Chapter 30: N. Proust

Su Hui woke up at 10:30 AM.

He opened his eyes, finding the environment unfamiliar, and had forgotten what he was doing moments before waking. His mind was a chaotic void; he could only stare at the blank ceiling, motionless.

It was the landlady who noticed he was awake. She rose from a nearby chair and stepped forward, softly calling his name. Su Hui didn’t have the strength to turn his head; he just glanced at her.

“You’re awake? You scared me to death, child.” She hurried to call the doctor and nurse.

The head of the bed was adjusted, and several people came to examine him. Su Hui was like a toy being maneuvered, saying nothing.

“It’s primarily due to low food intake, malnutrition, and insufficient sleep, which led to the fainting.” The doctor arranged for a nurse to give him nutritional IVs and kept urging him to eat on schedule.

Su Hui’s ears were numb, barely able to process the information. He remained silent. The psychiatric staff were accustomed to such cases; they simply turned to instruct the caregiver before leaving.

The landlady had never seen Su Hui in the midst of an episode—he had always hidden it well—and she was deeply shaken. “Quick, I just reheated the food; it’s the perfect time to eat.”

She enthusiastically set up the medical bedside table, pulled the takeout boxes from the thermal bag, and opened them.

“Eat, child,” the landlady urged. “This was sent by that Mr. Liang. It was he who ran to the apartment to find you last night—otherwise, I wouldn’t have known. I was woken up by his knocking at two in the morning…”

Liang Wen.

Su Hui’s internal burden deepened; he felt a sense of indebtedness.

The landlady shoved a pair of chopsticks into his hand. “Try it.”

In this moment, his sense of smell became his most acute perception. Before even tasting it, Su Hui smelled the food. For some reason, memories suddenly surged, and his semi-coagulated thoughts were completely occupied by someone else—an option that should have been impossible.

Under the pressure, Su Hui lowered his head and, after long hesitation, picked up a bit of the scrambled eggs. He was terrified that the “Proustian effect” was truly manipulating his brain, and that his sense of taste was also malfunctioning.

But this was clearly food cooked by Ning Yixiao; he didn’t believe it could be a mistake.

After only one bite, Su Hui put down his chopsticks.

“What’s wrong?” the landlady asked, confused. “Is it not good? Should I go back and make you some lasagna?”

Su Hui stared at the dishes, and after a moment, he looked up at her and spoke his first sentence.

“Did Liang Wen really send this?”

Asked this, the landlady was a bit puzzled. She thought for a moment. “It was already there when I came over; there was only a nurse, who said it was left by Mr. Liang. But I saw him bring you away last night with my own eyes—that is absolutely certain.”

Su Hui’s eyes reddened, and he forced himself to look calm and indifferent. “Nobody else?”

The landlady shook her head. “I don’t know. Who are you talking about?”

Su Hui didn’t know how to explain. Should he tell her that he knew who cooked the meal after just one bite? That he didn’t even need to eat it to know—and that no matter how he said it, he wouldn’t believe it was cooked by anyone else? How ridiculous.

“Where is Liang Wen?” Su Hui asked.

“He seems to have work. He went back first, but said he would come again.”

“No matter what, eat something first,” she comforted. “You’ve been too tired lately—work, your grandmother’s illness, you’re spinning in circles. You can’t keep going like this; your body can’t handle it.”

Su Hui didn’t listen; he turned to look for his phone and finally found it on the nightstand.

He unlocked it with great difficulty. His vision was blurry, but in a haze, he saw dozens of missed calls in the record. Indeed, many were from Liang Wen, but the rest were from an unknown number.

Enduring the psychosomatic dizziness, Su Hui clicked the screen, dialed the number back, and put the phone to his ear.

It took a long time for the call to be answered. Su Hui spoke, “Liang Wen, where are you…”

There was no response from the other end for a long time. Su Hui took a deep breath. “Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you, but it seems you’ve dialed the wrong number. I’m not Liang Wen.”

