Chapter 82
Biting her lips, Su Lan asked Yang Ye: “Do you still remember Susan?”
“I remember, she’s my mother’s friend.” Yang Ye furrowed his brows, “You know Susan, and you know of me?”
Yang Ye had come out of the closet to his family very early on, and while his parents were rather open-minded and they did not make it difficult for him, it was better to keep the information under closed wraps.
Hence, although Susan was the best friend of Yang Ye’s mother, she was completely unaware of Yang Ye’s s.e.xual orientation, and she was extremely fond of introducing Yang Ye to prospective partners.
“It was around last year… according to the time in reality, it should be last year. The game has already distorted my perception of time, and I don’t know how much time has pa.s.sed in reality either, in any case—”
Su Lan looked at Yang Ye, “Susan should have introduced me to you, but you don’t have an impression of it at all. When she showed me your photograph, towards you, I felt quite… I had some good feelings for you.
“She tried to arrange for us to meet a few times, but you pushed it all away. But sometimes, it’s easy for people to become obsessed, or perhaps because I’ve always been praised by people, there has never been anyone who didn’t put me in their eyes… Yet you didn’t feel any interest towards me after seeing my photograph, and you couldn’t even be bothered to meet me once, which was why I paid more attention to you instead, and asked Susan to help me arrange a few more meetings.
“And probably because you were forced to the point where you had no recourse left, you came clean to Susan about your s.e.xual orientation. Susan also apologised to me, saying that it was her fault for not conveying the entire matter to you properly. She didn’t expect that you wouldn’t even be willing to meet me once.
“And later, well, I made inquiries about the rumours alluding to your s.e.xual orientation of course. I also asked Susan, but she laughed and prevaricated past it. I thought I still had hope back then. However, it seems apparent that Susan was only considering your parents’ prestige, and she didn’t feel like it was right for her to tell me.
“It’s under these circ.u.mstances where you didn’t have an impression of me at all, but I kept paying attention to you. I can’t say that I like you very much, but I always maintained some interest…”
Yang Ye glanced at her, “And why do you believe that you’re dead?”
Su Lan said: “I don’t remember if I’m dead or not, but I know that you’re dead.”
Yang Ye scrunched his eyebrows together. “I’m dead? Why am I unaware of this?”
Su Lan’s gaze dimmed down a little as she recalled the scene from that night.
In face of the rejection she received from Yang Ye, under the circ.u.mstances where it was a blind date and the other party could only see her photograph, Su Lan, a prideful daughter of an affluent family who had grown accustomed to being flattered, was not willing to lose money instead of being paid, so she never contacted Yang Ye, to say nothing of chasing after him.
Much later, she chose one person amidst all her admirers, and after getting along for two months, she realised that the other party had a lot of flaws and she wanted to break up with him. When they arranged to meet at a bar that night, Su Lan mentioned that she wanted to break up.
However, that boyfriend of hers refused to break up no matter what. When they argued to the point where it was getting awful, he asked her: “Are you adamant about breaking up because you had a change of affections?”
Not wanting to tangle with him over much, Su Lan decided to sever his affections completely so she conveniently pulled out Yang Ye’s photograph and said: “Yes, I like him. Compared to you, he’s far more handsome and outstanding. Are you convinced now?”
“Do you have issues? He’s bent, who doesn’t know that in our circles? Moreover, he died today.”
“What did you say?”
“I said he’s dead. My brothers sent me a picture of the scene itself. Don’t believe me? I’ll show it to you now.”
At that instance, Su Lan gave Yang Ye a factual account of that night before she uttered, “When I was still alive, I had good feelings towards you, and you saved me in a script scenario, which is why I… In short, it’s all in the past now.”
Yang Ye asked her, “Hold on, going back to the main point? You saw a picture where I was dead? How did I die?”
Su Lan said: “My mood wasn’t the best that night and I drank a lot of alcohol, so I can’t remember the details clearly. Either way, it was a photograph of you being carried into the ambulance, and some others… but I can’t remember it anymore. According to my ex-boyfriend’s words, it seems like you suddenly pa.s.sed out during a meeting. He even showed me the WeChat messages between his close friends, roughly detailing the fact that you couldn’t be saved.
“Back then, the break-up made me extremely frustrated and I drank a lot of alcohol, and after seeing your state of being, I drank a few more gla.s.ses of brandy.
“I didn’t call for a subst.i.tute driver and drove back on my own.
“I remember I was driving on a highway… and then I ended up in this game.
“Now that I think about it, I probably got into a car accident while driving drunk, I deserved it.”
* * *
As Su Lan chattered endlessly, she divulged a lot.
