The air in the office was thick, charged with volatility.
Bai Qi's grip on Shu Yao's wrist tightened—a crushing, physical demand for honesty.
"Cut the crap already," Bai Qi snarled, his voice guttural. "I want to know what else you are hiding from me."
Shu Yao instinctively tried to step back, but Bai Qi's hold was an anchor.
"Tell me, Shu Yao," Bai Qi pressed, leaning in, his face a mask of furious desperation. "Do you really look at me like that?"
Shu Yao's confusion warred with sudden, blinding fear. What does he want?.
But the context of secrets, slammed into him. He understood. Bai Qi was asking if he harbored love.
Shu Yao shook his head frantically. "I didn't! I didn't!"
Bai Qi pressed his thumb bone-deep into Shu Yao's fragile wrist. "I want the truth."
Shu Yao bit back a cry of pain. He would rather break than admit the depth of his devotion.
The truth, spoken aloud, would destroy Bai Qi's already fragmented world.
Bai Qi barked a harsh, disbelieving laugh. Shu Yao saw the real, lethal danger in the obsidian eyes, yet he persisted in the lie.
"I didn't," he insisted, his voice trembling. "I only know you as a friend."
"Friend?" Bai Qi spat the word out like a curse. "We are nothing."
Shu Yao lifted his gaze, his eyes.
Immediately glistening with unshed tears. The broken friendship—the loss of even that fragile status—pierced him.
Bai Qi exhaled a long, shuddering breath. "If that's all," he continued, the shift abrupt and jarring. "If you really didn't watch me like some pathetic, lovesick admirer, then tell me, Shu Yao: What is Shen Haoxuan to you?"
Shu Yao's eyes went wide in shock. He swallowed hard, the unexpected pivot leaving him momentarily breathless.
Bai Qi violently threw Shu Yao's hand away. The secretary clutched his injured wrist close to his chest, the chaos of the previous day resurfacing, magnified tenfold.
"I don't know about him," Shu Yao lied again, desperately trying to construct a wall of denial.
"Then why the hell was he speaking your name so fondly?" Bai Qi raged, stalking closer. "And why the hell did he take your wrist like he owns you?"
Shu Yao recoiled, horror etched onto his features. The trauma of that interaction with Shen was still raw. He shook his head, retreating against the heavy desk.
"It is not like that! I just… he…" Shu Yao stammered, unable to form a coherent defense. "He is nothing to me. He is just our company rival."
"A rival who signs paperwork with you behind my back?" Bai Qi's voice dropped, becoming dangerously low. "A rival who you authorized to use my signature?"
Shu Yao lowered his gaze completely, shoulders slumping in defeated acknowledgment. "I am sorry," he murmured, taking the full weight of the blame onto himself. There was no turning back from this precipice.
Bai Qi had reached his limit of prevarication. He was done with the games.
He took a decisive step forward. "Enough nonsense. If that's all fake, then what about that journal, huh?"
Shu Yao shot his head up, eyes wide with disbelief and utter terror. How? The single, hidden truth he had desperately tried to protect was suddenly exposed. His mind was a frantic mess.
"I… I don't have any journal," he stammered, his voice thin and reedy.
Bai Qi lunged, grabbing Shu Yao roughly by the jaw, his fingers pressing painfully against the bone.
"Oh, really?" Bai Qi challenged, forcing Shu Yao to meet his tortured gaze. "Do you want me to turn this office, and your house, inside out on my own?"
Shu Yao grabbed at Bai Qi's constraining hand. "I don't have one! I am not lying!"
Bai Qi's rage boiled over, fueled by betrayal and self-loathing. "Dammit! Why? Why you, of all people, Shu Yao?"
There was a perfect, raw crack in Bai Qi's voice—a sound of profound fragility that made Shu Yao's heart clench violently.
"Bai Qi," Shu Yao whispered, calling his name not as a subordinate, but as a desperately worried friend.
The young upcoming CEO was beyond reason. He shoved Shu Yao away, the sudden force sending the secretary stumbling back onto the luxurious German red rug. Bai Qi was breaking. Everything was shattering—his control, his belief in loyalty, his semblance of power without Qing Yue.
He looked up toward the gilded ceiling and let out a soundless, hollow laugh—a broken sound of self-derision.
"Good. Too good," he repeated, shaking his head.
