Chapter 01: Prologue

One kilometer away in the city center, the dazzling lights of the ‘Sky Tower’ illuminated a corner of the living room through floor-to-ceiling windows.

With a ‘ding’, the phone that was thrown in the corner of the sofa received a message, and the screen suddenly lit up in the darkness.

A second before the screen was about to go dark, Song Yu's bony hand picked up the phone.

A message from an unfamiliar number: [Emperor Song, have you considered it?]

Further up the page were a few photos sent by this number yesterday. In the photos were Han Jin, a contracted artist of Song Yu's personal studio, and Meng Shiping, Song Yu's manager and partner, two adult males. They were naked and wearing beach pants, embracing and kissing passionately on the golden sand of the island. The picture was beautiful like a literary movie poster.

Immediately after the photo was a blackmail text message.

[Great Emperor Song, I accidentally took photos of your studio artist Han Jin and your agent Meng Shiping on a romantic vacation. Han Jin's career is on the rise, and I'm sure you don't want his future to be ruined by an office romance. I can't contact Manager Meng, so I can only contact you, Emperor Song. How about buying these photos for $2 million?]

The blackmail tactics commonly used by the paparazzi in the entertainment industry. The photos were sent out for no other purpose than to generate short-term gossip among netizens, and they could often be used to threaten the person concerned for a handsome hush money.

Song Yu had just returned home when he received these photos last night. He then spent the rest of the night and day sitting on the leather couch in the living room, during which he sent a "I'll think about it" reply to the unknown number.

Two million? It was really worthless. If this paparazzi knew the relationship between Han Jin and him, it wouldn’t hurt to add another zero.

Lifting his eyes and glancing at the dim light in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, Song Yu thought of his mother.

One late night twenty years ago, his mother sat like this in the living room with the lights off, as if her soul had been drained away. On the coffee table in front of her were several photos of a man and a woman holding a cute child, looking like a beautiful family of three. The man in the photo was Song Yu's father, while the woman and child in the photo were his cheating partner and illegitimate child.

The conclusive evidence of the father's cheating tore apart all the beautiful illusions. His mother's soul died that late night, dragging the shell of a rotten wood[1] for twenty years. Her body was pushed into the incinerator of the funeral home last month.
[1]:Good-for-nothing; useless/hopeless person

With trembling hands, Song Yu reopened the photo in his phone and rubbed his fingertips against Han Jin's smiling profile on the screen. The smile transformed through the screen into an invisible hand that strangled Song Yu's throat, suffocating him with pain.

In the twenty years of his mother's madness, the words she said most often were, "Love is the most illusory thing, the closer you are to people, the harder they cheat you."

Song Yu failed to learn from his mother's failed marriage, and twenty years later he suffered the same betrayal as his mother. It was a double betrayal.

The two men in the photo were not only his studio's contracted artist and manager, but also the man he loved most and his most trusted friend and elder brother.[2]

[2[: 兄长: elder brother/term of respect for a man of about the same age

Last week, Han Jin was still clinging to his neck in the office, smiling and acting coquettishly: "Ge, the director said that in two days we will go to Africa to shoot gun fight scenes. I have never heard of that country, and there is no cell phone signal. I am afraid."

At that time Song Yu comforted him: "Don't be afraid, I'll ask Meng ge to accompany you, and I'll pick you up the day you return."

It turned out that it was not Han Jin's soft-spoken coquetry, but he laid the groundwork for his lies.

Song Yu rubbed his phone screen, his fingertips tapped several times before he reached the WeChat icon and opened the WeChat interface. The last conversation time of the top two dialog boxes stayed during the middle of the night five days ago

Han Jin, with the avatar of harmless kitten, sent the message: Ge, I got on the plane. There may be no signal when I arrive in Africa. Wait for me to contact you, love you.

Meng Shiping’s words were brief and concise: I have boarded the plane, see you later.

Two people who should be shooting on an African set were kissing on an island.

Where exactly did it all go wrong? Why did he take off his hard armor to accept the embrace, only to have a sharp blade plunged deep into his chest?

Desperate, questioning, self-blaming; Song Yu's head swelled with thoughts. A throbbing pain from deep inside his scalp made him sweat coldly, and he grabbed his hair out of control to try to relieve the pain. After letting out a low roar, Song Yu saw the medicine bottle on the coffee table, like a drowning man seeing driftwood.

The hand trembling uncontrollably opened the medicine bottle making the pills scattered all over the ground. Song Yu suddenly threw the bottle of pills to the ground. His rage came without warning; he began to smash all the objects in the living room like a lunatic out of control. His helpless and desperate roar echoing in the empty duplex house without making a single ripple.

"Xiao Yu! Xiao Yu!"

A soft call came from his ear, and Song Yu stopped his hand with a dull expression. He seemed to hear his mother's cry.

"Xiao Yu! Xiao Yu!"

Following the sound of voices, Song Yu finally saw the familiar figure in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. His mother was young. She was wearing a lotus pink knitted sweater with her hair pulled loosely. She sat on the ground, holding a rattle and half leaning over, as if teasing a child. She smiled lightly as she spoke: "Xiao Yu, come here, come to mom."

Song Yu looked dumbly at his young mother. In her encouraging eyes, he slowly walked over and half-kneeled in front of her. His mother gently wiped away the sweat and tears from his face and said painfully, "Xiao Yu, are you tired?"

The warm touch on his face penetrated his skin and penetrated his cold chest. Song Yu's frozen body finally got a little warm. He lay down and rested his head on his mother's knee, curling up as secure and comfortable as if he were in her womb.

The mother looked down at her child with a smile and whispered, "Good boy, take a rest when you're tired."

Song Yu could no longer control the corners of his mouth, he held back his tears and asked in a trembling voice, "Mom, are you here to pick me up?"

"Well, this world is too bitter, I want to take you with me." The mother rubbed the hair around Song Yu's temples over and over again.

Song Yu tilted his head and looked at his mother's warm and affectionate eyes. He thought carefully, how long had it been since he had seen such a vivid expression from his mother? It had been twenty years; since the day his mother found out his father cheated on her, her eyes had been like a bottomless cave, filled with endless darkness and despair.

"Okay, wait for me then."

Upon receiving his mother's answer, Song Yu heaved a deep breath, and his eyes were vaguely excited.

He repeatedly told his mother that she must wait for him. Song Yu got up and went to take a shower before he blow-dried his hair, and then went to the wardrobe to pick out the most suitable solid black suit to wear, with a black tie with gray and white stripes.

He seemed to have been waiting for this day for a long time, and he knew that there would be such a day a long time ago, so he was not in a hurry.

After cleaning himself, Song Yu went to the study and took out a small jewelry box, in which lay a pair of unique custom rings; he was going to propose on Han Jin's birthday.

Song Yu took one of them and put it on his ring finger, then threw the other one into the toilet and pressed the flush button. The loyalty he had wholeheartedly expected, yearned for, and believed in was thus flushed down the dirty drain.

After doing so, Song Yu did not hesitate anymore. He went to the utility room to get a climbing rope and then turned on the crystal chandelier in the living room.

His mother was still crouched in the same place, smiling lightly at him. Song Yu responded with a smile before looking up at the brilliant crystal chandelier. Then he hung the climbing rope on the chandelier and put his neck into the climbing rope. He kicked off the stool under his feet without hesitation.

No uncontrolled hands, no uncontrolled emotions, no hallucinations, no betrayal, finally free.

For Song Yu at this moment, the climbing rope was not a tool of destruction, but a ladder towards liberation…