Chà Chà Novel

“Given up hope?”

Ji Shileng lowered his eyes and spoke without emotion.

“To tell you the truth, my heart gave up a long time ago.”

A faint redness crept around his eyes.

“As for working together, forget it. First, it would be beneath me. Second, I did once truly love Shang Jianli.”

Even if Shang Jianli had squandered so many years of his life.

As for the first reason, he was a member of the Ji family. Decades of family upbringing would not allow him to do something so disgraceful.

As for the second, he could not betray his own heart. Taking revenge on someone he had loved would also mean taking revenge on himself.

The kidnapper gave a few inscrutable chuckles. Whether Ji Shileng refused hardly mattered.

Either way, his story could only end in death.

Before pushing him out of the starship, the man leaned close to his ear.

“Your dignity? I wonder if this way of dying will meet with your approval.”

Ji Shileng’s slender body fell from the immense height like a kite with its string severed, without a trace of attachment.

Air rushed past him with a piercing roar, as though it would tear everything apart.

His heart hammered wildly in his chest, each beat like a heavy mallet striking a fragile drumhead, deafening in his ears.

At the edge of his vision, the kidnapper stood in the starship’s open hatch, holding up the communicator to record a video.

Ji Shileng closed his eyes and let his body tumble helplessly through the air.

The overwhelming dizziness brought something else to mind.

A few months before he graduated from Imperial University, his family had managed to contact him. They told him to pack his things and get his ass home immediately. He could play games, form an esports team, become its owner—anything he wanted, so long as he came home.

As a teenager, Ji Shileng had left the Federation alone to study in the Empire. Young and fearless, he had unilaterally cut off contact with his family.

He and Shang Jianli had both attended Imperial No. 1 High School. In their final year, Shang Jianli received direct admission to Imperial University, and Ji Shileng followed him by applying there too.

After graduation, faced with the difficult choice between returning to the Federation and remaining in the Empire, Ji Shileng had chosen the latter without hesitation.

His friends and relatives in the Federation began bombarding his communicator with calls. They also threatened to put pressure on his game studio and cut off all financial support.

Neither side spared the other’s feelings.

Then Ji Shileng accepted Shang Jianli’s proposal, making his determination unmistakably clear.

Now, it seemed too late to contact them.

There was no remedy for regret in this world.

Fortunately, he had never regretted his choice.

He only wished he could have seen his family once more before he died.

The instant his body struck the river, every sound disappeared, leaving only the deafening impact and endless darkness.

Water erupted from the surface. The current engulfed him, drawing him deeper and deeper.

[It was the coldest winter in the history of the Interstellar Era. Ji Shileng drifted in the dark waters of the Seine River for three days and three nights.]

Ji Shileng struggled free of the dark abyss and forced his heavy eyelids open. Every breath felt extraordinarily precious.

A radio broadcast the news in broken snatches. Before he could make out the words, a beep sounded and someone switched it off.

An elderly woman approached him, her back bent with age.

“Oh, thank goodness. You’re finally awake.”

She turned on a small lamp, her deeply lined face warm and kind.

She briefly explained how she had rescued him, but did not mention that he had not been breathing when she found him.

She had intended to wait a couple of days, then ask someone to take his body to be cremated. Unexpectedly, his heart had begun beating faintly again.

Whatever the circumstances, at least he had come back to life.

After hearing her account, Ji Shileng’s eyes softened with a gentle smile.

“Thank you, Granny.”

Then, in a whisper so faint it was almost inaudible, he murmured:

“It seems something good has finally happened.”

He had never believed that happiness would follow suffering. After nearly dying, he could not help believing it now.

A few pieces of dried fish and a bowl of rice made up their dinner.

Afraid he might be bored, Granny turned on the only source of entertainment in the house—a radio.

“During celebrations marking thirty years of diplomatic relations between the Federation and Shaye, interstellar terrorists intervened. General Shang Jianli successfully rescued Shaye’s youngest prince in under two hours…”

“Tragically, the general’s spouse, Ji Shileng, died in the incident at the age of twenty-four.”

Ji Shileng lowered his eyes, privately finding it absurd.

Granny, however, sighed.

“Only twenty-four, and already gone. And the general’s spouse, too. Such a promising future, all lost.”

“Granny, haven’t you heard the rumors? They say Ji Shileng was an orphan who married above his station, and that he had a bad character.”

“I don’t know about any of that.”

She shook her head and placed a piece of fish in his bowl.

“But if the general was willing to marry him, surely there must have been some affection between them.”

