Chapter 57: He Resembles You

On the drive home, flushed with unnatural excitement, Yi Shiqi opened and closed his mouth several times, unable to hold back his words, and periodically glanced at the man behind the wheel.

Knowing that this fellow was about to burst from the silence, Xie Bo slowed down and murmured, "If you have something to ask, ask it."

"Who on earth was that man, what the hell?!"

Had they not been inside a moving car, Yi Shiqi might have leaped out of his seat. "I gave him a basic examination. How long has it been since he last saw the sun? His bodily functions have severely deteriorated, and his nutrition can't keep up at all."

"Can he still be cured?" Xie Bo asked calmly.

"Cured? Of course he can be cured. Physical issues are manageable, but the main problem is that his mental state is completely abnormal. So, who the hell is he, and how did he get himself into this state?"

"Lin Yiwei's older brother." Xie Bo did not hide it from him, explaining, "He has been Chi Xiyu's ghostwriter for over two years now, kept hidden away from the world all this time. From now on, once every three days, you will go and administer treatments to help his body return to normal physiological functions."

Xie Bo trusted Yi Shiqi; he was his dearest friend of many years. Yet, telling him all this so readily was not merely a matter of trust.

He needed Yi Shiqi's subsequent help—

"I need to find a way to rescue him."

Yi Shiqi froze for a moment, then suddenly understood Xie Bo's intention. "You... you want to get him out? How?"

"I don't have a plan yet, but I need you to ensure he remains completely unharmed."

Yi Shiqi pondered for a moment and said, "Of course I can help you with this, but—"

"Thanks," Xie Bo cut off his "but."

Yi Shiqi lacked Li Du's sense of propriety; whatever was on his mind simply had to be spoken aloud, as holding it in felt unbearable. "But Xie Bo, you're a man about to get engaged, yet your heart is still entirely set on your ex-girlfriend. To help her, you're willing to make an enemy of your future father-in-law. Never mind whether you're afraid of the Chi family, aren't you afraid of your father's wrath?"

"Afraid, of course I'm afraid." Steering with one hand, Xie Bo gazed straight ahead at the lampless, night-shrouded suburban road. "It took so much effort to get to where I am today and secure the management rights for Yue Mei Fresh Chain; how twisted would I have to be to deliberately offend the old man?"

"If this matter blows wide open, the Chi family will definitely have a person or two locked away. Not to mention the stock price plummeting, Yue Mei Fresh Chain will take a hit as well."

Xie Bo glanced at him sideways. "I only promised Yiwei I'd help her get her brother out, I never said I was going to bring down the Chi Group. I'm not an idiot."

Right now, his interests were deeply intertwined with the Chi Group, and he would never wish to shake his own foundation.

He had to devise a win-win strategy before he could touch the man in the basement.

Hearing Xie Bo put it this way, Yi Shiqi relaxed slightly and joked, "Looks like you haven't been completely blinded by a lovesick brain yet. Fine, I'm definitely in for this favor."

"I am not lovesick," Xie Bo said coldly.

Yi Shiqi smiled broadly at him. "Don't be stubborn, we all agree that you are."

"You? Who is 'we'?"

"Me and Brother Li Du, of course. We even placed a private bet on it."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Yi Shiqi clapped a hand over his mouth. "Damn it, I slipped up."

Li Du was going to kill him!

Since Xie Bo currently needed his help, he naturally wouldn't haggle with him over this, though there was no telling if he would settle accounts later.

With his vengeful personality...

"What did you bet on?" Xie Bo asked curiously.

"Uh, nothing."

"Spit it out." He left no room for refusal.

Yi Shiqi had no choice but to confess honestly: "We bet that on the day of your engagement, you would..."

"Would what?"

"If your Miss Lin loses it and creates a scene at the wedding, crying and begging you not to marry, Li Du said there's a good chance you'll elope with her."

Xie Bo let out a cold snort, and before he could speak, Yi Shiqi hastily pledged his loyalty—

"I immediately said, 'That's completely impossible! Is our Lord Bo the kind of person to let emotions cloud his judgment?!' So I bet a car with him that you'd definitely never be a runaway groom!"

Xie Bo gave him a sideways look. "Have him get your very first dream car ready."

"Got it! I'll tell him right now!"

Lowering his head to send a message, Yi Shiqi listened as the quiet car filled with the cheerful, continuous ringing of text message notifications.

"Li Du replied." Raising his phone to Xie Bo, Yi Shiqi smiled and said, "He said, 'Our Lord Bo is all talk, his mouth is the stubbornest part of him. We'll see who's right at the wedding.'"

Xie Bo let out a cold laugh. "That scenario won't happen. She won't be able to enter the wedding venue."

"Nobody said she had to be there in person. Li Du said she doesn't even need to show up; a single tearful pleading phone call from her will completely break Lord Bo's defenses."

"Tell him to get lost as far as he can."

Grinning, Yi Shiqi replied to the message.

Yet Xie Bo's mind couldn't help but wander, imagining if such a day were to actually arrive, right there at his wedding...

No, no, impossible. That girl would soften up, put on an act and fake her tears, wielding acting skills rivaling an Oscar winner, but she wouldn't genuinely shed tears of heartbreak over him.

