Before coming to Nanwu, Yun Li had already contacted Jiang Yuan’s parents and arranged to visit them this afternoon.

Yun Li didn’t linger long at Jiangnan Court. Using the excuse of meeting a female classmate at Nanjing Tech, she borrowed Fu Shize’s car and left.

Since Fu Shize had told her about Jiang Yuan’s situation, they hadn’t discussed the topic further.

His behavior always made people feel as if nothing was troubling him.

Yun Li recalled the mostly consumed sleeping pills in his drawer.

When she first joined the company, Zhou Tiao had told her that Jiang Yuan was an only child. The members of Unique were like brothers to him. After his passing, Zhou Tiao and the other Unique members had pooled money for his parents.

At that time, Jiang Yuan’s parents repeatedly confirmed with Zhou Tiao that none of the money came from Fu Shize before they were willing to accept it.

Fu Shize knew about this as well.

Zhou Tiao had also told her that for many years, someone had been secretly sending money to Jiang Yuan’s parents.

Yun Li pressed her lips together tightly.

This situation was like Jiang Yuan’s parents being unable to accept their son’s death and forcibly transferring the responsibility to Fu Shize.

But what had he done wrong to bear this guilt and the accusations from them for so many years?

The address Zhou Tiao gave her was only a half-hour drive from Jiangnan Court. Throughout the journey guided by the navigation system, her heart was filled with unease.

The community where Jiang Yuan’s family lived was built in the 1990s. The old buildings were dilapidated, with rust stains on the walls and the old-style protruding security windows. The neighborhood was in another old district of Nanwu, mostly inhabited by elderly residents after industrial relocation.

Upon arriving downstairs, Yun Li rang the doorbell, and Jiang Yuan’s mother quickly answered and opened the door.

The apartment was on the sixth floor with no elevator. When Yun Li reached the third floor, she saw Jiang Yuan’s father and mother coming down to greet her.

Jiang Yuan was a few years older than Fu Shize, so his parents should be in their early fifties now, but their aged appearance made them look like they were in their sixties.

The couple warmly welcomed her upstairs, asking after her well-being. Jiang Yuan had studied at Xi’an Jiaotong University, and when Yun Li initially contacted them, she informed them that she was from Xi’an. They didn’t doubt her identity at all.

The apartment wasn’t large, a small two-bedroom at first glance. The interior decoration was simple and plain, with aged furniture, but a 27-inch LCD TV sat in the center of the living room.

“It’s been a long time since any of Yuan Yuan’s classmates visited us,” Jiang Yuan’s mother said with a faint smile, inviting Yun Li to sit by the tea table.

Hearing this, Yun Li looked at her, feeling a pang of sadness at the wrinkles around her eyes.

The table was already set with various fruits.

She turned on the TV to show Yun Li: “This TV was sent by one of Yuan Yuan’s classmates two years ago, but we weren’t home and didn’t receive any calls, so we still don’t know who sent it.”

Yun Li: “Are you two doing well?”

Jiang Yuan’s father smiled: “We’re fine. Life goes on, and when we miss our son, we just go to his room and look at his things.”

“May I see the senior’s room?” Yun Li didn’t immediately state her purpose for coming. Jiang Yuan’s mother seemed accustomed to such requests and got up to lead her to the room.

Jiang Yuan’s room wasn’t large. On the south side was an old-style window with two potted plants on the sill. The bed was still made, and beside it was a wooden student desk with various tutoring books for junior high and high school stacked on top.

The room’s setup looked as if someone still lived there.

Several group photos were taped to the wall with uneven pieces of tape simply covering the corners. The photos weren’t laminated and had already oxidized, turning yellow and fading.

She saw Fu Shize in several of the photos, showing Jiang Yuan’s parents taking the two of them fishing and playing ball.

