WBLNOFY Chapter 34

Chapter 34 – Extra 3: A Chilled New Year’s Eve Dinner (Part 2)

Extra Story 3: A Chilled New Year’s Eve Dinner, Part 2

Novel Title: We Best Love: 永遠の１位 (We Best Love: No. 1 for You)

Original Script Writer：林珮瑜 (Lin Peiyu)

Author：羽宸寰 (Yu Chenhuan)

Japanese Translator 1：李佳歆 (Li Jiaxin)

Japanese Translator 2：夏海 (Natsumi)

English Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)

Protagonists: 周書逸 (Zhou Shuyi -MC) & 高仕德 (Gao Shide -ML)

*Please read at knoxt.space, the original site of translation. TQ*

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“Someone who can’t even pass an exam properly has no right to negotiate with me.”

“Father…”

“This is for your own good. Someday, when you’re an adult, you’ll thank me.”

“…”

And so, in the photos from the graduation trip, his face was nowhere to be seen.

In the graduation album, aside from the individual portrait every student had, there was no picture of him anywhere else.

All he had were countless certificates of merit — and report cards filled with first-place rankings, covering the walls his parents were so proud of and other parents envied.

There were no candid photos from daily life, no pictures taken with classmates.

***

Knock knock!

“Brother Shouyi, may I come in?”

Standing in the hallway, the boy knocked softly on the locked door and asked in a careful voice.

Pei Shouyi opened the door and looked down at his cousin, ten years his junior.

“What are you here for?”

“Can I read a book in your room? I’ll sit quietly in the corner and make sure not to disturb your studying.”

Gao Shide lifted the picture book he held to his chest and looked up at his older cousin as he spoke.

Shouyi wanted to refuse, but he knew his image-conscious parents would scold him later if he embarrassed them in front of their guests. So, reluctantly, he allowed the boy inside.

As promised, the child sat cross-legged in the farthest corner of the room, opened his book, and began to read silently.

***

After that day, the young cousin would often come over and ask Pei Shouyi to help him with his homework.

This pleased Shouyi’s father greatly — especially since Gao Shide was also a bright, well-behaved boy. He readily approved of his son acting as a tutor.

Once, twice, three times…

By the fourth visit, Pei Shouyi could no longer hold back. He turned to the corner, where Shide was working at a small folding table, and asked: “You don’t even need any help with your homework. So why do you keep coming here?”

Why, unlike everyone else, didn’t this boy keep a polite distance from him?

Gao Shide put down his pencil, looked up at his cousin with a serious expression, and answered: “Because if I’m here, you won’t be lonely, right?”

“…Who said I was lonely?”

The words caught in Shouyi’s throat, and his face twisted slightly.

“Lonely… lonely… lonely?”

He repeated the word softly, as if realizing for the first time that deep within his chest, there was a wound only he could see — a wound that seemed to widen and spread through his entire body as he spoke.

***

～Amusement Park

“Brother Shouyi, look!”

Using his recent first-place exam result as an excuse, Gao Shide had persuaded Pei Shouyi’s parents to let his cousin take him to the amusement park.

Clutching his cousin’s hand tightly, Gao Shide pointed excitedly at the carousel full of children and said with a bright smile, “Let’s ride that one too!”

“Yeah.”

Pei Shouyi took out a thousand-yuan bill from his wallet, handed it to the ticket counter, exchanged it for game tokens, and then was pulled along by his younger cousin to join the end of the line.

“Don’t you feel happy yet?”

The boy swung their joined hands and looked up at his cousin.

“You lied to your parents to bring me here because you wanted me to have fun, right?”

“That’s right.”

Pei Shouyi sighed, crouched down, and looked at his cheerful cousin. He couldn’t help but envy how Gao Shide could still smile even when his parents were about to divorce. Gently patting the boy’s head, he said quietly, “I just can’t. No matter what, I can’t feel happy.”

