Yao Shen considers taking back his words in the ensuing silence.
Xin Hulei is looking at him evenly, his expression shuttered as always.
"I mean-," Yao Shen starts, ready to backtrack.
"Yes."
The word hits Yao Shen like a punch. Suddenly, he can't look Xin Hulei in the eye, his gaze drifts downwards towards his own knees and his fidgeting hands.
Is that what he wanted to hear?
Why did he ask Xin Hulei that?
Was he just trying to divert attention away from himself? To avoid answering Xin Hulei's intrusive question, by asking one of his own?
Well, now the answer is out there.
The question is: what is Yao Shen going to do about it?
"Don't you love Yan Shuyi?" Yao Shen asks, grasping at anything to help him make sense of the situation.
"Yes," Xin Hulei says again, in the exact same tone. "But Yan Shuyi is dead."
Of course Yao Shen already knew that, but he didn't expect Xin Hulei to admit it so casually.