Noticing Yun Li looking at the photos, Jiang Yuan’s mother said, “Most of the photos are of me and his father, and a friend who grew up with Yuan Yuan. He was Yuan Yuan’s classmate. Do you know him?” At this point, she sighed, “Yuan Yuan treated him like his own brother, and we treated him like our own son. But since Yuan Yuan left, we haven’t seen him for many years.”

“…”

“He’s a good kid too.”

Yun Li: “Doesn’t he come to visit you?”

The woman before her was silent for a moment, then said with dimmed eyes, “He came, but we told him not to come anymore.”

Yun Li followed up, tentatively asking, “Did he do something?”

“That child is naive. He might have unintentionally hurt Yuan Yuan without realizing it,” Jiang Yuan’s mother gazed at the photo. “Yuan Yuan was sick, and he promised us he’d look after Yuan Yuan, but he was busy then and probably didn’t pay much attention.”

Her tone was calm but resolute: “As parents, we have no right to accept his compensation on Yuan Yuan’s behalf.”

From Jiang Yuan’s parents’ perspective, his last diary entry undoubtedly indicated that he had been overwhelmed by Fu Shize’s excellence. They also couldn’t accept that Fu Shize had said he saw Jiang Yuan take the medicine, but in the end, Jiang Yuan hadn’t taken it.

It was as if Fu Shize hadn’t taken Jiang Yuan’s situation to heart at all, hadn’t supervised him taking his medicine, hadn’t paid attention to his emotions, and had only pursued his development.

Before coming, out of sympathy and protectiveness for Fu Shize, Yun Li had felt some resentment towards Jiang Yuan’s parents. She had expected to face stubborn, complaining parents.

That way, she might have had a reason to convince herself to bring up their painful past.

But they were very calm because, from their perspective, this was how things were.

Yun Li asked, “May I look at his books?”

“Of course,” Jiang Yuan’s mother quickly emerged from her previous emotions and said gently, “They’re mostly tutoring books. There are a few of Yuan Yuan’s childhood diaries here. You can look at those too if you’d like.”

She took out several notebooks from the bookshelf, most with Ultraman covers.

Jiang Yuan didn’t write in his diary regularly, about once a week, recording major events of that week. Most entries were innocent and carefree, describing many interesting incidents from his growth, and there were many mentions of Fu Shize.

In these diaries, Yun Li only read one message.

—Jiang Yuan viewed Fu Shize as a brother.

Yun Li flipped through them. The diary entries stopped at the end of his freshman year in college. Up to that point, there were almost no negative emotions in his diary.

She paused, then looked up and asked them, “Did senior stop writing diaries after starting university?”

Jiang Yuan’s depression should have appeared during his doctoral phase.

“We brought back all his things from his dormitory,” Jiang Yuan’s mother also looked a bit confused. “My husband and I didn’t find any other diaries.”

Yun Li thought for a moment, then asked them, “Did senior have a computer?”

“Yes, he did.” Jiang Yuan’s mother immediately pulled open a drawer containing a thick laptop. Beside it were neatly arranged mementos. Yun Li noticed something with the Unique logo among them.

“This is from the team Yuan Yuan participated in. Yuan Yuan won many championships with this team,” Jiang Yuan’s mother’s eyes flashed with pride as she handed the item to Yun Li, recalling her son’s past achievements.

After looking at it for a while, Yun Li realized it was a USB drive.

There were very obvious signs of use at the interface.

“Auntie, why don’t I help you look? Maybe we can find senior’s diaries from his later years.”

Jiang Yuan’s parents didn’t seem to be frequent users of computers or smartphones. Hearing Yun Li offers to help find the diaries, they thanked her profusely.

Starting the computer took quite a long time. The old laptop was extremely slow, and Yun Li patiently waited for several minutes. When the desktop finally appeared, it showed a picture of a drone. Yun Li was startled for a moment, recognizing it as the drone Yun Ye had taken away.

Without time to dwell on it, Yun Li directly inserted the USB drive.

There was nothing else on the drive except for a single Word document.

Yun Li opened it and found that it contained Jiang Yuan’s diaries from his sophomore year onwards.