Ever since he first said, ‘I don’t know what happiness feels like’, this boy had done everything he could to make him feel happiness.

He bought interesting little things, brought over his favorite picture books, shared cakes so beautiful they were almost too pretty to eat, told jokes he’d heard from his classmates… He tried over and over again. Pei Shouyi couldn’t understand why. Why did this child go to such lengths? Just to make him feel joy, to make him happy?

Even his own parents — the ones who gave birth to him — had never cared that much…

Looking up at his cousin, Gao Shide’s eyes grew red. His expression was the same as his mother’s after she had decided to divorce.

It was the face of someone whose smile had been taken away.

Seeing his cousin crouched down before him, Gao Shide clenched his fists and said earnestly,

“It’s okay. Next time, when we go to the zoo and see all the cute animals, Brother Shouyi will definitely feel happy. Definitely!”

“Yeah.”

Pei Shouyi lifted the corners of his lips — mimicking the kind of expression that ordinary people would make at a time like this — and responded with a forced smile.

As long as there was someone who tried so hard for his sake, he wouldn’t give up.

Even if he had to keep pretending to be an ‘ordinary person’ — someone who could cry, laugh, and feel like everyone else…

***

～Hospital

“That’s impossible! How could my son have an emotional disorder? He’s been ranked first in the entire school, and he’s been accepted into T University’s medical school — which has a less than two percent acceptance rate! How could he possibly have an emotional disorder?”

The woman clutched at the doctor’s white coat, shouting hysterically inside the consultation room, where only three people were present.

“Director, the young master truly has an emotional disorder — specifically, emotional numbness, which falls under the category of emotional disorders.”

The head of the psychiatry department tried to keep his voice calm as he explained the result of six months of counseling — the diagnosis of Pei Shouyi, the son of the hospital director herself.

“……”

Pei Shouyi sat on the waiting bench inside the consultation room, watching the anxious department head and his shouting mother. It all seemed utterly unrelated to him. He looked on with detachment, as if merely a spectator at a farce — emotionless, watching his mother and the doctor perform their play.

――— “Shide, I don’t know what happiness feels like.”

That was where it had all begun.

At first, he had simply found it strange that his young cousin would laugh at certain scenes in anime. Those same scenes, to him, appeared utterly ordinary — nothing more than a sequence of images. He felt nothing.

After that, as if he were trying to solve an unsolvable equation, he kept asking Gao Shide—

―――Shide, why does that make you happy?

―――Shide, why does that make you sad?

―――Why do you feel embarrassed?

―――Why are you afraid?

That was when he realized something was wrong with himself.

In his world, all emotions had been severed from his consciousness to the point that he could no longer feel them.

That was why he tried so hard — through his only companion, his cousin, the only one willing to approach him and answer his questions — to understand the emotions that normal humans were supposed to have.

He struggled desperately to become a ‘normal person’, to avoid being seen as strange or alien.

His distorted home life, the oppressive education, the constant stream of malicious and sarcastic remarks — all of it built up inside him like steam in a pressure cooker. And the moment he saw his name on the T University medical school acceptance list, the pressure reached its breaking point.

At the celebratory banquet his parents hosted for relatives, when they proudly announced that their son had been accepted into T University’s medical school, he suddenly collapsed in front of everyone. He was rushed to the large hospital run by his mother and remained bedridden for half a month.

During that half month, no matter how many tests they ran, no physical abnormalities could be found.

Eventually, he was referred to a psychiatrist, and after six months of counseling, it became clear — the problem lay in his mind.

The diagnosis was ‘emotional disorder’, and ‘emotional numbness’ was a secondary condition stemming from it.

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*Translator’s Note: TBH, Pei Shouyi is the most interesting character for me. He’s not a sociopath okay. Don’t mistake ‘emotional numbness’ to ‘antisocial personality disorder’. They’re both emotional disorders, but different. -K

Next update: 2026.10.05

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