Chapter 23

Hearing Qi Boyan’s words, Ji Wang had only one feeling, and that was bitterness. It came up from the base of his tongue, then poured down from his throat and through to his heart, so bitter that he had no way to breathe.

If breaking hearts was a skill, then Qi Boyan was really talented.

He suppressed his emotions, feeling the body clinging to his back tremble slightly, as if this person could be as sad as him.

Ji Wang had dreamed of him many times, dreaming of reuniting with Qi Boyan. In these dreams, he was far less courageous than in reality, but the ending of the dream was always more or less the same. It was always Qi Boyan leaving him.

He closed his eyes and finally gave in. He asked the question he wanted the answer the most to, even though this question would expose his true heart and his unwillingness to give up. He said, “I’ll only ask you one question. Since you missed me so much, why in so many years…did you never come look for me?”

After this question fell, there was silence. The strength of Qi Boyan’s hug lightened a little but he didn’t intend to answer. His breathing was heavy, as if he was thinking about what to say.

They were deadlocked for a long time and no one spoke.

Ji Wang waited, going from hope to despair. He thought, even if Qi Boyan lied and said these past few years he’d gotten cancer, or had amnesia from a car accident and only recently recovered his memories, like in a Korean drama, it would be okay.

He needed a reason; a reason to forgive Qi Boyan.

But…Qi Boyan was reluctant to answer. He didn’t even want to give Ji Wang an excuse.

How could Ji Wang believe this kind of Qi Boyan? He had already given his heart once, but it ended up falling to the ground and shattering into pieces.

How stupid do you have to be to deceive yourself again.

Ji Wang pushed away Qi Boyan's arms, "You should leave before I beat you." He didn't want to be Qi Boyan's plaything anymore, and he also didn't want to foolishly lose his heart to this casual pastime.

Qi Boyan didn’t continue to embrace him. After a while, Ji Wang heard the door close. Qi Boyan had left.

Ji Wang's mood didn't improve because of Qi Boyan's departure. This person always did this. After throwing his feelings into disorder, he left again, indifferent as a cloud.

Qi Boyan probably left because Ji Wang wasn’t tactful and always asked questions that Qi Boyan couldn’t answer. Furthermore, this person absolutely wasn’t like he’d said, dreaming of Ji Wang.

For this reason, the person who was emotionally moved and soft-hearted foolishly revealed his own weakness. Unbelievably stupid. Ji Wang slowly crouched down and buried his face in his hands.

He didn’t know how long he’d been squatting, but his legs had gone numb when he heard the sound of the password being entered. The door opened and there was the noise of a plastic bag rustling. Ji Wang lifted his face from his palm and the sound of footsteps came closer, "Gege, come apply medicine."

Ji Wang finally looked back. It was Qi Boyan - Qi Boyan in the flesh, who had left and returned.

He was wearing a hat, a hoodie, and a face mask. His eyes looked a little tired and he carried a plastic bag printed with the name ‘Happy Pharmacy’.

Seeing that Ji Wang didn’t move, Qi Boyan simply sat down. His long legs spread apart and circled Ji Wang in the middle. He crudely poured the contents of the plastic bag onto the floor, all kinds of wound medicine, and took off his hat and mask, “The effects of these medicines are all pretty good, can we mix them together?”

Ji Wang didn’t say anything inappropriate. He just felt tired, and he didn’t even have the energy to drive Qi Boyan away. Or, perhaps, he didn’t actually want Qi Boyan to leave, holding on to those weaknesses that even Ji Wang himself found hateful.

Without waiting for Ji Wang’s response, Qi Boyan didn’t care and picked out the one he thought was the best, lightly smearing it on Ji Wang’s back.

The smell of ointment scattered in the air, stinging and pungent. Ji Wang, as if he had woken up, pushed away Qi Boyan’s hand, “I’ll do it myself.”

“Don’t make trouble, you can’t reach.” Qi Boyan firmly pressed Ji Wang’s hand down and continued to apply medicine to Ji Wang. Even if he didn’t give Ji Wang the answer he wanted to know the most, didn’t plan to respond at all, Ji Wang didn’t have the courage to press harder.

When finished applying the medicine to Ji Wang, Qi Boyan slowly remembered, “You haven’t taken a shower yet, we applied this medicine for nothing.”

After speaking, Qi Boyan said in a joyful tone, “Gege, it’s inconvenient for you to shower when injured, I’ll help you?”

Ji Wang stood up without saying a word and wanted to go into the bathroom by himself. At this time, Qi Boyan's cell phone vibrated. Ji Wang looked over and saw that Qi Boyan picked it up, pressed down, and hung up the phone.

Ji Wang said, "Answer the call."

