Chapter 32: N. The Gilded Cage

Ning Yixiao originally hadn’t wanted to intervene in Su Hui’s life with such heavy-handed tactics.

He had attempted to provide help gently, or secretly supply what Su Hui needed, but the results were poor. Su Hui was more resistant and distant than he had imagined. However, after hearing that Liang Wen had been rejected, Ning Yixiao still couldn’t restrain his heart. Seeing Su Hui sink into the swamp of his depressive episode, seeing him collapse in a coma, hospitalized due to malnutrition, refusing to eat or drink—Ning Yixiao had been at a total loss.

During this time, he had thought of many ways to help Su Hui, but each one was more or less insufficient. The only safe option seemed to be keeping Su Hui by his side.

It might sound ridiculous, but his only goal was to help Su Hui get through this period. He had no other intentions.

As he left the Jones Group, Ning Yixiao received a call from Bella. Her tone was urgent; it sounded as if something had happened.

“Has Chloe tried to contact you in the last two days?”

Ning Yixiao was in the car, dealing with documents. Staring at his laptop, he replied in a flat tone, “Why would she come to find me?”

“Because we are getting engaged! It’s all over the news.” Bella Jones began to take precautions, instructing him, “If Chloe comes to find you, you must not give the game away. Don’t admit it’s a fake engagement just because she asks two questions, you hear?”

“I have no interest in playing house with you.” Ning Yixiao sat in the car and loosened his tie.

“Whether you’re interested or not, you’re already doing it, and the benefits are almost in reach. You have to hold on at least until I get my hands on the trust fund. Besides, she was the one who broke up with me; now she’s in a rush? What was she doing before?”

Ning Yixiao truly admired the young lady’s personality—fearless, she only seemed satisfied if she made things a huge scene.

Bella added, “And it’s not just Chloe; if anyone else asks, it’s the same. We’re at the finish line; don’t ruin things for me. Put on that poker face you’re so good at!”

Ning Yixiao felt stifled and said little. After she hung up, he had the driver play some piano music.

Not long after the car started, Carl’s call came in.

“What is it?”

Ning Yixiao hadn’t given Carl much work lately; almost all the tasks he assigned were related to Su Hui. As soon as his call came in, Ning Yixiao had a bad feeling.

“Shaw…” Carl stammered. “Uh, I just took some people over there to tidy up Eddy’s things and help him move, but I discovered his things are all gone.”

“What?” Ning Yixiao furrowed his brows. “Where is he?”

Carl cleared his throat awkwardly. “He… I’m at the hospital now. The nurse said he initially mentioned going out for a walk, but then he vanished.”

His tone became uncontrollably anxious. “He’s a psychiatric patient; how could he just go missing like that?”

“They didn’t expect it either. Logically, he’s in a major depressive episode; he shouldn’t be running out…”

Ning Yixiao was so angry he didn’t know what to say. “Go guard the door to his grandmother’s room. I’ll contact him.”

After hanging up on Carl, Ning Yixiao had the driver stop the car on the side of the road.

He got out, the cold air rushing into his collar. He stood by the car door for a moment, then knocked on the driver’s window and asked for a cigarette. He lit it and leaned against a lamppost to smoke.

In the end, he called Su Hui. It didn’t go through, so he kept calling.

Su Hui finally answered, but didn’t speak.

“Where are you?”

Ning Yixiao suppressed his anger.

There was silence on the other end for a long time; there was only the sound of wind on the line.

“Su Hui, do you really like playing hide-and-seek?”

After Ning Yixiao finished this sentence, Su Hui finally spoke. His tone was faint, very light, devoid of energy. “You’re the one buying the place I’m renting. I have no choice but to move.”

Ning Yixiao didn’t deny his actions. “You know perfectly well what I mean. Living there alone isn’t suitable for you. If you had other thoughts, you could have discussed them with me. Why disappear on your own?”

He heard Su Hui stay silent for a long time, and gradually began to wonder if he had been wrong from the very beginning.

“So it was possible to discuss it…” Su Hui said intermittently, his tone suppressing a sense of grievance. “No one ever asked for my opinion.”

Ning Yixiao softened immediately; he felt he was truly beyond saving.

“Didn’t we make a deal? It’s very simple: I cover all your grandmother’s expenses, and you only need to listen to me and live in the place I’ve arranged for you. I don’t need anything else. And you didn’t object, did you?”

The wind was strong; he could barely hear Su Hui’s breathing.

“You said it could be discussed, so I want to make one request,” Su Hui said.

“What request?” Ning Yixiao didn’t care what he wanted, as long as he stopped disappearing, anything was fine.

Su Hui paused, then said in a calm, indifferent tone, “I agree to move in, but I don’t want to see you. It would be best if we never see each other.”

