After the Reborn Young Master Embraced a Life of Wellness – Chapter 61

Xi Siyan left swiftly and quietly.

It wasn’t until the start of senior year that most of the students began to accept the fact that he had gone abroad. Many complained that they hadn’t even had the chance to hold a proper farewell ceremony. Qi Lin and his group, who had found out earlier, were also annoyed because they couldn’t get in touch with him.

“What’s the situation now?”

The senior high school building had been renovated during summer vacation, so at the beginning of the school year, the atmosphere wasn’t overly tense yet. During a break, a group of students chased each other down the hallway, laughing and shouting, while Qi Lin and Jiang Xu intercepted Chen Mo as he returned from the bathroom.

“Brother Mo,” Jiang Xu began, blocking his path. “Aren’t you two dating? Did he contact you?”

Chen Mo stopped, shook the water off his hands, and said, “We’ve split up.”

“Split up?!”

“What the hell?!”

“Old Xi actually dumped you and then went abroad? So the first thing he did after getting ashore was kill his love? I didn’t realize he was such a scumbag!”

Jiang Xu’s loud complaints earned him a slap on the back of the head from Qi Lin.

Qi Lin, who had some insider knowledge because of his family’s connections, lowered his voice and said, “Old Xi left because of family matters. And could you not yell so loudly? Do you want the whole school to know Chen Mo got dumped?”

Chen Mo chuckled at their antics.

Though Xi Siyan had specifically asked them not to tell anyone about the breakup, they were clearly struggling to keep quiet, even among themselves.

“You can still laugh?” Jiang Xu looked at him with concern and said in a low voice, “Brother Mo, if you’re really upset, you don’t have to pretend to be fine.”

Chen Mo glanced over at him and retorted, “Why? Is it only acceptable if he dumps me, and not the other way around?”

The group was stunned. “Wait, you dumped Old Xi?”

Chen Mo sighed, exasperated. “Why does it matter so much? No, it wasn’t like that. We just separated peacefully.”

“Why?” Qi Lin asked. His demeanor was noticeably quieter than before, perhaps influenced by something that had happened over the summer. He frowned and pressed further, “Couldn’t you avoid breaking up? If you like each other enough, nothing should be a dealbreaker.”

Bai Cheng, standing off to the side, made a face and muttered, “Qi Lin, what’s up with you? Why are you suddenly spouting lines like you’re in a romance novel?”

Chen Mo hesitated for a moment before saying, “Then just think of it as not liking him enough.”

When Chen Mo had considered trying a relationship with Xi Siyan, he’d already felt conflicted, like he was being indecisive and borderline insincere.

But now, he no longer cared how others perceived him.

He wasn’t lying when he said he disliked having expectations or emotional attachments that tied him to others.

In his previous life, he had been hopeful, persistent, and ultimately disappointed. That experience taught him to hate the vulnerability that came with entrusting his fate or feelings to someone else. Not even Xi Siyan was an exception.

Chen Mo could easily picture a scenario in which they overcame obstacles—an ocean of distance, reversed time zones, different environments, and social circles—and somehow managed to keep their relationship alive, making it all the more meaningful.

But that kind of persistence felt too much to him.

Right now wasn’t the right time. With Xi Jianxing’s accident this year, the Xi family was drowning in turmoil, and both of them were barely staying afloat. Chen Mo wasn’t just thinking about himself; he also didn’t want to be a burden on Xi Siyan, who was at a critical turning point in his life.

So, the conclusion was simple: I didn’t like him enough.

That’s the explanation Chen Mo gave to anyone who asked, and he accepted it with composure. Because he didn’t care enough, he didn’t hold on; and because the feelings weren’t deep enough, parting ways was easy.

After that, Qi Lin and the others stopped asking about the matter altogether.

Chen Mo went on with his life, moving forward step by step. On the surface, it was the same as before, but there were subtle differences.

