Chà Chà Novel

“Beep beep beep—”

The alarm rang over and over for a long time. On the bed, Su Nuo opened his eyes, looking dazed.

He raised his hands in front of his face. They were pale and slender, untouched by life’s hardships, and free of those terrible scars.

A breeze drifted through the window and stirred the curtains. Warm sunlight poured into the room, but it couldn’t warm his cold heart.

Is this the world after death?

When people die, do they go back to the moment they miss the most?

If he could really go back and see that person one more time, then death would be a gift.

Su Nuo picked up his phone, which was still ringing nonstop. The time on the screen stung his eyes.

If this was his soul looking back on what it couldn’t let go of, why did it have to be this day?

This date split Su Nuo’s life in two, turning everything upside down. His future, once full of light and hope, was trampled into the mud, and he died struggling, with no hope left.

Before this day, he had just received his college acceptance letter. He was still innocent and a little headstrong, the way young people are. Someone protected him and spoiled him, so he had nothing to worry about.

But on this day, the man who had always held up an umbrella to shelter him died in an accident. Before Su Nuo could recover from his grief, some people showed up at his door, claiming to be his birth parents and wanting to take him back.

Su Nuo thought he finally had a family. But after going home with that couple, he realized he was nothing more than a joke.

When he was born, he had been stolen by the family’s nanny. She let her own son enjoy eighteen years of wealth while carelessly throwing Su Nuo away. If a kind stranger hadn’t taken him to an orphanage, and if Mr. Fu hadn’t later sponsored him, he might never have had the chance to grow up.

But after finding him, his birth parents couldn’t bear to part with the adopted son they had raised for eighteen years, so they kept him at home. Instead, Su Nuo was the one who felt like an uninvited guest.

Of course Su Nuo could never like that little young master. Whenever he thought about how he had grown up in an orphanage, all the hardship and cold looks he had endured, while Su Yujin’s mother had stolen him away and let her own son take his place, with a complete family and a comfortable life… Su Nuo didn’t understand. Why didn’t the Su family hold that woman responsible?

She had kidnapped and abandoned a newborn baby. Just because she had sent her own child over, was she forgiven that easily?

Su Nuo found it hard to believe. After watching the Su family make one ridiculous choice after another, he was deeply disappointed in them.

It was true that he lacked love, but he knew what real care felt like. He had once been treasured too. He had just lost that person, his only family.

Once Su Nuo saw the Su family for what they really were, he made up his mind to stay away. But Su Yujin kept showing up around him and wouldn’t leave him alone. Every time the two of them clashed, Su Nuo was the one who lost.

And it wasn’t just family. His career too. It seemed that whatever Su Nuo wanted, Su Yujin had to get a piece of it.

Strangely, no matter what Su Nuo did, everyone else saw it the same way: he couldn’t stand Su Yujin, and he was cruelly targeting him.

His parents blamed him. His older brother hit him for Su Yujin’s sake. The boyfriend he met at school fell for Su Yujin instead. The award-winning actor who once admired him posted on Weibo, for Su Yujin’s sake, saying he had a bad character, and that got him blacklisted from the entertainment industry. Even the childhood friend he grew up with ended up on Su Yujin’s side…

Su Yujin seemed to have some kind of magic. He moved easily among all those men, and every one of them wanted to protect him.

Su Nuo hadn’t done anything wrong. Even when he went up against Su Yujin, it was only because Su Yujin had provoked him first and he was fighting back. But no one believed he had a reason. They all decided he was guilty on their own.

It was as if those people could only feel at ease after watching him fall, sink into poverty, and die alone and miserable. Only then would they comfort Su Yujin and tell him that no one named Su Nuo would ever bully him again.

Su Nuo found it laughable. Yet in the end, he got into a car accident while saving his so-called brother, Su Yuchen. When it came down to it, it was because he held on too tightly to his own principles.

Did he regret it? Su Nuo did, a little.

If he could have coldly watched Su Yuchen get hit and killed, nothing would have happened to him.

But right now, there was only one thought in his mind: if this wasn’t a hallucination before death, or a memory after it, but a real return to the past, then it was heaven’s reward for saving someone…

He didn’t even stop to put on his shoes. He pushed the door open and stumbled down the stairs.

Whether this was real or not, he had to try. The one person in this world he wanted to see most, the one he wanted to hold on to most, could not get hurt again.

“Nuonuo?” The man was neatly dressed, clearly about to head out. Seeing him rush over in such a panic, he looked surprised.

“Brother!” Su Nuo practically threw himself at him, hugging Fu Baihan tightly and trembling in his arms.

Fu Baihan raised a hand to stop the butler from stepping forward and patted the boy in his arms, his voice gentle. “What’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?”

Su Nuo’s tears kept falling. He lifted his face, trying hard to see Fu Baihan clearly, his voice choked. “Brother, please don’t go today, okay?”

Fu Baihan tried to calm him down. “Didn’t we talk about this yesterday? When I’m back from my business trip, I’ll take you skiing in Switzerland. Be good and stay home.”

Su Nuo shook his head. “No!”

Faced with this rare stubborn streak from the kid of the house, Fu Baihan looked a little helpless, but mostly indulgent.

“Nuonuo…”

What else could he do? The kid was crying so hard that Fu Baihan was afraid if he raised his voice even a little, he’d upset him so much he couldn’t breathe.

Su Nuo clung to him and wouldn’t let him leave. The butler made it clear there was nothing he could do. Sir had spoiled him himself, so Sir would have to deal with it.

His secretary called, carefully asking about the schedule. It was hard to imagine President Fu ever being late.

Hearing the secretary’s voice, Su Nuo’s eyes went wide and he let out a little hiccup from crying.

Fu Baihan ruffled his hair, amused, and told the secretary, “Tell them to push it back.”

Then he looked down at Su Nuo, his voice low. “I’m not going. Happy now?”

Su Nuo had crumpled a corner of his suit jacket in his fist. He stared at him blankly for a moment, then the tears started again, and he buried his face in Fu Baihan’s shoulder, sobbing.

All the hurt he had been holding in finally had somewhere to go.

Only Fu Baihan would spoil him like this.

Even when he was stubborn and unreasonable, even when he got in the way of important work, Fu Baihan would still give him what he wanted. His heart, which had been crushed into the dust, felt once again the warmth of being cherished, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Fu Baihan would never scold him without caring who was right or wrong, and he would never casually abandon him. He was the one Su Nuo truly saw as family, the big brother he could rely on.

But the whole world would betray him for Su Yujin’s sake… When Su Nuo thought about that terrible future, he still couldn’t hold back his despair.