Meanwhile, Yang Ye’s expression clearly became deeper.
His facial features were sharp, and when he was smiling, he gave people the impression that he was very gentle.
But when he became strict, to the extent where his countenance had sunk down slightly, he appeared exceedingly fierce and intimidating.
By the end of the conversation, Su Lan did not dare to say more either, and she got up silently to leave.
After she returned to her room, she discovered that there were two men in black and a sedan inside.
Su Lan frowned: “What is the meaning of this?”
One of the men in black stepped forward, “Apologies, there has been an error in the relations.h.i.+p a.s.sessment between players in reality, and it has resulted in you being distributed to the same batch as those players. The system has already discovered this small bug, and it is in process of upgrading and optimising.”
Su Lan: “What you’re trying to say is, the fact that I know about Yang Ye’s death, and managed to guess that all the players are dead, is a bug that you never expected? So what are you planning to do to me?”
The man in black took out a deck of reward cards: “The system can provide you with numerous excellent quality reward cards and 30 gold coins as compensation. However, you need to drink water from the River of Lethe, and play this game from the beginning. Please follow us.”
* * *
After Su Lan departed, Yang Ye took off his gla.s.ses and kneaded the s.p.a.ce between his eyebrows as he sunk into deep contemplation.
“I remember I was originally in a meeting when I suddenly lost consciousness, and when I woke up, I was already in the card drawing hall.”
Yang Ye remembered that those were the words he told Gu Liang when he met Gu Liang for the first time.
Now that he thought back about it, before he entered the meeting, he flew to America twice within 10 days, and he would start working before he adjusted to the jet lag every time. During that period of time, their subsidiary company overseas was in the midst of procurement and supplier negotiation, and there were acquisition projects domestically… When all these matters were mixed together, he was awfully busy.
Did he really die? Did he die from overworking?
And if he was dead, then… What about Gu Liang?
When they met for the first time, what did Gu Liang say?
He said: “At seven in the morning, I was leaving my house to go to work, and I even helped an old lady cross the road. After escorting her, my vision went black and I fainted. If I hadn’t arrived here, I would have honestly a.s.sumed that I was routed by her.”
Why did Gu Liang faint?
Wait, “Surname Gu”, “Deputy Director of the Legal Affairs”, “A graduate student with great ability from X Law College”…
Where did he hear those phrases before?
He definitely heard them.
Back in reality, he heard someone mentioning Gu Liang…
Right, he recalled it.
At 10 o’ clock that day, the secretary reported to him: “Executive Yang, the negotiations with Ningyue Group that was originally set for 10:20 regarding the dispute over the shopping mall on Guohua commercial district has been cancelled for the time being. The Deputy Director of their legal affairs who was supposed to attend the meeting together with their main executive has met with an accident, and he’s been sent to the emergency room.”
Yang Ye: “Who is that person from legal affairs, couldn’t they send someone else to negotiate?”
Secretary: “He goes by the surname of Gu, and he’s a graduate student with great ability from X Law College. Ningyue Group holds him in high regard, expressing that his capabilities are very strong. He has always been in-charge of this case, and they couldn’t find an immediate replacement.”
The secretary continued to state, “The Human Resources Department and Finance Department happen to have work they would like to report to you, concerning the revisions to the organisation and construction after the acquisition, as well as the salary and budget proposals for the new staff. I will be s.h.i.+fting them to the 10:20 slot, is that amendable?”
Yang Ye nodded. “Sure, call both of them over, I want this settled quickly. That company’s collapsing point is the fact that it has more hands than it actually needs, persuade those that aren’t necessary to resign.”
The volume of information that Yang Ye received from a day’s work was very, very high.
When his secretary had introduced that company’s legal affairs deputy director, that moment was considered insignificant to him, like a wisp of cigarette smoke that he had caught a glimpse of, which he did not consciously absorb into his brain.
However, now that he was pus.h.i.+ng aside the cloud and mist as though he was unravelling silk from a coc.o.o.n, he finally managed to recall it.
Yang Ye felt like his entire body was ice-cold.
But he could not resist harbouring the smallest speck of hope in his heart.
— There were countless people going by the surname of Gu, there were countless deputy directors in legal affairs, there were so many graduates from X Law College.
The person who was met with an accident was not necessarily Gu Liang.
Gu Liang was not necessarily working in Ningyue Group.
At this moment, the service staff brought over the packed food and handed it to him, gesturing for him to use the consumable gold coins that the system had issued to pay.
Yang Ye paid for the food quickly before he brought the food upstairs.
In the instant where he was swiping the card to enter the room, he saw his own hands trembling viciously.
When Yang Ye entered the room, Gu Liang was still sleeping.
