There seemed to be some movement inside, voices talking. Was there someone else with Gu Chen?

Shen Yu carefully slid the key in and opened the door a crack. Only then did the voices become clear.

“Can you shut up?”

“I don’t need you to tell me what to do.”

“So what?”

“I’m pathetic? Aren’t you the pathetic one? Don’t forget how you died.”

“I kept my promise to you. Everyone knows he died of a sudden illness.”

“No, you never escaped. Did you forget where your body ended up?”

Only Gu Chen’s voice came from the room. Who was he talking to? And whose body was that?

Shen Yu forced himself to think, and suddenly remembered Gu Chen’s illness.

Could Gu Chen’s condition have worsened, and he’d imagined someone there?

Shen Yu was horrified. His hand slipped and pushed the door a little wider. A strip of light spilled in through the crack.

The voice inside seemed to stop. Shen Yu leaned forward, still wanting to listen.

Suddenly, the door was pulled open. Momentum threw Shen Yu forward with a gasp. The sound made a certain someone who was about to make a move pause. A hand caught him before he fell, and then quickly backed away. Shen Yu stumbled and only steadied himself with Gu Chen’s support.

The door slammed shut. The room had not a speck of light, pitch-black throughout, with a sinister air, a dim space, and the rough sound of someone’s breathing.

Shen Yu’s legs went weak. Some innate animal instinct told him this place was dangerous.

In his mind, Codename’s voice, which had been urging him to leave a moment ago, had vanished, now quiet as a chicken.

“Gu... Gu Chen, where are you? It’s so dark in here. I’m a little scared.”

He stood where he was, staring blankly around. There was only darkness, and in his ears, the sound of dripping water.

After a long time, a familiar but unusually hoarse voice sounded.

“Why did you come back?” The tone was even, completely different from the taunting he’d heard at the door.

Shen Yu looked toward the sound. In the darkness, he seemed to see those burning eyes and that tall, upright silhouette.

“Why can’t I come back?” Shen Yu shot back, inching forward a step in the dark.

“Haven’t you always wanted to leave? I’m setting you free now.”

Shen Yu took another step.

“Who said I wanted to leave? I just don’t like you keeping me locked up all the time.”

His mind was racing. Gu Chen’s state was clearly off. He had to calm him down.

He thought back carefully over how strange Gu Chen had been lately. In a flash, something came to him. He remembered what Butler Huang said that morning when he left, and the butler’s odd expression before he got in the car.

He blurted, “You thought that once I walked out I wouldn’t come back? You were trying to send me away?”

The other fell silent, which was as good as an admission.

“Why would you think that?”

“You’re only by my side because I forced you. You’ve kept telling me to let you go. You don’t like me touching you.” It was all plain statement, very calm. If Shen Yu hadn’t heard the exchange at the door earlier, he would have believed it.

Up to now he still hadn’t seen a third person. His senses told him it was just the two of them in this room. Gu Chen had a mental illness. It was hard not to suspect the person he’d heard was Gu Chen’s imagination, Gu Chen’s hallucination.

“I’m at your side partly because of Gu Lang, that’s true, but only a small part. When I said I wanted to leave, I didn’t mean for good. I wanted you to stop locking me in the bedroom all the time. I’m bored. And it’s not that I don’t like you touching me. Gu Chen, don’t you get it? I like you.”

As he spoke, Shen Yu had already edged much closer. Less than three meters separated them.

He heard the slight hitch in Gu Chen’s breath when he said he liked him.

“Xiao Yu, stop!”

Shen Yu hesitated. The foot he’d meant to lift stayed still.

“Xiao Yu, you don’t know what I’m like when you’re facing the real me. You won’t like the real me. One day you’ll leave. Go. Don’t come back.” The man’s tone held a trace of restraint.

“I’m not leaving. Even if I don’t know, can’t you give me a chance to find out who you are?” Shen Yu said stubbornly.

There seemed to be a sigh in the air.

“You’ll regret it.” It was almost a murmur.

With a snap, the room blazed with light. Shen Yu flinched and shut his eyes. It took a while for his vision to return.

And then he froze.

Gu Chen stood in a corner, his left hand hidden behind him. Beside him was a giant wall of photographs.

An entire wall, filled with photos of Shen Yu.

