Chapter 137: I'm Not Sick
The man with the scar quickly recognized that this was the man Rong Yu later called himself, asking him to come pay the ransom.
Thinking that Rong Yu had already been taken away by someone else, and now this man showed up demanding the person from him, he couldn't help but feel a surge of resentment: "Are you guys messing with me? The person's already been taken away, why are you still asking me for him?"
"Huh?" The man raised his eyebrows, his tiger-like eyes widening. With a big sweep of his hand, he lifted the scar-faced man up like plucking a chick!
The scar-faced man, covered in brawny muscle: "..."
On this day, he suddenly discovered that the muscles he was so proud of seemed to have become lumps of cotton. He was either being beaten around or lifted around by others.
"Are you telling me what to do?" The man lifted the scar-faced man up, even shook him vigorously a few times, then threw him to the ground like trash.
The humiliation the scar-faced man suffered today almost amounted to more than what he'd experienced in the past five or six years combined. He had long been holding in a fierce rage. Being thrown aside again like worthless junk, he cursed loudly in anger. He happened to see the knife that Yin Chengjue had snapped in two lying nearby. Grabbing one of the halves, he mustered a surge of vicious determination and charged at the man!
The man didn't even grant him a direct glance, instead taking a clutch out of his pocket, unzipping it, and rummaging through it.
The scar-faced man had already charged right up to him.
The man simply lifted his leg and kicked out, his long leg straightening, the tip of his foot accurately hitting the scar-faced man's chin. The scar-faced man's blade swung, but missed because his arm wasn't long enough.
The scar-faced man, hit squarely on the chin, bit his own tongue hard. The taste of blood instantly spread through his mouth. His bulky body crashed to the ground, raising a small cloud of dust.
"Gurgle..." The scar-faced man spat out a mouthful of blood.
The man, however, was still seriously searching through his clutch. After a good while, he pulled out one certificate from a large stack of booklets, deftly flipped it open with a finger, and held it out in front of the scar-faced man. "Criminal police on a case. You are suspected of kidnapping and extortion. Please come with us."
Scar-faced man, his tongue too painful to speak: "..."
The other kidnappers who wanted to help their boss after seeing his miserable state: "..."
Only now did they understand that Rong Yu's statement to them, "Don't worry, I won't call the police, I don't want this to get out," was also a lie!
Elsewhere, Rong Yu, undergoing checks at a private hospital, slapped his forehead: "Ah! I remember now! I think I contacted my second brother! He should have gone there looking for me by now!"
Hearing this, Yin Chengjue was stunned: "They extorted money from your second brother too?"
Rong Yu, remembering he was the one who initiated the call, said: "You could say that."
Rong Yu hurriedly pulled out his phone, only to find it was powered off. He then remembered that when he made the call earlier, he saw the battery was already very low.
Considering the consequences he might face after charging it and turning it on, Rong Yu hesitated.
Seeing Rong Yu's phone was dead and noticing his hesitation, Yin Chengjue simply offered his own. "Use mine to call your family," he said. "You should let them know you're safe."
Rong Yu took Yin Chengjue's phone with a conflicted expression.
While Rong Yu was still hesitating about whether to call his second brother, his finger touched the fingerprint sensor, directly unlocking the password lock, bringing him face-to-face with the dialer on the screen.
Staring at the dialer and wrestling with the decision, he finally chose to call Murong He first.
However, as he typed the first few digits, he saw the name "Murong He" automatically appear in the suggested contacts.
Rong Yu's heart skipped a beat. He then remembered this was Yin Chengjue's phone. Murong He primarily managed the family's businesses. It was normal for the Yin Group and the Murong family to have commercial dealings, so it was also normal for Yin Chengjue to have Murong He's number.
Rong Yu stared at the contact entry. Calling Murong He directly would leave a clear record in Yin Chengjue's call log, and that felt like leaving behind evidence.
Rong Yu thought about calling a different number for Murong He, but worried Yin Chengjue might recognize the voice. So he could only accept his fate and dialed Murong Shu's number instead.
Yin Chengjue had just gone to fetch water for Rong Yu and didn't see what Rong Yu had just done.
"Hello," Murong Shu's tone was relatively calm when dealing with a stranger.
Rong Yu cleared his throat: "Second Brother, I was already taken away by someone else."
Murong Shu: "Oh, busy right now. I'll settle the score with you next time, you brat!"
"Huh? Huh?" Expecting a scolding but receiving such an understated response, Rong Yu instantly became curious: "Did something happen?"
Murong Shu: "We have to thank you for this. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have caught this thin thread, which led to uncovering a whole series of issues."
Rong Yu glanced at Yin Chengjue, noticing he had thoughtfully moved far away, probably not wanting to disturb his family call.
Even so, Rong Yu still lowered his voice: "Is it that case you guys have been working on day and night for the past few months?"