After putting the food on the side table, Yang Ye went to the bathroom directly, closed the door, washed his face with several handfuls of cold water in an attempt to calm himself down a little.
He was recalling the things that had occurred before the game.
His family’s Group dabbled in a great deal of businesses, but their main industry was still commercial real estate.
There was a well-known commercial real estate company called Huamao who encountered some problems in the capital chain and its transformation was unable to keep up with developments of their modern era. When it was on the verge of failing, it was acquired by Yang Ye’s family Group.
However, this news was not disseminated to the public, and the outside world was completely unaware of this matter.
The Huamao Company had just completed a project item, which was the development of a large-scale shopping centre in Guohua commercial district.
Guohua commercial district was the new commercial district in the capital. While its human traffic could not compare to the few main core commercial districts in the old city areas, it possessed a lot of potential, since the small residential areas in its surroundings were mostly occupied by middle or high-ranking white collar workers. Although they were basically strangers who came to the capital to make a living, their expendable income was quite high.
Ningyue Group had a high-end, quality goods supermarket on their hands, and its location was slated to be on the first floor of that shopping centre.
Details like the area, price, lease period, and rent-free period had all been negotiated and the contract had been signed, and it was to the extent where Ningyue Group was preparing to settle in and decorate the interiors. And yet, the development director of Huamao who was in-charge of the rentals sent Ningyue Group a unilateral termination of agreement, before pa.s.sing and renting the land that Ningyue Group was optimistic about to another company.
To add insult to injury, that company was Ningyue’s compet.i.tor who was also preparing to make a supermarket there.
The development director of Huamao had done this solely because of his personal interest.
Although the matter of Huamao’s acquisition was not revealed to the public, any staff that was higher up on the corporate ladder could have heard of it, like the development director for instance.
This development director heard that Yang Ye’s family Group was incredibly strict about the employees it hired, and he felt that since he was going to be fired either way, he might as well take the chance to dredge up some benefits while he could. Hence, in an act of deceit and concealment, he took advantage of the loophole in the company’s contract administration, accepted the bribe from Ningyue’s rival company and signed a contract with them.
After doing that, the development director took the expensive bribe, resigned, and left, leaving the terrible mess to his old employer Huamao.
This entire show became— on the same piece of land and in the same shopping centre, Huamao rented it to Ningyue Group first, only to unilaterally issue the termination of the agreement, before they rented the same piece of land to Ningyue Group’s rival company at the turn of the hand.
The rival company even s.n.a.t.c.hed ahead in occupying the territory first and beginning their renovations, blocking the door daily and refusing to allow Ningyue Group to enter the place.
With all that said and done, Ningyue Group filed a lawsuit against Huamao Company.
After Huamao was acquired, this company landed in Yang Ye’s family Group.
Truth to be told, the matter had little to do with Yang Ye, and it would have been enough if he dispatched a general manager, development manager, and legal affairs for the negotiations.
However, Yang Ye attached a great deal of importance to the development of this newly-built shopping centre.
He did not wish for there to be no business on the first floor on the day of the shopping centre’s official opening— wherein the two corporations were wrangling with each other by finding some local ruffians to cause some trouble and disallowing either side to begin the renovation work. If they continued their dispute, it would affect the campaigning of the entire shopping mall as a whole.
Furthermore, Ningyue Group was not a small enterprise.
And when they got to the bottom of the matter, Ningyue stood on the moral high ground.
If the matter was thrown out of proportion and Ningyue used the public’s opinion to support their cause, it would affect the reputation of Yang Ye’s Group as well.
As for the president of Ningyue’s rival company, he possessed a lot of social connections to Yang Family, both overtly and covertly, which meant that Yang Ye could not persuade them to back out easily.
Hence, Yang Ye decided to personally negotiate this matter.
Yang Ye arranged a meeting with Ningyue Group first. After all, Ningyue Group was the one who had their contract violated.
Yang Ye wanted to probe for their stance first, like whether they were willing to accept compensation or they absolutely had to take down that land on the first floor and continue opening a supermarket.
This meeting was arranged for 10:40 on that morning for Yang Ye.
Subsequently, his secretary informed him that the legal affairs deputy director from Ningyue Group’s end had met with a car accident, so the negotiations were cancelled for the time being and it was changed to another meeting.
At that moment, Yang Ye stared at his own reflection in the mirror. Water droplets were rolling down the strands of his hair, pasted to both sides of his face, and his entire appearance looked slightly wretched.
He could not help but think— Was it possible that he and Gu Liang were truly dead?
If he did not die from exhaustion, and if Gu Liang had not met with that car accident, would they have a completely different first encounter in reality?
