TIL - 44

Su He put away his spiral-bound notebook and took out a photo of himself, Su Di, and Wen Huo from a pocket in the front cover. It seemed that ever since their parents’ incomprehensible way of interacting began, their lives were destined not to be conventionally normal. That’s why he liked Ruan Lihong, who was much older than him, and why Su Di liked a man.

Actually, saying “liked” isn’t entirely accurate. Su Di was only interested in studying and Chen Cheng, and he thought that was love, which was normal. But in fact, what he seemed to like was just the very essence of Chen Cheng.

Su He knew who Chen Cheng was. He was famous in North York. Everyone around York University knew him, and both men and women wanted to meet him. Canada could be called a country with a mix of different races, which was already chaotic. Several typical areas in Toronto were like hell on earth every day. Chen Cheng, who went by the name Cheng back then, had been in fights and had also helped people in need. In short, he was both a good guy and a bad guy all rolled into one. There were a lot of black organizations in Toronto, and it was easy for them to get firearms and ammunition. Chen Cheng was active among these organizations. Being able to be on good terms with all the gangs with a cold expression was, first and foremost, a kind of charm. On top of that, many people were surprised that this man with a full sleeve tattoo, silver hair, eyebrow piercings, and more scars than teeth was also a physicist.

Chen Cheng’s personality was very subversive, meaning that you would constantly overturn your impressions of him as you interacted with him. That’s how Su He felt when Su Di talked about him. Su Di was a very smart person, and there were very few things he was curious about, let alone people. Chen Cheng was the first, and of course, he cared. He cared so much that he went down a rabbit hole, and in the end, he couldn’t let himself go.

Su Di wrote a suicide note before he killed himself. He was surprisingly clear about what he was doing. In other words, he admired Chen Cheng in a state of clarity, and he also committed suicide on the Prince Edward Viaduct in a state of clarity. Since he was so clear and knew that he was the one who couldn’t untie the knot, and that Chen Cheng was just a person he admired, Su He couldn’t go and ask Chen Cheng for justice. It had nothing to do with him; he didn’t need to be responsible for Su Di’s death. Holding him responsible would be a moral abduction.

Even though Su He was angry, he still understood this principle. If anyone were to be held responsible, it would be their parents, who had made them so fanatical about love. Su He sat on the floor, leaning his head against the sofa. There’s a saying in China about karma; you reap what you sow. So, Chen Cheng and Wen Huo’s entanglement seemed to be predestined. This idea came from Buddhism, which also said that a lamp represents light, and light represents wisdom.

Chen Cheng must have been the ever-burning lamp in Su Di’s life, which had no mistakes and seemed bright but was actually chaotic. Su Di then passed this lamp on to Wen Huo, so the one in Wen Huo’s hand has always been Chen Cheng’s.

Because Su He knew all of this, he couldn’t have good feelings toward Chen Cheng. Chen Cheng’s innocence didn’t mean that he couldn’t dislike him. Disliking someone is often an emotional output that doesn’t require a reason. But he was still rational. He wouldn’t overly interfere with Wen Huo and Chen Cheng’s relationship unless Chen Cheng hurt her. In that case, as Wen Huo’s friend and her mother’s boyfriend, he would definitely have to step in.

He sat up and looked at the small pile of ashes in the ashtray. “I won’t write to you anymore. I don’t think I have anything left to say.” He smiled, and in a daze, he seemed to see Su Di’s face. “Farewell, Brother.”

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After learning about Wen Huo’s illness, Chen Cheng didn’t see anyone, talk, eat, or sleep for three whole days. He was very tired, and every muscle ached, but he still felt that he hadn’t experienced even a thousandth of what Wen Huo had endured all those years. Cheng Cuo’s logbook was like a bone-scraping knife. The bone he had meticulously maintained was vulnerable in front of it.

He sat on the floor, leaning against the bar, with one leg flat and the other bent. His hair was a mess, and a thin layer of beard had grown out. Its impact was significant. Just seeing it, you could imagine what he had been through in the past three days. The sunlight danced outside the window, but Chen Cheng sat in his cold mansion, completely covered by a seamless blanket of self-reproach and self-doubt. Sure enough, with the onset of depression, the all-powerful Chen Cheng could only suffer through it.