Yet, what if she refused to let him go through with the engagement... What should he do then?

Xie Bo instantly extinguished the thought.

He had no idea what he would do.

The car sped relentlessly toward the DS Racing Club, where Li Du was also waiting.

Since he wasn't returning to Lamont Apartment during this period, Xie Bo was staying at the club, and Yi Shiqi had tagged along with him. Tomorrow, Xie Bo was taking him to meet Youhuai Chi to report on Lin Xie's condition. Therefore, the detailed aspects of his illness still needed to be deliberated and discussed.

After taking a relaxing hot shower, Xie Bo rubbed his damp short hair as he walked out of the bathroom.

Yi Shiqi and Li Du were playing billiards in the recreation room. Both were well over six feet tall with proportional builds. Li Du paid meticulous attention to fitness and maintenance, making his physique slightly stronger than Yi Shiqi's. Yi Shiqi was scholarly and delicate with fair skin, making the two of them quite pleasing to the eye when standing together.

Xie Bo went to the bar to pour himself a glass of mint mojito, and on impulse, took out his phone to message Lin Yiwei, telling her that he had seen Lin Xie.

On second thought, once she knew, she would definitely call to get to the bottom of everything.

Xie Bo didn't want to lie to her, but Lin Xie's current physical condition was abysmal; telling her now would only cause her needless worry.

It wouldn't hurt to wait until Yi Shiqi had given him some treatments first.

The rescue operation required careful planning. Xie Bo could not afford a falling-out with the Chi family; even if he were to rescue Lin Xie, he had to devise a method to cleanly extricate himself.

Perhaps he could orchestrate an "accident" during transit.

Half the drink was gone, his fingertips lightly brushing against the cold beads of condensation on the glass. Xie Bo found himself missing her.

The daytime was busy; only when night descended could his mind quiet down enough to focus purely on longing.

Suddenly remembering the Redmi phone, he felt a spark of interest. Opening a cabinet, he grabbed a compatible charger from a mess of cords and plugged the phone in.

In no time, the phone automatically powered on.

It was a very old model with no fingerprint scanner or passcode, and the SIM card had long since been deactivated. That didn't matter, though. When Xie Bo opened the photo gallery, he found it had been scrubbed completely clean, leaving nothing behind.

He had wanted to see pictures of Lin Yiwei from her childhood, but obviously, Lin Xie wouldn't make such a rookie mistake. If her pictures had remained on the phone, Youhuai Chi would have discovered Lin Yiwei's existence long ago.

The phone was pristine; he didn't find what he was looking for.

Xie Bo finished the mojito in one gulp, tossed the phone casually onto the table, and felt a wave of listlessness.

After a moment, as if remembering something, Xie Bo opened the card slot and saw that a phone card was still inserted. Easily locating the device's own number, he topped it up with five hundred yuan of airtime, and a signal appeared almost immediately.

Tapping into WeChat, he used SMS verification via the phone number to log into the app with ease.

No sooner had he logged in than a relentless cascade of "Ding-dong, ding-dong" WeChat notifications flooded in, never-ending, causing the phone to freeze up completely.

Xie Bo wasn't in a hurry. He set the phone down, mixed himself another drink, straddled a barstool with his long legs, and patiently waited for the WeChat notifications to finish their chiming chorus.

In the recreation room, Yi Shiqi and Li Du, who were playing billiards, both noticed the phone buzzing and vibrating continuously on the table. Dropping their cues, they walked curiously toward him.

After a while, the phone finally quieted down. Swiping the screen, Xie Bo was automatically redirected into the WeChat app.

Every single message originated from a single girl with a familiar little penguin avatar—

[Breeze]

At the same time, Xie Bo noticed Lin Xie's WeChat avatar: a stolid, cartoonish polar bear—a pair undeniably matched with that cartoon Antarctic little penguin as siblings.

The corners of Xie Bo's lips twitched upward; because he loved Lin Yiwei, even Lin Xie suddenly seemed rather cute.

His chest was filled with a sense of loving someone for the sake of another.

He had to find a way to get him out and restore his health.

"Aren't those couple avatars?" Yi Shiqi appeared behind him out of nowhere, studying the avatars of the two people in the chat window. "Pretty cute, actually."

Xie Bo's expression darkened slightly. Turning his chair around, he kicked Yi Shiqi straight in the knee. "Couple avatars my ass, they're siblings."

"Fine, fine, if you say they're siblings, they're siblings. Why resort to kicking?" Rubbing his knee, Yi Shiqi walked away sheepishly.

Xie Bo's gaze fell back onto the screen, zooming in on the two avatars to compare them closely.

It seemed... like a hand-drawn illustration.

A polar bear holding hands with a little penguin walking across a glacier, the image cropped right down the middle to serve as two separate avatars.

If someone called them matching couple's pictures, it made complete sense too.

A fierce wave of jealousy surged into his heart.

He had never even used a matching avatar with her.

At the same time, Xie Bo noticed their nicknames—

Breeze, Setting Sun.

Hesitating for a moment, Xie Bo tapped into the chat history he hadn't originally intended to pry into.

