A President’s Out-of-Body Experience

Finding an unoccupied corner in the villa, Renzi stood there. He could not help but give his dad a call. “Brother Xiaoshan really didn’t pay me any attention.”

“I asked you not to go, but you insisted on doing so.”

Renzi sighed, “I’ve never seen him so cold before.”

Snorting, Old Mister Yu replied, “If not? Did you expect him to laugh and greet you with a ‘Hey, I’m glad you came today’?”

Currently, Gu Xiaoshan was truly unable to be happy about anything. Sitting in the meeting room with a bunch of people he disdained, he was waiting for the lawyer to read the will. The lawyer calmly read out Tang Guoguo’s will. “My Candies, if you’re listening to this letter, it means that I have already left this world. Also, if you’re listening to this letter, then you should know that you’re all people that I love.” Hearing this, Gu Xiaoshan nearly vomited on the spot. However, he also felt that he himself was pretty disgusting. He clearly had said that he wanted to break all ties between this woman and him, but once he heard that there was money involved, he actually came all the way here to attend the funeral. Never had Gu Xiaoshan ever hated himself more than this exact moment.

The lawyer continued reading Tang Guoguo’s emotional letter without any expressions. “You might all not understand me, because no one has ever lived their lives as passionately and purely as I did. Every step I made, every breath I took, it was all for nothing but love. Love is temporary, and I can only continuously keep chasing after it. I can betray all men, but I cannot betray love. No one can understand my loyalty and devotion.”

The azure blue waves, capped with snow white foam, looked just like a fairy’s skirt. They curled up on the shore, but brought with them a nauseating smell not unlike that of a demon. A young Gu Xiaoshan was trapped in the embrace of his mother, he felt suffocated. Ever since he saw the intertwining of his mother with a stranger, he was unable to tolerate the warmth of this woman’s skin. The salty scent of the seawater mingled with his mother’s strong perfume, flooding his little nostrils. Next to his ears was the shrill voice of a woman, “All I wanted was love! Love!”

In the winds blowing across the sea, his father’s voice sounded far away. “Are you crazy?! What Chiung Yao drama are you acting out this time?!”

The winds seemed to be shattered by the intense sun, becoming like blades, hitting Gu Xiaoshan’s young and tender face. He could only hear the word “love, love” repeating non-stop. He was only five years old, and did not understand what this word meant, solely feeling disgusted by it.

Even at that point, his father did not seem to believe that this woman would try to drown herself in the sea.

After that, the winds blew even harder. Gu Xiaoshan’s vision was extremely blurry, everything had become a jumble of blue, in his nose was no longer that nauseating smell, only suffocation and despair — his chest was filled with terror, his heart almost bursting — soon, fortunately, he quickly fell unconscious… and only remembered a word, “love”.

How disgusting.

Gu Xiaoshan slowly opened his eyes, a faraway look in them. Only then did he remember he was already an adult. He even worked very hard to learn how to swim, in this way, he could officially tell his father, “I’m not afraid of water, I just don’t like it.” After that, he dived into the pool and swam a 100m freestyle for him to see. In the midst of the splashes, Gu Xiaoshan suddenly returned to that moment, the face of his mother was already indistinct, only that shrill voice was sounding constantly.

Now, he again felt that he had returned into the water.

Leaving the meeting room, Gu Xiaoshan was still in a muddle. Only when Xu Yunyun cautiously asked, “Are you satisfied with the will? Do you need to contact our lawyers to prepare a suit?”, Gu Xiaoshan then realised that he had not listen to a word of the content of the will. When the word “love” appeared, all Gu Xiaoshan could hear was the rushing of water.

Gu Xiaoshan put on a calm facade, “We’ll see how it goes.”

Xu Yunyun did not ask any further. She had actually noticed that Gu Xiaoshan’s listlessness, but to feel this way during his mother’s funeral, it was completely reasonable. If Gu Xiaoshan was still that extremely fussy and calculative man now, she would have to exclaim that “my boss is actually really a cold-blooded avarice”.

This villa was completely built according to Tang Guoguo’s wishes. The colours were bright and eye-searing, like an enormous fondant cake. Renzi stood by the door and waited, he easily recognised the person he was waiting for — in a room decorated with the colour scheme of macarons, Gu Xiaoshan was dressed in black and whie, his expression unsually cold. Gu Xiaoshan still looked very detached, and with his hand he removed the white rose on his chest and dropped it on the floor, grinding it into the ground with his black leather shoe.

