Chapter 7: The Veil of Maya (7)

It was already dark when they left the shooting range.

Wen Mingwei and Tan Zhao had tried almost every model of firearm available. Content with the day, they drove back home, with Wen Mingwei riding in Tan Zhao’s car.

Before they set off, the young master had been somewhat reluctant, complaining, "You haven't shown any initiative, yet you’re already ordering me around as your chauffeur. Tell me, who is actually pursuing whom?"

Wen Mingwei smiled. "You could have ridden in my car instead."

Despite his words, Tan Zhao was the one who personally drove Wen Mingwei back to Haiyuan. He declined the latter’s invitation for dinner, leaving behind a jaunty, "Remember to book an appointment in advance next time you want to treat me," before driving off with effortless flair.

Wen Mingwei watched his retreating figure and smiled for a while. Then, just like the last time, he performed a withdrawal as if an actor stepping off a brilliant stage. His smile gradually faded, and he reverted to the calm, indifferent expression he wore when alone behind the curtain.

It was about seven-thirty in the evening. Gu Jing had already driven the car into the garage. Wen Mingwei told him to go eat, then went upstairs to his bedroom and closed the door.

Under the influence of his medication, once the physiological stimulation provided by Tan Zhao began to wane, Wen Mingwei started to feel drowsy again.

He took a shower. Afterward, his long, damp hair clung to his back, dripping water. He didn't bother to dry it; he simply lay down on the bed, closed the curtains, switched off the lights, and shut his eyes.

When Gu Jing was not around, Wen Mingwei didn't care much for maintaining his hair.

As for why he kept it long if he didn't care to look after it, someone had once asked him that very question.

The person was a complete stranger he had bumped into at a small coffee shop when he had gone out alone without notifying Gu Jing.

That person had the same guess many had when they first met Wen Mingwei: "Are you an actor?"

"No."

Wen Mingwei’s smile was approachable, as if he had no taboos and any question could be asked freely.

The person immediately asked a curious string of questions: "Not many men keep their hair long. Do you keep it because you really love it?" "How long have you had it?" "Is it troublesome to manage?" "Have you ever thought about cutting it off?" Wen Mingwei answered them in turn: "I don't love it," "Over a decade," "It is troublesome," "I have cut it."

The person asked again: "If you don't love it, why keep it?"

Wen Mingwei didn't answer; he only smiled. His smile was so dazzling that the other person almost forgot what they had just asked. Only then did he say, in a joking tone, "Because I want to find a little trouble for myself."

"..."

It was a trivial memory, but it surfaced inexplicably when Wen Mingwei lay on the bed, wrapped in moisture, adding a cluster of meaningless mental debris to the near-void of his consciousness after he closed his eyes.

Soon, Wen Mingwei fell asleep.

Perhaps because he had shared too much of his past with Tan Zhao today, he inevitably dreamt of the past again.

"...Mingwei?"

A voice called to him in the dream: "Where are you? Come out, please?"

It was a boy’s voice. The damp bed beneath Wen Mingwei suddenly turned into the tall grass of his memory. From a god’s-eye view, he saw himself hiding in the grass, surrounded by an endless expanse. The sun had already set. He listened to the approaching footsteps, and before the other person could find him, he quickly wiped the tears from his face, donned an expression of fearlessness, stood up, and asked, "Jian Qingzheng, why are you following me again?"

The boy named Jian Qingzheng was in his early teens, a little older than Wen Mingwei. He held an old Western-style pistol, acting like a little adult. Seeing that Wen Mingwei wasn't crying, he let out a sigh of relief and said, "I’m your bodyguard. Of course I have to follow you and protect you."

Wen Mingwei said, "I don't want you as a bodyguard. You can’t even beat Wen Mingzhe; what’s the point?"

"I can take the beating for you," Jian Qingzheng said. "Anyway, as long as I’m around, he definitely won't be able to bully you."

"..."

The tears he had just dried were threatening to spill again. To hide his expression, Wen Mingwei turned and walked away: "I don't need it! Worry about yourself!"

He walked in front, his steps quick, as if he wanted to leave the whole world behind. Jian Qingzheng followed closely, accompanying him from the grass to a riverside.

This was Wen Mingwei’s secret base. He was a child no one cared about. After being hurt, he could only hide here to lick his wounds alone. The only company he had was the sunset reflected on the water, the birds returning to their nests, and the clingy Jian Qingzheng who could never be chased away.

"Mingwei, stop crying." Jian Qingzheng suddenly pulled out a small cake as if by magic, holding it out solemnly with both hands. "Today is your birthday. Forget about those hateful people. Make a wish!"

"..."

Because he had spent too long looking for him, the cream on the cake had melted a bit, as if his birthday cake were weeping along with him.

Wen Mingwei suddenly felt utterly miserable: it seemed he was born just to be "Wen Mingwei," to suffer these hardships, and to never escape the locked gates of the Wen family.

But he was unwilling to accept it.

"I want—" Wen Mingwei closed his eyes to make a wish, "I want to turn into a bird."

Jian Qingzheng clapped. "Good! When you grow up, Mingwei, you’ll be as free as a bird."

"No," Wen Mingwei corrected him, "I want to fly higher and higher like a bird. As high as I want to go, and no one will be able to stop me."

The young Jian Qingzheng didn't seem to understand the difference between being "free" and "flying higher and higher," but he supported every one of Wen Mingwei’s wishes.