Murong Shu's tone held a rare hint of a smile: "Yes, there's finally some progress."
But he quickly remembered he was talking to his third brother, who had been away from home for so long without returning, and his tone turned serious again: "Hurry up and come home! Stop this nonsense!"
Rong Yu: "I'm not causing trouble."
Murong Shu: "Not causing trouble? Then why haven't you come home for so long? Do you know how worried Father and Mother are?"
Rong Yu gave a cold laugh: "Yes, they are so worried. Worried enough to find me another doctor, right? They think my old illness has relapsed, and even caused complications now?"
Murong Shu fell silent for a moment: "They're concerned about you."
Rong Yu: "Yeah, they think I'm sick, so they're very concerned about me. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But have you ever considered that I'm not sick at all!"
His agitated emotions made his voice a bit loud. Yin Chengjue, standing in the distance, heard some of it and looked over questioningly.
He saw Rong Yu covering his face with one hand, shoulders shaking, as if he was crying.
Yin Chengjue instantly forgot about giving Rong Yu personal space. He quickly walked towards Rong Yu. By the time he got close, Rong Yu had already put the phone down, clearly having ended the call.
"What's wrong?" Yin Chengjue pulled out a few tissues and handed them to Rong Yu.
"Nothing." Rong Yu's eyes were indeed red, and his lower lip was bitten bright red, like blood.
"You call this nothing?" Yin Chengjue held Rong Yu's forehead, making him look up.
"Was it because of the call just now? Did they say something upsetting?" Wei Shu had just given a complete account of Rong Yu's heroic deeds at the abandoned toy factory, so Yin Chengjue instinctively ruled out the kidnapping as the cause of Rong Yu's distress.
If anyone should be sad, it's those kidnappers who were beaten half-crippled, they're the ones who should be wailing.
So, Yin Chengjue's first thought was that Rong Yu had discussed something unhappy during the call.
Rong Yu, not overthinking it much, nodded, tacitly agreeing.
Yin Chengjue looked into his eyes: "If you don't mind, you can tell me."
Rong Yu was silent for a moment, then sighed: "Actually, it's nothing much. I think I told you before, when I was little, I had an illness, an illness that was particularly serious for my family. My parents put a lot of effort into treating it, hiring the best doctors available at the time, trying all sorts of treatments on me. I spent a very long period of time in the hospital."
"That period caused me to miss out on a lot." Rong Yu lowered his eyes slightly, long eyelashes veiling the flickering light in his pupils.
"Later, the doctors finally determined I was ready for discharge. My parents were overjoyed, thinking I could finally become a normal person." Rong Yu also smiled, but the forced curve of his lips seemed somewhat strained.
Yin Chengjue keenly sensed this flicker of unusual emotion from Rong Yu, but he didn't interrupt, quietly listening.
"Until one day, I told them I'm gay." At this point, Rong Yu's smile turned bitter. "So they thought it was because my previous illness wasn't completely cured, which led to this strange, unreasonable notion."
"So, after hearing me confess I'm gay, they wanted to take me for treatment again. That's why I ran away from home." Rong Yu said.
Yin Chengjue hadn't expected Rong Yu to be carrying such a burden behind him and was momentarily stunned.
Yin Chengjue remembered his own past. In his previous life, when he'd confessed his sexuality to Feng Chengda, the man had erupted, shouting that he was sick and a disgrace to the family.
Although society was more open and acceptance of being gay was higher, that understanding often faltered when it hit closer to home.
"Brother, I don't want to go back. I'm not sick. I don't need treatment." Rong Yu wrapped his arms around Yin Chengjue's neck, burying his face in the crook of Yin Chengjue's neck, as if drawing strength from the embrace.
Yin Chengjue gently patted Rong Yu's back, speaking softly: "You're right, we're not sick. The people who say we're sick are the ones who are sick."
Yin Chengjue: "We just normally like someone, and that person happens to be the same gender. We haven't hurt anyone, nor endangered society. We earn our own living with our own hands, making an honest living, living upright lives. How is that not normal?"
"It's just that in this era, heterosexual relationships are more common than homosexual ones. Who's to say that thousands of years from now, homosexual relationships might be more common than heterosexual ones? Would they then say heterosexual relationships are sick and abnormal?"
Yin Chengjue made Rong Yu look up and meet his gaze, speaking gently: "But, having said that, we still need to face one thing: we are indeed part of a minority group right now. Although we are all striving for acceptance from the majority, the process is difficult."
"In the broader environment, the majority discriminating against the minority is an unavoidable phenomenon, whether among humans or animals. So, since we've chosen this path, we must manage our own mindset well."
"We can't force others to understand us, but we can learn to ignore those who don't understand. Life is our own, no one else can control it. There's no need to let a few words from others disturb your peace of mind."
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