Looking at every single message Lin Yiwei had sent to Lin Xie over the past two years, dark currents gradually rose in the man's pitch-black eyes.

Completely oblivious to the shift in his mood, Yi Shiqi was rummaging through the nearby cabinet looking for a game controller. "Lord Bo, where did you put the controllers after playing with them last week?"

Li Du pulled him back, signaling him to shut up, and nodded toward Xie Bo with his eyes.

The man's expression had sunk to freezing point, his finger continuously scrolling across the phone screen. The more he read, the deeper and heavier the gloom in his eyes grew.

Sensing acutely that Xie Bo's complexion looked terrible, Yi Shiqi exchanged a glance with Li Du. The two of them turned and left the recreation room, leaving some private space for Xie Bo—

"Lord Bo, it's getting kind of late, we're going to turn in. We can discuss that matter tomorrow morning."

Xie Bo didn't answer, turning a deaf ear as his fingertips kept scrolling and searching, searching...

Finally, he saw that message—

Breeze: "I slept with a very handsome stranger."

Breeze: "I think when he wears glasses, he looks like you."

Breeze: "Brother, I miss you."

Breeze: "Brother, I dreamed of you, but when I woke up, you weren't by my side. I cried for a long time."

Breeze: "I used to have feelings for you, did you know?"

Breeze: "We were supposed to stay together forever, where on earth are you?"

"Ha." Xie Bo tossed the phone aside and suddenly burst out laughing.

He called himself Setting Sun, and she called herself Breeze.

So that was how it was.

In the darkness, Xie Bo sat alone in silence for a very long time, the trace of a smile frozen at the corners of his mouth.

Abruptly, he hurled the phone away, smashing it hard against the billiard table.

He had been played for a fool for so long, so very long; he had really believed her like an utter idiot.

"The one who falls in love first is left with no place to be buried."

Only at this moment, having experienced such bone-deep agony, did Xie Bo finally understand the saying.

From the very moment he offered up his heart, she had already pushed him into the endless abyss.

...

While walking her dog along the banks of the Thames, Lin Yiwei received a WeChat message sent by Chu Ang—

"I heard last month was your birthday; belated happy birthday. Also, how have you been lately?"

Seeing his message felt truly long-overdue.

Lin Yiwei did not reply.

She had a TikTok account where she shared her daily life, randomly shooting scenery or pets, and occasionally posting selfies. Not many people followed her, but she could see the footprints of profile visitors.

Chu Ang frequently came to snoop on her profile.

He thought she didn't know, but Lin Yiwei could tell the moment she clicked on his profile. The daily content was all about training and studying, and his profile picture was the adjacent police academy—any fool could guess his identity.

Since things had already been made clear between them, there was no need to speak further.

Chu Ang was merely an ordinary passerby who had brushed past her in life; there was no need to generate any intersection.

Aside from Chu Ang's frequent visits, her profile was also visited by Xie Bo. However, Xie Bo's account, named thin, made no attempt to conceal itself, dropping a like openly whenever he came by.

He would like every single piece of content she posted, usually within minutes of her uploading it.

He seemed to have set up special notification alerts; the moment she posted something, he would know instantly, always just liking without commenting, striking a pose of "His Majesty has already perused this."

This also led to the habit that every time Lin Yiwei posted a video, she would invariably refresh her profile from time to time to see if thin had liked it.

And every single time, Xie Bo never let her down.

Except for tonight.

She had posted a video of the moon, stars, and a little dog. After waiting ten minutes, she still hadn't received a like from Xie Bo.

Yet she saw that thin had visited her profile two minutes ago.

Lin Yiwei felt something was slightly amiss, though she couldn't quite put her finger on what.

With a lingering sense of unease in her heart, she walked back home.

A few days later, Chi Xiyu's solo art exhibition kicked off at the Starlight Art Hall. Through the online livestream room, Lin Yiwei saw those paintings—Lin Xie's paintings.

There were several abstract, heavily saturated works with no concrete, realistic subject matter. Possessing an exceptionally sharp sensitivity to color, the moment Lin Yiwei laid eyes on those paintings, she felt as though something had gripped her heart.

She could feel the frantic and agonizing emotions hidden behind the artwork, and she knew that Lin Xie's mental state was teetering on the edge of total collapse; only then could he have painted such works.

Unable to exercise any more restraint, she dialed Xie Bo's number.

Xie Bo answered, but didn't speak first, leaving only the sound of his low breathing audible.

Controlling her emotions, Lin Yiwei asked him cautiously, "Lord Bo, is there any news about Lin Xie? I'm not rushing you, but I just saw Chi Xiyu's art exhibition... You mentioned before that there would be news within a month or two. I just wanted to ask, have you seen him?"

Instead of answering, Xie Bo countered, "Why aren't you calling me 'brother' anymore?"

His voice was as low as ever, carrying a certain calm that made Lin Yiwei uneasy.

"Brother," she obediently called out.

Yet, the words Xie Bo spoke next plunged her straight down into the eighteenth level of hell—

"Lin Yiwei, I want you to tell me the truth: every time you held me in bed and called me 'brother'... who was it you were actually calling?"