Unspeakable

Shen Kanyu really did end up finding the exact same crystal ornament at a mall, and when he was boxing it, he felt like he had once again hit the jackpot.

When he was about to head home, he caught sight of a familiar figure as he turned around.

It was Su Tong.

A tall, handsome man walked beside him with an arm around his shoulder, and when he whispered into his ear, although Su Tong smiled gently, his face was dyed pink.

Shen Kanyu felt like he had been struck by lightning under clear skies, his mind and body reduced to splinters.

***

He stood frozen in place. His brain shutting down, he only managed to snap out of it and give chase after they walked out of the store.

They had already walked out of eyesight. A light drizzle had also started outside some time ago. After asking a few passersby, Shen Kanyu finally found them on a quiet and small street.

Watching the backs of two figures snuggled against each other under an umbrella, Shen Kanyu felt as if someone had dug his heart out, his chest was so cold and empty that his lips couldn’t stop trembling when he called out Su Tong’s name. 

Su Tong stopped and turned when he heard someone call him. Once he recognized that it was Shen Kanyu, it took him a moment to rouse himself from his stupor then he curved his lips into a gentle smile. “It’s you?”

His smile hadn’t changed from back then: still bright as the moon, and gentle like snow. Just one look would make a person feel like their entire body had sunken into a bed of warm, soft feathers, lulling them to never awaken again.

He was still as good as before.

But does Su Tong, who is still so good, no longer need Gu Yansheng?

Shen Kanyu stood still and silently looked at Su Tong. As if he sensed something, Su Tong turned toward the man beside him. “Chen Shen, he’s an old friend, there’s something I want to say to him alone, shelter yourself from the rain under that pavilion over there, alright?”

Chen Shen was clearly displeased. Although he complied with Su Tong’s request, he stared at Shen Kanyu with a cold and vigilant gaze as he walked off. 

Su Tong walked over and sheltered Shen Kanyu beneath his umbrella. “You look terrible, did you get sick?”

Shen Kanyu promptly shook his head, wiping the rain on his face, he grinned foolishly at Su Tong. His voice was extremely soft as he said, “A-Tong, shift the umbrella over a little, your shoulder is getting wet, you don’t have to cover me.” 

Smiling still, Su Tong’s eyes were clear. “Kanyu, if you have something to say, just be frank.”

Shen Kanyu lowered his lashes, catching his breath, “That person…”

“As you can see, he’s my lover,” Su Tong answered without waiting for him to finish his question, a serene smile on his face. “We plan to get married at the end of the year, I gave A-Sheng an invitation last night at the dinner party, you can come with him.”

Lover, marry.

And gave an invitation?

No wonder A-Sheng, a person who doesn’t drink and can’t drink, got that drunk.

A-Sheng must’ve been so sad when he received Su Tong’s wedding invitation. Yet after exhaustingly getting himself drunk so he could sleep well, he was still woken up by Shen Kanyu’s idiotic fumbling. 

Shen Kanyu looked down to see the ring on Su Tong’s hand and remembered how Gu Yansheng cried for Su Tong over and over in his half-conscious state. His heart twisted in excruciating pain, and a thousand thoughts flitted through his jumbled mind, but no clear result emerged. 

He reached out to Su Tong. Clearly his hands were so clean that they seemed white, but he still felt that they were dirty, he perplexedly pulled back his hand and rubbed it on his pant leg. He strained to smile at Su Tong then croaked, “A-Tong, I… I’m divorcing A-Sheng soon, I’ve filled in the divorce papers, and a lawyer has looked at them, he said that there’s no issue with them, A-Sheng just needs to sign it… I’m giving everything to him, Tiantian is also his.”

Su Tong looked at him calmly, his gaze holding neither sorrow nor delight.

Being looked at in this manner, Shen Kanyu’s throat tightened, feeling like it was clogged by a metallic-tasting liquid. He forcefully swallowed it down before opening his mouth to speak again, but no words came out. 

Su Tong sighed lightly once he saw that Shen Kanyu seemingly had nothing more to say. “Kanyu. These are private matters between you and A-Sheng, there’s no need to divulge them to me.”

Shen Kanyu desperately shook his head with reddened eyes, his lips parted, opening and closing several times in vain as he tried to make a sound. He couldn’t hold back a cough that caused the liquid he tried so hard to swallow before to rush up again and block his airflow. His vision turned black and his legs lost their strength. 

