Disobedience To Control chapter 60

Flying to My Island

Song Siheng wasn’t good at comforting people. At moments like this, he could only stand silently by the side.

He didn’t have cigarettes in his pocket, nor did he bring a lighter. He placed both hands on the railing by the river, until Yang Xiaobei behind him raised his arm to wipe away his tears.

“Damn, it’s so embarrassing…” Yang Xiaobei sighed.

But Song Siheng chuckled, turning to look at him, “You also know it’s embarrassing?”

Yang Xiaobei leaned against the railing, “I’m done for, you’ve caught me again.”

But Song Siheng’s tone suddenly lowered as he said, “Siheng, I really can’t accept it. I can’t accept it.”

Yang Xiaobei was taken aback, then reacted after a while, “Are you imitating me?!”

Song Siheng laughed, turning around and leaning his elbows on the railing, looking at him, “Yes. I’m learning from you. When you were in the hospital, stubbornly refusing surgery, weren’t you resolute about not accepting it? But now you’re giving in so easily? Are you really so accepting?”

Yang Xiaobei choked on his words for a moment, not knowing what to say.

“Before I founded Sicheng, I was a software developer.” Song Siheng looked into his eyes.

Yang Xiaobei didn’t understand why he changed the topic so quickly.

“So what?”

“At that time, I dealt with code every day, and our team was small, only seven or eight people. We had to rely on ourselves for everything. But you know, to get a program officially launched, it needs to go through many rounds of testing. Sometimes if you can’t find a bug, the whole project will come to a halt.” In the evening breeze, Song Siheng’s eyes were as clear as amber.

“So, I came up with a solution.”

“What solution?”

“Let some bugs that don’t affect the user experience go unchecked.”

“Don’t check them?”

“Yes. Pretend they never existed.”

There was silence between them for a few seconds before Yang Xiaobei spoke, “Why are you telling me all this?”

Song Siheng shook his head, “No reason, just chatting.”

Yang Xiaobei took a step forward, standing side by side with him. One leaned against the railing, and the other faced the railing. Their shadows intersected under the streetlights.

Without the lights of the boats on the river, the ink-like black night enveloped the ink-like river.

Yang Xiaobei turned his head, his gaze lingering on Song Siheng’s profile for several seconds. Song Siheng’s brow to his nose had a very beautiful line, full of masculinity. His upper eyelids had a narrow double eyelid, and his deep brown pupils always seemed sharp, like a sword. Except in bed, these eyes had rarely shed a tear in front of him.

Soon, Yang Xiaobei turned his head back, exhaling a breath with the evening breeze, his chest slightly rising and falling.

“When I was fifteen…”

Song Siheng didn’t turn his head to look at him, just leaned there, listening to him talk.

“At that time, I had just finished surgery, and I had been doing rehabilitation training like this for a long time. It was harder back then, there were no professional equipment, and no one was looking after me. I was just practicing blindly. After finally enduring to the point where I could live normally again, my aunt died not long after.”

At this point, Yang Xiaobei’s voice paused.

“At that time, there was no more money at home. We were renting the house we lived in, and the landlord thought it was unlucky to have someone die at home. The next day, he came to our door looking for trouble, asking me to bury my aunt quickly. I had no choice but to go from house to house borrowing money. Finally, I managed to bury my aunt.”

Song Siheng asked, “How did you pay the money back later?”

“I started working. But it’s hard to find a job in Jiangcheng, and I was only fifteen, so many places wouldn’t take me. I could only do odd jobs while hiding my age.” Yang Xiaobei pulled down the hem of his clothes, “Forget it, why am I telling you all this? It’s being overly sentimental.”

“What’s sentimental about this? What happened next?”

“After my body recovered, I often came here to run. It was winter then, and it wasn’t like this now, there was only a pebble path by the edge of the mudflat. I just kept running and running until my lungs hurt.”

Yang Xiaobei picked up a stone, threw it into the river, and with a thud, the stone disappeared into the water.

“A month later, I started swimming again. At first, I was quite confident, thinking it was just a surgery, nothing serious. But the first time I got in the water, I swam more than a hundred meters in just over a minute. It didn’t seem like my level at all.”

“After that, I don’t know what happened. The more I swam, the worse I got, and I couldn’t even float or kick properly. In the end… I was too scared to swim.”

After Yang Xiaobei finished speaking, his shoulders slowly sank.

“So, when you last went swimming, were you reminded of when you were fifteen?” Song Siheng asked.

Yang Xiaobei nodded hesitantly. “That day when I went swimming with you… It felt too similar. I knew that lane was only three meters deep, but I just couldn’t see the bottom no matter how hard I tried.”

Song Siheng stood beside him, turning his head to look at his profile, silent for about two to three minutes.

Until the river breeze turned cool, and the streetlights began to gradually dim from a distance.

“Do you have your passport?” Song Siheng suddenly asked out of the blue.

“Huh?” Yang Xiaobei thought he misheard.

“Passport, do you have it?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“If you don’t feel like swimming, then don’t swim. Let’s travel and relax.”

After saying this, Song Siheng took two steps back, walked to the middle of the riverside walkway, then took out his phone, found a number, and dialed it.

The phone call lasted for about a minute and a half. After hanging up, he smiled at Yang Xiaobei, then put his hands in his pockets and walked back.

Yang Xiaobei didn’t understand his intention, so he could only follow him back.

After walking for only five minutes, Yang Xiaobei’s phone received a flight notification. He stopped in his tracks, opened the message and read it carefully.