Shu Yao, sprawling on the marble-cold floor, watched Bai Qi's collapse. His lips quivered, but he pushed himself up. He couldn't bear to see this man, whom he loved unconditionally, shatter.
He stood, swaying slightly, and reached out a trembling hand toward Bai Qi, trying to stabilize him despite being broken himself.
I wish I could tell you everything, the silent plea echoed in his mind. I wish I could. But I can't. Knowing you are already breaking, I don't want to fracture you further.
Shu Yao's hand landed lightly on Bai Qi's rigid shoulder.
Bai Qi stiffened, freezing at the unexpected contact. He turned sharply toward the secretary, his eyes blazing, demanding distance.
Shu Yao instantly dropped his gaze.
Bai Qi backed up, clutching the edge of his massive mahogany desk, his own lips beginning to tremble. He looked at Shu Yao—slowly, painfully.
Shu Yao felt his own fragile heart splintering. He couldn't keep up the pretense anymore, yet for Bai Qi's sake, he knew he had to hold the line.
"What should I do, Shu Yao?"
Bai Qi repeated, the demand laced with misery.
Shu Yao shook his head gently. "You… you don't need to do anything." He took another careful step closer.
Bai Qi's shoulders began to shake. He looked pathetic, weak, defeated—and he hated the fact that Shu Yao was witnessing it. He turned his head away, ashamed.
"It's… it's okay to cry," Shu Yao murmured, the soft comfort foreign in the hostile room.
Bai Qi's chest hitched. He choked out the words that had haunted him everytime he closed his eyes. "If… if you didn't get away that night… maybe I… I wouldn't be like this."
Shu Yao's breath hitched. He knew Bai Qi was right. He could blame him forever, and Shu Yao would accept it.
"If you weren't gone that night," Bai Qi continued, the words coming in desperate bursts. "Maybe… maybe I wouldn't be this cold towards you."
The statement felt like a physical blow. Shu Yao felt his heart slammed hard against his ribs, another irreparable crack. Tears, hot and silent, finally trailed down his face. He quickly wiped them away.
"If you weren't gone… if you stayed… if you told me what was wrong," Bai Qi lamented, his voice cracking into a sob. "Then maybe… maybe my Qing Yue wouldn't be gone."
Shu Yao's chest tightened, suffocating him. He clutched his own heart, sobbing quietly, the true depth of Bai Qi's pain finally laid bare.
Then came the final, terrifying whisper: "I… I wish I could join her too."
Shu Yao's head snapped up. He took a sudden, reckless step, losing all sense of self-preservation. He couldn't process what Bai Qi had just said.
Driven by pure, desperate instinct, Shu Yao moved behind Bai Qi and embraced him fiercely, clutching him tightly from behind, wrapping his arms around the broad, trembling shoulders.
Bai Qi's eyes widened in stunned shock, his tear-streaked face contorting in confusion.
Shu Yao looked up slowly, his own face a mess of tears and desperate devotion. "I… I can't bear to see you like this."
The words struck Bai Qi. I can't bear to see you like this. Not as a secretary. Not as a friend. But as someone who cared beyond reason.
Bai Qi clenched his fists, struggling against the sudden intimacy, but Shu Yao held fast.
"I… I am sorry," Shu Yao confessed, the tears flowing freely now, breaking his final promise to himself. "I wasn't good enough. I messed up everything. I shouldn't have existed."
Bai Qi's lips trembled. The realization hit him with the force of a tidal wave: Shu Yao had been in love with him all this time. But the knowledge brought no relief, only a fresh wave of betrayal. He couldn't return those feelings.
Bai Qi violently broke the embrace, spinning around.
"You were lying!" he accused, staring into Shu Yao's tear-filled eyes.
"I… I am sorry," Shu Yao wept, shaking his head. "I don't want to. I tried. I tried multiple times to shut my feelings down. But… but it was too hard. I was afraid! I was afraid of ruining your and Qing'er's relationship. I never wanted to interrupt your life. I never wanted to!"
Bai Qi heard every word, the confession ringing with genuine agony. But the pain of being deceived eclipsed understanding. He wiped his own tears away, a terrible, chilling smile spreading across his face—a smile that promised the ruin of empires.
"I got betrayed," he whispered, the smile widening, cold and empty. "Again. And again. And in the end, again too."
Shu Yao shook his head, desperate to explain, to convey how much he only ever wanted to protect him, but the words died in his throat.