Why did he care about the reason Wen Huo came close to him? Did it matter what her reason was? The joy and relaxation she brought him, the release of that tight mental state, wasn’t fake, so why did he have to care? He had been asking himself for days, she was just sick and wanted to be cured. Han Bailu happened to approach her, she took the deal, she came to him... What did she do wrong? Was her mistake that only he, Chen Cheng, could make her fall asleep?

Before this, Chen Cheng could rationalize his caring about Wen Huo. Getting too used to a person being around always created a certain kind of feeling. It was like a crush that you mistake for love. He admitted that he cared about Wen Huo, but to say he loved her, he didn’t think it was enough.

But when he read what Cheng Cuo had written, every single detail he was a part of crowded back into his mind. The past year he spent with Wen Huo replayed in front of him like a fast-forwarded movie. He had changed countless flights because of Wen Huo. Whenever he saw a house in a good location, he would wonder if Wen Huo would find it lively. He started to prioritize Wen Huo’s preferences when buying and eating things. He started paying attention to whether his movements were too rough.

These small details, which had no effect on him whatsoever, had piled up and were now all evidence that he had fallen for her. He had a sudden realization and kept repeating to himself, “So that’s how it is.”

In Toronto, Canada, Chen Cheng met Su Di, a Chinese-Canadian with whom he was like-minded on a philosophical level. He initially valued this friendship very much and even gave him the right to find him. At that time in Toronto, it wasn’t easy to find Chen Cheng. He was always elusive, seeming to be involved with all kinds of gangs, but never really siding with anyone. When Su Di asked him where to find him, he hesitated for a moment but still told him, which shows how much he valued the mutual appreciation between him and Su Di.

However, he saw Su Di as a friend, but Su Di didn’t see him that way, which made him feel some psychological and physical repulsion. It also reminded him of Jiang Yan. In fact, after his parents sent Jiang Yan away, he heard some rumors that Jiang Yan had feelings for him that were more than just brotherly love. So, his decision to leave for a foreign country wasn’t just because of his parents’ strange behavior and his own rebelliousness. A part of the reason was that he had started to doubt himself.

Although he had never had a girlfriend, he had never had a boyfriend either, so that couldn’t be a reason for men to like him. He didn’t understand why. He started to constantly change women, as if to tell the world that his sexual orientation was female. But Su Di seemed to see right through his intentions and never paid any mind to the women around him, stubbornly refusing to give up on his affection for him.

At that time, Anna came on to him, giving him alcohol and trying to sleep with him. Although she didn’t succeed, he didn’t expose her. Later, when Anna became pregnant, he hadn’t slept with her, so the child was naturally not his, but he didn’t expose that either. He wasn’t worried; he always had a way to clear his name. What was most important to him at the time was to make Su Di change his mind about him. He still wanted to be friends with him and study physics together. He never expected Su Di to be so extreme and commit suicide when he announced that he was with Anna and that she was pregnant. He never intended to harm him, but in the end, it seemed that his death was a result of his actions.

He couldn’t figure it out. For a long time, he was barely surviving under a tremendous sense of guilt. The prolonged mental pressure eventually led him to develop bipolar disorder. Sometimes manic, sometimes depressed—that was his illness. But besides himself and his private doctor, no one knew. This proved the saying that the sicker a person is, the more normal they appear, so normal that you would never guess they were sick.

He didn’t think it was abnormal for Jiang Yan and Su Di to like him. Love had nothing to do with what you liked. He had rejected them purely because he didn’t like them in that way, and they didn’t share the same sexual orientation. That was all. But that was enough to create a shadow in his mind. With that shadow, he would subconsciously avoid all romantic relationships. So he had never truly been in a relationship. He had no idea what it was like to love someone.

Wen Huo made him realize. He learned that love is a diverse and extremely complex emotion that can make a person feel satisfied and happy when they think of it, but also make them feel sad and pained. He learned that the person he loved could easily cause his well-controlled illness to relapse. So that’s how it was.