Baby
Su Zesui fled in panic, his eyes darting around, legs weak and trembling. He almost tripped on the stairs, but luckily caught himself on the railing—otherwise, he might have tumbled down from the upper floor.
By the time he finally reached the second floor and pushed open the study door, gasping for breath, his only hope was dashed.
The study was empty.
Sunlight streamed into the room, the curtains swaying gently in the breeze. On the large desk lay a stack of open documents. It seemed the study’s owner had stepped out temporarily. Everything in the room quietly waited for him to return.
Yet an inexplicable thought surfaced in Su Zesui’s mind:
——That person would never come back.
This thought came with the certainty of some dormant memory speaking directly to him.
——That man… he had left without a second thought. He abandoned you, ignored you. You would never find him again.
Whether it was the world’s magnetic field or something else, the past few days had stirred far too many memories in Su Zesui’s mind.
Most of these memories were fragmented and unresolved, saturated with heavy, negative emotions. Loneliness, above all, consumed him, drowning him in its depths—the more he struggled, the deeper he sank.
Sometimes, it even made him lose control of his own body.
Just like now. He wanted to turn and run out of this place that caused him such inexplicable pain, but no matter how hard his soul tried, his body remained frozen.
Finally, it was the click of the door opening that snapped him back to reality.
Su Zesui stiffly turned his head and saw the man entering with a cup in hand. Instinctively, he stepped back in fear.
Instinct doesn’t lie.
In that instant, he absolutely did not want to see Gu Yilan.
Seeing the boy react this way, Gu Yilan stopped, holding the glass in place. He didn’t move forward and showed no emotion on his face—just unusually calm as he asked, “Did you see something?”
But Su Zesui, still panicked and full of self-doubt, didn’t hear a word of it.
——Why would he be afraid of Mr. Gu? Mr. Gu was always so good to him… What had really happened in another parallel universe? What exactly was their relationship?
At that moment, a sudden knock on the door broke his thoughts.
Feng Chengwen poked his head in, looking at Gu Yilan inside the room. He stammered, “Th-that… the game’s about to start. I just came to ask if Su Zesui still wants to play.”
Su Zesui had bolted off suddenly. Feng Chengwen froze for a moment, then ran after him. Unfortunately, Su Zesui was too fast, and after a corner, he lost sight of him.
Later, when he saw a tall, well-built man enter the room, he dared to follow—and sure enough, he found Su Zesui.
“I asked Suisui to let me know before the game started,” Gu Yilan said, slightly nodding, taking responsibility upon himself. “I have a few words I need to tell him. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
The man’s tone was polite yet distant, his voice low and magnetic, carrying an innate aura of command. He gave off an air of refinement and sophistication, the type who had clearly received excellent upbringing.
And he was exceptionally handsome.
Feng Chengwen blushed slightly. “O-okay, no problem.”
Once his classmate left, Gu Yilan approached the boy, setting the glass down on the desk.
“Feeling unwell?” Gu Yilan asked.
Emotional recovery required a continuous, quiet environment. After being interrupted twice, Su Zesui had only managed to regain half of his soul from the emotional black hole.
Hearing the man ask this, he felt even more wronged. “Unhappy.”
Gu Yilan remained silent for a few seconds before asking, “Why? Can you tell brother?”
If he weren’t focused on research, Gu Yilan would make an excellent psychological counselor—calm, observant, patient, and skilled at guiding others gently.
Step by step, he led Su Zesui to lower his psychological defenses. The boy drooped his eyes and said, “Before… there were a lot of unhappy things. I don’t want to think about them anymore.”
Those who had hurt him, the truths hidden behind the fog… he didn’t want to know.
He was afraid that waiting for him would only be more bad news.
“Then don’t think about it,” Gu Yilan said.
The man’s decisiveness surprised Su Zesui, and he hesitated, feeling a little guilty. “B-but… don’t you want to know?”
“I wanted to know before because I was curious about the bond between us, not to use it for parallel universe research,” Gu Yilan said, pressing a gentle kiss to the boy’s forehead. “If you don’t want to know anymore, then what’s the point of my trying to find out?”
Su Zesui puffed out his pale cheeks and said absentmindedly, “It’s not something good… I don’t want to know.”
“All right. Take a few deep breaths, then go play some games?” Gu Yilan suggested.
His words were restrained and careful, stopping just short of prying. Though it seemed indifferent, they perfectly avoided any topic that might reopen old wounds.
