitting on the mottled floor. The window was very small, and he couldn’t see the sky outside clearly.

…

He knew what he was doing, atoning for his sins in this self-righteous way through this hypocritical self-torment, trying in vain to alleviate his guilt. He actually envied Ren Chenbai. He would rather have gone mad.

“I’m not looking,” Luo Jun sat blankly for a long time before finally speaking. “I can’t find him.”

This was clearly not the answer the other side of the phone was waiting for. The other side suddenly fell silent. The sound of breathing slowly seeped out with a cold chill.

Ren Chenbai took a few breaths, then spoke hoarsely, “Since.”

He seemed to have difficulty even speaking a complete sentence. After spitting out a few words, he was interrupted by his breathing again. “Since it’s like this…”

Luo Jun turned on the phone’s screen, which had gone dark.

Ren Chenbai was not sober. After speaking too much, he could still hear the same dream talk as in the video—except that now, it was perhaps another, most terrifying and bone-chilling nightmare that he could not escape from.

“Ren Chenbai,” Luo Jun interrupted him in a low voice. “What do you see now?”

The other end of the phone was dead silent. Even the breathing stopped for a few seconds before resuming. “What?”

Luo Jun looked at the worn, mottled patterns on the floor. He was also somewhat frightened by his own thoughts. He was probably also mad in a certain sense. He even wanted to replicate the nightmare Ren Chenbai was having.

But sinking into a nightmare was better than being awake.

He couldn’t fall asleep at all. Even after taking medicine, it only worked for a few hours. He kept playing the game that Luo Zhi liked and even managed to appeal and get back Luo Zhi’s game account—this decision he regretted for a long time.

On Luo Zhi’s game account, the only unread message that hadn’t been clicked on was a birthday wish sent by the officials.

The envelope icon was still closed. Luo Zhi hadn’t clicked on it.

He had once thought that this period of pain and torture had a limited duration, that time would smooth over the past.

There would be a day when he would still feel his chest tighten to the point of being unable to breathe when he thought of his younger brother, but he could also live on with these shackles, living in a pretense of calmness.

…

But he was not qualified for probation. He was even worse off than Ren Chenbai.

“I’m not as good as you,” Luo Jun looked at his phone. “Knowing so many things about him.”

Luo Jun said, “I don’t know anything.”

Luo Zhi had lived for twenty-three years. This was actually not a short period of time.

And due to the overly long period of neglect, indifference, and deliberate distancing, Luo Jun had almost no direct concept of what had happened to Luo Zhi in those twenty-three years.

Time would smooth over the past, but what if there were always new punishments and tortures constantly falling down?

He didn’t know anything. Everything that had happened to Luo Zhi in the past was all new to him.

He couldn’t control himself from looking for the pieces of the puzzle he had smashed and thrown away with his own hands. Every time he found a piece, a knife of slow slicing would be scraped on his body.

“How ridiculous I am,” Luo Jun said. “You call him younger brother. I hope this is true.”

If it were really like Ren Chenbai’s hallucination, and Luo Zhi had become a child of the Ren family, then everything would not have turned out like this.

How could there be such a cowardly older brother, fantasizing that his younger brother could be taken home by someone else, protected by someone else?

The younger brother slept in the sea, and the older brother regretted that someone else hadn’t taken his younger brother home.

See, a new slow slicing.

He deserved it.

He was jealous of the chaotic, reality-severed nightmare that Ren Chenbai had fallen into.

Luo Jun suddenly spoke, “I had people search in the sea.”

He heard the breathing on the other end of the phone suddenly become rapid. Luo Jun looked at the floor in front of him and continued in a low voice, “They couldn’t find it. They searched for a long time. That’s a sea, it can’t be drained.”

“I’m outside, I’m,” Luo Jun’s voice was as if he had suddenly swallowed a large mouthful of wet sand.

He swallowed hard with great difficulty before continuing, “I’m going to get a certificate for him.”

“Get a certificate,” Luo Jun said. “If it’s successful, I can get the things he left behind.”

Ren Chenbai fell into the trap as he had thought.

The breathing on the other end of the phone began to become chaotic, and even his voice turned into an eager, tense tremor. “Where are you?”

Luo Jun gave a location.

The other end hung up the phone without a word.

Luo Jun sat stunned for a while, finished watching the video, and then stood up with difficulty.

How could he not fall into the trap?

Even if that life-saving straw was just a cold illusion in a mirage, how could one resist pouncing on it and holding on tight?

Facing a sentence in reality that would not end, even being madly drowned in a nightmare composed of a mirage, living out one’s life in a chaotic daze, seemed extravagant and lucky.

…After getting Luo Zhi’s death certificate and the distribution of his estate.

Would Ren Chenbai share that nightmare with him, and drag him down too?

…

Two days later, Luo Jun got the answer.

