Chapter 25 Chu Yan’s Biological Father

After Chu Yan returned to the company, he worked for days straight to catch up on the backlog from his absence.

'Yitai' was a business left by his great-grandmother, specializing in luxury goods like perfumes, jewelry, and haute couture. When his mother passed away, Chu Yan was still young, and it had been managed by his 'big dad' (the man he called father), who was also Chu Chenzhi's father, Chu Sheng. It was only after Chu Yan returned from studying abroad that he truly took over, which was about four or five years ago.

Chu Yan and Chu Chenzhi were half-brothers through their mother. After their mother, Wen Yan, ended her arranged marriage with Chu Sheng, she fell in love with a young artist more than ten years her junior, and gave birth to Chu Yan out of wedlock.

Chu Sheng's position kept Chu Yan's identity from being officially recognized, and he couldn't take his father's surname. Moreover, Chu Yan's biological father, Qi Qinghe, had never fulfilled his paternal duties after Wen Yan's death. It was Chu Sheng and Chu Chenzhi who took better care of him.

But it couldn't be denied that Qi Qinghe was still the closest family Chu Yan had.

That evening, after leaving the company, Chu Yan arrived at the abandoned factory where Qi Qinghe lived.

This factory was purchased by his mother, Wen Yan, when she fell in love with Qi Qinghe, to give him a place for his art. The land lease was sufficient for Qi Qinghe to live there in a drunken stupor until his dying day.

Qi Qinghe had graduated from art school, with a preference for scrap metal creations. If an uninformed person stumbled into this factory, they would only think it was a junkyard. But in Chu Yan's childhood, it had always been a sacred place he yearned for.

Chu Yan hadn't been there for a few months. The snow from a few days ago had mostly melted, adding fresh rust to the scrap metal outside.

The rancid smell of rust, which even the cold air couldn't mask, snapped Chu Yan back to reality after being "out of it" for two months.

The warehouse door was always left unlocked. Chu Yan pushed open the old iron door. The same few ceiling lights were still broken, but they still cast enough shifting light to illuminate the iron sculpture that Qi Qinghe was most proud of—it was the sculpture Qi Qinghe had made for Wen Yan when they first got together.

Several pots of climbing plants were placed at the base of the iron skirt, climbing up regardless of the season. The sculpture was covered in rust, but the soul of the creation wasn't dimmed; Wen Yan's living spirit was immortalized in this iron sculpture.

According to his eldest brother, Chu Chenzhi, their mother Wen Yan loved green most in life, especially green dresses.

Chu Yan faced his mother's iron sculpture and said, "Mom, I'm back."

The factory was filled not only with the smell of rust but also the scent of alcohol, getting stronger as he went deeper.

Chu Yan didn't even need to go inside to imagine the scene in Qi Qinghe's living room.

Afraid that he might drink himself to death, Chu Yan had always hired people to clean and cook for Qi Qinghe. Sometimes, when he had time, he would also personally do some small chores a son could do for his father.

Carrying the ingredients he brought, Chu Yan pushed open the living room door. What greeted him was the same mess as always, along with a strong stench of alcohol.

The heating in the room was sufficient. Qi Qinghe, wearing thin pajamas, lay drunk on the sofa. He lazily raised his eyelids at Chu Yan's arrival, his expression cold and devoid of any warmth, like he was looking at a stray cat or dog that had been hanging around.

Qi Qinghe turned over without saying anything.

Qi Qinghe had always kept long hair. Nearly fifty, he had not a single white hair at his temples, thick and black. Probably because he never went out and was never exposed to UV rays, his face showed little sign of aging.

With that face, he and Chu Yan looked seventy percent similar.

"Have you eaten?"

Qi Qinghe asked dazedly, "Where have you been?"

Chu Yan looked up. "Got sick, stayed in the hospital for a while."

"The people you hired haven't come for the past few days. Cook something, I'll starve if I don't eat soon."

Whether Chu Yan lived or died didn't faze Qi Qinghe. He himself was the same, often uttering the word "death" and occasionally trying to act on it. But Qi Qinghe always kept a measure of restraint in his self-destruction, always stopping halfway and letting himself be saved.

Long ago, Chu Yan thought those boundaries of restraint were for his sake, but now he understood: Qi Qinghe's character had a weak streak—he couldn't be completely ruthless with himself.

To deal with the torment time gave him, he transferred that torment onto Chu Yan, using their blood tie to make someone else suffer with him.

Was it obsession with Wen Yan?

In Chu Yan's view, not necessarily—it was more like an escape from a failed life.

Qi Qinghe said the people Chu Yan hired hadn't been there recently, so the kitchen hadn't been used for days. It was relatively clean. Chu Yan took off his coat, unbuttoned and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and started washing rice and vegetables.

Since the accident and hospitalization, the suppressed addiction inside him had been stirred awake. Chu Yan needed Qi Qinghe to inflict new wounds on him, so that he could calm the anxiety that came with the addiction.

He felt that he and Qi Qinghe were both ill.

But Chu Yan's illness was purer—he didn't have a lost lover as the cause. Without an anchor, he could only find it in Qi Qinghe.

Chu Yan had always been handy and cooked very well. But at the stove, there was no interpretation of the warmth of life; it was more like a mechanical routine—to prevent Qi Qinghe from starving to death, and to let them both have a meal that tasted like sawdust.