Seeing that Ji Wang was finally willing to talk to him, Qi Boyan smiled, "Answer what? This isn’t a phone call, it's an alarm. As soon as I got to your house, I turned on airplane mode. No one can think of bothering me."

Ji Wang didn’t comment on Qi Boyan's wayward behavior. He went into the bathroom as if he had lost interest. After entering, he realized that he didn't bring anything and went out again. Then he saw Qi Boyan holding a handful of medicine, carelessly stuffing it into his mouth.

Qi Boyan’s face was expressionless. He was cold and indifferent, as if he didn't realize the bitterness. He didn’t use water, slowly chewing the medicine to pieces and swallowing it down.

Ji Wang was stunned, "What is that?"

Qi Boyan was startled by Ji Wang's voice. He turned his head and saw that Ji Wang's attention was on the box in his hand. After he closed the box, he shook it and the tablets inside made a crisp sound, "Vitamins, Gege’s never eaten them before?"

He threw the medicine box into the black bag he brought and lazily stretched, "It protects your hair, nails, eyes, skin, and throat, you should eat some too. You’re an actor, so you have to take good care of your appearance."

Ji Wang said in doubt, "You specifically set an alarm to take vitamins?"

Qi Boyan came over, “You don’t believe it? I still have a little taste of vitamins in my mouth, it's quite sweet. Would you like to taste it?"

After that, Qi Boyan cupped Ji Wang's face and tried to kiss him. Ji Wang was really fed up with this kind of behavior. After pushing him away, he went into the bedroom to grab his clothes.

Qi Boyan didn't bother nagging him. He obediently squatted on the ground and tidied the medications he’d bought and then dumped in a pile, putting them under the coffee table.

After finishing, he gave Ji Wang, who came out of the bedroom, a praise-seeking smile. It was as if he was a child who came to a friend’s house and helped clean up, naively asking the host’s parents for applause.

Ji Wang didn't give it to him, directly ignoring him.

Qi Boyan bitterly pursed his lips and maliciously refused to give up, saying, "You really don't need me to bathe you?"

Ji Wang’s response was to slam the bathroom door. When Ji Wang re-emerged, the person in the living room had really left. A note on the coffee table stated that the wound medicine should be used several times a day. He had to catch a flight that night, and likely wouldn’t be able to see Ji Wang in the near future.

He also left a concert ticket with the sentence, “Gege, come see me. This is the VIP seat I arranged for you, and it belongs only to you.”

Ji Wang swept the note and concert ticket into the trash can and went to sleep.

The conclusion was another night of insomnia, his heart restless and unstable. He was unable to fall asleep no matter what. Ji Wang took out his phone, and by the time his rationality caught up, his hand had already entered Qi Boyan’s name in the search bar.

Some things couldn’t be stopped once they were started, like an addiction. Using the key words, Ji Wang even found a forum specially made for Qi Boyan by the Qi Boyan support group. There were various forum posts and the latest one had been pinned to the top.

It was about the tattoo on Qi Boyan's wrist, the sheet music.

The popular forum response was that this was one of Qi Boyan’s signatures. Every piece of his music had this melody in it, it likely had some special symbolism.

Some people responded, even if it was a signature, it had to have importance to it, so what did the melody mean? Why did Elder¹ Qi like it so much?

Ji Wang noticed how these fans addressed Qi Boyan and couldn’t help but think, your Elder Qi is still a child himself, how can they say ‘elder’, it was too dramatic.

Qi Boyan couldn’t even tie up his hair, he couldn’t cook, he was angry when he got out of bed, and he was picky.

He was just a child.

Ji Wang swiped down and saw a thread saying that Qi Boyan's score was a code.

This answer was a bit interesting. Ji Wang continued to look down, but never found the ID replying to others in the thread.

Not sleeping in the middle of the night and studying the secret message on his ex’s wrist; Ji Wang felt that he was really idle. Without much hope, he sent Xiao Xu a message, “Can music scores also be a type of code?”

Xiao Xu quickly replied, “How do you know? I have a cousin who specializes in this kind of research.”

Immediately afterwards, Xiao Xu sent over a website which was specially created by his cousin to decipher music codes.

Ji Wang copied the score transcribed by others on the forum and pasted it into this website.

The website translated very slowly. After many minutes and seconds, the answer finally appeared letter by letter.

At this time, Ji Wang was already drowsy. He barely forced his eyes open and glanced at the screen. Then he was stunned.

j i w a n g

The secret code hidden in this piece of music was ‘Ji Wang’.

1. Again, this word is “爷” which can mean elder or master. I think in past chapters I may have translated it to “master”, like when Li Feng is using it to address Qi Boyan, but here “elder” is more appropriate because of Ji Wang’s following thoughts ↑