Back then, I overlooked how much it affected Ye Xi. I only wanted to take advantage of the situation, to claim him for myself when he was at his lowest. Every time I think about how greedy I was, a rush of bittersweet feelings rises in me—just like my childhood, filled with both joy and sorrow. This has left me with a face that smiles innocently while also bearing all the weight of worldly experience.
I wanted to possess Ye Xi completely, just as desperately as I wanted to create work that everyone would admire. But as that urgency and passion faded, I found happiness—yet I was no longer young. Only later did I realize that I was extremely selfish and arrogant. But then again, aren't most people whom the world idolizes like that? A person who no longer pursues, who loses the desire to express, gradually loses their sense of self. In other words, they grow old.
When you're young, you can enjoy the thrill of desire—but you also have to endure the torment it brings, and beware the blindness it causes.
The autumn rain fell all day. Ye Xi disappeared again. Piles of new contracts were waiting to be signed. I had to return to Taiwan to handle the remaining work. A year after getting married, to better care for my grandmother, I rented a small office building next to the old family home in Taipei. Its exterior was entirely black, resembling the ancestral house. This was now my company. Aunt Lijuan had stopped working after the wedding. Ah Long was still with me. I had finally broken free of Zhang Hongsheng and Song Yaowen.
Bai Jingrui was no longer around either. She must have heard about Ye Xi, and was deliberately avoiding me, perhaps to avoid any suspicion.
This gave me the illusion that I had control over everything. I wasn't in a hurry to contact Ye Xi, nor to deal with emotional matters, or even to think about the company's future. I buried myself in the recording studio every day, composing countless melodies, testing different arrangements, sliding tracks around aimlessly—luxuriously wasting time as I explored different musical possibilities. At that time, everything seemed within my grasp. With no familial constraints and no company interference, I briefly tasted freedom.
I worked tirelessly, day and night. The physical exhaustion was one thing, but the mental depletion from intense focus left me feeling empty once each phase was completed. That emptiness was easy to fill. I often called up friends for drinks, got drunk, then spent nights in different hotels with familiar girls. At first, I felt it was degenerate. Later, I thought—when I reach middle age and become a washed-up artist—I'd stop, and naturally transition to a quiet life. Eventually, I stopped questioning the morality of it. It became like a lullaby in times of mania, or a cigarette when I was drained.
It must have been the same for Ye Xi.
Sometimes, in bed with someone else, I missed the guilt that had long become unfamiliar. That kind of guilt was strongest when I first started dating Ye Xi. And it was that intense guilt that made me feel what it meant to truly love someone. Love is born from a moment of reflection during the act of wrongdoing—it's a kind of pity born from guilt. It is the act of sinning again after breaking a taboo.
But now, I didn't even have guilt anymore. Everything had become dull and tasteless.
All I had left were memories of Ye Xi. With every unfamiliar body I touched, I replayed those memories in my mind.
It must have been the same for Ye Xi.
"Hey, I heard that pianist you used to date has been having a rough time lately," said a striking girl.
Her eyes were lined with black glittery shadow that had somehow stayed perfect through all our friction.
"…" I didn't want to respond.
One thing about escorts—they're shameless. This one, in particular, was bold—maybe because she held some status in the entertainment industry.
"Aww, are you mad? You were just calling me 'sweetie' earlier," she said, rubbing against my chest.
Suddenly, I felt nothing but emptiness. I got up, put my clothes on, and moved on to someone else.
When I was young, I was so immature—only interested in excitement. I always believed that the loneliness brought on by desire had nothing to do with love. I used many people to fill that void. This tendency was especially strong during his most desperate times. In Ye Xi's downfall, I was silently bearing the pressure along with him. I chose to cope with my stress and loneliness by drifting between different bodies. So, at the very moment when Ye Xi might have needed me most, I was too caught up in proving I could take responsibility for him, and failed to be there by his side.
Even when I was with someone else, I kept thinking about how I could help him. This time, I finally got to make the decisions. And with that agency came the reality that I alone had to bear all the risks.
Three months passed, and I was still in no rush to contact Ye Xi. Though Dai Yanzhi's words would sometimes resurface in my mind—I couldn't imagine how he comforted Ye Xi during his hardest days—but those things no longer mattered. In all the history of Ye Xi's relationships that I knew, I had come to one conclusion: Ye Xi only ever loved one man—and that man was me.
Three months later, after long deliberation, I once again made a unilateral decision—keeping it from the company, from my family, even from Bai Jingrui herself—and announced our divorce.
The news caused an uproar across society. But that was the part I could shoulder for Ye Xi.
What I didn't anticipate was how quickly things spiraled out of control, pulling me into the center of the chaos.
Bai Jingrui went on a rampage online, exposing a string of truths. Of course, none of them had anything to do with Ye Xi.
For a time, public opinion exploded.
I had chosen her as my wife because she always carried herself with dignity. But after that incident, I realized she was nothing like I'd imagined. Maybe she was resentful, maybe she had fallen on hard times and needed my money—whatever the reasons, they led to the mess we were in. Her part in this is the one I least want to revisit.
Bai Jingrui pushed my hidden relationship with Ye Xi into the spotlight. At the same time, both my career and Ye Xi's were dragged into the mud. Looking back now, I still feel a strange sweetness—we stood together at the peak, and we fell together into the abyss. In the end, I did share it all with him.
But the terrible thing was—I had completely misjudged the price of it all.