Then he took two steps back and knelt straight down.

This happened so suddenly that Su Tong couldn’t stop him in time, he froze in his steps. “Kanyu?”

On the ground, Shen Kanyu bowed his head and coughed out the blood stuck in his throat.

The blood, still light pink, was quickly washed away in the rainwater on the road’s gray, concrete slabs, disappearing without a trace.

“I’m begging you, I’m begging you—” Finally, he could speak again but his voice was so faint and broken it was almost drowned out by the downpour. He couldn’t help but take another breath before repeating numerous times, “I’m begging you, A-Tong. Give A-Sheng a chance, he’s still waiting for you, he’s always liked you…”

The hand Su Tong originally reached out to help him up was immediately retracted, and his smiling expression turned desolate. “…What’s the point of this? Back then, you could even kill me to get A-Sheng right? And now that you’ve realized that without me in the picture things still won’t go your way, you wanna use this method as a way of pointless compensation?”

Each and every word spoken stabbed at his heart. The color on Shen Kanyu’s face faded in an instant and no light could be seen in his eyes. He knew he had neither the right nor the face to say anything else. He could only kneel like that on the concrete floor, heavily kowtowing to Su Tong.

“Sorry…” He knelt on the ground, his voice barely audible.

Su Tong closed his eyes and sighed. “What are you doing now…get up first.”

Shen Kanyu didn’t move.

The two were at a standstill like this until the rain stopped.

Su Tong was left with no choice but to crouch in front of him, placing the umbrella on the ground, then held his shoulders to make Shen Kanyu face him. “Kanyu, listen to me. This “sorry” I can accept. That aside, I also owe you an apology, I’m really sorry for not maintaining my distance from A-Sheng after you two got married, causing misunderstandings to arise. But please believe me when I tell you now, I don’t have feelings for him anymore. I have someone I want to be with for the rest of my life, and I hope you will stop this behavior, press on, and have a good life with A-Sheng. Your self-righteous concession is the worst insult to everyone, you understand?”

“Kanyu, I’ve always thought that you’re like a child but you’re married now and even have a child of your own. You have to learn to be more mature, and not act on the first thing that comes to mind as you did in the past. This world won’t always go the way you want it to be.”

“Let’s end this here, I should go.”

A buzz of noise sounded in Shen Kanyu’s ears, the clearest being the sound of his rapid heartbeat. Even when he tried hard to focus on the words, he couldn’t hear clearly what Su Tong was saying. He could only vaguely see that Su Tong had stood up like he wanted to leave, so he hurriedly reached out to stop him.

He didn’t want to hear anything else. He only knew that Su Tong said he was going.

If he leaves, what about A-Sheng?

A-Sheng’s future days will no longer have light, all the light in his life was about to go in a completely different direction.

All thanks to me.

Shen Kanyu reached out in desperation, wanting to hold onto something.

He didn’t end up touching anything because his hand was held in a powerful grip that almost crushed his bones.

In quick succession, he was flung by that person and hit the ground hard, losing the strength he just had to hold onto something.

***

“Chen Shen, don’t hurt him!” Su Tong shouted as he held Chen Shen’s arm. “It’s fine, let’s go home.”

Chen Shen held onto Su Tong too, icily looking at Shen Kanyu who was on the ground, and the umbrella next to him. “Do you not want your umbrella anymore?”

Su Tong turned around, not looking at Shen Kanyu any longer. “Let’s leave it for him, don’t we have another one?”

Chen Shen sneered. “You’re still so good to him. Aren’t you afraid that he’ll thrust a knife into you again once he recovers?”

Su Tong smiled lightly while shaking his head, “He won’t.”

“If he dares to touch you again, I’ll kill him.”

“Okay, let’s go home.”

***

Shen Kanyu kneeled on the ground with his head dropped. Amidst the noise sounding beside his ears, he heard the faint ringing of his phone. He took his phone out and picked the call up directly because he couldn’t see the caller clearly.  “Hello?”

“Shen Kanyu?”

The moment he heard this voice, Shen Kanyu thought his ears were playing tricks on him. He was taken aback for a moment, and then he questioned with uncertainty, “Mom?”

“Mn.”

The person on the phone really was his mom, Li Qing!

