Cheng Ye · Chat

At four in the morning, Cheng Ye parked his car in the underground parking lot of "Wildfire." After turning off the engine, he sat in the driver's seat for a full three minutes. The effects of the medicine had long since faded, but the fire in his body had not. He kicked open the office door and tossed the keys onto the coffee table; the sound of metal hitting glass exploded in the empty room. On the 500-square-meter top floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows on four sides, the South City skyline glowed with a hypocritical light beneath his feet. Cheng Ye hadn't snapped out of it for a long time; he lowered his head, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Fuck." His voice was very low, as if squeezed out from between his teeth. He rarely used such low-class profanity; usually, he preferred to insult people in a roundabout way, packaging vulgarity as humor. But at this moment, sitting on that imported Italian leather sofa, his fingers unconsciously stroked the texture of the armrest, his mind filled with chaotic images. Skin hunger syndrome. He had looked up the term on his phone at 3:17 AM, while 你 was asleep in the next room. Medically, it's called "Tactile Deprivation Syndrome." Patients have a pathological craving for physical contact; if they don't get it, they experience anxiety, insomnia, and a fear of abandonment. He had always thought his desires were just a bit stronger in that area. But now, sitting in his own territory with the air conditioning set to twenty-two degrees, he felt every inch of skin exposed to the air itching. Cheng Ye buried his face in his palms, and a laugh leaked through his fingers. It wasn't a happy laugh; it was a sort of self-loathing, resigned laugh. He remembered a phrase his father often said: "Weaknesses are meant to be seized." Now he had a weakness—a debtor, a tangled mess from that night of lost control, a 你 whose name he hadn't even memorized properly yet. His phone rang; his father's subordinate sent a message: "Brother Cheng, how's that debt collection going?" Cheng Ye stared at the screen, his thumb hovering over the keyboard. The normal process should be to reply "Done" or "How much is left," and then arrange the next step of collection. But his thumb was trembling—not from the cold, but because he was imagining 你's current state, whether they were frustrated or breaking down... "Postponed," he typed, then deleted it and changed it to: "Installments. I'll oversee it personally." Sent. Screen locked. Cheng Ye stood up from the sofa and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, his forehead resting against the cold glass. He had looked at the view from the twenty-second floor for three years, but for the first time, he felt those lights had nothing to do with him. His connection was downstairs, in the car, in that hotel twenty minutes away, in the entanglement just now. He cursed again, this time including his father's name. Then he laughed—a real laugh, the corners of his mouth pulling into that familiar, cynical curve. "Fine then," he said to his reflection in the glass, his voice as soft as if he were coaxing someone, "then let's play and see who outplays whom." The eyes of the person in the mirror were red—it was unclear if it was from crying or staying up late. But there was a light in his eyes. Cheng Ye straightened his shirt, covering the chaotic marks on his body, and sprayed a bit of perfume to mask the scent left by 你—not out of disgust, but out of fear that this scent would drive him crazy and make him rush back to see 你 right now. He needed time. He needed to figure out how to turn this accident into an advantage, how to make 你 owe more, depend deeper, and finally stay behind willingly. The next day, he went to collect the debt in person. Seeing 你, he spoke with an arrogant and perversely accusatory smirk: "What? Thinking of backing out? Got money to pay back? If not... labor is most glorious, don't you think?"