Passion Raga Novel (Completed) - Chapter 66

Ling Xinlu stared at Yuri without even blinking.

“I really thought hard about it. I think I thought about it for about 23 hours a day. Even when I was sleeping, it felt so strange I couldn’t bear it.”

He stopped speaking. He had approached right in front of Yuri, and he looked at Yuri with a truly strange expression.

“You like me? Really?”

He asked again. Yuri paused and thought for a moment, despite hearing the same question just moments before, then answered.

“Yes.”

“—Right, I guess so. There’s no way you wouldn’t like me when you look at me like that. You look at me with those eyes. —But you know, I really don’t understand.”

Ling Xinlu bent his body forward very slightly. Even though it was just a tiny tilt, his dark eyes appeared distinctly as if they were right in front of Yuri’s nose. As if you could peer into their depths.

“If you like me so much, how can you live without seeing me?”

It wasn’t accusatory or blaming; it was a tone of genuine curiosity.

Ling Xinlu leaned in further. He brought his nose to Yuri’s nape. So close it almost touched, yet not quite.

Slowly, the tension seemed to leave his shoulders. Eventually, a low voice spoke gently, truly kindly.

“Mr. Gable, I’m very grateful to you. I’ve never been as comfortable with anyone as I am with you. And besides, yes, you’re my savior, aren’t you? So—I’ll make you a very advantageous offer.”

Ling Xinlu stepped back. Their eyes met, and he smiled. With a tender and radiant smile, he said,

“Let’s renew the contract to a lifelong contract. Then, I’ll throw myself in.”

Tap, tap, his long, white index finger tapped his own chest.

He’d throw this in.

He’d give this along with it, so Yuri should follow his words.

That it was a very advantageous offer for Yuri, Ling Xinlu’s smile implied. His generous arrogance.

Yuri stared at him. Ling Xinlu waited calmly for Yuri’s answer, saying that if Yuri followed his words, then in return, Yuri could have him.

‘At first, the contract said I could look at him as much as I wanted, but now he’s offering to throw himself in entirely. This is truly a tempting offer!’

Yuri looked down at his feet for a moment, then asked him,

“How will you give yourself?”

“However, Mr. Gable desires.”

Ling Xinlu answered concisely.

“I’m saying you don’t have to just stare blankly. You can be greedy.” Saying there would be no better offer than this, Ling Xinlu gave a charming smile. That smile was so beautiful that Yuri was captivated by his gaze once more.

However.

“Why do you want me so much, to this extent?”

He couldn’t help but ask, knowing that the smile would disappear from Ling Xinlu’s face.

He blinked for a moment, saying nothing, as if he had never considered such a thing, just looking at Yuri. His lips, as if wanting to say something, mumbled for a while before slowly forming words.

“I don’t like it when something that comes into my hands disappears. Even more so if it’s something I liked.”

At that moment, a fleeting shadow of unease crossed his face as he mumbled words, as if he had reverted to being a child. As if something he himself didn’t know cast a shadow in his heart. But it was a faint and unidentifiable unease, as if he didn’t know what it was.

Yuri fell into thought again, then asked once more,

“Do you like me?”

This time, there was no answer. He just stared intently at Yuri, as if he didn’t know the answer. With a face that seemed to not even know what ‘liking’ meant.

“Do you value me, respect me, and wish for me not to suffer? Even if that goes against what you currently desire?”

Again, Ling Xinlu did not answer. The expression on his face gradually faded.

Looking at him, Yuri quietly sighed. “If not, then you’re making a very disadvantageous deal right now.”

Nor did he think it was a very advantageous deal for himself.

Yuri knew what he desired in life. Living a life that was long if long, and short if short, that was the only thing he had learned.

“For example,” Yuri began, “if I were to spend my life with someone, I’d want to live a life where we care for each other. Just like Ling Xinlu said, a bland, quiet, long-lasting one. That’s what I prefer. Without thinking of it as giving to the other person, without fulfilling one-sided desires, and without destroying each other.”

Therefore, he would not accept an offer from someone who didn’t clearly know what they desired, or who might regret it for a long time due to immediate greed. That would destroy the other person, and eventually, destroy himself as well.

“You said you liked me.”

Ling Xinlu, who had been listening to Yuri with no expression, whispered. “Yes,” Yuri nodded, then continued, “liking someone and living with someone seem very similar, but they are different.”

Ling Xinlu said nothing. His expressionless face, just staring blankly at Yuri, didn’t seem like it would say anything more.

For a while, Yuri patiently waited for him to say something, and after a silence long enough to confirm that the silently staring man would not say anything further, Yuri spoke.

“If Ling Xinlu wishes, we can renew the contract. Since the expiry date is approaching, we can just write the renewal documents whenever it’s convenient before then.”