The frequency of his diary entries had decreased to about once a month. Yun Li quickly scanned through them. The latter half of the diary recorded his experiences starting from his senior year.

The enormous sense of disparity and pressure came from his research life. Jiang Yuan became increasingly busy. Despite his laborious work, his advisor continually encroached on his time and repeatedly mocked and belittled him in all aspects of life, research, and work.

At first, Jiang Yuan thought he could turn the situation around with his abilities, but his advisor completely deprived him of his time and achievements. He would make Jiang Yuan help him look after his children, buy meals, groceries, and so on. He viewed all of Jiang Yuan’s output as garbage but then turned around and snatched away the authorship rights of his work, threatening Jiang Yuan with expulsion if he didn’t agree.

Jiang Yuan reported to the college and wrote to the principal but to no avail. It only further incited his advisor to publicly berate him.

His confidence and vigor were gradually worn away, becoming tattered. However, his parents held extremely high expectations for him, even hoping he could become a professor and improve the family’s ordinary economic situation and social status.

Every time he picked up the phone wanting to pour out his heart, upon hearing his parents’ eager greetings, he would swallow his words.

“Everything is fine with me.”

From the first year, Jiang Yuan had already found it hard to accept. He was in extreme pain and wanted to change everything. But everyone else in the lab was silently enduring it, and he was the one who rebelled most fiercely.

Fighting alone, he felt like a clown.

Soon, he began to doubt his incompetence, thinking he couldn’t balance everything, and that he couldn’t satisfy his advisor.

He had occasionally mentioned dropping out to his parents, but it met with their strong opposition. In the early days, he had complained about some things to Fu Shize, but later, fearing Fu Shize would think him incompetent, he bottled up everything.

In these years of diary entries, there were occasional moments of happiness, all involving participating in competitions, playing ball, or hiking with his good brothers.

…

[I feel the two luckiest things in my life are that my parents love me very much and that I have a good brother like Azhe.]

[After thinking for a long time, I still decided to see a psychologist. As a result, I was diagnosed with depression. I feel even more sad now, and I’m sorry to my parents. But thinking that no matter what happens to me, Azhe will help me take care of my parents, it’s still a fortunate thing.]

…

[Taking medicine is indeed helpful. I rarely think about those negative things now. I’m about to participate in a competition soon, and we should be able to win another championship this year.]

…

[I’ve been feeling a bit better recently. The boss seems to have the intention of letting me off. He told me to focus on writing papers. After taking the medicine, my concentration is very poor. I plan to stop the medication for a while, first submit the papers I’m working on, meet the doctoral graduation requirements, and then continue taking the medicine. Mom, Dad, and Azhe definitely wouldn’t agree. Azhe stands at the office door every day watching me take my medicine like a door god. If he finds out I’m not taking the medicine, he’ll immediately get angry. Hmm, everyone cares about me so much, so I don’t want to disappoint them either.]

This was the last entry in Jiang Yuan’s diary document.

As Yun Li read this diary, she came back to her senses only to find her cheeks wet with tears.

Just as Fu Shize had said, Jiang Yuan had been gentle towards the world, loving those around him, yet had suffered unfair treatment.

Seeing her cry, Jiang Yuan’s mother, who had come in with fruit, became flustered. Yun Li wiped her tears with the back of her hand. Her phone vibrated just then, with a message from Fu Shize: [Lili, when are you coming back?]

“I found the senior’s diary, and I just read it,” Yun Li sniffled. Hearing this, Jiang Yuan’s father immediately ran into the room. For the two of them, after their son’s death, they could only frantically search for things related to him from the past.

Yun Li had found six full years of diaries for them.

The two put on their reading glasses to look. Their eyesight was already poor, and after looking at the screen for a while, their eyes became sore and painful. Seeing this, Yun Li instructed them on the basic operations and then went downstairs to a nearby print shop to make two copies.