Ye Xi was stripped of all public positions, and even his commercial activities came to a halt. He was no longer the young man standing at the summit, clutching a gleaming trophy. His privacy was paraded through the streets for all to see, his mistakes judged as sins by the public. When his worldly desires were laid bare to the masses, the transcendence expected of an artist shattered completely. Many described him as hypocritical, but I knew him best—when had he ever claimed to be virtuous?
He loved good food, was fascinated by everything new in society, craved intense love, and enjoyed sex—he wanted to try everything.
If there were a way for art to be dressed up in flattery, he had never made use of that privilege.
To me, all those who cursed him were simply too good at romanticizing others. As for the way he trampled on others' dignity—that's just a common reality in this Darwinian world. He had enjoyed elite social status since a young age. Many people loved him—and loved his class. That class granted him power and prestige, and he accepted it as a given. He saw himself as superior, and that's not entirely blameworthy. It made him similar to most people, really.
Meanwhile, I was caught in a divorce lawsuit, and forced to pause all work. Thanks to Bai Jingrui's public revelations, my public image collapsed too. All business was suspended, and the financial losses were massive.
Amid the chaos, I called Bai Jingrui.
"What exactly do you want?"
"A respectable marriage and a stable source of income," she said flatly on the other end of the line.
"Didn't you always claim to be an independent woman? Didn't you say you wanted to prove to your father that your marriage was a tragedy from beginning to end?" I was furious. "Now I've initiated the divorce—haven't we both gotten what we wanted? What are you trying to say now?"
"Yes, I did want to use this failed marriage to get back at my father. But I've realized—he never cared about me or my mother to begin with. There's no point in trying to get revenge on someone who feels nothing for me. He's seriously ill now. He already transferred most of his assets to the public, and the rest he's dividing among his mistress and illegitimate child. My mother and I get nothing. Then you suddenly announce our divorce without even discussing it with me. You know that our mutual use of each other was based on negotiation. Now tell me—how am I supposed to trust you?"
"Can you just say what you really mean?"
"I want money."
"Why didn't you talk to me about it beforehand? Money can always be negotiated. Did you really have to let things spiral to this point?" I suddenly felt like mocking her. "Don't you have your own income? You're a PhD, after all—literary and art criticism, attending conferences… surely you can bluff your way into earning something?"
"Bluff?" She didn't understand.
"Sweet-talk, deceive," I explained in Taiwanese.
"It's not that kind of era anymore. Do you think art can make money?" she said, disappointed.
"Don't think I don't know your family connections could still get you plenty of projects." I could only feel she was lying to me.
"Ever since Grandpa passed away, the family's been in decline. You know that. Otherwise, why would our two families have pushed so hard for this marriage?"
"So what you're saying is, it wasn't because you and He Tiantian were incompatible, or couldn't get along. You married me purely for money?"
"Money was part of it." Her earlier self-assurance was gone, her voice now barely audible. Then she suddenly turned it around on me:"Don't act like you're so noble. Didn't you reject Ye Xi back then because you were afraid of ruining your reputation?"
"With Grandma in the condition she was in at the time, how could I have put her at ease without marrying you?"
"Excuses. You didn't have to actually marry me. We could've just put on a show." She scoffed. "Don't think I forgot—on our wedding night, you wanted to sleep with me. Don't act like I don't know you wanted a child."
"You—" I wanted to hang up right then and there. But strangely, I also valued this rare conversation. I had no choice but to keep playing along."Just tell me—how much do you want?"
"I'll have my lawyer draft an agreement. I'll send it to you."
She hung up, leaving me alone to face the sharp questions she had thrown at me.
That unbearable feeling—the guilt buried deep within—that I could hardly face, dissolved in a brief moment of silence. All that remained was a powerful longing: Let it all end soon. I want to leave with Ye Xi.
I called Ye Xi, but he didn't answer. For the entire final quarter of that year, I heard nothing from him—neither online nor through any of my private channels. He had vanished, as if into thin air. I tried contacting Dai Yanzhi, and every friend we had once shared, but beyond the stories of what he had gone through, I could get no word of his condition. All I heard was that he had done a lot behind the scenes to ease the punishment he was facing from the authorities.
Li Li told me Ye Xi had probably figured out who was behind the move against him. Under Dai Yanzhi's persuasion, Ye Xi backed down and quietly submitted. He pulled every string he could—found friends at the TV station, old acquaintances of Wang Zhen, even contacts in overseas cultural departments. Eventually, he managed to have a meal with the Music Association and the Minister, delivering many gifts in the process. Li Li didn't tell me the details of what happened at that dinner—he only said five words: "Ye Xi was wronged."
I couldn't imagine it. With Ye Xi's temper, he had never hesitated to openly challenge any rising star or powerful figure. Now he could bow to someone who had harmed him? I guessed that the reason he didn't want to see me was because he didn't want me to witness him in such a pitiful state. He didn't want me to see him grinning submissively, bowing deeply—only to still end up in ruin. He was once the favored son of heaven, a national pride. Now he was cast aside like an old shoe, a laughingstock to society. He didn't believe I could still love him like I once did.
But now, I too was in the same position as him. This, now, was the deepest declaration of love I could offer.
And in the voices of others, I still heard whispers of what Ye Xi and I once had—that tiny fraction of our sweetness that the public had seen—spoken of once more.
They said: "Ye Xi and Yan Feng must be real."
They said: "Ye Xi and Yan Feng rose to the top together, and fell into the mud together. They must be together."
Looking back now, I think—I should thank Bai Jingrui.