Chapter 51

The locker room, styled in the aesthetic of the 1960s and 70s, was silent. Tao Zui held Gu Nan’s ice-cold hand, feeling as if he were clutching a block of ice that refused to melt.

Just as his mind wandered to whether he should ask Li Shengping to bring in some heat packs, he heard Gu Nan ask in a husky, muffled voice: “Since… you are so afraid of being broke, why sell your house to invest in The Afterlife?”

Tao Zui’s heart eased. He raised a finger and shook it playfully, moving Gu Nan’s hand along with it: “First of all, I own more than one house; don’t forget the house you’re all living in now is also mine. Selling property is just a temporary expedient; it won’t lead me to bankruptcy. Secondly, I stopped being that child afraid of having no money long ago. I’ve already found a way to soothe that inner fear.”

“What is it?” Gu Nan lifted his head, staring straight at Tao Zui, looking deep into his eyes.

Tao Zui smiled faintly: “On the surface, it seems like I’m afraid of being broke, but in reality, it’s a lack of security. Once I realized this, I focused my attention on my studies, using GPAs and scholarships to prove that even if no one provides me with security, my own excellence and hard work can become the bedrock of my livelihood.”

Having lost his parents and the home he grew up in, Tao Zui had been forced to face all of life’s predicaments: living expenses, tuition, utility bills, transportation costs… even his younger brother’s education weighed entirely on his shoulders.

He had been terrified of being unable to pay rent and becoming homeless, terrified of starving and having to beg on the streets, and even more terrified of being unable to shoulder the responsibility of being the eldest brother acting as a father, failing to raise his brother properly and letting his parents down.

Just as Tao Zui was panicking to the point of sleeplessness, he received a scholarship that felt like a lifesaver.

The scholarship wasn’t a huge amount—only six thousand yuan—but it helped Tao Zui pay six months of rent, allowing the brothers to find stability. More importantly, it affirmed his self-worth, making him realize that perhaps he truly could replace his parents and prop up this home.

This self-affirmation allowed Tao Zui to escape his panic. He replanned his studies and part-time work, eventually graduating with outstanding grades. Thanks to his rich work experience, he secured an internship at a renowned creative advertising agency during his senior year, stepping into a client-management role right after graduation.

“The hardest person for anyone to face is themselves, and the hardest thing to dissect is one’s own heart. Facing the true source of inner fear is difficult, but once you complete this step, nothing can defeat you ever again.”

With that, Tao Zui gently squeezed Gu Nan’s hand, then let go and stood up: “I’m going to tell Director Wu that we’ll stop filming for bailiantales.com today. Go back to the hotel and get some good rest; we’ll talk tomorrow.”

If this really doesn’t work out, I’ll find a psychological consultant. If that doesn’t work, we can rewrite the script. In the worst-case scenario, we just breach the contract and quit; I can scrape together enough for the penalty.

Having made up his mind, Tao Zui turned to leave. Just as he reached the door, he heard Gu Nan’s voice from behind:

“Because you believe in yourself… is that why you dared to go all-in to help… us?”

“That’s right,” Tao Zui leaned against the doorframe, looked back, and raised an eyebrow at Gu Nan: “I believe in myself, and I believe in my own judgment—I absolutely wouldn’t misjudge a person.”

The locker room curtain fluttered as Tao Zui departed, but the expression from that final raised eyebrow remained etched on Gu Nan’s retina, causing his once-dormant heart to beat once more.

Soon, Wu Zheng’s voice, distorted by a megaphone, drifted from afar: “Wrap it up! Wrap it up! See you tomorrow morning at eight!”

A moment later, Li Shengping entered the locker room with his clothes. After dressing, Gu Nan took Tao Zui’s car back to the hotel, collapsing onto his bed the moment they walked through the door.

Li Shengping, following behind, wanted to say something but was silenced by Tao Zui’s gesture. Eventually, the two left Gu Nan’s room without making a sound, leaving him sprawled on the bed, tilting his head to look at the bright daylight outside the window.

It had snowed a few days ago, but today was a clear, sunny day. The snow-covered scenery was blinding under the sunlight, and even the sunbeams seemed to shine with an extra brilliance reflected off the snow.

Gu Nan narrowed his eyes slightly, watching the warm winter sun shining through the window, pondering Tao Zui’s words.

What is the source of my fear?

If he were talking about his father, he had already surpassed him in height by the [unauthorized copy]eighth grade, and his strength had grown; if he wanted to resist, it wasn’t certain he wouldn’t be able to fight back.

Yet, even when he reached high school and was a whole head taller than his father, he had never resisted a single time. It was his father who, fearing he might fight back, stopped laying a hand on him after he entered high school, resorting only to throwing things and verbal abuse.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t have the thought of resisting.

Who likes being a punching bag? Maybe I didn’t understand when I was little, but as I grew up and received years of education, how could I not understand that my parents’ actions were wrong, even illegal?

It’s just that by then, the psychological trauma was already too deep. Even if I had the will to resist, I couldn’t.

Perhaps, I need to go back to my childhood, to those early days when I was first beaten…

Gu Nan slowly closed his eyes, staring into the darkness at the halo of sunlight lingering on his eyelids, trying his best to recall a childhood he couldn’t bear to look back on.

