Chapter 38 - Losing All Hope
Chapter 38 – Losing All Hope
YanMingXiu carried ZhouXiang into the bedroom and threw him on the bed. Then, he proceeded to remove ZhouXiang’s outerwear and outer pants.
YanMingXiu was continuously kicked and punched by ZhouXiang. With this series of punches, his face was also bruised and his expression looking very unsightly. This effort in subduing ZhouXiang made him sweat profusely.
After ZhouXiang was tied up and couldn’t move, he could only look at YanMingXiu coldly.
YanMingXiu completely ignored his chilling expression as he removed the rest of ZhouXiang’s clothes except for his underwear and draped a blanket over him, “Just stay like this for the coming two days. Don’t think about going out. I’ll be watching over you.”
ZhouXiang chilling responded, “YanMingXiu, you bastard.”
YanMingXiu touched his flustered enraged face, “I’ll release you after the launching film ceremony is over. I’ll do what I say and take you to see Director Zhang Ling on Monday. He was looking for investors some time ago. I’ll recommend you to be the lead actor. This role is not any worse than Dong Ge’s role. What more could you be dissatisfied with?”
ZhouXiang’s dark pupils looked at him without hesitation, “YanMingXiu, if I say that all I want is WangYuDong’s role?”
YanMingXiu knitted his brows and responded coldly, “Do you really want Dong Ge’s role or do you want to act in scenes with LanXiRong?”
“I want WangYuDong’s role! Will you give it?” ZhouXiang looked at him through gritted teeth.
YanMingXiu’s facial muscles are somewhat distorted. He can’t understand why ZhouXiang is so paranoid. After a long time, he responded, “Dong Ge’s role is not one that you could act in. Besides, he is now considered to be a part of my Yan family, so we can’t lose face.”
ZhouXiang forcefully smiled and uttered sarcastically, “You’re right. What right do I have to play WangYuDong’s role? I will completely tarnish his image.”
“It’s good that you know it. You’ve just been Dong Ge’s stuntman a few times. Do you really think that you could play the leading role? At that time when you find yourself incompetent, you’ll just be putting yourself to shame.” It wasn’t that YanMingXiu hasn’t seen ZhouXiang act. Even though it was only as a stuntman, in order to get into the role, one must also coordinate his actions to make the appropriate facial expressions and say the lines. ZhouXiang is just an ordinary stuntman with average acting skills; it is incomparable to the level of proficiency of WangYuDong. With ZhouXiang’s image, it is not suitable to perform roles of a selfless undemanding hero who does not care about the mundane world. So for him to want to play WangYuDong’s role, he felt that ZhouXiang is merely overestimating himself. YanMingXiu might as well spend the money to create a role that is suitable for him. This might instead make him popular. Even though he does not want ZhouXiang to get popular at all but it seems that ZhouXiang himself wanted to be. He is willing to satisfy him as a way to compensate him.
YanMingXiu felt that his arrangement was reasonable. He didn’t understand why ZhouXiang is being so persistent. ZhouXiang just didn’t know what was good for him.
ZhouXiang hoarsely voiced, “Even though this role is not at all suitable for me, I’ve earned this opportunity myself. YanMingXiu, I’m not going to accept your handout. I want to break up cleanly with you. I hope you could understand this.”
YanMingXiu narrowed his eyes, “Say it again?”
ZhouXiang looked at him fearlessly, “I said I want to break up with you cleanly.”
YanMingXiu rolled over and pressed on top of him. He pinched ZhouXiang’s chin. Because of his excessive force, ZhouXiang is in pain. YanMingXiu chillingly responded, “ZhouXiang, don’t make yourself so shameless.”
ZhouXiang gnashed his teeth, “Let me go!!!”
YanMingXiu unyieldingly responded, “Not possible.”
ZhouXiang turned his waist, wanting to push him off his body but YanMingXiu didn’t even budge. Instead, he leaned down and propped his elbows on both sides of ZhouXiang’s face, looking at him condescendingly, his pair of deeply dark eyes closely glared at ZhouXiang.