Ning Yixiao froze in place. People were coming and going on the streets of New York, and the wind biting at his face felt like soft blades, tearing through his last shred of dignity.

“I know this is unreasonable. I’m living in your house, yet I’m demanding that you aren’t allowed to visit. But this is my only request. I can agree to anything else, and I know you aren’t in New York most of the time. This request isn’t hard to fulfill.”

Su Hui paused. “As for the expenses… once I’m feeling better, I can go to work, and I can take on other jobs. That way, I will pay you back little by little. I promise.”

Su Hui sat on a bench by the road, shivering with cold. He kept his head down, staring at a dying weed by the roadside, waiting for Ning Yixiao’s answer.

“Fine.”

Ning Yixiao didn’t make things difficult and satisfied his only request. His voice sounded very calm. “I promise you. But I will arrange for dedicated staff to clean the house and cook. You can change the password to the house as you please; I won’t come over.”

With that, he hung up the phone.

The busy signal left a ringing in Su Hui’s ears and a momentary tightness in his chest.

He hadn’t slept all night. In the early morning, he had quietly left the ward, hailed a taxi back to his rented place, packed his essentials, and called a moving company that morning.

For a moment, he had truly planned to run away, but if he fled, what would happen to his grandmother?

Su Hui could only bow his head to reality.

He sat in the moving truck, unable to even give the driver a destination. After a long silence, he requested temporary storage service, and luckily, they had a warehouse and agreed to his request.

He was very lucky, and Ning Yixiao had satisfied his request, just as he expected. Because Ning Yixiao never wanted anything from him anyway—he didn’t need to meet him at all.

Su Hui’s emotions were numb; he couldn’t distinguish whether this moment was agonizing or a relief. He only knew that regardless of Ning Yixiao’s motives, he should not, and would not, intervene in his life—or his upcoming marriage.

Even if he was currently very “cheap” and easily driven into a corner.

Even if he really was just a small piece of a puzzle, he wasn’t willing to be “collected” like this. He would rather hide and disappear completely.

When Carl came to pick Su Hui up, he was sitting on the bench by the road, wearing only a heavy coat over his hospital gown. He looked a bit disheveled, but the innate nobility on his face couldn’t be hidden.

The tip of his nose and his knuckles were frozen red. He didn’t look like someone running away from home; he looked more like a stray kitten forced onto the streets.

Carl felt apologetic, as if it were his proposal to Ning Yixiao about buying the apartment that had pushed Su Hui too far, causing him to run off.

Filled with guilt, Carl walked over and invited Su Hui to the car. Su Hui moved sluggishly, but he followed him anyway.

In the car, Su Hui stared motionless out the window. Carl noticed that he liked doing this, almost pressing himself against the window like a child.

“Eddy, do you not like staying in the hospital room?” he said, probing to make conversation. “Should we go eat something first, then go see your grandmother? Is that okay?”

Su Hui only nodded and didn’t speak.

Carl had no choice but to follow Ning Yixiao’s instructions and take him to a high-end Chinese restaurant, ordering some of the dishes Su Hui liked.

When the waiter standing nearby asked if there were “any dietary restrictions,” Su Hui, who had been silent the whole time, finally spoke.

“None.” He shook his head.

The “list of dietary restrictions” Carl had prepared became useless instantly.

He sat across from Su Hui and discovered his appetite was truly poor. He barely touched the main courses served, only drinking a little porridge and eating two shrimp dumplings.

Su Hui apologized for this, saying he was being too wasteful.

Carl waved his hand with a smile. “Actually, I’ll just pack it up and take it to Shaw. He hasn’t been eating properly lately and has been having stomach pains; drinking some porridge will be good for his stomach.”

He saw Su Hui’s expression change. He lowered his eyes but didn’t say anything.

The boss’s ‘pity ploy’ doesn’t seem to be working, Carl thought.

But just as the waiter came over with the takeout box, Su Hui spoke up, as if talking to himself: “He doesn’t like seafood porridge.”

It took a moment for Carl to react and realize that the “he” Su Hui referred to was Ning Yixiao.

“Right, I almost forgot.” He said to the waiter, “Don’t take that one. Swap it for a porridge without seafood.”

Su Hui’s reaction was faster than mine, Carl thought. This is enough to prove that they care about each other; it’s just that the timing seems all wrong.

He had originally thought his painstaking efforts would allow these two to get along well for a while. No matter how deep or large the conflict, blood was thicker than water, and it should be resolvable. He never expected the conflict to be even larger than he had imagined—to the point of never meeting again.

Carl couldn’t help but sigh. When he looked up, he found Su Hui staring fixedly at the seafood porridge, blinking, and then turning his face away.

Before leaving the restaurant, Carl received a message from Ning Yixiao.