The voice on the other side replied in Chinese—a voice too familiar, deeper than usual, and very soft, almost a mere breath.

Su Hui’s blood seemed to freeze instantly; he stood there, stunned.

He moved the phone away and looked at it. Sure enough, he had made a mistake and dialed the unknown missed number.

Both of them were locked in the phone call, neither speaking.

Su Hui actually had a lot he wanted to say: Why did you call so many times? Did you look for me? Did you cook this? Why are you doing this?

Why are you doing this for me when you are about to get engaged?

But the physiological stiffness of his depression left him unable to speak, firmly locking his communication valve, even making him uncontrollably cold.

In the end, it was Ning Yixiao who broke the stalemate. “I contacted you yesterday for some work matters, but I couldn’t reach you. The phone wouldn’t go through, and I thought something had happened. Now that you’ve called back, I’m relieved. Take care of yourself.”

He spoke of unimportant things, tacitly avoiding the questions Su Hui was holding in his heart. So, he didn’t ask anything either.

Long after the call ended, Su Hui put down the phone and began to eat all the food, one bite at a time. It was difficult and slow. His eyes were always red, but not a single tear fell.

He didn’t need to find Liang Wen for the truth anymore.

With every bite he ate, memories invaded without restraint.

He remembered that every time he was sick, Ning Yixiao would steam a bowl of egg custard, without the green onions he hated; he thought of the meals they shared after they moved in together; he also remembered that later, when his financial support was cut off and he had to teach children to draw, Ning Yixiao would wake up at five every morning to prepare the lunch he would take with him because he wasn’t used to the food outside.

Was deliberately not making egg custard an attempt to keep me from finding out?

How foolish.

In this world, there was only one person who remembered his picky eating habits and tolerated his flaws. How could he not have discovered it?

Nothing caused him more pain than memories.

Su Hui was like a child who couldn’t climb back up after a fall, surrounded by failure. Lying in the quilt, he hoped he could be buried by sand or soil and disappear from this world entirely.

He was determined to hide in his shell, seeing no one.

Liang Wen came every day, staying for hours, but Su Hui almost never spoke, never responded, cold and thin, like a sharp paper blade.

The single room was incredibly quiet. The kind landlady would occasionally come to keep him company; they seemed to have agreed to stagger their visits so the place wouldn’t be too desolate. She wouldn’t say much, but would turn on the TV so the environment wouldn’t feel so dead.

It was unclear which day or week it was, nor whether it was morning or afternoon. Su Hui was “forced” to lean against the bed to watch the news with the landlady, but his gaze remained fixed on the wire-mesh covered window.

“Hey, isn’t that Mr. Liang?” She was excited, patting Su Hui’s knee. “Eddy, he’s the one who picked you up and brought you away that night.”

Su Hui didn’t want to look, until he vaguely heard the name “Shaw,” so he turned his head and saw photos of Ning Yixiao and Bella on the screen, images of them being photographed by reporters arriving at the Jones residence.

His brain buzzed, filled with noisy sounds. Su Hui closed his eyes.

For no reason, he remembered Ning Yixiao holding him, telling him in a very gentle voice that a photographer had accidentally captured them—Manhattan, 42nd Street.

To this day, Su Hui had never seen that photo. He couldn’t help but wonder: did it really exist? Or was Ning Yixiao lying to him, just like he had a few days ago?

Carl still handed the food to Liang Wen every day, and according to Ning Yixiao’s instructions, asked if Su Hui had eaten well. Liang Wen told him that on the first day, Su Hui had finished it all, eating for a long time. But from the second time on, he barely touched the food. He would rather drink the hospital’s terrible cream of mushroom soup than lift his chopsticks.

Carl didn’t know what had gone wrong. Ning Yixiao prepared different dishes every day, and the food looked delicious. He felt sorry for his boss’s efforts but didn’t dare to comment on it, so he had to bring the food back untouched.

Ning Yixiao appeared to have no emotional ripples; he just told him to dump it and prepare to make it as usual the next day, as if nothing had happened.

