3. THOSE DARK, DARK DAYS

____________________________________________

Wei Lan remembers how he had found out that she had left.

He had travelled to Country J to finalise a deal for their software company. He had not wanted to go but his father had literally forced him to.

Weeks before that, Wei Lan had noticed that Yan Ran had been acting a little weird. He had put it down to anxiety since she had been called for an audition with Shooting Star Records, one of the biggest and most successful record labels in C country.

It was her first major audition after university, so he knew she was really nervous about it. Given her personality, it would have been quite nerve wrecking for her. Yan Ran had looked like she was always tired and not sleeping enough. On several occasions when she had slept at his condo, she had woken up screaming and covered in sweat, looking absolutely petrified. Eye bags had even begun to form under her eyes to the extent that even make up could not hide them.

Wei Lan had tried to engage her but she would evade his questions most of the time, and when she did not, she would remind him of her terrible stage fright. In such cases, he would hold her and tell her that she would be fine and do well. She had an amazing voice and was a great dancer. Anyone who could not see that was blind. She would smile thinly and thank him before moving out of his embrace.

Wei Lan had felt uneasy during those times. Yan Ran had always been a very affectionate person. Whenever they were together, she would frequently kiss or hug him, maintaining contact in some form.

There had been several incidents where he had caught her looking at him with a sad and despondent expression in her eyes. That expression in her eyes was one of the things that kept haunting him long after she left.

Those days, she had seemed distant and preoccupied. A blanket of what seemed to him like fear would surround her all the time. He could clearly see something was bothering her but was helpless since she did not seem ready to talk about it. He had waited patiently for her to open up to him but it never happened.

Wei Lan desperately wished he had done something more to make her open up. Maybe he should have fought to stay and support her. After all, she had been there for him too during the difficult days when he was starting out at his father's company. Some people had thought he did not deserve the post of CEO of Jin Corporation, seeing him as a play boy and nothing more. Yan Ran had been the one to encourage him until he had proved himself and earned their respect.

Maybe if he had been there she would not have left. Maybe he would have discovered what had been bothering her so much. Maybe he had not tried hard enough. Maybe he did pay enough attention to her when he was busy with work. These thoughts gave him many sleepless nights that year after she left.

His relationship had been his first serious relationship. Blame it on his naivety but he had really thought they had something special and could work out any problems between them.

All he knows is when he came back from his trip, feeling triumphant and exuberant after closing his first major deal, he had been so eager to see her that he went to look for her straight from the airport. He found her gone, leaving no trace at all except for a neatly hand written letter.

In the letter, she thanked him for all the great times they had had; told him what a wonderful friend and boyfriend he had been to her. It assured him that he had done nothing to upset her, but she just needed some time away to sort out some things. She did not know how long she would need, but she emphasized that he should not look for her. In that second, his world had come crashing down. How could such a brief letter have had such a devastating effect to his world?

How was that even possible? Looking back now Wei Lan thinks that maybe Yan Ran had not known the depth of his love for her. Had she not known how she was everything he lived for? Had she not known that he would have given everything he owned for her to stay by his side? Had she not known that without her, his will to live would be strongly shaken?

As he read that letter Wei Lan's world had collapsed in an instant. In that moment he understood why people called it a broken heart. His heart literally shattered into tiny pieces, leaving a gap in his heart that felt too wide to ever be filled again. At times he had felt like if wind were to blow over his body, a hollow sound would come from his heart.

He had frantically tried to call her number, refusing to believe she would leave him like that but her number had been switched off. He had dashed to his penthouse, thinking she might be there but she was not. He called all her friends including his sister but no one had any clue where she could have gone.

Up to this moment, he cannot understand how she could have made all the arrangements without leaving a single clue. He had even angered his father by using the company contacts and connections to gain access to every flight's passenger manifest to no avail. He had traced every train and bus he could have access to and still he could not find anyone resembling her leaving the country or city.

After those futile efforts yielded nothing, he had begun to feel despondent. He felt strange like his whole body had gone numb. He had no desire to do anything. It felt like a balloon whose air had suddenly been taken out.

He closed himself off in his penthouse for weeks, not allowing anyone in. He had drunk himself stupid, neither bathing nor changing. He drank so much, it was a wonder he did not drown in it.

In that couple of weeks, he lost so much weight that he had gone from slim to literally skin and bone. He could not eat anything because everything reminded him of her. His taste buds rebelled and he found nothing nice enough to put in his mouth. His stomach closed off its doors and would not let anything in.

