Apology (1/2)
Su Zesui had crossed into a parallel universe because his particles were strongly correlated with Gu Yilan’s.
According to the principles of strong quantum entanglement, as Su Zesui regained his memories, Gu Yilan might also recall things from the other universe.
Gu Yilan, who had studied this field for years, already knew this—but he hadn’t expected that the boy’s intense fixation on him would mean that, in addition to recalling his own past, he would also see parts of the boy’s experiences:
The obsession with deciphering his letters, repeated struggles in the psychiatric ward, resilience in standing back up from the mud, and constant late-night sobbing.
When Su Zesui regained his memories, Gu Yilan was sitting in a conference room at University A, nervously twirling a black pen.
In an instant, his eyes reddened, fingers clenched into fists. After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly stood up, ignoring the astonished stares of everyone in the room, and strode out without a word.
His heart pounded as he closed the door, staring at the wall as white as a hospital sheet. His breath momentarily stopped, and before he could guard himself, the emotions brought by the memories surged in, blacking out his vision and pulling him deep inside.
He stood still, dazed, unsure how long he had been frozen, before finally regaining some clarity and returning to the present.
Gritting his teeth, Gu Yilan shook his head slightly, calming himself, then took out his phone. He first called Su Zesui’s driver, instructing him to keep a close watch on the school gates.
Next, he called Su Zesui’s homeroom teacher and the principal who had secretly arranged a counselor.
Both said they were on their way to the classroom and hadn’t reached him yet.
Unable to wait, Gu Yilan suppressed his surging emotions, gripped his car keys, and sped toward A City No. 1 High School.
Along the way, the driver reported that the school’s surveillance showed Su Zesui had run toward the west side of the school about twenty minutes earlier.
Gu Yilan immediately turned the car around, contacting his assistant via Bluetooth to check all cameras on the west side of the school while pressing the accelerator toward the villa.
As expected, just as he had anticipated, inside the massive gilded cage in the master bedroom, he saw the boy’s body curled up and trembling, his pupils unfocused—clearly in a far worse state than he himself had been when he first stepped out of the conference room.
Fortunately, Su Zesui trusted him deeply. At the sound of his call, the boy fell straight into his arms.
But his body was shockingly cold—such a stark contrast to the burning heat of just a few days ago, as if he had been doused again and again with buckets of icy water.
Gu Yilan’s eyes burned red. He couldn’t stop himself from tightening his embrace, trying to share some warmth with the boy.
Su Zesui was his only light across both worlds.
In that parallel universe, weary of schemes and power struggles, he had been on the verge of giving up when Su Zesui’s letters arrived—pages filled with youthful breath, revealing a pure world he had never known.
There, although the boy sometimes showed a little temper or kept small secrets, there was none of the ruthless, profit-driven cruelty of the financial world. It was like a clear spring—a simple, genuine world.
Back then, friends warned him that charity was nothing more than an investment, and to truly care meant certain failure.
But he didn’t care about “losses.” He gave Su Zesui far more than he had planned to. Even when he himself was trapped, what weighed most on his mind was still the boy.
In the midst of suffering relentless retaliation, he was still making arrangements for Su Zesui—securing future financial aid for him, and writing letters that could conceal the truth. But he was still a step too late. Before he could completely deal with the scum who had bullied Su Zesui, he himself perished in the flames.
Otherwise, Su Zesui wouldn’t have suffered everything that followed…
Later, the time and space shifted.
In this universe’s Speedsters Club, for the first time across both worlds, he met Su Zesui in the flesh.
He had always kept others at arm’s length, cold and distant to everyone. At that moment, he was also frustrated, preparing to delete his ID. Logically, even if a brawl broke out in the club, he would have finished the formalities with an expressionless face, then driven away without a second glance.
But when he saw the boy trembling from some creep’s harassment, his jaw clenched, and before he realized it, he had kicked Ro (the creep’s name) flying across the room.
He wasn’t someone who liked meddling, nor did he understand why he’d acted like a hero.
His body had moved before his mind caught up.
So the only explanation was—“instinct.”
Even without memories, even across time and space, his body still instinctively wanted to protect him…
“Don’t… don’t cry.” Su Zesui raised his hand to wipe away his tears, but before he could, the man suddenly lowered his head and captured his lips.
Holding him close, Gu Yilan gently pressed him down onto the soft bed, deepening the kiss as he explored his warm, yielding mouth.
At the seam of their lips, tears slipped silently from one of them, adding a faint saltiness to the tender exchange.
They clung to each other, tongues entwined, sharing breath and heartbeat. Even when they parted briefly for air, they reunited almost instantly—as if even a second apart was unbearable.
In that moment, surrounded by memories surging in waves, words felt pale and powerless. Only the most primal, pure form of touch could convey what lay in their hearts.
No one knew how long it lasted. Only when lips went numb and tongues dry did they finally, reluctantly, part.
“You… you knew all along.” Su Zesui lowered his head, gripping Gu Yilan’s long, bony fingers.
That solid, burning warmth—the proof he was real—was the only thing that eased the fear of losing him forever.
He had said something similar before.
Back then, sitting hopelessly on the sofa, staring blankly at four prewritten letters on the table, he had told Uncle Butler, “Young Master Gu knew. He knew he would die soon.”
But now, when he said “you knew,” he meant Gu Yilan had long known that the version of him in another world was already dead.
