Escape
“I… I’m not me.” Su Zesui’s gaze was unfocused, his lips murmuring the same words over and over. “Not me… not me…”
In the hospital’s consultation room, during more than ten minutes of conversation, as the questions dug deeper into his psyche, Su Zesui gradually came to understand himself—and recognize a terrifying truth:
He wasn’t the Su Zesui of this world.
For the past month since his transmigration, his subconscious had been avoiding this fact.
Because he had lost his memory. Not only did he lack the past memories of this body, he had also lost many from before his transmigration. And since this body looked exactly like his original one, he hadn’t felt any glaring sense of alienation. He didn’t think of himself as “not him”—but as “him.”
But when the psychiatrist began asking about things he had never personally experienced, he finally realized—this body wasn’t his, and that past wasn’t his either.
He had never been arrogant or basked in glory, never bullied classmates, never flipped a car at the racing club…
Those were all experiences of the body’s original owner.
So… if he kept following that line of thought—
His parents had died when he was young, so they weren’t his parents. Then what about his big brother? And… Mr. Gu?
He wasn’t the rightful owner of this happiness—he was just a thief who had stolen someone else’s life.
His heart twisted with despair and guilt. All the way back, his mind was clouded. He was terrified of his big brother and Mr. Gu discovering the truth—he couldn’t even imagine how they would react.
He wanted to keep pretending he knew nothing, just like before. But his inherently honest nature wouldn’t let him.
And when he heard Gu Yilan say he liked him—he completely broke.
“You… you like the wrong person,” Su Zesui said, shaking his head in collapse. “I’m not some high-spirited person, and I… I’m not your equal in status.”
Gu Yilan replied, “Why must you be high-spirited? Why must you be my equal?”
That one question left Su Zesui stunned. He didn’t even have the energy to cry anymore, pulling himself out of the whirlpool of emotions to think about the question rationally.
Gu Yilan reached out, cupping the boy’s tear-stained face, gently wiping the tears from his cheeks with his thumb. In a soft voice, he said, “Why do you think you’re not you? Tell me.”
Su Zesui himself felt like he’d been spouting nonsense earlier, but he hadn’t expected someone to listen so seriously—someone willing to understand why he had said such things.
Yet he wasn’t ready to spill everything, so he could only give a small hint. “You… like what you see on the surface.”
Gu Yilan asked, “Then what is the real you like?”
Su Zesui lowered his head. “Not very good.”
He twisted his fingers together, a cold sweat already forming in his palms.
He wasn’t good enough. He was timid—he needed Mr. Gu to protect him every time he went out. His abilities were average—he wasn’t some star pupil in the doctoral program at A University. He was sensitive—unlike the original owner, who had been bold, carefree, and flamboyant.
After a few seconds of silence, the man said, “But I happen to like this ‘not very good’ you. What am I supposed to do about that?”
A little self-conscious, Su Zesui muttered, “But there are people with better grades than me, who look better than me, who have better personalities… and who come from better families.”
Gu Yilan chuckled softly and pinched his soft, pale cheeks. “Then, since there’s always someone in the world who’s the absolute ‘best,’ does that mean everyone should only like that one person?”
Su Zesui was at a loss for words.
Gu Yilan asked him, “If such a person suddenly appeared in front of you, would you instantly like him?”
Su Zesui shook his head.
He was afraid of everyone in the world, and would never grow fond of anyone except his family and Mr. Gu—no matter how good that person was.
“Su Zesui, feelings can’t be measured in numbers,” Gu Yilan said. “I like you—for all of you. A soul that matches mine is worth far more than being better than someone else in one specific way.”
A sudden warmth bloomed in Su Zesui’s heart, like a balloon that had been drifting aimlessly with no place to land, finally being held securely in someone’s arms.
There was no need to feel inferior, no need for endless comparisons—he only needed to be himself.
Still, he said, “I… I can’t give you an answer yet. I need to think about it.”
“That’s fine. I can wait,” Gu Yilan replied. “I’ll just keep pursuing you.”
After that, silence settled over the bedroom—not the sharp, tense kind, but a quiet filled with tenderness and lingering warmth, calming and comforting.
Outside was noise; inside, they leaned into each other’s gentleness, the moment almost dreamlike.
After a long pause, Su Zesui fiddled with his fingers before asking, “Did you… know me before?”
“How long ago do you mean?”
“Before we met at the club.”
“I’d heard of you,” Gu Yilan said after thinking. “But I wouldn’t say I knew you.”
Su Zesui’s eyes lit up. “Then… what did you think of me back then?”
Gu Yilan thought for a moment. “A rather spoiled kid.”
Su Zesui grabbed the quilt beside him, pulled it up over his head, and let his gaze—unsure where else to rest—fall on Gu Yilan’s hands.
His fingers were long and well-defined, with faint calluses at the tips, like finely carved works of art radiating a cool, resolute aura. But when held, they felt real, warm, and deeply reassuring.