The only way he had been able to sleep was in a drunken stupor. He cared for nothing and felt nothing except his intense pain. He had worn out the photo album that contained their pictures together. He had cried over them, cursed her a million times over and then begged her to come back to him, all in vain. He was a total mess without her.

Even Shin Lin had been at a loss on what to do. Shin Lin and Yin Yue had at one point contemplated checking him into a hospital, fearing for his life. In the end it had taken threats from his father, Chairman Jin, to get him to bath and shave. He had brought in one of their family physicians to attend to him and managed to get him back to some semblance of sanity.

Still he had remained a wreck for months after that, never going out. His father had tried to hide his state from the share-holders for a while but it got harder and harder to hide as time moved. The paparazzi had got a sniff of the break up and splashed the story all over the tabloids. Although no one outside their circle actually knew who the other party had been, that had not deterred them. They were merciless in their hounding when all he wanted was to be left in peace to lick his bleeding wounds.

His pain was everywhere for the whole world to see and comment on and he had had neither the desire nor the strength to hide what he was feeling. Eventually it had been the catalyst for his father's intervention. By then, the press wolves had had a field day with him, with stories that were mostly speculation and others hints of the truth here and there. But then, that had been the story of his life. He had never known any privacy since he was a young boy. His life had always been out on display to the public. As one of the golden boys in the city he was pretty popular.

Chairman Jin had tried to use his influence and money to keep the press from publishing stories about his son but in the end, some news would still escape his reach. For a while, he had watched helplessly and with some guilt as his son seemed to sink deeper into his dark world. He had never seen his son so serious about a girl before. He had initially thought it would only take a little while for him to come out of it. When he did not, he had threatened him with all sorts of things until he managed to get him to be functional again. Wei Lan had barely managed to pick himself up to go back to work.

When Wei Lan had gone back to work, he had drowned himself in it, working harder than a demon. Somehow he found the work good for him. Although he had managed to bring the corporation to a new level of succeed and status, anyone could tell that he was using work as therapy for his pain.

His personality had changed. It was rare to see him as carefree as he used to be. He hardly laughed anymore. In fact the sunshine boy became a cold shell of his former self. He was cold and calculated in business but it was after work that he would show a bit of vulnerability.

He had started going to bars again most days of the week, always leaving when he was half conscious. Shin Lin would always tag along, making sure his friend was okay and drive him back home. On several occasions, some of these outings had been caught on camera and eventually Wei Lan's reputation as a party bad boy resurrected. It was during one of these outings that he had first met Mei Li.

Looking back, it was a wonder that his social reputation never really affected his work that much. In business, people still took him seriously and were open to doing business with Jin Corporation. His father was old money and one of the most respected businessmen in the country. He knows he probably benefitted from that but sometimes it could be a pain in the wrong area. With all the fame and money came media's fascination with the family.

Wei Lan and his family had always been popular with the press. They were like royalty. He could not remember a time that he had not been followed around by paparazzi throughout his life. Eventually as he grew up he had learnt that it was better to feed the beast than to fight it. And so began the story of his life.

Everything he did was always public. In his teens, something that he would wear would immediately become the latest fashion trend. Girls wanted to be with him and boys wished they were him. He had the looks, the charm, the money and the connections.

With a widowed father who was filthy rich but always absent, he and Yin Yue had been raised by nannies, house keepers, body guards and chauffeurs. His father although strict in some ways, had been over indulgent thinking money made up for his absences. Wei Lan was totally spoilt and used to getting his own way. No one ever really denied him anything.

At school he had been popular with both students and those in authority. If his father's money and influence could not buy him popularity; his looks, charm and natural talent in sports won many people over. He could have had a successful career in basketball had he had the choice to go further with it.

By the time he went to college, supermodels, actresses and society girls thronged around him. He was never lacking in company especially company that revolved around money and class.

He had met Shin Lin in primary school. Shin Lin had been forced to try out for basketball by his parents, failed totally and ended up with Wei Lan as a friend.

Some people had never understood how they were friends seeing as Shin Lin, who was a total nerd, would normally have not been found anywhere near the popular kids. However, those close to them knew that Wei Lan enjoyed the fact that Shin Lin was one of those very few people that hung around him, not for what he had, but the person that he was. They challenged each other to be better people.

Wei Lan and Shin Lin had ended up at the same university with him specializing in Business Management and Shin Lin in Mathematics. Yin Yue had gone to drama school encouraged by her brief fascination with the movie industry.

As Wei Lan prepares for their outing, he recalls how he used to think that his life then was really good until he met Gu Yan Ran.