Hate The Bright Moon Chapter 9

Chapter 11

Someone was threatening to jump off a building for Chi Huang, and all eyes gathered in the factory area immediately focused on him.

Jiang Chao, who was closest to him, frowned deeply, his anger flaring up. “Chi Huang, what the hell is going on this time? What’s your relationship with this person?”

“No relationship,” Chi Huang answered flatly, taking off his protective gear and tossing it into the car. He suggested, “How about we go eat hot pot later? My treat.”

“Eat my ass. If you have no relationship with him, why is he calling you out by name and threatening to jump for you?”

“Who knows.”

“Did you sleep with them and then just pull up your pants and leave again?” Jiang Chao’s confused mind circled the globe before he finally reacted, pointing at the figure on the building and looking at Chi Huang with the strange expression one reserves for alien life forms. “If I’m not blind, that’s a man, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t realize men were so dramatic either,” Chi Huang began to grow impatient. “The longer I stay here, the greater the chance he’ll jump. Let’s go, I’m starving!”

With that, he started to get into the car, but Jiang Chao grabbed his arm. “You can’t leave. You go upstairs and stabilize him, and I’ll call the police.”

“It’s really unnecessary. If he truly wanted to die, he’d find a deserted place and jump. He won’t do anything in front of this many people.”

“What if he does, damn it? Can you handle a human life on your conscience?” Jiang Chao raised his voice.

“What does that have to do with me? I didn’t stand behind him and push him.”

“Chi Huang!”

Seeing Jiang Chao about to explode, and finding it tiresome to deal with the old man, Chi Huang reluctantly walked toward the building.

Jiang Chao, meanwhile, used a megaphone to try and calm the person down, telling him to relax, that they could talk things out, and that Chi Huang was already on his way up to speak with him.

Standing on the rooftop, the evening wind whipped Chi Huang’s hair around. He stared at the man boredly. “Is this entertaining for you?”

Hearing his indifferent tone, the man became even more distraught and yelled curses. “Do you have a heart at all? I love you so much, yet you treat me like this. Are you even human? Do you have a conscience?”

Chi Huang really wanted to ask how exactly he had wronged his conscience. It was simply that after the Qin Pingchuan incident, he realized the risks and trouble involved in sleeping with women, so he wanted to try men. This guy happened to appear and showed great interest in him, so Chi Huang simply went along with the flow.

He initially thought he might like this type of effeminate man, but he found the man’s slender, pale body didn’t really pique his interest, so he only accepted the man’s advances. He had to admit, men understood men better, so he sought him out twice more. It wasn’t until the man suggested they start dating that Chi Huang refused and decided to cut off contact.

So, he hadn’t actually done anything to the man; he hadn’t even slept with him.

But if he said those things out loud, even if the man didn’t want to jump, he would probably jump out of shame and fury.

Chi Huang changed his tone. “Tell me, what do you want me to do?”

The man just shouted accusations. “Why did you block me and stop replying to my messages?”

“I didn’t block you. I’ve been busy lately, too many messages, no time to read them.”

“Why didn’t you answer my calls? I called you so many times.”

“I was tired, sleeping, and my phone was on silent.” Chi Huang looked him in the eye, sincerely. “See, the fact that you can call me now proves I didn’t block you.”

The man’s previously angry gaze suddenly began to waver. “You—you don’t hate me?”

“Why would I hate you?” Chi Huang smiled at him, his eyes curving, and extended his hand. “You just want to date me, right? That’s fine. But we can’t date on a rooftop, can we? Let’s go find a more comfortable place.”

The man wavered and took a step toward Chi Huang, but he immediately realized something was wrong. “You’re lying to me.”

Chi Huang let out an almost inaudible click of his tongue, maintaining the gentle smile on his face. “You’ll only know if I’m lying if you come over here.”

“No, you are lying to me. I know people like you. By threatening to jump, you’ll like me even less.” The man seemed convinced he had personally buried Chi Huang’s last shred of goodwill. He started to panic and cried uncontrollably. “But I love you so much, and you even said I was the only man you were interested in.”