He was still the school bully, the top-ranking dark horse of his grade who always carried a thermos mug. In the first half of senior year, when winter set in, he was often bundled up in knee pads, gloves, and masks. He still loved arguing with Lao Gou, and when someone annoyed him, his cold glare alone was usually enough to scare them into apologizing without him needing to lift a finger.

But he never touched cigarettes again.

No matter how stressed or upset he was during the grueling senior year, he managed to quit for good, without anyone reminding him to.

In the classroom, the seat next to him remained empty.

The class seating arrangement changed several times over the year, but Chen Mo never moved.

Xue Ping, who became the new class monitor, often received complaints from Chen Mo about his rigid, by-the-book leadership style. During those moments, others in the class would reminisce about the days when Xi Siyan had been around.

Chen Mo would always agree with them.

He still lived in the off-campus apartment. A month after Xi Siyan left, the Xi family sent someone to retrieve the belongings he had left in the next room.

Whenever Qi Lin and the others were overwhelmed by the endless barrage of exam papers and mock tests, they’d occasionally gather at Chen Mo’s place to drink and blow off steam.

The room next door became Lao Gou’s regular hangout spot, though it was sometimes borrowed by others.

One day, Lao Gou quietly asked Chen Mo if he and Xi Siyan were still in contact. His cautious tone made it clear he was worried about offending him.

The answer, of course, was yes.

Who would be naive enough to cut off all contact completely?

In the first month after Xi Siyan left, he’d been too busy handling his second uncle’s affairs to reach out. But after that, they resumed contact as usual.

However, being on opposite sides of the globe with reversed time zones made it difficult to stay in sync.

Halfway through senior year, Chen Mo had a video call with him.

That day happened to be Chen Mo’s eighteenth birthday.

They exchanged updates on their lives. Chen Mo learned that Xi Siyan had been accepted into a world-renowned university. On top of a heavy academic workload, he was also handling the Xi family’s overseas business expansion, which was entering a critical phase.

In the video, Xi Siyan had short hair and wore a black shirt while sitting on a sleek black leather sofa. The sharpness in his features and the sternness in his eyes had deepened noticeably over the past six months, a change that was clear even through the screen.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

“I had planned to return home, but something came up. I couldn’t celebrate with you this year.”

Chen Mo gestured at the half-eaten cake on the table and smiled. “It’s fine. This birthday doesn’t need celebrating. They’ve been too noisy—it’s giving me a headache.”

The chaos left over from the party still hadn’t been cleaned up.

Chen Mo noticed the redness in Xi Siyan’s tired eyes as he leaned back against the sofa. Picking up a spoon, Chen Mo took a bite of the cake, which tasted strangely astringent and quickly became unappetizing.

Later, Xi Siyan fell asleep on the sofa while the video call was still connected.

After letting him rest for half an hour, Chen Mo ended the call and sent a message:

“Brother Yan, you should get some sleep.”

From that point on, their contact became less frequent.

Aside from holiday greetings, they rarely found time to chat.

Chen Mo was busy preparing for the college entrance exams while continuing his collaboration with Su Qianran, planning to meet Lao K before the exams.

Occasionally, he would hear news about Xi Siyan from Qi Lin or Sun Xiaoya.

Most of it came from their families.

After all, in Suicheng’s second-generation circles, there was one person who stood far above the rest. At just eighteen, he had already made a name for himself in international financial circles, becoming a near-mythical figure.

The name Xi Siyan had become synonymous with something distant and unattainable.

It was awe-inspiring, yet also felt inevitable.

He stood so high that most people could only watch from below, unable to catch up.

Chen Mo performed exceptionally well in the college entrance exams.

He scored a 149 in mathematics—his Achilles’ heel in his past life—and successfully gained admission to Q University’s Intelligent Science and Technology program.

Lao Gou was admitted to the medical school of a neighboring university, just across the street from Q University.

Qi Lin, Jiang Xu, and the others had also secured early admission in the latter half of their senior year.

Time flew by, and youth passed in the blink of an eye.

As his teenage years came to an end, the only unexpected twist was that Yang Shule failed the college entrance exam.

