In Dong Huiying’s memory, Su Lang was a paranoid youth. With a pretty and delicate baby face, he looked quite pleasant, but his eyes always carried a rebellious and fierce glint, only slightly restrained in front of Liang Zhichen. In front of others, he would either wear a cold expression, show disdain, or be ferocious, like a hedgehog bristling with spines all over.
To this day, Dong Huiying still remembered that time on Qingfeng Mountain when Shen Qiuyang had come down the mountain and brought Su Lang back with him. Su Lang didn’t like her and obsessively believed that she was unworthy of Liang Zhichen. In Su Lang’s heart, his Master was wise and astute, already the best man in the entire world.
Liang Zhichen held Dong Huiying’s hand and the two walked towards Su Lang’s room. As they entered, the first thing they smelled was the pungent odor of alcohol, and the pale and frail youth sat on the ground with his legs crossed, his expression blank and his hair a disheveled mess, having lost his former dignity.
His eyes were bloodshot, with deep dark circles beneath them, as if he had been abandoned by the entire world, his whole being radiating a lonely aura.
Only upon seeing Liang Zhichen did a flicker of life appear in his eyes.
"Master..." Su Lang called out with a hoarse voice. Then, leaning on the wall, he staggered to his feet. Clearly drunk, he nonetheless tried to smooth out the wrinkles on his clothes, trying to make himself look a bit better, but he was still befuddled.
"Why have you drunk so much again?" Liang Zhichen frowned, his face full of disapproval. Su Lang had already been completely drunk when he came by yesterday, and today was the same. A surge of anger rose in his heart.
Su Lang paused, "... Master, you’re still willing to pay attention to me?" He thought that the Master had come to resent him. Initially, when the Master had made the long and arduous journey to the camp, the people of his camp had given the Master trouble. After that, he dared not contact the Master and the Master hadn’t reached out to him either. He thought that the Master had grown to dislike him.
He, he had already lost everything. In Black Wind Camp, everyone saw him as a leader, calling him Big Boss, but it was only a handful of pitiful people huddling together for warmth, each with a painful past, each having clawed their way back from a place that seemed to devour people, each with memories too bitter to look back on.
Even they themselves had at times despised their filthy and unclean selves.
Liang Zhichen sighed, then helped him to sit on the kang bed. At that moment, Su Lang coughed deeply, his coughing heart-wrenching. As Liang Zhichen had said yesterday, he was seriously ill, yet still so careless with his health.
Dong Huiying walked over, intending to take Su Lang’s pulse, but this only enraged him. He pushed her hand away, shouting shrilly, "Don’t touch me!"
Loathing, hate! His eyes seemed to be burning with a fire that could consume everything around, and that could burn him to ashes as well.
Dong Huiying’s hand turned red from his slap. She covered her hand and looked helplessly towards Liang Zhichen.
Liang Zhichen’s brows furrowed tightly, "Su Lang!!"
Su Lang knew the Master was unhappy now, even through his drunken haze, he could feel it. He sniffed, bitterly sarcastic, "Heh, men! One after another, all of you are the same!"
Su Lang forcefully closed his eyes.
The Master, to him, was someone who was both a teacher and a father, a brother, and a friend.