However, because the recent acquisition negotiations were entering the final stages, everyone was as busy as if they were in a fight. In just one week, Ning Yixiao traveled between New York and the Bay Area four times.

News that he was about to be engaged to Bella Jones spread throughout the Bay Area, and the company “Ocha” also received the news.

They were caught off guard. The negotiators suddenly understood why MSN-F was so persistent—no matter what acquisition terms were offered, they wouldn’t budge. It was because they had the Jones Group behind them. Once the marriage was finalized, the Jones family’s massive capital would become the unicorn company’s core financial strength, and an IPO was just around the corner.

Ning Yixiao flew back to the Bay Area that day and met with the general manager Ocha sent for the final negotiation. The other party made an appointment at a golf club by the Bay, where the environment was beautiful, with blue seas and blue skies.

In fact, just a few years ago, Ning Yixiao had been here once.

After a small financing meeting at the time, several investors planned to play golf. Nobody invited the unknown Ning Yixiao; he followed them himself because one of the investors had said, “We’ll chat after we play.”

The sun was so hot that day it could almost melt the asphalt road. The temperature was very high. Ning Yixiao didn’t have sportswear and stood in the sun in his dress shirt and suit pants, waiting for them.

During that time, he stared at these middle-aged men who held wealth and status, observing their lewd jokes, and realized that their skills couldn’t even be called “knowing how to play”—most of them were just posing, and their hit rate was terrifyingly low.

And that day, his own hit rate was zero; he got nothing, except for the cold stares of these people in private.

“Shaw, you must be very good at golf.”

The Ocha general manager on the side looked at him with a business smile on his face.

Ning Yixiao also smiled, but said honestly, “I don’t know how.”

He hadn’t learned it and never intended to master this sport because he knew very well that for all the rich people standing on this lawn, whether they knew how to play golf didn’t matter at all; having an admission ticket was what mattered. He didn’t even need to pretend he could.

“Is that so?” The other party smiled. “You look like you’re good at sports.”

Ning Yixiao didn’t take his bait, but got straight to the point. “Mr. Duke, my attitude has always been the hope of facilitating cooperation with Ocha. I think you are very clear about this.”

These Eastern eyes were dark and deep, and it was difficult to discern emotions from them. Duke couldn’t help but speculate on his meaning.

The young man in front of him had taken only three years to lead a startup to a market capitalization of two billion, becoming a star founder in the Bay Area. Everyone had heard that he was an ethnic Chinese programmer from S University, so they inevitably had stereotypes, thinking he would be a stiff and boring engineer.

In fact, his appearance had almost nothing to do with this; he had a face that could harvest many loyal followers just by roadshows, yet he rarely showed up, showing a depth and calmness that his peers didn’t possess.

Duke pondered in his heart, and after thinking about it, said kindly: “We have the same attitude. You know, Ocha acquires no fewer than a thousand companies every year, and many times it’s like offering fuel in snowy weather. You Chinese have a saying: ‘A wise man submits to circumstances.'”

Ning Yixiao smiled. “I didn’t expect you to be a China hand. You are very right, but there is another similar saying—I don’t know if you’ve heard it.”

He looked at the birds in the distance, perched on the top of a giant redwood tree.

“A good bird chooses its tree to perch on.” Ning Yixiao said calmly, “For a bird that has already made its choice, other trees may not be suitable for perching anymore.”

Duke paused. “Then what do you think?”

Ning Yixiao’s face retained a faint smile. “Choosing a new tree isn’t easy, but if you just accept the other party’s olive branch and weave it into a new nest, it’s simple.”

Carl took the opportunity to take out a document and hand it to Mr. Duke. Duke opened it; the document showed the venture capital returns of other investors previously, as well as the investment proposal they drafted.

“If you are interested, contact me at any time.” Ning Yixiao stood on the lawn, which was trimmed to near perfection, as light as a cloud. “We are all looking forward to working with Ocha.”

With matters discussed to this point, Ning Yixiao had sufficient confidence to secure new investment. The next step was the Series C financing.

