Chapter 38
Qu Xueyu was quiet for a while, before resigning to stuff the teenager into his nest and cuddling him into his arms.
Lu Bai comfortably lay in the other’s arms, nuzzling the other’s chin with the tip of his nose, and asked, “Are you being shy?”
Qu Xueyu’s eyebrow twitched a little: “You can consider it as being shy.” If they really did what Xiao Bai suggested, he would probably be kicked out of the Lu family house in the middle of the night.
“You’re so cute!” Lu Bai wrapped his arms around the other man’s neck and rubbed himself against him, exclaiming, “I think you’re close to catching me, really.”
Qu Xueyu stroked the back of his head and laughed lightly: “Oh?”
“Xiao…” Lu Bai was just about to say his old name, the words on the tip of his tongue before he swapped it: “Xiao Qu, tell me about the story of Ruan Jiangjiu in your script.” Something was really too strange. What he thought was an important character in the original was just a character in the movie script in Qu Xueyu’s hands.
“Xiao Bai, sometimes I suspect that you had peeked at parts of my script.” Qu Xueyu’s beautiful voice rumbled in the night like a mellow vintage wine: “The Ruan Jiangjiu in the script is a gloomy and cowardly poor student at the beginning of the movie, living with his sickly and timid mother, who works in a messy bar.”
The film was called “Glass”1This is a play on words, like with the book’s title, as 玻璃/bō li, literally means Glass, but is also slang for a male homosexual. So we are getting to look through the glass/window at someone through the movie’s story. The MC also happens to be gay. The closest I can think of is the British slang of “fag” which I last knew to be both another name for a cigarette and an insulting name for an LGBTQIA individual. Or the “Lavender Society” as it is a benign color and plant but has also been used as a symbol between American LGBTQIA’s. I am actually very unsure if this movie would pass China’s censorship. But the double entendre name is prob helpful with that., a story about the lives of marginalized characters, which took place in the superficially glamorous city of Jinghai. Where there was light, there was also darkness, even in a city as prosperous as Jinghai. In this darkness, there were countless ordinary people who used all their strength to survive, just like Ruan Jiangjiu.
In addition to the fact that Ruan Jiangjiu’s father was unknown, Ruan Jiangjiu liked men. Ruan Jiangjiu also had a deeply repressed mental illness that came from his father’s genes, whom he had never met. But even though he grew up in the dark and was completely on the fringe, Ruan Jiangjiu had a heart that longed to grow towards the sun and worked hard to break free from the mire he was in, even had dreams of being an actor in his heart.
Unfortunately, he encountered the goodwill too late. He was exhausted before he met the one person who was truly willing to reach out to him. His anger and hatred had burned his entire life to the ground like a fierce wildfire, and he no longer had the strength to grab those hands.
In his short life, he first met the bar owner whom he treated like a brother but sexually harassed him. After that, he was betrayed by his friends and forced to be a canary by a powerful and malicious dude using his mother, but he was only playing a cruel and vicious game. He sent Ruan Jiangjiu into the entertainment industry, showing an attitude to support him but always releasing his black material when his career was on the rise. The young man served as a marionette, and he was enjoying the youth’s degradation and despair with pleasure—he was waiting for the young man to give up all hope and fall apart. And after he had squeezed out the last trace of the value to please himself, he would abandon him completely.
But what he didn’t expect was that he would really be attracted to this youth, who refused to fall. No matter how desperate his situation was, he still struggled with the stubbornness, resilience, and eyes that hid hatred like a flame that made him shiver.
By the time he discovered his heart, which was riddled with holes, it was too late for anything.
Ruan Jiangjiu had an illness in his mind, and that illness was kept locked in chains, and the key was his mother, and later the first person who was willing to reach out to him. After the man took his keys, the youth completely lost control.
—-
“You know what?” The youth looked at the guy tied to the chair, his eyes so dark that he couldn’t see the bottom. He was so calm that it was eerie, and the tongue of fire from the lighter in his hand caught the curtains, then quickly spread out into a sea of fire.
“When the lowly and vile and fragile glass in your eyes really breaks open, it is the sharp edge that will kill you.”
“Have you ever loved me?” The man asked him with red eyes.
“Fuck your love.” Ruan Jiangjiu laughed madly, while tears flowed from the corners of his eyes: “Scum like you who play with other people’s lives deserve to go to hell with crazy people like me. If I meet you in hell I will kill you again so that you don’t turn into a ghost to dirty other people’s dreams.”
—-
~~~~~
After he finished telling him the story, Lu Bai was silent for a few moments, before hugging Qu Xueyu a little tighter. Qu Xueyu rubbed the back of the other’s neck soothingly, and whispered, “Xiao Bai, it’s just a story.”
“I know,” Lu Bai’s voice was muffled, “but I’m just sad.” Along with the sadness, there was also fear.
Qu Xueyu kissed Lu Bai’s forehead, “Xiao Bai, I’m right here.”
“When you shoot this movie,” Lu Bai said, “You have to bring me with you. I want to be on the set.” He clearly knew that Ruan Jiangjiu was Ruan Jiangjiu and Qu Xueyu was Qu Xueyu. There were no real parallels between them except for the fact that Qu Xueyu was going to portray this character, but in his heart, there was a fear that couldn’t be dispelled.
Qu Xueyu arched his eyes, “Okay.” He paused before changing the topic without making a show of it, and said, “Xiao Bai, do you remember? Your grandfather is going to take you and your sister fishing for a few days?”
Lu Bai blankly blinked, “I remember.”
“Actually,” Qu Xueyu remarked, “Grandpa Lu arranged an appointment with my grandfather and me. He probably already knows about us.”
“Oh.” Lu Bai blinked, “Since my grandpa knows about us, then you can only be my person. You should be a little more conscious of this, and hurry up to catch me.”
