Captured By The Cold Detective (BL)-Chapter 542: Never Rise Again

When Mu Yuze woke up, he struggled to peel open his eyelids due to how sticky they were. His entire body felt unusually sluggish, and there was a faint throb in his right arm where... where...

In a rush, the memories came flooding back and he snapped his eyes open with a gasp, his heart jackrabbiting in his chest. Panic seized him when he realized that the sky outside his window was already bright. What time was it? How long had he been asleep?! He scrambled for his phone on the nightstand and saw that it was only seven in the morning, just the usual time when he would wake up.

For a moment, he fell into a daze. Was everything that happened last night a nightmare, or... was it reality? If it was the latter, then...

With trembling hands, Mu Yuze unlocked his phone and immediately pressed on the only speed dial on his phone for He Juan’s number. But to his dismay, he was only greeted by a mechanical female voice,

"The number you’re calling is not registered..."

The phone slipped from Mu Yuze’s hand and crashed to the ground with a resounding thud. His pupils quivered in disbelief. No, please... it couldn’t be true. Please tell him that everything was not true...

Against his will, his neck slowly turned toward the bed, and horror dawned on him when he noticed something he had overlooked since he woke up.

He Juan’s clothes – all the clothes belonging to the Alpha he had hoarded as material for his nest – were gone. Mu Yuze’s heart abruptly sank to his stomach, and an indescribable chill rose from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, despite the warmth of the floor heating system in the house.

Impossible...

Fear coursed through him as he stumbled to his door and wrenched it open, rushing straight into the room next door. He Juan’s room had always been neat and spotless because Mu Yuze always cleaned it even though the man had not returned for months, but right now, something was different. Mu Yuze could instantly tell with a glance. Previously, there were still some traces that He Juan ever lived here such as the watch he’d carelessly tossed aside on the table, the towering stack of documents on the couch, his drinking cup on the nightstand...

But now, everything was gone.

It was like this room had never been occupied in the first place.

No, no, no, no, please—!

Desperate, Mu Yuze hurried to the wardrobe and flung it open, and tears immediately flooded his eyes when he found not even a piece of clothing inside. Next, he rushed to the bathroom and found that He Juan’s bathing supplies were no more. Still unreconciled, he dashed out of the room and headed to the study, the place where He Juan had spent most of his time, and when he slammed open the door...

A bare and empty room greeted him.

The tall shelves were gone, so were the computer, the mahogany table, the chair, the couch, even the potted plant in the corner of the room— it was like He Juan was determined to remove each and every trace he had left in this house, down to the very last detail.

A choked sob escaped Mu Yuze’s lips as his knees gave way and he crumpled to the ground, tears streaming down his face. The room, once filled to the brim with He Juan’s presence, was now hauntingly empty. Through his blurred vision, it was as if he could still see He Juan there, sitting behind the computer and glancing at him, a gentle smile on his face. "Do you need something, Xiao Ze?"

But when he blinked again, everything disappeared. The room was cold and desolate, devoid of any trace of He Juan. It was as if the man he loved was nothing more than a figment of his imagination, an illusion that had never truly existed. The mere thought seized Mu Yuze’s heart in extreme horror, and he slapped his cheeks hard to snap himself out of the absurd fear.

"What are you thinking, Mu Yuze?!" He chided himself harshly. "How can Juan-gege... how can he..."

Summoning every ounce of strength he had in him, he scrambled to his feet and began to tear the entire house upside down, desperate to find anything that belonged to He Juan, anything that could connect him to the man, anything that could anchor him before he spiraled into madness – anything!

Alas, even the coffee maker in the kitchen was gone, so were the supplies of milk teas in the refrigerator and sugar cubes in the cabinet. All that remained were the gifts he had received from He Juan, and...

Mu Yuze stood in the living room, staring blankly at the land deed and house ownership papers on the table, both in his name.

"This will be your house from now on. Do you like it?"

"Wait, what did you say just now? ’My’ house??? You can’t just give me a house, Juan-gege!"

"Why not?"

"It’s just... it’s too much!"

"Alright, I give up. Gege will transfer it back later, okay? In the meantime, just take it as you are taking care of this house on my behalf."

"You will really transfer it back, right?"

"Goodness, Mu Yuze! We have known each other for so long, so what’s with this lack of trust?!"

As though he had lost his soul, Mu Yuze slowly approached the table, step by step, until the papers were right before his eyes. With ragged breaths and trembling hands, he reached out to grab the papers, only to miss because of the tears clouding his vision.

"He Juan, you fucking liar..." he gritted out each word with heavy emphasis, his tone filled with great resentment. "You never transferred it back, did you? You..." he choked on his words, fat droplets of tears sliding down his cheeks. He withdrew his hand in the end, because he felt like if he were to take those papers, then he would really acknowledge that He Juan was gone. That his ever kind and gentle Juan-gege had left and never to return anymore...

But it was a reality he couldn’t escape from no matter what, wasn’t it?

Everything— every corner of this house reminded him of He Juan. It reminded him of the time when they were still living together, it reminded him of the fact that he had found his ’home’ for the very first time with the man, yet now he had to live on with the fact that he was left alone.

Again.

Something inside Mu Yuze shattered as the dreadful reality sank into his mind, and he broke down, his body collapsing under the weight of his grief. "Juan-gege, Juan-gege..." he cried and kept calling out for that one person again and again, yet no longer would there be anyone to answer him, no longer would there be anyone to wipe his tears for him, to embrace him, to ease his pain, to soothe him when he was sad. He had to endure this agonizing torment all by his lonesome.

Cruel. You’re so cruel, He Juan...

He had entered Mu Yuze’s life akin to the first glimmer of dawn in the prolonged winter of his existence, and with the man’s departure, Mu Yuze found himself thrown back into that bone-chilling winter, an icy abyss that gnawed at the very core of his being.

Except this time, his sun might never rise again.

Why? Why did He Juan have to come to his life, only to leave him all alone again? Why did he have to teach Mu Yuze about how happiness, warmth and solace felt only to turn around and plunge him into a pit of desolation?

If only his world had been one of neverending winters in the first place, if only he had never learned how to love, would it have been more bearable? Did he not have to go through his soul-crushing pain? He didn’t know. He really did not know the answer...

For a long while, anguished cries reverberated in the silent house, belonging to a boy who had briefly tasted the sweetness of life, only to see it cruelly snatched away.

.

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A/N: which one is more painful? Someone who lost everything, or someone who lost the only thing they had? QAQ