He woke up in the hospital and gradually recalled what had happened after that phone call.

As a direct relative, he had obtained Luo Zhi’s death certificate and the notarized will that Luo Zhi had made while he was alive.

Then he saw Ren Chenbai.

Ren Chenbai was already completely like a half-dead wandering soul, but what he had done seemed to have still touched the other’s bottom line.

Ren Chenbai rushed over like a madman and almost broke his neck. Someone called the police. Ren Chenbai was brought under control, and he was sent to the hospital…

Luo Jun touched his own throat.

He didn’t remember much else, only that terrifying feeling of suffocation.

No matter how his chest expanded and contracted, not a single wisp of air could be drawn in. He couldn’t move, and he watched as his vision darkened.

…What if he were drowning in the sea?

If it wasn’t just suffocation, but drowning in the cold seawater, how much more agonizing would that feeling be?

Luo Jun put on his shirt, using the collar to cover the bruises.

He managed to find Xun Zhen and begged for a visit. He was led by a nurse into a special ward with bars and saw Ren Chenbai tightly bound by restraints.

…

Meeting Ren Chenbai’s gaze, the look in the other’s eyes made his heart sink.

Ren Chenbai stared at him, his bloodshot eyes seeming to grow poisonous, thin vines.

Those vines snaked and grew, slowly wrapping around his hands and feet. He felt as if he had been pulled and was growing out of the ground.

…Ren Chenbai seemed to have woken up.

Luo Jun stood outside the visiting window.

On the table in front of Ren Chenbai, he saw Luo Zhi’s death certificate and the notarized will.

Luo Zhi had had his will notarized. There was nothing special about this in itself. Luo Jun himself had done it too.

In their circle, many people would do this as soon as they came of age. It didn’t represent any more special meaning. It was just because the major interests involved were usually relatively complex. Having a will notarized in advance could save a lot of trouble.

What was special was that Luo Zhi’s estate distribution was very trivial.

So trivial that when Luo Jun provided the relevant proof and received Luo Zhi’s estate distribution agreement, he even thought Luo Zhi had written this thing as a diary.

“The notary office is very convenient now. You can send them a video directly. Just say whatever you want, and they will pick out the key points and help you turn it into a formal contract.”

Ren Chenbai was still staring at Luo Jun. His speech was much more fluent. A smile slowly appeared on his face, but the gloom entrenched in his eyes made one’s back turn cold. “Have you seen his video?”

Luo Jun was silent. Of course he knew who “he” Ren Chenbai was talking about, and of course he had seen the video.

Even knowing that it was another slow slicing that could flay a person alive… it was a moving, talking, still-living Luo Zhi.

The early video recordings looked quite ordinary.

Luo Zhi was mostly busy with his work while casually recording videos. His tone was very flat, and his gaze was not on the camera. He should have been looking at a computer screen or a certain document.

It was just that from that time on, that overly detailed triviality had already begun to show its first signs—even for the department managers who had followed him at Huaisheng Entertainment, Luo Zhi had left something.

In the video, Luo Zhi sat at his desk, chewing on a lollipop, rubbing his forehead at a table full of documents.

He really didn’t like doing this kind of thing, nor was he good at this kind of work.

Bringing his team to revive Huaisheng Entertainment, Luo Zhi was responsible for setting the general direction, picking people, buying scripts, and selecting resources. As for these standard contract documents, they were always thrown to the department managers to handle.

Luo Zhi was sorting through those documents, classifying them while explaining in the video.

Suitable resources were best left to the market business department. These resource providers had all signed long-term intention contracts with him personally. If he intended to withdraw one day, he had the right to recommend a suitable person to take over.

There were also a few very good scripts. The current company scale couldn’t produce the best effect, so he had bought them with his own money and could leave them to the film and television production department.

The artists could only be signed to the company, but the agent and assistant teams were built up bit by bit. With a slight adjustment to the contract, the artist department manager could pack them up and take them away at any time…

It wasn’t that Luo Zhi hadn’t tried to give them directly, but unfortunately, none of those managers would let him finish.

No matter how he looked for the right occasion, found opportunities, or hinted implicitly, as long as he started to say “in case I’m not around in the future,” those people would be more anxious than the next to stuff his words back into his mouth and press them into his stomach.

Luo Zhi had just finished sorting all the documents when someone knocked on the door with great joy. It seemed that the first episode of some drama had become a hit, and those people were calling him out for a celebration party.

Luo Zhi also happily agreed, went to open the door, and hurriedly ended the recording.

…

The recordings during that period were mostly these contents.

The company’s momentum was getting better and better, and Luo Zhi had more and more things to distribute.

He distributed all these things. For all the results that were aimed at him personally and produced by his team, he made preparations so that every manager could take them with them as soon as they job-hopped.

