Chà Chà Novel

“Mom, I came to see you.”

Yu Yan placed the white roses before the gravestone. When he noticed a layer of dust on his mother’s photograph, he did not hesitate before using the sleeve of his six-figure trench coat to wipe it clean. Only after carefully rubbing it several times did he finally stop, satisfied, and smile softly at the woman in the picture.

The sea wind was bitterly cold on this late-autumn night, billowing his coat around him. Somehow, even a man as tall as Yu Yan appeared painfully thin and alone.

“I should have come earlier today, but something held me up. I’m sorry.”

He sat before his mother’s gravestone and silently gazed at the black-and-white photograph of her radiant smile.

“Mom, after all these years, you haven’t changed at all. You’re still so beautiful.”

Whenever Yu Yan came to visit his mother, he always brought the white roses she had loved most when she was alive.

He thought that if she were still here, she would surely beam with delight at the sight of her son bringing her flowers. She would praise his good taste and tell him he had chosen all her favorites—unlike those other parents who only knew how to blame him and insist that everything he did was wrong.

Just as he had on countless similar nights, Yu Yan opened the bottle of liquor he had brought, leaned against the gravestone, and began drinking alone. It was almost like when he had been a child, resting carefree against his mother’s shoulder as he drank Coke without a worry in the world.

After taking a few sips, he began speaking to himself.

“Mom, tell me… did I do something wrong?”

Ever since his mother’s death, Yu Yan had devoted himself to avenging her and reclaiming every asset that had once belonged to her and his maternal grandparents.

Over the years, he had exhausted every scheme and planned his revenge for a long time. Apart from sending every last person who had harmed his family to hell, he had accomplished almost everything he had set out to do.

“Mom… I did it. I really did. And I did it well…”

“But why do I feel… as if I’m not happy at all?”

His voice gradually broke as he spoke. He raised a hand and gently pressed it against his heart.

“Mom, it hurts here… It hurts so much…”

The wind howled around him, lifting the strands of hair across his forehead. Yu Yan closed his eyes as countless scenes from his childhood flashed through his mind.

“Mom, do you think what I did was right?”

“Are you… disappointed in me too?”

Yu Yan leaned the back of his head against the gravestone. Tears had begun streaming down his face without him even realizing it.

He suddenly remembered the helpless, grief-stricken look Gu Xichao had worn on the mountaintop the night before—the very same expression his mother had once shown. In that moment, Yu Yan was horrified to realize that he had become the father he despised most.

“Locking someone who longs for freedom inside a house… What difference is there between who I am now and the bastard who once imprisoned you in that attic?”

Yu Yan had always believed that his actions and thoughts would never be influenced by anyone. Little did he know that the immutable sequence of his genes had already dealt him an invisible blow long ago.

A bitter laugh suddenly escaped him. He mocked his own arrogance and delusions, while grieving the fact that he could never change the blood flowing through his veins.

If there were a technology capable of extracting every trace of his father’s genes from his body, Yu Yan would probably accept it even if it cost him half his life.

“Mom, but I… I can’t bear to let him go. I want him to stay. If I’ve fallen in love with someone I should never have loved, would you forgive me?”

“Actually, what happened back then wasn’t intentional on his part. If you can forgive me… could you forgive him too?”

A gust of wind swept past, almost as if it were answering him.

Yu Yan raised his head in surprise and stared into the empty space above the gravestone.

“Mom, you don’t want to? Is asking you to forgive him too much? But I can’t control myself.”

Yu Yan clutched his hair in anguish, his voice breaking.

“I don’t want to betray you. I truly don’t…”

He wondered whether, if his mother were still alive, she could teach him what to do. Because he genuinely no longer knew what he was supposed to do…

But then his thoughts shifted.

How wonderful it would be if his mother were still alive. None of the things that happened afterward would ever have occurred. He could have openly brought the person he loved home and told her:

“Mom, this is the man I love. Look at him—isn’t he handsome? Isn’t he remarkable?”

At that thought, Yu Yan seemed to understand something at last. He lowered his head and gave a helpless, self-mocking laugh.

No wonder his assistant, Liu Wen, was always calling him an ungrateful wretch. For someone like him, no matter whom he chose or what he did, it seemed that someone would always end up betrayed.

Perhaps the first move on the chessboard of his life had already been wrong from the moment he was born. From there, each step only led to another mistake, taking him farther and farther astray.

But who could he blame?

Hadn’t every choice been his own?

He had brought all of this upon himself…

Before he knew it, Yu Yan had finished the entire bottle.

He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, slowly rose to his feet, and then knelt respectfully before his mother’s grave. Lowering his head deeply before the gravestone, he pressed his forehead against the ground several times.

“I’m sorry, Mom… I’m truly sorry…”

The sea wind howled past him, sending the tails of his trench coat whipping violently through the air.

Yu Yan stumbled as he used his mother’s gravestone to pull himself upright. The marker was small and low, nothing like the tall figure of his mother in his memories. Yet at that moment, he somehow felt as though her hand had reached out from beyond the grave to steady him and help him regain his footing.

The white roses before the gravestone were swept up by the wind, dancing and spinning around his body as though embracing him in her place.

Yu Yan felt as if he had returned to his childhood.

Back when he had only just learned to walk, he would toddle unsteadily toward his mother. She would spread her arms wide and catch her little boy just before he fell.

Tears spilled from his eyes once more.

Yu Yan opened his arms as well, lifted his chin, and raised his chest, allowing himself to accept the tenderness carried to him by the wind.

In the middle of the night, Cheng Yan was fast asleep when he received a call from Yu Yan.

“Cheng Yan, come pick me up. I’ve been drinking…”

Cheng Yan immediately sprang out of bed, cursing the moment he woke.

“You little brat—whose grave did you run off to cry at this time?”

Yu Yan’s slurred, indistinct voice came through the phone.

“I’m at my mom’s…”

“All right, all right. I just remembered—it’s your mother’s death anniversary. Stay right where you are. Don’t move. I’ll be there soon.”

Cheng Yan sighed.

After all, on countless similar nights in the past, he had always been the one who came to collect a drunken Yu Yan and take him home.