"I shouldn't have come to China at all," Bai Qi finished, turning his back on the rising morning light that spread across the vast, luxurious office.
He lifted his hand, staring down at his twin bands—the symbols of his unmoving grief.
"Should… should I move on?" Bai Qi asked the air, his voice hollow.
Shu Yao watched him, silent. He had nothing left to say.
"But it's too hard to move on," Bai Qi answered himself, his voice thick with despair. "She is everywhere."
Shu Yao only heard him, his own broken silence a testament to his unconditional surrender.
Bai Qi dragged the plush executive chair with a grating sound and collapsed into it. He felt utterly hollow, scoured clean from the inside out by the torrent of his own anguish and rage.
Shu Yao, still trembling but regaining a sliver of composure, swiftly wiped his tears. He had to be the stable one, the container for this catastrophic breakdown.
"If… if you want to punish me," Shu Yao spoke, his voice thin but steadying. "I won't mind."
Bai Qi didn't respond. He simply stared at the ceiling, his gaze vacant.
Punish him. The thought recoiled in Bai Qi's mind. All the harsh words he had ever uttered, every cruel humiliation, every moment of coldness—it had all been a byproduct of his grief, a projection of his own madness.
Shu Yao was his best friend. How could he have genuinely wished him harm? Yet, he had. He had neglected him. He had humiliated him publicly. He had warned others away, forbidding Shu Yao from seeking solace elsewhere. He had even used venomous words like,
You should have died instead of her.
He had never truly wanted to inflict that pain, to make Shu Yao regret his very existence, his every breath. But he had done it anyway.
Bai Qi smiled a vacant, hollow curve of his lips toward the ceiling, a silent apology to the universe.
Shu Yao, his eyes red-rimmed and glistening, repeated the offering of self-sacrifice.
"You can hate me whenever you want," he said, his heart splintering further. "I won't mind. If… if you don't want to forgive me, that's alright too."
He looked up at the man slumped in the chair—all hollow and vacant, a ruin of his former self.
"Don't," Bai Qi finally whispered, the sound brittle. "Don't speak"
Shu Yao knew the next words would only deepen Bai Qi's anger, but the concern transcended the fear. He had to say it.
"Please," Shu Yao pleaded, taking a hesitant step forward. "Don't think of anything… harmful. Please don't harm yourself."
Bai Qi gave no sign of recognition, remaining a static monument to despair.
"I don't want to ruin your life," Shu Yao continued, his own pain erupting into a desperate confession. "I am… I am sorry. I shouldn't have let my sister die. It was me. It wasn't her. She… she shouldn't have let me live. I… I deserved that punishment."
He was dredging up his own survivor's guilt, laying it bare in the hope that his agony might deflect Bai Qi's own suicidal despair.
But Bai Qi still wasn't listening. His head remained tilted back, and a single, hollow word escaped his lips:
"Get out."
Shu Yao stifled a sob. He tried to speak, to offer one last fragment of comfort, but the finality in the command made all effort pointless.
Shu Yao wiped his fresh tears with the sleeve of his coat.
Bai Qi didn't lift his head. "I don't want to see your face. Get out."
A heartbreaking smile—a thin, formal veneer of professionalism—stretched across Shu Yao's face.
"As you say, sir."
He turned slowly, his spine rigid, and walked toward the immense mahogany doors. He reached the handle, his fingers shaking, and pulled the door open, stepping out of the office and away from the man he loved.
The doors swung shut with a muffled click, sealing Bai Qi in his desolation.
Shu Yao stood in the quiet corridor.
He stared at the tall, imposing doors that separated them, the final barrier.
He let his head drop, resting his forehead against the cold, unyielding wood.
His tears fell freely now, wetting the rich veneer. He didn't sob; he just wept, a silent cascade of misery.
"I… I should have died that night," the confession escaped him, a quiet prayer repeated against the wood. "At least you wouldn't be this sorrowful. I wish I could die.
I wish she wouldn't have taken my side."
He squeezed his eyes shut, his heart relentlessly throbbing with a pain that promised to consume him entirely.
"I am sorry, Bai Qi," he whispered, the words a penitence. "I know you won't forgive me. But still, I am sorry for making your every breath feel like strangling."
It was a prayer he repeated over and over—a silent, agonizing litany of guilt and pain—until his knees threatened to buckle beneath him.