He lit a candle, sang a few lines of a birthday song, and said sincerely, "From now on, I’ll give all my birthday wishes to you. With double the power, Mingwei’s wishes will definitely come true."

Definitely...

Come true...

Wen Mingwei woke up with a start, instinctively reaching for the gun under his pillow.

The curtains were drawn tight, and it was pitch black before his eyes. It felt as if he were suspended in a vast, silent, void-like sky. His dazed soul could find no anchor, drifting in loneliness for several minutes before returning to his body. He was alive again.

"Gu Jing," Wen Mingwei pressed the intercom button by the bed. "Come and help me with my hair."

Gu Jing was always on call. He entered and turned on the lights.

Wen Mingwei had been asleep for over an hour. His long hair, pressed beneath him, was half-dry, tangled, and matted—a mess.

Wen Mingwei kept his eyes closed, saying nothing. Gu Jing understood him and knew what to do. He familiarly brought over a chair and a basin of warm water, and began washing his hair again by the bedside.

It wasn't that Wen Mingwei didn't want to wash it himself; he simply preferred the feeling of having someone else do it. It had nothing to do with whether it felt good; the point was that when his consciousness was blank, he could surrender his body to be manipulated by another.

Whenever this happened, he could strongly feel that his body and his consciousness were two separate entities. Sometimes the body was active while the consciousness was empty; sometimes the body was stiff while the consciousness was quite active. In any case, they each did their own thing and were rarely in sync.

As for which part—the body or the consciousness—was the "real" him, it seemed to be neither.

He used to think the body was a cage and the consciousness was the soul, but after years of experimenting with various drugs, he gradually discovered that drugs affected his body, and his body affected his consciousness. The so-called soul was, in fact, nothing more than a set of physiological code. The only difference between humans and robots was that the code controlling humans was more profound and complex.

Gu Jing spent half an hour washing and drying Wen Mingwei’s hair and tidying up the bedroom.

Wen Mingwei suddenly asked, "Where is Tan Zhao now?"

Gu Jing checked his phone messages and said, "He just finished dinner and hasn't gone home yet."

"Who is he with?"

"Some friends, Li Yue and the others."

Gu Jing thought Wen Mingwei wanted to see Tan Zhao again, but Wen Mingwei made no move. He said, "You go get some rest. Tell the kitchen to prepare some food and bring it up."

Gu Jing acknowledged and left the bedroom, pulling the door shut behind him.

Wen Mingwei was not anorexic, just occasionally lacking an appetite. His mood wasn't frequently poor, either; most of the time it was quite flat—meaning he had no emotions.

He sat by the window and slowly finished his dinner, then called Tan Zhao.

As soon as the call connected, deafening music blared from the other end.

"Where are you?" Wen Mingwei asked. "Are you at a club?"

To his surprise, it wasn't Tan Zhao who answered, but Li Yue: "Brother Mingwei, why are you suddenly calling him—"

Before he could finish, the phone was snatched away by Tan Zhao. "Hello?" Tan Zhao walked further away, distancing himself from the noisy music and people. "What’s wrong? Do you need something?"

Tan Zhao’s voice was deliberately lowered, as if trying to adopt the cool, unruffled tone of a mature man. Wen Mingwei couldn't help but smile upon hearing it and said, "Nothing."

"If there's nothing, why call me? Don't tell me you already miss me after only being apart for two or three hours?" Tan Zhao’s newly adopted mature tone crumbled in a second, his voice rising in pitch at the end. "Can you have a life of your own? Don't be so love-struck, okay?"

"..."

Wen Mingwei hid his smile and said lingeringly, "I can't. I dreamt of you just now, and I wanted to hear your voice."

"Really? What did you dream about me?" Tan Zhao was curious.

Wen Mingwei said, "I dreamt you were helping me celebrate my birthday, giving me a cake, and listening to me make a wish."

"Only a cake?" The young master’s focus was quite skewed. "I gave Li Yue a twenty-million car for his birthday last time. If it were your birthday, I would at least—"

He paused midway and corrected himself: "Although you and I aren't as close as I am with Li Yue, I wouldn't be so stingy as to give only a cake. What kind of person do you take me for?"

"..."

Wen Mingwei wanted to laugh, yet felt a pang of discomfort. He said, "But I want to eat cake, Tan Zhao."

"Oh," one could tell from his tone that Tan Zhao was keeping a straight face, "buy it yourself if you want to eat it. I'm not your boyfriend; who are you acting coquettish with?"

He probably wanted to wait for Wen Mingwei’s reaction after he finished speaking, but the phone was silent. Wen Mingwei didn't say a word.

Tan Zhao hesitated for a moment: "Hello? Hey, are you still there?"

"I'm here," Wen Mingwei lied through his teeth. "I was just ordering a cake."

Tan Zhao: "..."

"Fine, eat it slowly then." Tan Zhao likely sensed the conversation had hit a dead end and the atmosphere had become inexplicably strange. He couldn't help but ask one more thing, "Are you... unhappy?"

"Not at all." On his end of the phone, Wen Mingwei rested his chin on one hand, his long hair falling to one side with his slight tilt. He said, "It’s just that whenever I think about how I don't know when I’ll see you next, I lose my appetite and can't sleep soundly."

"..."

Tan Zhao’s tone was one of being unable to handle the cheesiness: "Then let’s set a time. I’ll send you a message later."