His results were shockingly poor.

The once-rising star—who had been featured on educational programs and closely followed by the Education Bureau—had quietly fallen.

He crashed into the mud, utterly miserable.

If the Yang family hadn’t sent him abroad overnight—coincidentally to the same country and city as Xi Siyan—Chen Mo might not have even noticed.

Although the circumstances were different, it was amusing how certain things still lined up with his past life.

For example, Xi Siyan still went abroad.

For example, he and Yang Shule seemed to have nothing to do with each other anymore, yet because Yang Shule was also sent overseas, their names inevitably appeared together again.

When Lao Gou stumbled across the rumors on the school forum, he nearly exploded in Chen Mo’s rented apartment.

“‘Xi Shen crosses the ocean, while Yang Shule travels thousands of miles for love!’“

“‘A sequel to the childhood sweethearts’ love-hate saga!’”

Lao Gou poked his phone screen furiously and asked, “Do you not have any reaction to this?”

Chen Mo, in the middle of packing, sealed a cardboard box and asked calmly, “How do you want me to react?”

Lao Gou was momentarily speechless.

Then, with conviction, he said, “You always act like you don’t care about anything, but if there’s one person who absolutely shouldn’t be involved, it’s Yang Shule! Haven’t you spent your whole life looking down on him? You should be the type to say, ‘Even if I don’t want him anymore, someone like Yang Shule doesn’t deserve to stand next to him!’“

Chen Mo gave him a blank stare. “Can you not be so vulgar? There’s a difference between sleeping with someone and having slept with someone.”

Lao Gou: “…That’s such a weirdly specific distinction. Are you regretting it?”

“Get lost.”

Lao Gou continued mumbling, “It is a shame. That’s Xi Shen’s body we’re talking about. What if he becomes some overseas financial tycoon in the future? We might have to bow and scrape when we see him again. Just thinking about it makes me feel bad for you.”

Chen Mo ignored him.

He knew that for the past year, no one had been stupid enough to bring up his relationship with Xi Siyan directly, but no one actually believed they had ended things peacefully.

In everyone’s minds, it had to be one of two things:

Either they were still secretly in love but separated by fate, or someone had abandoned the other.

Because that’s how stories like this are supposed to go.

Chen Mo never explained.

He never would.

“You’re really not going to say anything?” Lao Gou still looked unwilling to let it go. “I’ve been dying to expose the fact that you two were together.”

“Are you sick?” Chen Mo handed him a roll of tape to help seal the boxes. As he pressed it onto the cardboard, he said, “Some people get off on their own wild imaginations. Am I supposed to go around personally correcting them one by one?”

Lao Gou rolled over from his half-lying position and sat up.

“I just feel like I should stand up for you, since obviously—”

“Don’t make it so explicit.” Chen Mo cut him off. “I have more important things to deal with.”

Lao Gou finally shut up.

Chen Mo had secured the second-highest score in the entire province and ranked first in his school.

From the moment the results were released, his world had been anything but peaceful.

His grandfather wanted to throw a grand graduation banquet for him.

The Zhou family issued an ultimatum to Zhou Yaoqiong, demanding that she personally bring Chen Mo back to the Zhou household for a mother-son reunion dinner.

Elite universities extended offers.

Media outlets wanted interviews.

All of this was exactly why he was rushing to leave for university early.

Chen Mo spent half a day packing.

After a year of living here, his belongings weren’t too many, but they weren’t too few either.

Before leaving, he slipped the key under the plastic flowerpot by the front door.

The afternoon sun cast a warm, golden glow down the hallway, carrying traces of the past—lingering, silent, and sealed away.

Lao Gou was waiting with his suitcase.

“You left the key. You’re not coming back?” he asked.

“I’m not coming back.”

Chen Mo’s gaze lingered on the door for a moment.

This apartment belonged to Xi Siyan.

Chen Mo left here the pieces of his youth—a youth he had no regrets about—and all the fragments of himself that had once been intertwined with Xi Siyan.

He shut the door and turned forward.