[Shaw: I’ve already taken my things away. Bring him over. Remember to teach him how to change the password.]

Su Hui stood to the side, waiting. He felt Carl was working hard, but he simply couldn’t muster any more enthusiasm. He took his medicine in the car, remaining in a daze until they reached the hospital where his grandmother was.

She had been in a coma for days and hadn’t fully regained consciousness. Carl stayed to keep him company for an hour; Su Hui kept urging him to go back to work, but he refused until Su Hui promised he wouldn’t go running off again.

“Then I’ll go to the warehouse you mentioned and move the things over,” Carl said with a smile.

Su Hui couldn’t refuse.

The caregiver sat to the side, silent. In the quiet ward, there was only the beeping of the instruments, one after another—long and lonely. Su Hui held his grandmother’s withered, skeletal hand the whole time, leaning against her bedside, feeling overwhelmed.

At seven in the evening, he felt his grandmother’s hand twitch. The caregiver got up and quickly called for the doctor and nurses.

“The patient is awake. We still need to do an examination in a moment.”

Su Hui nodded quickly, asking about the precautions to take, and kept holding her hand with his own.

After the doctors and nurses left, the caregiver also departed at the appropriate time.

Su Hui looked at his grandmother, who had opened her eyes, and couldn’t help his eyes reddening.

His grandmother, wearing an oxygen mask with a tube in her nose, looked at Su Hui. She opened her mouth, her voice raspy.

“Xiao Hui…”

“I’m here.” Su Hui held back his tears. He didn’t want her to notice he was in a depressive episode, so he tried his best to act cheerful. “Grandma, does it hurt?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. She seemed to want to say something. Su Hui leaned in close, but only heard her say: “Yixiao.”

Su Hui’s body stiffened. “What about him?”

“I saw him yesterday… standing nearby…” She didn’t have much strength, and speaking was difficult. She continued intermittently, “He hasn’t changed much…”

Su Hui hadn’t expected him to be there yesterday and suddenly felt a wave of sadness. He nodded, then shook his head. “He’s changed a lot, don’t you think?”

Grandma smiled. “Is it… did he help us…”

Su Hui nodded. “Yeah. He arranged the surgery and the ward. When your complications flared up, he even flew here to see you.”

Grandma clearly had a misunderstanding. “Did you two…”

Su Hui denied it immediately. “No, we…”

For a moment, he couldn’t find an accurate word to describe his current relationship with Ning Yixiao, so he said directly: “He’s getting married soon. His fiancée is very beautiful and comes from a very good family.”

Grandma furrowed her brows. “Is that so? With a girl…”

Su Hui knew what she meant and explained, “Grandma, the past is the past. He and I only dated for six months; we barely even knew each other for half a year, and we’ve been separated for six years now. Who knows what could happen in six years?”

Every word he said came from the heart. He knew Ning Yixiao’s character well. Even in his climb to success, he would never hurt anyone. He was willing to get married, so perhaps he truly liked her. He was incapable of deceiving others.

Six months was really short, but six years was a long time. In those long six years, Ning Yixiao could have spent many months, many, many days with anyone.

“I heard his fiancée is an alumna from his graduate school; maybe they’ve been together for a long time. He… he never said he only liked boys. There were many girls chasing him in the past, too.”

He lowered his eyes. “Ning Yixiao is helping us because he’s very grateful to you. He’s very thankful for your support of him in the past.”

Grandma closed her eyes and shook her head, her smile bitter, and she didn’t continue.

Su Hui didn’t speak anymore either. He ordered hospital food, fed his grandmother some soup, and talked to her. When he saw she was tired, he helped her settle down to sleep. Once she was asleep, he went outside to smoke a cigarette.

He had only smoked half when Carl arrived.

They looked at each other across the night, and Su Hui knew the birdcage was ready. But compared to the airtight gilded cage of the past, he was now more willing to be trapped in this one.

Thinking of this word, Su Hui’s moral sense couldn’t help but lash out at him: hypocritical, cowardly, incompetent, cheap, yet feigning aloofness.

The house was only an eight-minute drive from the hospital. They arrived quickly, taking a beautifully decorated elevator to the top floor, where there was only one residence.

“By the way, you should change the password first.” Carl set up the door lock and waited for Su Hui to input it.

Su Hui didn’t think much and entered his grandmother’s birthday.

“Okay.”

The door opened. Su Hui was brought inside. Before him was a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside was the gorgeous night view of Manhattan and Central Park—beautiful with a staggering impact.

Fragments of memories from six years ago involuntarily flooded his mind. Su Hui felt a pang of pain, so he turned his face away and stopped looking.

“This is actually the first property Shaw bought.” Carl said with a smile. “During the startup phase, he was always in the Bay Area. I don’t know why, but when he bought property, New York was his first consideration. This place is quite expensive.”