Chi Huang retracted the hand he had offered, losing the little patience he had. “What do you love about me? Do you know anything about me besides my face?” He couldn’t help but laugh at this point. “Even if you really jump, I won’t remember your name or appearance, but I’ll remember it as a joke for the rest of my life. I’ll definitely tell the story every time I’m with someone else.”

The man’s sorrowful expression turned to horror upon hearing this. His lips trembled, unable to speak.

“Also, you weren’t the only man I was interested in. I’ve been with other men. I just recently realized what type of man I’m truly interested in.”

His gaze drifted, recalling his first meeting with Chen Shilü.

He was sitting in the corner of the Bar, secretly searching for a “prey,” when he saw Chen Shilü under the bar counter lights.

Chen Shilü had probably come straight from work, still wearing a suit, looking respectable but somewhat out of place in the environment. His demeanor was calm and polite, yet subtly concealed a hint of arrogance. Chi Huang thought at the time that if it were a man like this, maybe he could go through with sleeping with him. No, rather than sleeping with him, he wanted to peel back this person’s dignified facade and hypocritical exterior.

He wasn’t so brazen as to actively hit on men, but when he discovered the other party was gay and had even secretly filmed him, things became interesting. Finding a suitable opportunity, Chi Huang made his move.

He thought he could take Chen Shilü home that night, but the man’s reaction was different from what he expected. Chen Shilü didn’t show much interest, so Chi Huang had to give up.

A few days later, Chen Shilü proactively extended an olive branch. Since that was the case, Chi Huang saw no need to be polite and did everything he wanted to do in one satisfying go.

Thinking about it now, he felt a little lingering desire, his mind wandering.

The man threatening to jump saw his expression and knew exactly what he was fantasizing about, immediately collapsing into a scream. “Chi Huang! You’re a scumbag!”

“Yes, I am. The best thing about me is this skin, and I’ve already shared it with you. But you think that’s not enough and want more, yet there’s truly nothing else.” He walked toward the man. “Do you really want to die for a scumbag?”

“…Don’t come closer!”

Chi Huang didn’t approach him. He walked to the edge of the other side of the rooftop. “Why is your life so cheap? Have you never been properly loved? If you die, you’ll never be loved.” As he spoke, he kicked the already weathered and loose cement railing, sending it crashing to the ground below.

Jiang Chao yelled through the megaphone, “Chi Huang, don’t join the madness! Get back inside…”

Seeing the stone fragments shatter, the man’s legs instantly gave out. He collapsed onto the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.

Chi Huang sat in the gap where he had kicked the railing, his legs dangling in the air, speaking in a casual tone. “I don’t know what you’re going through in life, but relying on others to save you is not only unrealistic, it might lead to a bad person pushing you into the abyss.”

The police and fire department finally arrived.

After much commotion, and when the sky was completely dark, the man threatening to jump was finally rescued.

The police took him away, and Chi Huang, as the person involved, followed them to give a statement.

Although the “protagonist” had left the scene, the onlookers’ interest remained high. Before, everyone only knew Chi Huang was promiscuous; now they knew he was indiscriminate regarding gender.

People crowded around Jiang Chao. “Old Jiang, since when did Chi Huang become gay?”

“You should really try to control him. I feel like something big is going to happen if this continues.”

Jiang Chao scowled, his face dark. “He’s not my son. Why the hell should I control him?”

“Ah, there’s nothing we can do. He has no parents, not even anyone who can discipline him.”

Jiang Chao retorted, “If you want to keep riding motorcycles for a few more years, watch your mouth.”

