Echoes of My Heart

Chapter 6

When San Pang knocked on the door, Xiao Yuan felt too drained to respond, let alone get up to let him in. Even as the older man entered and found him sitting on the bed, Xiao Yuan barely acknowledged his presence.

He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone and definitely not San Pang Gē who saw too much.

Way too much for his comfort.

He couldn't do anything right now. Not after what he heard downstairs and what he read in the card — Xiao Lili's words of approval, San Pang's encouragement for the match and Miss Beauty Ning's card for his brother.

That fucking card.

He couldn't handle the cocktail of emotions just trying to burst out of him. Having a tight leash on them was draining him too fast and he didn't know when he would snap.

What Xiao Yuan knew was that he didn't want to go down in his misery infront of San Pang.

So much happened in the matter of days. So much!

Xiao Yuan had just gone for a few days, and it seemed like the world tilted from its axis.

He didn't know if he should cry or scream. Nothing mattered in that moment. All he could see was that Wei Qian and his potential future with him was slipping through his hand like sand. The tighter he tried to close his hands, the fast his brother slipped through.

His lifeline, his pillar of strength, and the love of his life may soon become someone's else. And Xiao Yuan would have to accept it. He would have to stand at the sidelines and see someone else become important to Wei Qian.

Like he did when he was a teenager. Seeing his brother go out on dates after dates.

He would have to now see someone else take his place.

A place where he can be his strength, his support, his confidante and his lover.

A place he knew he had no right to but who can stop the ever blooming hope in his chest.

For a long time, he had tried to silence the hope that flickered in his chest, the hope that one day Wei Qian would look at him and realise that Xiao Yuan was everything that he was looking for.

That Xiao Yuan was the love of his life.

But every time he was around Wei Qian, it became impossible to quell the hope that continued to bloom, blooming in the sunlight of his presence. Strengthening with every passing moment Xiao Yuan spent with Wei Qian.

His every word, every touch, was like a seed of hope being carefully planted within him.

And now with the entry of Beauty Ning, every hope, every wish, every wistful yearning was being threatened, as if her presence would uproot the hope he had carefully nurtured all throughout these years.

Blood rushed in his ears, his heart pounding heavily in his chest and his body trembled.

He couldn't shatter now. He wouldn't shatter now.

He had to control himself.

San Pang's presence or his words barely penetrated the haze. Xiao Yuan knew that his friend saw the desolation etched into his very being, but he couldn't summon the energy to care.

Xiao Yuan knew how he looked at that moment.

Like a man teetering on the edge of ruin, utterly defeated or someone who couldn't do anything to stop the wreckage that will be his life soon. Each breath felt heavy, as if he were drowning in his own sorrows, and the world around him seemed to shrink, closing in with every passing second.