A dull ache welled up in Su Zesui’s chest, though he couldn’t say why. He wanted to ask whether the “past” him or the “present” him was better in Gu Yilan’s eyes—but the question felt strange.
In the end, he didn’t ask. Instead, in a barely audible voice, he said, “If I don’t agree to be with you, and I go somewhere far away where we never see each other again… what would you do?”
Gu Yilan smiled helplessly. “No way. Would you really be that cruel to me?”
But when he saw the boy’s tense expression, clearly not joking, Gu Yilan’s smile faded, and he answered seriously, “Of course I’d come find you.”
“You can’t. You won’t be able to,” Su Zesui shook his head.
He didn’t know why he had traveled to this world, but he feared that one day he’d wake up back in his old university dorm, separated from Mr. Gu by time and space, unable to reach him no matter what he tried.
Gu Yilan frowned, fingers tapping the bed as he thought. After a long moment, he said, “You’ll be fine. And I will never lose you.”
Su Zesui couldn’t help covering his face, shoulders trembling.
“Are you giving me your last words?” Gu Yilan’s deep voice rumbled as he patted the boy’s back. “Then here’s mine: I only like you, and I like all of your soul. Even if you leave, I’ll find you no matter what. Will that do?”
He ruffled Su Zesui’s hair. “And you—will you be brave?”
His words weren’t pointed at any specific thing, more like they came from a place of deep insight, but Su Zesui felt they struck right at his heart.
He nodded firmly, then rummaged through his bag by the bed and handed Gu Yilan his voice recorder.
Seeing the clear eyes filled with expectation, Gu Yilan instantly understood. He took the recorder and pressed the record button.
“Suisui, be strong. And be a little braver.”
After repeating his earlier words, Gu Yilan paused briefly before adding, “God may grip you by the throat, but He won’t let you suffocate.”
His voice was steady and magnetic, slow and unhurried, each word resonating like the deep strings of a cello—thought-provoking, yet quietly strengthening.
After that exchange, Su Zesui felt much calmer.
He took back his recorder and held out his hand. “Now… I’ll record one for you.”
Gu Yilan’s own recorder was in the first drawer of the nightstand, replacing a folding knife once stained with blood many times.
He reached over and hooked it out.
Looking at him seriously, Su Zesui spoke into it: “Mr. Gu, you have to be strong too. And don’t hurt yourself again.”
When the recorder beeped to signal the end, he handed it back.
Gu Yilan put the voice recorder away, then took out a phone from another drawer. He added to the boy, “Be moderately strong. In your current condition, it’s not a good idea to go out. Stay home and rest for the next couple of days.”
“What’s that?” Su Zesui pointed at the phone in his hand.
“Your old phone,” Gu Yilan said, powering it back on. “Familiar things stimulate brain activity and help with memory recovery. I don’t have much here that you’d recognize, so you can look through your old photos.”
Su Zesui took the phone, overwhelmed with mixed feelings. His voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t want to remember. And I can’t.”
Gu Yilan’s tone was calm, without a trace of blame. “Why?”
“I…”
Su Zesui thought for a long, long time before finally clenching his fists and saying, “I’m going to try my best to be brave.”
Gu Yilan smiled quietly, not asking what had taken him so long to decide. Instead, he simply said, “Good.”
. . . . .
Two days later, Su Zesui could finally manage to leave the master bedroom on his own.
The moment he stepped out the door, a vivid red bouquet of tulips was held up to his face.
“The tulip’s flower language—rebirth,” Gu Yilan said. “You can take it outside. Like you, it needs the sun.”
Su Zesui let out a soft “Wow,” his heart brimming with joy as he took the fragrant bouquet and lowered his head to inhale its scent. “I like it.”
“Mhm.” Gu Yilan’s Adam’s apple bobbed slightly as he shifted his gaze away without showing much expression. “Today also happens to be Qixi1.”
Su Zesui liked them so much that he couldn’t bear to set them down, even while eating breakfast, and ended up carrying them all the way to the passenger seat of the sports car.
“Brother, what are you researching in the lab?” Su Zesui tilted his head, hiding half his face behind the large bouquet, secretly watching the man drive with focus.
“I told you before,” Gu Yilan said. “AdS/CFT duality, and things like curved spacetime in quantum field theory.”
“The experiment you had me do before—is that part of your research too?”
“That was a relatively basic experiment. Anyone working in quantum mechanics research knows more or less about it.”
Su Zesui felt his heartbeat grow a little erratic. He exhaled softly, trying to sound as if he were merely curious. “Th-then… do parallel universes really exist?”
Thankfully, Gu Yilan showed no unusual reaction to the question and patiently explained, “Hilbert space is a hypothesis proposed based on the results of those strange experiments, and its existence happens to imply the existence of parallel universes. But many in academia think it’s unscientific—just a hypothesis.”
Su Zesui’s heartbeat was in his throat. His voice tightened. “Do you believe it?”