On her way back to the community, Fu Shize called her. There was some noise in the background on his end, and his tone was casual: “When you come back, can you pick me up at the supermarket?”

“Azhe,” Yun Li paused for a good while before saying with difficulty, “Today I didn’t go to Nanjing Tech to see my advisor.”

“…” Fu Shize was silent for a moment, “Are you at Heyuan?”

“Yes…” Yun Li lowered her eyes, “I found Jiang Yuan’s diaries from his last few years. Do you want me to drive over and pick you up?”

“No need, I’ll take a taxi over.”

Fu Shize didn’t ask why she was at Heyuan, nor did he ask about the contents of the diary. Instead, he asked, “Did they give you a hard time?”

“No…”

“Mm, are you outside?” Hearing the noise in her call, Fu Shize naturally deduced. Yun Li made an affirmative sound, and he calmly said, “Stay outside, wait for me to get there.”

Yun Li hung up the phone, still a bit dazed where she stood.

She had thought that at this moment, Fu Shize would be more concerned about the contents of the diary, not her.

But he hadn’t mentioned it at all. His purpose in coming seemed to be solely because he didn’t want her to encounter any trouble, so he told her to stay outside.

Yun Li didn’t listen to Fu Shize. She went back inside and handed the two printed copies of the diary to Jiang Yuan’s parents.

She patiently accompanied the two elderly people as they read through it.

By the end, Jiang Yuan’s mother’s face was covered in tears. She covered her face and cried in anguish, “So many things happened, why didn’t he tell Mom, why didn’t he listen to the doctor…”

She suddenly felt numb. Jiang Yuan had mentioned to her that he wasn’t adapting well to doctoral life and wanted to drop out to find a job directly.

Like many parents, they hadn’t listened. They only focused on their son’s bright future.

But…

If only Jiang Yuan had said one more word to her.

No matter what, what she cared about most was that her son could live safely and peacefully.

Yun Li silently sat beside them. When both of them had stabilized their emotions, she softly said, “Uncle, Auntie, please don’t be sad. Senior loved you so much, he wouldn’t want you to be like this…”

She paused, then gathered her courage to say, “Actually, I came this time because of Fu Shize. Because of what happened to senior, Azhe has always felt very guilty and even took a long break from school because of it.”

“Uncle, Auntie, what happened back then really can’t be blamed on Azhe. He’s such a sentimental person, he practically treated Senior as his own older brother. You can see in the senior’s diary that he wrote about Azhe watching him take his medicine. He also very much wanted senior to live.”

Yun Li gradually told them about Fu Shize’s situation. Her phone kept vibrating. A few minutes later, someone knocked on the door.

Jiang Yuan’s mother went to open it and was visibly stunned when she saw Fu Shize. He entered silently and, seeing Yun Li sitting safely on the sofa, his slightly furrowed brow finally relaxed.

Fu Shize hadn’t seen Jiang Yuan’s parents for over three years.

It had also been several years since he had come to this apartment.

The elderly couple’s life seemed to go on as usual.

Habitually, Fu Shize assumed they didn’t want to see him.

For so many years, the endless guilt towards Jiang Yuan and his parents had been suffocating him. Now, reappearing before them, Fu Shize didn’t know what to say for the moment.

Yun Li looked at him with his head lowered, his hair partially obscuring his eyes. In this cramped and gloomy space, his thin shoulders were somewhat stiff.

“You should leave now,” Jiang Yuan’s mother said, still standing at the door, her voice fluctuating.

“…”

Suddenly given this dismissal, Yun Li’s voice trembled slightly: “Uncle, Auntie, senior didn’t blame Azhe, please don’t blame him either, okay?”

The couple’s expressions were heavy as they repeated: “You should leave now.”

“Uncle, Auntie…” Yun Li repeated dazedly. Fu Shize walked to her side, took her hand, and started walking towards the exit.

At the doorway, he paused, turned his head, and said the only sentence:

“Please take care of yourselves.”