When Gu Xiaoshan looked at Renzi, his eyes were still filled with detachment just like in the mourning hall. Renzi’s heart again seized, but he still pushed himself forward, and reflexively smiled at him, “Brother Xiaoshan, Brother Xiaoshan!”

Hearing that, the light in Gu Xiaoshan’s eyes shifted, and a little warmth trickled into it, “Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here?”

Renzi saw that Gu Xiaoshan’s mood was warmer, and he became more impassioned. “I’m waiting for you, I don’t know where to look for a place to stay.”

Gu Xiaoshan smiled, “Your dad didn’t make any arrangements for you after letting you come all the way here?”

“My dad says to just run to you for shelter, I’ll never lose out that way.”

Gu Xiaoshan was rather helpless towards this, “I’m staying in a nearby hotel, you can stay with me. However, I don’t know if there are any more rooms available.”

There were too many people who rushed here to attend Tang Guoguo’s funeral. There was only a somewhat decent hotel around the area, and all luxury rooms had been filled. He could not ask Renzi to stay in a standard room, nor could he ask Xu Yunyun to share a room with Renzi, so logically, Renzi could only stay in Gu Xiaoshan’s suite. Renzi was at first feeling anxious after seeing Gu Xiaoshan’s mood at the mourning hall, but now he discovered that Gu Xiaoshan was not distancing himself from him, he was only reacting slowly to the surroundings. At that time, his eyes were unfocused, as though troubled by something.

Thinking about this, Renzi’s hair stood on ends. Did he see a ghost?

When Renzi called his dad to ask if he should buy some amulet or charm, Old Mister Yu replied him serenely, “When your mother passed away, you were also like this.”

Renzi did not have any recollections of it. “Then did you let me drink the ashes of an amulet 1 ?”

Old Mister Yu immediately hung up on him, and after a while, sent him another email. In this email was an article “A Villager Suffers From Acute Gastric After Ignorantly Studying Fengshui and Drank The Ashes of an Amulet”.

This place was somewhat rural, and they were staying in the only star-rated hotel within a hundred miles. The amenities available were only so-so, although they were already staying in a luxury room, the standards were still far from what they were used to. Normally, Gu Xiaoshan would even chat with Renzi to get rid of their boredom. Now, Gu Xiaoshan was not very willing to talk, and even closed himself off in a room, while Renzi sat alone on the little bed in the living room. Renzi lay on his side on that hard little bed, and all he could hear was the whirring of the old air-conditioner.

He was completely unable to fall asleep.

Turning over, he saw that his dad had sent him another message. “Don’t get too excited, and suddenly confess your love!”

Renzi did not pay attention to anything but the bright and shiny “confess your love!” Those three words together with the impressive exclamation mark made his heart pound — confess your love, confess your love, confess your love!

No matter how he tried, Renzi could not fall asleep, with a creak he climbed up from the bed, and started using the notes app on his phone, brainstorming about his touching confession for Brother Xiaoshan… a quiet night, dull noises, boundless loneliness, all these instead gave Renzi unlimited inspiration — As he thought of Gu Xiaoshan, his fingers tapped furiously on his keypad. “If I’m the flight from Beijing flying to San Diego, you’ll be the Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport. Because when I reach you, I must change planes. If I’m a winding mountain road, then you’re the road sign showing a sharp curve ahead, when I see you I’ll have to bend…2 “

It just happened that in the bedroom, Gu Xiaoshan was also unable to fall asleep, and in his hand was Tang Guoguo’s will for him. “What I took from your father, I’m destined to return it back to you. When I took these, it wasn’t because I had a greed for money. At the end of the day, it’s still the same thing, I only want love. Since he was intent on destroying my love, I had to take away what he loved — which is probably his wealth. He can go love his money, I don’t care anymore. I love you.”

Seeing these words, Gu Xiaoshan felt like he got acid reflux.

Coming here, what he heard and saw was a ubiquitous “love”. It made him weary, it made him breakdown. He thought, if anyone was to mention the word “love” again to him, he would definitely kill them with a punch.

Outside the room, Renzi had finished the last line of his “love confession draft”, “This is love, love, love. Because of love, therefore it’s love, let’s quickly fall in love.” He was very satisfied, Brother Xiaoshan will definitely be moved by me.