Gradually, that old residential compound surfaced in Gu Nan’s mind.

Built in the early nineties, the entire building was drab and grey. The narrow staircase was only wide enough for one person, forcing people to angle their bodies to squeeze past each other when they crossed paths. The seven-story building had two households per floor. Gu Nan’s family lived on the third floor, in a tiny two-bedroom apartment of less than sixty square meters.

Because his father was a gambling addict, while the house wasn’t entirely bare, it certainly wasn’t wealthy. His mother was busy working and had no heart to decorate or tidy up. As for him, from his earliest memories, he was mostly alone at home.

Because the family was poor, even though the compound wasn’t filled with wealthy families, Gu Nan was still the one ostracized. Just because he wore ill-fitting, dirty clothes that no one bothered to tend to, the other children in the compound called him a “wild child nobody wanted.”

“I’m not a wild child! I have a dad and a mom!”

“You are! My dad and mom said so—your parents don’t [bailiantales.com]care about you! You’re just a bastard nobody wants!”

“I’m not!”

“You are! You are!”

“I’m not!”

“The bastard’s still talking back, beat him!”

“Beat him!”

“Beat him!”

“I’m not a bastard!”

Gu Nan’s eyes flew open, his breathing rapid, his eye sockets rimmed with red. It took a long while for him to calm down.

That was the first time he fought back, but the consequences were severe.

What did a child know about what a “bastard” was? They just repeated what the adults said. The result of his first act of resistance was that the adults who arrived upon hearing the noise cursed him with even more venomous words. He wanted to leave but couldn’t; he was hauled up and forced to face that barrage of malice.

“Can’t even walk and he’s already fighting? Is that what your parents taught you? Look at what you’ve done to my son!”

“Not going to kindergarten and running [unauthorized copy]around dirty all day—are you wrong for being called a bastard nobody wants?”

“You know, they might be right. This kid doesn’t look like that guy from the Gu family at all. Maybe he really is a bastard from an affair.”

“Isn’t his mom a nurse? I see her dressed neatly; how could she raise her own son like this? Maybe his dad got someone pregnant outside, and since the other woman didn’t want the child, he brought him home and dumped him on his wife.”

“Who’d want to play the fool?”

“Why not? Isn’t his mom from out of town? If she hadn’t married that guy surnamed Gu, how could she have gotten residency in North City?”

“Tsk tsk tsk, this family is truly a mess. The dad’s a gambling addict, the mom’s a gold digger, and the son’s a bastard. Truly a matching set… Hey, this little brat actually dares to kick me!”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t hit him, be careful of causing an injury that won’t go away. That family—even if they don’t care about the kid, they sure know how to extort people. You don’t want to get mixed up in their mess, do you?”

“Damn, what bad luck! Get lost, get lost! You’re disgusting! And you guys—you’re not allowed to play with him anymore! Look at how dirty he is—do you want to grow up to be beggars just like him?”

Gu Nan was shoved to the ground, his knees and palms scraped raw. But at that moment, he only had one thought—

I’m not a kid nobody wants. I have a dad and a mom!

But how did his mom and dad treat him? They ignored the wounds on his body; upon learning he had fought another child, they beat him again and forbade him from playing downstairs, forcing him to stay in his room.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that when he started elementary school, the gossip from the surrounding neighbors grew too loud and attracted the neighborhood committee, his parents probably wouldn’t have even let him go to school.

Perhaps he was naturally brilliant. He hadn’t attended kindergarten or preschool, yet he could ​unauthorized copy​quickly understand the teacher’s lessons and draw inferences. In his first exam, he achieved full marks in all subjects—the best results in the class.

That was the first time he was praised by his parents. His mother, who was usually indifferent, even patted him on the head.

The feeling of that warm palm brushing across his head shook Gu Nan’s young soul. For the first time, he realized that perhaps his mom and dad didn’t dislike him—it was that he hadn’t done well enough.

…Right. That’s the source of it all.

Gu Nan bathed in the orange-red sunset, tears streaming down his face.

He had never resisted his parents; even when he grew into an adult, he had continued to endure. It was because he was afraid—afraid that no one would love him.

Even when his mother suddenly asked him to go to the hospital for a blood test during his senior year of high school, although he found it strange, he obeyed. When she cried and begged him to sign a bone marrow donation consent form a few days before the College Entrance Examination, swearing it wouldn’t affect him in any way, he had signed it under the assault of her tears.

When he was injected with mobilization agents for four or five consecutive days, he had specifically asked his mother if it would affect his entrance exam, and she had said no. He was still naively thinking, as he lay on the operating table the day before the exam, that he would be able to go take the test as long as he had the bone marrow drawn.

But when the surgery was over, his entire body was in such agony he couldn’t move, let alone take an exam—he couldn’t even get out of bed. It wasn’t until two days later that he could barely stand, but by then, the entrance exam was already over.

The family that received the bone marrow donation hired a caregiver for him, let him stay in a top-tier private room, and had a nutritionist prepare his meals three times a day. But his parents seemed to have vanished; they didn’t appear once from start to finish.

On the day of his discharge, Gu Nan had recovered well, but he had lost his future forever. He had lost the love he had delusionaly hoped to receive from his parents.