Chapter 22

An Luo locked the door of his bedroom, and gripped the wheelchair with pale fingers. The suffocated feeling in his chest, like a surging tide, flooded his whole heart without any gaps.

With every breath, his lungs felt like a pair of hands were wringing them. A sourness rose in his nose. There was a warm mist floating in his eyes, but he desperately pressed it back.

Endless Love, an unending, unresponding, desperate love.

An Ze asked him what he thought of this feeling, love. How could he answer? Loving someone you should never love, loving someone who could never respond, what should be done? What could be done?

When he had met An Yang in his previous life, he had still been a young and ignorant man then. But An Yang already had an elegant and graceful bearing. In his memories, An Yang always liked to wear white suits. He always looked elegant and leisurely. Since he had grown up in a rich and powerful family, he had an innate nobility. Even if he sat without saying a thing, he could instantly attract everyone's gaze.

An Yang had a twin sister named An Fei. The relationship between the two of them had always been very good. Whenever they attended various cocktail parties, the gentle and handsome brother An Yang and the beautiful and lively sister An Fei would always become the most eye-catching there.

The brother and sister were often invited by handsome men and beautiful women to dance a graceful waltz on the dance floor. Moving and spinning, their gorgeous dance steps accompanied with music—the handsome An Yang and the beautiful An Fei were a pair of children that would always be the greatest pride of their father.

An Luo, who did not know how to dance or socialize, would only stand quietly in the corner and drink. Cup after cup of ice-cold drink would flow down his throat, and in his mind, he would have not even one trace of warmth.

Drinking was the first thing that the young An Luo learned after returning to the An home. His father had said that a man must be able to hold his drink. In the future, when working in business, you could only pretend to be drunk, without ever being truly drunk.

Young An Luo was forced to handle all kinds of liquor—baijiu, hongjiu, and wine—by the bartender his father had hired. His father made him learn the difference between all the proofs and brands of various liquors within a month, not caring that An Luo had never drank before.

An Luo didn't know how to drink at first. The burn in his throat from the alcohol made him cry even, and his stomach would feel like it was on fire. He would vomit over the side of the toilet in the dark, spitting up all the contents of his stomach, acid water filling his mouth. The feeling of his stomach twisting and cramping was deeply imprinted in the memory of young An Luo.

After vomiting, An Luo, pale-faced, would drag his exhausted body back to the bedroom in embarrassment. When he tried to sleep, he could only feel his splitting headache. He had painful nights after drinking, without anyone around him.

The next morning, it was only the gentle An Yang who would wake up to bring him a cup of warm water.

When the warm water reached his stomach, it seemed to bring warmth to the bottom of his heart as well.

He would fall in love with An Yang, perhaps because An Yang would allow him to cling to that warmth.

An Luo was his father's illegitimate son. He had been raised his grandmother's house since he was a child. Even when he was brought back to the An household, a housekeeper had picked him up in secret. He originally had thought that his older brother An Yang would hate this unknown brother. He didn't expect that An Yang would treat him well, without any prejudice, caring for him as any older brother would care for his young brother.

However, An Yang would only ever love him as a young brother.

An Luo knew that the dazzling An Yang was the real success to the An family. An Luo was just the backup that his father was raising. The An family had legitimate and illegitimate business endeavors. If by any chance An Yang was met with an accident, An Luo was better than having no successors at all. His father wanted to hold two trump cards: one in light, and one in shadows.

But even if it was just as a backup, An Luo never resented his father or brother. He accompanied An Yang as a little follower, and tried to learn everything that An Yang taught him. Their life wasn't peaceful, but An Luo's heart was peaceful. He stayed with An Yang as a spare, to help him out and share the pressure. That was already very good, and he was already satisfied.

He originally thought he could always accompany his brother as backup. But he didn't expect that An Yang would fall in love with Su Zihang, who was ostensibly his bodyguard, but in actuality a police officer deep undercover.

The love between An Yang and Su Zihang was intense. An Yang loved Su Zihang so desperately that he wanted to leave behind the underworld business for Su Zihang, to take him abroad to get married, and to do some small business there. They would live a peaceful life there.

When An Yang smiled and said to him, "Xiao Luo, I proposed to Zihang today, and he agreed. I plan to take a flight abroad to get our marriage certificate and then settle down there. In the future, the family business should continue. I want to give it to you"—

An Luo could never forget the way his heart felt at that moment.

It felt like his heart was torn into pieces and thrown on the ground.

He remembered trying to squeeze out a smile. An Luo calmly said, "Don't worry, gege. The An family has me. There won't be any problems." Maybe only he knew how bitter those words were.

An Yang patted him on the shoulder and said, "Gege believes you."

The place that he patted on An Luo's shoulder was painful as needle pricks. An Luo didn't know what to do. He couldn't laugh or cry. He could only silently stand in place, and watch An Yang's back disappear with his blurred vision.

"Gege, you decided to go abroad to marry Zihang. But what about An Luo? He has to take the burden you let go, and use his young shoulder to support this huge family business, without even any backup, is that so?"

After many misfortunes occurred, An Yang did not take Su Zihang abroad as he had wanted. Su Zihang's undercover identity was suddenly revealed, and he was brutally killed by the An family gang members in the apartment where they had lived together. An Yang went home and saw Su Zihang's body. He almost collapsed. And An Luo could only calmly take away his broken brother.