Sometimes, the best way to escape negative emotions is complete avoidance.
Once Su Zesui resolved not to recall the past and took several deep breaths under Gu Yilan’s guidance, he felt much better.
Yet a trace of separation anxiety lingered. “I…I want you to stay with me.”
“Stay with you while you play with your friends?” Gu Yilan asked.
Saying it aloud made Su Zesui suddenly realize how childish his request sounded.
Playing a game with friends and still needing someone to accompany him—it made him feel like a helpless little kid…
Su Zesui, who had turned eighteen, suddenly felt a little embarrassed. He opened his mouth to say, “Never mind,” but before he could, the man lifted him into his arms and said calmly, “All right. I’ll stay with you, and I’ll even carry you to the door.”
Su Zesui felt weightless and let out a soft “ah” as he instinctively wrapped his arms around Gu Yilan’s neck.
Feeling that familiar scent and warmth, he slowly relaxed, burying his head on Gu Yilan’s shoulder as the man carried him to open the door and walk downstairs. Muttering to himself, he said, “My brother must be a good person.”
All his life, he had been a good kid but invisible in class—average grades, shy and timid, unnoticed by teachers or classmates.
He had never tasted the sweetness of attention and didn’t know what it felt like, so he never felt disappointed, just immersed in his own world.
Until he met Gu Yilan.
Every action, every tiny emotional change could touch his heart, always met with care and response.
When he was mischievous, Gu Yilan would put aside his work; when he was upset, Gu Yilan would soothe him without a word, in his own way.
This emotional bond made him feel profound love and gave his otherwise fragile soul a sense of truly living in this unfamiliar world.
Mr. Gu must be a good person.
Gu Yilan’s voice carried a hint of a smile. “Mm.”
Respecting the boy’s pride, he placed Su Zesui at the game room door. Once the boy straightened his rumpled clothes, he opened the door.
Inside, Feng Chengwen was enthusiastically talking about a handsome guy he had just seen. The other two initially teased him for being shallow, but soon curiosity got the better of them.
Suddenly, the game room door opened—and the handsome guy himself stepped in. They all turned, frozen.
Fortunately, they quieted quickly. The person didn’t seem to hear their gossip. He said simply, “Suisui is really good at this game. I want to watch him play and learn. Is that okay?”
Su Zesui stood behind him, cheeks burning.
Even though the outcome was the same, Gu Yilan’s phrasing made it feel as if their roles were reversed, and he was the one pleading.
The classmates quickly responded, “Sure!” “No problem.”
Even though they were “troublemakers,” they showed basic courtesy in someone else’s home.
The game room was spacious, with a fluffy carpet to sit on while playing freely.
Su Zesui hadn’t played much before, but <Echoes of the Abyss> was primarily a puzzle-exploration game, not one requiring complicated controls.
He had a good memory and remembered Gu Yilan’s previous actions, so he played smoothly. But he was shy and barely spoke.
“Awesome! You found another key,” Gu Yilan said with a smile, sitting beside him.
He acted as a supportive partner, giving the boy confidence in front of his friends.
The other three soon noticed that Su Zesui had collected more laboratory keys than the three of them combined.
“Wow, dude, you’re really good at this! You could totally be a gaming streamer. Those noob streamers can’t even compare.”
“Yeah, and you’re really good-looking too. You’d attract so many fans—just don’t forget about us, okay?”
Seeing Gu Yilan friendly and approachable, the classmates relaxed and let their true personalities show, shouting profanities and joking as they played.
For Su Zesui, hearing his friends cuss and brag in front of Mr. Gu was… mortifying.
He nervously glanced at Gu Yilan, who merely smiled at him, showing no discomfort or annoyance.
As the virtual characters explored, the game’s world slowly unfolded, heading toward its climax.
Before the crucial truth inside could be uncovered, they needed to combine the clues they already had to crack the code of a certain box.
When Gu Yilan played in single-player mode, he had to memorize every piece of information on his own, then piece it together in his mind to figure out the password.
But now, with the four of them working together, each could stand at a different point, communicate, and combine the key information from several points to solve the final code.
Even so, it was still extremely challenging—a real puzzle climax.
Seeing the boy remain silent, seemingly too shy to speak with him around, Gu Yilan looked at him and asked, “Thirsty? Do you want me to get you something to drink?”
Su Zesui lifted his eyes toward him.