Knocks sounded at the door all of a sudden.
Yang Ye turned around, wanting to open the door.
Just as his hand twisted the door handle in an attempt to open the door, it was pushed back by Gu Liang again.
“Gu Liang? What’s the matter?”
Gu Liang merely asked: “What were you doing inside?”
Yang Ye: “Nothing really, I was planning to take a shower. Do you want to come in and wash up before you eat your food?”
Gu Liang paused momentarily before he uttered, “It’s fine. You can take a shower first, I’ll eat later.”
Suppressing his emotions, Yang Ye tried his hardest to keep any peculiarity out of his voice. “Right, I suddenly remembered something I have yet to ask. Which company were you doing legal affairs in?”
Gu Liang replied, “Ningyue Group. You should have heard it before?”
If it was previously said that Yang Ye felt his entire body chill, then at this moment, he felt his entire body freeze, starting from his heart and down to every single blood capillary.
Yang Ye recalled some of the words Gu Liang said prior to this: “Right, there was a strange incident. I had a cla.s.smate who died, and yet I discovered that he became a NPC in this game. I attended his funeral…”
— Therefore, it turns out that they were already dead in truth?
Was this h.e.l.l then?
And the cries they frequently heard outside the sedan, were those the cries of ghosts?
The so-called main in black, were they actually Black Impermanence?
What was his current state of being then?
A ghost?
* * *
Upon noticing that Yang Ye did not reply, Gu Liang seemed a little worried as he stood outside the door. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you asking about this suddenly?”
Yang Ye released a large mouthful of air, trying his best to ensure that his voice did not sound overly hoa.r.s.e. “It’s nothing. The thought suddenly occurred to me, and I wanted to ask.”
“Mn, speaking of which, I had a big case back in reality. Huamao Estate played with us, first signing a lease contract with us and suddenly— for the reasons that our renovation and moving in was later than what was stipulated in the contract, they asked us to terminate the contract before they handed over the lease to our rival compet.i.tor. It was necessary for us to establish our presence in that commercial district, so it goes without saying that we were unwilling to submit.”
Gu Liang leaned against the door as he slowly said: “Before I entered this game, I was about to attend the negotiation meeting for that case. Now that I’m not at the company, I wonder how the negotiations are going.
“Do you know of Huamao? However, I only learnt of the fact that Huamao had been acquired just prior to the meeting. Before I entered this game, I was on the way to negotiate with the higher executive of the acquiring party.”
“That higher executive—”
Yang Ye laughed. However, behind the door where Gu Liang was not privy to, that laugh was clearly bitter and pained.
Yang Ye’s tone of voice deepened as he murmured, “was me.”
“It’s you?”
Gu Liang was slightly surprised, “I would never have expected that. Your side had just finished the acquisition process with Huamao and you didn’t reveal it to the public. We were about to go for the meeting and yet we didn’t know how many higher executives your Group had, or which higher executive would be negotiating with us in the end. Additionally—”
Gu Liang seemed to find the entire matter interesting as he raised the corners of his mouth. “It seems like you’re quite low-key. Truthfully speaking, I didn’t search for the name of the heir apparent to your large group… I originally a.s.sumed that we wouldn’t have any intersections in this lifetime.”
Yang Ye felt like his heart was being suffocated once he heard. He placed his hand on the door handle again, wanting to pull open the door.
However, Gu Liang pushed the door back again.
Pursing his lips, Gu Liang said, “Don’t come out first. I want to tell you something.”
As if he sensed what Gu Liang wanted to say, Yang Ye turned his body around and leaned against the door as well.
If this incident happened the day before, he did not know how happy he would have been.
But his heart was so bitter and sour to the point it was terribly agonising right now.
He could hardly imagine how difficult it must have been for Gu Liang to open up the slightest crack to his inner heart, to finally manage to overcome his self-inferiority and dread as he decided to allow him to walk into his heart… But what if he discovered that everything was an exhaustive and hollow dream in the end, what was going to happen then?
What if everything was a sham like how Actor Ming never met Earl William in actuality, what was Gu Liang going to do then?
Should he continue?
Should they continue?
Outside the door, Gu Liang leaned against the door quietly for a long moment. Then, in a soft voice, he confessed: “For all the years I have lived, I’ve never done something like this. Had you been looking at me, there are some words, that I might not be able to convey. For the same reasons, Yang Ye, don’t laugh at me.”
After giving a pause, Gu Liang continued, “Old Man Meng always wanted to go back. He said he had a particularly obedient and sensible son, a son that came in his old age, and he treasured that son immensely. His son is going to attend his college entrance examinations soon, and he was rus.h.i.+ng back to have a reunion with him before his college entrance examinations.