“If there’s anything you want to add to the new year’s contract – if you’re going to renew it – keep it in mind,” Yuri said. No answer came back.

“There’s a red ledger in the top drawer of my desk; bring that. Ask Baixiang to open the drawer for you.”

As soon as he answered the phone, an old, unrestrained voice spoke, not even confirming who was on the other end.

Yuri was silent for a moment. When an answer didn’t come back immediately, the voice, seemingly frustrated, burst out again, “Didn’t you understand?”

“No, I understood.”

“Good, then bring it right away. Go down to the basement and give it to Yunan. Don’t just stand around foolishly like a dumb young man.”

With that, the call ended. He could almost see the face of the person clicking their tongue on the other end.

The reason Yuri was silent was none other than that the voice he had just been repeatedly recalling was that very voice, and it took him a moment to process the content of the words.

—“What’s wrong with that guy?”

That voice, clicking its tongue as it spoke, had been echoing in his head repeatedly since the morning.

“Did Mr. Seonjaeng contact you? Did you get a call?”

Just as Yuri put his phone away, the door clicked open, and a woman from outside poked her head in. It seemed that as soon as she called Yuri, she had also contacted her.

Indeed, if Yuri had just gone to her out of the blue and asked her to open a desk drawer, she would have looked at him suspiciously and refused.

“Yes, he asked me to bring the red ledger from the top drawer.”

Confirming Yuri’s answer, she toddled over and picked a small key from the bunch of keys at her waist. “Oh, is this not it? Then is this it?” she muttered, seemingly flustered as she tried various keys among the many, confused by a few. While waiting for her, Yuri took out the phone he had put in his pocket again and checked the time.

Only about ten minutes had passed since they went down to the basement. If Yuri went down with the ledger now, he would probably witness the ongoing messy situation.

Hmm, Yuri let out a calm sigh. As for messy situations, he had seen it countless times, so it wasn’t anything new, but what he disliked was the smell.

The basement where they called Yuri was always permeated with a musty, moldy smell and a fishy odor, making his head ache if he stayed there for too long.

However, thinking of Ling Xinlu who would be smelling that odor there now, Yuri thought that a smell encountered briefly while delivering the ledger was no big deal.

Yes, the smell was nothing. The messy situation didn’t bother him much either. No, the things happening in the basement, the smell, none of that mattered.

What remained in his mind more than those things was the suspicious remark thrown by the man—Ling Xinlu’s third uncle.

“What’s wrong with that guy?”

It was a coincidence that Yuri, who happened to be nearby, overheard his third uncle muttering to himself, but it was no accident that the words came from his uncle’s mouth.

His third uncle was a very sharp-eyed person. Or rather, he was quick to read people’s expressions. Perhaps he had developed that habit over a long time of constantly needing to pay attention hundreds of times in hundreds of directions for his work.

When he heard that, Yuri unconsciously looked at the uncle who had said it. And then followed his uncle’s gaze. Ling Xinlu was sitting there.

He was smiling as usual. Smiling brightly and softly, talking with the people sitting next to him and across from him. Though he mostly just listened, occasionally interjecting a word or two.

Yuri sat a little distance away from them, watching them from an appropriate distance. Whenever Ling Xinlu came to the office to learn work from his uncle during the day, Yuri would accompany him, but because there were often things the uncle was reluctant to let outsiders hear, he always told Yuri to keep a certain distance from Ling Xinlu. So Yuri usually maintained an appropriate distance, only approaching when there was something he could help him with.

Even then, Yuri was at a distance where he could hear their casual, chatty conversations, but if they lowered their voices and whispered a little, he wouldn’t be able to hear.

Rather, he was closer to the uncle who was sitting at his desk, rummaging through documents looking for something. The uncle, who was suspiciously watching Ling Xinlu talking with two or three men whom the uncle occasionally called in when needed, not everyday, suddenly muttered to himself.

‘What’s wrong with that guy?’

Saying that, he frowned and watched them for a moment longer, then turned to Yuri and gestured towards them with his chin.

‘What’s wrong with that guy? Is something going on?’

“Well…”

Yuri followed his uncle’s gaze to Ling Xinlu and tilted his head as if he didn’t know. The uncle again looked suspiciously at Ling Xinlu, then soon muttered something indistinctly as if it didn’t matter, and turned his attention back to the documents.

Yuri looked at Ling Xinlu again. He was smiling as usual. Talking, listening, and expressing himself as usual. He seemed no different from usual. But. He was definitely unstable.

Even while smiling, he felt somehow unstable. But Yuri tilted his head, unable to understand why he felt that way. He couldn’t grasp what was different from other times. And also, why.

However, he clearly felt a subtle tremor somewhere, like one or two grains of sand falling imperceptibly from a sturdy fortress before a massive earthquake.