He understood that Mr. Gu’s unspoken question was really asking if he could stay here alone for a while.
In a soft voice, he said, “Yes. Thank you, brother.”
Gu Yilan stood up, and the other classmates quickly chimed in: “Me too! Thanks, brother!”
After the man left, Feng Chengwen nudged Su Zesui with his elbow while holding the game controller and said, “Dude, didn’t you always say your brother is strict? You were joking, right? He’s so nice! Watching us play, he even worries we might get thirsty and goes to get us drinks. He’s basically an angel!”
“Exactly! If it were my brother, he’d have dragged me to the study long ago and given me a scolding,” Yuan Mingcheng sighed. “Good brothers are always someone else’s.”
Feng Chengwen nudged Su Zesui again and said, “You and your brother don’t look very similar, but you’re both handsome, exactly my type. Can you give me your brother’s WeChat? What kind of people does he like? Do you think he’d like someone like me?”
Since today’s high school classmates were visiting, the two of them hadn’t planned to wear matching outfits yet.
And the friends in this world were all chatterboxes, so slow-to-respond Su Zesui couldn’t get a word in to explain.
Seeing that the time for solving the puzzle was almost up, he hurriedly said, “We… slide the stones a number of times equal to the numbers we solved. The order comes from the blueprint we saw outside the lab. This continent’s space-time is reversed, so we have to slide it both forwards and backwards.”
“You still remember the blueprint? I thought that was useless info,” Feng Chengwen said in surprise.
“Hey, nonsense! Our Suisui is amazing at puzzles, alright? Otherwise, would his brother even come watch him play? When faced with absolute skill, even parents aren’t a problem.”
Su Zesui’s cheeks flushed slightly, but the dim lighting in the game room kept it unnoticed.
Everything he had just said was word-for-word what Gu Yilan had told him over the past few days—he hadn’t changed a single word. He’d copied it directly and now delivered it in front of his classmates, subtly showing off.
“Careful… there’s a ghost in this box,” Su Zesui said, covering his eyes with both hands.
Because of his warning, the classmates who had narrowly avoided disaster all gave him a thumbs-up after the screams ended.
Tong Jing, a fan of horror puzzle games, looked at Su Zesui in awe. “Amazing! How did you guess that?”
Gu Yilan’s explanations of horror games were like coaching for competitions. He not only gave the answer but also walked through multiple layers of reasoning to show why it had to be that answer.
Su Zesui recited the man’s words and soon found himself surrounded by admiring gazes.
“And… my brother is already married,” Su Zesui added, remembering Feng Chengwen’s earlier request for Gu Yilan’s WeChat.
Feng Chengwen sighed. “Why do all the good-looking ones get married so young?”
Su Zesui’s lips curved into a small, soft smile as he said, “Let’s move on to the next area.”
A few minutes later, Gu Yilan returned with several glasses of carefully prepared fresh juice.
The juice had a delicate frothy surface, crystal clear, with carved fruit decorations on the rim. It was obvious someone had put a lot of effort into it. No wonder he’d been gone so long—he came back only after the climax.
A few classmates hurriedly said in unison, “Thank you, brother! That must have been a lot of work.”
Su Zesui looked at the delicate glasses of juice and immediately recognized them as the work of the butler. His eyes curved in a small smile as he looked up—and met Gu Yilan’s smiling black eyes.
The dim light blurred their outlines. Amid the shouts and laughter of the classmates, they exchanged a silent look that only they understood, a shared smile deepening in their eyes.
This was supposed to be a perfectly happy afternoon—playing games joyfully with friends. And later, there would be the long-awaited reward. But Su Zesui had forgotten one thing—
He had forgotten that the next part of the game contained a high-definition animation that would stir painful memories.
The animation of that bustling city began on the very first frame. By the time Su Zesui realized it, it was too late to cover his eyes.
The projection poured more and more city details into his mind like a tidal wave, connecting with memories of Zhou Qizhao and the empty study, forming lines and then surfaces, engulfing him completely.
A torrent of painful memories and heavy emotions crashed over him. Su Zesui felt his chest constricted, unable to breathe, unable to think, his entire body frozen.
In his confusion, he felt someone cover his eyes, while a warm hand patted his back gently.
When he gradually regained some awareness, the game projection had ended. Gu Yilan stood and said to the classmates, “Suisui isn’t feeling well. I’ll see you out.”
