Wang Xiaoliang said nothing.
He was thinking about that question. Why hadn't he called him that? Whenever they met before, "Brother Qiang" had always rolled right off his tongue. But today? From the moment he walked in until he left, he hadn't managed to say it once the entire evening.
It hadn't been deliberate.
He just couldn't say it.
Huang Xueli didn't rush him. He poured himself another glass and drank slowly.
Wang Xiaoliang drained his glass in one gulp and set it down.
"I really am a little disappointed."
He'd said it.
"After I found out why he disappeared, I just..." He paused. "I couldn't look at him the same way anymore."
Huang Xueli chewed on some peanuts without replying.
A line surfaced in Wang Xiaoliang's mind-cut off expectations of others, and count what you receive as extraordinary luck. The exact words from the Book of Fate. He shouldn't have had expectations of anyone.
Anyone included Zhou Qiang.
Even though Zhou Qiang had been someone Wang Xiaoliang looked up to from the moment they met. The way he handled people, made money, his brains, his experience-which of those hadn't put him leagues ahead of his peers? How many useful things had Wang Xiaoliang learned during those years with Zhou Qiang?
And what had happened?
He'd run away over something like this.
Hidden himself away.
In Wang Xiaoliang's eyes, this wasn't such a big deal!
He'd left everyone searching for him, worrying about him, thinking something had happened to him.
Wang Xiaoliang closed his eyes for a moment.
"I put him on too high a pedestal."
Huang Xueli nodded. "Yes."
"So when we met today, I had this resentment stuck in my chest. I couldn't call him brother."
"That's normal." Huang Xueli picked up the bottle and filled his glass