Mud beads

Chapter 98 Retrospective

"You know the answer already, so you ask."

Echizen withdrew his gaze and raised his hand to unbutton his cuffs. The shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing a section of pale wrist bone.

Ji Yong's smile faded slightly.

He put the cigarette in his mouth, reached for the bottle of liquor in the ice bucket, and poured about half a glass into his empty glass. The ice cubes clattered together as the liquor hit them, making a few crisp sounds.

"Remember, right here in this seat, you mocked me for getting carried away with my acting?" he mumbled, pushing the drink towards him. Smoke billowed from his mouth, making it hard to open his eyes. "What, getting carried away yourself now?"

Koshima Toru didn't reply, but picked up his cup and took a sip.

The liquor was strong, and he swallowed it quickly, his Adam's apple bobbing loudly, but his face remained unchanged.

"Don't pretend in front of us." Ji Yong leaned back on the sofa, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. "Others may not know, but we know, don't we? What the hell do you know about love?"

Echizen Toru laughed.

"I don't understand, but you do?"

"I don't understand," Ji Yong said, shrugging her shoulders and readily admitting it. "But you have to admit that I'm at least a little better than you."

The smile on Echizen Toru's lips slowly faded.

Ji Yong seemed not to see it, poured himself a glass, and the light reflected a bright yellow hue in the liquor.

"Come on," he raised his glass, "I'm going to teach you a lesson today, buddy."

Echizen Toru handed him a wine glass, clinked it against his, and leaned back, saying sarcastically, "I'm all ears."

"Let me ask you something," Ji Yong said, taking a sip of her drink and pointing at him with her cigarette butt, "When we went climbing a snow-capped mountain before, there was a flower blooming on the mountain. You thought it was pretty, would you have picked it?"

Echizen glanced at him and said calmly, "No."

Why?

"There's no need."

"Pretentious." Ji Yong scoffed, "Because you know that thing looks good on the mountain, but if you pluck it down and put it in your pocket, it'll be dead in no time."

Echizen Toru raised an eyebrow, glancing down at the ice in his glass: "You mean to say I like her free spirit? How cliché."

"What's the rush?"

Ji Yong took the cigarette from his lips and tapped off the ash.

What I'm trying to say is, you don't pick it because you know it doesn't belong to you.

Echizen didn't look up. He held the rim of the glass between two fingers, and with a gentle flick of his wrist, the ice cubes swirled slowly in the drink.

Ji Yong stared at him and smiled: "So what makes you think Yu Zhu belongs to you?"

The music downstairs changed; heavy drumbeats came up through the floor, causing the wine on the table to ripple.

"Just because you spent money, effort, and even developed a little bit of genuine feeling, does that mean she has to love you?"

Echizen picked up his glass, the light reflecting in it, and a hint of coldness flashed in his eyes: "At least she shouldn't hate me."

After listening, Ji Yong leaned back on the sofa and laughed for a long time. Her laughter, mixed with the music, sounded particularly jarring.

"There's a long way to go from dislike to hatred." Ji Yong picked up her glass and clinked it against his. "You spend so much time in the meeting room aligning our goals, yet you never do a post-mortem analysis yourself?"

The wine glasses clinked together, making a soft sound.

Echizen Toru took a sip, frowned, and put it down.

"Let me think," Ji Yong said, swirling her glass as if genuinely recalling the moment. "When was the first time I heard Yu Zhu from you?"

He suddenly slapped his knee.

"In our second year of high school! Back then, that meme of hers was everywhere in the school. I asked you what you thought of it, and what did you say back then—"

Echizen's brow twitched slightly.

Ji Yong answered for him: "Serves him right."

"Later, she was locked in the classroom in the middle of the night, and I was the one who opened the door." Echizen Toru said expressionlessly.

"So what?"

Ji Yong moved a little to the side of the sofa, her expression showing more disdain than surprise.

"If you hadn't opened the door, would she have just splattered there and died? Is it really worth holding a grudge about opening such a broken door?"

Echizen's fingers tightened their grip on the wine glass.

Ji Yong didn't give him a chance to catch his breath.

"According to you, during the years you weren't around, I really did save her life. I was there for her on her birthday, and since she was working away from home, I would bring her late-night snacks every few days."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying, if I were as shameless as you, I could also shamelessly go to her to collect my debts based on this alone."

Ji Yong licked his teeth and laughed in a wicked way.

"Her boss probably still remembers that she had a 'rumored boyfriend' like me."

Echizen Toru put down his wine glass and scoffed, "If I hadn't brought her out of the mountains, would you have been able to see her?"

Ji Yong seemed to have finally heard this, and she laughed.