“Young Master Luo,” Ren Chenbai still had that chilling smile on his face, as stiff as a somewhat eerie mask. “Do you know what this means?”

Luo Jun didn’t speak, just silently flipped through the videos provided by the notary office.

…What did this mean?

It meant that Luo Zhi had never intended to leave his things in the Luo family’s company.

It meant that Jian Huaiyi’s current predicament was not because of his, the older brother’s, self-righteous revenge.

How could he forget? Luo Zhi had never been wronged since he was a child. However many dirty tricks Jian Huaiyi used, Luo Zhi would make him pay the price.

If it were just a confrontation between the two of them, Luo Zhi had not suffered a loss—if it weren’t for this, Luo Zhi would not have been given the reputation of “mischievous” and “troublemaker.”

But how could it only be a confrontation between the two of them?

If Jian Huaiyi used these dirty tricks to snatch the trust of their parents, the closeness of their family from Luo Zhi, to take away all of Luo Zhi’s position and identity in the Luo family… then he, his father, his mother, and Luo Cheng were the judges.

With such judges, was there still a need for a confrontation?

When did Luo Zhi stop explaining anything to them?

Even if he got Huaisheng Entertainment, it was only natural for Jian Huaiyi to be sidelined. As long as they got rid of the board of directors’ constraints, the real power in the hands of those managers could turn that President Jian into a mascot in the office in minutes.

The board of directors scattered like monkeys when the tree falls. It was true that it was because of the Luo family’s changes… but even without the Luo family’s changes, after Luo Zhi’s death and the estate distribution agreement took effect, these people would naturally be contacted by the notary office.

At that time, as long as these department managers of Huaisheng Entertainment job-hopped with a large number of high-quality resources, scripts, and elite teams, their next employer would be eager to welcome them with gongs and drums.

Luo Zhi had a way to protect his own people, a way to make Jian Huaiyi pay the price.

This meant he didn’t even have the qualification to avenge Luo Zhi.

…

Luo Jun raised his head. He was about to speak but found that Ren Chenbai’s gaze was fixed on a certain spot behind him.

There was nothing there. This fixed gaze naturally gave rise to an eerie feeling. But Ren Chenbai’s face had already changed slightly.

That poisonous gloom suddenly disappeared, replaced by a kind of highly tense panic.

Ren Chenbai’s gaze began to become vacant again. His body, constrained in the chair, began to struggle. He stared anxiously behind him.

“That’s not what I mean… no, no, I’m not having another episode.”

Ren Chenbai stared behind him, stammering an explanation, “I hate him, no—no, I know I’m not qualified. I’m taking it out on him. I hate myself. Don’t be angry…”

He was so nervous he was on the verge of collapse. Luo Jun almost really suspected someone was behind him and couldn’t help but look back.

…

There was nothing, only quiet air.

In the video, Luo Zhi was making other arrangements.

The timeline began to extend backward. The closer it got to their current time, the more focused Luo Zhi’s videos became.

Luo Zhi became more focused. His state in the recordings was also better, even having a particularly relaxed, chatty kind of imagination.

The founder who was far abroad, Luo Zhi could no longer paint a picture that would satisfy him.

The last few paintings he was still satisfied with were put away by Luo Zhi and handed over to a trust for safekeeping. Luo Zhi explained in the video that if his grandfather suddenly remembered and asked him, he would have someone send a painting in order.

It had to be in order. When the last painting was sent, it would be just in time for him to have exhausted his talent and angrily seal his brush… then he could logically switch to sending photographs.

He didn’t know when Sister Zhao Lan would be able to walk out of the shadows. If he was still alive at that time, he would definitely go over and open champagne together to celebrate.

If he was gone, then he would have someone deliver the gift for him.

He had actually wanted to send it before. If seeing his name didn’t cause nightmares, if she was no longer held captive by past fears, then she would have completely walked out of it. She would be the bravest sister in the world.

Today, he saw several people on the internet speaking up for him. He was so happy. Was it a bit strange to chase after them and send red envelopes? He would release a song for them in the future if he had the chance.

He would try his best to record the song well. The lyrics would thank everyone who had believed in him—he knew someone must have spoken up for him. It was just that the overwhelming slander and curses were too many, so many that they drowned everything out.

…Or maybe he should just leave a card specifically for Fang Hang and ask him to find a few people to help chase after them and send red envelopes.

In the later videos, Luo Zhi spoke more and more, so much that it seemed that apart from speaking in here, there was no other suitable place to speak.

Later, there was gradually no sound in the videos.

Luo Zhi himself didn’t know this and was still speaking very seriously. His body was clearly beginning to have problems. Sometimes he would fall down without warning in the middle of recording. Sometimes he would suddenly forget what he was saying, or even forget what he was doing.

“The doctors in my hospital suspect that he has a tumor in his brain,” Ren Chenbai suddenly said.

