Hui

Throwing his phone hard against the opposite wall, Hui's eyes were bloodshot with exhaustion and rage. Why was it that he had everything others dreamed of, yet even the most natural and smallest thing was ruthlessly stolen from him? Even in his dreams, he dreamed of... family.

Money—he had plenty of it, but money couldn't buy the warmth of a family. He lost his mother at the age of five. And his father? Did that man even deserve to be called "father"? Since the day he opened his eyes to this world, how many times had he actually seen his face? Could it even be ten times up to now? He knew, he knew everything. He knew why his mother left, and why the person who gave him life was always so cold to him. Ha. How ridiculous! His mother loved him deeply, dedicating her entire youth and all her resources to give him what he wanted. Once he secured a firm standing in society, what did he do? He discarded his mother like an unwanted object, always away on business, business... For so many days and months, his mother had only herself, and him. So many nights she cried, so many nights she waited in vain for a response from her wretched husband, so many nights she stayed awake looking at photos of a bygone era. He stood outside the door, watching his mother. A child who had absolutely no understanding of what was happening still felt such pain in his heart that he wanted to cry but couldn't, only feeling his nose and eyes sting. Yet he didn't dare approach his mother. He didn't know why, but he remembered that during those times, he would only quietly huddle behind the door, trying to make himself as small as possible, as if he were afraid of something, something...

On the day his mother passed, he stood beside her coffin, looking at her pale face through the round glass frame. Not a single tear fell, yet his heart ached thousands of times worse than if it were cut by a knife. Every time he recalled that scene, his heart felt squeezed, making it unbelievably hard to breathe. The most infuriating thing was what he saw behind his "father's" room door. The scene he could never forget for the rest of his life was the silhouette of his father and a woman who wasn't his mother, passionately kissing through the gap in the door, along with the sweet words he whispered to her. His mother had only just passed away...

How many years had it been? More than ten years. He lived in a massive, lonely house devoid of any warmth. Throughout his rebellious teenage years, he always avoided stepping foot into that house. Even though his mother had once been there, it was now too cold. The man he called "father" from then on completely ignored him in the way a father should care for his young child at home. When he was little, the man hired a nanny to look after him; as he grew up, he did everything himself. For all those years, the man never once glanced to see how the child he abandoned was living. He merely deposited a sum of money into his account regularly every month, enough for him to live luxuriously and buy whatever he liked or needed. But he didn't need money. He didn't need those paper bills. What he needed was very simple, something any child had: love from his mother, his "father," and a family. But all of that was far away now.

He forced himself to be strong, as if to become a pillar of support for his mother, so he didn't allow himself to be weak. That was the naive thought of a child who believed he could do everything for his mother. Yet on the day she died, he realized he hadn't been able to do anything for her at all, absolutely nothing... Even now, he always forced himself to brace against everything, refusing to collapse even if the heavens fell. But everything suddenly shattered when he received a text message from his "father" in name.

"My wedding with your aunt is in a week. Come join the fun!"

The final wall surrounding him collapsed, leaving him standing alone in the barren world. He was like a wild, feral beast just unleashed from its chains, ready to charge into the reality before him and destroy it, crushing it into nothingness.

Sitting to one side, watching his friend being swallowed by rage, struggling in vain and smashing things in his madness, Guang leaned his head back. He had never seen his friend fly into such a rage. Although he didn't understand what the warmth of a family felt like, he could sense how important it was to his best friend. He knew that beneath that shell, his friend was only trying to appear strong. This time, it was probably best to let Hui escape the cage he had built for himself. Even if it was wild and furious, it was much better than forcing himself to endure everything and acting as if he didn't care about anything... Definitely much better.