You Pretended I Was Deaf and Fooled Me So Badly!

[This novel is also known as The Silent Rose]

Six years after being adopted by a royal couple who couldn't have children, Chu Lin learns that the queen has finally given birth to a baby boy.

The overjoyed couple name the baby Gareth, meaning "a blessing from above."

From that day on, Chu Lin's life is turned upside down.

He's driven into the servants' stable, with snow and wind as his blankets and tears for his food.

But the royal physician declares that the crown prince was born deaf.

After seeking out renowned doctors everywhere, even the king and queen fall into despair, convinced that their son is cursed.

Only Chu Lin remains by his side.

He holds the little prince's hand and teaches him sign language. When the boy burns with fever, Chu Lin stays up all night wiping his brow and testing medicines. He teaches him to read, to hunt, to wield a sword, and to hear thunder in the silence.

Chu Lin moves into the little prince's chambers. They eat and live together, and ride in the crown prince's golden carriage.

He serves the prince this way for eighteen years.

Chu Lin becomes the only person the prince trusts and feels close to.

The little prince rejects every noblewoman who comes to seek his hand.

With no other choice, the king and queen issue a decree of marriage, ordering an alchemist to use Chu Lin's blood to help him and Gareth conceive an heir.

Everyone says Chu Lin has found himself a powerful patron.

But Chu Lin decides he's had enough.

To hell with the marriage decree. Kings can take turns on the throne. Chu Lin will be his own patron.

*

Without warning, the rebels reach the royal city overnight.

The palace burns like a bank of clouds.

As the rebel leader who has been lying low for years, Chu Lin faces his little prince one last time.

There is no rage, no grief.

Gareth's eyes hold only a bitter, self-mocking smile and the calm acceptance of death.

And so Chu Lin watches Gareth clench the ring from their marriage decree, draw his sword, and take his own life, perishing in the sea of flames.

*

After tyranny is overthrown, a new dynasty takes the throne.

A year later, the diligent new king publicly summons renowned physicians to treat his eyes, blinded by overwork.

The requirements are exceedingly strict, and only one person is chosen.

The summoned physician kneels before the throne, takes Chu Lin's hand, and reverently kisses the pale back of it.

Day after day, the man tends to Chu Lin with care. Forbidden magic transforms into a gentle, flowing warmth, soothing his weary body and mind.

Before he knows it, Chu Lin can no longer do without the man's magic or the familiar scent that clings to him.

Then, on the night of the celebration,

under a grand display of fireworks, the man uses his last bit of magic to cure Chu Lin's eyes.

The moment his sight returns, a pair of dark, deep-set eyes comes into view.

Before Chu Lin can react, the man grips him by the waist and presses him against the edge of the castle balcony.

"Time to pay up," says the old acquaintance who has crawled back from hell, grinding his teeth, yet smiling as he speaks. "I want one of A-Lin's secrets, and one tear you've truly shed for me."

[Bonus Scene]

An old wooden table and a single bed with gauzy curtains are all Chu Lin owns in the crown prince's chambers.

But Chu Lin has secrets of his own.

Knowing the crown prince is deaf, Chu Lin freely exchanges secret letters with his comrades.

Knowing the crown prince is deaf, Chu Lin has said countless unkind things about the royal family.

And knowing the crown prince is deaf, on countless lonely nights Chu Lin lets himself seek release. He trembles beneath the covers, letting out soft, catlike moans...

What Chu Lin doesn't know is this:

Gareth has never been asleep. In the darkness, his eyes are shadowed as he silently watches the slender figure trembling behind the gauzy curtains, breathing in the suggestive, intimate air of the room.

If he could hear...

What a beautiful voice his older brother would have.

Upcoming novel. Please add it to your reading list:

At twenty-seven, Gu Siqiao discovers that the Penguin account he abandoned ten years ago has been hacked.

The hacker uses Gu Siqiao's account to message every old classmate in his contact list, asking to borrow money.

Fortunately, the scam is so outdated that almost no one falls for it.

Except Xue Lou.

They had never been close, and they hadn't kept in touch. They were no more than high school classmates who barely knew each other, yet Xue Lou immediately transferred twenty thousand yuan to President Gu of the Window Group, who supposedly couldn't afford his surgery.

...What an idiot.

It takes Gu Siqiao a while to remember, staring at the message notification.

He vaguely recalls the impoverished student sitting in the front row of the honors class next door. Back in high school, Gu Siqiao was bored while standing in the hallway as punishment, and liked to stare through the crack in the classroom door at that handsome face.

Xue Lou was always listening attentively, eyes fixed on the lesson. Gu Siqiao was just passing the time, and it wasn't like Xue Lou would lose anything because of it.

After asking around, Gu Siqiao learns that the top scorer in the college entrance exam has ended up buried in his family's debt and can barely afford a stable place to live.

What a mess.

Gu Siqiao's nearly extinguished conscience springs to life. The man went out of his way to help him, so he ought to show some character in return.

So Gu Siqiao calls Xue Lou, intending to tell him that his company is hiring an executive secretary.

*

At seventeen, Xue Lou worked desperately to become the top student in his grade, all so he could sit in the first seat by the door and catch a glimpse of Gu Siqiao's white shirt through the crack, out of the corner of his eye.

At twenty-seven, a message from long ago costs Xue Lou the last of his savings, but by a stroke of luck, he gets to exchange a few inconsequential words with Gu Siqiao.

Xue Lou thinks that's all the contact they'll ever have in this lifetime.

Until one day, his phone rings. The caller ID reads: Jiangcheng No. 1 High School, Gu Siqiao.

*

"You stand on the bridge and watch the scenery; the person watching the scenery looks down from the building.", Bian Zhilin, Fragment

Theme: Love knows no distance