"Hasn't she repaid the favor of bringing her out here?"

He shifted his position, moving forward a bit: "You sponsor students, and they repay you with good grades. That girl's grades haven't embarrassed you, have they? Don't tell me your Yue family sponsors students just to lend money—"

Seeing that Yuejian Che was about to speak, Ji Yong raised her hand to stop him, saying, "Let me finish first."

Toru Echizen took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.

"Even if we take a step back and say it's lending money," Ji Yong said, stubbing out a half-burnt cigarette on the table. "She started working in high school, practically splitting herself into eight people. What was she working so hard for?"

Ji Yong pointed to herself.

"Back then, she asked me for your bank card number to pay off your debts. You may have forgotten, but I haven't."

Koshima Toru suddenly fell silent.

He tilted his head and smiled, then placed his long fingers on the wine glass and slowly brushed away the water droplets on the glass.

"You really don't know what kind of life she was living back then, or are you just too lazy to know?" Ji Yong picked up her wine glass, raised an eyebrow and smiled. "As for what you were doing back then, I have no idea."

Echizen silently clinked glasses with him.

Purple lights fell from above, and the steam from the ice bucket drifted over the edge of the table and slowly spread along the smooth wooden surface.

He recalled that video from a few years ago.

The footage, shot through the greenery and glass curtain wall of the riverside restaurant, is somewhat shaky. The river flows outside the terrace, and Ji Yong, wearing a beige trench coat, stands behind Yu Zhu, bending down to fasten a pearl necklace for her, his fingers touching the back of her bare neck.

The video was posted on Ya Feng's forum, and some people asked if they were together, while others guessed that Yu Zhu's sponsor back then was Ji Yong.

At that time, he had not contacted her for more than four years.

But the video still made him feel offended.

He knew that Yu Zhu liked him.

She thought she was hiding it well, but actually everything was written all over her face. She would get nervous and blush when she saw him, and her eyes would always secretly follow him. As long as he occasionally gave her a kind look, she could forget all the previous coldness.

That affection belonged solely to him, and no one had the right to take it back.

Even herself.

Ji Yong tapped the table with the bottom of her cup, pulling him back from his reverie.

"I introduced you to her boyfriend, right?"

Koshima Toru slowly raised his eyes.

Ji Yong's smile had faded.

"Don't tell me you didn't do anything, I don't believe you."

Koshima Tetsuya remained silent.

"That night when we were playing games, you deliberately called Zhou Qiyu over." Ji Yong stared at him. "Did you really think I didn't know what you were up to?"

Echizen Toru scoffed lightly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"To break them up, you bought the entire building that houses the milk tea shop." Ji Yong nodded, giving a thumbs up. "The less, the bigger the investment."

"What exactly are you trying to say?"

"I didn't mean to say anything." Ji Yong put the cup back on the table. "I just feel that since you have all that skill, you should have treated her better back then."

"Huh?" Echizen Toru raised his chin, sneered, and his Adam's apple bobbed. "I'm practically her dog now."

"You know it's now."

Ji Yong's mocking expression vanished: "Where were you all this time, buddy?"

The air was still for a few seconds.

The DJ downstairs blasted the beat at full throttle, the drumbeats pounding through the floor and reverberating in our chests. The person in the microphone yelled, "Everyone on the dance floor, put your hands up—"

A deafening roar erupted.

With his eyes lowered, Echizen Toru tilted his head back and drank the wine in his cup to the last drop amidst the boiling broth.

Ji Yong poured him another cup: "Love isn't like a project where you can just add more budget and save it if it falls through."

Echizen Toru remained silent, only reaching out to press his hand against the rim of the cup, signaling him to stop.

"After she got together with that guy, did you see me show up again?" Ji Yong picked up her glass and clinked it against the half-empty glass of wine in front of him. "When someone doesn't love you, forcing your way in isn't called being affectionate."

He paused, then laughed heartily.

"That's fucking harassment."

Echizen Toru's face darkened.

Ji Yong met his gaze without flinching, her usual nonchalant demeanor gone.

"It's normal for her to hate you." He gestured with his lip. "You feel wronged now because you've finally tasted a bit of what she used to do."

After a moment of silence, a hint of a smile suddenly appeared in Echizen Toru's narrow eyes: "Waiting for me here?"

"What's wrong?" Ji Yong watched him get up from the sofa and clapped for himself. "Tell me, was my lecture any good or not?"

"The skill level is average."

"That's still better than you."

Echizen Toru grabbed the suit jacket draped to the side and turned to walk out.

The music grew louder and louder.

The corridor was dimly lit, with large sections of black glass on the walls. As he passed by, a broad and cold shadow was reflected in the glass.