He told Carl to notify the staff who were busy dealing with the acquisition case to take a break, and he got into the car himself. The medicine Grace had prescribed was left in the car by Carl. Ning Yixiao took a look but didn’t intend to take it. The car started, and he suddenly heard Carl in the passenger seat mention Su Hui’s grandmother.

“What? Vomiting blood?”

Carl turned his head in panic to look at Ning Yixiao, covering the microphone to relay the matter to him. “The hospital side said Eddy’s grandmother woke up, but there is an upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage…”

Ning Yixiao looked calm. “You tell the hospital that the patient’s family is seriously ill and unable to go to the hospital to handle the paperwork personally. Let our people go first and ask the doctor to save her with all their might; don’t delay.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t tell Su Hui about this. Buy the earliest flight back to New York.”

Carl looked at him, but Ning Yixiao turned to look out the window, not revealing a shred of emotion, just like a true robot, running continuously, seeming as if it would never fail.

Before Su Hui fainted, he almost stayed at the hospital to accompany her every day, even sleeping in the ward at night. But now he was hospitalized too, and his grandmother had had an accident. Carl couldn’t help but sweat for him.

It was already 10:00 PM when they landed in New York with Ning Yixiao. The six-hour flight made Carl feel exhausted, but Ning Yixiao didn’t wait a second and went straight to the hospital.

Su Hui’s grandmother had entered the ICU for emergency treatment again and hadn’t come out yet. Ning Yixiao stayed at the hospital for a long time and also contacted several experts in this field by phone. Two hours later, he planned to go see Su Hui just in case, leaving Carl there.

He deliberately arranged Su Hui and his grandmother in two different hospitals. On one hand, the hospitals had their own strengths in treatment; on the other hand, he was afraid Su Hui would be affected.

Ning Yixiao knew better than anyone what Su Hui looked like during a depressive phase; he couldn’t sit idly by.

Psychiatric wards always seemed not very peaceful. Passing through the corridor, Ning Yixiao walked straight to the door of Su Hui’s room. Just as he raised his hand, he paused in mid-air.

His room was not as quiet as he had imagined. Although the voice was very low, Ning Yixiao quickly distinguished that the person speaking in the room was Liang Wen.

“Listen to me, you can’t go on like this.”

Su Hui in his depressive phase appeared exceptionally cold.

“What should I do?”

Liang Wen was silent for a moment. Su Hui’s voice appeared again, very difficult, but word for word, “I just want to see my grandmother. I want to accompany her.”

“You are a patient yourself now. How can a patient take care of a patient?”

“Then tell me what I should do? Hire a nurse?”

Liang Wen’s voice sounded a bit helpless. “I can help you with all these things. Why do you…”

“I don’t need it.” Su Hui was almost sobbing, but his tone was firm. “Liang Wen, it’s not possible between us. I can’t… pretend that I can fall in love with you, do you understand?”

Ning Yixiao’s hands hung by his sides, clenched into fists. He felt conflicted and at a loss. His sense of morality was at work, telling him he shouldn’t continue listening here, but another part of himself wanted to open the door and push Liang Wen away.

A call from Carl forced Ning Yixiao out of the dilemma. He put on his wireless headset, answered the call, left the corridor, and went to a relatively quiet stairwell.

Carl explained the current situation of Su Hui’s grandmother. It sounded complicated, and there were doctors supplementing on the other end of the phone, but at least the situation was relatively stable. Ning Yixiao replied, and after learning that Carl and the department director were holding an emergency diagnostic meeting, he said there was no need to hang up the phone.

Listening to the discussion between Carl and the doctor, Ning Yixiao was somewhat distracted. His mind was in a mess, and his emotions and thoughts were intertwined. He thought of the danger Su Hui’s grandmother faced, thought of Su Hui’s own illness, and his body that was collapsing day by day just like that. Ning Yixiao had originally prepared to help secretly and didn’t intend to put everything on the table for him to see.

But his dialogue with Liang Wen just now had disrupted everything and stirred his heart.