Qu Xueyu looked up at the ceiling in the dark, “Oh?” Taking a second, he asked, “Well then, as for this fine young gentleman I’m courting, what’s his most pressing wish right now?”
“Hahaha,” Lu Bai laughed out loudly, then coughed and said. “The most urgent wish of the person you are pursuing is to unpack the boxes with someone, and—for someone to accompany him for a stroll in the maple forest. The maple grove is very beautiful right now.”
Qu Xueyu raised an eyebrow, “Who is this someone?”
Lu Bai kissed the other’s chin, “Someone is someone.”
A certain someone then tugged Lu Bai closer and kissed him.
~~~~~~
Two days later, it was a sunny weekend.
The Lu family has a small villa in the suburbs. Near this villa was a modest lake with a small tract of maple forest. It was autumn, and the views of the surrounding areas were very beautiful, and the fish in the lake were also very healthy. As a result, Elder Lu brought his grandchildren to go fishing.
When Qu Xueyu followed his grandfather to the appointed meeting, he saw the old man was fishing with great interest, and Lu Bai was lying comfortably on a chaise lounge with a big straw hat over his face. But for some reason, Lu Guanguan was not around.
“Old Lu, you’re taking it easy here.” Elder Qu sat himself alongside the other, and the butler handed over a prepared fishing rod. Elder Lu grunted as he scanned the handsome young man standing to the side and languidly exclaimed, “Old Qu, I haven’t seen you for a while. There is something that we need to talk about today.”
Elder Qu blinked in surprise before laughing out loud, snorting, he proclaimed, “Yes, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about it.” Saying this, he patted his grandson’s arm. “Still not saying hello to Mr. Lu?”
Qu Xueyu smiled, “Hello, Grandpa Lu.”
Elder Lu glowered at the young man and was about to say something when he saw his grandson, who was lounging nearby, sitting up halfway presumably because he had heard his voice. With his oversized straw hat crookedly placed on top of his head, he looked over at the young man with eyes so bright they looked as if they were adorned with stars, “You’re here!” Quickly rising to his feet, he ran forward and planted his hat on top of the young man’s head, exclaiming, “I’ve been waiting for you for ages. It’s especially nice here in the fall!”
Qu Xueyu curled his eyes as he rubbed the youth’s hair. And when Elder Lu saw this picture, the veins on his forehead danced as he ground his teeth. “Xiao Bai, you haven’t even greeted Grandpa Qu yet.”
Lu Bai froze, then quickly looked to the hale and hearty old man beside his grandpa. With a look of a well-behaved boy, Lu Bai said, “Hello, Grandpa Qu.”
Elder Qu’s always serious and somber face smiled: “Good, good.” Then he fished out two red envelopes from his pocket and stuffed them into Lu Bai’s hand, saying, “One for you, and one for Guan Guan.”
Lu Bai graciously accepted the red packets and thanked him. After that, he simply held the young man’s hand and looked toward Elder Lu, saying, “Grandpa, you and Grandpa Qu can have a nice chat, and I’ll show him around this place.”
Elder Lu stared wide-eyed at the two people holding hands, his face turned black. And after a long time of “you, what are you”, he still couldn’t bear to harshly say a word to his grandson. Elder Qu laughed and looked towards Lu Bai and Qu Xueyu and said, “Go, go, go… Young people aren’t as comfortable as we are… go and have some fun. “
“Mhm.” Lu Bai nodded with satisfaction and pulled the young man away.
Watching the duo’s backs disappear into the fiery red maple forest, Elder Qu smiled and shook his head. He put bait on his hook and cast his fishing line towards the lake with a sigh. Looking towards Lu Bai’s grandfather, he said, “Old Lu, I only have this one precious grandson. As long as he’s happy, I don’t have any more regrets.”
Elder Lu let out a cold snort as he glowered and stretched out three fingers towards the other party, “What ‘just one grandchild’? You have three!” Everyone in Jinghai knew that the Qu family had two other children besides Qu Xueyu. It was just that they had the same father but a different mother than Qu Xueyu.
Elder Qu huffed and emphasized, “I only have one grandchild, Xiao Yu.” After a pause, he continued. “Xiao Yu’s father is a disgrace, and his stepmother is no good either. But Old Lu, you believe me, my family’s Xiao Yu is a good child.”
Old man Lu: “My family’s Xiao Bai is also a good child.”
Elder Qu laughed: “A good boy and a good boy together, isn’t that a match made in heaven?”
Elder Lu: Heh
~~~~~~
The layers of the forest are bursting with color. The maple leaves were as red as fire and the beautiful and brilliant hues spread out over a large area which was fascinating to behold.
Lu Bai, however, was looking at a paper airplane in his hand. Eyes wide open, face blanched, with cold sweat beading on his forehead, his body trembled slightly as the cool autumn wind blew.
Qu Xueyu wasn’t around; he had returned to get the teenager a snack of dried fish to help them pass the time.
Lu Bai was startled by the brisk wind, and he gritted his teeth and put away the paper airplane, before stumbling in the direction of Qu Xueyu.
On the crumpled paper airplane, a line read, “You love Ruan Jiangjiu, don’t you? Then, please, save him.”
This was Lu Bai’s, very own, handwriting.
Author’s Note: Note (OR Spoiler): the film script is really a fictionalized story, the person Ruan Jiangjiu doesn’t really exist, and Xiao Qu truly doesn’t have anything to do with his life other than playing him. The words on the paper airplane were indeed written by Xiao Bai, and there is really only one Xiao Bai in this world. That’s about it.
This is the setup for the plot of that later movie
Bishin(finger heart emoji), there will be no abuse in their relationship between the two of them.
The unboxing will also happen!
Edit: Krone
Proof: Nitta
