Feng Yuan, with his memories restored, felt the world had become dreamlike.
“I died??”
Damn, I died?!
Gong Ze corrected him: “It was dying of old age. We had no regrets in this life. When I left, Panpan was already over fifty.”
Feng Yuan’s memories instantly became a bit clearer. His eye rims red, he showed a pained expression of recollection while grabbing his own hair and murmuring: “That’s right… yes… You went before me. At the time I was thinking, this damned thing called heaven, why not let me go with you and leave me alone to suffer.”
Feng Yuan choked up.
“After you were gone, I had no mood to manage outside matters at all. I felt awful. I drank, lost my temper, refused to go to the hospital. I kept tormenting myself, thinking it would be better to get sick and go see you sooner. Even toward my son and daughter-in-law, who wanted to take me to the doctor, I had no good face. I let them down.”
Gong Ze’s heart ached hearing this. He hugged Feng Yuan, fingers threading into his hair, lowering his head to kiss his knot-furrowed brows again and again.
“That wasn’t your fault. If only the one left behind had been me. Sorry, Feng Yuan, for going before you. Panpan is a sensible child. He would understand your feelings.”
Feng Yuan now had a young man’s appearance, but after his memories restored, his eyes and aura were as vicissitudinous as an old lion whose claws and teeth were gone, dragging a tired body waiting for death.
All youthful vigor and glory had faded with age, leaving only sighs and bitterness.
He lay on Gong Ze’s shoulder as if finding a peaceful homeland. His arms tightly locked around Gong Ze’s back.
“I finally see you again…”
Feng Yuan clenched his jaw, red eye rims shedding two tear tracks.
“I missed you so much. Our son missed you too. He and his wife had an Omega girl. When I swept the grave, I told your tombstone. Did you hear?”
Gong Ze had already left the world then, so of course he could not hear. But pitying Feng Yuan’s clogged, trembling voice, he could only use his lips to touch his hair and ear outline countless times, saying: “I heard. I heard it all.”
So Feng Yuan, suppressing hard, let out a “wu” trace of crying and wept on Gong Ze’s shoulder. Countless tears smashed into the fabric on Gong Ze’s shoulder, as if smashing into his heart, unbearably sour.
Hearing Feng Yuan, proud all his life, crying, Gong Ze’s eyes reddened too.
People in their twilight years accompanying each other hand in hand.
How could Gong Ze not love and dote on his Feng Yuan to the extreme?
How could he bear to let his wife of such age cry loudly like a widow who had suffered all loneliness?
In the first year after Gong Ze died of old age in that world, Feng Yuan, an old Omega who had lost his Alpha, became a degenerate figure.
In his granddaughter’s eyes he was bad-tempered, reeking of alcohol, cursing and unreasonable if not given drink.
When his parents visited, he put on a face of not wanting juniors to manage him, hating children most, and drove them away. He did not accept their gifts, let alone keep them for meals.
The younger generation in the family feared and avoided him.
Behind his back they said: “I hate Grandpa the most.” “Weird old man.”
Clearly he kept coughing because drinking made him sick, yet he refused to listen to his son and go to the hospital for treatment. After tossing the family business to his son, he even moved out of his filial son and daughter-in-law’s home and went to live alone in an old, nearly crumbling small neighborhood.
Having blessings but not enjoying them, seeking suffering.
Simply a loner, bad old man.
In the cold, quiet broken house, on the cabinet was still a black-and-white photo frame of a young Alpha. It was said to be a photo of his husband when young.
In summer when it was hot, residents of the old building liked to open doors and windows for cross-ventilation, seeking a trace of coolness. Occasionally when people passed his door, they saw that old man, famous for his foul, stubborn temper, drinking mouthful after mouthful facing the photo…
Gong Ze vaguely saw Feng Yuan shed his young skin and become a gray-haired, tall but somewhat gaunt old man.
He said to Gong Ze: “That’s not a broken house. That’s where you lived when I first met you. I bought it. I thought, if I return to the place where we met, maybe I could dream of you more?”
“I want to dream of you…”
“I want to see you…”
Feng Yuan’s red-hot eye rims poured out many, many tears, flowing down like a small river. He said tremblingly to Gong Ze: “Gong Ze… I missed you so much…”
I really, really missed you.
“…”
“…”
Thinking every day about why he had not died yet, thinking about sitting facing the photo for an entire afternoon while his side was forever empty.
Feng Yuan knew that even if he lived with the children he would not get better, because the person who could save him from loneliness was already gone.
The second year, Feng Yuan went out at night to take out the trash because of drinking, stepped on garbage, fell hard, and hit his head.
He was found by a young person walking a dog in the early morning, who called the police and sent him for emergency treatment, but it had still been delayed too long.
However, the gods finally showed Feng Yuan mercy.
Lying on the hospital bed, he foresaw that he was about to die. But Feng Yuan found he was not afraid at all, and was even expectant. Moreover, although the blood clot in his head pressed on his nerves, he miraculously had a one-minute terminal lucidity, letting him open his eyes and sit up, as if not injured at all.
He looked at his already aged adopted son Gu Panpan, daughter-in-law, and little granddaughter.
At old friends Jiang Lin’an and Ji Huai, and their grandchildren and children.
In the ward that seemed especially “lively” because too many people crowded it, Feng Yuan laughed twice. His murky eyes were incredibly bright.
He waved at the grieving, weeping people. Waved at his adopted son.
“Don’t be sad.”
He said happily: “I’m going to see your Daddy Gong Ze.”
Gu Panpan was stunned. After hearing it, he suddenly collapsed over Feng Yuan’s hospital bed, crying uncontrollably.
The people in the room, affected by the heavy, sorrowful atmosphere, cried in waves. Many shed tears and called his name.
When the brief effect of terminal lucidity dispersed and Feng Yuan gradually lost consciousness, the corners of his mouth were still lifted.
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