Their noses almost touching each other.
YanMingXiu breathed softly, “ZhouXiang, you don’t know what’s good for you. I’ve already said it to such extent, what more do you want?”
ZhouXiang closed his eyes. He knew that there was no way they could communicate.
Soft lips brushed over ZhouXiang’s lips. ZhouXiang opened his eyes and felt YanMingXiu kissing his lips, gently sucking it, with his deep black pupils looking at him with eagerness.
ZhouXiang wanted to turn his face but YanMingXiu gripped his chin so ZhouXiang was forced to accept this slightly lingering kiss.
YanMingXiu gently gasped and softened his tone. For the first time ever, he used a negotiating tone, “Xiang Ge, let’s stop fighting. We’ve always been getting along very well. Isn’t it good to be just like we were before?”
ZhouXiang bitterly laughed twice, “Can you like me the way you like WangYuDong?”
YanMingXiu looked at him silently. He didn’t like ZhouXiang comparing himself with WangYuDong. They are completely separate. WangYuDong is his first love, is a precious treasure that he could never have and also is his brother-in-law. ZhouXiang is…
What is ZhouXiang?
ZhouXiang is the person who would cook him all sorts of good foods. He is the person who would lay down on the bed first to warm up the blankets in the winter so that when he got out the shower, he could immediately sleep warmly and comfortably. He is the first person he sees when he comes home and is the person who could instantly make him relax. He is the person that always had a smile on his face. He is the person that is extremely compatible with him in love making, giving him unsurpassable intensive pleasure.
ZhouXiang and WangYuDong are not the same. WangYuDong seems to exist only in his fantasy but ZhouXiang is real.
The smile on ZhouXiang’s face is extremely somber, “Can’t right? Then we can’t be the same as before.”
YanMingXiu only felt perplexed. There are some irrational words he wanted to say to refute, but couldn’t say it. What does he want to do with ZhouXiang? What is ZhouXiang’s place in his heart? Even he himself does not know.
The only thing he knows is that he doesn’t want to be separated from ZhouXiang.
ZhouXiang looked at YanMingXiu’s silent expression and felt completely overwhelmed by disappointment.
If YanMingXiu tells him that he ‘likes him’ in this moment, even if he was just lying to him, perhaps he might waver and change his mind.
But as expected, YanMingXiu didn’t even make an effort to lie to him. This kind of honest bluntness is chilling.
ZhouXiang closed his eyes and turned his head. He no longer wanted to say even a word.
He felt YanMingXiu quietly getting under the blanket with both of his hands meandered around his waist, caressing every inch of his scorching hot skin.
YanMingXiu softly muttered behind his back, “ZhouXiang… I miss you a little.”
ZhouXiang laid passively as his underwear was getting removed and his thighs spread apart. YanMingXiu lay sideways behind him; with his familiarity with ZhouXiang’s body, he effortlessly squeezed his cock into ZhouXiang’s tight passage.
ZhouXiang suppressed himself from making any sounds. There had never been a time when sex made him felt as miserable as it did now. Yet, he had no strength to resist.
YanMingXiu hugged his waist tightly. ZhouXiang’s silence made him endlessly flustered. He slowly gasped and uttered unbearably into ZhouXiang’s ears, “ZhouXiang… I miss you.”
His voice even slightly tinged with grievance, but still, he didn’t get a response. Feeling a bit furious, he turned them over and kneel on the bed with their position in doggy-style as he clutched ZhouXiang’s thighs and ruthlessly thrust into him from behind.
ZhouXiang buried his face in the blanket and tightly pressed his lips, not wanting to make a sound. The more YanMingXiu wanted to humiliate him, the more he wouldn’t let YanMingXiu get his way.
But he knew that YanMingXiu could easily shatter his self-esteem. Because up until this moment, YanMingXiu still refused to look at his face during sex. ZhouXiang’s entire worth to YanMingXiu’s is only that he had a back silhouette very similar to WangYuDong.
ZhouXiang opened his eyes. His expression is more lucid than ever.