I don’t know how long it had been, but Carl was no longer seeking a decision from Ning Yixiao. So he came out of the stairwell, sorted out his mood, and returned to Su Hui’s room.

It was very quiet inside this time. He raised his hand and knocked on the ward door. Unexpectedly, there was no response from inside.

Every time this happened, Su Hui would turn into a timid snail, hiding in his shell forever. Ning Yixiao had no other way. He could at most hold his shell, trying to communicate with him in the gentlest and softest way.

The room door opened. Su Hui felt unsafe. He was lying on his side with his back to the door, arms crossed, his eyes dull. His premonitions were sometimes accurate and sometimes not; they were accurate at this moment. Although he couldn’t hear footsteps, he still felt that the person who came was not Liang Wen, nor the landlady.

Ning Yixiao finally stood before him. In his field of vision, it was still those leather gloves he was unfamiliar with. Su Hui loathed these gloves from the bottom of his heart, loathed everything that hadn’t appeared on Ning Yixiao in the past, and loathed himself.

“Are you feeling better?” Ning Yixiao asked. He knew all he would get was silence and didn’t feel sad about it.

Ning Yixiao didn’t sit down. “Your grandmother had an upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage today and is now in the ICU, but the rescue was timely and the situation has stabilized.”

Su Hui finally reacted.

“Do you want to see her?”

After listening, Su Hui said nothing, but tried to support himself on the bed with his hands, trying to get up. Ning Yixiao reached out to help him, which only made him feel worse.

He discovered that not only was his brain dull, but even his limbs couldn’t follow his commands. He could only let Ning Yixiao help him up and wrap him in a coat, just like six years ago.

The wind in the parking lot was strong. Su Hui was helped forward by Ning Yixiao, and every step was agonizing. Someone got out of the driver’s seat of the car and nodded to Ning Yixiao. Ning Yixiao sent the driver away. “Trouble you to help me buy a bottle of water.”

The driver had followed him for a long time and understood tacitly, nodding immediately and turning to leave. Ning Yixiao opened the back door, helped Su Hui in, entered through the other door, and sat beside him, maintaining a safe distance.

The silence between the two was terribly quiet. The person who said the first sentence was like someone throwing a pebble into a bottomless valley, exhausting his courage in waiting for an echo.

Habitually, it was still Ning Yixiao who broke the silence. He knew Su Hui didn’t want to wait, so he didn’t say a word of nonsense.

“Su Hui, I will bear all the medical expenses for your grandmother and arrange for someone to take care of her 24 hours a day to ensure her safety.”

As expected, Su Hui refused. “No need.”

“This is the only way to ensure timely treatment.” Ning Yixiao didn’t intend to explain too much.

Su Hui stared quietly at the darkness in the distance, as if he wanted to see through something. After a long time, he spoke again. “What is the condition?”

Ning Yixiao said, “There is no condition.”

Su Hui didn’t believe it and lowered his eyes. “Everything in this world has a price. Things that seem to have no price… are the most terrifying.”

Ning Yixiao clenched his hands, the wrinkles of the leather gloves squeezing his heart.

“If you think so, you can consider it a loan.”

“I know you are grateful to my grandmother.” Su Hui tried his best to soothe the pain in his heart, making himself look like a normal person. “But this is too much. It’s hard for me to pay you back. I… don’t have anything of value now.”

The call hadn’t been hung up yet. Carl on the other side had heard clearly since Ning Yixiao entered the ward. Now the voice became clearer; he caught Su Hui’s tone and felt the atmosphere was not quite right.

Could it be that Ning Yixiao was going to confront him again? Or were they going to argue? He didn’t know what he should do and even had the idea of saying nice things for his boss in front of Su Hui.

However, the phone was suddenly hung up.

“Then pay me back with yourself.” Ning Yixiao spoke, which sounded a bit unreasonable.

Su Hui was silent for a few seconds, feeling that he was joking, so he smiled lightly. His appearance as he looked toward Ning Yixiao was very beautiful.

“I have no value, either.”