This wasn't Yan Suizhi's first time proactively seeking intimate contact.
Before, he had clearly initiated more intimate contact, each one scratching maddeningly at the heart, yet never was it like this.
Without a single word, yet inexplicably stirring sadness.
Gu Yan froze briefly before saying in a low voice, "I didn't mean for you to see them."
"It's nothing much." Yan Suizhi's voice, pressed into the hollow of his shoulder, was muffled. Even so, it was still tinged, as it usually was, with a faint hint of a smile. "It's fine. It's only a case, not anything important. I just suddenly felt like being a rogue when I saw how good-looking you were."
Gu Yan tightened his arms around him. His embrace exposed a personality that differed marginally from him in the ordinary—warmth liberally wrapped around his being, and his scent, bit by bit, pervaded the air that Yan Suizhi breathed.
Just like this, the hands that Yan Suizhi rinsed in water at a length regained a warmth that travelled from the tips of his fingers to the palms of his hands, and then through the veins to his heart, filling his chest like a surging wave.
The last time he felt like this was in the loft when Gu Yan told him, his voice low and hoarse, of his recurring dreams after the explosion that he was still alive.
The time before that, Gu Yan was leaning against the door, his gaze lifted as he looked up at him on the floor above, telling him goodnight in a deep voice.
And even before that was on the first floor of the villa, in the kitchen, where Gu Yan gazed at him with eyes downcasted, then pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips.
Then there was a long gap, so long that he could barely even remember how many years it was...
This achy feeling of fullness in his chest, tight and tender, always tempted one to blurt out something or other.
Yan Suizhi rested his chin on Gu Yan's shoulder, his gaze shrouded by the shadows of his eyelashes, staring vacantly into space. After a long spell of silence, he suddenly and quietly spoke, "Gu Yan..."
"Hm?"
"Why did you choose me as your direct mentor back then?"
"Because of the lecture I listened to in the past," Gu Yan paused, then said, "Also because... I met you in Helan a long time ago."
"How long ago?" Yan Suizhi sounded minutely startled.
"When I was around eight or nine, at an orphanage," Gu Yan said.
During those days, his grandfather would take him to an orphanage. Most of the children then shared his plight, that their parents were in the military and lost their lives in battle. But what was different was that he had a grandfather, and they didn't.
He didn't know what his grandfather had hoped for by regularly bringing him to the orphanage. Perhaps he wanted him to never forget the hardships of life, or that he wanted to evoke compassion in him. His grandfather, a man of few words, had never told him the reason.
However, it was undeniable that the personality he developed had an unshakeable connection to this experience.
He met Yan Suizhi on a winter afternoon. The sunlight was surprisingly beautiful that day, bathing the lawn of the orphanage in radiance. It was more comfortable than artificial temperature control, so many children were playing on the swings and playground on the lawn, basking in the sun.
Carrying donated goods, his grandfather went to look for the person in charge, leaving him on the lawn.
"Why didn't he bring you with him?" Yan Suizhi asked.
Gu Yan said indifferently, "Who knows. Maybe he was hoping that when he came back, he'd find me tumbling around with the other children."
Yan Suizhi laughed softly, still with a trace of indolence. "So did you live up to his expectations?"
"No. I found a bench in a corner to wait for him."
That long bench faced the lively lawn, and the admin building of the orphanage was visible with just a turn of his head. Since he wouldn't get too dull whilst also being able to catch his grandfather leaving the block, it was the best spot that Gu Yan could find as a child.
Not long after waiting on the bench, he saw a figure come out of the admin building.
He turned his head over and found that it wasn't his grandfather, but a young man.
A very young man, possibly just reaching his twenties.
Well-dressed, he cut a slender and tall figure in his clothes. When coming down from the steps, the hem of his coat was gently lifted by a passing breeze. In spite of his youth, he had a graceful bearing about him.
That man didn't leave immediately after coming out from the block, but stood by the lawn for a while, watching the children play around.
Sunlight illuminated his face, washing out his skin, and his limpid eyes reflected brightly, like they were covered with a layer of crystal clear glass.
He looked gentle, but not in good spirits.
That was the conclusion Gu Yan came to when he looked at him, then.
Barely a moment later, the young man noticed Gu Yan, sitting alone at one side. He unhurriedly walked over, bending over slightly to ask him, "Why are you on your own? Did you get into an argument?"
He assumed that Gu Yan was one of those from the orphanage, yet for some reason, was unable to join in the fun with everyone else.
"I'm waiting for someone." That was how Gu Yan had replied.
"Who are you waiting for?"
"My grandfather."
The young man nodded, only then realising that he had been mistaken.
As they spoke, the matron responsible for keeping an eye on the children on the lawn noticed the young man and came over to greet him.
"I see. Alright, I'll go off first." The young man languidly waved at Gu Yan, walking over to speak to the matron.
When conversing with others, the young man would always have a smile on his face, making him appear more gentle.
"I heard a bit of your chat and found out that you had come to make a donation, and it wasn't your first time at the orphanage." Gu Yan paused, then said, "But I only chanced upon you that one time."