Departure location: Jiangcheng International Airport. Destination: an island nation he had only heard of in TV dramas.

“Flight tomorrow morning?!”

“Yes,” Song Siheng replied, then opened the car door, sat in the driver’s seat, and waved at him. “Get in the car, let’s go back and pack.”

The flight was the earliest one the next day, departing at 8 o’clock sharp. Before dawn at around 6 o’clock, with the sun yet to rise, Song Siheng drove with Yang Xiaobei to the airport.

At the same time, Jin Shuming received a WeChat message from Song Siheng. He immediately woke up with a start, flipped out of bed, and dialed Song Siheng’s number.

“Where are you going?!” Jin Shuming was obviously still half asleep, his voice hoarse.

“I sent you the message.”

“Damn, ge, do you know the press conference is about to start? You’re leaving me alone like this?!”

“You’re being harsh.” Song Siheng moved the phone away, blocking out his curse words, then after half a minute, he spoke again on the phone, “I’m going for a swim in the sea, and I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.”

Jin Shuming yelled into the phone, “You better be preparing to participate in the Olympics, otherwise, even if you fly to Hawaii, I’ll drag you back!”

“Not that far, just a trip to the Indian Ocean! I’ll be back next Monday.”

“The press conference is next Tuesday!”

“With Li Ke here, what are you afraid of?” Song Siheng abruptly hung up the phone, then walked towards the check-in counter.

An eight-and-a-half-hour direct flight, just enough time for a nap.

The island was three hours ahead of Jiangcheng. They landed at the local time of 1:30 in the afternoon. The plane landed at a small airport near the equator, and Yang Xiaobei, without sunglasses, was stunned by the unobstructed sunlight as soon as he walked out of the customs.

Not far from the airport was the vast coastline. The summer here was more unrestrained than in Jiangcheng, with the sea even bluer, bursting with saturation.

“Are we here?” Yang Xiaobei turned to ask Song Siheng.

“Yeah.” Song Siheng nodded slightly, gesturing for him to look ahead.

Yang Xiaobei raised his head and saw a man and a woman waving to them. Both of them were wearing white shirts, looking somewhat out of place with the surroundings.

“What’s going on?” Yang Xiaobei was confused, but could only follow behind Song Siheng as they walked towards the two.

Fifteen minutes later, the two were led to a lounge at the back of the airport.

Yang Xiaobei roamed around the lounge like he was in a Grand View Garden. “What’s all this?”

There were rows of chocolates and drinks on the shelves of the lounge.

“It’s all free, take whatever you like.” Song Siheng seemed to be familiar with the place, found an empty seat, sat down, then took out a baseball cap and put it over his eyes, closing them to rest.

Yang Xiaobei didn’t care about these things, grabbing Song Siheng’s wrist and pounding it against his chest. “Quick, punch me.”

“What for? What’s gotten into you?” Song Siheng took off the baseball cap and glanced at him, swiftly pulling his hand back.

“I want to see if I’m dreaming!”

As it turned out, Yang Xiaobei had hit himself too early. Half an hour later, a small white plane landed on the apron outside the lounge window. The speed of the propeller on top of the plane gradually slowed down, and shortly after it came to a stop, the cabin door opened.

“Let’s go.” Song Siheng motioned for him to get up.

Yang Xiaobei followed him dumbfoundedly onto the plane. The interior of the plane was not spacious, with five rows of sofa seats, only accommodating a dozen or so passengers.

And on this flight, there were only the two of them as passengers.

After they took their seats, Song Siheng turned to explain to him, “It’s a seaplane. We’ll be at the island we’re heading to in forty minutes.”

After saying that, he handed a box to Yang Xiaobei.

“What’s this?” Yang Xiaobei was puzzled.

“Noise-canceling headphones.” Song Siheng put them on himself first, then pointed to the wing outside the window, “This kind of plane has particularly loud noise during takeoff and landing.”

This time, Yang Xiaobei couldn’t even utter a word of shock. As the plane gradually left the ground, he listened to the mechanical roar and leaned against the small glass window, watching the gradually spectacular sea view.

The small plane ascended higher and higher. Deep blue, turquoise, light blue, the colors of the sea formed distinct layers. The window of the cabin was like an ever-expanding wide-angle lens, condensing the beauty of the Indian Ocean into this small porthole.

Countless islands floated on the boundless ocean, large and small, wide and narrow, some with long trailing sandbars, some spanning deep blue giant sea trenches.

Half an hour later, the plane gradually descended along the coastline and slowly docked at a port on the shore.

The flight attendant on board opened the cabin door with a heavy accent and smiled at the two of them, saying, “Welcome to the island.”

Before Yang Xiaobei could react, he was already being surrounded and led off the small plane.

Stepping down the last step, he turned back with his backpack and took a look—

The dazzling white beach, with sand as fine as powder. The color of the sea had changed again, extending beyond the beach into a beautiful lagoon about a hundred meters wide, crystal clear like a huge blue glass. Near the shore, several flat devil fish were resting as if there were no one else around.

The plane quickly circled back into the sky, and the roaring sound gradually faded away.

Across the beach, there was a long wooden pier, and several staff members who looked like butlers approached them. And on this vast beach, there were only Song Siheng and Yang Xiaobei left.

Yang Xiaobei sensed that something was wrong and turned to ask the calmly composed Song Siheng, “What’s going on? Why are there only the two of us here?”

Song Siheng adjusted his sunglasses and said, “I’ve booked the entire island for these two days.”

Yang Xiaobei sighed, “Oh my.”