Luo Jun came back to his senses.

The time Ren Chenbai spent in that delirious state was very short, only a few minutes, before he regained his senses.

He seemed to be really trying hard to change. Even though he hated Luo Jun to the point of wanting to tear him to shreds, he didn’t dare to be like he was just now, just lowering his head and leaning back in the chair in dejection.

Ren Chenbai’s voice was as hoarse as a wheezing sound. “If it wasn’t for—”

He only said half a sentence before swallowing it back.

But Luo Jun knew what he was saying.

If it wasn’t for suddenly getting sick.

If it wasn’t for getting sick… Luo Zhi had wanted to live.

Luo Zhi was distributing his estate, but when he said these things, Luo Zhi’s expression was clearly that he really wanted to do these things himself.

Luo Zhi had wanted to get away from everyone, to go to a place where there was no one and start a new life. In the later videos, when he spoke, his consciousness would become confused, and he would start talking about this.

Luo Zhi could have left. He had already gotten a boat ticket.

It was because his well-made plans were disrupted that he couldn’t see a doctor in time, couldn’t have his body’s abnormality checked in time.

It was because Ren Chenbai had destroyed his car, so he couldn’t go far.

It was because Li Weiming’s fans had exposed his whereabouts, because Luo Cheng had cornered him in the hotel, because Patriarch Luo had allowed him to be thrown in that kind of place. It was because every one of them had seen Luo Zhi once that night, and every one of them had made Luo Zhi’s condition worse…

It was because in that shipwreck, Luo Jun had forgotten he had a younger brother.

“You want to know my nightmare?”

Ren Chenbai slowly moved his eyes and looked at Luo Jun. “My nightmare is, if I didn’t exist from the beginning, what would he be like now?”

After being taken from the Seaview Villa back to the hospital, Ren Chenbai had been trapped in countless such nightmares. Every night, he would watch himself throw away the seashell with his own hands over and over again. Every day, these nightmares would come to find him from all directions.

He finally had to know this. No matter how he fled, where he fled to, these nightmares had a way of finding him, forcing themselves in front of him and constantly showing him.

…If he didn’t exist at all, what kind of life would Luo Zhi be living?

Luo Zhi was holding a concert on a stage under the spotlight of ten thousand people, the light sticks forming a sea of light. Luo Zhi was driving his favorite car on the vast grassland, chasing the wind. Luo Zhi placed his easel on a sea of clouds in the mountains.

Luo Zhi held his mother’s arm. His mother pinched his ear and shook it, and his face would turn red, but his eyes were brighter than anything.

He finally knew what he had destroyed.

He wandered in those nightmares, dazed, so painful he wished he could die, yet he was addicted to watching the Luo Zhi in his hallucinations, to forget the even more cruel truth.

“Luo Jun,” Ren Chenbai stared at the figure in front of him. “You woke me up.”

Ren Chenbai asked, “How should I thank you?”

When he saw the death certificate in Luo Jun’s hand, even the nightmares that were most cruel to him shattered inch by inch.

His bones were pulled out by reality and ground into powder bit by bit.

He could finally only be locked up in this mental hospital, soberly watching all the nightmares, and also the reality he had destroyed with his own hands.

Luo Zhi would never come back.

Luo Jun was wrapped in a thick coldness. He wanted to shake his head, wanted to escape immediately, but he was still rooted to the spot, unable to move.

“Have a dream together while awake?” Ren Chenbai was already a pool of desperate, dead water, but a cold smile appeared on his face. “If it weren’t for you, if you weren’t his older brother…”

Luo Jun’s throat moved. An invisible force once again climbed up and slowly wrapped around him.

He had thought that slow slicing was the most painful, but it turned out it wasn’t. He wanted to steal Ren Chenbai’s nightmare, but now they both had to face all this while awake.

Luo Jun didn’t even know how he had suddenly fallen. He was surrounded by nurses and doctors who ran over. He lay on the ground, his hands and feet cold. He opened his mouth and tried his best to inhale, but not a single wisp of air flowed into his chest.

The air around him seemed to have been completely sucked out in an instant.

The punishments all along, the torture and pain, seemed not to be as desperate as this simple realization.

Luo Zhi had once really wanted to live.

Luo Zhi was arranging his own affairs after death alone. In those videos, he carefully and solemnly considered it over and over again. Any tiny bit of goodwill would be remembered well by Luo Zhi.

Luo Zhi had wanted to live. Luo Zhi clearly wanted to do those things himself—when exactly had everything finally been pushed to a completely different place?

From which recording did it start, when Luo Zhi came to arrange his own affairs after death, all that was left was a relieved ease and anticipation?

Luo Jun couldn’t swallow any air.

…If he hadn’t been Luo Zhi’s older brother.

He would have to have this nightmare while awake.