Yan Suizhi didn't speak after listening, only uttering a soft "ah" after a while, saying, "I have a bit of an impression of that. But it isn't strange that you didn't run into me after that. I seldom go on weekends as it tends to be more crowded. It was only because of a last-minute change in my diving club's schedule that I went to Helan that weekend."
At this mention, Gu Yan recalled what he had once said. "You often went diving during that time?"
"Mm," Yan Suizhi acknowledged. Somehow, when the subject was brought up, he fell back into silence. Gu Yan keenly sensed that his mood had dampened again. Some time later, he then said in a low voice, as if immersed in recollection, "Not just then. I started diving very early on, around the age of fifteen. I was obsessed with it for a period. It was a marvellous sport, or so I felt."
"Fifteen?" Gu Yan asked.
His intuition told him that Yan Suizhi was trying, one step at a time, to bare his heart to him.
"Yeah. It was at that time that my parents just passed on..." Yan Suizhi's voice was featherlight, as though he was touching on something quite ordinary, or maybe it was that too many years had passed, and the deep emotions had since faded. "Did I tell you? My mother had a common genetic disease prevalent to those in Helan of her generation. I got it as well, but mine wasn't as serious as hers was. She wasn't doing well that year... she had reached the life expectancy of those afflicted by the disease. The hospital made many recommendations for my father to choose between gene surgery and accompanying her in her last years. As you can see, my father was the gene donor."
During those days, gene surgeries, especially as a form of treatment, required a healthy gene pool. To prevent further mishap, most people would select from the people closer to them.
"The ones who ended up on the operating table did include me," Yan Suizhi said. "The risk of that surgery was very high, even for the gene donor."
His eyes, gazing out of the window, fluttered once. "I got lucky, but theirs didn't succeed."
People were always unwilling to believe what they didn't want to accept. They would often suspect more sinister workings behind the scenes. Though Yan Suizhi, at fifteen years of age, was well-sheltered, he still formed conspiracy theories.
"It wasn't on the operating table that my parents breathed their last... they held on for a few days," Yan Suizhi said. "During that time, I suspected that there was something wrong with the surgery, suspected the doctors of harm, the nurses of negligence, and everyone involved in the procedure. But my parents rejected that kind of thinking. In their final days, they kept stressing that risks of surgery were unavoidable and didn't want me to go on a wild goose chase."
This essentially constituted his parent's dying wishes, for him not to dwell on this matter, unable to move on and dragged into the mire, filled with doubt and suspicion over this. They hoped that he could still regard others with impartiality, accept them kindly, and live a long, ordinary yet blessed life that was spiced with the occasional surprise.
This, along with those birthday well-wishes, became a hellish stumbling block for Yan Suizhi in the decades to come.
"I couldn't go against their dying wishes; after all, that was the last thing they left me," Yan Suizhi said. "So, that year, I found many things to keep myself busy. Because once I was idle, my head would churn. I'd get some dark and disturbing ideas that went against what they hoped for."
Recalling them now, he couldn't even remember what he did that year. No matter what he did, his quiescent heart was a desolate expanse of wilderness; when his heart pulsed, it never reached a summit, and it fell back down without a sound.
Sometimes, he would stop in his tracks for no apparent reason, fixating on a spot by the road in a daze, not knowing where he was going or where to return.
He had a lot of money and long hours to squander. But he didn't have a home.
"During that time, diving felt like the only thing that could make my heart beat," Yan Suizhi said, "When breathing in oxygen under deep pressure, you get the feeling that your chest is being filled..."
Tight and tender, that achy feeling of fullness always gave him an illusion—that he was fulfilled, and not quite as empty as he thought.
In those days, he would often sit on the dive boat's upper deck in his diving suit, his hair dripping wet. He would prop both hands on the edge, squinting at the unending ocean, as well as the scintillating sunshine that pricked his eyes.
By his side, his instructor would be chattering on and on, and he would take it as meaningless background noise, listening to him while his thoughts wandered.
After a short break, he'd plunge back into the solitude of the vast sea.
Waiting for oxygen to bore into his heart, bit by bit.
This sensation fascinated Yan Suizhi in his adolescent years; it was more enthralling and addictive than any other drug in the world.
It wasn't until later when he encountered an accident with Young Master Manson, personally experiencing what oxygen deprivation felt like, that he suddenly thought... how utterly senseless this was.
"In retrospect, most would say I did quite well. I didn't embark on a crooked path in my teens, I still worked hard to twist the course right, and tried many things. If they were still around, they'd probably praise me to high heavens." Yan Suizhi imagined it and smiled. "My mother had an exaggerated manner of speaking, and my father was someone without a temper; he'd probably just nod along by the side and say that 'your mom is right'..."
He reminisced as he spoke, then added, "It's just a bit of a shame that I can't hear it now."
Whatever he did, no matter its significance or insignificance, even be it an anecdote that he chanced upon by the road—he had no one to tell it to.
In time, he gradually became used to not mentioning these to anyone.
He had drifted in a void for decades, until he finally met Gu Yan.