Before leaving, he walked last, leaning close to Su Zesui. In a voice only they could hear, he asked, “Can you hold on?”
Su Zesui’s gaze was vacant. After a few seconds of daze, his body instinctively nodded. He opened his lips, but no words came out.
Gu Yilan ruffled his hair. “Deep breaths. I’ll be right back.”
Su Zesui quickly started taking deep, rapid breaths.
. . . .
Outside the door, Feng Chengwen politely said, “Thank you for hosting us today. I’m Feng Chengwen, a good friend of Su Zesui’s.”
Seeing the man raise an eyebrow, as if assessing the truth of that statement, Yuan Mingcheng scratched his head and explained, “Maybe it’s been a while since we last met. Today Su Zesui didn’t fully let loose while playing with us. But normally, we really get along well.”
He still had enough basic social sense not to say outright that Su Zesui was holding back because Gu Yilan was nearby.
Gu Yilan frowned slightly, as if confused, and quietly asked, “Not fully let loose? Isn’t he usually like that around you?”
Feng Chengwen said, “Uh, normally he… talks more. Today he seemed a bit shy, but still very cute! It’s been over a month since we last met. He feels a little smaller, in that… way…”
Gu Yilan interrupted lightly, “Yes. He’s unwell. His psychological age can regress a bit.”
In psychology, when an individual faces stress or severe mental trauma, the body may enact self-defense by reverting to earlier, more primitive behavior patterns to protect itself from excessive psychological burden.
This phenomenon is called “regression.”
Feng Chengwen looked shocked and worried. “Unwell??”
Gu Yilan nodded slightly, deliberately sighing. “He’s forgotten many things from the past, and it’s not convenient for him to recall them. Please try not to bring them up around him in the future. I’d appreciate it.”
The others expressed their concern and quickly replied, “Not a problem, not a problem.”
Before leaving, Feng Chengwen couldn’t help asking, “Brother, what’s your name? Can we add you on WeChat?”
He thought that even if the possibility of anything more was gone, at least it would be nice to befriend an attractive guy—and it might make visiting Su Zesui’s house easier in the future.
Boys naturally egg each other on. Once Feng Chengwen started, the other two quickly pulled out their phones, saying, “Brother, I want to too!”
But the man parted his thin lips and made no move, simply answering Feng Chengwen’s earlier question calmly: “Gu Yilan.”
The moment those three words came out, the high schoolers froze mid-action, their eyes widening in disbelief.
Three green WeChat QR codes hovered in the air, reflecting the man’s indifferent face like evidence of their foolish, awkward attempt.
Feng Chengwen, who had spent the whole afternoon gushing, felt as if struck by lightning, wishing he could slap his own mouth.
The shock wasn’t that Su Zesui’s brother wasn’t surnamed Su. The real issue was… they had heard of “Gu Yilan” before.
To be precise, as a distinguished alumnus, he was quite famous in A City No.1 High School.
Good students knew because the principal often bragged about this physics prodigy who came from their school, mentioning he was president of the city’s String Theory Association. His office still had a photo of him.
Even students who don’t focus on their studies knew about it. Gu Yilan’s ancient gossip posts had been sitting on the school forum’s hot list for years, getting picked up and savored by each new class of students. Old gossip just gets juicier the more you revisit it…
All of these somewhat mischievous students had, to varying degrees, roasted him in those posts. Exaggerated words, drama for entertainment, as much conflict as possible.
And now they were seeing this legendary figure in person…
Uh…
Gu Yilan still needed to go and accompany Su Zesui. After resolving the potential issues the boy might encounter at school, he didn’t have time to exchange pleasantries with the people in front of him. He offered a perfunctory farewell and then closed the villa door.
Only a few people remained at the gate, staring at each other in disbelief.
Feng Chengwen was stunned, his voice trembling: “Gu Yilan… from the Gu family… not Su’s.”
“He’s not his biological older brother, yet he play games with him?” Yuan Mingcheng hadn’t fully processed it either. Like a robot, he spoke the facts: “You even used to scold him before.”
Feng Chengwen said, “How was I supposed to know Su Zesui knew him? Wait…”
Tong Jing chimed in a beat too late: “They’re already married.”
The three of them pieced the information together and instantly uncovered an earth-shattering secret—but none of them dared to speak it aloud. All they could do was look at each other, exchanging dumbfounded expressions, muttering “Holy—” back and forth.
Every exclamation was pure, unfiltered emotion.