Big ones, small ones, every kind.

And there were three such photo walls.

The only wall without photos was crammed with surveillance feeds. Several of the cameras looked to have been smashed.

On Shen Yu’s side stood several racks, crammed with things. Some had even been carefully sealed inside glass cases.

Shen Yu recognized some of them.

One was a piece of clothing he’d worn. There was the vase that had been shattered. There was a sunflower.

Besides those, there were some very strange items.

For instance, a black gelatinous thing. Something like a rope. A whip. And something that looked very familiar to Shen Yu: the silver chain that had locked him up for half a month.

His gaze snapped back as if scalded.

Just by looking, he could tell none of those things was anything good.

“See these photos? I sent them over in real time from the surveillance or my phone, or I took them secretly while you were asleep.”

Gu Chen reached out and stroked one of the photos.

It was a shot of the two of them together. Their cheeks were pressed side by side. Shen Yu’s eyes were closed, while Gu Chen turned his head to look at him with gentle eyes.

Fingertips moved over the photograph, yet it felt like they were moving over his body. He could almost feel a cool palm touching him.

Shen Yu noticed a few photos on the wall that were special. They were stuck all alone in a corner, clearly apart from the rest.

Those photos had someone besides Shen Yu in them, but the other person’s face had been smeared out. Judging from the background, they were from the day Shen Yu went out with Gu Lang, so it wasn’t hard to guess who the blotted-out person was.

“These cameras have been in the Gu mansion for a long time, but I never used them before. To keep watch on you, I brought them all online, even upgraded them. And that cabinet by your side, you recognized it, didn’t you? A lot of what’s in there is yours. As for the things that aren’t, they’re things I want to use on you.”

“Could you still like me like this? Aren’t you afraid? If you stay, these things will keep being used on you. You’ll never get to leave. Xiao Yu, I’m sick. The kind that won’t get better.”

His voice slowly steadied. He didn’t look at Shen Yu. He stood side-on, stroking the photos on the wall.

An elegant, noble man standing there was as pleasing to the eye as anything, his gentle voice at odds with this eerie room, and yet it gave birth to a cold dread. If anyone else heard what he said and saw this room, they would only think Gu Chen was a madman, a dangerous man.

But Shen Yu’s heart ached to the brim.

Butler Huang had said that lately, aside from the bedroom, Gu Chen only stayed in this room.

Looking at these photos and those carefully stored things, a bitterness welled up inside him. He couldn’t imagine how Gu Chen had made it through these days.

Thinking he disliked him. Thinking he was acting under duress. Watching these things day and night. What had he been thinking as he looked? How much had it hurt?

“Dr. Wang asked me a question.” Shen Yu’s voice was hoarse now, with a choke he hadn’t even noticed.

He lifted a foot and walked forward, speaking slowly as he went.

“He asked me, ‘What if Mr. Gu isn’t the good person you say he is? What if one day he becomes very bad? Would you still trust him, still like him?”

The tears in his eyes finally wouldn’t stay. Drop by drop, they fell. Shen Yu couldn’t hold back the urge to cry.

Why did this man put himself so low?

He’d rather wound himself all over, rather let Shen Yu go than hurt him, and didn’t even dare to ask him.

Who was he? He was Gu Chen.

The greatest villain in this small world. The one whose hands could make this small world collapse.

Gu Chen heard what Shen Yu said. The hand behind his back clenched hard. Nails dug into flesh. Wet liquid dripped all the more freely. His breathing grew heavy. His hand dropped, and he stared fixedly at the youth coming toward him.

In that instant, he even had the urge to bolt for the door.

“I wanted to tell him then. I wanted to tell him, ‘I won’t be afraid of him. No matter what he becomes, there’s one thing I’ll always believe: he will never, ever hurt me.’ Gu Chen, did you hear me? I’m not afraid of you.”

Now Shen Yu stood right in front of him, only half a meter between them.

Shen Yu lifted his arms and looped them around Gu Chen’s neck, tightening slowly. Gu Chen bent down, following the pull of Shen Yu’s hands.

A warm, light kiss landed on his lips.

Gu Chen’s eyes trembled. The tips of his lashes lowered. Those deep, black pupils watched Shen Yu kissing him, watched the wet eyes that had cried so sadly, as if aching for him.