“And Li Xiao Yu, I don’t know how her revisions are going. I hope that after she goes back, she can pa.s.s her ACCA smoothly.
“When I previously heard them talking about this, there was envy in my heart. Because all of them had attachments. Whereas I don’t seem to have any attachments in my life.
“If I hadn’t been adamant about walking a different path from my father in the past, I would have chosen science, studying in university until I obtained my PhD before I entered a research inst.i.tute to do research. Perhaps I would have an attachment then; attached and pa.s.sionate about the development of science for the benefit of mankind. That’s a decent ideal, a motivation to live—”
Gu Liang issued a self-deprecating chuckle before he said: “But I studied law, and a huge problem occurred in my work. When I took up legal affairs later… It was simply keeping to a working routine, and I would feel vexed at times… I don’t feel like my work has much value to society and I’ve never tried liking someone else.
“In short, unlike Old Man Meng and Li Xiao Yu, I didn’t have any attachments while I was living.
“When I arrived at this game…. There are times where I’m rather proactive in my a.n.a.lysis, but now that I think about it carefully, it wasn’t because I was truly desperate to live on. I merely felt that solving the mystery could be interesting, in addition to the fact I didn’t want to be played by the murderer and the designer of the game, which was why I forced myself to be serious when I was playing the game.
“I didn’t really care for the game prior to this, in all honesty.
“Yang Ye, truthfully speaking, after my clinical depression was cured, I didn’t have suicide ideation, but I didn’t particularly want to live either.
“I don’t know if you can understand that state of mind. In blunt terms, I wouldn’t go looking for death, but if I were to suddenly meet with an accident as I was crossing the road and I flatlined, I don’t think I would find myself pitiful.
“But now I realised… after meeting you, perhaps I can have an attachment, and I can properly live on.
“Yang Ye, I want to properly live on.”
When Gu Liang uttered those words, it did not mean that he was living for Yang Ye.
He was uttering those words only because after he entered this game and met people like Yang Ye, Li Xiao Yu, and Meng Qian Cheng, he acquired a tremendous amount of strength from their persons.
Under the system’s toying and coercion, under the influence of the people he had encountered and could call his friends, Gu Liang’s desire to live was gradually being invoked. When he had nothing to do, he could reflect on life too, and realise that life could be wondrous.
There were so many small blessings that were wondrous and worthy of pursuing, and he had never paid attention to them in the past.
For example, when he saw the clean river in the garden of the resting area that was utterly devoid of life, he would think, in the small community he previously lived in, there were gold fishes swimming in that shallow and small pond.
It was only at that moment where he realised that, in the mortal realm, the occasional bird that flew by, the wild flowers growing along the road he took to work… Actually, all of them were exhibiting the beauty of life. It was just he had never paid attention and they remained undiscovered.
In addition to the realisation that he liked Yang Ye, the thought that living was something to look forward to and was worth pursuing, only intensified.
However, what Gu Liang did not know was that, as he was saying those words with his back facing the door, Yang Ye, who was leaning against him back-to-back across the door, had lowered his head and his eyes had become red instantaneously.
In his entire life, Yang Ye was hardly one to cry. However, because of one spoken line from Gu Liang, his heart was hurting so much his tears were on the verge of falling.
His heart ached for Gu Liang— If Gu Liang were to find out that he had died a long time ago, just when he found the will to live after much difficulty, how dejected would he feel?
His Gu Liang Liang was not afraid of the skies and earth, but he was a little afraid of ghosts.
If he were to discover the fact that he was actually a ghost right now, what would he do?
* * *
After breathing out a sigh, Gu Liang turned around and faced the door.
He finally said it.
It did not seem that difficult either.
In his heart, Gu Liang was aware that if he did not believe that he would never see Yang Ye again after he woke up from the Duke’s dream, perhaps he might not have examined the inner workings of his own heart.
In that case, since he had already realised it, there was no need for him to shun or become tangled because of it.
Gu Liang opened his mouth, making his voice incredibly soft, “Previously, I promised you that I would give you an answer after the scenario ended. I don’t really know how to say such words, I don’t have the experience, and I don’t know how other people do this… But, you should understand my meaning?”
The author has something to say:
Do not panic…
The translator has something to add:
Holding back my tears as I translate Gu Liang’s psyche and Yang Ye’s heartache :’))
“Yang Ye, the reality is that you never crossed over, and you have never met me.” – Gu Liang, Chapter 72.
(And yet, why are we irrevocably changed?)
Post-edit: I was wondering if I should separate the chapter, but I couldn’t bear to :’))