Su Hui heard it all, but didn’t respond, only asking: “Which room is better for me to stay in?”

“The master bedroom, of course.” Carl intended to take him upstairs, but a servant walked down—a middle-aged woman of Mexican descent.

She bowed to Su Hui immediately. “Hello, I am Kofi.”

“Kofi is a professional caregiver, and she is a certified therapist.” Carl explained, “A private chef will arrive tomorrow.”

Su Hui returned the gesture and turned to Carl. “I won’t stay in the master bedroom. There’s a guest room on the first floor, right? I’ll stay there.”

Carl couldn’t sway him, so he had to take him to a side bedroom on the first floor that had always been empty. “This connects to the study. You should like it.”

Su Hui nodded. “Thank you.”

“Then I’ll let Kofi help you unpack.”

Su Hui gently refused. “I can do it myself.”

Soon, he was the only one left in the room.

The space was bright and spacious, located in the center of New York City. The guest room was nearly half the size of the place he had been renting. Everything was a work of famous designers; even a single rug was worth a small fortune.

Yet, Su Hui felt extremely insecure—even suffocated.

He took a shower and discovered that there were no sharp objects in the bathroom. The mirror was non-glass material and very sturdy; the razor blade was not removable; even the bottom of the toothbrush was rounded and blunt.

After coming out, he started to pack his clothes. When he opened the closet door, he saw that the hanging rod was specially designed at a slant, so every hanger had a custom slot. Furthermore, printed on it was a warning label: [Cannot bear heavy loads].

The tempered glass floor-to-ceiling windows couldn’t be opened and were covered by a layer of blinds. There was no chandelier in the room—only recessed circular lighting. There were no protruding wall lamps in the four corners, no ropes, and even the charging cables in the room were short.

Su Hui was in a space designed to be incomparably safe, yet he couldn’t sleep.

He wanted to know why Ning Yixiao had bought this house. Did it have anything to do with his careless remark during their first date?

Why design it like this? Was it because his own past self-harm had left such a profound shadow on him?

Just like when Ning Yixiao was abandoned by the mother he relied on for survival when he was a child—he could never walk out of it.

Su Hui loathed his own fragility and cruelty, but he was helpless. He was like a piece of glass sparkling in the sun—vain and superficial; whoever held it in their hands would bleed.

No matter what, as long as he didn’t see him, he could convince himself he was just a stranger.

Unable to sleep soundly there, Su Hui woke up very early but lay there for a long time before leaving the room. A person wearing a chef’s uniform stood in the living room; he looked to be Chinese. He introduced himself, saying his name was Mark and he was going to make breakfast for him.

Only then did Su Hui realize that the knives in the kitchen were all locked away; only this private chef knew the password.

“Thank you, Mark. I’m not very hungry.” Su Hui said, “You don’t need to make it for me.”

“You should have a little something.”

To his surprise, Mark spoke Chinese with a hint of a Shanghai accent. “You need to eat something in the morning. I’ll make you a bowl of ‘Yangchun’ noodles—less noodles, just something refreshing to eat.”

“Alright.” Staying in this big house, Su Hui felt uneasy, as if parts of his skin were like scales, peeling off piece by piece. He couldn’t help but return to the bathroom to take another shower.

When he came out, Su Hui used a towel to wipe his hair, realizing it had grown long again and made him look listless. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Kofi was busy cleaning, and Mark was cooking noodles, so Su Hui thought for a moment and walked over himself.

He didn’t have the habit of looking through the peephole because he had watched a horror movie as a child and had been terrified of them ever since.

The doorbell wouldn’t stop ringing. Su Hui grabbed the door handle, unlocked it, and pulled the door open.

The visitor was a mixed-race person wearing white sunglasses. He was very tall, wearing a floral shirt, looking like someone who had just returned from a vacation in Hawaii.

The moment he saw Su Hui, he froze. The hand suspended in mid-air, intending to knock, also stopped.

Su Hui asked tentatively: “Are you…”

He hadn’t expected the other person to have such a bizarre reaction. First, he confirmed the house number, looked back at him, snapped his sunglasses up, and then leaned in close to stare carefully at his face.

Then, he uttered a clearly enunciated—

“F…”*

Su Hui had taken his medication that morning and was already feeling drowsy and muddled. He was left stunned on the spot by that exclamation. Unexpectedly, the guy wasn’t done yet; he opened his eyes wide and scanned him up and down.

“I knew it, I knew it—” He slapped his forehead hard, took out his phone, and while dialing a number, muttered, “No wonder he was so obsessed with him…”

Su Hui wanted to ask if he was looking for Ning Yixiao, but before he could speak, the man was gone—only his voice echoed in the elevator lobby.

“F… I’m speechless!”*

What a strange guy.