He could let go of YanMingXiu. With enough time, he could let go of YanMingXiu.
YanMingXiu didn’t continue to do it with him well into the middle of the night as he usually does. Instead, he stopped after once. Unresponsive sex made him feel awful. No matter how satisfied his body is, his heart is void. He really misses the days when he and ZhouXiang would make intensive passionate love, the kind of carefree, uninhibited dripping wet sex. Would he be able to experience it again?
YanMingXiu wiped ZhouXiang’s lower body with a wet towel and then hugged him under the blanket.
ZhouXiang’s back was originally facing him, but that made him feel quite uncomfortable so he turned ZhouXiang over.
ZhouXiang looked at him and slowly closed his eyes.
YanMingXiu held him overbearingly in his arms and said in a low-pitched voice that only the two of them could hear, “Xiang Ge, I won’t treat you as WangYuDong again.”
ZhouXiang did not say anything.
A deathly silent night.
________
When LanXiRong called ZhouXiang’s phone, YanMingXiu had wanted to throw his phone on the ground, but he restrained himself and blacklisted LanXiRong.
YanMingXiu really did what he said. He forcefully put ZhouXiang under house arrest for two days. But he didn’t have ZhouXiang tied up the entire time. Instead, he locked the door from the outside and hid the keys and his phone. Unless ZhouXiang threw caution out of the wind and didn’t care to shamelessly cry out for help inside the house, otherwise YanMingXiu was constantly staring at him. He had no way to escape from this condo.
He has lived in this place for 30 years. There was not one neighbor that didn’t know him. He couldn’t afford to be that shameless.
On the afternoon of the film launching ceremony, LanXiRong, CaiWei and President Wang separately called ZhouXiang several times. The phone was always busy and the three were busily preoccupied with their work so didn’t have the time to look into his matters or pay much attention to it.
At 8’o clock in the evening, ZhouXiang did not appear at the press conference. Instead, it was WangYuDong who showed up, impeccably dressed, appearing as the lead actor. It was as if nothing had happened. They were all dumbstruck.
In front of so many cameras and dozens of reporters, Director Wang couldn’t quarrel with WangYuDong. So just like how it was rehearsed, they had a seemingly joyful film launching ceremony. Nothing has changed, as if the complicated matters that happened outside of the ceremony didn’t happen. The rumors of WangYuDong’s lead role being replaced were completely discredited.
All are happy.
Only ZhouXiang watched as time slowly ticked by, as if the blood in his body has completely been drained and is getting colder and colder.
He had already given up.
The position of the leading actor, he may need to blaze a new trail to get it. But he obviously did not have that kind of life. He doesn’t have the life of a lead actor. He could only naturally resign himself to being a stuntman. No matter how hard he strive for it and fought to get a leading role, in the end, it only proved that he is just a fool.
He could only be a stuntman.
ZhouXiang didn’t feel anything, no disappointment, no anger, and also no regrets… because YanMingXiu had given him two days to be mentally prepared for this ending. He calmly accepted it.
The next morning, YanMingXiu gave him back his keys and phone and told him that he would take him to see Director Zhang Ling.
“I’ll do what I say and give you a role that is suitable for you. However popular you want to be, I’ll fulfill it for you.”
ZhouXiang didn’t resist as he was dragged to the car.
YanMingXiu arranged to meet Zhang Ling at a hotel café. They arrived ten minutes earlier. The two sat on the sofa as they waited for Zhang Ling.
ZhouXiang said that he needed to go to the bathroom.
ZhouXiang appeared to be very calm and YanMingXiu didn’t think too much as he let him go. He didn’t know why but when he stared at ZhouXiang’s back silhouette, up until ZhouXiang disappeared at the corner, this back that is no different from usual, still looking very much like WangYuDong’s back, but YanMingXiu could no longer think of WangYuDong as he look at this back. He clearly realized that it is ZhouXiang.
If he knew at this moment that this would be the last time he would ever see ZhouXiang, he would be willing to pay any price just to return to this day.
End of the Chapter