Moreover, he had experienced similar emotions multiple times in both worlds.
Like when he learned Mr. Gu had died in a car crash in the original world, and when here he discovered Gu Yilan’s severe self-destructive tendencies. His first reaction was always the same: Impossible.
Because to him, Mr. Gu was unshakable, indestructible. How could he possibly fall?
In that sense, the two of them—across two worlds—were truly the same person.
Gu Yilan lowered his head, kissed the pale, delicate fingers clutching his hand, and whispered hoarsely: “I wasn’t sure. Theoretically, the me in that world shouldn’t have existed. But I didn’t want to burden you with unnecessary pain, so I never voiced the suspicion. I wasn’t trying to keep it from you on purpose.”
No matter which world he was in, Gu Yilan always chose to bear the weight silently on his own, shielding him from the wind and rain, letting him live in peace. Only when the man was gone could he catch a glimpse of the storm raging outside.
“You… why are you always so good to me?” Su Zesui threw his arms around him again, choking out between sobs, “Thank you… really, thank you.”
“It’s me who should thank you.” Gu Yilan lowered his dark eyes and embraced the boy in return. “Without you, no matter which world I’m in, I wouldn’t survive. To be precise, you’re not only my God—you’re also my savior.”
——I can’t even imagine how dark a world without you would be.
Carried away by emotion, Su Zesui’s eyes reddened again. He shifted the conversation toward the other universe. “Mr. Gu, I miss you so much. Every day, I miss you. I want to hear your voice, I want to see you…”
Gu Yilan held the boy so tightly his knuckles turned white. His emotions surged, but all that came out in his husky voice was: “I want to see you too.”
Tears welled up in Su Zesui’s eyes as he confessed, “I’m sorry. The bank card you gave me—I spent more than half of it while I was in the hospital. Later I tried to work part-time to pay it back, but I didn’t manage to make it up before… before…”
That dark period when Su Zesui was hospitalized had always been a thorn in Gu Yilan’s heart.
Only after learning what had happened did he truly understand the reason behind the boy’s intense PTSD toward hospitals.
Gu Yilan gently patted the boy’s thin back and softly reassured him: “In this world, there are tens of billions in that card. Spend it however you want. You don’t need to pay me back.”
But Su Zesui, still trapped in his memories, couldn’t pull himself out. He sobbed once more and said, “Mr. Gu, I won the gold medal.
I’m not smart. At first, the problems that others solved at a glance, I had to practice over and over again.
But later, the kinds of impossibly difficult competition questions others couldn’t touch—I could solve them all.
Mr. Gu, I lived just like you told me to. I lived as a strong and independent person.”
Gu Yilan ruffled his messy hair. “I know. Our Suisui is a physics genius who switched from liberal arts to science. In just a year and a half you won the CPhO gold medal, and at only seventeen you joined a research team.”
Maybe it was all the pouring out of words that soothed the cracks in his heart, or maybe it was the man’s feigned lighthearted comfort finally working, but Su Zesui gradually calmed down. He raised his gaze and fixed it on the man before him—the man he had longed for in both worlds.
Their eyes were red, veiled with tears, and they looked at each other for a few seconds before breaking into silent smiles at the same time.
One of them had switched from liberal arts to science, throwing himself into problems and experiments day and night, earning early fame and admiration for his almost obsessive passion for physics.
The other had, from an early age, forged ahead into a field of quantum research that might never yield results, yet never once wavered in his determination, earning respect for his unshakable resolve.
But in truth, one was chasing the fantastical dream of surpassing the speed of light and traveling through time and space; the other, bound by a childhood “promise of God,” was willing only to live in the void of research here and now.
They were magical and nihilistic all at once—yet for the sake of each other, they were willing to endure countless trials and obstacles to reach the very peak of their fields.
Their gazes met again, tears shimmering like ripples in their eyes.
Before long, they couldn’t help themselves and embraced once more, kissing deeply. Su Zesui’s once-cold body gradually grew warm.
Until a knock came at the door.
Gu Yilan brushed the boy’s swollen lips and, once Su Zesui had caught his breath, whispered, “The psychologist is here. Will you let him see you?”
Su Zesui flinched instinctively. After a few seconds of hesitation, he gave a reluctant nod.
At Gu Yilan’s request, the psychologist focused on examining Su Zesui’s severe social anxiety.
After offering him some comfort and suggestions, the doctor left the master bedroom and spoke in greater detail outside with the man waiting by the door—about the boy’s current psychological state and possible treatments.
Su Zesui’s extreme social phobia, in essence, was another form of PTSD—a lingering complication of his past “persecutory delusions,” only this time triggered by strangers.
According to the evaluation just now, the boy had likely regained most of his memories and was now in a transitional stage of returning to normal life.
At this stage, his mind was as delicate and fragile as a freshly peeled egg, in desperate need of care. Any negative stimulus could trigger a far worse retreat into isolation…
While the doctor spoke outside, his voice too muffled to make out, Su Zesui sat inside not knowing what to do. His phone buzzed non-stop in his pocket, so he finally pulled it out.
Opening his messages, he saw group chats tagging him, heatedly discussing how he had suddenly lashed out in public, sending Zhou Qizhao to the hospital.
His mind had been consumed by memories, and he’d forgotten all about it—until now. A shiver ran down his body as the realization struck.