The others dispersed. A-Chao and Jian Zai encouraged each other and approached Jiang Chao. “Boss, we should call Brother Chuan back. Otherwise, the team…”

Calling Qin Pingchuan back meant forcing Chi Huang out. Before they could finish, Jiang Chao said, “If you want to call him, go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”

“We can’t do that, though…”

“If you can’t, then shut up. I haven’t asked you to go find sponsors, and you haven’t lacked food or drink. Just focus your minds on training. The race is in August. Do you have time to think about anything else?”

Sensing Jiang Chao’s intention to protect Chi Huang, the others just grumbled in dissatisfaction.

Jiang Chao grabbed A-Chao. “Your Dreadlocks are seriously filthy, they stink from meters away. Go home and cut them tonight, or you can roll out of the team too. And Jian Zai, you, with that head of blond hair, shave it clean.”

Seeing him picking a fight, the others quickly scattered. Only Da Lin came over and offered a cigarette. “Old Jiang, the team is hard to manage.”

“Anyone who wants to leave can hurry up and leave. Fewer people means saving money.”

After they finished a cigarette, Jiang Chao asked Da Lin, his former teammate when he was a rider and one of the team’s original members, “You understand, right?”

Da Lin nodded.

When the team was first established, Jiang Chao didn’t have the money to sign professional riders, so he had to scout for “talent” among the street racers. That’s how he found sixteen-year-old Chi Huang, who stood out among the delinquents in both skill and looks.

He used sweet talk and shameless persistence to trick Chi Huang into joining his team. But the team’s development was much harder than he imagined. Several times, they were on the verge of collapse, only surviving because Chi Huang brought him money to sustain them.

When a teenager tossed a bag of cash in front of him, Jiang Chao’s first reaction was fright; he suspected Chi Huang had robbed a bank. But Chi Huang casually said it was just pocket money from his family and told Jiang Chao to use it for the team’s races.

Looking at Chi Huang’s daily life and spending habits, he did seem like the type of kid whose parents were too busy with their careers and just placated him with money. Besides, Jiang Chao couldn’t afford to worry about it; the money was essential for the team to survive. But he wasn’t so thick-skinned as to accept a child’s gift for nothing, so he suggested Chi Huang become a shareholder, promising to repay him and share the profits later.

The team never made money, and Chi Huang repeatedly provided “aid,” directly turning him into the team’s largest “shareholder.” Eventually, Jiang Chao found it bizarre—how could a half-grown kid produce so much money? He insisted on meeting Chi Huang’s parents to understand the situation.

That’s when he learned that the money wasn’t pocket money at all—it was an inheritance. Chi Huang’s parents had died in a car accident long ago; the child was an orphan.

So, there was no way he could kick Chi Huang out of the team. Besides being an original shareholder, more importantly, if he left the team, he had nowhere else to go.

He just hadn’t expected the bastard to become more and more reckless as he grew older, causing all this trouble. That’s why being too attractive wasn’t necessarily a good thing; even if he didn’t actively seek others out, people would seek him. Chi Huang’s flaw was that he grew up rolling around in this mixed crowd, lacking a good upbringing and formal education, which led him astray.

Chi Huang sneezed.

The old saying goes that sneezing means someone is talking about you. Chi Huang doubted anyone was speaking fondly of him; it was more likely they were cursing him. He didn’t care, though.

It was late when he got home from the Police Station. More than being dragged into this kind of trouble, he was annoyed that he kept running into lunatics. Among all these pleasure-seeking men and women, was there no normal person?

A normal person.

That office worker who wore a suit seemed like the most normal person he knew. Chi Huang found his name among the many contacts—Chen Shilü.

He opened the chat window. Their conversation was still paused half a month ago.

It was the day after Chen Shilü returned home. Chi Huang had messaged him asking how he felt. If he had replied that he was fine, Chi Huang could have struck while the iron was hot and arranged another meeting. However, after all these days, Chen Shilü still hadn’t replied.

It was usually Chi Huang who couldn’t be bothered to deal with others, so receiving this treatment was rare. But Chen Shilü truly seemed the furthest removed from his life and circle, and the least troublesome.

He typed two words into the chat box: “Are you there?”