The Cinnabar Mole of a Beijing Circle Tycoon

Meng Jiangyu had just dropped Shen Qingyao off and was about to contact Lu Linchuan when his phone vibrated.

The words "Lu Linchuan" appeared on the screen. He raised an eyebrow and answered the call with a swipe of his finger.

The voice coming through the receiver reeked of alcohol, mixed with a few muffled thuds: "Jiang Yu... Junyue rooftop, come drink with me."

The call was abruptly ended. Without much hesitation, Meng Jiangyu sent Xu Mingxuan and Zhou Yanqiu his location, started the car, and sped towards the Junyue Hotel.

The rooftop bar was cool in the evening breeze, the chill of the spring night brushing against my skin.

Lu Linchuan slumped alone in the booth, his figure thin. In front of him, an ice bucket held several empty bottles of whiskey, and his phone sat on the table with its screen lit up.

In the dating vlog that was playing, Fang Shuning's laughter was crisp and piercing.

The girl in the video smiles, tiptoeing to feed him a bright red strawberry. In the background, there is the bustling noise of the amusement park, and the Ferris wheel slowly turns across the horizon, swaying out circles of warm yellow light.

As Meng Jiangyu and the other two walked over, Lu Linchuan didn't even look up. He mechanically raised his hand to pour himself a drink, the amber liquid sliding down the glass and splashing out tiny sparkles under the light.

"Pathetic." Xu Mingxuan scoffed, pulling out a chair and slamming down. He snatched the wine glass from the man's hand. "You've drunk yourself into this state for a woman? Have you fed your dignity as the eldest son of the Lu family to the dogs?"

"Is it really necessary?" Zhou Yanqiu sank lazily into the sofa, twirling a lighter between her fingers. "Eight years, aren't you tired of it yet?"

Lu Linchuan's outstretched hand froze abruptly, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. Instead of grabbing the wine glass, he stretched out his arm and pushed his phone towards the three of them.

His fingertips repeatedly traced the edge of the screen, his fingertips brushing against Fang Shuning's smiling face, his voice hoarse: "Look... how happy she was back then."

Zhou Yanqiu sighed and glanced down at the vlog.

This was filmed last winter on the ice rink of Shichahai. The two were holding hands and spinning around when Fang Shuning slipped and fell hard on her bottom. She looked up and scolded him for not watching where he was going, but her eyes were full of smiles.

Lu Linchuan squatted down next to her, laughing so hard he couldn't stand up straight. In the end, he shook his head helplessly, bent down and picked her up horizontally, wrapped his coat tightly around her, and breathed warm air on her ears, which were red from the cold. The tenderness in his eyes could drown a person.

"If you can't bear to part with them, then use some means to keep them by your side." Zhou Yanqiu's tone was casual, as if he were talking about a trivial matter. "I guess Grandpa Lu and the others might not take it seriously and will just turn a blind eye."

"I can't." Lu Linchuan's voice suddenly rose and then quickly fell, thick with a nasal tone. "I can't let her follow me without any status or recognition. That's not fair to her!"

Xu Mingxuan and Zhou Yanqiu exchanged a glance but remained silent.

They didn't understand Lu Linchuan's twisted view of love. For the two of them, love was an embellishment of life, not the whole thing.

"Who broke up with him?" Meng Jiangyu ordered a glass of soda from the bartender and handed it to Lu Linchuan, his gaze falling on Lu Linchuan's bloodshot eyes.

"Me!" Lu Linchuan grabbed the glass on the table, tilted his head back and drank the rest of the whiskey in one gulp. The spicy liquid made him cough violently a few times.

"Have you thought it through? Are you really going to just let go like this?" Meng Jiangyu pressed.

Lu Linchuan suddenly looked up, the bloodshot veins in his eyes terrifyingly menacing, and growled, "I have no choice!"

He raised his hand to wipe his face, his fingertips brushing against the corner of his eye, his hand still damp. "My grandmother was lying in the hospital bed, holding my hand, saying she would rather die than let Fang Shuning into the family."

He grabbed the bottle from the table and poured the liquor into his glass, splashing it and wetting his shirt cuff, leaving a dark stain. "I can't give her a future, so am I supposed to drag her down for the rest of her life? Wait until she's thirty, and she still has to be with me, getting gossiped about behind my back by my family?"

"Since we knew this would be the outcome, let's part ways amicably!" Meng Jiangyu's words were like a needle chilled to ice, piercing deep into Lu Linchuan's heart.

His hand gripping the wine glass tightened suddenly, his knuckles turning bluish-white, his eyes reddening even more, and his voice choked with a heavy sob: "I can't bear to part with it."

"When she found out I'd added that blind date on WeChat, her eyes turned as red as a rabbit's." He lowered his head, his shoulders trembling slightly. "She asked me why... How could I answer her? I had nothing to say!"

The phone screen was still lit up. In the video, Fang Shuning was standing on tiptoe to kiss him, her eyes crinkling with laughter, and her eyelashes were covered with tiny snowflakes.

Lu Linchuan stared at the screen, his fingers trembling as he reached out, as if trying to touch the person on the screen. His fingertips hovered in mid-air, but he suddenly pulled back, grabbed his wine glass, and drank it all in one gulp.

The spiciness of the whiskey burned his throat, but it couldn't suppress the surging sourness in his heart. The sourness rushed from his stomach to his eyes, burning his vision.

"I'll give her a sum of money, enough for her to live a carefree life." He muttered to himself, as if trying to convince himself, or perhaps seeking comfort, "That way... she won't have to suffer with me."

Seeing his dejected state, Meng Jiangyu took a sip of whiskey and said, "Achuan, you two each have your own ferry crossings, your own boats returning home!"

The evening breeze, carrying an even stronger chill, blew in, causing the candlelight on the table to flicker violently and casting long, lonely shadows of the four people on the ground.

Zhou Yanqiu picked up a bottle of wine, poured himself a full glass, and gently clinked his hand against Lu Linchuan's empty glass.

"Drink up," he said in a low voice, his words broken by the wind. "After you finish this, don't fucking be a coward hiding here watching videos."

Lu Linchuan didn't respond, but just kept drinking one glass of wine after another until his vision was completely blurred, and the smiling face on the screen and the figure in his memory overlapped one after another.

It's strange, I just can't get drunk.

He finally couldn't hold on any longer and collapsed onto the cold table, his shoulders heaving violently, and suppressed sobs squeezed out of his throat.