Three dishes and a soup were quickly on the table. Chu Yan cleared the table and set out two bowls of rice. Qi Qinghe lazily got up, bringing a wave of alcohol smell.

During the meal, Chu Yan observed Qi Qinghe. He seemed thinner, probably because he hadn't had Chu Yan to torment for two months. The stubble on his chin was about a week old and hadn't been cleaned. Luckily, his face was handsome enough that it didn't look sloppy enough to ruin Chu Yan's appetite.

"There's a new batch of iron sculptures. Send them to the exhibition hall for me when you have time."

Chu Yan had already seen them when he entered. With his aesthetic sense for art, he couldn't find a theme in those scrap metals—they were the random inspirations of a drunk banging away. Sending them to the exhibition hall would cost money, and the old batch would have to be transported somewhere unseen by Qi Qinghe and disposed of, otherwise the artist would think no one in the world got him.

Get his pretentious art.

After all, Wen Yan had been dead for over twenty years. No matter how deep the love, how could it last that long?

Chu Yan was fine being his tool and remained silent. The works Qi Qinghe had previously sold were all bought by Chu Yan through proxies. As for what the buyers did with the works, he couldn't control.

Even he, as a son, couldn't connect with them, let alone strangers.

"Okay, I'll have people come over on the weekend."

Qi Qinghe finished his bowl of rice, his eyes growing even more hazy. He pointed to the empty boxes in the corner. "The liquor is gone. Have some delivered."

Chu Yan always gave him what he wanted. "Still drinking this, or do you want something else?"

"Whatever, just pick something."

"Alright."

Qi Qinghe never ate much, and he didn't like soup. Chu Yan scooped the remaining rice from the rice cooker into his own bowl and ate it with the dishes. The soup, barely touched, went straight down the drain.

Washing dishes was hard on his hands, and Chu Yan was allergic to rubber, so he couldn't wear gloves. But since he would be staying here a while and couldn't stand the mess, he frowned and cleaned up the kitchen.

The rest of the living area needed work too—the sheets had to be changed, empty bottles thrown away, the floor mopped. These were all tasks that could have been delegated, but whenever Chu Yan came here, an invisible force grabbed him and forced him to do them. If he just sat there, he would become anxious and feel the urge to talk to Qi Qinghe.

Chu Yan knew what he probably wanted, but luckily, practice made perfect—he could always suppress those thoughts before they surfaced.

Thus, an obsession was formed. By keeping constantly busy, he sealed off any escape that could save him.

If one day he really wanted to end that obsession, there could be no external help. Qi Qinghe must know he was the only one who could fix things, but he was not only stingy—he also had the cruelty to drag Chu Yan along with him into hell.

Chu Yan had tried to save himself, to save Qi Qinghe, even to let go of this one-way father-son drama, but the other would threaten with death.

He knew he was vulnerable to that.

He also knew that the other man had no fatherly love for him at all. Qi Qinghe needed companionship—needed a deformed monster that could make noise by his side in these sunless days. This monster could not smile in the sunlight, nor could it break free from his control.

Chu Yan had tried a few times, grown tired and weary, and stopped struggling.

"Replace the old housekeeper. Find someone smarter."

"How smart is 'smart'?"

"He secretly sold the materials in my warehouse as scrap. What an idiot."

Who's the real idiot here? "Alright, I'll make sure the new housekeeper knows to be careful."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Not to do anything unnecessary."

"Besides that, it's best to find a mute."

"I'll try."

Chu Yan stuffed the used bedsheets into the washing machine and then opened the window for ventilation. The factory was on the outskirts, with almost no lights around. The darkness wrapped in cold air crept into the living room, making Qi Qinghe, who hadn't gone out for a long time, shiver.

"If you think it's hot, go outside. Why open the window?"

"I don't feel hot. It just stinks."

"Don't beat around the bush to insult me. I didn't ask you to come. If you're not happy, get the hell out."

An empty liquor bottle flew over with the end of his words, but its aim was poor. It brushed past Chu Yan's leg, hit the wall, and shattered into a mess of glass shards.

Instead, Chu Yan opened the window to its fullest, then turned around to pick up the broom. He swept the pieces into the trash can and put several extra bags inside. "I just got back to the company, and I'll be very busy lately, so I won't come around much. When you run out of alcohol, I'll have someone deliver more."

"Get lost. You're too noisy."

Chu Yan left the overly heated living room. The "new works" that had stood out prominently in the empty factory under the lights were neatly placed on display racks. It was only in front of these scraps of metal that Qi Qinghe revealed he wasn't a completely useless wreck.

Rust covered them, highlighting the decay and gloom that seemed about to burst out from the veins of the iron pieces, almost capable of killing a person who lives in the sunlight.

Having been steeped in these toxins for so long, how could Chu Yan fail to see what Qi Qinghe was trying to express?

He just didn't want to.

The resistance in his heart right now was even stronger.

The warmth from that "lost time," through the corridor of memory, broke into this gloomy, sealed, abandoned factory.

Chu Yan took down an iron sculpture from the display rack.

What about Dr. Chi?

Could a person like that understand the even more rotten colors within these scraps of metal?