“Still, people’s hearts change. Especially those with power and status.”

The only thing that never changed was how easily people changed.

After dinner, dressed in coarse cloth, Ji Shileng found a mirror and raised his eyes to his reflection.

The little lamp was terribly dim. Its glow fell over him, veiling him in indistinct light.

He had a finely shaped brow and a strikingly straight, high nose. His whole face bore the frailty of someone recovering from a serious illness.

Ji Shileng tried to lift the corners of his mouth, yet his own reflection felt unfamiliar.

Granny came in and was startled to find him standing motionless, staring into the mirror.

“Xiao Shi?”

Ji Shileng had told her his name was Xiao Shi.

“Granny.”

“Time to rest. Some people from town are coming tomorrow. We can ask to borrow a phone.”

Through their conversations, Ji Shileng learned that this was one of the earliest villages established along the Seine River.

As the economy developed, its residents had gradually moved away, leaving only the elderly and infirm behind.

Electronic devices such as telephones were luxuries to them.

After the light was turned off and he lay down, Ji Shileng tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

He propped himself up in bed, head bowed. Long strands of hair obscured his eyes and brows, and a dull ache lingered in his heart.

Perhaps heaven had shown him mercy. Despite falling from such a height, he had suffered no injuries.

Only an occasional sharp pain in his heart.

Chapter 3: Arranging a Funeral Is No Obligation

The house was so quiet that Ji Shileng could hear his own breathing.

He looked out the window. The black river roared like a beast, threatening to swallow everything.

He was grateful he had not died like that, without ever knowing the full truth. He still had another chance at life.

For the first time since leaving home, Ji Shileng felt a little homesick.

The next day, the bitter cold remained, and fierce winds howled outside.

Still recovering, Ji Shileng could not travel far, so the important task of contacting his family fell to Granny.

——

“Hello?”

At the Ji family’s ancestral residence, the butler answered the telephone.

This was the family’s private line. Only those closest to them knew the number.

“Hello. Am I speaking to Xiao Shi’s family?”

“Xiao Shi?”

The butler froze, then immediately understood. He asked the housekeeper beside him to fetch the lady of the house from the greenhouse.

Ji Shileng’s mother, Wen Qin, put down the telephone, her eyes rimmed red as tears slipped from their corners.

Upon hearing news of her youngest brother, his eldest sister, Ji Shiyun, immediately set aside everything and headed for the Federation.

She arrived sooner than Ji Shileng had imagined.

That very evening, Ji Shiyun pushed open the little house’s wooden door in slender high heels.

Tall and slim, she wore a long black coat and sunglasses. The exposed lower half of her face was taut.

At her first sight of Ji Shileng, she stood stunned for a long, long time.

Just a few years without keeping an eye on him, and her little brother had become little more than skin and bones.

“Sis.”

Ji Shileng called to her, looking utterly worn and defeated.

Ji Shiyun snapped out of her daze. Tears filled her eyes as she asked in a trembling voice:

“All those years in the Empire, and this is what you’ve done to yourself?”

Ji Shileng could barely bear it. Avoiding her eyes, he said:

“Sis, I’ve decided to come home. At least I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

Tears slid from the tip of Ji Shiyun’s chin. Unable to restrain herself, she slapped him.

Ji Shileng’s face turned with the blow.

“And what if you weren’t?” she demanded. “If you’d died, how were you going to answer to us? The Empire has already started arranging your funeral. How do you think that makes your family feel?”

The Empire had not even found a body before declaring Ji Shileng dead.

That left the Ji family with no way to send people to search for him.

“So now you know what it feels like to hurt? Do you have any idea that I’m hurting even more than you are?”

“Ten times more.”

The assistant and bodyguards behind Ji Shiyun remained silent.

“What did you ever want as a child that we didn’t give you? You wanted the stars, we gave you the stars. You wanted the moon, we gave you the moon. Whenever you got into trouble, we cleaned up the mess. How could you bear to do this to us?”

Ji Shiyun cried until the tip of her nose turned red.

She had always been well-mannered and never swore.

“Did that bastard Shang put a fucking spell on you? How could you degrade yourself like this for someone so utterly unworthy?”

“When you treat yourself like you’re worthless, aren’t you doing the same to all of us?”

“Sis, I’m sorry.”

Ji Shileng hung his head, his face pale and lifeless.

“I’m so sorry…”

Shang Jianli had never been the only one hurting him.

He himself had played a part, too.

Yet from beginning to end, he alone had been the victim.