Back to My Lover at Eighteen - Chapter 1

I never expected to find myself here.

One second, I had just finished making arrangements for Shang Shixu’s funeral. The next, I was staring into a much younger version of his face.

He was curled up in the corner of an alley, soaked through, with blood still seeping faintly through his clothes.

For a moment, I froze. Was this a dream?

Ever since he left me, I had suffered from insomnia night after night. On the rare occasions I did manage to sleep, for some reason, I never dreamed of him.

“A-Xu?”

He watched me warily.

“Who are you?”

His gaze swept over me, searching, lingering in particular on the muscle showing beneath my sleeve.

Probably realizing he couldn’t beat me in a fight, he loosened his clenched fists. But he drew himself into an even tighter ball.

Before I had time to answer, he spoke in a low voice.

“Are you here to collect a debt too? I don’t have any money… Go find Shang Jun. Please don’t make things hard for my mom…”

Judging by the state he was in, someone had already made things very hard for him.

I faltered. In my memories, he had rarely mentioned his parents. Only after we had been together for a long time had he once told me, almost in passing, that his father was a gambling addict and his mother was ill.

But the past had long since gone up in smoke—people and events alike.

When I remained silent, he seemed to make up his mind. He edged away and, while I was distracted, prepared to run.

I had to admit, even the version of him in my dream was pretty smart.

There was no time to puzzle out what was happening. Instinctively, I caught the fleeing boy.

The next moment, Shang Shixu reacted like a cat with its fur standing on end, thrashing desperately.

“Let go of me!”

As he struggled, I felt something warm against my hand.

“You’re hurt?”

Carefully avoiding the wound, I frowned and looked him over.

Even if this was a dream, I couldn’t simply stand by and do nothing.

“One, two, three cuts… and they’re deep. You have to go to the hospital.”

The boy suddenly started trembling, then fought me as if he had lost his mind.

“Let me go! What’s wrong with you? It’s none of your business…”

But his struggles felt no stronger than a drizzle to me.

Taking care not to touch his wounds, I caught him around the waist, hoisted him over my shoulder, and kept one hand on him so he could neither fall nor scrape the cuts.

His arms and legs flailed wildly. Afraid the motion would tear the wounds open again, I gave his bottom a light pat with the hand around his waist.

“Behave.”

The boy went rigid for a split second, then thrashed even harder. I nearly lost my grip on him.

“Put me down… This is kidnapping! I’ll pay you back, just let me go…”

His last words held the faintest trace of a plea.

I rubbed the space between my brows. From the day we met, Shang Shixu had always been calm and mature in front of me, composed no matter what happened. I didn’t think I had ever seen him panic.

Now, the sight of him so terrified that he would try anything to escape sent a dense, needling ache through my heart.

Fortunately, my car had appeared in this dream along with me. Perhaps dreams had a way of rewriting things, because it had become one I used to drive when I was younger.

I set him gently on the back seat.

The instant I released him, he twisted the door handle and tried to get out. Luckily, I had anticipated that and locked the doors in advance.

His voice trembled, but he still forced himself to sound calm as he threatened me.

“You know I go home every day, right? If I don’t come home, my family will call the police… so you’d better let me go.”

I patiently tried to soothe him. “But you’re hurt, A-Xu. Those cuts are deep. You need to go to the hospital right away.”

When he realized he couldn’t get out, he changed tactics and tried to appear vulnerable, stealing a cautious glance at me.

“I can go by myself…”

I sighed. “If you were really going to the hospital, why would you be hiding in an alley and treating your own wounds in this downpour?”

I turned up the heat and found a blanket beneath the seat, then wrapped it around him.

“Don’t catch a cold. I won’t hurt you.”

I didn’t know why, but although I believed this was a dream, it all felt far too real.

He fell quiet. His whole body continued to tremble in silence. Once he realized he truly couldn’t leave, he simply tugged the blanket tighter around himself.

I watched him in the rearview mirror and turned the heat up another notch.