Later on, a sabotaged car accident made An Yang's legs nearly unusable. An Luo took his brother to a foreign country for treatment. Since then, An Luo, the once spare tire, officially become the An family successor.

An Luo's personality became more and more indifferent. But whenever he faced his brother An Yang, the indifferent barrier that he had tightly wrapped himself in would involuntarily melt away.

This was because An Yang was the only person who had given him warmth in that long darkness.

It wasn't until the moment when he was killed in the plane crash, that An Luo's toilsome love of a lifetime finally came to an end.

Once he was reborn, An Luo had decided to forget the past and start a new life.

Under his deliberate neglect, everything about An Yang became more and more fuzzy.

However, An Ze's question today had, in just a moment, unearthed the most secret scars that he had buried deep in his heart.

His memories of the past were rapidly tumbling through his mind. The long-lost pain once again surged from the gap he had dug in the bottom of his heart. His empty heart seemed to be filled once more with a sharp cold wind.

That unending, unresponsive, desperate love.

It turned out that he had never really forgotten.

An Luo sat in the bedroom, and took a long while to calm himself down.

He turned the wheelchair to the bathroom, washed his face with cold water, and looked at himself in the mirror. His pale face looked so similar to the An Luo who had been woken up by nightmares in his past life.

Why did he still look like this even after being born again? How could he completely leave behind the old An Luo?

When An Luo finally came out of the bathroom, he heard a knock on the bedroom door.

"Gege, come out and eat dinner." An Ze's voice was so low that An Luo couldn't make out any emotions. He had just knocked on the door, then turned and walked away.

Listening to his low voice, An Luo suddenly felt that he had overreacted. Maybe An Ze had just asked casually, but because he had touched his sore spot, An Luo had lost control. In retrospect, slamming the door in front of his younger brother was really a bit childish.

But An Ze hadn't been angry, just gone to the kitchen to make dinner...

An Luo opened the door, and turned the wheelchair to the kitchen. Sure enough, there was a whole spread of food on the table. It was all his favorite dishes. He opened the earthenware pot and inside there was an aromatic peanut soup.

At the fragrant dinner table, An Ze's face wasn't as gentle as usual. It was a little cold and stiff. Looking at the sumptuous meal at the table, An Luo felt ashamed thinking of his anger. So he gave a rare smile to his younger brother.

Unfortunately, that younger brother was lowering his head to serve the meal, ignoring his older brother.

An Luo was not a good speaker, and it was even more difficult to apologize to his younger brother. Since An Ze didn't speak, An Luo didn't want to take the initiative to break the silence. So he took the bowl and ate.

For who knows how long, the two of them sat silently face-to-face, eating up all the dishes. But there was still a piece of sparerib leftover. An Luo's chopsticks reached out, and tried to grab the last rib, but they just hit An Ze's chopsticks.

He looked up into An Ze's exceptionally deep gaze.

Both of them were holding the bone, and neither would let it go first. After stubbornly facing him for a little, An Luo felt he was being childish to fight over ribs with his younger brother, so he let it go.

An Ze took the rib and put it in An Luo's bowl.

An Luo heard him whisper, "It was for you, gege."

The corners of his lips were pulled up slightly, as if he was smiling, but that lonely smile worried An Luo.

An Luo wanted to say something, but he heard An Ze's phone ring suddenly. It had a unique ringtone which seemed to be the army's summoning order. An Ze immediately stood up and said, "I have to go out."

An Luo asked questioningly, "Is there an urgent task?"

"Yes," An Ze said.

He turned around and took the military uniform from the hanger. He quickly put it on, and then put on his hat. The young officer's resolute and handsome face did not have any expression. He only looked back at An Luo and said, "Gege, go to bed early after eating. Don't wait for me to come back."

An Luo looked at the upright back of his brother in his military uniform. The black belt around his waist perfectly showed off his model-like inverted triangle figure. The neat uniform without any wrinkles seemed to add a touch of majesty to his body.

Although he looked resolute and upright, calm and mature, already a major at a young age, he was also a younger brother three years younger than An Luo. This younger brother still needed his older brother's care. It must be dangerous for him to go perform an emergency task.

An Luo thought for a little, and said what a brother should say: "An Ze, be careful."

An Ze stopped, and his back stiffened unnaturally.

This kind of concern, how long had it been since he'd heard it?

After a moment of silence, An Ze recovered his voice, and whispered, "Don't worry, I won't let myself meet with any mishaps until I've got what I want." After a slight pause, he looked back at An Luo, "I'll come back to see you safely, gege."

After that, he turned and closed the door and left.

The words he said had a strange and tough aura. They even caused An Luo to have the feeling that "no matter what this younger brother wants to get, it will never escape his grasp."

An Luo looked down at the last rib in his bowl. When he had been grabbing it with An Ze, An Luo's first thought had been "An Ze wanted to eat it too, so he came to take it." He had released his chopsticks, and gave it to An Ze. But he didn't expect An Ze was just going to give it back to him.

He took the last rib, only so he could put it in his brother's bowl.

This complicated An Ze, this unintelligible An Ze—that thing he wanted, what could it be?