Shen Kanyu instantly became excited. Clutching onto the phone as if it were a treasure, he croaked out “mom” again and again, afraid that the other might’ve dialed his number by accident and would hang up soon, he seized the moment to spit out a bunch of things. “Mom, can you hear me? Why are you looking for me? I can’t hear you well because it’s a little noisy over here. You could’ve just sent me a text message.”

After a period of silence, she slowly said, “Your dad’s cirrhosis1 is getting worse. If you have time, come to the hospital to get a matching test done.”
[T/N: 1Chronic liver illness]

“Oh… okay! I’ll go do it tomorrow. Mom, text me the hospital’s address and anything else later.” Though well aware that Li Qing couldn’t see him, Shen Kanyu still nodded with all his might, while he was promising his mother, “You watch dad, don’t let him be so reckless anymore! Smoking and drinking all day long…right, Mom, is gege well recently? It’s been a long time since he last contacted me. Is he not feeling well again?”

“Shen Kanyu, what are you saying?!” As if what he said was something treasonous, Li Qing suddenly lashed out, “Are you wishing ill on your older brother? He even tried stopping us from asking you to get a matching test done, yet you’re hoping something happens to him?”

“No, that’s not what I meant, I…” Shen Kanyu’s face paled as he tried to explain but didn’t know how to. In the end, he could only apologize over and over. “Sorry Mom, I said the wrong thing, don’t be angry.”

He was just worried about gege, but he didn’t dare to bother him.

He just wanted to ask, does he also need to get a matching test done for gege. He doesn’t need anything, whatever they need, if he has it he will give it, as long as they’re willing to accept it.

But this heart of his doesn’t seem that healthy anymore. He shouldn’t be able to give it to gege, it’ll harm him.

The only thing he could do was hope that he still had a healthy liver he could give to dad, so he could be safe and healthy from now on, no longer suffering from illness. 

Shen Kanyu’s apology somewhat pacified Li Qing. She realized that she was too quick-tempered just now and hence eased her tone a lot. “Nevermind, your dad’s condition has been bad recently, I’m feeling a little agitated.”

Shen Kanyu hastily said, “I know, don’t worry, Mom. It’ll definitely be a match, dad will get better soon!”

“Mn, I hope so.”

Shen Kanyu laughed foolishly then softly said, “Mom, once I finish the matching test tomorrow, can I go visit home? I want to go back and take a look around.”

Li Qing stayed silent. He immediately continued, “It’s okay if I can’t, I just wanted to see if the bougainvillea I planted that year is still alive. Mom, can you take a photo and show me?”

Before he left home for college, he somehow had a hunch that after he left this time, he probably wouldn’t have another chance to return to this home. Hence he planted a bougainvillea in the house’s backyard.

He thought that the three bracts, one being dad, one being mom, and one being gege made them just like a bougainvillea, each joining together intimately with no gaps in between—in perfect bliss.

Li Qing wasn’t interested in some bougainvillea and straightforwardly said, “I’ll try, but I probably won’t have any time.”

Shen Kanyu wiped the rainwater off his face. His smile was a little vague. “No worries!”

“Mn, I’m hanging up, I’m cooking congee for your dad…”

“Oh! Mom!” Shen Kanyu anxiously called her, “The…the congee you’re making for dad, can he finish it?”

Li Qing didn’t know why he was asking this question. She responded after a moment of hesitation. “Yeah, depends on his appetite, what is it?”

Shen Kanyu cautiously asked, “I’m going over tomorrow, if…if there’s leftover congee, don’t throw it away, okay? I-I want to drink a little.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you, Mom!” Li Qing hung up the phone before Shen Kanyu could finish saying thank you. Still holding onto the phone, he whispered to the busy tone, “…Bye-bye, Mom.”

Shen Kanyu put away the phone and remained crouched on the ground. For a long time, he was unable to get up.

The painkillers seemed to have worn off; he felt pained and fatigued. In his blurred consciousness, he seemed to see his mother’s approaching figure, smiling and extending a hand to help him up.

He struggled forward, moving towards that silhouette that didn’t even exist, extending his thin, white hand.

What he thought were her fingertips turned out to be ice-cold air. Still, he stubbornly face the air and cried “mom” over and over.

But nobody answered him.

Translator: Hi, I’m sorry for the extremely infrequent updates. This is the last chapter I would be translating of Unspeakable, thank you for reading and enjoying this novel with me so far.