Without looking away from the road or pausing to think, Gu Yilan replied, “I do.”
His candid answer startled Su Zesui for a few seconds. After taking a moment to collect himself, he cautiously asked again, “What are parallel universes like?”
“In theory, every quantum collapse produces a new parallel universe. So there are countless universes. Some are almost identical, some are vastly different.”
Gu Yilan glanced at the boy peeking from behind the tulips, lost in thought. “For example, right now—in one parallel universe you’re holding roses, and in another you’re holding sunflowers. Aside from the flowers in your arms, those two worlds are exactly the same.”
Su Zesui’s curiosity was hooked. “And what about the ones that are really different?”
“In those, I might not exist. Or A University might not exist. Or even humans might not exist at all.”
Su Zesui gave a soft “Oh,” and murmured, “Then… can you travel through time and space?”
“I’m still researching. In the future—maybe.”
Because of an unexpected worsening of Su Zesui’s mental condition, his previously-progressing desensitization therapy had to start over from scratch. For now, he needed rest and to avoid people.
Before reaching the 10th floor of the lab building, Gu Yilan messaged Gong Chuang, telling him to get the students lingering in the hallway back into the lab.
So, on the way to his private office, bouquet in hand, Su Zesui didn’t run into a single person.
“Isn’t your exam in ten days?” Gu Yilan asked as he unlocked the door, holding the boy’s schoolbag.
Su Zesui nodded, tugged at the man’s arm, and pouted. “I didn’t do much the last two days because I wasn’t feeling well. There’s only one question I can’t figure out. Brother, teach me.”
Gu Yilan leaned in. “Which question?”
After explaining the problem to him, Gu Yilan gave a couple more reminders before heading toward Laboratory 1004.
The door to 1004 was open. Gong Chuang was leaning against the doorframe, playing on his phone while waiting.
Seeing Gu Yilan approach, Gong Chuang looked him over curiously from head to toe and said, “Does it take more than ten minutes just to see someone off? Don’t get too attached, Gu Yilan.”
“Explained a problem to him—took a bit of time,” Gu Yilan said, expression unchanged.
Gong Chuang’s face said “Oh, really?” He squinted with a teasing smile. “Just explained a problem? You smell like flowers, you know. What were you two up to?”
Gu Yilan couldn’t be bothered to respond. He stepped inside without turning back and warned, “He’s not in the right mental state—on the verge of breaking down. He can’t be provoked. Don’t say things like that to him for now.”
Behind him, Gong Chuang shrugged and muttered under his breath, just loud enough for himself to hear, “With you like this, how would I even dare talk to him?”
The quantum experiment that required both of them wasn’t particularly complicated, they finished it within an hour.
Due to a change in the equipment, they needed to move to another lab for a different experiment.
“You go ahead. I still have some experiment data to finish copying—almost done, almost done,” Gong Chuang said, scribbling furiously. “Can you help me make the booking too?”
Hearing this, Gu Yilan instinctively patted his pocket.
But to his surprise, the pocket that should have held his campus card—the one that could book the lab—was empty.
Gu Yilan paused, frowning in thought.
He had a good memory, and soon, like replaying a film in his mind, he recalled the last time he had seen the campus card—
He had swiped it to open the office door for the boy and, out of habit, was about to put it back in his pocket.
At that moment, the boy had tugged on his arm, saying he’d been upset a few days ago over a single question he couldn’t solve. As always putting the boy’s concerns first, Gu Yilan immediately checked on Su Zesui’s mental state, leaving the card on the desk in the process…
Gu Yilan narrowed his eyes.
Somewhere in the time he spent reviewing the problem and writing steps on scratch paper, the campus card had vanished from the desk. That was why he had forgotten about it when he left.
“What’s wrong with you? I just asked you to help me book the lab—why do you look so grim?!” Gong Chuang, having finished copying the data, ran up anxiously, unsure what to make of Gu Yilan’s expression.
Gu Yilan pressed his thin lips together, quickened his pace, and walked out without a word.
“Hey! Are you going the wrong way? Room 1009 is over there,” Gong Chuang called, pointing down the hallway. Seeing that the man ignored him, he was bewildered—but he hurried to catch up anyway.
Gu Yilan’s face was like frost as he reached his office door. He quickly entered the password on the door’s access panel and pushed the door open in one motion.
The private office was silent. Competition books were spread across the large desk, beside them lay an uncapped black pen and a half-eaten bag of chips. A single glance confirmed there was no sign of the campus card.
A gentle breeze drifted in, passing through the quiet rest area and restroom, carrying the heavy summer air.
After a long while, no one responded to his sudden intrusion.
Clearly, the place had been abandoned long ago.
Gu Yilan’s dark eyes narrowed slightly, and he unconsciously ground his molars.
- 七夕 = Qixi Festival = Chinese Valentine’s Day, a traditional festival celebrating love and romance. ↩︎
“A soul that matches mine” don’t mind me im just sobbing over here